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Beau nodded. “When my grandfather had a little too much to drink, he’d talk about the Bone House—and a girl. ‘A cascade of blonde curls, sweet as a cherub,’ he would say. ‘But she was truly a devil.’ ”
Barbara’s throat felt dry. “She was a child.”
“She’s a vampyr, using innocence as a disguise.” He shifted in his seat, winced. “So, now you see. This town. The Colony. There’s no coming together. No making amends. There’s too much hate on both sides.” He clutched at his head again, shivered.
Barbara frowned. “Are you all right, Mr. Grainger?”
“I’m fine.”
Barbara felt a twinge of guilt. She’d been questioning the old man too hard.
“Mr. Grainger, it’s cold in here. Maybe we should go into the living room, light a fire.”
“I said, I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I can get a sweater.”
“And I want to make sure you’re okay.”
She walked down the hall.
“No! You can’t go in there.”
A scrape as Beau pushed his chair back. Barbara shoved open the door to the living room and stopped.
“Shit.”
The room was small, cozy, but it looked like it had been disturbed. A lamp was broken, and ash smeared over the walls. It smelt of smoke. But that wasn’t what caused Barbara to pause, ice snaking down her spine.
Above the fireplace, mounted on wooden stands, were two vampyr heads. Older males, with thick gray hair. A third mount was empty. When Aaron and his family were killed, the heads had been taken. No one ever claimed responsibility.
“We hunted ’em fair and square,” Beau said from behind her.
Barbara turned. “Really? Did they have weapons too, Mr. Grainger?”
He gave her a withering look. “They don’t need weapons. The boy was a killer. We did what was necessary.”
“And displaying them like sick trophies, that was necessary too?”
He walked past her, up to the heads. He had stopped shivering. In here, he seemed to have regained some of his color, his strength. “You’re not a hunter, Detective. There’s a relationship between hunter and prey.” He raised a hand to touch the cheek of one of the men. “Almost like a marriage. What you kill, you own…for better or worse.”
Barbara’s stomach churned. “Where’s Aaron?” she asked, nodding at the empty mount.
“That child demon came here the other night, and she took him.”
Good for Athelinda, Barbara thought. She took her phone out and snapped a picture of the heads.
“You can’t keep these,” she said to Beau. “They need to be returned to the Colony.”
“I’ve kept them for twenty-five years—”
“And you have twenty-four hours to relinquish them voluntarily, or I’ll be back with a warrant.”
He turned back to her. “You don’t understand—”
She cut him off. “Oh, I do, sir. My dad was a hunter. He hunted because he needed to feel power over other creatures. But once you took away his weapons, he was a weak, bitter man.”
