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And that was when he realized…
The architectural details of the mansion were emerging, sure as if an artist’s hand was penciling in its entrance. He saw the aged brass handle he had been reaching for, and the carvings in the panels… the hinges that were big as a male’s forearm, and the molding that was so deep that snow collected in the curls of the acanthus leaves.
Stepping back, he looked up… waaaaaay up.
The roofline he’d just imagined was now really visual before him, as were those diamond-paned windows—and also the mythical creatures that were poised in stone, rearing their ugly heads forward to frighten the unwise who were not welcome.
Fumbling with his wraparounds, ripping them off, Wrath twisted on his hips and looked out to the fountain and the Pit, the snowflakes biting into his eyes.
That was when he saw the steaming crater in the earth, like something from outer space had landed on the front lawn.
Now he felt terror as he turned back.
I don’t belong here, he thought.
“Why are all the windows dark,” he said roughly as a growing awareness clawed into his chest, conclusions striking through him like bullets.
He turned to the Scribe Virgin. “Why.”
Allow me to help you with the doors.
As all the portals, both the exterior ones and those on the far side of the vestibule, ceded to her will, he looked into the darkness on the far side.
“Turning over a new leaf, are you,” he muttered because he was shitting himself. “So helpful.”
Do not o’erstep.
She timed the words perfectly as he extended his shitkicker and stepped over the threshold into the vestibule. The security monitoring systems were still in place, but they were darkened, too, as if there was no one around to receive the information—or no expectation that anyone would show up, wanted or otherwise.
“Where are they all,” he said roughly.
Emerging into the foyer, he looked around and wondered if she hadn’t taken his vision from him again. The darkness was so dense, it was like a solid he’d have to cut through, and just as he was getting desperate for a light, a single candle flared over on a carved marble bench.
He went across the mosaic floor and picked up the antique holder, locking his forefinger through the curving hook, lifting the slight weight of the dish with its soldier of wax and tiny glowing flame. The circle of illumination was a portable aura, and he walked forward without realizing where he was headed.
The dining room.
And what he saw did nothing to reassure him: Everything was covered with custom-made sheeting, all of the chairs, the sideboards, the long table itself. Moving the candle around, he heard ghostly echoes of the clinking of silverware on china, and the ripples of talk and laughter that had always filled the space. He smelled the roasts and the bread, the wine and the flowers. He sensed the movement of doggen bringing in food, clearing plates, refilling water glasses—
Wrath wheeled around. “Where are they.”
In the darkness beyond the candle’s anemic reach, there was no glow down by the floor, and as he strode back out to the foyer, he knew the Scribe Virgin was gone.
It was as he halted that he caught the scent.
Faint, but clear now that his senses were tuned in to it.
Blood.
Holding out the candle, he flared his nostrils, tracking the copper tendrils that hung in the still, cold air.
The runner that came down the grand staircase was red, and he had to lower what light he had to the carpet’s thick pile. There, in the fibers, soaked in as if a meal for the wool nap… a drop of fresh blood. He extended his arm. Swung the glow around. Three steps up, he found another. Seven steps up… another.
He was halfway to the top when he saw the firelight.
Like a rising sun, the glow was seated at the horizon of the second story’s floorboards, and as he marched toward it, he remembered the days when he had been able to see the sun, when he’d been a pretrans and his parents had still been alive, the start of his journey which now he recognized had always meant to take him here, to this night, to this ascension…
To whatever horror was awaiting him.
Cresting the great staircase, he stood before the open doors of his study, and it was then that he scented much more blood as well as the acrid smoke of a fire.
For a moment, as the subtle cracking of burning logs registered in his ears, he felt a strange immobility, and he thought… Could this be the Fade? Is this the door?
If so, it was already open, and he felt a sweep carry him forward, as if there was a void sucking him in, no chance of escape from the powerful undertow.
As he moved toward the firelight, he felt like he was hovering above the carpet instead of walking and he had a vague, peripheral awareness of ghostly furniture, the gold-leafed benches and console tables against the gold-leafed balustrade, the ornamental chairs dotting the open area of this second-story foyer, all of it protected from dust destruction with those eerie jackets made of pale cloth.
