Anne Bishop - Tangled Webs

The front upstairs hallway looked just as he remembered it. That wasn’t right, but he couldn’t figure out why—and didn’t care once they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Then Surreal said, “It’s different.”

Daemon capped his pen and vanished it. He folded the paper and tucked it in the inside pocket of his black jacket. Then he was up and moving toward the parlor door, slipping past the irate Queen of Halaway as he said, “Thank you for your assistance, Lady Sylvia. And Mikal’s as well. I appreciate it.”

As he opened the door, she balled up her fist and slugged him in the shoulder.

He turned on her, snarling.

“Don’t you dare criticize Tersa,” Sylvia said. “Don’t you dare make her feel bad about what she’s done.”

His temper chilled, and he replied too softly, “You’re out of line, Lady. ”

“I saw your face, Prince. When Mikal walked out of the room and you didn’t have to pretend to take a disapproving stand, I saw your face. Tersa may not understand the mundane world she tries to live in, but she understood her boy. If you were still Mikal’s age, you would have been as fascinated by her spooky surprises as he is. Especially those damn beetles.”

In that moment, he understood why his father had fallen in love with the Queen of Halaway. He could picture Sylvia squaring off with Saetan over whatever had lit her temper or nipped her sense of justice.

But he doubted Sylvia had ever slugged his father.

“No response?” Sylvia asked tartly.

“My father told me I should never lie to a Lady,” Daemon replied.

“So?”

“So I have no response.” Because he was not going to admit she was right. “Good evening, Sylvia. I’ll see myself out.”

She changed from irate woman to concerned Queen in a finger snap.

She touched his arm. Just a gesture of concern. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

As he left Sylvia’s house and caught the Black Wind to return to the landen village, he knew it was going to take more than luck to get Surreal and Rainier out of that damned spooky house alive.

“There was a mirror on that wall, and a coat-tree near the door,” Surreal said as she looked around the front-entrance hallway.

“That ‘caretaker’—whoever he really is—might have moved things to cause confusion,” Rainier said.

She frowned, then shook her head. “Wasn’t really paying attention to the wallpaper, but I think that’s different too.”

“An illusion spell could change the wallpaper. A person could move a mirror and coat-tree.”

Was it as simple as that?

“Does the front door work?” Kester asked.

The boy sounded upset, angry. She understood that. She’d had more than enough of dealing with this damn house and was feeling the same way.

“We’ll check out the hallway and that sitting room to make sure we have some safe ground,” Rainier said. “Then we’ll check the door.”

“Why wait?” Kester demanded.

“Because the odds are good that a door or doorway also has a trap,” Rainier said with strained patience.

“You waited to make these shields to protect us, and Ginger and Trist died,” Kester said. “Why wait for something else bad to happen?”

“Don’t start a pissing contest, boy,” Rainier warned. “Not here, not now. First we find some safe ground, and then we can— Kester! ”

Kester bolted for the front door.

Rainier raised his hand, and Surreal felt the mental stumble as he stopped himself from using Craft to…Do what? Put up a barrier in front of the boy? Slam an Opal lock on the door, preventing it from being opened? Either action would have required a second use of Craft to undo what had been done.

But the moment passed when a choice might have mattered. Kester reached the door and pulled it open.

The thing on the other side…

Surreal’s first impression was of an engorged, somewhat malformed Eyrien male combined with something made of smoke. Wisps of black smoke rose from its body, obscuring the separation between the male and the night. The eyes glowed red like stoked coals.

She saw those things in the moment before it grabbed Kester, before the Opal shield around the boy was shattered by a bolt of darker power. Before Kester’s blood sprayed over the hallway.

Neither she nor Rainier had time to react, to strike back before the creature and boy disappeared—and she stared at a door that opened onto nothing but a brick wall.

“Mother Night,” Rainier said.

“Well,” Surreal said, wondering if anyone else could hear her heart pounding, “now we know someone who wore a Jewel darker than Opal was killed and trapped in this house.”

Rainier looked at the remaining four children, who were just staring at the front door. Then he looked at Surreal, and she saw bleak resignation instead of hope. “Yeah. Now we know.”

Nothing Rainier could have done. If the Eyrien could break an Opal shield, a blast of Opal power wouldn’t have stopped him from killing the boy. A blast of her Gray might have stopped him, but like Rainier, she had hesitated, had choked back her natural reaction—and the moment when it might have made a difference was gone. Lost. Just like the boy.

«Did you recognize the Eyrien?» Rainier asked.

Surreal shook her head. «He wasn’t from Ebon Rih, but there were plenty of Eyriens who came in during the service fairs and accepted service in other parts of Askavi—or other Territories altogether.»

«Whoever devised this place killed two Black Widows and an Eyrien warrior.»

«An Eyrien isn’t any harder to kill than any other man if you can slip a knife between the ribs when he’s not expecting it.»

«I doubt we’ll get that close,» Rainier said. «If he comes at us, it will be a straight fight.»

And without Craft, neither of them had the training or skill needed to face an Eyrien who’d had centuries to hone his fighting skills.

Right now, there was nothing they could do about the Eyrien—or the other dead.

“Let’s check out the sitting room,” she said.

Rainier rounded up the children, and they all entered the sitting room in a tight little pack. Then Rainier swore softly.

“This is different,” he said.

It should have been the same room, and it wasn’t. Obvious differences, with no attempt to hide them.

“We should be in the sitting room where we started,” Rainier said. “Since we’re not, where in the name of Hell are we?”

She shook her head. “Don’t know. But let’s see what we’ve got in here.”

They poked at sofa and chair cushions, swept the pokers under furniture to roust anything that might be hidden. There was a bowl of grapes on the table behind the sofa. Nothing noticeably wrong with them, but she said, “Hands off” when the children looked at them—and wondered if they’d actually obey her this time or if someone else would get killed.

The painting over the fireplace wasn’t a portrait as such. It was a man and a woman. He stood behind his lover, his arms around her, his mouth pressed to her bare neck. But as Surreal watched, his arms tightened to restrain. The woman’s eyes opened, and they were filled with fear and resignation. The man’s kiss changed into a bite. No pretense of lover now, just a predator. Blood dribbled down the woman’s pale skin and stained her white dress.

Surreal moved closer, raised her candle, and read the brass plaque attached to the painting’s wood frame. Then she snorted.

“What?” Rainier asked, hurrying to join her.

“The painting is called Rut. ”

Rainier studied the painting for a moment, then turned away.

“On behalf of my caste, I’m not sure if I should be insulted or relieved.”