“You may settle your belongings wherever you wish on the second floor,” Gabriel says, his eyes sweeping over all of us. “There are several chambers to choose from. The third floor is primarily for training. We’ll meet in the library for briefing in fifteen minutes,” he says, then nods at Jake. “Andorra?”
They both exit the room.
Sydney steps forward. Her long blond ponytail brushes the middle of her back, and her dark clothes nearly merge with the shadows. “All right, guys. This way,” she says, taking the lead up the wide wooden steps.
Eli’s hand rests on my lower back as we follow Sydney. His big body, although not warm, is comforting against mine. Noah, Darius, Victorian, Ginger, and Lucian follow behind us. The wood creaks and groans beneath our feet as we climb to the second floor. Sydney stops just a few feet past the landing. “These apartments were for the teachers of the Crescent School for Unruly Children,” she says, wiggling her arched blond brows. “Two shared bathrooms: one for boys; one for girls,” she says, pointing to the middle of the long corridor. “And a large linen closet at the end.” She points in that direction, too. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it. Meet you in the library in fifteen.” Sydney disappears down the steps and recedes into the darkness.
“You two,” Noah says, looking at me and Eli. “For the sake of all of us, take the room at the very end.”
I grin and shoulder my way past him. “No arguments there.” Noah shakes his head as I pass.
With Eli’s hand still at my back, we walk the long hallway to the last apartment. The corridor is dark, like the rest of the Crescent, and a long strip of faded green carpet stretches straight down the middle. The walls are of stained wood, so dark they appear black. Several old photographs in oval frames grace the wall in a straight line. Stone-faced women, their hair pulled back severely in tight buns, and men just as stony stare back. No smiles. All business. I swear, it looks like they’re straight out of a horror movie.
Ginger and Lucian take the first apartment at the opposite end of the corridor from us. Vic is across the hall from them, Noah is one door down. Darius is next to us.
I drop my duffel on the floor and take quick stock of our room. It’s—surprise, surprise—dark. I move through the low light filtering in through the window to flip on a lamp perched on an old desk in the corner. The room is cast in a muted blond haze and illuminates a fireplace; a queen-sized bed, complete with heavy green curtains; a nightstand on either side of the bed, each with a lamp; and a tall armoire in the corner. A wooden chest is situated at the foot of the bed. I walk to the window and look out. It’s gray and bleak, and my attention is drawn to the distraught angel in the center of the fountain. I stare at his face, chiseled in stone and chipped with age. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut as he cups his hands to his mouth.
Suddenly his features blur, becoming distorted, and I blink. When my eyes focus on his face, he’s staring directly at me. A shot of adrenaline ripples through me.
“Ready?” Eli says, his lips brushing my neck.
I blink again, and the angel’s face returns to its original stony state.
What the hell?
“Ri?” Eli says, then turns me around and stares down at me. “What’s wrong?” Instant concern flares in his cerulean eyes. The muscles in his jaw flinch. Like I said, he can be overprotective.
I smile. “Nothing. Just getting used to this creepy place I guess.” Not a lie. “Let’s go before Jake gets his knickers in a wad.”
Eli stares a few seconds more, weighing what I say and determining if he believes me or not. He probably doesn’t, and with good reason. I’m not sure I believe myself at this point. “All right, Poe. Let’s go.”
A familiar feeling fills my insides as we leave the room and step back into the shadows of the corridor. It’s a feeling that’s becoming too much a part of my everyday life. I guess I have to just get used to it.
Dread.
Part Two
THE TEAM
I believe a man lost in the mazes of his own mind may imagine that he’s anything.
—Dr. Lloyd, The Wolf Man, 1941
Already, this place is eating at me. The moment I stepped out into the air, evil seeped through the seemingly innocent stone and mist of Edinburgh. I don’t know exactly what we face, but I know it’s going to make killing vampires in Savannah look like playing with Barbie dolls. The Black Fallen? They’re bad. Really, really bad.
—Riley Poe
Unlike the bleak entryway and second-floor apartments, Gabriel’s library is nothing short of stylish. A massive room with wall-to-wall mahogany shelves lined with volumes and volumes of books. A colossal fireplace that takes up nearly a whole wall. And in front of the crackling fire, a long, dark leather sofa, love seat, and several chairs. A chandelier made of intertwined stag antlers dangles overhead. Several table and floor lamps with Victorian-era shades of claret, green, and cream add to the soft glow from the fireplace. As we all file in, I notice Jake and Gabriel near the hearth, their dark heads together, deep in conversation. Simultaneously they both glance up and step forward.
“Sit,” Jake says, nodding to the seating before the fireplace.
We all do. Noah plops down on the sofa beside me, and on my other side, Eli. Darius takes a chair; Victorian takes another. Ginger and Lucian take the love seat. Sydney is already positioned in the overstuffed leather chair closest to the hearth. I take notice of my companions. It still floors me to know what really, truly exists in our world. I call them otherbeings, for lack of a better term. And they are beings, with feelings. Tempers. Attitudes. But they’re also vampires. Werewolves. Immortals. And then there’s me—whatever the hell I am. I guess I fall into a weird, in-between category. Not sure yet if I like that or not, but there’s no changing it. It is what it is.
“As you all know, we’re here to deal with the Black Fallen,” Jake says. My eyes cut to Eli. We’re both thinking the same thing: this guy doesn’t waste time. Jake crosses his arms over his chest and his eyes sweep over us with a hard gaze. “The Black Fallen are angels engulfed in the darkest of magic. They’re obsessed, powerful, and completely undetectable. They’ve zero conscience. They move among humans as one of them, and only another fallen one can recognize them straight away. They’re from an ancient realm of holy and unholy, if you believe in that sort of thing. And they’ll not stop until they have what they desire.”
“Swell,” Noah says, rubbing his hands together. “I love a challenge.”
I turn my head to look at him. He returns my stare. “What?” he says. “I do.”
“Well, you may change your mind soon enough, Miles,” continues Jake. “No matter how powerful you are, there’s always something out there more powerful than you.” He looks directly at Eli. “For a vampire, it’s the Black Fallen.”
“Why are they here?” Ginger asks.
“And what do they want?” Lucian adds.
“Darius will brief you on their history,” Jake asks. “He’s more knowledgeable about the matter.”
Darius takes up the story. “Centuries ago, my brethren and I were forced to destroy another sect of druids called the Celtae. They’d stolen an ancient tome of magic called the Seiagh, filled with the most potent and powerful of evil spells. Dangerous not only to themselves, but to mankind. It poisoned their minds, and they had begun using it for their own personal gain. For money. Riches. Sex. Power. Only later did we realize they had stolen it from the Black Fallen. The Seiagh’s power was legend. It needed to be destroyed.” He takes a breath in. “Little did we know that the Celtae had hidden it so elaborately that even we wouldn’t be able to find it. The bloody thing is masked with magic. ’Tis been nearly an impossible task to find it. Until now.”
“So why here and why now?” I ask. “Why have the Fallen suddenly shown up seeking it in Edinburgh?”
Darius meets my questioning gaze with intense amber eyes. “A perfect example of Jake’s earlier words,” he says solemnly. “There are always others more powerful than you. The Celtae, whilst not exactly more powerful, were cunning. And determined.” He rubs his jaw with his hand. “They used magic from the Seiagh to conceal it from the Fallen, yet were so convinced they could overcome their deaths and reclaim the book, they created an intricate path, filled with riddles and clues, to the Seiagh’s location. My brethren and I knew then that the Seiagh would need protecting, to keep others from finding it. We appointed our own bloodline as these protectors. Sacrificed peaceful eternity in order to guard the book and make sure it never, ever reached the hands of others.” He sighs, and glances at Sydney Maspeth. “We then appointed an Archivist—one who, centuries after the book had been gone, would be the only one left who could read the ancient language. That would be Sydney, and she’s the only Archivist in existence. Once the Seiagh is located, her job is to read the one ancient spell that will destroy the book itself.”
I gaze at Sydney, who merely stares back at me. So her destiny had been decided centuries before she was even born. Damn. Maybe all of ours were.
“And the Black Fallen?” Eli asks beside me.
“Call it . . . prophecy. They are in the position to know things of a higher power. They created the Seiagh. The spells within gave them their power on Earth. It was stolen from them. They know its capabilities. But they could not undo the spells keeping the book masked.” He again glances at Sydney. “But they were very much aware of when the Seiagh would reappear: with the appearance of the Archivist.”
“So now they’re just . . . waiting?” asks Victorian.
Darius shakes his head. “Not exactly. For as powerful as they are, they do have a weakness. In order to maintain their human form, they must find souls to replenish their unholy forms.” He looks at me. “Without them, the Fallen will disintegrate in a matter of time. They are not meant to exist on this plane.”
