Lover Unveiled, page 31
The Reverend opened his mouth like he was going to make a snide comment. But the male didn’t follow through on the impulse.
As a calculating look came into those eyes, he smiled a little. “Fascinating.” Then he nodded with respect. “And I do believe you are right. I don’t know who I’m dealing with—but neither do you, fighter. You’ll be hearing from me.”
The Reverend bowed. And then he was off, disappearing into the night.
Left on his little lonesome, Sahvage went back to staring over the slow-moving water. The fact that he didn’t know the river’s name was a testament to how many places he had been over the last couple of centuries. From wandering the Old Country’s various nation-states to coming to the New World fifty years ago and traveling all around the South and the Midwest, the globe was a blur to him. Then again, he’d never used maps. Maps were for people with destinations. The sole direction he took was no daylight and veins only when he absolutely needed them.
Otherwise, he roamed in search of a moving target.
No, that was actually no longer true. He had come to this side of the big pond because he had finally given up on finding his cousin. Just as he had predicted the night he resealed his coffin full of oat flour, his “death” had freed him of any ties, and he had gone to ground, following up on leads, gossip, and tenuous stories of magic in hopes of finding Rahvyn.
Not one single trace. She must have died somewhere along the line—and now he was here, an ocean away. But no longer purposeless.
The Reverend was right. He wasn’t going after the Book for Mae.
He was going to find it and destroy the goddamn thing before she could ruin her brother’s life.
And her own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Balz limped around in circles outside one of the training center’s operating rooms. There were a lot of people with him: Xcor and the rest of the Band of Bastards, the Brotherhood, the other fighters in the house. On the far side of the closed door, Syphon was being treated for God only knew what.
On that note, Balz pulled up the sleeve of the flannel shirt he’d changed into after his own medical exam. The welt on his forearm was calming down, the raised flesh less angry, less swollen. There were a lot of the damn things, mostly on his chest and arms. Maybe twenty percent of his entire body.
Syphon was at more like eighty percent.
If the male died, it was all Balz’s fault.
Back at that psychic’s, Manny had arrived with his mobile surgical unit a mere eight minutes after the call-in for help, and Xcor and several of the Brothers had loaded Syphon into the treatment bay. Balz had refused any medical attention at that point, and insisted on riding in to offer protection.
Not that he had been much use. He’d been in killer pain.
But self-blame was a better analgesic than morphine, go figure.
In recounting the attack, he’d done what he could to fill the docs and the other fighters in on what had happened. But he’d given them all an edited version—although he’d been totally up front about the shadow. Again, it had been a goddamn shame that he hadn’t had water from the Scribe Virgin’s fountain in those bullets—
“There’s a new evil in town,” Butch muttered. “Maybe the shadows are something of hers.”
As a cold rush of awareness fell on Balz’s head, he pivoted around and faced the Brother. Butch O’Neal was a sharp dresser when he was off the clock, a great fighter when he was on it, and wicked handy—as he would have said—with a potato launcher. He’d also been up close and in person with—
“Hers?” Balz heard himself say.
“You remember what happened with the Omega. The woman—or yeah, whatever the fuck she is.”
“Oh, right.” Balz cleared his throat. Twice. “Right. Right, sure.”
His brain, his awareness, was like a Victorian stereoscope, where two flat photographs of the same thing were merged and became a three-dimensional image.
He felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Just curious. What did she look like?”
Butch shook his head as he glanced at his roommate, V, and then looked back over. “You mean, did I see her driver’s license?” Then he frowned. “Wait, you’re serious. What she looked like?”
“Yeah.” Balz shrugged and tried to appear casual. “I mean, if she’s out there on the streets of Caldwell, with some kind of shadow army, shouldn’t all of us have an idea of what she looks like?”
Butch shrugged and then nodded. “Good point. Ah, well… she’s pretty much the most beautiful brunette you’ve ever seen. Until you look her in the eye. And then… she’s horror and destruction and disease…” Butch made the sign of the cross over his heavy chest. “She is as enticing as poison in a rosebud.”
Conversation bubbled up at that point, the Brothers who had seen her chiming in. But it wasn’t like Balz needed any more descriptors—the truth was… he’d known the answer before he’d asked the question.
To make it like there was nothing wrong, he hung out for a little longer, and then he broke away, making sure he told Xcor he’d be right back. The locker room for males was next door, and as he stumbled inside, he went past the lineup of lockers to the row of sinks by the shower stalls. Running some water in one of the basins, he splashed his face and scrubbed the moisture off with some buff-colored paper towels from a dispenser.
Dropping his hands, he stared at himself in the mirror—
Don’t worry, I forgive you, lover boy.
As the female voice echoed through his head, he wheeled around. “I’m not yours for the taking,” he said to the shower stalls.
How ’bout we bet on that?
The locker room door opened, and he went for the gun he’d loaded—
Butch walked in, and the Brother’s stride was as casual as Balz had tried to make his own when he had left. That face, though, was not relaxed in the slightest, and those hazel eyes were knowing. You could tell the guy had been a cop in his earlier life as a human.
“Tell me where you’ve seen her.”
Good thing that as a thief, Balz was an accomplished liar. The truth, after all, was only one more safe to break into and steal from. You just did it with words instead of grabby hands.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t bullshit me.” Butch crossed his arms over his chest, his leather fighting jacket creaking. “It’s not going to help either one of us. When did you see her and what did she do to you.”
With a curse, Balz thought about that pause, that moment, when he’d been stuck in between saving his cousin and… whatever she was.
There shouldn’t have been any hesitation at all. And that’s what was terrifying him now.
“Tonight.” He took a deep breath. “Tonight at that psychic’s. And before that, during the day in my bedroom. She came to visit me and I thought I was dreaming, but she somehow scratched my back.”
Butch took a deep breath, as if he were relieved. “Good.”
“I’m sorry?” Balz said with a frown.
“I just, look, I know you’re a big boy and you can take care of yourself. I also know you would never lie about something like that.”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
“I was just worried that you’d seen her. I’m glad you didn’t.”
“What?” Balz shook his head because clearly his ears weren’t working. “I just told you I did. That she was with me—”
“We can’t be too careful, you know. I feel like she’s kind of like an infection. Once she gets in you, she takes over until you die.” Butch clapped Balz on the shoulder. “Sorry that I was paranoid—and really glad she hasn’t crossed your path.”
Balz stared after the Brother in total confusion. When Butch got to the door, the fighter glanced over his shoulder and smiled.
“But hey, we get our hands on that Book and we’ve got all kinds of demon-icillin.”
“What?” Balz asked.
“Word has it that Book can be used for lots of fun things. Including getting rid of pesky trespassers—and I ain’t talking about your uncle Norman over the Christmas holiday.”
As the Brother ducked out of the locker room, Balz mumbled, “I don’t have an uncle Norman.”
He sure as shit had a trespasser, however, and he had a feeling she was working through him in ways he wasn’t aware of.
This realization would have flat-out terrified him.
If he hadn’t already been shitting bricks.
* * *
Back at the cottage, Sahvage entered through the second-story bedroom window, and as he came to the head of the stairs, he called down for Tallah.
He did the same on the first floor.
At the cellar door, he leaned in. Then went down. The old female’s room was open, and the light from the hall shone inside. There was a lot of pink silk with flowers, and furniture that he had seen in what the humans called France, back when he’d been traveling the Old Country. Over on a chaise lounge, Tallah was fast asleep. She had dressed formally once again, her gown a faded teal, her silver fall of hair loose and tangling in the seed pearls that had been stitched on the bodice.
Beside her was a tray with a cup of tea, some half-eaten toast, and a pot of jam.
The life span of vampires was very different from that of humans, and not just from a longevity point of view. Unlike that other species, vampires looked pretty damn good for their entire lives, up until their last decade or so. At that point, the aging process slammed into the body and the mind, and the degeneration of everything occurred on a fast-rate escalation that led right into the grave.
Tallah was not far from a headstone—
“Sahvage?” the female mumbled as she lifted her head. “Is that you?”
“I’m sorry I woke you. I was just checking on you.”
“Oh, that is so kind. Where’s Mae?”
“She’s on her way back.” He took a deep breath. “You haven’t eaten much.”
“I was not very hungry. That stew last night was so filling.”
“You just rest. You look tired.”
“I am.”
As he went to turn away, Tallah said, “She’s lucky to have you.”
With a noncommittal sound, he headed back upstairs and took a seat at the kitchen table. Checking his phone, he frowned at the time and texted Mae. And then he waited for a response. Which would be coming at any second. He was quite sure. She’d probably taken her car.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. Yeah, that was it. Mae was driving back with her car and it would take her—he glanced at the time on his home screen again—probably another ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.
As the quiet in the cottage seeped into him, he found the past coming back one last time. Good thing. He’d lost his patience with his memories… then again, that had been true at the very moment they had been made.
* * *
Tap. Tap. Tap…
The plaintive sound led him unto the broad staircase that ascended to the highest level of the castle. As he followed, a dog upon a scent, he was aware that the volume did not change. Though he instinctively knew he was closing in on the destination, the tapping did not become louder. It was as if the sound was in the very walls of stone, in the floor, in the ceiling.
Or perhaps no.
It might well be inside of him.
His journey ended in front of a stout door, the heavy planks reinforced with iron bars. And on either side, silk flags with golden trim were mounted upon proud poles.
He pictured Zxysis, impaled in the rectum—
Tap. Tap. Tap… tap.
As if its purpose had been served, the sound evaporated. And the door opened with a creaking, though he neither willed it so nor placed his hand upon its latch.
The master’s bedchamber was revealed, a blast of fresh air rushing forth as if it were anxious to depart the luxurious confines. Then again, all was not well.
In the flickering light of agitated candle flames, a scene of violence had even Sahvage closing his eyes.
Rahvyn’s simple underdress, the one that she had worn many times before, was torn to shreds and stained with blood, parts of it here… there… on the bedding platform. And beneath a canopy marked with the silks of the bloodline, the smell of blood and sex was at its strongest, even with the open window.
There she had been taken in violence.
“Dearest Virgin Scribe.”
But that was not all. There… in the corner… there was a bundle of leather, pale, unfinished leather…
Zxysis’s skin.
Sahvage drew his dagger palm down his face. Though he had never been a spiritual male, one caught up in prayers or the promised consolation of the Fade, he could not help but utter the mahmen of the race’s name o’er and o’er again—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Wheeling around, he frowned. The sound was coming from a trestle table by the hearth, and as he approached, he saw that a book lay open beside a black candle, an earthen dish, a dagger, and some herbs. As he breathed in, he caught a scent that was familiar.
His robing.
Lifting the front of the black fall that covered him, he sniffed. Yes, that was what had been pressed onto him—and within the bouquet… Rahvyn’s blood.
He looked at the ancient tome. There were lines of ink upon its parchment, the rusty brown color suggesting that blood had been in the quill that had stroked o’er the pages. The letters and symbols, however… were unlike any he had e’er seen before. However, he had a guess as to the content.
A spell, for surely these ingredients were inexplicable for any other purpose.
And Rahvyn’s vein had been opened.
He thought of the warnings carved on the outside of his coffin. It was not a difficult conclusion that some kind of containing spell had been wrought upon him, although obviously Zxysis hadnae been successful in the attempt.
Turning the cover over to close, Sahvage grimaced. He did not care for the feel of handling any part of the book. And as for what it was bound in? The ugly leather was riddled with cracks and fissures, as if it were aged beyond centuries. There was also a smell, like curdled milk or decaying flesh.
He dropped his hold and rubbed his palm upon his hip. Even after a vigorous scrub, he felt as though something was retained on his fingers, his palm—
The cover flipped back open of its own volition, the pages ruffling in a rush, sure as if ghosted hands were skimming through them. Sahvage backed away, but stopped as the book came to a rest in a different place than had been exposed previously.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Narrowing his eyes, he recognized the symbols of the language he had learned as a young. Indeed, he could now read what was upon the parchment, and he had the sense that it was a message for him. Or perhaps a calling… or a command—
Sahvage covered his eyes. “No.”
He knew not what he was saying, nor to whom. But the denial had to stand true, stand strong. He somehow had the conviction that if he set his gaze upon the pages, if he absorbed the symbols and translated them into words, he would embark upon a path from which he could not depart.
With a wrench, he turned away. The slatted shutters of the windows were, as the drawbridge had been, open and offering a ready exit.
Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptaptaptap—
As the summoning sound started up once more, and became so loud it was the now a pounding like heavy boots upon a wooden floor, Sahvage closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the fresh night air. He had to block out the scents that made him violent, the blood and the sex of an innocent taken by force, rendering it impossible for him to calm himself.
So he needed must put them aside.
As he focused on dematerializing, he was as the others of the household had been, compelled by a sense of survival to depart, depart, depart—
* * *
Sahvage jumped back to present awareness with a full-body jerk and a suck of air. For a moment, the now-familiar details of Tallah’s kitchen were utterly foreign. But then he saw the pots and pans he had washed drying in the rack, the refrigerator against the door, the duffle of guns and ammo on the table in front of him.
“Shit,” he breathed.
Rubbing his head, he could still picture that trestle table in the bloodied bedchamber, and what had been with the Book made him think back to what Mae and Tallah had laid out here, the salad dressing ingredients that were not for any lettuce leaves ever—
He looked around sharply. “Mae?”
His hand shot out and grabbed his phone. As he checked his texts… nothing from her. No calls, either. And it was over an hour and twenty minutes since he’d left her house.
Where the fuck was she?
CHAPTER FORTY
Mae came back to consciousness slowly, and the markers that her brain was back online were mainly the physical information that she began processing: Her head hurt. She was lying on something that had thin ridges. One whole arm was numb.
And what was that smell?
She focused on the fragrance for no particular reason, and as a mental connection was made, the image that her memories coughed up was one that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
The Galleria Mall. Christmas time.
The perfume counter in Macy’s. An aggressive saleslady double-fisting spray bottles that had had hair triggers. Mae getting hit in the face with something that had made her eyes sting and her nose tickle like she had a single strand of fine cat hair up each nostril.
Her eyes flipped open.
Right in front of her face… there was a pattern of wires. But that couldn’t be right…?
It took some deep breaths before things focused properly and she discovered that what she thought she was seeing was correct—and also wrong. The thin ridges pressing into her were a weave of black coated wires.
She was in a cage. Like a dog cage.
“You’re reminding me of someone.”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Mae moved her eyes, not her head. Through the pattern of crosshatches, she looked across an open space…
As a calculating look came into those eyes, he smiled a little. “Fascinating.” Then he nodded with respect. “And I do believe you are right. I don’t know who I’m dealing with—but neither do you, fighter. You’ll be hearing from me.”
The Reverend bowed. And then he was off, disappearing into the night.
Left on his little lonesome, Sahvage went back to staring over the slow-moving water. The fact that he didn’t know the river’s name was a testament to how many places he had been over the last couple of centuries. From wandering the Old Country’s various nation-states to coming to the New World fifty years ago and traveling all around the South and the Midwest, the globe was a blur to him. Then again, he’d never used maps. Maps were for people with destinations. The sole direction he took was no daylight and veins only when he absolutely needed them.
Otherwise, he roamed in search of a moving target.
No, that was actually no longer true. He had come to this side of the big pond because he had finally given up on finding his cousin. Just as he had predicted the night he resealed his coffin full of oat flour, his “death” had freed him of any ties, and he had gone to ground, following up on leads, gossip, and tenuous stories of magic in hopes of finding Rahvyn.
Not one single trace. She must have died somewhere along the line—and now he was here, an ocean away. But no longer purposeless.
The Reverend was right. He wasn’t going after the Book for Mae.
He was going to find it and destroy the goddamn thing before she could ruin her brother’s life.
And her own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Balz limped around in circles outside one of the training center’s operating rooms. There were a lot of people with him: Xcor and the rest of the Band of Bastards, the Brotherhood, the other fighters in the house. On the far side of the closed door, Syphon was being treated for God only knew what.
On that note, Balz pulled up the sleeve of the flannel shirt he’d changed into after his own medical exam. The welt on his forearm was calming down, the raised flesh less angry, less swollen. There were a lot of the damn things, mostly on his chest and arms. Maybe twenty percent of his entire body.
Syphon was at more like eighty percent.
If the male died, it was all Balz’s fault.
Back at that psychic’s, Manny had arrived with his mobile surgical unit a mere eight minutes after the call-in for help, and Xcor and several of the Brothers had loaded Syphon into the treatment bay. Balz had refused any medical attention at that point, and insisted on riding in to offer protection.
Not that he had been much use. He’d been in killer pain.
But self-blame was a better analgesic than morphine, go figure.
In recounting the attack, he’d done what he could to fill the docs and the other fighters in on what had happened. But he’d given them all an edited version—although he’d been totally up front about the shadow. Again, it had been a goddamn shame that he hadn’t had water from the Scribe Virgin’s fountain in those bullets—
“There’s a new evil in town,” Butch muttered. “Maybe the shadows are something of hers.”
As a cold rush of awareness fell on Balz’s head, he pivoted around and faced the Brother. Butch O’Neal was a sharp dresser when he was off the clock, a great fighter when he was on it, and wicked handy—as he would have said—with a potato launcher. He’d also been up close and in person with—
“Hers?” Balz heard himself say.
“You remember what happened with the Omega. The woman—or yeah, whatever the fuck she is.”
“Oh, right.” Balz cleared his throat. Twice. “Right. Right, sure.”
His brain, his awareness, was like a Victorian stereoscope, where two flat photographs of the same thing were merged and became a three-dimensional image.
He felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Just curious. What did she look like?”
Butch shook his head as he glanced at his roommate, V, and then looked back over. “You mean, did I see her driver’s license?” Then he frowned. “Wait, you’re serious. What she looked like?”
“Yeah.” Balz shrugged and tried to appear casual. “I mean, if she’s out there on the streets of Caldwell, with some kind of shadow army, shouldn’t all of us have an idea of what she looks like?”
Butch shrugged and then nodded. “Good point. Ah, well… she’s pretty much the most beautiful brunette you’ve ever seen. Until you look her in the eye. And then… she’s horror and destruction and disease…” Butch made the sign of the cross over his heavy chest. “She is as enticing as poison in a rosebud.”
Conversation bubbled up at that point, the Brothers who had seen her chiming in. But it wasn’t like Balz needed any more descriptors—the truth was… he’d known the answer before he’d asked the question.
To make it like there was nothing wrong, he hung out for a little longer, and then he broke away, making sure he told Xcor he’d be right back. The locker room for males was next door, and as he stumbled inside, he went past the lineup of lockers to the row of sinks by the shower stalls. Running some water in one of the basins, he splashed his face and scrubbed the moisture off with some buff-colored paper towels from a dispenser.
Dropping his hands, he stared at himself in the mirror—
Don’t worry, I forgive you, lover boy.
As the female voice echoed through his head, he wheeled around. “I’m not yours for the taking,” he said to the shower stalls.
How ’bout we bet on that?
The locker room door opened, and he went for the gun he’d loaded—
Butch walked in, and the Brother’s stride was as casual as Balz had tried to make his own when he had left. That face, though, was not relaxed in the slightest, and those hazel eyes were knowing. You could tell the guy had been a cop in his earlier life as a human.
“Tell me where you’ve seen her.”
Good thing that as a thief, Balz was an accomplished liar. The truth, after all, was only one more safe to break into and steal from. You just did it with words instead of grabby hands.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t bullshit me.” Butch crossed his arms over his chest, his leather fighting jacket creaking. “It’s not going to help either one of us. When did you see her and what did she do to you.”
With a curse, Balz thought about that pause, that moment, when he’d been stuck in between saving his cousin and… whatever she was.
There shouldn’t have been any hesitation at all. And that’s what was terrifying him now.
“Tonight.” He took a deep breath. “Tonight at that psychic’s. And before that, during the day in my bedroom. She came to visit me and I thought I was dreaming, but she somehow scratched my back.”
Butch took a deep breath, as if he were relieved. “Good.”
“I’m sorry?” Balz said with a frown.
“I just, look, I know you’re a big boy and you can take care of yourself. I also know you would never lie about something like that.”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
“I was just worried that you’d seen her. I’m glad you didn’t.”
“What?” Balz shook his head because clearly his ears weren’t working. “I just told you I did. That she was with me—”
“We can’t be too careful, you know. I feel like she’s kind of like an infection. Once she gets in you, she takes over until you die.” Butch clapped Balz on the shoulder. “Sorry that I was paranoid—and really glad she hasn’t crossed your path.”
Balz stared after the Brother in total confusion. When Butch got to the door, the fighter glanced over his shoulder and smiled.
“But hey, we get our hands on that Book and we’ve got all kinds of demon-icillin.”
“What?” Balz asked.
“Word has it that Book can be used for lots of fun things. Including getting rid of pesky trespassers—and I ain’t talking about your uncle Norman over the Christmas holiday.”
As the Brother ducked out of the locker room, Balz mumbled, “I don’t have an uncle Norman.”
He sure as shit had a trespasser, however, and he had a feeling she was working through him in ways he wasn’t aware of.
This realization would have flat-out terrified him.
If he hadn’t already been shitting bricks.
* * *
Back at the cottage, Sahvage entered through the second-story bedroom window, and as he came to the head of the stairs, he called down for Tallah.
He did the same on the first floor.
At the cellar door, he leaned in. Then went down. The old female’s room was open, and the light from the hall shone inside. There was a lot of pink silk with flowers, and furniture that he had seen in what the humans called France, back when he’d been traveling the Old Country. Over on a chaise lounge, Tallah was fast asleep. She had dressed formally once again, her gown a faded teal, her silver fall of hair loose and tangling in the seed pearls that had been stitched on the bodice.
Beside her was a tray with a cup of tea, some half-eaten toast, and a pot of jam.
The life span of vampires was very different from that of humans, and not just from a longevity point of view. Unlike that other species, vampires looked pretty damn good for their entire lives, up until their last decade or so. At that point, the aging process slammed into the body and the mind, and the degeneration of everything occurred on a fast-rate escalation that led right into the grave.
Tallah was not far from a headstone—
“Sahvage?” the female mumbled as she lifted her head. “Is that you?”
“I’m sorry I woke you. I was just checking on you.”
“Oh, that is so kind. Where’s Mae?”
“She’s on her way back.” He took a deep breath. “You haven’t eaten much.”
“I was not very hungry. That stew last night was so filling.”
“You just rest. You look tired.”
“I am.”
As he went to turn away, Tallah said, “She’s lucky to have you.”
With a noncommittal sound, he headed back upstairs and took a seat at the kitchen table. Checking his phone, he frowned at the time and texted Mae. And then he waited for a response. Which would be coming at any second. He was quite sure. She’d probably taken her car.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. Yeah, that was it. Mae was driving back with her car and it would take her—he glanced at the time on his home screen again—probably another ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.
As the quiet in the cottage seeped into him, he found the past coming back one last time. Good thing. He’d lost his patience with his memories… then again, that had been true at the very moment they had been made.
* * *
Tap. Tap. Tap…
The plaintive sound led him unto the broad staircase that ascended to the highest level of the castle. As he followed, a dog upon a scent, he was aware that the volume did not change. Though he instinctively knew he was closing in on the destination, the tapping did not become louder. It was as if the sound was in the very walls of stone, in the floor, in the ceiling.
Or perhaps no.
It might well be inside of him.
His journey ended in front of a stout door, the heavy planks reinforced with iron bars. And on either side, silk flags with golden trim were mounted upon proud poles.
He pictured Zxysis, impaled in the rectum—
Tap. Tap. Tap… tap.
As if its purpose had been served, the sound evaporated. And the door opened with a creaking, though he neither willed it so nor placed his hand upon its latch.
The master’s bedchamber was revealed, a blast of fresh air rushing forth as if it were anxious to depart the luxurious confines. Then again, all was not well.
In the flickering light of agitated candle flames, a scene of violence had even Sahvage closing his eyes.
Rahvyn’s simple underdress, the one that she had worn many times before, was torn to shreds and stained with blood, parts of it here… there… on the bedding platform. And beneath a canopy marked with the silks of the bloodline, the smell of blood and sex was at its strongest, even with the open window.
There she had been taken in violence.
“Dearest Virgin Scribe.”
But that was not all. There… in the corner… there was a bundle of leather, pale, unfinished leather…
Zxysis’s skin.
Sahvage drew his dagger palm down his face. Though he had never been a spiritual male, one caught up in prayers or the promised consolation of the Fade, he could not help but utter the mahmen of the race’s name o’er and o’er again—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Wheeling around, he frowned. The sound was coming from a trestle table by the hearth, and as he approached, he saw that a book lay open beside a black candle, an earthen dish, a dagger, and some herbs. As he breathed in, he caught a scent that was familiar.
His robing.
Lifting the front of the black fall that covered him, he sniffed. Yes, that was what had been pressed onto him—and within the bouquet… Rahvyn’s blood.
He looked at the ancient tome. There were lines of ink upon its parchment, the rusty brown color suggesting that blood had been in the quill that had stroked o’er the pages. The letters and symbols, however… were unlike any he had e’er seen before. However, he had a guess as to the content.
A spell, for surely these ingredients were inexplicable for any other purpose.
And Rahvyn’s vein had been opened.
He thought of the warnings carved on the outside of his coffin. It was not a difficult conclusion that some kind of containing spell had been wrought upon him, although obviously Zxysis hadnae been successful in the attempt.
Turning the cover over to close, Sahvage grimaced. He did not care for the feel of handling any part of the book. And as for what it was bound in? The ugly leather was riddled with cracks and fissures, as if it were aged beyond centuries. There was also a smell, like curdled milk or decaying flesh.
He dropped his hold and rubbed his palm upon his hip. Even after a vigorous scrub, he felt as though something was retained on his fingers, his palm—
The cover flipped back open of its own volition, the pages ruffling in a rush, sure as if ghosted hands were skimming through them. Sahvage backed away, but stopped as the book came to a rest in a different place than had been exposed previously.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Narrowing his eyes, he recognized the symbols of the language he had learned as a young. Indeed, he could now read what was upon the parchment, and he had the sense that it was a message for him. Or perhaps a calling… or a command—
Sahvage covered his eyes. “No.”
He knew not what he was saying, nor to whom. But the denial had to stand true, stand strong. He somehow had the conviction that if he set his gaze upon the pages, if he absorbed the symbols and translated them into words, he would embark upon a path from which he could not depart.
With a wrench, he turned away. The slatted shutters of the windows were, as the drawbridge had been, open and offering a ready exit.
Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptaptaptap—
As the summoning sound started up once more, and became so loud it was the now a pounding like heavy boots upon a wooden floor, Sahvage closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the fresh night air. He had to block out the scents that made him violent, the blood and the sex of an innocent taken by force, rendering it impossible for him to calm himself.
So he needed must put them aside.
As he focused on dematerializing, he was as the others of the household had been, compelled by a sense of survival to depart, depart, depart—
* * *
Sahvage jumped back to present awareness with a full-body jerk and a suck of air. For a moment, the now-familiar details of Tallah’s kitchen were utterly foreign. But then he saw the pots and pans he had washed drying in the rack, the refrigerator against the door, the duffle of guns and ammo on the table in front of him.
“Shit,” he breathed.
Rubbing his head, he could still picture that trestle table in the bloodied bedchamber, and what had been with the Book made him think back to what Mae and Tallah had laid out here, the salad dressing ingredients that were not for any lettuce leaves ever—
He looked around sharply. “Mae?”
His hand shot out and grabbed his phone. As he checked his texts… nothing from her. No calls, either. And it was over an hour and twenty minutes since he’d left her house.
Where the fuck was she?
CHAPTER FORTY
Mae came back to consciousness slowly, and the markers that her brain was back online were mainly the physical information that she began processing: Her head hurt. She was lying on something that had thin ridges. One whole arm was numb.
And what was that smell?
She focused on the fragrance for no particular reason, and as a mental connection was made, the image that her memories coughed up was one that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
The Galleria Mall. Christmas time.
The perfume counter in Macy’s. An aggressive saleslady double-fisting spray bottles that had had hair triggers. Mae getting hit in the face with something that had made her eyes sting and her nose tickle like she had a single strand of fine cat hair up each nostril.
Her eyes flipped open.
Right in front of her face… there was a pattern of wires. But that couldn’t be right…?
It took some deep breaths before things focused properly and she discovered that what she thought she was seeing was correct—and also wrong. The thin ridges pressing into her were a weave of black coated wires.
She was in a cage. Like a dog cage.
“You’re reminding me of someone.”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Mae moved her eyes, not her head. Through the pattern of crosshatches, she looked across an open space…
