Gelvie, I thought, although I couldn’t place her name nor where I might have met her before, much less why I should have cared that she was dead.
I closed her eyes, troubled by my inability to explain the feelings coursing through me and nearly threatening to choke me with their intensity. “You weren’t supposed to be here,” I said, hoping she’d escaped my last command—but the burns at her throat and the long red lines in her legs told me she hadn’t. I could feel the remnants of her pain, and I heard the echo of her scream, both of them slicing across my spine like dull razors.
I shook the sounds away. No matter.
The officers ran past me, ignorant of my presence. I watched them putting out the fires and carting the bodies away, consoling the small number of surviving souls with blankets and whispers, and I waited. I wasn’t concerned that any of these humans would bother with me. Why? Because they couldn’t see me. I decided to use an invisibility shield to avoid the numerous questions that would no doubt follow as soon as anyone saw me walking amidst the rubble completely unscathed. Who knew? Maybe some of them would realize I was the one responsible for all the carnage in the first place.
Where are the rest of them? I thought. And then, as if responding to my inquiry, they arrived.
A long line of black vans, seven to be exact, and each filled to bursting with agents in suits and ties and sunglasses, all of them armed to the teeth. They leapt from the caravan with practiced ease, the polished veneer of a long career, instilling a calm they didn’t feel. Several hulking figures walked among the state officers, snapping orders and asking questions, flaunting warrants that gave them complete sway over the case.
Finally, I thought. With luck, they’d discover us and we’d make the morning paper—in a town that still had one, of course.
I closed my eyes and muttered a spell, splitting the world before me. Splendor undid itself in a swirl of blue and blistering red, twisting into nothing as the portal wove itself through numerous dimensions.
“Home,” I said, and that’s precisely where it took me.
###
We lay in bed in the room where the two men died, Bram and Knightley, I think their names were.
Sebastian’s hands gripped my waist, his glassy eyes plastered to the ceiling. I could not figure out what I was supposed to do with my own eyes. Closing them felt too impersonal, but I couldn’t connect my eyes with Sebastian’s. I wasn’t sure why. All I could do was to stare at the black headboard. I rocked back and forth, twisting myself around his erect friend, trying to find my own G-spot—which, as it turns out, was damn near impossible.
At least Sebastian was having fun.
I felt my legs trembling with exhaustion and, as I dropped myself down, Sebastian erupted into a spasm—whatever I’d done, he apparently liked it and then some. Vampires don’t have any sperm to speak of, but I could feel his body going through the motions of the expulsion, pulsing and throbbing before becoming stiff when he realized he had nothing to give. The glassiness faded from his eyes and he blinked, gasping for unnecessary breath he didn’t need.
He looked at me. “That,” he said, “was brilliant.”
He had the good sense not to ask if it was good for me, too. I wasn’t in the mood to lie. I rolled away from him, my expression flat. I was previously debating and subsequently refusing to mimic his breath, if only to pretend he’d done something moderately useful in the last two minutes.
More like a minute and a half, the jaded part of me thought. It was better than nothing, I supposed.
“Perhaps you’d like some refreshment?” he asked.
I’d like some decent sex, I thought bitterly, but I ignored that thought and smiled up at him instead. “That sounds great.”
“Tea, princess?”
“Scotch,” I answered. At the very least, I intended to get drunk tonight.
Sebastian rose from the bed, clothing himself to the best of his weary ability, and bent the world around him until he disappeared. When he was gone, I groaned and flopped back on the pillows, bemoaning Sebastian’s pitiful state of affairs. So much buildup for so little payout. He was well endowed, to be sure, but the size of the sword was not nearly as important as the man who wielded it—and Sebastian was a very poor swordsman. It was most likely because Sebastian was merely out of practice. Mother seemed to fancy the other breeds of night creatures more for the last decade or so, leaving poor Antoine and Sebastian to practice on their own accord—not something they often found the time to do in the house of a fallen magister. So maybe he’d been gifted once, and merely rusted from disuse in the absence of a proper partner. No wonder he was so excited about me.
I sighed, resigning myself to give him another chance—another series of chances, actually. Sebastian was, bar none, the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes upon, and dammit, he was going to learn to fuck me properly if it killed us both.
We should be so lucky, I thought.
I frowned as soon as the thought left my head because I didn’t understand what it meant right away. Lucky to die? Lucky to kill, maybe, but never to die. The sudden thought of leaving Mother on her own nearly turned my insides over.
Lucky to be dead, the voice in my mind persisted, only this time with more vigor.
I shook my head, and the thought fell away, buried beneath a sudden, ravenous hunger. My stomach gurgled and my blood turned hot, prickling the underside of my skin. I could call Antoine and request something, but after Sebastian’s pitiful performance, I wanted nothing more than to be alone.
Somewhere in the woods, I heard the dismayed yawning of a chimera, casually patrolling the fence. I stood away from the bed, stretching, scanning the floor for my clothes. My black tights were fine, but the dress was in tatters—Sebastian made a poor lover, but his foreplay was pretty commendable. I walked to the vast black wardrobe at the wall. Inside were dresses of vermillion and mauve, deep burgundy and stark black—each one hand selected by Mother just for me. I ran my fingers across each of them, some soft silk, others plush velvet, and stopped at something long and green, a floor-length halter dress with a slit up one side, all the way to my hip. I smiled as I pulled the gown out, remembering Mother’s words.
You must always remember the simple power you have as a beautiful woman. That power alone is enough to persuade men to do your bidding.
I dressed and left my room. The hall outside was predictably empty—although several nameless servants piddled about, carrying cleaning agents and bloody rags, but they made no sound. The silence gave the house a vast, cavernous feeling, like a secret mansion hiding deep underground.
I walked the stairs with bare feet, absorbing the cold from the stone. My hand curled around the spinning banister, feeling every crack in the veneer. My teeth were sharper, my skin colder, but I still lacked the night vision that Mother’s kind possessed. Focusing intensely on small details, supposedly, would help me with that skill. I knew where the stain was splitting, and where the wood had been hammered flat, and where a bump existed where there once was a splinter …
Here was a shadow I didn’t know. And a voice to go with it.
Three of them were sifting through the vents with shadows in the den to escort them. One voice belonged to Mother—the other two were distinctly masculine, and one of them whispered with the hint of sibilance.
Right, I’d forgotten. Mother’s compatriots were dining with us tonight. How rude of me, I thought as I entered the living room, folding my hands, and offering the shadows a demure smile. Standing by the fire was a werewolf in a lavender suit. He was smoking a pipe and grinning lasciviously at Mother; while a draconian male in the flowing, red robes and yellow sash of an alchemical merchant stood nearby. They heard me enter and directed their smiles at me.
“Ah, and this must be our little Dulcie,” said the wolf, flashing his sharp teeth and cold eyes. The fire was making him sweat. He extended his hand. “Desmond Vosh. At your service.”
I shook his hand and he bowed deeply with a flourish, his eyes
immediately landing on my breasts as soon as he observed my deeply plunging neckline.
“It’s a pleasure,” I said as I turned to address the scaled monstrosity beside him. He straightened his sash and his face twitched into what I could only assume was a grin.
“Sess vakal do’rim,” he said. “Lehl Sigurnd Thramn.” Greetings from the burning places. I am Sigurnd Thramn. I couldn’t understand how I managed to understand his tongue, but I also didn’t consider the topic for very long.
I heard myself reply, “Sesh vakan la’kin. Vogahn Thas vidamn.” Greetings from the green places. House Vogahn welcomes you.
Sigurnd’s grin widened, exposing two polished fangs, the red cords of his occupation burned into their enamel. He spoke to Mother, never taking his eyes off me. “What wasss that about blooming late?”
I felt Mother scowling behind me, and the air around her was turning hot. I looked back and she was smiling, her hands clasped together, her eyes burning with irritation. “She is … coming along.”
The drake clicked his tongue and took a moment to examine me, his eyes conspicuously lingering slightly too long on my shoulders—an odd place to covet, but Mother had already told me that was what the drake valued. Something about narrow feminine frames being rather hard to come by.
“I’d ssssay,” he said. “Ssskin’s cold, eyesss changed … ssshe hasssn’t much further to go, I’ll wager.”
“On the contrary,” said Mother, her voice cold as steel, “she has barely begun. Perhaps you gentlemen might like a drink?”
The pair of them nodded, and Mother dematerialized into a puff of black, glittering smoke—an unnecessary gesture, but sometimes, she just couldn’t help herself. Especially in front of such important guests.
“Ssso,” said the draconian, “Lady Vogahn.” A reptilic tongue shot out of his mouth, lapping at the hazy air.
“Lord Thramn,” I said. “It is an honor to host you in our home. And you as well,” I said, turning to the werewolf. He was of a lesser house, a bannerman of sorts, the captain of a ship he didn’t own—powerful, but hardly in his own right. The werewolves as a race were always subject to one rebellious faction or another, and always far too disorganized as a society to be autonomous without hurting themselves. They smelled putrid, even this cultivated specimen, despite being draped in colognes and scented fabrics.
I smiled at him, trying to keep my criticism at bay.
“You’re a pretty little thing,” said Vosh, with a deferential nod to show he meant it honorably. “Spitting image, wouldn’t you say?”
“Indeed,” said Thramn with a thoughtful hiss. “Ssstriking resemblance. Uncanny.”
“Forgive me, but I must disagree. I look nothing like Mother,” I said.
Thank Hades, thought the voice.
Quiet! I thought back. I felt my smile twitching as I wondered where this voice was coming from and why it had only cropped up most recently. It spoke in my own voice but the words sounded alien to me, so I had to wonder if they came from my own mind. Perhaps a Grenoo sprite had somehow managed to crawl into my ear and was now vexing me from inside my head?
“We aren’t referring to your mother, my dear, but to your father,” said Vosh. “The hair, the eyes … the ghost of Melchior lives in you, I swear it.”
The fucking hell he does!
Shush! I resisted the urge to shake my head again, contenting myself with tilting it slightly and letting my smile appear nostalgic. As soon as I was alone, I would burn that fucking sprite right out of my head! “But if I’d known him better,” I started wistfully.
You did. You put a bullet in his fucking stomach.
“Now,” said the draconian, leaning closer, wrapping a cold, scaled hand around my shoulder. “I don’t want to excssite you, darling, but it would appear that your mother hasss made a match for you.”
“A match?” I repeated incredulously. It was a bit early to be forming familial alliances—as we’d only just begun our attack on the human establishment. I frowned openly. “Whatever for?”
“Oh, a reward, I sssuppose,” said Thramn, waving a hand dismissively. “It won’t be until long after we’ve sssettled all thisss.” He gestured vaguely toward the room, and, I guessed, to the Netherworld in general.
“Whose reward?” Hades willing, they’d be better in the sack than Sebastian, poor fool.
Thramn’s words came slowly. “The … draconiansss …” His tongue escaped his mouth again in an excited tic, “… have been … mossst loyal, wouldn’t you agree, my lady?”
The draconians were, bar none, our most powerful ally, but it seemed impolite to say so in front of Vosh. “You have,” I replied carefully.
Thramn pulled back his arm, musing. “Dragonsss,” he hissed, “vampire, and fae …would make sssuch powerful children.” He traced the line of my shoulder with a single long claw, and I wondered not for the first time how draconian anatomy compared to humans. “The iron handsss of the next world.”
I tried to smile at Thramn, but there was something inside me that was rebelling against every word that emerged from his mouth. I couldn’t explain the feelings, but they plagued me all the same. “Our legacy?” I asked.
Thramn smiled. “Perhapsss … but we ssshall sssee.”
Antoine entered then, carrying a platter of wine glasses filled with lemons and ancient sangria. I thought it a touch casual for such honored guests—we’d have been better off with old bourbon and scotch—but Thramn and Vosh seemed delighted. Maybe they just didn’t know any better.
Nobody cares about your fucking wine etiquette.
“Hush!” I whispered, my heart starting to pound inside my chest as my palms grew clammy. Damn that sprite to the fires of Hades!
“Pardon?” said Vosh, swirling the dark wine in his glass.
“Ah, nothing,” I responded, perhaps a little too quickly. The world tilted and lurched, but I managed to keep my footing.
Thramn cocked his head and squinted at me. “Are you well, my lady? You look a bit … piqued.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “A little hungry, I suppose.”
Thramn nodded. “If your fangsss are mature, I offer you my blood gladly—although I must confessss I’ve been told it is rather coarssse.”
“Maybe later,” I said. My fangs weren’t sharp enough to puncture skin yet, let alone scales—and I certainly didn’t need Thramn having an orgasm he wasn’t ready for and falling into the fireplace. But that may have been why he offered in the first place.
Thramn nodded, downed his wine, and looked toward the door. There was a soft creak, a gust of cold wind, and the soft pop of impolite magic. “Ah! the disss-asss-ter himself!” Thramn said, walking across the room. “Maessstro, my friend, how have you been?”
I looked at Vosh, who shrugged, and turned to Thramn. The disaster in question was a man, a vampire, judging by his gait and pallor, frozen somewhere in his forties. The pop must have been him materializing. Good looking, as they all were, and conspicuously well endowed in his suit pants, he had dark hair, silver eyes, and a gentleman’s grin. He kept his hands in his pockets and his laughter in check, while his smile seemed to be a circumscribed thing stretching no farther than the width of his nose. Thramn clapped him on the shoulder with a massive, scaly hand—and the maestro didn’t seem to appreciate it, although he didn’t shrug him off.
“Welcome,” I said cautiously, hoping he came here invited.
The gentleman extracted himself from Thramn’s increasingly slurred conversation—draconians are comic lightweights—and came to me.
He held out his hand. “Ezra Sheen,” he said, leaning down. He was a rather tall specimen, and lanky, like a fit man who’s just past his prime. “It is a pleasure.” I took his hand and instantly felt a rush of something. Energy. Power. But there was more to it than that—something that spoke of his kinship with me, and with Mother.
He kissed my knuckles, his eyes never once leaving mine. “You are a vision.”
I smiled at E
zra, suddenly wishing I could have been betrothed to him instead. Thramn wasn’t exactly what I would have labeled a ladies’ man. “Thank you, sir.”
Ezra stayed where he was, my hand in his, his eyes delving into mine as those bizarre feelings of closeness continued to flow between us. “Hmmm,” he said, running a thumb over his lip, clearly thinking about something. Then his expression made a microscopic shift, his eyebrows lifted, and his irises relaxed, as though he’d found the answer to a riddle.
His smile expanded and he stood upright, dropping my hand. “Tell me,” he said slowly in a soft tone. “Where is Meg?”
“Mother is …” The sentence trailed away on its own. I blinked and swallowed, feeling confused. Ezra raised his brow, his fingers curling into each other.
“Mother?” he said, then his voice turned cold. “Ah. Yes. How could I have forgotten?” he drew his finger down the side of my face, tracing my cheekbone, my chin, my throat. “Little Dulcie.”
His stare was becoming unnerving.
He inclined his head slowly to me. “Dulcie,” he said, drawing the name out slowly and deliberately.
He looked toward the fire, drinking in its colors, and my wits returned to me in a rush. I cleared my throat—horribly rude, but I couldn’t seem to breathe. “If you gentlemen don’t mind, I, I think …” Stop stuttering, “I think I’ll go see what’s become of Mother.”
Vosh and Thramn nodded politely. “Very well,” said Vosh before he turned to Thramn, launching himself into a critique of his drink—which he seemed quite taken with. He was saying something about strawberries and a bitterness like winter. Ezra watched me when I left, his eyes boring into my back as he pretended to listen to Vosh.
I made it down the hall and around the corner before I allowed myself to relax. I slumped against the wall beside one of a hundred portraits of Mother, trying to breathe slower, my heart pounding. The dizziness was still overcoming me, and the whole world was swinging like a pendulum before me.
Just hungry, I thought. I haven’t eaten in a while, so that’s all it is. Just eat something. Anything.