“Which forced ?subrand to go after her if he wanted the throne.”
Caedmon sighed. “My sister spoiled him; I always told her it would end badly.”
“But it hasn’t ended. He’s still on the loose, and now he knows you’re alive.”
“There are always problems, Dory. That is why we live for the few shining moments that make the rest worthwhile.”
“Do you see, lady?” Heidar beamed at me, dropping his trophy at his father’s feet. “I told you he wasn’t dead.” The Fey moaned, so I supposed he was still alive. “Where is the Lady Claire?” He looked a little apprehensive. “We… we have something to tell you, Father.”
I looked around, frowning. “She went after water for me.” But that had been a while ago, hadn’t it? I wasn’t sure. My time sense had taken a beating.
I looked toward the house, and it was eerily still. No half-breeds, Fey or otherwise, roamed about outside, and if anyone moved within, it wasn’t obvious. Louis-Cesare, I suddenly recalled, had said he would join me. And Radu should have had the wards back up by now, only I hadn’t felt anything. I glanced at Caedmon. “I hope you enjoyed the moment, because I think the problems are back.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Oddly, the house looked more sinister in broad daylight than it had under an overcast sky. It also looked deserted. We paused in the little courtyard with the fountain, but the only discernible sound over the trickling water was the buzzing of a few insects hovering about the bougainvillea and my own breathing. It sounded loud and harsh in my ears. The Fey didn’t seem to be breathing at all.
They had that in common with the corpse lying half in, half out of the shadowy hallway. The hair was black. I bent down and rolled the face toward me, but I didn’t know him. Not one of Radu’s humans, then.
I checked his shoulder and back, but there was no black circle tattooed anywhere I could see. Nor was there a silver. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a mage, of course. Just that he wasn’t a very good one.
The cause of death was a heart attack brought on by the fact that someone had thrust a long, skinny blade through it. I looked up, and saw Caedmon noting it, too. Louis-Cesare may as well have signed his name to the body. Farther down the corridor, I saw a spill of gold against terra-cotta. Without being told, Caedmon started around the back and Heidar circled around toward the front entrance. I followed the trail of bodies into the house.
A blond and two brunets later, I was in the living room. The painting of Mehmed had swung out into the room, revealing an empty three-tiered shelf. Okay, so I knew where Radu had kept his power source, whatever it was. There were no bodies in the room, but a wash of blood-scented air slapped me in the face as soon as I entered. I didn’t see any puddles, and it would take something that big to send off so much of an odor. But the door to the main entryway was open, and there was a cross-breeze.
I ripped the leg off a chair, getting a jagged but sharp edge, as I scented the air. The blood wasn’t Claire’s. That I would have recognized immediately. But it did seem familiar. I couldn’t figure it out until I got close enough to see into the hallway.
“Do let him catch his breath, Jonathan.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
My eyes took in a succession of quick images: Radu being held off to the side by two vamps, the power signature around them unmistakably that of masters; no sign of Claire; a puddle of blood big enough to have drained a human in the center of the floor; and above it, hanging from the balcony railing, a nude, frighteningly pale body. I felt a chill so sudden and so cold that it rivaled anything the Fey had managed to summon. And I realized why the blood had smelled so familiar.
“The amount of blood he is losing will not do,” Drac was saying. “We wouldn’t want him to expire before our guests arrive.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I had him for almost a month once.” The oily voice belonged to the blond-haired, gray-eyed human with a poker in his hand. Jonathan. He stroked a hand down Louis-Cesare’s bloody torso, and there was something sickeningly intimate about the gesture. “He’ll survive—for a while.”
I couldn’t understand it—why was Louis-Cesare just hanging there? He had no weapon, but a master vamp is a weapon—a formidable one. And the restraints holding his arms to the balcony were merely rope—I could see where his weight had caused them to sink into the flesh of his arms. He’d been lashed to the ironwork balcony so that his body dangled downward, almost in a cruciform position, his toes not able to touch the floor tiles. He might not be able to get any leverage using his feet, but he could snap the ropes in an instant, as easily as a human might break a thread. So what was going on?