Something had gone drastically wrong with the Vistor’s prophecy crusher. Kaleb Spartan kept his hand steady on the wheel of the stolen pickup truck, the lost daughter bound and unconscious, sleeping in the passenger seat beside him. He drove north, with his eyes locked on the nearing mountains which stood overhead like giants made of ice.

His first directive with the lost daughter had been to bring her back. He had not done that. His second directive was to kill her. He had not done that either. His programming hadn’t worked as well as the Vistor intended. Something else had happened inside his mind. Something unexpected.

We’re supposed to kill her. A voice rang inside Kaleb’s mind. Glancing over, he looked at the sleeping girl, the blonde vision of beauty, and felt his heart tug at his chest. Kill her? How on earth could he kill something as beautiful as her? He couldn’t bare thinking about a finality as gruesome as that.

But that’s what we’re supposed to do. It said again. That’s what the Vistor wants. That’s what our purpose is.

Kaleb didn’t understand the voice that was inside him. Before taking on the form of Ellie’s betrothed his mind had been relatively sound. Now it was like there were two voices inside of him, arguing against each other. One wanted to fulfill his original purpose and kill the girl. The other wanted to follow the image in his head and complete the prophecy. The prophecy that was destined for him.

But it’s not destined for you. It’s destined for her and her real mate. You’re just an imitation. You’re meant to be her assassin, so finish the job!

And just what did the voice mean by ‘real mate’, anyway? He was her real mate. He’d taken the form of her ‘lover’ to an almost perfect degree, and ever since he’d taken the form he’d seen those prophetic glimpses of their frozen fortress. The image pulling him north. The prophetic compass that guided them both to their final journey. If he wasn’t her real mate, then why would he be able to see that? Why would he feel it? Dragging every atom of his body forward to some unknown destination?

She’ll remember you’re not real when she wakes up. You’re just a poor imitation. Best to kill her now before she wakes up and you do something stupid.

Now that was a good piece of advice. Kaleb was meant to be an atom-perfect copy of Ellie’s perfect partner, so why had he missed the tattoo from his wrist? Keeping his hands on the wheel, he focused his eyes onto the blank spot on his wrist and made the necessary change. Black seeped up from the under layers of the skin and formed on the surface in the shape of a crisp hammer. There. Sorted. Much better.

There was the question as to why his body had failed in an exact replication. It might have something to do with the mental turmoil he was facing right now. Ellie’s lover was clearly not the most mentally adjusted. It was Kaleb’s first time taking the form of another out in the field. There were bound to be a few glitches.

She’ll still know it’s not you. She’ll remember the fight.

The voice in his head was full of useful advice. “You’re right,” Kaleb said to himself, smiling as he drove on. “I’ll need to do some house cleaning.” With his left hand held on the wheel, Kaleb reached out his right hand and placed it against the forehead of the unconscious girl. He flared Intention through his fingertips. The dark power throbbed from his hands and into her mind. Not too much. Just enough to overload her processing faculties and blank everything from the last couple of hours. He held his hand there for a few seconds until he felt the wipe was sufficient, and then he pulled it away. She’d wake with a slight headache and no recollection of the last few hours. He’d still have to account for them leaving Skarvast, but he would handle that when she woke.

He focused his attention back on the distant mountains and noticed the brush of pink sky hanging just above the lowest peaks. It would be sunrise soon, and he’d have to find shelter from the sun before they reached the mountain pass.

Kaleb drove on until a suitable shelter presented itself. There was no one else on the straight and narrow road headed toward the mountain. The first sight of other folk came when he pulled into a parking lot of a roadside diner an hour later. He turned the engine off and looked up at the crooked sign over the diner’s entrance.

Mad Mike’s. Last stop 300 miles.

Ellie was still sleeping peacefully in the passenger seat. Kaleb jumped out of the truck, walked across the half-full carpark and stepped inside the bright and open diner. There were half a dozen patrons inside. A quick taste of the air revealed they were all vampires. He approached the counter and a vampire with long black hair nodded at him in recognition.

“Morning. Looking for a room?”

“For two,” Kaleb said.

“That’ll be $40 for one night.” He paused and looked past Kaleb, staring out through the diner windows to the truck. “You can’t bring slaves in. We’re slave free.” He thumbed at a sign on the wall next to him which read ‘No More Humans - Keep Black Fang Out!’.

Kaleb made a sour face at the sign, feeling instantly offended by the vampire’s tone. “She’s clean, I assure you.”

The vampire behind the counter sighed. “Doesn’t matter. This is a human free territory. Not worth risking it. Too many dead. If you don’t like it then drive on. You sure as hell ain’t bringing her in here though. Pass is probably clear enough now anyway. You can refuel, but I want you and that… thing out of here.”

Kaleb curled his hand into a tight fist, clenched his teeth together and looked up and down the counter at the other vampires sitting there. He looked back at the vampire stood on the other side, shook his head slightly and sighed. “I really wish you hadn’t said that. Now I have to kill you.”

* * *

When Ellie came to the first thing she noticed is that her wrists were bound in chains. Why were her wrists bound in chains? Sitting up in the cab, she stretched the ache from her muscles and looked around. She was in the parking lot of some roadside diner. There was a terrible aching in her head. Blinking felt slow and painful.

She managed to climb out of the cab and stood in the parking lot, breathing the crisp morning air and staring at the vast mountains just ahead on the horizon. Their sheer size took her breath away, making her forget for a moment about everything else. Just where was she anyway? And what the heck had happened?

Ellie ambled across the half-empty lot toward the front of the diner, trying her hardest to remember as she approached the front door. The last thing she remembered was… nope. The only thing in her mind at the moment was a vast blackness. Her last real memory seemed to be back in the metal shop with Jack, but that felt like it was a lifetime ago.

She pushed through the glass door, failing to notice the bloodstains swamped across the glass windows at the front of the diner. The first thing she noticed upon stepping inside was how quite the diner was. She stopped abruptly as a body slid across the floor, leaving a dark trail of blood in its wake. A familiar voice sounded from the right, the direction the body had been thrown from, and Ellie looked to see Jack.

“What are you doing out of the truck?” he asked. His voice sounded irritated and short. Angrier than usual.

“I came to find you…” She trailed off and looked around the diner for the first time. Her head felt slow. Her mind felt like it was wrapped in glue. She wasn’t thinking fast. Why were there dead bodies everywhere? “What happened here? Did the Circle attack us again?”

Jack stared at her for a moment with his mouth hanging open. A spark flashed in his eyes. “That’s right. The Circle attacked again. They destroyed the village. We barely escaped with our lives. You had a blow to your head.” He walked toward her and gently brushed a hand over her hair. She let her head fall forward against his chest and breathed through the grogginess. “Do you remember much?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and looking back up at him. “My head hurts like a bastard though. Were these vampires Circle members too?”

He looked around him momentarily and nodded slowly. “That’s right. Undercover faction. I took care of it though baby, don’t you worry.” He leaned in and kissed her throat. Ellie pulled back, staring at him oddly. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s not really the most romantic place for that…” she said, staring at him momentarily in question. “Don’t you think?”

His flat red eyes stared back at her blankly and an automatic nod followed a few seconds later. “No, of course, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

A feeling of unease stared in the back of Ellie’s mind, but she couldn’t understand why. She put it down to tiredness and dropped her head against Jack’s chest again before pulling away from him to yawn out her fatigue. Her stretch was limited by the chains holding her wrists together. Jack seemed to notice her staring at them and stepped forward with an explanation.

“Two Circle vampires tried to take you,” he said as he swept toward her. He took a key out his pocket and unlocked the chains. “There wasn’t time to get the chains off when we left. Sorry.”

Ellie slipped the chains from her wrists and stretched her arms wide, feeling much better now she could move again. She wondered why Jack would have they keys if Circle vampires had been the ones that tried to take her, but she didn’t have the mental energy to question it properly. She stretched and instantly felt a little relief. “Ah. That’s better. It’s okay. Sounds like things got pretty hairy back there. What happened to everyone else? Rourke, Malachi, Kara, Natalie… did they make it out?”

An empty smile filled his face. “I’m sure they’re fine darling. But enough about all that. We’re away from the bad people now. Look out at those mountains over there.” Jack’s hands seized her shoulders and turned to the brightening sky outside. The mountains loomed on the horizon, almost like they were waiting for them. Ellie felt that pang of hopefulness once more. That felt right.

“We’re so close,” she said, her voice hinged with hopefulness.

“That’s right.” Jack squeezed her shoulders and kissed the side of her head. “We’ll take shelter here for the night and once sundown comes again we’ll make way for the pass. Nothing can stop us now sweetie. We’re going to find our place. We’re going to follow our destiny.”

Ellie smiled and felt a deep warmth bubbling up at her center. It faded fast when her eyes brought her back to her current reality. She stared at the dead bodies lying across the diner and noticed for the first time how brutal the scene was. Repulsion stirred inside of her and she twisted out of Jack’s grasp. These murders were positively barbaric. It wasn’t like Jack. It wasn’t like Jack at all.

The vampire stared back at her, fear brimming on his eyes. He seemed to notice that something was wrong. He grabbed hold of Ellie by the arm before she could step out from the mental fog shrouding her. He pulled her through to the back of the diner and upstairs, away from the chaos and into a plain dark room with a bed for two.

“Come lay with me my mate,” Jack said as he pulled her over to the bed. “It’s been a long day for the two of us, and we should get some rest.” Jack lay Ellie down on the bed and climbed onto it, spooning her from behind. As she lay there staring at the grey wall ahead she couldn’t ignore the feeling that somehow this all felt wrong. Turning onto her back, she looked at Jack, staring into his eyes with silent uncertainty.

“What’s the matter darling?” he asked as he brushed a hand through her hair. It was a good question, and one she couldn’t answer. His rich scent of oak and earth lifted to greet her, but this time it didn’t comfort her. A sick feeling formed in the pit of her stomach, sitting there like a block of rotting ice.

Ellie tried to shake the feeling away and sighed. An inexplicable sadness swept over her. Tears brimmed in her eyes and ran down her face. She felt tired. Why was she so tired? “I-I don’t know Jack. I just feel sad. Something feels wrong to me. Don’t you feel it too?”

Those twinkling red eyes looked back on her as he stroked her hair reassuringly. It was a gesture that should have soothed her, but it did little to unravel the tension coiled in her chest. “You hit your head hard, darling. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a concussion. I’m here. Nothing can hurt you. It’s okay.”

His hand brushed over the side of her hip, his fingers moving in a fashion that was slow and deliberate. Intended to seduce. She pushed his hand away immediately and scooted away from him. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked through choking tears. “Can’t you tell that I’m not in the mood?”

Hurt flashed in his eyes, but there was something else mixed in their too. Anger. It almost broke out, but he pulled it back, shaking his head as he laughed to himself. “I’m sorry Ellie. You’re right. My bad. I guess I’m frazzled too. Maybe we should just get some sleep?”

She stared at the man lying across from her on the bed, wondering for the first time in a long time if maybe she’d made a wrong choice somewhere. Everything had always felt so effortless with Jack before this, but now it seemed the chemistry was gone. He was still his handsome old self, and everything about him looked the same, but his personality had changed somehow.

When sunset finally came Ellie felt a great sense of relief to leave that diner and get on the road again. Jack swapped their truck for a larger one that seemed better purposed for off-road travel. They drove in silence for those first few hours. Ellie sat pressed up against the cab’s door. The broad space on the seat between them almost didn’t seem wide enough.

The approaching mountains grew taller all the while, spearing up into the black sky until they towered overhead like a great ceiling of frozen glass and snow. Fat drops of snow floated down through the air. They pulled onto the snowed-out pass and began the long drive into the white unknown. The world here was a void of alien whiteness, blanked out by endless snowdrifts, lost in white haze that erased all horizons.

It seemed to bother Jack. “We’ve enough fuel for several hours,” he said. “But we can’t drive around here forever. We’ll die out here unless we find this… place.” There was that irritation in his voice again, and he was looking over at Ellie as if this was somehow her fault. She looked over at him, realizing how unattractive his newfound agitation was. So unlike him. Maybe it was just the stress of it all.

It was natural to be fearful in a place like this. Their truck—though built for driving through snow—had difficulty clinging to the frozen roads that wined through the mountains. One wrong move would mean a sharp plummet and certain death for both of them, but Ellie wasn’t scared. She actually felt at ease.

“I think we’ll be okay. I feel like I remember where I am somehow. The roads are familiar here. The shape of the mountains…” The clouds parted momentarily to reveal the silhouette of the mountains up above them. She saw the shape of two twin peaks briefly before white came back and obscured the scene once more. “I think I know this place,” she said, feeling a serene sense of calmness. “Carry on up this road. I think we’re on the right track.”

“We’d better be,” he snapped back. She glanced over at the vampire out the corner of her eye and studied him through the long silence, wondering how the man she’d loved had changed so much in a short time. The vision of a distant dream flashed before her eyes. There was an imposter. Someone pretending to be Jack but lacking the tattoo on his wrist.

Her gaze shot to his wrist and saw the old familiar tattoo. She was being stupid. What was wrong with her? Why was she acting like this?

“If we die out here it’s your fault, I swear to god we’re lost,” he said. His voice was cold and hollow. She pulled her lips tight and looked away from him, finding her distaste growing with each passing second.

“We’re not lost,” she said calmly. Her ease only agitated him further.

“And how would you know?!”

“Because I do,” she said plainly. And she couldn’t explain how. There were distant memories in her head of this place, her childhood home, but it had been so long since she’d last been here it was like she was remembering the words to a long-forgotten nursery rhyme. The melody was there, but the words were all jumbled up.

Thick curtains snow of continued to fall. Jack set the wipers to full speed, struggling to keep the window clear. Ellie saw something in the distance on the right side of the road. A splash of color in the snow. “Stop here!” she said, her voice ringing with excitement.

Jack brought the truck to a skid halfway up the hill they were climbing. He stared over at her with malevolence in his expression. “Why? There’s nothing out here but snow. Why?!”

“There,” she said and pointed at a red marker that was fallen over in the snow. “Don’t you see it?” She watched Jack as he squinted through the window over at the red marker. It was so clear to her it seemed impossible he couldn’t see it. His eyes narrowed to angry slits.

“There’s nothing! What are you talking about you—” Jack seemed to realize his anger was escaping him and pulled himself back. He sat there, his chest quaking with rage, starting down at his lap in silence. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay…” Ellie said with some uncertainty. “Just take a left off the road where the tree line breaks. I think there’s a hidden track. I can remember it.”

The man to her left started the truck up again and they drove up the hill, turning off at the spot she specified. Sure enough there was a hidden side-track, buried under years of snow, squashed between the overgrown trees. The truck ambled down the track slowly, bumbling and rolling over bumps. The track carried on like that for a couple of minutes before opening up into a wide and open shelf of flat ground which was nestled on all sides by tall mountain tops.

Ellie had to gasp at the beauty of the place. Jack drove down into the hidden shelf and followed the track around. As they drove around the opposite end of the broad shelf came into view, revealing the secret hidden at its opposite end.

There in all its beauty lay the frozen castle. Sitting quietly between the peaks of three mountains, forgotten by time, obscured from all angles. A treasure buried from the world. “That’s it—” Ellie gasped. “That’s where I grew up.”

She sat up straight in the cab of the truck, rocking impatiently as they slowly descended the long track down to the castle at the opposite end of the hidden meadow. This was it. Here she was. She was home.