by Anne Bishop
She created a tight shield-with-access around her body and tried not to think about another exit closing because she had used Craft.
Then she heard it again. That funny little rattle coming from the bathtub drain.
With one hand resting on the sink, she turned toward the tub, wincing when the move tugged at her wound.
A little black beetle crawled out of the drain. It hustled toward the other end of the tub, making its little beetle noises.
It’s just one, she thought as she tried to get her breathing under control. It’s just one, and it can’t get out of the tub.
A movement caught her eye.
Another little black beetle climbed out of the drain.
And another. And another.
Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.
She could put her hands on a body covered in maggots. She could cut up a man using nothing but a dull ax. She could skin a man and not shiver. She could scoop up a head that had been ripped off by a pissed-off cat and dump the damn thing in a bucket while the warriors around her wouldn’t even touch it.
But she didn’t like beetles. Didn’t like the look of them, didn’t like the clacking sound of their bodies. And especially didn’t like the crunch they made when you stepped on them. That sound always made her stomach drop and filled her knees with jelly.
Her little secret. Everyone was entitled to one or two irrational fears.
Rattle. Rattle rattle rattle.
She watched them swell as they filled the tub, more and more of them coming out of the drain. Watched them swell, bigger and bigger, until they were the length of her palm and almost as wide. Bigger and bigger until…
POP! POP POP POP!
They burst. Their shells split down the middle and…
A sensation. On her hand. A light sensation, since it was against the shield and not her skin.
She looked at the hand resting on the sink. It was covered by a beetle.
Just one beetle.
She flung her hand up, sending the beetle flying through the air. And she screamed.
That piercing scream.
What in the name of Hell could make Surreal scream like that?
Rainier flung open the door at the other end of the storage room and rushed into an empty room similar to the one he’d just left.
“Surreal!”
He ran across the room, yanked open the door, and charged into the hallway just as Surreal rushed out of another room. He dropped the poker and grabbed for her, only realizing when he felt a shield hitting a shield that she wasn’t wearing anything above her waist except a brassiere and her Gray Jewel.
“Surreal!”
“Be—be—be—”
He shoved the candle and pillowcase into her shaking hands, grabbed the poker, and strode into the room, ready to do battle with whatever had scared the shit out of her.
And found himself staring at a bathtub full of huge, split beetles.
“Be-be-beetles.”
Relief made him giddy for a moment. Or maybe the giddiness was caused by his yanking himself back from the killing edge.
He glanced over his shoulder and fought not to grin. Damn things really must have startled her.
“Do you think they’re edible?” he asked. The beetles were the size of a small lobster tail, and the meat looked like cooked lobster that had been pulled out of a split shell.
“Wh-what? That’s not meat; that’s exploded bug guts.”
Rainier watched the beetles change back into little beetles that went scurrying down the drain. Nothing but an illusion spell. And most likely, even the little beetles were an illusion because they’d have to come out of the drain at the proper time. Since there wasn’t much about dealing with blood and guts that usually threw Surreal off stride, it was his duty as a friend to tease her about getting excited over a bug.
“If you ignore the fact that they’re insects instead of—”
“Say it, and I will rip your face off and shove it up your ass.”
The threat sounded sincere.
Her tone pricked his temper, especially when he was still just one short step away from the killing edge, but he tried to cajole instead of squaring off with her, since that would lead to at least one of them getting hurt.
He turned toward her. “Come on, Sur—”
He reached up and shifted the ball of witchlight in order to get a better look at her.
Her gold-green eyes were glassy. Not glazed with cold rage, but glassy with shock. And she was breathing in these funny little hitches.
This had struck more than a nerve with her.
“Hey,” he said softly, moving with a deliberateness that wouldn’t startle her. “Illusion spell. That’s all they were.”
She was shaking. He could see the effort she was making to regain control, but she was shaking.
“Go back in the hallway,” he said gently. “I’ll get your clothes.”
“Check them,” she whispered as she stepped back.
He retrieved her shirt and jacket, pushed the witchlight out ahead of him, and left the bathroom.
He set everything on the hallway table next to the unlit candle, including the globe candle and pillowcase he’d handed her. Then he looked at her left side.
“How bad is it?” he asked, his fingers hovering over the blood-spotted paper covering the wound.
“Not as bad as it could have been. The Black Widow who attacked me had lost the finger with the snake tooth, so I don’t have to worry about venom.”
The bitch could have coated her other nails with poison. He was about to remind her of that—and then realized there was no point in telling her. She had been an assassin. She knew more about using poisons than he did.
“If there’s any in me, I’ll feel it soon,” she said quietly, looking past him as the hallway got lighter.
“Whoever made this house trapped at least one cildru dyathe in here. Maybe more.”
“Along with two demon-dead Black Widows. Not good odds if they all decide they want someone for dinner.”
Rainier looked back at the children, then shifted closer to Surreal. «Any suggestions?»
She sighed. «I’m tired, Rainier. We’ve only been in this house a couple of hours, but it feels much longer.»
«I think it has been longer, but we’ll talk about that later.»
«My suggestion is to go back downstairs. We’ll check that sitting room again for surprises. Then we’ll put a shield around the room and a Gray lock on the door. That will keep out unwanted visitors.»
«That will close two more exits.»
«I know.»
He nodded. «Main staircase should be that way.»
«You’ll take point?» Surreal asked.
«We’ll take point.» He shook out her shirt and jacket, then helped her into both. «Don’t argue about it.»
She hesitated. «Wasn’t going to.»
That told him more than anything else that she needed time to regain her balance.
They gathered up their various kinds of illumination and their weapons.
Rainier looked at Kester, put a finger up to his lips, then pointed at the doorway that would lead them back to the main staircase.
He and Surreal led. The children followed.
The front upstairs hallway looked just as he remembered it. That wasn’t right, but he couldn’t figure out why—and didn’t care once they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Then Surreal said, “It’s different.”
Daemon capped his pen and vanished it. He folded the paper and tucked it in the inside pocket of his black jacket. Then he was up and moving toward the parlor door, slipping past the irate Queen of Halaway as he said, “Thank you for your assistance, Lady Sylvia. And Mikal’s as well. I appreciate it.”
As he opened the door, she balled up her fist and slugged him in the shoulder.
He turned on her, snarling.
“Don’t you dare criticize Tersa,” Sylvia said. �
��Don’t you dare make her feel bad about what she’s done.”
His temper chilled, and he replied too softly, “You’re out of line, Lady.”
“I saw your face, Prince. When Mikal walked out of the room and you didn’t have to pretend to take a disapproving stand, I saw your face. Tersa may not understand the mundane world she tries to live in, but she understood her boy. If you were still Mikal’s age, you would have been as fascinated by her spooky surprises as he is. Especially those damn beetles.”
In that moment, he understood why his father had fallen in love with the Queen of Halaway. He could picture Sylvia squaring off with Saetan over whatever had lit her temper or nipped her sense of justice.
But he doubted Sylvia had ever slugged his father.
“No response?” Sylvia asked tartly.
“My father told me I should never lie to a Lady,” Daemon replied.
“So?”
“So I have no response.” Because he was not going to admit she was right. “Good evening, Sylvia. I’ll see myself out.”
She changed from irate woman to concerned Queen in a finger snap.
She touched his arm. Just a gesture of concern. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
As he left Sylvia’s house and caught the Black Wind to return to the landen village, he knew it was going to take more than luck to get Surreal and Rainier out of that damned spooky house alive.
SIXTEEN
“There was a mirror on that wall, and a coat-tree near the door,” Surreal said as she looked around the front-entrance hallway.
“That ‘caretaker’—whoever he really is—might have moved things to cause confusion,” Rainier said.
She frowned, then shook her head. “Wasn’t really paying attention to the wallpaper, but I think that’s different too.”
“An illusion spell could change the wallpaper. A person could move a mirror and coat-tree.”
Was it as simple as that?
“Does the front door work?” Kester asked.
The boy sounded upset, angry. She understood that. She’d had more than enough of dealing with this damn house and was feeling the same way.
“We’ll check out the hallway and that sitting room to make sure we have some safe ground,” Rainier said. “Then we’ll check the door.”
“Why wait?” Kester demanded.
“Because the odds are good that a door or doorway also has a trap,” Rainier said with strained patience.
“You waited to make these shields to protect us, and Ginger and Trist died,” Kester said. “Why wait for something else bad to happen?”
“Don’t start a pissing contest, boy,” Rainier warned. “Not here, not now. First we find some safe ground, and then we can—Kester!”
Kester bolted for the front door.
Rainier raised his hand, and Surreal felt the mental stumble as he stopped himself from using Craft to…Do what? Put up a barrier in front of the boy? Slam an Opal lock on the door, preventing it from being opened? Either action would have required a second use of Craft to undo what had been done.
But the moment passed when a choice might have mattered. Kester reached the door and pulled it open.
The thing on the other side…
Surreal’s first impression was of an engorged, somewhat malformed Eyrien male combined with something made of smoke. Wisps of black smoke rose from its body, obscuring the separation between the male and the night. The eyes glowed red like stoked coals.
She saw those things in the moment before it grabbed Kester, before the Opal shield around the boy was shattered by a bolt of darker power. Before Kester’s blood sprayed over the hallway.
Neither she nor Rainier had time to react, to strike back before the creature and boy disappeared—and she stared at a door that opened onto nothing but a brick wall.
“Mother Night,” Rainier said.
“Well,” Surreal said, wondering if anyone else could hear her heart pounding, “now we know someone who wore a Jewel darker than Opal was killed and trapped in this house.”
Rainier looked at the remaining four children, who were just staring at the front door. Then he looked at Surreal, and she saw bleak resignation instead of hope. “Yeah. Now we know.”
Nothing Rainier could have done. If the Eyrien could break an Opal shield, a blast of Opal power wouldn’t have stopped him from killing the boy. A blast of her Gray might have stopped him, but like Rainier, she had hesitated, had choked back her natural reaction—and the moment when it might have made a difference was gone. Lost. Just like the boy.
«Did you recognize the Eyrien?» Rainier asked.
Surreal shook her head. «He wasn’t from Ebon Rih, but there were plenty of Eyriens who came in during the service fairs and accepted service in other parts of Askavi—or other Territories altogether.»
«Whoever devised this place killed two Black Widows and an Eyrien warrior.»
«An Eyrien isn’t any harder to kill than any other man if you can slip a knife between the ribs when he’s not expecting it.»
«I doubt we’ll get that close,» Rainier said. «If he comes at us, it will be a straight fight.»
And without Craft, neither of them had the training or skill needed to face an Eyrien who’d had centuries to hone his fighting skills.
Right now, there was nothing they could do about the Eyrien—or the other dead.
“Let’s check out the sitting room,” she said.
Rainier rounded up the children, and they all entered the sitting room in a tight little pack. Then Rainier swore softly.
“This is different,” he said.
It should have been the same room, and it wasn’t. Obvious differences, with no attempt to hide them.
“We should be in the sitting room where we started,” Rainier said. “Since we’re not, where in the name of Hell are we?”
She shook her head. “Don’t know. But let’s see what we’ve got in here.”
They poked at sofa and chair cushions, swept the pokers under furniture to roust anything that might be hidden. There was a bowl of grapes on the table behind the sofa. Nothing noticeably wrong with them, but she said, “Hands off” when the children looked at them—and wondered if they’d actually obey her this time or if someone else would get killed.
The painting over the fireplace wasn’t a portrait as such. It was a man and a woman. He stood behind his lover, his arms around her, his mouth pressed to her bare neck. But as Surreal watched, his arms tightened to restrain. The woman’s eyes opened, and they were filled with fear and resignation. The man’s kiss changed into a bite. No pretense of lover now, just a predator. Blood dribbled down the woman’s pale skin and stained her white dress.
Surreal moved closer, raised her candle, and read the brass plaque attached to the painting’s wood frame. Then she snorted.
“What?” Rainier asked, hurrying to join her.
“The painting is called Rut.”
Rainier studied the painting for a moment, then turned away.
“On behalf of my caste, I’m not sure if I should be insulted or relieved.”
“Why?”
He gave her a look. Then he said, “Whoever painted that has never seen a Warlord Prince in rut.”
Why? Why? He’d had that painting created based on solid information, and had paid extra for that particular illusion spell. Why was this male so dismissive of what he was seeing?
Warlord Princes were known to be extremely violent when they were caught in the sexual madness known as the rut. The women they used were brutalized for days. While the Blood didn’t talk about it much, it wasn’t one of their damn secrets.
Why had the whore dismissed the violent message of the woman’s fate? She had to know the fate of such women. They were pampered and imprisoned—and used for the rut until their minds and bodies were too broken for even a sex-maddened beast to ride. That’s what he’d been told.
On the other hand, he hadn’t realized her companion was a Warlor
d Prince. Too bad there were still some children with them. Otherwise, he might have gotten some sizzling, firsthand information about Blood lust.
Then again, seeing as they were a Warlord Prince and a whore, maybe they wouldn’t be inhibited by an audience—even the audience they could see.
They checked the room, then checked it again. Either there was nothing dangerous in the sitting room or they hadn’t done the combination of things that would trigger it. There was wood for a fire, but they both felt uneasy about opening the flue. She didn’t know if she and Rainier were sensing a real potential danger or if they’d just reached the point where they were spooked by everything in the house. But the uneasy feeling was strong enough that they decided to make do with the dusty, musty throws they’d found in a chest in one corner of the room.
«Do we shield the room?» Rainier asked.
She nodded. «A Gray shield around the room.»
They’d already seen that Rainier’s power wouldn’t be strong enough to protect them, so that would be her task. She would be the one closing off another potential way out of this damn place. But it needed to be done, and it was the smart thing to do.
She still flinched when the gong sounded after she shielded the room.
Rainier rested a hand on her shoulder, unspoken agreement and comfort.
They’d left the sitting room door open while they’d checked the room. Now they moved together to close the door and lock it.
As she started to push the door closed, Rainier sucked in a breath and swore softly.
Trist stood in the hallway. She could see the torn chest and belly through his ripped clothes. She looked straight at the face that was coated in blood on the side that had the empty eye socket.
But this wasn’t Trist. Wasn’t even cildru dyathe. This was an illusion spell called a shadow, an image created from a little blood and a lot of Craft.
Jaenelle could create a shadow that looked and acted and felt so real, even touching it didn’t reveal the truth of its nature. But this…The boy stood with the woodenness of a puppet. Effective enough during that first jolt of seeing him, but clearly a trick just the same.
The shadow Trist smiled at them and said, “The worst is still to come.”