Nope. Never mind. It doesn’t make sense.

The triplets grin.

“Well done, pretend incubus. You can live,” they state before they disappear like that’s all they wanted.

“Talbot, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on, or I’m going to torture you for no less than ten years,” I tell him very seriously.

He crouches in front of me again, tilting his head to meet my eyes.

“Eight hundred years ago, I got entirely too drunk and did something stupid that has caused me nothing but grief and trouble,” he says as he pulls his shirt to the side, revealing his skin.

He slides a hand over his chest, and then a hum rattles the air. Before my eyes, a very familiar symbol becomes more and more visible, like a tattoo gradually surfacing from the buried depths.

My eyes widen marginally when I see the infinity symbol…

“This symbol—its meaning—is the reason Pandora became obsessed with the quest for immortality. It’s irrelevant, honestly. Now she’s simply deranged and maddened from the depths she’s personally stooped to, all to stay young and beautiful for all eternity. It’s destroyed her mind and left it nothing more than scattered pieces,” he says too casually.

My breaths stay frozen in my lungs, while my mind tries and fails to process what he’s saying.

“I’m afraid a barrel of rum got the better of me one unforgettable night, and I found myself in a dark and depressed stage in my life fairly soon after I’d been turned into an incubus. I’d only been a monster for fifty or so years, and already I felt like I’d lived too long and seen too much. It was all entirely too predictable, and nothing ever surprised me. No one ever surprised me. Nothing different happened, aside from opinions changing about what is or isn’t right or wrong. When I returned home, staggering and furious at the entire mess my mother had helped create, there was a box waiting on my bed.”

My gaze moves from the infinity symbol on his chest up to his flat, lifeless eyes.

“So I did what any angry, drunken mess would do when he’s sick of everything staying the same with nothing ever changing.”

“You opened the box,” I say, my eyes narrowing.

“Of course I opened the fucking box. I wanted something new and exciting, and I was blitzed enough to not care about the consequences in the event all of it went wrong, which is undeniably what happened. I was careless with the entire altar ceremony, and it’s been an eternal game of chase ever since. Luckily for me, there was only one monster in my box instead of seven.”

“Who got the monster?” I ask him, grinding the words out.

“Doesn’t matter. At least, not anymore. What does matter is the fact that it always finds a potion-mixer or chemist to attach itself to, and then usually convinces them they’ve done it to themselves with a botched experiment or potion,” he says, not making a damn bit of sense. “Until Violet. It did most everything different with her.”

“What do you mean Violet can’t see ghosts? What do you mean until Violet?” I ask, as he continues staring at me as though he’s waiting for me to figure it out for myself.

“You’ve only visibly witnessed Violet’s monster a few times, but it was too subtle to realize what you were seeing. The other times you’ve seen it, it’s been in the abstract—almost like an illusion. It’s certainly not that puny thing you watched, mocked, and judged in the woods rather recently. That’s simply the monster she was born with.”

“What the hell are you saying?” I snap, too impatient to put up with his nonsense.

He shrugs a shoulder. “What I’m saying is that Violet’s carrying around the monster, who has been a thorn in my eternal side since the day I made the mistake of creating it. All my best ideas come to me when I’m drunk, as you now know,” he says with a cheeky grin and tired eyes.

He leans closer, as the pain continues.

I can’t see Idun TV, and I have no idea what’s going on around me.

“Since we have a while, let me tell you a story, Vampyre. With any luck, you’re smart enough to listen to what I have to say. It’s about a spirit that will give you many unassuming names. But the only name I’ve ever given it is the one that suited it best, since it cloaks its true nature, while it manipulates and courts the host by giving them all their darkest, most desperate desires. That monster doesn’t remember me—it forgets its past lives—but it feels the familiarity. Since I made myself known in Shadow Hills, it has taken an interest in me. It morphs, changes, and becomes the monster of the host body, unlike any of your monsters. Only, this is the first time I’ve ever been able to see it without it possessing the host body, because, like all monsters, it can only reside in the host’s subconscious.”

He pauses, as though he’s letting the suspense mount.

“Who is Anna?” I bite out.

“Who are they all?” he whispers, mocking a conspiratorial tone.

He gives me a wink.

“As I said, Violet can’t see ghosts. It’s not just Anna,” he tells me very deliberately. “Their individual names are of no consequence, because all of them are simply one of the many alarming sections of Violet’s convoluted mind, Vampyre. They hide in plain sight, misleading the eye and the mind with ease, because you trust your senses too much.”

“None of that makes any sense,” I point out, sick of the madman’s ravings.

“Of course it does—once you realize they all share one name. A soulless monster, much like yours, with a name as notorious as your own surname.” With a smirk, he adds, “They’ve only recently discovered their true name, thanks to Violet’s relentless quest of self-discovery. Now the monster is starting to remember. It should be quite the show.”

As soon as I’m free, I’m removing his head and finding out if he’s truly immortal or not. Then, if he is, I’ll probably do it again.

"If you don't give me the name, I'm going to peel your skin from your body," I assure the daft fool.

He gives me a small, humorless smile. "Hyde."

Chapter 40

VANCE

Tom’s head lifts enough to shoot me a sympathetic look, despite his bruised and swollen face, as the silver stifles my lungs much quicker than the last time. Idun continues laughing, as the world around me turns too fast for me to keep up.

“At this very moment, my allies are raiding the home with your girlfriend, because they knew I’d have ultimatums. They’ll bring me Damien after he’s a block of silver,” Idun tells me, as something deep inside me turns warm.

My arms drop, the silver forcing them down, as Idun taunts me.

“Emit will shrivel into an eternal vat of misery, since your silver hurts him the worst. Nasty little curse, isn’t it? It’ll trigger every time you attempt to take up arms against me, and I’ll control when you’re set free,” Idun carries on.

She touches the damning necklace on her chest, her grin spreading wider. “And now that I have this back, I can curse each and every one of you whenever I bloody want,” she says, adding that last part with sinister malice.

“Did you really think its power had been diluted? You didn’t even know it was a source of power to begin with. And Arion only knows what I allowed him to know. I knew he’d turn against me one day. Deep down, he’s as weak as all of you.”