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T om turned up just as Maggie was leaving, and I rested my elbows on the counter and watched their awkward exchange through the glass door. Tom said something that Maggie laughed at, and his cheeks flushed pink. I couldn’t help but think about how good they’d be for each other. And he deserved someone in his life that didn’t drag him down with death and violence. Namely, anyone but me.

Maggie went to leave, and I dashed over to hold the door open as Tom pushed through with his arms full of cables and his laptop bag.

I tried and failed to keep back a chuckle. “You know, she’s absolutely bloody smitten. You should have seen the guy she dismissed today because she ‘ had her eye on someone ,’ apparently.”

Tom averted his eyes and bustled through to the back room, but he was fooling no one. There was a little happiness playing around his mouth.

“I asked her out. We have a date next Friday. ”

I froze. “What? Just now? Wow.”

“And?” As usual, Tom had layered up multiple t-shirts and checked flannel shirts with a scarf and fingerless gloves rather than do the sensible thing and buy a warm winter coat. One by one, he peeled off the layers, not meeting my eye – but the tip of his nose had turned red. A dead giveaway.

I thought about it as I sat down. “I dunno. You normally dawdle more, I guess.”

He didn’t meet my eye as I watched him. “It seemed like the right thing to do. Seize the day, and all that.”

Of course. I sighed. Must be nice.

I’d always known my days were numbered. Eventually, I’d pick a fight I couldn’t win – it was the way things were for hunters, or so I assumed. But Jon’s death had made that final fight seem closer than ever before, and my pride in Tom’s courage was heavily coloured by my own worry that I wasn’t making the most of my life. Then again, the fire was addictive. There was something dark in me, and I knew it. How was I supposed to share a life with someone, knowing that? First dates are awkward enough without having to explain why you keep a sword in your car.

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and settled into the chair beside Tom. “Go on then, what’s so important it couldn’t wait til I got back?”

He cleared his throat and spun the laptop around, his dark eyes dancing. “Oh, you know. Only the most notorious vampire I’ve ever come across.”

I rolled my eyes. Sometimes he really didn’t get it. “Why do you seem excited about that?”

“Because this woman is… old, Erin. She’s legendary.”

I huffed, but I humoured him. “Well I hope by legendary you mean fictional. Because legendary doesn’t sound like a fight I want to have.” Before he could respond, I held up a hand. “Start at the beginning.”

“Alright.” With a few taps on the trackpad, Tom brought up an image. “So this is her—”

It was a classic Renaissance portrait: a beautiful young woman, around twenty, with ebony curls wired into an elaborate hairstyle and an intense gaze that looked right through the screen at me. The text at the bottom of the page dated the image as sixteenth century.

“A Tudor portrait? Really? What’s next, Dracula?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tom said, but he couldn’t hide his grin. “Dracula could never be this interesting. Though now you mention it—”

“Focus, Chowdhury.”

“So, Jon’s post-mortem report was useless, but I got hold of the crime scene notes, and there were a few things that seemed way off. I wasn’t sure if I was wasting my time to start with—”

“Can we skip your entire train of thought, Tom?” I interrupted.

“Sorry. Anyway, the forensic specialist noted that there were flowers on the bedside table. A posy.” He dug out a printed photograph of a bundle of indigo blossoms bound with thread. “I’d read about something similar before.”

“He could have picked them up on a hike? ”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “But there were two silver coins, too.”

“Silver coins?”

“Plain silver discs. No stamp or date, but pure silver.”

I frowned. “Okay. What for?”

“Payment for the kill?” Tom shrugged.

“Or the ferryman,” I added darkly.

“Either way, it’s not the first death like that. And the coins led me to her .”

I sensed Tom might finally get to his point. “Who is she?”

“Isabel Wyatt. She sometimes goes by Elizabeth, but the records are sketchy as to whether she’s the same person. Most often she’s recorded as Izzie Misery.”

The name wasn’t familiar, but my stomach stirred uncomfortably. It wasn’t often vamps built up enough of a reputation to gain a moniker like that.

“Was she a noblewoman?” I asked, taking the laptop from him and scrolling through the image search results. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“No, but the painter—” he gestured at the screen. “I think it’s a Holbein. And there are rumours online about his other work. You know the Anne Boleyn one, with the pearl necklace? It’s supposedly based on—” He cut himself off.

“Are we arriving close to your point any time soon? Because I haven’t got all day.”

He glared at me. “The point is, she’s old . She must have been around since the early fifteen-hundreds at least. I mean, that’s back with bloody Henry the Eighth for crying out loud. This is big. ”

I raised an eyebrow. “Vampires never live that long. It’s part of the myth, remember?”

“I think we were wrong.” He shook his head, and I wondered what it was about this woman that he found so fascinating. “Her history is… well, the usual vague stuff to start with – nothing solid. But it doesn’t seem like she’s ever been out of action for longer than thirty, maybe forty years. She’s a survivor.”

It was odd, there was no doubt about it. The oldest vamps we’d ever met had spent time underground, sleeping to escape the mobs when the death count got too high. But even the most resilient of them had been human before 1900.

“She’d be what, five hundred?” It was hard to get my head around. Sure, vampires were immortal. But half a millennium was a bloody long time. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Tom was wide-eyed. “And it all seems to fit.”

I indicated he should go on, but part of me hoped he’d put two and two together and made five. It was plausible that this woman existed. But he was as desperate for answers as I was.

“So far you haven’t said anything that connects her though.”

“You know how I usually need six coffees before I’ll consider a conspiracy theory?”

I nodded warily.

“Well, I’m undercaffeinated and still convinced. But… I don’t know if you really want to hear the rest.” He looked as unsure as I felt. “I managed to get the details, and it’s… it’s not good.”

“Just get it over with.” I needed to know .

“He was in the hotel for four days.” Tom’s voice was carefully neutral. “Barely ate or slept. Just paced and stood by the window for hours, unresponsive.” He trailed off, staring into his coffee. “The coroner ruled it suicide, but…”

I tried to reconcile this with the Jon I knew – so steady, so grounded. It was like someone had been determined to break him first or something.

“They linked Wyatt to similar deaths in the 1720s,” Tom continued. “They were pretty distinctive.” He hesitated. “He was hanged, Erin. With wire, not rope.”

I blanched and closed my eyes, massaging my temples with my fingers as it played out behind my eyelids. The wire would have cut deep into his neck from the force of the drop. Jon was a huge guy. Tall. Muscled. His body weight alone would have been enough. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Tom was still talking. They’d found him in his hotel room, suspended from an old Victorian roof beam. He’d probably have been conscious as he bled out.

I felt sick. It was so much worse than I’d imagined.

“Keep going,” I mumbled, opening my eyes.

Tom nodded. “There was a witness to the Wyatt deaths – there’s almost no doubt it was her, even though they were considered suicides at first. And at every scene, there were flowers and two silver coins.”

I didn’t want to be convinced, but I could see why Tom thought he’d made a breakthrough. “Why now? Where’s her motive?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know she’s here,” he said, gathering the papers he’d spread across the table. “She has a huge following online—”

“She’s not a fucking influencer, Tom.”

“Look, it’s not a perfect answer. But there are these groups of believers who try to track her – I’ve never seen anything like it.” He pushed a printout of an old newspaper at me, jabbing a finger at the headline. “Cologne after the war. Then Frankfurt. Then sodding Nuremberg for crying out loud.”

I scanned the articles. Most of them were published in the years following the Second World War. “These are from almost a century ago. And they’re pretty damn far from Yorkshire.”

It didn’t faze him. “If she’s survived this long, I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility.” Tom shrugged and spun the laptop back to face him, clicking away. “She has accomplices. Companions. There could be someone we’ve – well, you’ve – dealt with, linked to her.”

I sighed. I could feel a headache coming on. “But what’s her connection to Jon?” I asked. “Is there a link to Edinburgh?”

“Since you mention it, yeah. There was one guy… a vamp she was with in the 1800s, for almost a century. The forums don’t have much on him, but he was Scottish, I think. Nicholas something – there wasn’t a picture…” He was scrolling through the page again.

“Alright,” I stood up, pulled the tie from the end of my plait and ran my fingers through the waves. It was getting late, and I didn’t want to argue. “There’s enough to dig a bit deeper, I guess.”

Tom nodded, but I suspected I’d irritated him with my lack of enthusiasm.

“You okay?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You need to read this stuff. I get why it seems like a stretch, but the more I see, the more it fits—”

“I know. I trust you. I just… need a bit more. If she killed him in Edinburgh, she must have known he was travelling. Maybe even waited until he was.” I hesitated, but our next move seemed obvious to me. “I’ll have to find Solace. She’ll know something.”

Sheffield was a big city. But there was always one person I could rely on to know who came in and out – and who died here. Unfortunately, it wasn’t someone I wanted to owe a favour to. And if they could get me the information I needed on this Izzie Misery, I’d owe more than a favour.

Tom stopped to level a look over the top of his laptop screen. “You want to go back, after last time?”

“You know I don’t. But if anyone would know…” I let the thought trail off. I was still wearing my apron and quickly unknotted it, hanging it up.

He pulled the screen half-closed, and I knew what he was planning to say before he said it.

“I’m not going to the morgue,” I cut across him before he even opened his mouth. “I can’t. Not this time.” That wasn’t the way I wanted to remember Jon. I swallowed, blinking away the tears that threatened.

“We might have to,” Tom said, voice low. “But you don’t have to, you know, look . Just go through his stuff. There could be something there that the police missed. ”

I swallowed again, gazing at the sky-blue walls of the tiny room. Suck it up, Erin.

“Maybe.”

Our options were fairly limited at this stage. Dodgy dealers or the morgue. When had my life started to look like a TV drama?

Tom broke the silence. “Jon’s uncle is coming over for dinner tomorrow evening, so it’ll have to wait, anyway. He wants to discuss the funeral plans.” His eyes fixed avidly on the screen once more.

“Oh.”

“We spoke this afternoon; he called your house. I meant to mention it.” He hesitated. “He sort of… took care of everything.”

I froze, glancing sharply at Tom. “What do you mean? I thought—”

“I know. He wasn’t supposed to, but he did. Honestly, from what he said I don’t think we’d have done much differently. Jon might even like it.” He pulled a face. “You know, if it wasn’t his funeral.”

I shook my head, but if I was honest, I was grateful we could avoid going over it all. It was too much, way too soon.

“I gave him Jon’s requests: the envelope. I checked it first, obviously, in case he’d said something weird.” He leaned back. “I told him we’d choose the music, though. You know how he was about his tunes.”

I ran another hand through my hair. It must have been sticking up on end. “Are you okay to do that? ”

A look of surprise flitted across his face. “If you want me to.”

I did and I didn’t. Music was everything to Jon. You name it, he knew it. Play a track from the last seventy-odd years, and he could probably share at least a titbit about it. The three of us had spent many a night in my living room, listening to records while he analysed every note and lyric in a song like it was some undiscovered new Shakespeare.

I nodded at Tom and wandered into the shop to get my coat. No, I couldn’t help with the music. It was too final. Tom would have to do it.

I knew he was grieving as much as I was. It could be that he was dealing with it better than me, but so far, I hated every fucking minute. We’d just gone along with our lives like Jon hadn’t been basically decapitated a few days ago. I should’ve been crippled, struggling to function. Unable to eat or breathe or brush my damn hair. Instead, things had carried on as normal.

Jon would have told me to keep fighting. He’d have been right, as he often was. But the weight in my chest felt right, too. I would hold on to it for as long as possible. It was all I had left of my best friend.

???

J on’s uncle was a shock. Tom answered the door in a frilly novelty apron – he’d been concocting something in the kitchen for over an hour, though I had no idea what – and he stood there, staring. I came downstairs to see a silhouette in the doorway, and my heart leapt. But it wasn’t Jon, despite the resemblance.

Jim, as he insisted we call him, was an easygoing sort, much like his estranged nephew. Though I started out on edge in my tea dress and tights, I soon relaxed as he chattered away. Tom’s fresh pasta went down a treat, and I was proud that my mask never faltered. But it was hard not to wonder, seeing this man in his sixties – he was almost an older version of my friend. One I’d never get to meet.

“I’ll admit, it surprised me to hear Jonathan planned to visit Edinburgh,” Jim said, as Tom cleared our plates away. His Edinburgh accent was almost non-existent, clearly educated out of him.

“Oh?” I took a sip from my glass of wine to avoid answering and quickly regretted it. I’d never been a fan of red wine.

“Yes. Did he tell you much of our family history?” he asked.

I swallowed with difficulty before I replied. “He said you’d moved to Scotland when he was a kid. That you’d had a falling out with his dad.”

Tom poured himself another drink as he sat back down. He shot me a glare that told me to keep my mouth shut. Jim, however, didn’t seem to mind.

“Family can be complicated,” he said.

“Too right,” Tom muttered, more to his wineglass than to either of us. “Sometimes the distance is better for everyone.”

Jim gave him a piercing look. “You sound like you speak from experience.”

Tom shrugged, suddenly fascinated by a bit of pasta sauce on the table. “Let’s just say my parents had very specific expectations for their only son. History and literature weren’t on the list. Neither was opening a coffee shop.” He gave a short, humourless laugh. “The last proper conversation we had, my dad told me I was throwing away generations of tradition for, and I quote, ‘serving fancy drinks to hipsters.’”

I’d heard this story before, though Tom didn’t bring his family up much these days. It was a definite sore spot.

“Hmm,” Jim said quietly. “Following your own path takes courage. If only I’d understood that sooner.” He sighed. “There was a row over something with Jonathan’s father – unimportant now, of course. I regret to say I missed out on knowing my nephew because of it.”

“Jon was excited to meet you, though,” I interrupted his reverie, trying to lighten the mood. “He wouldn’t shut up about your research into the family tree.”

Jim nodded. “I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of history, though what good it will do now there’s no one to carry on the line, I can’t say.”

“You don’t have kids?” Tom asked.

“No. I never considered settling down to be an option until it was too late, really. The time for romance has been and gone.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have my work, though – and my greenhouse and such. I get along.”

“Jon wanted kids,” I said through the veil of fuzziness settling over my mind. “Three or four. He said the world would stay a horrid place until we put nicer people in it.”

Tom and Jim stared at me in silence, Tom with sadness and Jim with something like calculation. I blinked, and it was gone.

“I can’t understand it. Why would a young man with such ambition want to take his own life? It’s a terrible thing,” Jim said finally, smoothing the napkin on his lap.

Tom and I shared a look. This was the moment I’d been dreading, but I couldn’t lie. It wasn’t fair.

“Anyone for dessert?” Tom asked, standing up. I nodded, and Jim relaxed, confirming dessert would be lovely.

I tried to change the subject at every opportunity after that. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice, and before I knew it, the evening was over, and Jim was pulling on his coat. I stayed at the kitchen table, massaging my temples while Tom hovered in the hallway with him, talking in undertones.

The door clicked shut, and Tom came back through. “The funeral is next Thursday.”

I nodded and stood to clear the plates. With Tom helping, the washing up didn’t take long – despite him having used every bloody dish in the house. While we worked, he filled me in on his chosen music. They all seemed like obvious choices, but if I was honest with myself, Jon would have understood that his funeral wasn’t really for him. It was for those of us left behind – and most of the guests would probably be opposed to some of his heavier favourites.

As he was pulling on his coat to leave, Tom turned. “You hunting tonight?”

He hadn’t mentioned the morgue again, and I’d followed his lead.

“I’ll do a quick sweep, but I’ve had too much wine for much else.” I rubbed my arms, already cold at the idea of coming back to an empty house.

Tom barked a quick laugh. “Fair enough. Just be careful, yeah? ”

Closing the door behind him, I bounded up the stairs. I couldn’t get out of my uncomfortable dress fast enough, the fitted black jumper and combat jeans I pulled on were far more my style. Folding the roll neck down and loosening my hair, I glimpsed my reflection in the mirror as I left the room – a cold-weather assassin. That was the plan, anyway.