by Anne Bishop
As he walked away to explore another part of the cellar, the shadow Kaelas’s pleasure purred at him through the psychic thread.
Daemon circled the fence around the house, a slow prowl. Watchful. Aware.
There was no sign of anyone in the house. No movement of a curtain, no face at a window. Of course, he hadn’t seen any lights last night, and there had to have been lamps or candles burning.
So he couldn’t trust what he was—or wasn’t—seeing.
But he had to trust that when Lucivar punched through the spells and opened up a way out of the house, he would see it.
He stopped over the spot where the tunnel was located and considered the shadow cat standing guard. Seemed a shame to waste such a magnificent predator. Maybe…
Instead of continuing his prowl, he retraced his steps and returned to the Coach.
“Mrs. Beale was very efficient,” Jaenelle said when he stepped inside. “Yuli and I have discovered more food in the chill box and pantry. We’re going to heat up some soup. Do you want some?”
He shucked off his coat and vanished it. “Yes, I want some, and I’ll heat up the soup.”
“I can heat up soup.”
“I’m sure you can.” Having made the attempt to teach her a couple of cooking basics, he wasn’t sure of that at all.
She narrowed her eyes at him. «It’s been years since I blew up a kitchen.»
Despite the boy watching wide-eyed, he gave her a simmering kiss—then nipped the jar of soup out of her hand. «All the more reason why we shouldn’t take a chance now. You can slice up bread and cheese.»
«Hurray for me.»
He noticed Yuli’s puzzled look and grinned. The boy was bright enough and observant enough to know something was going on but not what—or why.
«After we eat, I’d like to talk about making a slight change in the tangled web that holds the shadow cat. I may have a use for a predator.»
«Can I at least stir the soup?»
«No.»
A huff. «I’ll talk to you anyway.»
As he heated the soup for the three of them, he put aside the worry and the anger. There would be time enough for both later.
It was time.
Tersa vanished the tangled web and turned away from the worktable.
She would go to the spooky house and talk to the Langston man. One…last…time.
TWENTY-THREE
“Surreal? Surreal!”
“Wha?” Why was Rainier sounding so cranky?
“Drink this.”
A glass against her lips. A hand behind her head to keep her from pulling away.
The glass tasted dusty, and she had this odd memory of seeing Rainier flicking his wrist to toss out dried mouse turds before wiping the glass with his shirttail. Then the water, tasting like dust and bitter leaves, was filling her mouth. She swallowed the first mouthful because she needed the water.
“Drink it all.”
He wasn’t giving her much choice. Since he was being such a prick about it, it was either drink or drown.
“Hell’s fire,” she muttered when Rainier released her and set the glass on the kitchen table. She stared at it for a moment, then looked at him. “Did you toss mouse turds out of that glass and then give it to me without washing it?”
“No.” His voice sounded odd, strangely hollow, and…yes, there was a slight echo. And something was going gong inside her head.
“Surreal!”
“Wha?”
“I gave you a general healing tonic. I’m hoping it will help enough so you can think clearly for a while longer.”
The floor swished. Swishy, swishy, swish. She watched it until Rainier bent over so they were face-to-face. She didn’t like the worry and fear in his eyes. She would rather watch the floor swish.
He grabbed her shoulders. She tried to pull back. It made her side hurt—and she felt like she was suddenly standing on a patch of clear ground surrounded by fog.
“We have to get out of here,” he said.
“Sugar, we figured that out yesterday when we realized this place was a trap.”
“We have to try harder,” he said. “Surreal…I think you were poisoned after all.”
Lucivar had shown such promise—and was such a disappointment. He was just wandering around the cellar, all woeful and lost. He wasn’t even trying to get out.
At least the Surreal bitch was finally doing something interesting.
Death scenes were always gripping moments in a story.
Somewhere in the house, a gong sounded.
And overhead, a floorboard creaked.
The gong indicated Craft had been used. He remembered that from the rules of the game—and he’d heard it when he made the witchlight. The floorboard creaking…Might be real, might be illusion. No way to tell in this house.
Lucivar stared at the ceiling, waiting for another sound.
No staircases except the one he came down. There had to be others.
He took a sandwich out of the pack and ate while he prowled through the cellar again, looking for some indication of where Surreal and Rainier had gone.
The cellar under the two sight-shielded houses was connected, but it was split into a warren of small rooms that made it feel bigger and smaller at the same time, confusing a person’s sense of where he was in relation to the ground floor. The cellar of the first house—the house that had been the lure—was closed off from the rest. And held something dangerous enough that Jenkell didn’t want the thing roaming freely.
But there was nothing truly dangerous here. Not by his standards. On the other hand, there were plenty of things here that could do some damage if a person walked in unaware—or unprepared.
He washed the sandwich down with a long drink of water, then returned the water jug to the pack.
“Enough,” he said as he walked back to the staircase. Most likely, the predators that were loose in this house were hunting Surreal and Rainier. It was time to give the predators a reason to come hunting him instead.
And it was time to remind them that they were also prey.
Enough? Yes, he’d spent more than enough time on the SaDiablo family, who were nowhere near as interesting as he’d been led to believe. They hadn’t provided him with nearly enough material to justify the risks he had taken. Still, he had acquired a few good scenes, and he would flesh out the rest of the story.
Now it was time to unleash all the surprises and record the last moments of desperation before he got rid of the props.
A door creaked.
Lucivar turned away from the stairs and set the pack down.
Something had entered this part of the cellar.
Moving away from the stairs to the area that had the most open ground, he took the ball of witchlight off the end of his war blade, raised his arm, and left the witchlight floating above him.
A rank smell. Shuffling feet.
The man who came out of the dark topped him in height, weight, and muscle. But Lucivar saw no real intelligence in the eyes—and didn’t get the sense there had been much, if any, even before the man was caged in this house.
Doesn’t mean the bastard can’t use the club he’s carrying or the…
Leg bone in the man’s other hand. Not an old bone. And not completely clean.
“Food.” The man smiled, tossed the bone aside, and took a step toward Lucivar.
A glint in the eye. Not intelligence, just anticipated pleasure. This man liked to fight.
A club against an Eyrien war blade. A simple mind against centuries of training. An unshielded landen against a shielded Warlord Prince.
The fight would be over as fast as Lucivar wanted it to be.
He made the choice out of pity rather than practicality, out of Eyrien tradition rather than landen understanding. He would give the man the compliment of pretending that he, Lucivar Yaslana, was facing another warrior.
The man took another step toward him. And Lucivar rose to the killing edge.
The stuff oozing out from beneath the door looked like chicken fat and was so acrid it stung her eyes and made her nose run.
“Hell’s fire,” Surreal said, taking a step back. “What is that?” And does anyone else see it but me?
“Do you think it’s one of Tersa’s spells?” Rainier asked.
It did look as if what had oozed onto the kitchen floor was reshaping itself into arms and a bulby head.
“No,” Surreal said. “It feels malignant. It feels like if it touches you…” Taking another step back, she put a hand over her mouth and nose.
“Shielded or not, I don’t want to get near it,” Rainier said.
“Since it seems to be guarding the back door, I guess we try to go out the front.”
She pressed her arm against her side. The flesh around the wound felt pulpy, pus-filled, not good. Didn’t matter at this point if it was infection or poison or something else the Black Widow had dipped her nails in.
“Don’t count on me to watch your back,” Surreal said as Rainier guided her and the children to the front hallway. “I can’t trust what I see, and you shouldn’t trust me to stand with you.”
If you need to, leave me behind. That’s what she was telling him. Not that he would listen. He was a Warlord Prince who was her escort. He would fight to protect her with his last breath and beyond.
“I’ll try the front door,” Rainier said. He pointed at the children. “You four. Stand on the stairs. If something happens, you’ll have more chance of getting away by going up. You too, Surreal.”
She didn’t argue with him. Couldn’t. Not when the floor turned swishy again and beetles started oozing out of the walls.
She shook her head, hoping to clear it. Instead, the room seemed to melt around the edges—until the front door slammed open and her heart jumped.
No smoke and red-eyed illusions this time, but it was the same Eyrien Warlord who had killed Kester. He stepped into the hallway, looked at Rainier, and said, “Time for you to join the rest of us.”
Lucivar wiped off the Eyrien war blade on his enemy’s ragged trousers.
The man hadn’t seen the killing blow, had died so fast there had been no moment of realization, no moment of fear. He’d never understood Lucivar was doing little more than sparring with him. He’d fought with more grace than expected, and it was clear that he was used to fighting in a confined space and used his size and reach to advantage.
He didn’t have any chance against an Ebon-gray Warlord Prince, but he’d fought with a little boy’s glee.
And now he was dead.
Lucivar returned to the stairs and looked up. He was riding the killing edge now, and he wasn’t stepping away from it until he walked out of this house.
Lucivar raised his right hand and released a blast of Ebon-gray power from his ring. The hallway floor rained down around him, wood and tile reduced to the size of small hailstones.
He shook his arms and opened his wings to clear most of the debris off his shields. Then he looked at the hole no illusion spell could hide—and he bared his teeth in a savage smile.
It was a fool’s battle. Surreal knew it. So did Rainier. A man with a poker and a few years of training was no match for an Eyrien warrior and a war blade. Especially when the warrior was already demon-dead. It didn’t matter that the Eyrien wasn’t shielded, because a killing blow wouldn’t kill him.
Might not even slow the bastard down.
She held her position at the foot of the stairs, mostly because she was afraid she’d get in Rainier’s way. So far his Opal shield was holding—probably because the Eyrien wanted to stretch out the fight—but every blow the Warlord landed drained Rainier’s shield a little more. Soon there would be one blow too many.
Rainier wouldn’t use Craft to save himself. Not anymore. Whatever Craft could be used would be reserved for her.
Then something flew toward Rainier’s head from the sitting room doorway. A momentary distraction. He barely flinched, despite the instinct to duck.
But barely was still too much. The Eyrien swung the war blade—and Rainier’s shield finally broke. It held long enough to prevent the blade from going all the way through Rainier’s left leg, but the wound still cut deep.
Rainier slapped his left leg, and the gong sounded as a tight shield encased his thigh. He retreated, struggling to stay on his feet as the Eyrien raised the war blade again.
“No!” Surreal drew the stiletto out of the boot sheath and threw it, a motion she had practiced for weeks until it was a single smooth move.
The stiletto pierced the Eyrien’s neck. Should have been a killing blow. All it did was piss him off—and buy Rainier the few seconds he needed to reach the stairs.
“Up,” she said. “All of you, go up.”
“Surreal,” Rainier began.
“Hop, crawl, I don’t care. Get up those stairs. I’m still shielded. You’re not.”
Using the poker as a cane, he hobbled up the stairs as fast as he could.
The Eyrien Warlord pulled out her stiletto and dropped it on the floor. The three-fingered witch came out of the sitting room. And half a witch floated out of the door on her right.
“Surreal,” Rainier said. “Come on.”
The three of them moved toward her, sure they’d have her, one way or another.
She was sure too—until a blast of power shook the house.
It was so damn frustrating, Daemon thought as he watched the spooky house. When it came to communicating with someone using a psychic thread, the Black gave him a long reach, and he and Lucivar were usually able to contact each other over fairly long distances. Now the tangled webs around that house separated them.
Be patient, old son. He’ll get out. Lucivar has stood on worse killing fields and walked away. He’ll walk away from this one too.
Then he felt the blast of Ebon-gray power. Even the spells around the house weren’t strong enough to completely muffle the temper behind that punch.
“Lucivar,” Daemon whispered.
“Daemon,” Jaenelle said, rushing from the Coach to join him.
He touched her shoulder. “You check the point where he intended to come out. I’ll circle around the house in case he needed to choose another exit.”
She trotted toward the far side of the house. He went in the other direction.
And he tried not to think of what he’d tell Saetan if Lucivar didn’t come out of that house.
Lucivar stood in what was left of the front hallway and listened. Waited. Then he frowned.
No gong. If the last exit had closed, wouldn’t he sense something? Or…
“Every time Craft is used,” he said softly. “Every time Craft is used.” Craft, not power. Had the little writer-mouse made that distinction deliberately? Had the man even realized there was a difference? Probably not.
Of course, it was a subtle distinction, one that hadn’t occurred to him when he’d heard the rules—and still wouldn’t have occurred to him if he hadn’t heard the gong confirm the use of Craft when he’d made the witchlight.
“My apologies, Bastard. I guess you could have played this game after all.”
Lucivar waited. Listened.
The house felt oddly empty, the way a house feels when you’ve had a big gathering and the last guest is gone.
Had Surreal and Rainier gotten out? Was the game ended?
No. The game hadn’t ended because he was still here. Which meant the little writer-mouse had been scurrying to herd all his predators to one particular spot.
But not in this house. And not in the first house. Pointless to drive Surreal and Rainier back to the starting point when there was one last possibility—the third house.
Lucivar opened his mouth and breathed in.
A taste in the air, coming from…that direction. Up there. In the third house.
He smiled and rolled his shoulders to loosen the muscles.
There was a killing field in this place after all.
They had followed the
children into one of the rooms. The cildru dyathe had gathered in the adjoining bedroom, cutting off that possible escape. The Eyrien Warlord and the two Black Widows were standing in the doorway, savoring the moment when the fight began.
“So,” Surreal said as she shifted to stand on Rainier’s left and support his weak side as long as she could. “This is where we die.”
Rainier shifted slightly to defend against the cildru dyathe. “Yeah. This is where we die.”
TWENTY-FOUR
«You have to shield again,» Surreal told Rainier, shifting her weight as the predators moved forward, savoring the moment of attack. She cut him off when he started to protest. «We’ll survive longer if you’re shielded. Maybe long enough for Lucivar to join the fight.»
«That may not work to our advantage,» Rainier said. But he created an Opal shield around himself.
She didn’t hear the gong. What did that mean? That it no longer made a difference if they used Craft? That the last exit had closed? That they were trapped in this house forever?
Forever meaning until Daemon unleashed the Black against this place and tore it all apart—and everyone still in it.
A sideways glance at Rainier. He was sweating heavily, his face tight with pain.
He was a dancer. And that leg…
The tight shield around his thigh was acting like a brace, which was the only reason he was still on his feet. She couldn’t think about what it was going to cost him to fight.
«Have you ever seen Lucivar on a killing field?» Rainier asked.
«I’ve seen him when he’s riding the killing edge. Hell’s fire, your caste of male rises to that edge as easy as you breathe. Maybe more so.»
«Not the same thing. I saw him, once, when he walked off a killing field.» Rainier swallowed hard. «May the Darkness have mercy on us if he sees us as an enemy.»
Not something she wanted to hear—especially when it was being said by one Warlord Prince about another.
A door suddenly appeared in the wall and swung open—and the demon-dead walked out. A dozen of them. None of them wore Jewels, but that didn’t matter. Not in this fight.
