Other than marble columns the size of Redwoods interspersed throughout the room supporting the ceiling, the area was entirely empty. I turned to Samael only to find him smiling absently, nodding his approval at the design. Or maybe at the piano music playing in the distance.
I grunted imperiously and began walking down the purple carpet between the two streams of blood. With no other indication of where to go, and not seeing any doors but those at the far end of the hall, I made my way onward, ignoring the sensation of the castle’s sentient Beast taking stock of my pulse, my aura, and whatever else it was checking.
Because I definitely felt like I was being watched by a predator.
“Be on your guard,” Samael warned, eyes alert. I rolled my eyes at the understatement of the year. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I had so many questions I had wanted to ask Samael, but the fact that the doors to the Castle had opened of their own accord almost as soon as we had arrived made it pretty obvious that we were expected and didn’t have time for a chat.
“What can we expect?” I asked, hoping he had some inkling on what we would be dealing with here.
He shook his head in answer. “Anything.”
I grunted. I had my new Horseman’s Mask of Despair in the pocket of my Darling and Dear jacket, but I kept my hand rested on the hilt of the katana tucked into a loop on the white ninja outfit I wore.
The bloody Cross Pattée covering my chest was the opposite of subtle, and recalling that I had drawn it with vampire blood made me suddenly wary that I might accidentally offend our host. That would just be terrible.
In addition to the Mask, jacket, and Silver katana, I had my Darling and Dear ass-kicking boots and the Seal of Solomon on my finger; my only other armor or weapon was my dazzling smile and my baby blues.
The über-resistant Darling and Dear threads would be helpful, but unless Dracula had a few demon hookers lounging around, my Seal of Solomon—able to imprison said filles de joie and sulfur strumpets—wouldn’t be worth a…brass nail. Heh.
I looked over at Samael. “Have any more of the Omega—”
His finger was suddenly pressed over my lips and his face was pale, his eyes wide with alarm. “Not here,” he whispered. “It’s best to assume we’re being watched from here on out. Consider your words and actions very carefully. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” he said, reciting the parable from the Bible. “Or queen,” he added with a faint smile.
I frowned, not really sure how that tied into anything.
“All those questions you want answered will have to wait.” He smiled grimly. “If we die, answers to your questions will do you no good. We have an expectant audience. And we have parts we must play, whether we want to or not.”
I nodded, feeling like a rookie Shepherd all of a sudden—like it was my first time on a hunt with Roland and I’d just knocked over a vase in a house full of shifters. Of course we were being watched. We were inside a damned living Beast. Samael finally withdrew his finger and we continued onward to the tall, black, double doors—relatively small compared to everything else we had seen so far. They were only ten-feet-tall.
Samael pulled open the doors and I already had my katana out, ready for an assault.
Instead, we found a normal-sized, warm, cozy corridor. Paintings of forests hung from the walls, and a few chairs and side tables hugged the walls to form quaint seating areas—complete with tiny lamps that cast a soothing glow throughout the small hallway. A bouquet of what looked like two-dozen roses filled a vase on the table directly before us and a small card was propped up against it.
“What the hell is this?” I demanded. I wasn’t pleased to notice that the piano music had grown louder, coming from down the corridor to our left. We were much closer now. The music might have even been in the very next room behind the wide, lone door at the end of the corridor. The deep reddish wood was polished to perfection, reflecting the lamplight.
I turned back to Samael, sheathing my katana. He was holding a garment bag in one hand and the card in the other, frowning as he read. A second garment bag hung from a coat rack I hadn’t noticed, and I felt my eyes narrowing in anger.
I snatched the card from his hand, scanning it.
Dinner is served.
It was written in a looping, cursive script that hadn’t been broadly used for hundreds of years. Crimson ink, naturally, and the paper was thicker than a credit card. A true piece of art.
Samael unzipped his garment bag to reveal a tuxedo. I flung the card back onto the table and unzipped my own bag. A red silk dress with one shoulder strap peeked out from within.
“It seems he knows my measurements,” Samael murmured, having taken out the tuxedo. I was betting mine would fit like a second skin as well. It was something creepy villains were good at—dressing their foes in classy evening wear.
Samael folded the tuxedo over his arm and gave me a flat look. I sighed, snatching up the dress a little more forcefully than necessary, and I didn’t pick up the garment bag when it fell to the floor. I saw a door on either side of the table—not having noticed them earlier since I had been more concerned about potential threats.
Samael opened one of the doors and grunted. “Dressing room. Even a cigar and a bottle of scotch,” he said, sounding pleased. “Remember this is all a game to him, and that it’s probably best to play along. Old beings love their pomp and ceremony. They use them like weapons. And conceding this small request could buy us time. The game has changed, so we must evolve.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he made a good point. I sighed and opened the other door to find a surprisingly tasteful dressing room. A white side table held a vase of assorted flowers and a dusty bottle of red wine. The room also had a large standing mirror, a make-up table, and a white divan. I let the door close behind me and held the dress up to my chest, studying myself in the ornate, gilt-framed mirror. It was a perfect fit. I could just tell.
Instead of getting changed, I sat down on the divan, laying the dress down beside me. Then I focused on my breathing, using a ten-count in hopes that it would clear my head. This was turning into an affair. We were no longer infiltrating Castle Dracula in secret. We were now joining him for a formal dinner. I had hoped to sneak in under the radar, maybe even have time to scout the place out a little.
Knowing that Castle Dracula was inhabited by a Beast, I should have known better than to think we could simply sneak in unnoticed. But I—like JFK—often had high hopes.
How did I want to handle this change of plans? Samael wanted me to play along. I understood his reasoning, but how were we supposed to take him down now? Was I walking into a boss fight or an hour of witty banter, thinly veiled threats, and food too rich for my liking?
“I came here for a stake, not a steak,” I muttered under my breath.
Chapter 3
How were we supposed to kill the oldest vampire in the world at a formal dinner party? What if it was a freaking monster’s ball? He obviously had at least one or two friends living here with him. This dinner could be a slaughter like that Red Wedding episode in Game of Thrones.
I leaned back with a nervous sigh, controlling my rising panic. I’d already been through so much tonight before coming here. Roland. War in the streets of Kansas City. Betrayal. Death. I was kind of all tapped-out on surprises.
I’d put on my fucking Horseman’s Mask for the first time, for crying out loud. If I was being honest, I was a little miffed that I hadn’t heard Heavenly trumpets, an angelic chorus, or seen cherubic backup dancers frolicking across the Heavens. Even a drum solo would have sufficed. I’d hoped to have some epic entrance music for such a monumental moment.
Instead, the Horseman of Despair had donned her Mask for the first time in utter silence.
Thinking about it in those words, a small smile crept across my cheeks. It was…fitting, I guess.
As eager as I was to put the Mask on, storm out of the room, and go rip Dracula to shreds at his own party, I remained sitt
ing on the divan. Dracula already knew we were here and he hadn’t sent an army after us. Instead, he’d tailored some evening clothes for us and invited us to dinner. I closed my eyes, and focused on the totem I used for meditation, centering myself.
Dracula wanted something from us.
I carefully considered my steps for the figurative dance ahead. There were a handful of different ways to approach it. We were obviously about to come face-to-face with Count Dracula—the world’s first vampire. The secret leader of the entire Sanguine Council.
He should have no idea of what had transpired in Kansas City, so what kind of opportunities and advantages did that give us? If anything, he’d know I was a wizard, but he wouldn’t know about my Horseman’s Mask. I also had a Greater Demon on my side, and I’d seen Samael flex before. He was probably the scariest monster I’d seen in person. Dracula was no chump, but I couldn’t imagine him being stronger than one of Heaven’s Mightiest Rejects and a Horseman.
I knew he also had his Beast, that he was a Master, and that he collected rare magical items, so I didn’t anticipate this being a simple, linear fight—which was why we had hoped to sneak in and assassinate him.
I spent a few more minutes going over any other pertinent information I could think of before I made my decision. I opened my eyes, feeling utterly calm. I scooped up the bottle of wine in one hand and the dress in the other before opening the door to the hallway.
Only to find a freaking skeleton waiting for me.
I gasped at the unexpected host, startled to realize that I was holding the wine bottle overhead—ready to react like someone had dared to switch off Jessie’s Girl in the middle of the chorus at my local bar back in Kansas City.
The skeleton didn’t react in the slightest. It just watched me. Without eyeballs, it was hard to tell, but those eye sockets were pointed my way. It didn’t advance or speak. In fact, the skeleton almost seemed sophisticated. Docile. Subservient. It was about an inch shorter than me and wore calf-high leather boots—folded back down at the top like those worn by pirates. Based on the boots, I took a gamble and decided he was male—since there was no skeletal equivalent to a man’s pride and joy, despite what many would have you believe.
A shredded red fabric hung down his chest, ending in a point over his sternum. It reminded me of a train robber’s bandana from the Wild West era, although the fabric was much longer, bunching up around the shoulders almost like a scarf.
His bones were the color of aged ivory, and they were pitted with dark stains. I blinked as I suddenly noticed that the ligaments connecting his bones together consisted of smoldering black and red embers that occasionally burped up an errant spark or two like a campfire. Luckily for him, they didn’t catch his scarf ablaze.
It made me think of the embers and sparks I had seen on the bridge connecting Kansas City to Castle Dracula—the place Pandora had been so terrified of. Samael had said the place went by many names—Purgatory, Neverwas, the Night Currents. And it looked like this pirate-train-robber had been born there.
Not seeing Samael, I side-stepped over to the door leading to his dressing room, keeping one eye on the skeleton to make sure he didn’t jump my bones.
Heh.
He just watched me patiently, slowly pivoting his neck. I don’t know if it would have been creepier to have him talk to me in a charming British accent or maintain his chosen silence. Seeing that Samael’s dressing room was empty, I cursed under my breath and glared at the skeleton dude.
“Where is my companion?”
He stared at me, his ligaments crackling softly, ever-burning. And then he shrugged.
“Speak or I walk,” I demanded. “And I’m keeping the wine.”
“You can’t leave,” the skeleton rasped dustily. “No one can leave.”
I narrowed my eyes. “First of all, I don’t think I like your tone. Second of all—” and without any warning, I cracked him across the jaw with the bottle of wine. His skull spun around 180 degrees with a rat-a-tat-tat sound. I was momentarily surprised that the bottle of wine hadn’t shattered. “Abracadabra,” I muttered.
The skeleton gasped dustily, lifting his bony hands to realign his skull. I used the opportunity to drape the red dress down over his head and outstretched arms. It was a struggle, but I managed to wrestle it on before sweeping his legs out from under him, knocking him down to the floor on his tailbone.
I shoved the bottle of wine into my jacket pocket and grabbed him by both boots. Then I began dragging him towards the sound of the piano. I back-kicked the doors open—glad they hadn’t needed to be pulled open or I might have embarrassed myself—and darted into the room, dragging the gasping skeleton behind me. The volume of the music let me know I’d found the right place, but I didn’t bother checking out the room.
I would only have one chance to make a first impression.
Instead of elegantly descending a set of steps before an adoring crowd in my exquisite red dress, I executed an Olympic skeleton throw in my ninja gear. I slowly began to spin, swinging the skeleton through the air in two complete rotations to build up some momentum. At the apex of my third turn—aiming directly for the piano—I released the poor skeleton’s boots, hurling him into the air. I crouched slightly to regain my balance, gripping the neck of the wine bottle as I watched the dress-clad skeleton sail across the room, emitting a dusty wheeze and a trail of sparks. Then I leaned back and pitched the bottle of wine at my target.
It struck him in the back of the head—pure luck—with a solid crack, and exploded in a shower of glass and wine. The blow was hard enough to knock his skull clean off his neck and up high into the air where it ricocheted off the wall and towards the ceiling.
But the body in the red dress…
Sailed straight into the man seated at the glossy black piano.
Or, it would have crashed into him if he hadn’t transformed into a cloud of red mist at the last possible second.
The skeleton slammed into the piano vertebrae first, sending several random bones whipping into the air. He tried using his hands to catch his balance, which resulted in an impressive, partial glissando as his frictionless fingers slid over the keys. But the virginal pianist’s grand debut ended prematurely when the open lid of the piano crashed down, pinning his upper body inside with a shower of sparks.
The ricocheting skull struck the lid of the piano and then bounced away towards the keyboard. The struggling, cross-dressing skeleton lashed out to try and catch it, but missed twice—hitting the keys instead—before his third and fourth attempt pinned the skull against the far corner—resulting in the famous dun-dun-dun-duuun jingle.
I burst out laughing, unable to believe the odds.
The skeleton managed to free himself from the piano as my laughter slowly faded. I sighed, shaking my head.
“Where, oh where, did my pianist go?” I taunted, locking onto the crimson mist.
Chapter 4
A man in a dark suit materialized from within the mist, staring at the skeleton in stunned disbelief. The skeleton in the red dress wilted in fear, clutching his skull in the crook of an elbow as he hurriedly scooped up random bones lost during his performance and then darted a safe distance away from his boss. The man shook his head, looking angry, before he turned to face me.
“No one puts a saddle on me,” I told him, pointing at the red dress the skeleton was now attempting to take off. Then I waited. Because I was pretty sure this was Dracula.
He wore a tailored black suit with a bright white shirt underneath that ended in lacy ruffles at his wrists. He had long, dark hair that was held back by a red ribbon tied into a small bow behind his head. His skin was obviously pale, but I hadn’t expected him to look so youthful—and surprisingly handsome.
Except for his eyes. They were dark, cold, and lifeless.
I knew I couldn’t leave without Samael—or killing Dracula—and it was obvious that my Godfather had been abducted from his dressing room. So I had modified my plan to provide some
theatrics—taking a cue from Samael’s advice about playing our parts—in hopes that a flashy entrance might give Dracula something else to focus on. It was better than appearing docile and meek after he’d already cut my team in half. He was a predator, and predators pounced on weaknesses. I was betting that he also wouldn’t appreciate his plans deviating beyond his control, and I wanted him to know right from the get-go that I was a messy kind of girl.
Dracula opened his mouth to speak but I held up a finger. Then I pointedly turned away from him and took a moment to actually get a good look at the room for the first time. It reminded me of those romanticized royal banquet halls where the kings and queens of old held elaborate feasts with birds flying out of pies and everything.
I still saw no sign of Samael and I felt my nerves ratcheting up slightly, but I forcefully kept them under control.
Although Samael was nowhere to be found, there were about thirty of the skeleton dudes strategically placed around the room—sans boots and bandana. Several waited obediently near the wall, holding golden trays of food and drink, or stacks of napkins and silverware. I even spotted a few humans—looking surprisingly youthful and healthy—but their eyes were hollow and vacant. I shivered. Blood slaves—prisoners for so long that they were practically vampires themselves. Or maybe they actually were vampires. Royal-blue banners with an embroidered image of a dragon hung from the high ceiling.
I idly wondered how Dracula managed to acquire his victims. Had they been willing or had he used his vampire gaze to seduce them into joining him for a weekend spa retreat? How long had they been here? Because this place had been on lockdown for a year, thanks to Samael and Roland. Had they been here for decades or centuries?
I calmly walked up to the table and stabbed my katana into the wood, making the non-servant skeletons whirl towards me in a rattling staccato.
Unlike the cross-dressing skeleton—who had finally resolved his numerous wardrobe malfunctions and was standing by himself in the corner—the other skeletons had their arm bones carved into points, openly held blades, or even had metal weapons grafted onto their bones. There would be no handshakes here.
Godless: Feathers and Fire Book 7 Page 2