Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,42

him. I knew they were friends.”

“Umm…well…I do trust Byron,” I said, feeling extremely on the spot. How could I explain why I trusted him without admitting that I was, indeed, fucking him…or getting fucked by him, as it usually worked out. But I did trust my own intuition. “You see, I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by bitches so I think I read people pretty well. I don’t trust easily. Byron can’t tell me much, but I believe what he does tell me because he never sets off my asshole radar.”

Billie snorted. “I believe that.”

Gaston put his hands on the table. “Do you know who killed Byron and kept him from speaking?”

“No…”

“It was his so-called friends. Fiore, Deveraux, and Sam made a plan to kill their dangerous demon friend before he could unleash his reign of chaos on the world. They executed this plan on a trip to Fiore’s house, since he was the most isolated and no one would hear Byron scream.”

What!?

Okay. Did not expect that.

We all looked at Byron. He was not an easy man to piss off, but I could tell Gaston was doing it. “They were my friends,” he said. “My best and dearest friends. I’ve watched them age and die, but I kept them company through it all. Sam doesn’t even remember who I am anymore.”

“Byron…is that true? I mean…the part where they killed you?”

“It must be,” he said, with the slightest shrug toward my spell circle. “He has to tell the truth.”

“Okay. Um. But then…they wanted someone to find Pandora’s Box later?”

“Yes,” Byron said. “As the years went by, and Etherium grew more corrupt, their minds changed.”

“Did they?” Gaston said. “Or did forty-five years of hauntings by a seductive ghost and their own advanced age begin to simply wear them down? The truth is, they went to all this trouble to kill their own friend, hide the maps and books that would have allowed them to open Pandora’s Box, and they failed to train anyone to carry their mission forward, so what, I wonder, is the evidence that they were not trying desperately to keep the box closed? How do you know that this man you consider a friend is not, in fact, using you as well?”

“Well, how do I know you aren’t using us?” I asked, as I saw Jake and Jasper leaning toward each other and murmuring.

“You know what you’re doing is dangerous,” Gaston said. “I am trying to stop you.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Billie said. “You’re a vampire! Why wouldn’t you want to end the Ethereal council?”

“I have no love for the council,” Gaston said. “But what you’re planning is going to cause complete chaos. It will end balances of power that have existed for hundreds of years. And as an old man who has seen a lot, I would advise against it.”

“So America might as well be owned by the British, huh?” Billie said. “And we should never have had a Civil Rights movement. Or anything that caused chaos for a while.”

“If the four of you really, really want to have that sort of damage on your own heads, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I think you’re a big coward is what I think!” Billie said.

“I think you are a loud-mouthed ninny,” Gaston retorted.

Billie stopped and doubled over laughing. “Well, maybe you’re right about that but I’m going to keep going anyway.”

Byron maintained a monk-like calm throughout this conversation. He couldn’t defend himself, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

My stomach was twisting into knots. What if Gaston is right? I just want to mind my own business, really. I never asked to bring chaos.

“Do you know what Pandora’s Box actually will do?” Jasper asked.

“Deveraux said it would destroy Etherium as he knew it,” Gaston said.

“You don’t really know either,” Jake said. “That’s all we keep hearing. Some vague idea that it will destroy the magical world but what actually happens? Does Etherium explode?”

“Deveraux never told you that?” I pressed.

“No.”

“In the end, he didn’t trust a vampire with his darkest secrets. I’m shocked,” Byron said, giving Gaston a look that actually made the attractive tri-centenarian (my mother used to tell me never to forget how old a vampire actually was) squirm a little like we’d tied him to his chair. “He never told you any of this, did he? You rummaged through the house after he died and stole his diary and read it. And the diary didn’t say what Pandora’s Box was.”

“Just because I’m a bit of a