Astrid dashed ahead. “The book?” she asked as she breezed past Quinn.
“It’s on the table, plus a few others.”
Ryan ran to catch up, not slowing when he reached her. “Hang on. We have other priorities.”
Feeling completely useless, Adair watched as the others dove into stacks of books at the kitchen table, those from Bennett’s and others that Quinn had laid out, all frantically searching for answers while Bennett leaned on Quinn and stumbled into the house. Slowly, one foot in front of the other, they headed for the stairs.
Quinn murmured, “You look awful.”
“I need some rest, that’s all,” Bennett hissed. “Keep Skye close to you. I don’t think I could ever be so hungry as to hurt her, but she’s human enough until she accepts the gift. I can smell her already.”
Nodding, Quinn paused. “You won’t. We chose you as her godfather for a reason; even at your darkest, you will always be a protector.”
Checking that he made it to his room safely, Adair stood in the doorway as he ducked into the bathroom to splash cool water over his face.
“I need…” He held her gaze, a weary desperation swimming in there, but he looked down at the floor and said, “Thanks for coming for me.”
She nodded, then left him to get some rest. She hated leaving him alone, but she needed answers, and sitting and waiting for a miracle wasn’t going to help.
The team was already pouring through a stack of books; Ryan came in from a back room with another armful of ancient texts. “The prophecy can wait. We need to figure out what’s wrong with him.”
Astrid added, looking to Adair, “This is entirely new territory for us.”
All eyes landed on her. Adair could see the heartbreak in each of them, their expressions as lost as Bennett’s had been. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she said. She glanced around and remembered she’d left her purse, her phone… everything in her hurry to get Bennett to safety. “Can I borrow a phone?”
Her brother answered with a confused voice at the unknown number calling. “Hello?”
“Logan, it’s me. I need your help.”
“Adair? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s…” She glanced to the windows and recoiled at the faint lightening in the sky that warned of the impending sunrise. Ryan caught on to her worry and closed the curtains. “I need to know everything about the change.”
Logan answered, “I don’t like the sound of that.”
She explained Calloway’s mysterious plan, what little she knew of the prophecy, and Bennett’s worsening state despite blood and rest.
“Shit. You’re in a hell of a predicament. I’ll be on the next flight home.”
“No, stay where you are. We don’t need Calloway deciding to go after you too.” She cringed, hating her brother’s new fragility of mortality. “We’re out of time. Please. What’s happening to him?”
“You never changed anyone, did you?”
“No. I never had any need to. Come on, you changed me.”
“I changed a few people in the early days. Let’s back up a few steps. Does blood help him?”
“Definitely, but not for long, like it’s not enough. I still can’t scent him, typical for a demon hunter. He craves often and uncontrolled like a new vampire, but he’s getting steadily weaker.”
“Did you see who changed him?”
“There were dozens of them. In a crumbling warehouse that looked to have been destroyed in the fight to take him down. From the state of things, the scent, the air, it had been days. Blayk was there.”
“Fuck. Not helpful. Didn’t Blayk change most of Calloway’s following for him?”
She recoiled as she flashed back to the trail of blood that she and her friends had drained from Scotland to India back in the old days. Even then, changing another had required more commitment than she was willing to invest in another. But Blayk had mastered the art of it for fun. “Blayk would know what he was doing better than anyone.”
“Days, huh?” Long pause. “Dozens? Was it dozens of vampires that were killed in the fight… or that died feeding him?”
