Authors: Anne Bishop
She stopped in the doorway and looked at him. “Do you think so? Would
you
want to give Yaslana and Sadi a reason to be coming after you?”
Bitch. She’d actually given him a shiver down his spine. But he’d covered his tracks. They wouldn’t find him. Even when his next book came out, they wouldn’t connect Jarvis Jenkell, renowned author from Little Terreille, with the tragedy that took place in a landen village in the middle of Dhemlan.
But because she’d given him that momentary shiver, he really hoped
Lady
Surreal was the person who found the first big surprise.
Power and temper blew the message-station door open, almost ripping it from its hinges, but the Station Master held his ground behind the counter as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan strode across the room. The gold eyes were glazed—a warning to everyone that a Warlord Prince was riding the killing edge—and that beautiful face was a cold, cold mask.
The Prince placed a piece of paper on the counter, folded and sealed with the SaDiablo crest pressed into the bloodred wax. “Assign your fastest messenger to deliver this. Send him now.” He turned and walked away. As he reached the door, he added, “And may the Darkness have mercy on you if that message doesn’t reach my brother in time.”
The Station Master’s hand shook as he picked up the paper and read the name and location of delivery just to be sure. Not that he had any doubt about
who
was supposed to receive the message. Then he looked at the young men watching from the doorway of the room where they sorted through their messages or waited for an assignment.
The Station Master pointed to a messenger. The young Warlord came forward, shaking his head.
“Not me,” the messenger said. “I’ve already been there once today. I’ve completed my assigned runs. I’ve—”
“Do you want to tell the man who walked out of here that the message wasn’t delivered in time?” In time for what, none of them would ever ask—and most of them hoped they would never find out.
He watched, puzzled, as the messenger shielded himself before taking the message, then put a shield around the message before putting it into his carry bag as if it were a sack full of poisonous snakes instead of a piece of paper, and
then
put
another
shield around the carry bag.
The messenger looked at him and grimaced. “
You
didn’t deliver the last message.” Then he added under his breath, “And I don’t want
him
kicking my ass.”
The Station Master decided not to ask. He just patted the Warlord’s shoulder. “Good lad. Get moving.”
And may the Darkness have mercy on all of us.
A dining room. Table, chairs, and a rug that had swirls of colors that had been muddied by age and dirt—or had been like that in the first place. No tools by the fireplace. She was hoping for another poker to start arming the children. They might not have any skill, but she figured anyone could whack at something that was trying to hurt them.
Guess we only get two weapons,
she thought as she set her lamp at one end of the table and began a slow counterclockwise circuit around the outside of the room while Rainier made the same circuit in the opposite direction.
Three windows. The two along the side of the house had been bricked over. The one in the back, if she could trust what she was seeing, looked out on some kind of veranda. A doorway that opened into a small storeroom and an entryway with a door that
might
work. And a closed door.
Surreal studied the door, then looked at the room again. A triangular hutch in one corner, but it held nothing but teapots and matching cups and saucers. So behind the door was probably the storage cupboard for dishes and linens.
She reached for the knob. Any door might be an exit, right?
Her hand froze above the knob. Instinct? Or something less easy to define? Didn’t matter. If she’d been fully shielded, she might have opened the door just to find out what was making her skin crawl—and then kill it. As it was, she backed away from the door, raising the poker like a sword.
“Surreal?” Rainier asked, stopping his circuit to watch her.
“Something here,” she said.
“Is it something spooky?” Trist asked.
The children had been nicely huddled together when they got into the room. Now they were starting to spread out and explore.
She gave them all a hard look. “Stay away from this door.” She put enough bite in her voice so there wouldn’t be any question that this was a command and not a suggestion. Put enough snap in the words so that none of the children would think she was playing “spooky house” with them.
As she looked at them, she remembered another boy, a little Yellow-Jeweled Warlord who had been a killer’s intended prey. That boy had survived because he had obeyed her orders.
She felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease.
These children were old enough to understand they were in a dangerous situation. Despite the verbal pissing contests they seemed to want to engage in, and despite her calling them idiot sheep, they were smart enough to realize she and Rainier were trying to keep them safe.
And they
would
keep the children safe—at least as long as she and Rainier were both standing.
But there was something about the buzzy-buzz whispering between Dayle and Ginger that annoyed her. And the mumbles and snickers coming from Kester and Trist made her edgy.
Were the buzzy-buzz and the snickers something all children did, or just landens? She didn’t know, wasn’t sure how to ask. When she’d worked in the Red Moon houses as a whore, she’d refused to work in any house that used younger girls, and as an assassin, she had never accepted a contract to kill a child. So she’d had no reason to be around children and plenty of reasons to avoid them. If she’d had friends her own age when she was very young, she didn’t remember them—and by the time she was Ginger’s age, she’d been whoring on the streets in order to survive and had already killed her first man.
She turned away from the children and tipped her head toward the back window, a signal for Rainier to meet her there.
“I didn’t feel anything when I passed that door,” Rainier said quietly.
“I know that,” Surreal replied. “You would have said something if you had.” She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head.
Trist was drifting toward the closed door. He stopped when he realized she was watching him. She waited until he retreated a couple of steps and began another whispered conversation with Kester before she turned her attention back to Rainier.
“Maybe the distaff gender is more sensitive to this spell than the spear gender. Or maybe I do have a bit more feel for what’s here because my mother was a Black Widow. Either way…”
She glanced at the children in time to see Trist grab the knob of the closed door. He gave her a defiant smirk, then turned the knob and pulled the door open.
Disbelief froze her for a moment. Then she and Rainier leaped forward.
The girls screamed. Trist stared at whatever had been waiting in the cupboard. Then hands covered with burned, blackened skin grabbed the boy and yanked him inside.
The door slammed shut.
Trist screamed. And screamed. And screamed.
Rainier reached the door a step ahead of her. He grabbed the knob and tried to open the door, but it was locked, sealed from inside.
“Do it!” she yelled.
Using Craft, Rainier ripped the door off the hinges and threw it aside at the same moment Surreal dropped the poker and leaped into the cupboard, calling in her stiletto since that was a better weapon for close fighting.
No one else inside the small space. Just shelves of old dishes.
But she could still hear the boy screaming and then she heard…
She knew those sounds. She’d made enough kills to know what those sounds—and the sudden lack of screams—meant.
Rainier lobbed the ball of witchlight through the doorway.
She saw the wet spot growing on the wall between a tureen and another serving dish. Pushing them aside, she touched two fingers against the spot, then withdrew her hand and held it so Rainier could see the fresh blood.
A plopping sound. Movement on the shelf had her jolting back a step.
Then something small rolled off the shelf and landed on the floor between her and the door.
She stared at it—and felt that stillness inside her grow sharper and more deadly.
As she stepped over the freshly plucked eye, something inside her snapped. Rainier saw it, recognized it—and moved aside.
Kester, on the other hand, moved toward her when she walked out of the storage cupboard. His fists were clenched, and his expression was a blend of fear and fury.
“You bitch!” he yelled. “You’re supposed to protect us!”
There was something about that blend of fear and fury….
Knowing she was too close to using it on the boy, she dropped the stiletto. Then she grabbed Kester by the shirt, swung him around, and slammed his back against the narrow piece of wall between the cupboard and the passageway.
“Listen to me, you little piece of shit,” she snarled. “You were told there is danger, you were told someone is trying to hurt all of us, and you were told to stay away from that door. But you had to play ‘Who’s got the biggest balls?’ and you dared your friend to open the door. And now he’s dead. So listen up, sugar. That little fool shouldn’t have disobeyed me. Have you got that? If he had done what I’d told him to do, he would not have died. Not here. Not like that.”
She let go of Kester and stepped back. “I hope he’s dead. I really do. But if the rules of this house hold true, you’ll see him again because now he’ll be one of the things that will be trying to kill
you
.”
She spun around, grabbed the lamp off the table, then strode down the passageway.
His hand shook so much with excitement, he had to force himself to slow down. No point taking notes if he couldn’t decipher them, and this particular dialogue was too good to waste.
Oh, yes. This exchange was
excellent.
But one thing did worry him.
Seeing how easily she handled a knife, he began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the Surreal bitch hadn’t been lying when she’d told the children she used to be an assassin.
Surreal passed the back stairs and ended up in the kitchen. She set the lamp down on the worktable and looked around—and wondered if whoever had prepared this house had been foolish enough to leave any knives she could use.
On the other hand, she’d walked into a strange room, alone, with only a lamp. She’d dropped the poker when she’d leaped into the cupboard. And she’d dropped the stiletto too. So who was the real fool?
Stupid boy. Stupid,
stupid
boy to die that way.
Her eyes filled. Her throat closed.
No.
No.
No tears. No grief. Not here. Not yet. But…
The boy had disobeyed. He’d defied a straight order. What in the name of Hell had he been thinking? That this was a game? Well, it was that. A bloody, vicious game. The rest of them knew that now, didn’t they?
That won’t save them from getting killed,
she thought.
Won’t save Rainier and me either.
She looked around the kitchen and said too softly, “I’ll find you, you son of a whoring bitch. I may not still be among the living when it happens, but I will find you. And when I do, I will rip you into small pieces and feed you to whatever you’ve put into this house.”
She laughed, barely making a sound. “You don’t think I can do it? Sugar, I skinned my own father and fed him to the Hell Hounds. If I can do it to him, I can do it to you.”
THIRTEEN
L
ucivar stared at the messenger and didn’t laugh. Didn’t even grin. The effort hurt his muscles, but he kept a straight face as he accepted the shielded message from the heavily shielded young Warlord.
“Thank you, Warlord,” he said.
“It was my pleasure, Prince.”
I doubt it,
Lucivar thought as he watched the messenger walk across the courtyard—and then scamper down the stairs to the landing web. Maybe he’d sounded a
little
too threatening the last time the pup was at the door.
He frowned as he closed the door and locked it for the evening. There had been a message.
The one he held now was in Daemon’s handwriting, but not the careful script he was used to seeing.
He looked at the back side of the message. Official SaDiablo crest pressed into the red wax.
He broke the seal and opened the paper.
Lucivar,
If you’re home, stay there until you hear from me.
Daemon
“Stay there” had been underlined three times.
“Wasn’t planning to go anywhere,” Lucivar muttered, walking toward the kitchen, where Marian was putting away the remains of their meal.
Something niggled his memory. Something about Marian and a message.
Then his darling hearth witch turned away from the sink and looked at him.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“A message from Daemon. He told me to stay home this evening.”
“Why?”
“No idea.” Although…He
almost
knew. The message
almost
made sense.
Then Marian took a step toward him. Something about the look in her eyes. Something about the way her wings flexed open slightly and then closed. Something about her psychic scent—and her physical scent. Something that had changed in the time since she’d come home.
He vanished the paper as his hands caressed the sides of her hips and urged her closer until their bodies were just brushing. He gave her a lazy smile. “Want to snuggle?”
She rolled her hips, pushing into him as her arms wrapped around his neck.
His blood went from warm to sizzle in a heartbeat.
“I was hoping you’d want to do more than that.” She slid one leg along the outside of his, then hooked that leg behind his thigh, pushing herself up against him even more. Opening herself for him.
As her tongue caressed his mouth, demanding entry, he counted days and put the pieces together. She became a bold, aggressive lover during her fertile days. He was pretty sure she didn’t realize there was a pattern to the times when she sought him out for sex instead of him issuing the invitation, but it was a pattern he recognized—and thoroughly enjoyed. Since they weren’t ready to have another baby, he needed to steep his contraceptive brew a little longer for the next few days. Just to be safe.
Then he opened his mouth for her—and lost his ability to think.
“Marian?” he gasped when she broke the kiss and clamped her mouth on his neck. “Come with me, sweetheart. I’ll give you whatever kind of ride you want.”
She nipped him. “I thought we could start here and work our way to the bed.”
Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.
“We could do that,” he said as she lowered her leg and backed him toward a chair. “Oh, yeah. We could do that.”
The ball of witchlight floated into the kitchen, followed by Rainier. He laid the two pokers and her stiletto on the kitchen table.
“The witchlight is dimming,” he said. “Did you check in here to see if there was anything useful?”
Surreal stared at the passageway, then looked at Rainier.
“I left them the other lamp,” he said.
“Left them the…You left them
alone
in there?”
His face hardened with the kind of anger that made her want to take a step back, but she held her ground. She had to. She outranked him, at least in terms of the Jewels each of them wore, and she had to show her faith in his self-control—even when it didn’t look like he had any.
“I’m your escort, not theirs. They disobeyed you. If they want to stay with us, we’ll give them what protection we can. If not…” He shrugged. “Their choice.”
She hadn’t expected Rainier to draw such an unyielding line. Of course, he wouldn’t have been that unyielding if the children had disobeyed
him
rather than
her.
But the Blood males in Kaeleer—especially the Warlord Princes—drew a hard line when it came to disobeying a witch unless she was asking for something they considered unreasonable.
“They’re children,” she argued, knowing it was pointless to argue. “We invited them to join us.”
“We made it easy for someone, but I think those children would have been part of this sick game regardless. How did they know this would be the night the Blood would be coming here?”
“No sign of workmen?” Surreal paused. Would there have been workmen? Or just the Black Widows? Would children just wait around an old house after dark unless someone had given them a hint that they would see something of interest? She wouldn’t have—unless she was meeting someone in order to kill him.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s see if we can find anything useful in here. A market basket, carry sack. Anything we can use to haul around what we find.”
She walked over to the sink. Water would be good. She had a jug of fresh water stored in her “personal cupboard,” a place created by Craft and power that allowed the Blood to carry things without being physically burdened with them. At least Lucivar couldn’t chew on her about not having supplies, and Rainier probably had a jug of water as well. Maybe even some food. But they’d have to use Craft to call in things from those personal cupboards, and she’d rather wait until there wasn’t a choice before doing something that would close another exit.
She turned both taps and waited. The water pipes clanked and gurgled—and finally produced a gush-and-trickle rhythm of rusty water that stank. Letting it run in the hope that she’d eventually get clear water, she started to turn away to help Rainier check drawers and cupboards. Then…
Plink-plink. Plink-plink-plink.
Tiny white nuggets fell from the tap along with the water,
plink
ing into the sink. Minerals in the pipes, knocked loose when she turned on the water?
Instead of being washed down the drain, the nuggets shifted and began to form a pattern. Began to form a tiny hand.
“Well, there
was
a carry basket here,” Rainier said as he closed a lower cupboard door and stood up. “But it looks like mice have been nesting in here for some time.”
Not mineral nuggets coming out of the faucet. She was looking at tiny bones. But how could mice get into water pipes?
Same way anything else could. They had help.
Maybe the main water supply wasn’t contaminated. Maybe it was just the kitchen pipes. Rainier had said mice had been nesting in one of the cupboards. If there was a bathroom in another part of the house, they might be able to get fresh water from there.
“No water we can use here,” Surreal said, moving away from the sink.
“All right,” Rainier replied as he opened a drawer. “We can—”
She yelped and leaped back, banging into the sink as large, hairy-legged spiders poured out of the drawer Rainier had just opened. He danced back, swearing, as spiders fell to the floor and ran in all directions. And as the spiders ran, they…giggled.
Surreal stomped on the one closest to her—and felt nothing under her boot. Saw nothing on the floor when she raised her foot.
Illusions that disappeared within moments of leaving the drawer. Just enough time to scare the shit out of anyone in the room.
She felt as if she’d been slammed against a wall. In a way, she had been. Under other circumstances, she would have created a protective shield around herself and known she was safe from the spiders. The tight muscles came from denying instincts and training by
not
creating a shield.
“You all right?” Rainier asked, his voice sounding sharp.
“Yeah.”
No.
The damn things
giggled.
“Is that all of them?”
Rainier approached the drawer and bent just enough to look inside. Then he took one of the pokers from the kitchen table and used it to push the drawer closed. “There’s one left in the back. Since it’s dining on a mouse, I think it’s the real one.” He looked around the kitchen and blew out a breath that might have been a softly muttered curse. “What in the name of Hell…?”
«It’s Tersa,» Surreal said. They were alone, so she wasn’t sure why she didn’t want to say the words out loud. Except that she really
didn’t
want to say the words out loud.
«What?» Rainier asked, following her lead.
«The spiders. The mouse in the glass. I’m pretty sure those spells were made by Tersa.»
«Are you saying Daemon Sadi’s
mother
is part of this twisted place? That
she’s
one of the people trying to kill us?»
«No! Tersa wouldn’t…» How much did Rainier know about Tersa? He must have met her, but how much did he know? «Someone must have tricked her into creating illusions for this place. She wouldn’t harm children, Rainier. And as sure as the sun doesn’t shine in Hell, she wouldn’t hurt Daemon.»
«So we’re going to run across things that are weird and creepy but mostly benevolent, while other things are really trying to hurt us?»
She hesitated.
«No,» Rainier said softly. «It won’t be that simple. By serving in the Dark Court, I’ve had the privilege of spending time with three of the most brilliant and creative Black Widows in the Realm. So I know, from listening to Jaenelle, Karla, and Gabrielle, that illusion spells and tangled webs can be layered and blended. It doesn’t matter what Tersa intended. A death spell hidden in one of her harmless illusions is still going to kill us.»
«I know.» Glad that Rainier had retrieved all the weapons, she slipped her stiletto into the sheath in her boot, then picked up the other poker and used it to pry open a cupboard. “Let’s see what else is in here.”
Spider, spider. Who found the spider?
Not so brave when someone crippled their power, were they? Not so brave, not so fierce, not so damnably arrogant.
Maybe he should base a character on the Surreal bitch. After all, even with danger all around them, the Blood would still be hot for
some
sex.
Landry Langston could have her for a lover while they were trapped in the haunted house. Hot, fast sex. She’d have to have a climax. Female readers expected
that
. Landry would get out alive, of course, but not be able to save her from the last trap. Would he regret her loss?
Or maybe he should show how cruel witches were when they used males. The witch in the story could
use
Landry, adding another level to his own torment as he tried to find a way out of the house and keep the people trapped inside with him safe. Then, when he had to choose between sacrificing himself in order to save her and getting out of the house alive, he’d be justified in leaving her to the fate she deserved.
Yes. Leave her behind, as if she were worthless, less than nothing.
After all, wasn’t that what the Blood had done to him?
“Six candles,” Rainier said, laying them on the kitchen table. “Too bad I didn’t find any candleholders.”
“I did.” Surreal set two chipped cups on the table.
He looked at them, then at her.
She bit her tongue to keep from calling him an innocent. “I told you—I’ve stayed in places like this at times. You’ve got the matches?”
He took the matchbox out of his pocket. She held up a candle and waited for him to light the wick. Then she tilted the candle just enough for the wax to drip into one cup. As she started the same process with the other cup, she took another candle, set it in the cooling wax, and lit it.
When she set the first candle into its “holder,” Rainier lowered the flame in the oil lamp.
“Hopefully we’ll find more supplies in other rooms, but this will do for now,” Surreal said.
A sound in the passageway.
Rainier grabbed one of the pokers and moved toward the sound. She slipped her stiletto out of the boot sheath and waited.
The children scuffled into the kitchen, looking scared and defiant. She understood both feelings, but right now defiant wasn’t going to make Rainier warm up to them.
When no one said anything, she walked over to the farthest door and opened it cautiously.
Nothing fell out or sprang at her. In fact, she had no idea what the little room was used for. She closed that door and tried the next one. Pantry. That was promising—especially when she saw a few canning jars on the shelves. She closed that door too, then tried the last one, on the other side of the kitchen.
The moment she touched the doorknob, she felt uneasy. “Rainier.”
He came over and settled into a fighting stance. She opened the door slowly, prepared to resist anything that tried to push it open fast.
Nothing.
As she pulled the door all the way open, Rainier took a cautious step forward. Then another.
“Looks like we found the way down to the cellar,” he said.
A vibration in the doorknob, in the door’s wood, as he took another step closer to the top of the stairs.
“If we were in a book,” he began.
“One of us would be dumb enough to take a candle and go down into the dark, scary cellar, where something would be waiting to gut the dumb one.” The doorknob rattled, pulling against her hand. “Rainier, get away from there!”
He spun and leaped clear just as the doorknob yanked out of her grasp and the door slammed shut.
“And the dumb person, having reached the bottom of the stairs when the door mysteriously slams shut…,” Rainier said.
“Is not only locked in with one of the Bad Things, he’s also in the dark because the
whoosh
of air blows out the candle.”