After what felt like an eternity, Vishous said in a grave voice, “I saw you engulfed in the sun, with flames surrounding you. Click…”
“Click?”
“That was the sound before the sun came for you. Click.” Vishous frowned and rubbed his tattooed temple. “It was like a mechanical sound. And then… the sun.”
“So I opened a window? A door?” Darius shook his head. “Impossible. I’m not suicidal. I’m never doing that during the daytime.”
“It wasn’t daytime.”
“Sure it was. That’s when the sun’s out.” As he thought more about it, he exhaled in relief. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. And I’ll be extra careful from sunrise to sundown. Thank you.”
Riding a wave of buzzy emotion, he pulled Vishous in for a hard embrace. Then he set the brother back.
“And please don’t go to that farmhouse alone,” he told the male. “The Omega could be there.”
“You just said there was no reason to go because he and his inductees would be gone.”
“I lied. You know where Tohrment lives. Go and find him—better that you stay alive to fight than get yourself killed by trying to add a slayer or two more to your belt all by your lonesome.” When Vishous opened his mouth, Darius cut in. “No, I’m serious. Don’t do anything too risky, we need you.”
“I always thought you disliked me,” came the dry response.
“Of course I don’t like you.” Darius leaned in and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “News flash, nobody likes you.”
V leveled a hard stare. “Stop with the compliments, you’re making me blush.”
“But you’re very useful. Not as decorative as Rhage, but very useful.” Darius clapped the brother on the biceps. “Now go find Tohr. And have fun, but be safe—and don’t come down here again without calling ahead first.”
As Darius opened the door, Vishous said roughly, “It was raining. Before the sun… there was rain. And I’m telling you, it was night.”
Darius regarded the brother across the distance that separated them. “Then your vision was wrong for once. That great glowing fireball in the sky only comes out in the daytime. But hey, I’ll be careful—and so will you. Say hello to Tohr for me. He’s such a male of worth.”
* * *
As time slowed to a crawl, Anne had to force herself to sit up off the pillows and stop with the nervous munching. With her feet dangling off the side of the bed, she looked back at the headboard. She wasn’t sure what kind of antique wood it was made out of, but the carvings went so deep, she could put her fingers into the pattern of relief.
After a moment of inspection, she decided it was the depiction of a garden of fecund fruit trees.
She glanced down at the mattress. Was this a baby-making shrine or something?
Hopping off, there was a good distance to the floor, and she landed on the jewel-toned carpet with a grunt. To loosen up her sore hip and leg, she wandered over to the oil paintings that hung from hooks drilled into the black rock. The lake scenes reminded her of the Adirondacks, green mountains rising up from basins of crystal clear water, humans, if there were any, so small by comparison. Set in gold frames, the works of art were clearly masterpieces.
“John Frederick Kensett, Lake George, eighteen sixty-nine,” she read aloud.
Not a clue who that was, but she’d been right about the luminous location. As she strolled to the next one, the gilded nameplate read “Thomas Cole.” There was an Albert Bierstadt. A Thomas Davies.
She felt like she was in a museum—
Stopping, she focused on a cluster of three vases that were sitting on a pedestal table. Of all the objects in the room, at least one of the triplet didn’t fit with the antique decor. The capped container was cheap and swimming pool blue. And the two it was with may have been old, but there was an equal ugliness to them.
She picked up the one that seemed like you could find in a kitchen store—
“Sorry about that—”
As Darius reentered the bedroom, she wheeled around—and in the process, lost her grip on the vase. Though she instantly tried for a regrab, gravity did its job, and as luck would have it, the thing landed not on the Persian rug, but on the bare rock floor that ringed the beautiful carpet. The shatter was spectacular, the china breaking open, shards going flying—
“No!” Darius barked as she dropped down. “Don’t touch it!”
“I’m so sor—oh, my God.” Anne recoiled and plugged her nose. “What is that smell?”
Darius dragged her back and put his body between her and the broken vase. “Shit.”
Anne frowned. A black and glossy substance was oozing all over the pieces of pottery, and that wasn’t all. There was something else there, something that struck her as horrifying—
“Is that a heart?” she breathed.
As her stomach rolled, she looked into Darius’s face. His features were composed into a mask, but his eyes were pits of regret.
Drawing her back, he opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he looked over at the mess on the floor again. “Stay here. Do not go near that thing.”
He disappeared out of the bedroom and shouted up the stairs. There was a pause—and then the thundering sound of him taking the stone steps two at a time dimmed as he ascended.
Anne glanced back at the black spill.
Every cell in her body began to vibrate in warning, and she moved even farther away. Yet the oily substance was strangely hypnotic, the way it pooled on the gray stone almost sensuous… like it was alive, like it was enticing her to—
Anne gasped as Darius pulled her back into the center of the room. And to think she hadn’t realized she’d gotten that close.
“Listen, I need to…” he started.
There was a pause. And then he urged her all the way out of the room, out into the little hallway at the base of the stairs. Meanwhile, her eyes remained locked on the remains of the cheap blue vase, and what seemed to be a heart… and that blood-like ooze.
The door shut, closing off her view.
“Listen,” he began again. “I hate to do this, but something’s come up. And I can’t—I have to go. There’s just—I hate this, but if I don’t go with my bro—friend, rather, he’s going to be in danger, and as much as I’m trying to convince myself it’s not my problem—I’m worried no one else will think it’s theirs.”
Anne tried to focus on Darius’s words, but every time she blinked, she just saw that glossy black oil undulating over the uneven contours of the stone floor. Like it was trying to get to her—
“Anne?”
His face took over her field of vision, so close to her own that he encompassed everything.
“Anne.”
She jerked herself back to attention. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
As his mouth flattened into a grim line, he shook his head. “I have to go help my friend. Otherwise, he’s going to do something really stupid on his own.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Sure. Of course.”
“I can have Fritz take you home—”