Trothe just seemed impatient and slightly bored, which was impressive in the face of such madness. It spoke volumes about their home life, when they’d had a life. And a home.
Like Clemencie, Trothe could speak when she wished, because she finally found her voice and said, “I want you to leave, man.” In contrast with her sister, she sounded completely normal for a girl of her apparent age. “I want you to go outside and then burn this house to the ground to be sure it’s finished.”
That seemed . . . surprisingly sensible. Myrnin raised a hand. “Problem,” he said. “Your sister won’t let me leave.”
“I will,” young Trothe said, with a grim determination that Myrnin recognized. He’d seen it before, in Claire, who, although she was a bit older than Trothe Vexen, had the same steely resolve. She simply used it in ways that were not so bent on insanity and murder. “Go out this way.” She walked to a boarded-up window, and pointed.
He hesitated.
“I told you that he was mine!” Clemencie shrieked in triumph, and the sound was like razor blades on a chalkboard. The screaming seemed to ring in his ears like lost souls, and he wondered for a brief moment if he was as lost as poor bedeviled Lucian, who’d been spelled into carrying on Clemencie’s evils. It was possible that the poor devil might not have begun quite so badly as he’d ended. “He is mine!”
“You see how she is,” Trothe said. “I really can’t stay in this house with her anymore. It’s unbearable. You need to send us both away.”
Myrnin gave Trothe a frown as he said, “You know that likely means sending you both to hell. Assuming you believe in that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” she said. “I saw my parents there. I was there myself. But Clemencie escaped and came back here to . . . do her work. I had to come to try to stop her. I haven’t done very well, though.”
“Until now.”
“If you don’t disappoint me.” She looked as if she didn’t have much faith in him, which was a bit insulting considering how much he’d already survived in this cursed place. “Promise me you’ll do it.”
“Oh, I’ll do it,” he said. “This place deserves to burn.”
“So do we,” Trothe said. “Don’t let her tell you different. We did so many bad things. Don’t let her do it to you, too.”
Clemencie shrieked again, and the sound drilled at him, clawed bloody furrows in his fragile mind, and he could almost hear, almost know, almost see what she wanted him to become.
Worse, it almost seemed tempting.
No time left. If he intended to survive these bitter ghosts, he had to trust that Trothe could do as she promised.
“Now, go now!” Trothe cried, and he glanced back to see that Clemencie had broken whatever barrier had kept her at bay. She was rushing at him, and this time, he knew that if she touched him, his mind would shatter like a thin glass bowl.
Myrnin took a run at the window, leaped, and hit the boards with a crash that rattled his brain in its bones . . . and the boards broke away, and he soared a bit in cold desert air before arcing down to an ignominious rolling stop in the dirt.
That damned scorpion, or its close cousin, scuttled at him across the sand as he sat up. He didn’t bother to warn it this time, just picked it up and threw it hard enough to send it to Mexico, and turned his attention back to the Vexen house.
It was still and quiet and lifeless in the fading moonlight. Dawn was a dull blue edge on the eastern horizon now.
“You took your good time,” Oliver said from behind him, and Myrnin managed not to flinch. Somehow.
“I thought you’d be well gone.”
“It occurred to me you might need help.”
“Thanks for not providing it, then. You did that very well.” Myrnin stood up and slapped sand irritably from his clothing. The amount of it that had trickled down into his boots was going to drive him mad. Again.
“What happened in there?” Oliver’s face, when Myrnin glanced back at him, was less cynical and guarded than was normal for him. He seemed . . . worried. Perhaps he’d sensed something in that house, too.
And maybe he’d been worried that Myrnin would emerge as mad and savage a beast as their vampire quarry, Lucian.
“Ghosts,” Myrnin said. “And I’m about to lay them to rest. Do you happen to have a lighter?”
Oliver raised his eyebrows, but he fished in a coat pocket and brought out an ornate silver thing, engraved with a dragon. “I’ll want that back,” he said.
“Of course.” Myrnin picked up one of the tinder-dry broken boards that had come through the window with him, and searched around for a bit of sun-rotted cloth to wrap around the end of it. It caught on the first flicker of the lighter’s flame, and he held it upside down to feed the greedy fire for a moment, then walked back to the house.
Upstairs, in the window he’d exited, he saw Trothe Vexen, smiling down at him.
She blew him a kiss.