Empower

Chapter 3

‘To live is not merely to breathe; it is to act …’

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When I’d packed up and left the city with Mum and Dad two years ago, I’d really had no idea what lay ahead. Other than the eternal war. Although I had thought we would make it work all together, it didn’t take long to realise that too much had happened.

I wasn’t the only one who’d changed.

We moved a lot, bouncing between half a dozen of Mum’s safe houses around Europe. Sometimes we travelled simply to go somewhere new, other times it was because I could feel that he was getting close.

Mum was no longer Grigori, and that meant a few things for us. First, while her experience and training methods offered me a lot of insight, she didn’t have the strength or durability she once had. Second, and most frustratingly for her, it seemed that, like angels who exiled, when she became purely human she gave up many of her memories. She was still able to recall the important things, like her partnership with Jonathan and many of the battles they’d encountered, but every now and then I would ask her a specific question and she would just go blank.

Every choice has a consequence and this was one of hers.

As for Dad, as great as it was for me to see him so full of life, he constantly struggled knowing what I faced and had to fight against when I went out at night.

And then there was the love thing.

I was so happy for them. I barely recognised Dad without the haunted, sad eyes that I’d only ever known. With Evelyn by his side, he relished each day. I was proud of them; that they had moved beyond all the obstacles and found their own private bubble filled with love and passion and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the needle that burst it.

So I left, telling them it was to do my job.

Mum agreed that it was probably for the best, that I needed to take the fight to the exiles. She believed that the battles ahead would come to me whether or not I sought them and it would be better to be ready. But really, it was Dad who understood the most. I knew he recognised the look in my eyes as something similar to what he, too, had once displayed.

After I left Mum and Dad in Switzerland, I spent six months drifting from city to city, picking up odd jobs and failing miserably to pay my way. So, when Josephine tracked down my unlisted number and texted me with an offer of a paid-on-the-side job – fighting two exiles in Prague – I took it.

Since then, in return for her promise to keep our dealings private, I took the odd job when she didn’t have local Grigori in place.

For a while it worked well enough. I was alone, the way I had to be, and always ready to move on – something I had to do often. As soon as I felt him closing in, I’d bail. And that first year it was really difficult, he was so persistent. There were times I only just managed to skip town before he reached me. But I kept moving, even when it felt like I was pushing through almost-set concrete, determined to keep my distance. I couldn’t trust myself to slip up even once. No matter how much I wished I could look into his clear green eyes – the only place I’d ever found myself – one more time.

Because once will never be enough.

A lifetime would fall short.

For now, Barley Mow in East London was my home and place of non-Grigori work. Despite Mum’s attempts to give me piles of cash and Dad’s insistence that I at least keep hold of the Amex card that connected to his bank account. After everything that had happened, I needed to do this alone, to be independent, and that meant paying my own way. Even when I was down to my last twenty pounds. Somehow, I’d always found a way. And now I had a pretty good set-up. Although tonight’s earlier escapades had no doubt cost me a chunk of next week’s rent.

Walking into the small dark bar with Gray, neither one of us was surprised to see that Carter, Milo and Turk had beaten us there. We’d left the scene at the construction site by the time the clean-up crew had arrived, and although Gray had the advantage of a motorcycle – and rode like a madman – Carter simply didn’t acknowledge that there was a speed between parked and flooring it.

Ryan and Taxi were there too, Ryan’s full-belly laughter sounding out across the small pub, all of them sitting at our usual table in the back corner. Of all the Rogues I’d met since I’d stumbled across Gray one night by chance – and luck – this wayward group made up the ones I saw the most. Looking at the faces around the table, I guess you could call this dysfunctional, slightly bizarre group my friends. It wasn’t like my friendships with Steph or Spence, though I barely saw them any more, it was different. What I had with these guys allowed me a comfortable distance.

And it was thanks to our frequent late nights at Barley Mow that I had found my job in the bar and my apartment upstairs.

As I approached, Carter was giving Ryan a foul look – clearly he had been the butt of some joke – but on seeing me his expression morphed into a smirk. He held up his half-finished Guinness. ‘Karen’s started a tab.’

Milo winked at me over the rim of his beer. And I knew that Ryan and Taxi would have included themselves in the free-round offer simply by association. I quickly tried to decipher just how many drinks they had managed to put away before we arrived.

Crap.

I narrowed my eyes at Carter as I went to the small bar to collect drinks for Gray and me and to explain to Karen, my boss and landlady, that the tab would be closing after the next round. The guys would drink the place dry if they didn’t have to worry about the bill at the end.

Karen smiled warmly at me, her yellowed teeth noticeable even in the dim pub lighting. She’d been a pack-a-day smoker since she was thirteen, and at fifty-three she had no intention of stopping now. She passed me two beers, her bright orange nails so long they curled around the glasses like claws.

‘Honey, you look like you walked into the wrong neighbourhood. Again,’ she said in her husky voice, raising her eyebrows at the last.

I grimaced, realising how I must look. I probably should have gone straight upstairs to change first, but after everything that had happened at the tournament, plus being distracted by my overactive imagination at the meat market, I’d forgotten that I’d got a little messy earlier in the night. The guys, of course, barely sported a mark.

‘Does it help that I also walked my way out?’ I tried.

She shook her head slightly. ‘The better question is: did anyone else?’

I couldn’t help the small smile. Karen saw us all enough to know that there was … stuff going on around town that normal people had no business knowing about.

I grabbed my drinks. ‘Trust me, that neighbourhood is now a safer place for us all.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I heard her murmur as I walked away.

I placed Gray’s drink in front of him and sat down. I could tell he was talking business, and whatever it was, I already knew I’d want in. We all brought in the odd job, but it was Gray and his vast list of mysterious contacts who really kept us on the go.

Carter glared at me as if reading my mind. ‘I think we should wait till Miss Steal-a-guy’s-limelight has gone to bed for the night before we discuss this.’

‘God, are you still whingeing? You got a fight tonight. You got paid, and,’ I motioned towards his half-empty glass, ‘in more ways than one. Move on,’ I said, exhausted more by him than by the night’s activities.

And you’re all still alive.

‘I’ll take her to bed for you, if it helps out,’ Taxi jokingly offered.

‘Remind me why you’re called Taxi again?’ I asked.

He smiled so widely it was impossible not to smile in return. Turk had given him the nickname about forty years ago. They’d been living in apartments next door to one another in Islington – the same ones where they still lived now – and whenever Taxi picked up a girl Turk would know about it because he’d hear some poor now-sober woman hailing a taxi at the top of her lungs at the crack of dawn the following day.

‘Violet, I promise I’ll give you a ride home in the morning myself.’ Taxi waggled his eyebrows.

Ryan hit Taxi on the head. ‘Leave her be,’ he said, giving me a nod.

Apart from me, Ryan, at thirty-three, was the youngest of the group – though like everyone else he looked barely a couple of years out of his teens. He was also the one whose dimples gave him a look of innocence, which was the exact opposite of Taxi and Carter, whose more angular features and lack of care towards personal maintenance made them seen menacing.

But it was Milo who always caught my eye and reluctant curiosity. While looking Grigori-young, he had a darkness surrounding him that was more than just his tall, slim figure, always-black attire and long jet-black hair. His eyes told a haunting tale, one that as a Rogue he had every right to never share. But we all knew that it had something to do with his particular gift. He was a Darkener – he had the ability to plunge someone into darkness, momentarily blinding them before launching his attack. It was a great defensive weapon against exiles, but it had left its mark on him in the depths of his sad eyes.

Like me.

Looking away from Milo and back to Taxi and Ryan, I recognised their slightly bloodshot eyes and lazy smiles. They had clearly been at the bar for a while and looked as if they had passed the one-too-many point a few drinks back. For Taxi, this meant crudeness. For Ryan, it meant genuine flirting.

I glanced at Gray and caught his subtle wink of understanding. Then he got on with business. And this was the way it was with Rogues. We didn’t sit around rehashing the events of the night – we moved on to the next job. Gray had already reported to our employer about tonight’s events at the meat market. The money had been transferred to us and the clients were having their own people deliver the news to the human in charge. Fine by us.

The Academy Grigori had stayed behind at the construction site to help the humans who had survived, bring in the clean-up crew and mourn the loss of Clive and Annette. We’d done our job, scouted the immediate area and cleared the rooftop, then taken our payment, shaken hands and bailed.

Now Gray had moved on to the details of the new job that had come in from his contact in Rome. An exile they’d been trying to find had fled Italy after taking out an entire church load of people during a single Sunday Mass in a small village just outside Florence.

The exile had posed as a priest.

I was still undecided when it came to my beliefs. I knew there was a place where souls were sent to suffer – my mother had been locked in the pits of Hell since the day she gave birth to me until the day I unwittingly freed her – and there were definitely stories out there with elements of truth. But God? One entity responsible for it all? Heaven? Peace? No, I wasn’t sure about that.

What I did know was that dressing up in a priest’s outfit and betraying people’s faith and trust that way was very, very wrong. No way was I about to miss this hunt.

‘They think he’s in London and asked us to follow up.’

‘Paying?’ Carter asked.

Gray sniffed. ‘Not a lot. If anything.’

Normally, Carter would argue to go back and settle terms before agreeing to take on the job but one look at my fingers drumming on the table told him it wouldn’t work. If he wanted in on the fight, he’d have to get in on the ground level. So he settled for glaring at me and said nothing.

Ryan finished his drink. Karen had already delivered the final round to everyone.

‘Taxi and I can start checking in with the London churches,’ Ryan offered. ‘See if there are any new clergy around or, you know, if there have been any massacres lately.’

Gray nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s start with that.’

Ryan looked at me and motioned to my empty glass. ‘What’re you having?’ he asked, standing up.

I shook my head. ‘A hot shower and bed,’ I said, standing up as well.

He smiled, showing his dimples. ‘I can work with that.’

Gray was suddenly beside me, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close. I fought the instinctive urge to throw him into the far wall and kept breathing.

‘Won’t be any room for you, mate.’ He glanced at the rest of the guys briefly. ‘We’ll talk more tomorrow.’

With that, Gray walked me through the back door and up the narrow staircase to my tiny apartment.

‘Thanks,’ I said once we were inside.

He shrugged. ‘Not a problem.’

Rogues had a tendency to get a little handsy after a few drinks, and in our mix I was the only girl. I didn’t think any of them seriously liked me, but alcohol often meant heavy flirting and a little too much presumption. Neither of which I handled well. But no one would tread on Gray’s territory, so to keep me from having to explain things I couldn’t, every now and then Gray would leave the bar with me to make the guys think we had something going on.

I knew we’d have to do the same thing again in a couple of months, and sometimes it annoyed me that it had to be done at all. But I didn’t want to have to move on again. Not yet. So, this was the easiest and most peaceful way to deal with it.

‘You gonna tell me what that was tonight?’ Gray asked from behind me as I switched on my tiny espresso machine.

I knew he’d have something to say. He’d seen my reaction to the bald man, and he’d covered for me when I’d told the other Grigori I hadn’t got a good look at the exile who had taken out their leaders.

Waiting for the machine to heat up, I kept busy, pulling out my blade and cleaning it. ‘I’ve seen him before.’

‘Who is he?’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered honestly. ‘But he’s strong, powerful and …’ I closed my eyes, knowing that this last quality was the most frightening. ‘He’s smart.’

I let the information sink in with Gray. Exiles aren’t often smart – it’s hard to be when you’re completely insane and ruled by emotions you can’t control. But very rarely, an old exile comes along who can control the madness. Like Lilith.

‘And he wanted to put on a show for you,’ Gray said. It wasn’t a question.

I gripped the hilt of my dagger tightly, guilt burning my conscience. He might as well have said that Clive and Annette were killed because of me. I pushed my emotions down, bit my lips and nodded jerkily.

‘Is this only the beginning?’ he asked.

I had a bad feeling we both already knew the answer to that so threw out a different question. ‘Have you noticed how the tournaments are becoming less random?’

‘Like they’re gearing towards something? Yeah. You think he’s behind them?’

I shrugged. We’d been hearing rumours from Rogues who passed through. Organised battlegrounds like the one tonight were popping up all around the world. Something was brewing. And seeing the bald exile gave me an all-round bad feeling.

‘You hanging out here for a while or heading home?’ I asked, turning back to the espresso machine to make my coffee and dodging the questions I couldn’t answer. Sometimes Gray stayed a while and then went back down to drink with the guys. It didn’t bother me either way. I knew he never once spoke to any of them about what was – or wasn’t – going on between us. He just wasn’t the type to use our situation to boast.

I could feel his eyes on me but I didn’t turn. Eventually, I heard him moving about and I knew he was putting on his jacket. ‘Nah. I’ll slip down the outside stairs and head home.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow at five, then,’ I said, noting Gray’s usual groan in response.

‘Come on, princess. Surely I just earned myself a week’s reprieve?’

I shook my head. ‘No way.’

‘Damn it, can’t you find someone else? We’ve been going at this for almost a year now. I’m starting to grow girl parts.’

I bit back my smile and headed for the bathroom. Before I closed the door, I glanced back at Gray, who was opening the window to the fire escape that led down to the back alley. ‘5 p.m. Don’t be late.’