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It took me a confused few seconds to realize that I was where I’d expected to be—in some kind of office next to the hallway—and not back in time. Only nobody had noticed my arrival, because I’d shown up at the same moment as something else. Something that was still being carried in from the waiting area through doors I hadn’t seen when we came in, because I’d been following Rafe through a side entrance.
But I could see a few hints of gold from the kinetic statue in the lobby, so I knew where I was. Along with part of the bored crowd, who weren’t looking so bored right now. Some of them were crowding the doors, getting an eyeful, and getting shoved back by the soldiers bringing in more bodies.
Most of which were in pieces.
I stumbled back, sliding on blood, and staring at maybe a couple dozen men—or what was left of them. In some cases, the only thing holding them together appeared to be their armor. And that didn’t work too well where the heads were concerned.
One had been hanging by a bit of skin, which I guessed had been stretched to the limit. Because it gave way, allowing the severed thing to bounce, bounce, bounce, on the tiles of the floor before coming to rest at my feet.
I fought a serious urge to retch.
Glassy blue eyes stared up at me out of an unknown face. The tongue lolled out of the mouth in a way that would have been comical under very different circumstances. Fangs glistened in the overhead lighting.
I swallowed and swayed slightly, but stayed on my feet. You’ll sit down in blood, I told myself sternly. You’ll sit down in—
“Cassie!” That was Mircea; I could tell by the voice, although the room had begun to fade out. He caught my arm—just my arm—because the office was filling with other vamps and we couldn’t afford to look weak.
Stay up, I told myself sternly, as someone put a glass of water in my hand.
A chair appeared a moment later as if by magic, but it was probably just that Mircea had navigated us a path back to a large walnut desk sitting in the middle of the room. I clutched the glass gratefully and stared at my feet until the nausea started to recede and my eyesight improved. And then I looked up.
Only to notice the trail of bloody footprints we’d left all the way here.
They were bright against the white marble floor, because the golden tile hadn’t made it this far. Nor had much of anything else. There was a lot of echoing stone, some niches with nothing in them, a large chandelier glittering overhead rather sheepishly, as if it didn’t know what it was doing there, either, and a few chairs. That was it, unless you counted some maps tacked up on the walls near the desk.
And the bodies and parts of bodies on the floor, leaking all over everything. What had happened to them? Why had they been brought in here? And in that condition?
Shouldn’t they be . . . somewhere . . .
“Cassie? Are you all right?”
That was Caedmon. Guess he found a way past the ward, I thought blankly. I swallowed and nodded, but didn’t say anything. I probably wouldn’t have been heard anyway, over the shouting.
“—damned bokor in here!” That was Marlowe, reminding me of Raphael with his dark eyes and head of brown curls. And in no other way.
“Belay that.” That was Mircea.
“With respect, my lord, we have but a small window!” another dark-haired man said.
He was a vamp, too, but unlike most, he hadn’t bothered with a glamourie to make himself more attractive. Instead, he had a rather jowly face, a shock of grizzled black hair, a wide nose, and a slight double chin. Small brown eyes peered out of bags of wrinkled flesh, which was a few shades too light to be ebony, looking angry but controlled. His outfit was like him—blunt and unadorned—b
eing a set of old-fashioned armor made from plain, unpolished steel, with grass clippings and mud adhering to the dented shin guards.
This wasn’t parade armor like Caedmon’s; it wasn’t meant to impress. This armor had been used. And then kept for some reason—probably sentiment, because when would you ever wear something like that again?
When you were about to battle foes who still made war the old-fashioned way, I thought. The way humans had for most of our history. Except that the fey combined it with magic we didn’t fully understand, but which was as bad as any modern weapon.
I’d want armor, too.
“I want to know what happened to my men!” the old soldier told Mircea. It was respectful, but the brown eyes caught and held the hawklike gaze, and they didn’t falter.
“I understand,” Mircea said. “But we’ve had leaks, and have reason to suspect some of the humans on staff. I don’t want to risk a bokor until—”
“Why do you need a bokor?” Caedmon broke in.
Mircea looked irritated—unusual for him. Not that he’d feel it, but that he would show it. But he didn’t say anything, because Marlowe answered for him. “It’s another word for a necromancer,” he informed the fey king. “A low-level one. We keep them on staff for—”
“Yes, I know that,” Caedmon interrupted, with the casual rudeness of someone used to being catered to. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
