He was so damn tired.
“Could you do me a favor when you talk to Zelda?” Winter asked suddenly.
“Of course.”
“Ask her about my prophecy.”
“Winter…” Aiden started, but Winter was already shaking his head. This was the other thing they’d gone around and around about over the years. They were never going to agree on it, and Winter had reconciled himself to it.
Aiden had spoken to Zelda shortly after Winter had been reborn a vampire. He wanted her opinion on Winter’s strange ability to hear the dead, to see the dead. Zelda had replied with the one and only prophecy she’d given the Varik clan.
When the mother finds peace,
And the brothers find joy,
The youngest shall find silence divine.
Winter might not necessarily believe in witches and magic, but some irrational part of his brain had clung to those words for so many years. He just needed to know that it would be over one day. He hadn’t known it would take one hundred and seventy-seven years for them to complete the first two parts of the prophecy, but he had to believe that the end was finally upon him.
Right now, all he prayed was that he would last until after Damon was taken care of. Then he’d find his own peace in silence. He’d always taken the final line to mean that he was meant to die. What other divine silence could there be? How else was he supposed to shed this curse?
Aiden clung to the hope of some answer, but Zelda had provided no new enlightenment or guidance. Part of him remained skeptical, but her words were his last and only hope.
“Talk to her for me. I’m tired, Aiden. I just want to be rid of the dead at last.”
Chapter 5
Winter glared at the massive house glowing against the darkness in front of him. Of course, Damon’s house was enormous. It’d taken Winter three nights to get to Damon’s compound in Virginia. He’d been careful to drive from his place in Connecticut, checking over and over again to be sure he wasn’t followed, that he wasn’t found by humans or vampires when he was forced to stop for the daylight hours.
Even after he reached Fairfax, Virginia, he kept a distance from Damon’s house, avoiding vampires and humans. He wasn’t sure who was on Damon’s side—he just had to assume they all were.
But there was one group he could safely speak to—the ghosts who lingered close to Damon’s grounds. And there were more than a few former vampires who would share all they knew about Damon’s home and security, seeing as how the new king had killed them.
It was how Winter had gathered mountains of information on his enemies over the years. Not every ghost noticed him, and not all wanted to speak to him, but they saw everything. And the ones looking for a little attention, or just a little vengeance, were happy to spill their secrets.
Damon had killed scores of vampires and humans over the years in Virginia. Plenty wanted to tell all of what they’d seen inside the place.
Their reports on the security were hard to judge since ghosts didn’t really have a sense of time, and Winter was confident Damon had beefed up his safeguards over the past few months as he dismantled the Ministry and seized power.
Glancing at his watch, Winter checked the time yet again. Two hours until sunrise. He was cutting this shit close, but it was the best plan he could cook up. If he took out the witch and made his escape close to sunrise, it would be impossible for any of Damon’s vampire minions to track him down or follow him. Damon wasn’t the type to have any humans he trusted to look for him. Winter just needed to get enough space between himself and Damon’s goons.
He closed his eyes and called on his powers. The veil parted, and it felt like the world gave a happy sigh as it welcomed him back into its embrace. The opening closed around Winter, and he was in the world of the dead. Sadly, ghosts filled the grounds of Damon’s home. Both humans and vampires found their end here, thanks to Damon and his clan.
This was merely a preview of what would happen to vampires and humans across the continent if Damon was permitted to ascend to power among the vampires.
Jogging across the vast expanse of neatly trimmed lawn, he skirted the front door and circled around the building, counting the guards and security cameras as he moved. While he was quite adept at picking locks and had hacked more than his share of security systems, it was too dangerous to do it here. It would require him to leave the dead world, and he wasn’t willing to do that unless absolutely necessary. He needed them to open the door for him.