I took a moment to inspect Ilyana’s corpse more closely. She’d been gorgeous in life, possessing an olive skin tone, full lips, and shoulder-length, wavy black hair now stuck to the wetness of her wound. Blood speckled her off-the-shoulder gown, but that was all right. The burgundy fabric was the perfect cover for little feeding accidents.
She thought she could be a queen? How foolish.
I turned my attention to Dustyn. “Help me get her back into the carriage.”
He drew himself upright and saluted. Together, we hefted her body inside and propped her upright. I scowled at Reilly’s bolt, which was still quivering where it was embedded through a cushioned headrest. Puffs of white stuffing emerged like blood from a wound, at odds with the rest of the decor.
“So much for our enemiesnot noticing anything amiss,” I said with enough venom that Reilly audibly shook in his boots behind me.
Before the coward had shot out the window and pierced the blackout curtain, the inside of this carriage would’ve been a fine place for a vampire to wait in style through the daylight hours. A panel of the back wall was ajar, revealing a bar’s worth of alcohol in decorative bottles. One, half-full of viscous blood, was on its side and in danger of rolling to freedom. I set it upright and slammed the panel shut.
“Leave it,” I said when Dustyn reached for the embedded bolt. I motioned for him to follow me out of the carriage.
“Help us,” Captain Stark was saying to the coachman, “and you’ll never see another Krudelbach again.”
His throat worked as he swallowed hard. “Forty years,I’ve served that family. Forty years of…” He touched one of the scars on his forearm. “Lord Krudelbach was never gentle with those beneath him.”
His gaze flicked to the coin pouch now tucked at his belt. He cupped his hand over it possessively. After a steadying breath, he straightened his shoulders. “So, yes, I’ll help. I can cover for Ilyana’s absence at the underground den. Claim she changed her mind and returned home before anyone grows suspicious.”
I arched a questioning brow, and in return, Captain Stark gave me a thumbs-up.
Chapter 4
Sidney
Instead of driving the carriage to Ilyana’s preferred den, the coachman took her corpse and me to a different spot in the northern reaches of Harmony.
“Are you sure about this, miss?” he asked once I stepped outside.
“The witch is expecting me.” I shouldered a bag of supplies I’d packed for the journey ahead.
“You slayers keep the most interesting company.”
The witch’s residence loomed at the heart of the tangled mass of greenery, what some might generously call a garden. Her house was a towering mushroom rising from the earth, its massive stem rooted deep in the tangled underbrush. Leaves and long blades of grass pressed against a black metal fence, stretching toward the freedom of unchecked growth.
Tall signs were erected just above eye level, lining the semblance of a path beyond the fence.Beware: Witch’s Residenceread the first.No Trespassingwas next, followed byViolators Will Have Their Pricks Shrunkand the next one boasting much smaller writing:Don’t Believe Me? Terrigana Will Let Me Do It and We’ll Laugh One Day in the Underworld Together at Your Misfortune! Turn Back Now.
“The witch has a sense of humor,” I offered, hoping he wouldn’t take the carriage and flee while I spoke with her. She was a living legend at the temple, but this was my first time actually meeting her.
The coachman’s throat clicked in a loud, dry swallow. “All right. As long as you don’t need me to go in there. I wasn’t paid for that.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
That said, I wouldn’t dare enter the witch’s territory either, except someone at the temple had secured this visit. The witch was just as ancient as some of the vampires we hunted. If the rumors were true, she’d traded her soul to the goddess Terrigana for her immortality and power.
As little as Aetherius’s followers trusted witches, I needed her magic. So I drew myself up and entered the witch’s territory.
The clinging leaves of her plants sent unpleasant prickles over my skin with each step. Moist flowers caressed my face. I tried to lean away, just to find more greenery pressing in on the other side. The air carried the familiar sickly sweet stench of flowers and rot. Not from roses, thankfully, but from a varied bouquet wilting in the hands of decay.
“Who goes there?” a woman’s voice purred from the shadows.
“My name is Sidney. We have an appointment,” I answered while peeling away a discolored leaf that clung to my temple.
“What a shame. I have a hungry man-trap in need of a little snack. Are you sure you’re not a trespasser?”
By Aetherius’s light, another ancient bitch that feeds people to her plants.
I kept my voice cool and clinical. “I’m not a trespasser. And if you want more of them, perhaps you should consider warning signs that don’t threaten half the population’s genitals.”
