We had to dispose of the body, before one of the Blackmoors stumbled upon it.
I reached for Sienna, urged her to come closer, then I soothed her raw flesh with an incantation. She shuddered and cursed as she leaned into my embrace, brother and sister-in-skin. At the same time, the human-named-Ross disappeared in the gloom upstairs, safe behind yet another closed door with my dear Cousin Ash.
I rested my lips near Sienna’s ear, then whispered, “Perhaps you can harvest the human tomorrow.”
She pulled away and shook her head.
“You shouldn’t let Ash’s mark stop you,” I said.
“ ’Tis the law,” River said. “We dare not cross him again.” My brother joined us, tall and weedy, thin of flesh but strong of sinew. His gaze flicked from Sienna to me and then toward the empty staircase. Perhaps making sure Ash was gone.
“Wrong to break a blood oath, you mean,” I said.
River nodded.
“But haven’t you broken his law already? And isn’t that why we’re here? To live. To hunt. To find our own little patch of dirt like Cousin Ash. No matter what we have to do to get it,” I said, all the while watching the expression on Sienna’s face as she took a cautious step toward the stairs.
“I’ve never seen such vivid, dark dreams,” she spoke with longing in her voice.
“My pretty cousins.” I put one hand on each of them, lowering my voice to a conspiratorial tone. “This right here, this could be our home. These humans could belong to us.”
Sienna turned toward me, eyes like the golden fields of home, lips parted, teeth like porcelain daggers ready to hunt. “This land could be ours,” she agreed. “And that human, the one who dwells in the Land of Nightmares—”
“He could be yours, my love,” I said. “And so he shall be. There’s just one thing that we need to take care of first. We can’t let our dear Cousin Ash grow suspicious too soon.”
Chapter 26
Glittering Machinery
Ash:
Ross Madera sat in a wicker chair before the fire, sipping a cup of tea. Outside, the fog spiraled, caressing the windows as if it longed to enter. Inside, the flickering fire colored the room. It accented the lines in Ross’s face, making him look older, more tired. Or maybe he had been slowly aging and I hadn’t been paying attention. Humans wear out much faster than Darklings. They are so fragile.
“Is Elspeth still sleeping?” he asked. His hands shook slightly, but it was obvious he was trying to hide it.
I nodded.
He set his cup down with an awkward clatter, then he stood and walked to the window. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I hate coming here, especially when your family is visiting.”
“Everybody has a side of the family they’re ashamed of. You just met mine,” I said, sifting through the human’s thoughts. All I could see was the war, bits of it strewn about the room, alongside the hand-carved Belter furniture and Tiffany lamps. A headless body here, an M–16 assault rifle there, a tank rumbling through the wall. I had to concentrate to sort reality from the waking hallucinations. “Did the nightmares come back last night?”
This was what had brought us together, how we had become friends. I knew how to navigate my way through the horrors of the dream world, and Ross knew how to maneuver through the tangled mess of human civilization.
“Not until I walked in here.”
“I apologize for my cousin,” I said. “Sienna has a preference for bad dreams.”
Ross flinched when one of the pine logs in the fireplace snapped and cracked, sent a shower of sparks against the screen. “I came to tell you that Elspeth should be fine—the dog doesn’t have rabies.”
“I know.”
“But there’s something that you don’t know.” He turned to face me. “Apparently that dog caught something from your daughter. He turned into a werewolf or a dog shape-shifter or something. You ever hear of anything like that before?”
I ran my tongue over my teeth as I remembered another fog-shrouded wood, another country, another century. It had been a very long time ago, before I met Lily. A wolf had chased one of my brothers through the Black Forest, leaping, biting. Then later the local villagers had whispered tales of a wild beast that came out at night, a wolf that changed into a great hulking, shadowy monster. I, myself, had never seen it, but I knew that it was part of the Legend that had followed us throughout the centuries.
“You’re not answering and that usually means I’m right,” Ross said.
I crossed to the window, then stared down at the smoky mists. I tried to see the little cottage on the connecting green.