Jenna was awakened by the pain. It pulsed in her right shoulder, filling her whole upper body, in a rhythm with her heartbeat: stronger, weaker, stronger, weaker… It was a dull, deep type of pain, more similar to a really bad headache than a cut. Once she was awake she couldn't understand how she was able to sleep with that pain. She knew that she will have to check the injuries out, eventually, but she didn't feel ready just yet.

She fought herself into a sitting position and looked around. The room was familiar, but she couldn't place it. Simple, white walls, a double bed, a wardrobe, nightstand, a desk with a chair. No art on the wall, no photos. A hospital? Jenna smelled the air; no smell of disinfectant. Maybe a motel, then? 

She put her bare feet onto the cold parquette and shivered. Her legs were naked, too, she only wore a pair of boxers and a big T-shirt. Both seemed to be Robert's. 

Someone left a box of painkiller and a glass of water on the nightstand. Jenna popped two pills and drank half of the water. There was a piece of folded paper on the nightstand and her bracelets.

"You are safe. Don't try to leave, stay in bed. I will be back soon. R"

She sighed. As much as she hated when men or anyone, in general, tried to tell her what to do, this time she didn't mind it. The note was surely from Robert, she recognised his handwriting. 

'A little context could have helped, though,' she murmured nevertheless, and her throat was sore and dry as if she didn't talk for a while. She drank the rest of the water, put on the silver, Rune-carved bracelets and got up. Using the wall, the chair and the desk for support, she stumbled towards the only window. She felt terrifyingly weak and she hoped that it was only a temporary thing. 

The drapes were closed and between them tired sunshine sneaked into the room. Jenna lifted her arms to open them and cursed as the pain bit her shoulder. She dealt with the drapes with one hand.

The street she saw was too general to be familiar at first. She was on the second or possibly third floor, so she could look over the lower buildings. The neighbourhood looked like Islington or maybe The Angel, so she guessed that she must have been in the Broken Shield. Well, one mystery solved, she thought. 

Jenna turned her back to the window. Two doors led out of the room, and she aimed for the closer one. Normally, it would have been a few seconds for her to get there, but in this condition it almost took a minute. Sweat beaded on her forehead by the time she reached for the handle.  

As she hoped, there was a bathroom behind the door. A surprisingly modern one at that, with white tiles, a big shower that came with a metal chair, a toilette and with what she was just looking for, a mirror. 

Taking off the tee was a painful and long process but it was not nearly as painful as what she saw in the mirror. She was pale and skinny, the curves she liked on herself so much were almost entirely gone. How long was she sleeping? Even her uncontrollable curly hair lacked the usual volume. The good news was that both of her important tattoos were untouched.

She turned and looked back to the mirror. There were scars on her back, long, thick scars, mostly healed already. They looked strangely familiar but Jenna couldn't tell why. They weren't pretty to look at but she thought she could live with them. 

She couldn't say the same about her right shoulder. 

It didn't look like something that belonged to a human being. From the curve where the shoulder becomes the neck to her arm and down to the level of her collarbone everything was alien, a greyish-greenish something. It wasn't in level with her real skin so it looked like something that was underneath it until the ghoul tore the enveloping skin away. Where the real body met the foreign material, the scarred skin was red and inflamed. Jenna carefully touched the thing and it felt rough, almost like sandpaper. She pushed it and it gave, as if it was real flesh, even though she couldn't feel it, and that made her stomach turn. She threw up into the sink underneath the mirror. Nothing, but a glass of water was in her stomach but she was heaving for a long time. Her arms trembled as she leaned on the sink. 

After a while, Jenna felt strong enough to make it back to the room. She didn't bother with the T-shirt on the floor even though she wanted to cover her shoulder, just cleaned herself up as much as she could and slowly walked back to the bed. She just pulled the blanket over herself when someone knocked on the door. 

'It's open… I think,' she said. 

The handle turned and Luther stepped into the room. He was carrying a tray with two pieces of toast and a mug that must have contained coffee by the smell of it. The fea put it down on the nightstand and sat on the only chair. Jenna pushed herself into a sitting position, carefully so she won't reveal her wrecked body. 

'How are you feeling?' asked Luther.

'Honestly? Like shit,' Jenna answered.

'Eat. You will feel better.'

The girl had her doubts about that, but picked up a piece of toast anyway. 

'You must have some questions about the methods I used to save you,' Luther said then. 

'Yeah, now that you mention it… What the fuck did you do to me?! And where is Robert?'

'I don't know. He has… Things to deal with. But it's not my place to tell you what.'

Jenna's stomach turned again. That couldn't mean anything good, but he knew Luther well enough to know that the old man won't say anything else. So she asked about her shoulder instead and Luther explained it to her.

'So what does this mean? Will I be immortal, like you?' This option scared Jenna more than anything she experienced since she had woken up.

'I am not immortal, young one,' the fae shook his head. 'And neither are you. You are harder to kill because the seed will keep repairing your body and you might be going to live a little longer if nobody kills you, but that's it. Probably.'

'So you don't actually know,' sighed Jenna.

'I don't think any human ever had a blood seed planted in them, let alone infused with fae blood. This is uncharted territory. I warned the young Montgomery about this, but he thinks as long as you live "nothing else matters". His words.'

'Typical' murmured Jenna, but she was more touched than angry. It must have been a tough choice and she knew she would have done the same for Robert. 'How long have I been out?'

'A week,' answered Luther.

She nodded and took another bite of the toast then closed her eyes. She just wanted to rest them for a second but when she opened them up again, the room was dark and she was alone. Her shoulder acted up again, so she reached for the painkillers blindly. She noticed that she was still mostly naked under the blanket, so probably didn't sleep too long this time.

Jenna tried to go back to sleep but her shoulder didn't let her. She didn't feel like getting up either, so she stayed in bed, staring at the dark ceiling. After a while she drifted off then woke up again as she moved unwillingly, firing up the pain. 

Some time later the door opened, then closed silently. Jenna didn't need any light to know who it was, the silhouette was more than enough.

'Hey you,' she said quietly. 

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up,' said Robert.

'You didn't,' the girl answered. 'C'mere.'

Robert stepped to the bed and reached for the reading light to switch it on, but Jenna grabbed his wrist.

'No!' she said hastily. 'I… I don't want you to see… it.'

'Jenna… I've seen it already. I took care of you in the past few days.'

The girl closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. 

'Then I don't want to see your face when you are looking at it,' she said.

'Listen, I know you are…'

'No, you don't know!' she cut in. 'Just… Leave the lights and come here.'

Robert nodded in the darkness and sat on the bed. He hugged Jenna's shoulder so carefully as if she was made of glass, but she was thankful for that now. She put her head onto his shoulder. 

'I don't think I'm ready to know,' she said. 'But I have to. Did we lose someone? I remember Vittorio, but then the ghouls came and everything else is kinda blurry.'

Robert didn't answer right away, which was as loud as silence can be. 

'Who?' asked Jenna. Her stomach became heavy somehow and she felt cold all of the sudden, so she snuggled closer to the man, not caring about the pain it caused to her.

'Rose,' said Robert. Jenna felt like she got a punch in her guts. 'And my parents.'

'Your… What? How?'

'Remember the explosions at midnight? Those were destined to take out strategic places and people. The Scotland Yard is gone, the Navy Headquarters, the Buckingham Palace, too. Edyta's house. And my father's.' 

'Robert, I'm so sorry,' said Jenna. Her throat felt tight. 'Is Benjamin… Does he know? Is he still in the hospital?'  

'No, he is out. I was afraid that he would fall right back, but he found another coping mechanism. He is out there every night, hunting down those things. The city is full of ghouls and flesh golems and berserker vampires.' 

'About that… Is Kovach really The Priest? That can't be true, right?'

'Marcus and the MAGE believe it is,' said Robert. 'He played us all along.'

The whole thing was so surreal. People, friends and family are dead, The Priest is back, London is under attack… It was like a plot of some cheap post-apocalyptic movie. Jenna never would have believed that something like this was possible, not even after Trafalgar Square. She wouldn't believe it now either, if it wasn't Robert telling her.

'And how are you?' she asked carefully.

'Tired,' the man answered. 'Confused. Angry. We can't find Kovach, not even Munin and he kills more and more people every day. And the more he kills, the bigger his army gets, because he raises the dead. We are already outnumbered, the Navy and the police, well, what's left of them, can't keep up… And the city is in lockdown. The world decided that we are dead already and surrounded London with armies from across the world, so nothing can escape.'

'That's bullshit,' said Jenna angrily. 'What the fuck? They should come in and help!'

'The Prime Minister, the majority of the Parliament and most of the royal family are safe, they left the town right after the attacks,' explained Robert. His voice was flat. 'Apparently, the rest isn't worth the trouble. The official state is that the police and the army will get everything under control any day now, no need to worry, half of NATO's firepower only surrounds the city to make sure everything goes smoothly.'    

'And people are buying this nonsense?' 

'Some probably not, but nobody is going to panic as long as someone claims that everything is going according to the plan. Bottom line: we are on our own.'

'We?' asked Jenna frowning, leaning away so she could look at Robert's face in the shadows. 'You are not saying that you want to go after Kovach, right?'

Robert sighed.

'I don't see what else we could do,' he said.

'Anything else!' said Jenna loudly. 'We are beaten, injured, tired to the bone and we lost people. The Priest was too much for us even before he had a fucking undead army. We cannot win this one, Robert. You know that.'

'Someone has to do something,' the man said quietly.

'But that someone doesn't have to be us!' exclaimed Jenna. 'For fuck's sake, you said it just a minute ago, you can't even find him!'

'But you can,' said Robert. 'And when you do, we have a plan on how to stop him once and for all. He needs an energy source for what he is doing, we just gonna shut it down, and he will be without his army. Then we kill him. Together, all of us. He might be stronger than me or you, but he cannot beat everyone at once.'

'Kill… Robert, what is happening? Look I know you are angry, you have every right to be but I'm not gonna help you kill someone, not even that fucker. You are better than that. Besides, I don't even think we could do that.'

The man got up. Jenna had to lean on her arm to support herself and pain bit her shoulder again.

'Not that long ago you were the one who wanted to kill him,' he pointed out. 'You were right.'

Jenna didn't know what to say. She wanted to kill Kovach, yes. She just didn't want Robert to kill him. Or anyone else. She didn't think he could live with that.

'I should go,' Robert said. 'You need to rest. I will try to stop by tomorrow,' with that, he left, without even kissing her goodbye. Jenna wanted to follow him, grab his arm, hug him and don't let go until he was himself again, but she was too weak even to get out of the bed. 

She didn't sleep anymore that night.