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She looked around at the polished mahogany floors, at the quiet serenity of the Burmese house, of the orange cat half hidden behind a chair, his tail flipping.
The house felt like a home, yet downstairs, in the damp stone basement, was the place she had resided for over a hundred years in blood slavery. She had of course many times seen the front room or lounge from the gardens, where she took an hour of exercise each day. She had seen the small dark Burmese women cleaning, polishing, performing a different kind of slavery for Rith, day in and day out.
And here she was again.
But like a river you could never step into twice, this was not the same room she had been in before. She was not the same woman.
“I have a request,” she stated. She moved into the living space and sat down in a chair overlooking the garden. “I’d like a cup of tea.” She looked up at him. “Would you be so good—”
“You want a cup of tea?”
He now stood to her left. His brows were lifted, almost in surprise, maybe disdain. He didn’t like women very much. Certainly he had no respect for them and no particular use except as submissive slaves. He was a man of boxes.
So she would play this box.
She watched him turn on his heel, a slight shrug to his shoulders. He even chuckled, an unusual sound for him.
Fiona stared at the wall opposite now and drew inward. She felt her obsidian power, the mass of golden light that was becoming so familiar to her. She had barely begun to scratch the surface of its meaning and uses.
She sent her telepathic thread outward several times, reaching in turn for Marguerite, for Endelle, for Jean-Pierre, but the signal simply returned in a brisk boomerang of sensation that left her with a slight headache just above her right eye.
She hadn’t expected to connect. Rith wouldn’t have been that stupid.
But she turned inward once more, settled herself very deeply against her obsidian power, the power of truth. She pondered the two recent “possessions,” by Jean-Pierre and by Endelle. The resulting power had been extraordinary.
She went deeper still and explored the memory of having been possessed by Jean-Pierre, when she had wielded the sword in her hand, when she had essentially killed two men, both infinitely bigger than she.
She felt the vibrations of the experience within her body, her bones, her muscles, all the connective tissues.
Without thinking, she held the vibrations very close within her body. She rose from the chair. She could hear the sudden scream of the teakettle. She remembered Rith’s chuckle. She felt something else, as well: the way Jean-Pierre could read people. And so she read Rith now, the web of his emotions. She understood just how much he believed women to be inferior, silly, easily overpowered.
She moved into the kitchen. She looked around. There were three knives in a wooden block.
He saw her. He had the kettle in his hand, but he put it back on the stove. He turned toward her, assessing.
“You seem different.”
“You do not. Pas du tout.”
“French?” He cocked his head. She noticed a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. The next moment he had a knife in his hand and blurred toward her at preternatural speed.
She allowed all the vibrations of Jean-Pierre’s two hundred years of warrior service on Second Earth to live, beat, and breathe within her. The knife was just suddenly in her right hand and with her left, she blocked the blurring arm, pushing the stabbing thrust away from her neck. Her blade found purchase in the soft belly of Rith’s body. She thrust up and up until his back bowed, and she pushed the blade through something meatier and pulsing.
As a warrior might, she gave a twist.
Rith’s body jerked hard. He fell backward and she released the knife so that it would stay within him.
She had no particular reaction as his head slapped the tile hard. He shook from head to toe, his eyes wild for a few seconds. But soon his body fell still and the light in his eye disappeared. Blood poured from the wound, spreading in a beautiful red blossom on the fine white line of his shirt, around the ebony handle of the knife.
But she wasn’t done.
She put her foot on his neck and looked outside. Rain now pelted the garden. The dome of mist was gone.
She sent her telepathic thread flying through nether-space, reaching for Jean-Pierre. She found him almost instantly. Which meant he was close by.
Come to me now. Help me finish this, she sent.
She understood Rith’s power. She felt in her bones that he could undo this. No, she knew he could undo this, that he was undoing it even now.
* * *
Jean-Pierre watched the mist crumble before his eyes. He did not question what he saw. He focused on Fiona and folded.
A split second later he stood beside her.
Rith lay on the floor, a knife up through his abdomen, blood seeping. But he understood at once why Fiona had sounded desperate. Rith was healing his heart and slowly pushing the blade out.
Jean-Pierre had but seconds. A vampire with this amount of power, which he understood to be a Fourth ability, would not take long.
He drew his sword into his right hand and with a single swift arcing swipe, severed Rith’s head from his body.
Only then, as blood poured from the head and from the neck, did Rith’s body finally slump into the stillness of real death.
Fiona slid her arm about his waist. He looked down at her. “Are you all right?”
“He was deranged,” Fiona said.
He folded his sword away. “Oui. At the very least, he was deranged.” He withdrew his thin warrior phone from the pocket of his kilt and thumbed it.
“Jeannie, here. How may I serve?”
“Jeannie, we have Rith at last and he is dead. I want you to transfer his body to the morgue. His head is severed but would you be so kind as to transport them separately and alert the doctor to send the head immediately into the crematorium? Do you understand?”
“Tell you what, duhuro. Let’s do the head first. We’ll leave the body right where it is until I have confirmation that the head has been disposed of. Is that okay with you?”
“Oui. A much better idea.”
“Good. I have a fix. Are you ready?”
“Do it.” Rith’s head vanished. And as though his body understood that the separation was now complete, a shudder passed through it.
He felt Fiona lean into him a little more. He slid his arm around her shoulder and held her close. Both of them stood over the gore, staring and watching. Waiting until Jeannie called back. A morbid vigil.
“I wish Parisa was here,” she said softly. “She would want to know that he’s dead.”
