primitive man archaeologists might discover on a mountaintop.
“Hel!” Jasper came running in, followed closely by Billie, and they both jumped too. Gaston meandered in from behind, carrying a frying pan. I guess he thought there might be some demon smashing to do.
“Thank the gods,” Byron said. “You made it here. Finally! Good lord!”
“G—guhh…” My teeth were chattering in the extremely frigid room. “You’ve just been chilling here for fifty years?” As if there was any question. Frozen Byron was wearing a 1970s suit with lapels to his shoulders and bell bottoms. The ice block that held him was propped against the wall but it looked like he had been laying down unconscious and then his friends froze him and stuck him in here. His skin looked bluish. It was a disconcerting sight.
“It’s just me,” Byron said. “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to find some way of reconstituting bones? That’s so much messier. You’d have to make animal sacrifices and all sorts of very unpleasant business. But there’s a reason my friends saved me down here instead of just consigning my body to the ground.” He looked pointedly at Gaston, who had suggested that the Sons of Pandora murdered Byron to stop Pandora’s Box from opening.
Gaston shrugged. “It was still suspicious. They did murder you, didn’t they? I think I was justified in warning the ladies about it.”
“Murder is a strong word,” Byron said. “Mainly, they grew so terrified of the consequences of opening Pandora’s Box that they decided they had a duty to stop me, and yet, almost immediately questioned their choice. And so, here I am.”
“I guess we’d better thaw him out,” Billie said.
“Then what? That still won’t bring him to life. We have to sacrifice something to bring him back,” Jasper said.
“If the Sons of Pandora truly wanted Graham to bring Byron back and open the Box, then…it’s possible they already make a sacrifice,” I said.
“You’re a smart woman,” Byron said.
“Oh, really?” I sucked in a breath. “So is that all I have to do? Thaw you out and cast a simple resurrection?”
“That’s not…all,” he said. “Helena…I would like to have a moment alone with you.”
His words held a particular weight, even more than usual. Byron always spoke in a way that let me know there was so much more he couldn’t say. But this was different.
Like the end of the road.
Jasper looked worried. “There’s something about this I don’t like,” he said. “Graham and Jake sucked out of the picture first, and then…”
“It’s all right, Jasper,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
“I just hope you’re not putting her in danger.” Jasper looked at Byron like he didn’t really know what to think. He looked a little angry and then a little helpless. Whatever forces we were dealing with went far beyond a witch or a werewolf. Byron was something else entirely. And he was kept from explaining
“Jasper, do you trust me?” Byron asked, in a tone that was soft and serious…almost veering toward a plea.
“I—I guess I must, after all we’ve done,” Jasper said.
Byron gave me a look that made me tremble inside, and I wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad.
“Give us a minute,” I said.
Jasper, Billie and Gaston left, but a little reluctantly.
Up until now I had managed to compartmentalize all of this and tell myself it wasn’t really that big of a deal, despite the battles we’d had so far. I mean, my family wasn’t a stranger to some drama. Even Billie getting turned into a vampire was easy to dismiss because she was coping with it pretty well.
Now I was faced with the real Byron, and whatever ancient thing Byron actually was. I felt it, seeping into me like the cold.
Jasper shut the door on us, but he didn’t go far.
Oh yes. There was no light in the frozen tomb now.
I was shivering in the darkness, and Byron’s prison of ice began to glow softly. His voice came from his old body.
“Helena,” Byron said. “Do you trust me?”
That had always been a difficult question. Byron wasn’t like the other men who stood beside me. He led us all while he was unable to say much. Since he could never tell us what he was really about, all I had to go on was my gut.
Byron was, without a doubt, the most beautiful man I had ever seen, every inch of his body from his golden eyes and long lashes to the classically strong, statue-perfect lines of his nose, mouth