For Brandon E. Who requested something with Owen’s Gramma and Helena’s sire knowing each other with a side of goodies to help in the fight. I hope you like it!

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“I have to fly all the way across the pond to see you, and I find you in the middle of a war?”

Owen, possessing quick reflexes and a healthy sense of self-preservation, tried to bolt. Helena was surprised by the sound of a thick Yorkshire accent she recognized from nearly a century ago. She looked up just in time to see a tiny, ancient, Englishwoman catch her lover by the ear.

“I have to hear from a friend that you’re in trouble,” the little old woman continued at volume, tugging firmly on Owen’s ear. He certainly could have freed himself, but this woman was more terrible than any foe he dared to fight. Surrender was the only option. “And worse, it was from Swamp Jenny of all the Good People. She’ll be lording it over me good and proper for plenty yet to come!”

“I didn’t know she was keeping an ear on me,” Owen muttered defensively and bent, somewhat awkwardly since she still had his ear good and tight, to kiss the old woman’s cheek. She gave him a wrinkled smile that was not at all diminished by the fire in her eyes. “It’s not a war, Gramma. Not yet. And we’re working to keep it from becoming one.”

“Oh aye,” she agreed, and finally released his ear to turn on Helena, who gave her a somewhat bemused smile. “I suppose I ought not to be too terribly surprised that the ghost of the River Wharfe is still haunting my family.”

Helena thought the face was familiar. This was just a bit too close to fate for her liking. It wasn’t often someone from her Old Life found her in her new one. Not that this woman was anywhere near as old as she was, for all that she was older than she looked, and looked old already.

“The ghost of the River Wharfe?” Owen asked with a glimmer in his eyes of a story half-remembered. “Wait, the White Lady that saved you when you were little?”

“Not that little, and long ago,” she agreed, her eyes on Helena. “I heard a woman singing an old old song by the river and went to find out who. Fell into a wee little stream with a monserous reputation and would have died but for a lady all in white silk who came in after me.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“You were very small,” Helena agreed gently, and offered up a smile. “Wynne.”

“You remember my name after all these years?”

“I only ever dove into the Bolton Strid that once. It was memorable.”

It would have bene the death of the small girl if Helena had not been a vampire for nearly six hundred years by then, and was in the full bloom of her power. Only vampiric strength and speed got them out of the powerful grip of the river’s pull.

Wynne gave her a bright, wrinkled smile and took Helena’s hands.

“You watch over my boy,” she admonished fondly. “Your father checks in on me, you know. He came to find me the day before emy wedding and told me that Heléne sent her blessing. Was it true?”

“He has his own way of going about things, and he has always loved looking after that part of England,” Helena murmured with a smile for her sire, who was still pretending to be a mere fledgling. It amused him to see how the Elders treated him when they didn’t know who he was. Teucer had, of course, spent a good deal of time traveling with the Roman armies, and fell thoroughly in love with England. It was how Helena met him too, long ago. “He is come for this battle, but wishes certain things of his history to remain unsaid.”

“Still flirting with the pretty girls, is he? The tease.”

“Always. You will keep the secret?”

“Anything for my favorite trickster. I see him often. He loves my tea cakes. Owen-lad, I have a gift for you.”

Owen perked up when his grandmother turned on him once more, and grabbed for a silk-wrapped package she set aside when she seized him. She presented it proudly and Owen carefully unwrapped it.

It was an axe of dark folded steel, ornately carved with flowing knotwork inlaid with polished silver. The haft was much, much older than the blade, and carved of a single piece of red-stained rowan-wood that was sharpened at the end, and girdled in more silver.

“If you’re fighting a war, boy, you need a weapon,” Wynne told him firmly when he looked between the axe and her with wide, stunned eyes. “This one cuts deep and doesn’t like to miss. You use it well and make sure you bring it back to me when you’re done.”

Helena didn’t try to touch the axe. It might not be specifically made for vampires, but it was certainly specifically made for Others, and had plenty of human blood on it besides. She could smell it, soaked deeply into the wood and covered by layer upon layer of lacquer to seal it in.

“This is the axe that great-Grandfather used,” Owen wrapped his hand around the axe haft and lifted it, reverent but with the ease of someone who knew his way around any number of weapons, including this one. “I didn’t know you still had it.”

“Well,” Wynne said fondly, and patted his cheek. “You’re riding to war, and our family takes care of its own. Now tell me all about this man you’re fighting, and I’ll see if I have anything else in my trove that might help.”