One Immortal - Tia Louise Page 0,11
backstory. All the Knights know what happened to my wife. Their loyalty and commitment to helping me find justice binds us together, makes us brothers. Even after all these years.
Still, my partner isn’t satisfied. “He taught you everything he knew, and then what? He simply disappeared?”
The waitress and an assistant set our plates in front of us, and as they work, I scroll back through the years to that awful month and the sudden retirement of my former mentor. Patrick assures the girl we need nothing more, and she retreats, leaving us to resume our conversation.
“Within days of Alison’s death, he tendered his resignation and withdrew to his mansion. He refused all visitors. He wouldn’t even see me. As far as I know, he’s never come out again. His staff takes care of his needs.”
Patrick shakes his head, lifting his knife and fork to cut into the duck. “And you never went after him? You didn’t demand to know why?”
Stirring the shot of sherry into my soup, I hesitate, remembering my disgust. “I knew why,” I say, before tasting the rich, brown roux.
I know he can sense the change in me. Still, he asks the follow-up question. “Why?”
“He fell in love with one of them. Or lust…”
Patrick’s fork hits his plate with a clang. “You’ve never told me this!”
“It never seemed important before.” I slide my soup aside and take my fork to try the étouffée. “I didn’t know you were digging in his old files.”
“What did it look like?”
“I never saw her.”
“It was a female?” My young partner leans back in his chair, a knowing look on his face.
“I assumed it was. From what I pieced together, he was trying to find a way to change her, bring her back.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Yes,” I nod, stabbing my fork into a curled crawfish tail covered in thick, red-orange sauce. “He didn’t realize it until the end.”
Patrick doesn’t say the question plain in his eyes. He doesn’t have to. The end?
“Somehow, he realized she was beyond redemption.” I take a deep breath, remembering Sloan’s final notes. He left me his files along with a post-it saying only two words: It’s over. “He drove a stake through her heart.”
“Jesus!” My partner hisses. “What the fuck?”
“He’d dedicated his life to eradicating them. After all our years of hunting, he found her, stood right there on the precipice. It took everything he had to make the right decision.”
We’re quiet a long time, neither of us eating. It seems appropriate—a moment of silence for the mortal broken by the immortal.
“Well, he left some kick-ass research behind,” Patrick finally says. “Why haven’t you shared any of it with me?”
Leave it to youth to be able to shake off the gravity of the situation. A small grin lifts the corner of my mouth. “Perhaps I grew a little disillusioned myself.”
“Bullshit,” he hisses. “You’re as focused as you’ve ever been.”
“Maybe I felt it was disrespectful.” Returning to my plate, I try and remember why I’d locked up Sloan’s notes. Patrick’s right. All those years of work should be in our shared arsenal, not my brain alone.
“When he quit, he was tracking a very powerful one,” my partner says. “Possibly the one we’re after.”
Alison’s murderer.
My sense of vengeance toward this particular killer roars like a bonfire in my chest. Patrick knows how important avenging her is to me. Her death was a personal attack, and I won’t rest until I answer it.
Placing my fork beside the elegant white china, I level my gaze on him. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
4
The Old One
Derek
Lafayette Cemetery after hours is an eerie place. The tombs stand six feet above ground, coffins encased in either concrete or ancient red brick. The exteriors are decorated in scrollwork and statues, and they look like gothic cathedrals, their long shadows forming a striped, grey-and-black landscape for us to cross.
It’s no surprise vampire movies and television shows are often filmed here. The statues and headstones are a perfect setting for encounters with the supernatural. Even during daylight hours, the legion of crypts is a daunting site. So many dead are housed above ground in this city.
Growing up in the garden district, I’ve visited this location before, but never did I dream I’d be here on such an errand. Patrick has filled me in on what we’re after. The old one is a loner according to Sloan’s notes, and it lives here among the tombs when not traveling abroad.
We’re disguised as visitors, paying our respects to a fictitious dead relative. In