“Yet,” said Pax.
“Yet,” agreed Dominic. “Nothing stays secret forever. But if we steal that piece of ghoulish equipment, they’ll realize someone knows what they’ve been doing. They’ll change their ways. I don’t think they’ll stop. People like this, monsters like this, don’t stop simply because they’ve been discovered. If anything, they kill faster, destroy faster, because they no longer have secrecy to protect them.”
“He’s right,” said Alice. “Every snake cult I’ve ever seen has gotten a lot nastier once people knew for sure that they were there. It’s like rattlesnakes. They’re pretty good neighbors until you flip their rocks over.”
“Don’t compare these people to rattlesnakes,” said Malena, and her voice was filled with the sound of bones rearranging themselves, teeth sharpening to new points. I remembered with a jolt that she and Mac were from the same season. They had danced together. He hadn’t been her regular partner, but he’d been the Pax to her Anders, and now he was dead, bled out on a cold stone floor in the basement of the theater, and there was nothing she could do to bring him back.
“Rattlesnakes only bite when they have to,” Malena continued. I could hear the sorrow under the sounds of shifting now. I had just needed to figure out how to listen for it. “These people, they’re biting for the fun of it. They’re biting because they want to get something. They’re not rattlesnakes. They’re monsters.”
“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” said Alice, glancing in my direction. I nodded slightly, thanking her without words. The last thing we needed was for Malena to launch herself at my grandmother because she’d been insensitive. “We need to stop this.”
“That won’t bring them back.” Malena scuttled lower on the wall, holding out her hand toward me. “Give me the phone. I’ll get those pictures you want.”
“See if you can get close-ups of the spike,” I said. “If there are any carvings or anything, we need to know about it.”
Malena nodded once, closing her sharp-nailed fingers around the phone. Then she scurried off, starting her photo project.
I turned. Pax was black-eyed and shaking, staring at the pool of blood that covered the floor. “Dominic, take Pax up to the hall. The two of you need to keep an eye out, in case the people who did this come back.” And in case the smell of blood overwhelmed the Ukupani’s ability to keep himself under control. I had faith in Dominic’s ability to restrain Pax without hurting either of them too badly. There was one big advantage to Pax losing control, rather than Malena: if his transformation became too advanced, he’d lose the ability to breathe oxygen, and would pass out before automatically reverting to an air-breathing form. Malena would just keep going until she had more ripped-off faces for her collection.
“Thank you,” said Pax, and virtually fled back up the stairs, with Dominic following close behind him. Alice watched them go.
“Do you think the cultists will come back?” she asked, turning back to me.
“Not for a while,” I said. Malena was clinging to the ceiling now, taking overhead shots. “I think they’ll leave the bodies here for a few hours, and then magic as much of the mess away as they can. There won’t be any sign of what happened here by morning.”
“I see.” Alice shook her head. “I should have realized there was a confusion charm on the building. It only makes sense, given the way you described everyone else’s behavior. Verity, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You had no reason to suspect.” I took another step down and crouched, trying to get a better look at the spike that held our latest victims’ hands together. “I’ll call home when we get back to the apartments. Daddy can FedEx us some anti-telepathy charms.”
“I have a better idea,” said Alice. “I meant it when I said we could get counter-charms from Bon. She’s a routewitch, and she knows me well enough that my word is good when I tell her she’ll be paid.”
“Do routewitches usually take money?” My Aunt Laura was a routewitch, but she disappeared before I was born, and I’ve never had that much direct dealing with them. They were mostly active on the highways and in truck stops, and those weren’t places where you found many ballroom dance studios.
“They take distance,” said Alice. Her expression went briefly unreadable. “I’ve traveled a very long way.”
Malena dropped from the ceiling onto the stairs behind me. It was abrupt enough that I jumped as I whirled to face her, and behind me I heard the click of Alice removing the safety on her gun. There was another click as she put it back. Malena thrust the phone at me, stone-faced and slowly reverting toward her usual human form.