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—