Ugh, she was as bad as Sebastian. “I assure you, I’m neither helpless nor without protection.”
“Stay behind me anyway.”
She was a paranormal artist, basically a bohemian with magic. What was she going to do, rapidly sketch a picture to keep them safe?
Actually, that was probably quite within the realm of possibility.
Wesley frowned but let her go first. He followed close behind as they checked the first door and found only a closet of coats.
But behind the next door was a body.
Isabel covered her mouth, but Wesley still heard the quiet gasp. The dead man was dressed in a plain black suit and white shirt, like the concierge would have been. His body was crumpled and unnaturally shriveled, like a grape that had become a raisin. Wesley had never seen anything like it, not even during the war.
Out of habit more than any belief the poor bastard could have been alive, Wesley knelt and checked the neck for a pulse. “Dead,” he confirmed.
“This is magic,” Isabel said grimly. “Bad magic. And Sebastian is nowhere to be seen.”
Wesley set his jaw. “World’s fair?”
“World’s fair,” she confirmed, and she sounded as full of dread as he felt.
Wake up, de Leon—I need your magic.
“Wake up, de Leon—I need your magic.”
Sebastian’s eyes popped open. But his body wouldn’t move; he was trapped, immobilized. He fought for control, to shake it off, his body jerking from head to toe—
And he heard the rattling of chains.
Oh. Not a blood terror.
But not good either.
Sebastian peered blearily at his surroundings. He was bound on a floor of cool tiles laid in a black-and-white checkerboard. There were paintings on the wall, of nearly naked bodies in a grove, and at his head was a giant ceramic urn. Blocking most of his vision was a man-height screen of metal, a tall stylized building in the center flanked by giant bronze flowers and disks.
His hands were chained behind him, and he could feel the bite of lead in the cuffs. Beyond the screen were distant voices—men, women, children, the happy chatter of people on holiday. Shimmering all around him was the outline of a cage—the same kind of cage that had been in the alley in London, that had kept Wesley and Mercier silent to the streets beyond.
Reflexively, Sebastian tried to reach for his magic, to dispel the cage. Nothing happened, except the dull needles of his lead handcuffs stabbing into him more sharply.
Black oxfords stepped behind the screen, into his line of vision. Then a white man crouched in front of him—perhaps forty years old, with a thin face and thin blond hair, his chin and nose both small and pointed. He looked like the men in the portraits that lined the wall in Blanshard’s Yorkshire manor.
“You’re finally awake.” Blanshard looked down his nose with cold blue eyes. “I appreciate that I don’t have to waste time on threats. You know we’re silenced, and that you can do nothing about it. But you wouldn’t risk it anyway. You can hear all the voices, so close, but you’d never call for help because you know I might kill them. A veritable hoard of the nonmagical, just meters away, and you wouldn’t risk any of them, even to save yourself.”
Sebastian’s skull buzzed like someone had released angry bees in his brain, and his throat ached from dryness. The voices of the crowd rose and fell, innocents who had no idea what danger they could too easily step in. “Where’s Jack?”
“I believe he’s gone to find the other paranormals, and their sweet little pavilion where they can share their paranormal art. Your cousin is an artist, is she not? Are those other paranormals her friends?” Blanshard added, conspiratorially, “Between us, I think Mr. Mercier is getting a bit itchy. He never gets to really let go, does he? Burn it all down, like he wants? It’s gotten worse since I put the aura in him, like I did in your brother. They’re not like me; their magic isn’t meant to contain it and has become much too strong now. Your brother, of course, ended up trapped like Theseus in the maze, but even Mr. Mercier needs a place to release his flames.”
Sebastian clenched his teeth. “You killed all those people.”
“Of course I did. I needed their life forces.” Blanshard sat on the floor, like he was getting comfortable. “You look and act so much like her, you know.”
“Like who?”
“Your great-great-great-aunt, of course. Casilda.”
A new kind of unease began to creep over Sebastian, like spiders on his skin. That couldn’t be possible—there was no way—
“You didn’t realize?” Blanshard said, a nasty edge to his voice. “What did you think happened when I consumed someone’s life force? Why did you think they called me the Vampire? I absorb someone’s life force and it strengthens mine—and adds to it.”
