The Viper, page 18
“Oh, good.” Butch stepped through into the night. “Otherwise, I’d mistake this for an episode of Black Mirror.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Down under the decaying hunting cabin, Kane spent the daylight hours sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall, within view of the bed behind the sofa. With that couch functioning as a footboard, he couldn’t see much of Nadya as she slept, but going by her breathing patterns, he figured she must have gotten at least a little rest.
There had been no shut-eye for him, and the weird thing was, he didn’t feel tired. That buzzing under his skin, that seething, churning energy, was a constant, banked for now, but ready and hungry for… anything, really.
It was a reminder of how long it had been since he had had any level of health.
And he remembered the moment he lost it.
Putting his hand out, he looked at his palm, went back in time, and recalled pouring that drink at the libation cart in his study. Thinking back on it now, he couldn’t recall whether the sherry had tasted off. He’d been so consumed by Cordelhia’s impending needing, those hormones of hers calling a response in him that grew ever more distracting, that he hadn’t paid any attention to what had rolled over his tongue.
But it clearly had been poisoned.
He’d had that first glass.
Followed by the other.
After that…
Wincing, he rubbed his eyes as if he could wipe away the image of his Cordelhia up on that bed, her blood dripping off her lax hand, pooling on the floor. He’d had the same vantage point then as he did now, looking up to see the dead body.
And then he’d heard that scream.
Cordelhia’s mahmen in her fine silk-and-fur overcoat, standing in the open doorway of the chamber, screaming in horror—
* * *
“You have killed my daughter! My daughter is dead!”
Kane tried to get up from the floor. But as he pushed his palms into the finely woven carpet, his arms refused the burden of his torso and he slapped back down onto his face.
When he turned his head to the side… he saw the bloody knife in his hand.
His first thought was that it was not his hand. Then he thought it was not his blade.
And finally, he realized it was not a knife at all.
It was his letter opener, the one from his desk down in the study, the one made of sterling silver, which bore the crest of his bloodline… the one he’d been given after he’d survived his transition by his sire.
The dagger-shaped object had been missing for a couple of nights.
And now, it was back, and his hand was upon the bloody length, his fingers wrapped around the miniature sword’s hilt.
In the back of his mind, he noted that his beloved’s mahmen was still screaming, but he was trying to remember how any of this had come to pass—and grappling with the reality that if the female in that formal cloak and dress had thought there was any sign of life in her progeny, she would not be yelling incomprehensible things at him, but rather calling for help from the staff—
A male was shouting now, and in Kane’s delirium, he thought for a moment it was he himself. But no, someone else was in the doorway, and they were drawing the mahmen back, turning her face into his shoulder.
Cordelhia’s brother shifted their mahmen out of view, and then he came in and grabbed Kane, dragging him off the floor. The blows came from every direction, pummeling his head and chest, and then he was thrust across the room. His lack of coordination meant that the momentum carried him onward, his weight pitching headfirst, his feet failing to keep up. His shellan’s dressing bureau stopped him, and he caught his reflection in the mirror stand for a split second before the impact of his body wiped everything off its surface.
Crashing, now, but the sound was distilled through the cotton wool that his head felt packed in.
“You killed her!”
Kane was yanked back to his feet. And as he looked to the bed, he couldn’t breathe. The blood… was everywhere.
“Cordelhia—”
Her brother’s face thrust into his own. “Do not ever utter her name again. Ever!”
The slap came from the right, and the contact of the hard palm on his face was so violent, he spun around, or mayhap the room was spinning, he did not know. As his balance left him, he hit the wall across from the bed, the oil painting of his female’s favorite wee terrier falling from its mount.
Kane’s knees went out from under him and he sank down to the floor. “I did not kill her! It was not me!”
Cordelhia’s brother snatched something off the needlepoint rug, and as the male lunged forward, the sterling silver blade of the envelope opener caught the lantern light, flashing with a wink.
Kane rolled onto his back and presented the front of his throat. “Kill me! Kill me now! I do not want to live without her—”
The words stopped the other male, and there was a moment of suspended time. Then his female’s brother fell to his knees. He was panting, his chest pumping beneath his finely tailored clothing, his flushed face a horrible facsimile of what it normally appeared to be.
The letter opener trembled in his hand. But it steadied as he raised the tiny sword over his shoulder, the arc of its sharp point angled so that it would pierce Kane through the center of the chest.
“Kill me,” Kane moaned as he tore his shirt asunder. “Kill—”
“No!” Abruptly, the other male leaned forward and made a fist. “No! You will live with what you have done, Kanemille, son of Ulyss the Elder.”
Her brother slashed his arm down and the blow to the head finished what the delirium had started. Kane lost consciousness, his final awareness the scent of his tears mingling with the copper bloom of her blood and the…
* * *
… smell of the earth.
No, that couldn’t be right.
Firstly, he surely must be dead, so why would he be smelling aught? And secondly, if he were alive, he would be at his home, so why would he be smelling dirt if he were in Cordelhia’s bedding chamber?
And there were other things in the air: A wretched rotting stink. Mold. Old fabric. His own blood. Verily, he was no longer at his estate.
Unable to assess his surroundings, he performed an accounting of himself: His mind remained sluggish, his hearing was phasing in and out, and his eyes refused to open. Farther down, his belly was both sour and empty, but he could not worry about that—
“Aye, yer in rough shape.”
The voice was close by, and as the words registered, he was unsure who was talking. He had a thought he should lift his lids, but his head was pounding and his face felt swollen—therefore, he did not believe it was possible.
“I beg your pardon?” he mumbled.
“Ah, so yer a posh one. I fig’d by the looks of yer—and who dropped yer off.” There was a shuffling, as if someone was moving around on packed earth. “Yer’ll be needin’ to take cover, gov’ner.”
With sloppy thoughts, he attempted to remember what had happened after Cordelhia’s brother had struck him that last time. He had the sense that there had been a passage of hours. Perhaps even a day and night cycle.
“Where am I?” he asked.
When there was no answer, he tried again to open his eyes. And when he was unable, he had a thought that he would lift up one of his hands—but alas, his arms did not seem to be of function.
“Yer in the prison camp. Yer were dropped here at dawn yest. Yer cannae stay here. There be people yer needing to stay away from.”
Prison camp? Wherever was that?
“Yer best be moving, gov’ner. Yer caught here, they’ll be takin’ yer to the Hive. Yer be an exemplification.”
He had to get out of here, Kane thought. He had to find whoe’er was in charge, and explain his situation, and tell whoe’er would release him that he was being held under false pretenses. Then surely they would return him unto his freedom and he could set about speaking properly with Cordelhia’s bloodline. After all, he had a funeral to prepare, and there were doggen and servants to settle.
And a murderer to find.
Someone had planned the death. They’d removed his envelope opener from his desk—and chosen it with purpose as something, in a house full of items and art that had been gifted unto him, identified as his own possession. Then they had put some kind of substance into his sherry, in the decanter from which he, and he alone, partook. And just before he had collapsed—
The sound. Outside the study.
Somebody had come unto his study’s window, as if they had been waiting for him to drink and be o’ertaken by whate’er had been mixed into the sherry.
And then he had fallen to the floor and seen the boots.
After which, he had woken up in Cordelhia’s bedchamber.
The image of his mate having bled out on the bed ushered in a wave of pain that broke through his numb confusion, and as he breathed in, he smelled her blood again and recalled the scent of her fertile time. How had this happened? Just a fortnight before, he had come home to find her and the doggen celebrating the anniversary of his birth. And now she was dead and he was…
“Are you awake?”
The stranger’s voice was a bit more urgent now, and Kane found it difficult to ascertain whether it was male or female. At first, it had been male, it seemed, but now there was a female lilt to the syllables. A rather different accent as well.
How had his life come to this—
“You’re moaning. Are you hurt?”
“Yes,” Kane said. “My mate is dead. And I did not kill her—they put me in the prison, and I did not—”
“Kane?”
How did the prisoner know his—
* * *
Kane came back to the present with a full-body jerk, the shock of reorientation such that for a moment he had no idea where he was. He knew it wasn’t the chamber of his murdered shellan, and he knew it wasn’t the prison camp, but other than that—
“Kane.”
His head snapped up. On the far side of a sofa, on a bed that was quite wide, a draping of blankets appeared to be speaking to him—
“Nadya?”
As her name came out of him, all was set to rights: The escape of the night before. The hut with the silver-haired female. The viper…
He frowned and tilted his head. Between one heartbeat and the next, an image came to him, bubbling up from the amnesia that had locked the memories of the night before out of his reach.
“Viper,” he whispered.
“What did you say?”
Just as quickly as it came to him, the memory was lost. Like a curtain closing, whatever glimpse he had been offered zippered itself tight, no more to be seen, no more information available.
To the point where he couldn’t even remember what he’d spoken.
“Sorry,” he said as he rubbed his face. “I’m… so sorry.”
As he muttered to himself, he had no idea what he was apologizing for. And then something dawned on him.
He was free.
He could find out who had killed Cordelhia.
The mystery could finally be solved.
With that realization hitting him, a lethargy claimed his body and mind, sucking him down into a darkness that was so complete, he wasn’t just sleeping… he was owned by the void.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
From over on the bed, Nadya couldn’t look away from Kane. He was sitting on the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms resting around his middle, his head tilted down with his chin on his chest. He had been talking under his breath, and with his half-closed eyes, she hadn’t been sure whether he was awake or not.
When she’d said his name, he’d glanced at her, mumbled a word, and then apologized. But he hadn’t been talking to her, not really, and now he was gone again—although she knew where he was in his head. She had heard the story before, while sitting at his bedside for all those hours at her clinic, his subconscious churning over events that would not, could not, be changed, no matter how many times he went through what had happened.
The death of his Cordelhia. The night that had derailed his life. The way he had ended up in the camp.
He’d said something else at the end now, though. A word she hadn’t quite caught, and had never heard him say before in connection with his history.
And now he appeared to be fully asleep, his frown intense, but his breathing deep and even. Staring across at him, she still couldn’t believe his appearance, and she finally had to look elsewhere because she felt as though she were invading his privacy because he was unaware of her focus.
Glancing around, she was astonished at how everything was so neat and quiet—in contrast to the prison camp, especially the former one that had been a rabbit warren carved out under the earth.
Then again, the difference was the safety, not the silence or cleanliness.
It had been so long since she had not slept with one eye open. Part of it was the security of this hidden place, but more of it was Kane. His presence was a declaration of protection, and though she had not expected to find any rest, she had even dreamed during the day—and not had nightmares for once. In fact, in her repose, she had been back as she had once been, with flowing hair, and limbs that worked, and a future ahead in the human library.
And Kane might just have walked up to her front desk with a book in his hand… and warmth in his eyes.
“Stop,” she whispered.
Fantasies were not what she needed right now. What she needed was…
A real bathroom, with running water.
Yes, that was it.
Shifting around, she moved over the top of the bed to the far side, and gingerly put her bare feet down to the floor. The carpeting was soft, just like the bed had been, and both were a reminder of creature comforts, things she had taken for granted and then not known for what seemed like an eternity.
As always, she was careful settling her weight on her bad leg, giving the knee and ankle joints an opportunity to accept what she was requesting of them. When she was ready, she took the blanket she had slept on with her and limped across to the bathroom, shutting herself in. There was a tiny light plugged into a socket, the glow like a firefly mounted on the wall, and she was relieved she didn’t have to turn on anything harsh.
For a moment, she just stood between the white porcelain sink and the shower stall, and when she had trouble connecting to where she was, she put a hand out in either direction, feeling the pattern on the frosted glass door and the cool smoothness of the basin.
Then she reached in and started the shower, used the toilet, and removed her robing. It was impossible not to look down at her knobby knees and her bony calves as she tested the water. The acid attack had only impacted her face, neck, and some of her upper body, but that broken leg of hers, which had healed so badly, was going to be an equal problem for the rest of her life.
As she considered her frailty, her mind took her back to when she’d been chained to the pegs on that stained wall, the guard cutting the hood off and then staring at her as if she were a carnival exhibit he was determined to get his money’s worth of before the curtain closed.
Stepping into the shower, she shivered at the gentle fall on her skin, and for a moment, everything was too comfortable, too much as it had been before the acid attack—especially as she looked to the tiled wall and saw on a little shelf twin bottles of shampoo and conditioner. There was also a bar of soap still in its wrapper.
“Dial,” the logo read.
Her hand shook as she reached out and opened the soap’s folds of foiled paper. It was a small bar, an individual-use one, and it was orange as a mandarin. The smell was not pleasant, but nor was it offending to the senses.
Palming the bar, she created a froth by rolling the square over and over again under the water, and when there was a sufficiency, she took the suds to her face and her neck. The nerves in the skin that had been burned by the acid no longer functioned, and it had taken her time to get used to the one-sided nature of the sensations, only the ridges on her forehead, cheeks, and jaw registering on her hands, nothing else making any impression on her face.
The fragrance swelled as she continued to wash herself, including the top of her head and the straggled patches of hair. The shampoo and conditioner were just not warranted: She didn’t have enough or in good enough shape to worry about that.
How had she let Kane see her like this, she wondered.
Finished with her ablutions, she turned to the spray and tilted her head back as far as it could go—which was not that far. And then, she had to get reasonable.
Kane was right.
If she went back to the prison, she was as good as dead. That head of the guards was going to get her pound of flesh for that guard Nadya had killed, and it was going to be a very painful death. And if she died at the hands of that female? She was making a mockery of the risks Kane had taken to come back for her.
But she had not lied when she’d told him she would go back because she had nowhere else to go. The prison camp was a terrible place, but she had a routine there. She knew what she had to worry about, what she should be scared of, and where to go if she was in danger. And sometimes comfort could be found in the predictability of the unpleasant. It was easier than evolving past her grief and anger, for sure, and besides, she had been out of the human-dominated world now for forty years. Things were going to be very different than she remembered.
She wasn’t sure whether she had the energy to assimilate into all the modernity.
Where would she go, though?
Turning off the shower, she stepped out and debated whether to use the towel that was hanging on a rod mounted by the sink. The white terrycloth length was folded perfectly, and she didn’t feel as though her body deserved the disturbance of its careful arrangement.
As she turned to the sink, she discovered that even though she’d been preoccupied as she’d entered the bathroom, she had nonetheless placed the lid down on the toilet and precisely folded her robing, her loose tunic, her underthings, and her leggings upon it.
