A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)

Early the next morning, I found myself sitting in Shayla’s kitchen while she threw together a quick breakfast for herself.

“So is that where IBSI’s headquarters is in England?” I asked her. “London?”

“As far as I know,” she said. “At least, that’s where they used to be.”

“Then what do you think?” I asked, quirking a brow.

She took a seat at the table opposite me, a serious expression on her face as she munched on a bowl of granola.

“I think your logic is sound,” she said after a pause. “Taking him to his home country could very well be the trigger that we need, since it seems that whatever memories are buried within him have to surface naturally, rather than being forced by our artificial means… But—assuming that he really was a hunter, which is a rather big assumption—as you say, depending on how close we have to take him to hunter headquarters, this plan could come with a lot of risks.” She paused for a swig of orange juice. “That said, I don’t see any harm in taking him back to England and seeing what happens. We might not need to make it as far as their headquarters. We could check into a hotel somewhere, I suppose… But we would obviously need to keep a low profile. We can’t have anyone recognizing him.”

“You would need to forge some IDs for us, I guess?”

“Yes,” she replied, “if we’re to stay in a hotel… I’m assuming that you haven’t mentioned any of this to Josh yet?”

I shook my head.

“Right.” She stood up, downing the last of her orange juice. “Okay, we’ll do it. Just you, me and Josh.”

She dumped her bowl in the sink before grabbing her handbag and touching my arm. She transported us to the hospital kitchens, where we picked up some breakfast for Josh before heading upstairs.

As we entered his room and approached Josh’s bed, I immediately noticed something different about him. He looked terribly ill compared to yesterday. There was not even the slightest warmth to his cheeks—he was pale as a sheet.

“Josh?” Shayla said. “You feeling okay?” She placed an arm around him and propped him upright so that he leaned against the headboard.

“I’ve felt better,” he said dryly.

“Let’s give you some of this warm breakfast.” Shayla poured out a bowl of soup, but when she handed it to him, he shook his head.

“Really not hungry,” he muttered.

“Try to eat something anyway,” Shayla pressed.

He took the bowl from her reluctantly before gingerly raising a spoon to his lips. Then he retched, though thankfully, he didn’t vomit. He spat the soup in his mouth back into the bowl. He shook his head again, returning the bowl to the witch. “I can’t eat anything now.”

“I wonder why,” Shayla muttered. “Grace said that you were eating solids only yesterday.”

“I don’t know,” he replied, resting his head back. “I wasn’t feeling all that hot last night, but when I woke up this morning, I had an awful stomach pain—still have.” He grimaced.

Shayla and I exchanged worried glances.

His eyes turned to me, an almost apologetic look on his face. “Won’t be able to visit your gym this morning either,” he said.

I cleared my throat. “Josh,” I began, even as I considered that now was probably the worst time to be talking about a trip since he was feeling so unwell. “Shayla and I have been talking. Neither the witches nor jinn have made any headway in forcing your memories back so we were thinking that we ought to try taking you somewhere… To your home country, England. London, specifically, at least at first. That’s where the IBSI’s headquarters are located. We’re hoping that it might trigger something… you know?”

Wincing, he propped himself up higher in bed, so that he could look at the two of us better. “London,” he murmured. “How would we get there?”

“Shayla would transport us with her magic.”

He shrugged loosely. “For how long?”

“We don’t know,” Shayla replied. “The plan would be to check into a hotel and just… see how things go. How you react to your initial surroundings. Whether there’s any spark.”

“All right,” he said, wincing again as though experiencing a shot of pain. “When do we leave?”

“Today,” Shayla replied. “At least, that was my plan before we found you like this.”

He shook his head. “No, I-I’ll be okay. Hopefully this is just an off day and I’ll be feeling better tomorrow. We should leave today, just as you planned.”

Shayla examined his face a moment longer, gauging his response. Then she sighed. “Okay.” She reached for the phone to call Tom to assist Josh in getting ready, but before she could place her hand on the phone, Josh reached out and caught her arm.

“Wait,” he said. “I want to get ready myself this morning. Grace can wait outside the bathroom. I can always tell her if something goes pear-shaped.”