I need help.
I’ve spent centuries relying on no one, but I can’t have this end the same way as Prague. I can’t lose Poppy, too.
I pull up a number I haven’t called in thirty years.
Elena answers on the fourth ring.
“This had better be life or death, Blackthorne.” Her voice is rough with sleep and thick with Russian. “I was having a pleasant dream about Paris in 1847.”
“It is. I need you in the Bahamas.”
Silence. Sheets rustling.
“Who?” she asks.
“Damien.”
A longer silence.
“He’s still mad about Katya?”
“It appears so.”
“That was a hundred and fifty years ago, Julian. I thought he’d moved on.”
“Well, he hasn’t. And now he’s threatening someone under my protection.”
“Human?”
“Yes.”
“Complicated, isn’t it? What’s your situation?”
I give her the abbreviated version—Damien’s appearance at the resort, his surveillance, his escalating threats. The wedding in two days. The family full of targets. Poppy sleeping in the next room.
“You’re asking me to go against one of our own,” Elena says. “The Council won’t like it.”
“Let me handle the Council. Damien’s behavior has been erratic. I’m sure they’ll give me the room needed to handle it.”
“Handle it how?”
“However necessary.”
A pause.
“You saved my life,” she says. “Multiple times.”
“Yes. Now I need your help.”
“I’ll be there.” Her voice hardens. “Send me the details. Flight information, hotel arrangements, whatever you need me to do.”
“This makes us even, Elena.”
“It makes us even. Don’t make me regret it.”
She hangs up. I dial the next number.
Nathaniel answers on the second ring.
