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In less than a breath Desandra was off the bed and next to us. "What . . . ?"
Derek kicked the wall directly under the opening. Cracks split the stone blocks. He kicked it again. Chunks of plaster showered the floor. Faux stone. Ahh. That explained it. Last time I checked, shapeshifters were strong but not strong enough to kick through solid stone.
Derek yanked the vampire out of the wall, slapping it on the floor and pinning it. I moved with them, keeping Slayer right where it was. A pale body writhed on the floor: hairless, nude. Its pale green-tinged skin fit too tightly over its frame, and every muscle and ligament underneath was clearly visible, as if someone had taken a world-class athlete, bleached him, and stuck him in a dehydrator for a few weeks. The vamp hissed. Its eyes bore into me: hot, bright red, and devoid of any thought except for an insatiable thirst for hot blood.
Slayer smoked. The flesh around the blade began to sag as the saber liquefied the vampire's heart, trying to digest it. The vamp struggled to rise. Derek strained. The muscles on his body bulged. I leaned into Slayer.
The vamp arched, lifting Derek off his feet for half a second. The moment I removed the blade, it would go for my throat. Slayer was taking too long. We couldn't hold it.
"Drop it." I jerked the blade free. Derek hurled the vamp out and onto the stone floor. The pale body landed with a wet thud, and I beheaded it with one quick stroke. The vamp head rolled toward Desandra. She nudged it with her foot and wrinkled her nose. "Stinks, doesn't he?"
I wiped Slayer down.
Derek rolled to his feet and stuck his head into the opening. "I can see a ten-foot-wide passage to the side with a vertical shaft at the end." He indicated a rough rectangle of the wall. "This is plaster. Looks like the size of a small doorway. The rest is stone."
A light staccato of steps came down the hallway and four djigits ran into the room and halted.
"Tell Hibla we need maid service," I said. "We could handle trash in our room and an odd smell, but now we have a dead body. If this continues, we won't be able to give your hotel a decent rating."
"Yeah," Derek said, his voice completely deadpan. "The continental breakfast better kick ass or we'll complain to the manager."
* * *
Dinner was served at midnight. I had expended some calories-Doolittle's healing made the body burn through food with wild abandon-and I was so ravenous, I could've eaten one of those mountain goats in the courtyard raw.
Sitting still while Desandra napped and the castle staff poured alcohol on the vampire blood, set it on fire, and then scrubbed it off the floor, diligently ignoring my questions such as "How did a vampire get into the castle?" and "What was it doing in the wall?" gave me a lot of time to think.
I started thinking about Curran and Lorelei, decided it would drive me nuts, and focused on the winged shapeshifters instead. I wished I had access to the Keep's library. I wished I could call a couple of people and ask them if they'd ever heard of something like that. But I had no resources beyond what was in my head and what few books I'd brought with me. Fixating on lamassu would do me no good; there was no indication that lamassu were shapeshifters. When an investigation first began, you simply collected facts. I was still in the collecting-facts stage. Drawing conclusions at this point would cause me to select facts that supported my theories and ignore those that didn't. That was a slippery slope at the end of which lay more dead bodies.
Magic had ways of spitting out new and bizarre things into the world, so just because I hadn't heard of them didn't mean these guys didn't have a long and bloody history somewhere. Up until now, I would've questioned the existence of weredolphins as well, but having killed a few turned me into a believer. If a werewhale waddled into the castle, I wouldn't blink an eye. I'd look for a harpoon, but I wouldn't be surprised.
So suppose this was some odd scale-covered weirdo type of never-before-seen shapeshifters. Why wasn't Hugh turning the castle upside down looking for them? Hibla struck me as smart and capable but also a bit inexperienced. That wasn't a strike against her-it was unlikely that this castle had ever been attacked and she cared about keeping it safe, so much so that she'd swallowed her pride and come to me for help. Considering how everybody and their mother had been lamenting the fact that I was not a shapeshifter and, therefore, must be inferior, Hibla's coming to me was nothing short of a miracle.
So she didn't have the experience to deal with it, but Hugh had experience in spades. Why wasn't he taking any action?
The better question was, did he engineer this whole thing? If this was some sort of elaborate setup, I couldn't see what he had to gain by it, but I couldn't mark him off the list of potential suspects either, just like I couldn't cross out Jarek Kral, the Volkodavi, or the Belve Ravennati.
I would have loved to eliminate one suspect. Just one. It didn't even matter which one. If I could drop one faction from the list, I would do a jig right there in front of everyone and weep for joy.
The cleaning staff left. Derek raised his head and sniffed the air.
If somebody ever hired us for another bodyguarding job, I'd fight tooth and claw to bring Derek with us. He smelled people coming before I ever heard them.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"Isabella," he said.
The matriarch of Belve Ravennati was coming to pay us a visit.
"I don't want to talk to her!" Desandra jumped off the bed and took off for the bathroom.
Okay. I got up, and Derek and I blocked the doorway. Isabella Lovari strode down the stairs and toward us. A young dark-haired woman accompanied her.
They stopped before us.
"I've come to check on my grandchild."
Someone must've told her about the vampire. "Desandra is safe. The babies are fine."
"I will see for myself."
"She doesn't want to see you right now," I said.
"I will have to insist," Isabella said.
"Or you could choose to talk to her later at dinner," I said.
Isabella narrowed her eyes and looked me over slowly. "For a human in the den of beasts, you have a lot of arrogance. What makes you think you're safe?"
I'm sorry, I was a human? I had no idea. What a surprise. "What makes you think I'm not?" And what an awesome comeback that was. Wow, I showed her.
Isabella smiled, her eyes cold like two chunks of coal. "When an alpha stands in front of you, the proper response is respect and fear, you human idiot. Were you a shapeshifter, you would know this."
Name-calling, huh.
Derek bared his teeth.
