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They’re “mating” certificates, complete with the date, time, and duration of the…ehem…event. A couple of them even list how many times the witch reached her “pleasure crest” before the ritual was complete.
“Ew,” I mutter, but for some reason I can’t stop reading through the various couplings, all of which began at midnight under a full moon.
Reading in-depth accounts of the fornication of my ancestors is as weird and off-putting as one would expect, but it also makes me curious. There’s no mention of a marriage ceremony accompanying the mating ritual until the late 1800s. Before that, it looks like the eldest Wonderfully sister simply banged the elder of her choice under the full moon, said a few words while reaching her “pleasure crest,” and the shield renewal was a done deal, no “until death do you part,” required.
A scuffing sound from even deeper in the stacks—the first sound aside from my own breath and footsteps that I’ve heard down here—makes me glance up from my find. The hairs lift on the back of my neck as I search the shadows, but I don’t see anything, and the sound doesn’t come again.
Could be I knocked something loose on another shelf when I slammed my head into the box a second time.
I turn back to the papers, whipping out my cell to document my find. I snapshot everything I’ve read so far, as well as what looks like the chant used in the ritual. It’s written in beautiful calligraphy on a card decorated with golden bats and apparently created to commemorate the union of Rebecca Wonderfully and her vampire lover, Hyrum Shadowbane of clan Shadowbane.
I don’t remember meeting any Shadowbanes in town.
Which is strange.
Vampires live forever, after all, or close to it, assuming they don’t run into a vampire slayer or sink into a bloodsucker depression and walk out into the sun or something. But an entire clan wouldn’t up and off themselves all at once, and as far as I can recall, this is the first time I’ve come across any mention of the Shadowbanes.
The Blackmores are the wealthiest and most powerful vampire clan in Nightfall, by far. The other clans—the Oleanders, the Viscounts, and the Persephones—keep a lower profile. I haven’t gotten to know any of them by name just yet. Only a few of their members have attended the engagement festivities and they kept to themselves on the fringes of the crowd.
It could be the Shadowbanes combined with another clan or something, I guess, and then changed their name. I’ll ask Darcy about that tonight, maybe. It would be cool to track down Hyrum and have a chat about Rebecca.
Where else but Nightfall can a girl hear stories about her ancestor who’s been dead for hundreds of years straight from her former bang buddy’s mouth?
On impulse, I tuck the card with the chant on it in the front pocket of my overalls where it won’t get bent or damaged before returning the rest of the contents to the box. Set in a nice frame, it will be a beautiful decorative piece for the house. And it clearly belongs to my family.
I’m not stealing it; I’m just reclaiming something that was lost to the Wonderfullys centuries ago. And it’s not like it’s doing anyone any good locked away down here in a dusty corner of this seemingly endless library.
I replace the box on the shelf and glance back at the wooden coffin on the opposite side of the stacks. “Rest in peace,” I murmur to the mummy, “sorry to disturb you.”
Slow clapping from behind me makes me jump. I let out a startled squawk as I spin toward the sound.
The slim figure emerging from the shadows laughs, soft and silky. “Jumpy, aren’t you? Not surprising, really. You don’t seem like you have a lot of experience with breaking and entering. For all your bluster, you’re a good girl. Aren’t you, Blaire?”
“What do you want, Janet?” I ask, recognizing her voice even before she emerges into the faint glow of the light atop a shelf a few yards ahead.
She’s wearing the same black dress with the deep V in the front that she was wearing last night, but her hair is tangled and there’s a scratch on her cheek that looks like it only recently scabbed over.
“I want your family to never have existed and Nightfall to be blessedly witch free,” she says with a dazzling smile that makes my stomach knot around my morning coffee. “But since that’s unlikely, I’ll settle for you getting your filthy paws off of Darcy. You will never make him happy, not long-term.”
My lips part to assure her that Darcy has no interest in me and her jealousy is unfounded, but then I remember our plan and snap my mouth shut again. I can’t tell Janet what we’re really up to without risking word getting back to Colin and Annie.
I settle for reminding her that, “Darcy is a grown man and one of the town elders. He can take care of himself.”
“Darcy is like every other creature with a cock,” Janet says, sashaying another step forward.
I take a matching step back, not interested in being any closer to her than I am already.
“Except worse,” she continues, “because he’s arrogant enough to believe he’s above being led around by the dick. But make no mistake, if you trap him into marrying you, he will hate you for it. You aren’t good enough for him. Not even close.”
I take another slow step away, torn between the urge to run and the certainty that fleeing is futile. If Janet wants to catch me, she will. I saw how fast she could move that morning in Darcy’s kitchen.
My only hope is to find some way to throw her off the scent or to convince her that killing me is a bad idea.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, having learned the power of playing dumb from years of dodging trouble with my sisters. My mother wasn’t a stupid woman, but she was helpless against a united stonewalling from her offspring. “And Darcy knows I’m here,” I add with a shrug I hope looks casual. “He’s expecting me for lunch at his place and if I don’t show up…”
She laughs again, showcasing her lengthening incisors and sending a shiver through my bones. “You’re nearly as bad a liar as your sister.”
A scowl tightens my forehead as I warn, “Stay away from my sister.”
