Tangled Webs
He’d talk to Tersa about making the beetle and talk to a carpenter in Riada about making the box. There would be plenty of time to get the thing made as a Winsol gift.
“Surreal, darling, you’ve got more spine than most of the Eyrien warriors I knew back in Terreille, but I bet you squealed when you saw these.”
His amusement vanished when he walked out of the bathroom and saw the boy standing in the back hallway.
Not an illusion this time. The boy wascildru dyathe.
“I am going to bite you and drink your blood,” the boy said.
Poor scared puppy. He must have been a sweet child. Even now he sounded like he was reciting a line for a performance at school—and stumbling over the words.
“The person who killed you…,” Lucivar began.
“He was a powerful Warlord.”
The boy sounded more hopeful than sure that he’d been killed by someone powerful.
“Puppy, in terms of power, whoever killed you was a glass of water. I’m a stormy lake. You come at me, I will rip you apart.”
“But…I’m just a boy.”
“I know,” Lucivar said gently. “I can’t let that matter. Not right now.”
The boy wilted.
A sweet child, killed for a game.
Lucivar set the pack down, then reached into the pouch of healing supplies he had hooked to his belt. He withdrew a small, stoppered bottle and held it out. “Here. It’s lamb, not human, but it’s undiluted blood. It will keep your power from fading, at least for a little while.”
“Will you hurt me if I take it?”
His temper flashed to the killing edge for a moment before he chained it back. “No, I won’t hurt you.”
Wonderful dialogue. Just wonderful! Who would have thought such a gem would come from theEyrien ? He would have to put a scene in the book where Landry Langston meets the boy. It would be so sad, so moving, so…wonderful.
The boy took the bottle and gulped down the blood. Wasn’t more than a couple of swallows, but he looked like he’d been given a feast. He almost started licking the inside of the bottle, then stopped as if suddenly remembering his manners. He replaced the stopper and handed the bottle back.
“Puppy, do you know who thecildru dyathe are?” Lucivar asked.
“Dead children,” the boy replied. “If you’re a good boy, you get to go to a nice place for a while before you become a whisper in the Darkness. But if you’re bad…” He looked around the hallway.
You bastard. You not only killed this boy, but you told him he deserved to be here?Compared with here, he supposed, thecildru dyathe ’s island in Hellwas a nice place.
“Who killed you?” The question was blunt, and his voice had hardened with the strain of keeping his temper leashed. This boy didn’t deserve seeing his temper.
Instant terror. The boy knew who had killed him, and even now was too afraid to say.
Not likely the boy had any training in the psychic communication the Blood used, but anyone who was Bloodcould do it to some degree. “Look at me and think the answer as loud as you can in your head.”
Jarvis Jenkell.
Barely a whisper. If he hadn’t been focused on the boy, he wouldn’t have heard it. Now he had confirmation for Daemon about who had set up this trap for them.
“I don’t remember his name,” the boy lied, “but he’s very famous.”
“As of this moment, he’s walking carrion. That’s a promise.” Lucivar took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This is another promise. I have to help the living first, but if there’s a way to break you free of these spells and get you out of this house before we tear it apart, my brother and I will do it.”
“Okay.”
Lucivar picked up the pack and moved into the front hallway, aware of the boy following him.
“Those are bad stairs. They have a trick.”
He looked at the stairs, then back at the boy. “What’s the trick?”
“You can see the hallway down there, but you can’t reach it. You end up someplace else.”
“Have you seen a witch and a Warlord Prince?”
The boy nodded. “They went down the stairs. They disappeared.”
“They have any children with them?”
“Four.”
Which meant three of the children who had come in with Surreal and Rainier were now among the dead.
“You didn’t warn them about the stairs?”
“The lady witch was screaming and I got scared. So I didn’t talk to them.”
“I guess she saw the beetles.”
A quick, boyish grin. “They pop real good.”
Lucivar hesitated. “If there’s a way, we’ll get you out of this house.” Then he went down the stairs.
Oh, this wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. If Lucivar caught up to the Surreal bitch and her companion, it would spoil the big battle at the end of the story. Justspoil it. And that boy! What was he doing? He should beattacking people, nottalking to them.
Of course, he hadn’t anticipated any of his “guests” coming in with bottles of blood to use as bribes.
Good idea, though. Probably have to give that idea to the witch in the story. Landry couldn’t haveall the good ideas. And she would be carrying blood because she always did—ever since her encounter with…
Well, he’d figure that out later.
Right now he had to provide his “guests” with the way out of the cellar and up to the final act.
And he wasn’t going to think about that phrase Lucivar used: “walking carrion.”
TWENTY-TWO
One minute there was nothing but a pile of storage boxes and broken furniture; the next, there was a set of stairs leading up to a door.
Surreal didn’t much care where the stairs led as long as it got them out of the cellar, which was a warren of little rooms piled with debris—or barren in a way that made her think the space had been used to cage something. It went on too long, was toobig for the house above them—and it also felt like it was shrinking around them.
Rainier looked at her. "The Black Widows who made the illusion spells were good at their Craft. The illusion that hid these stairs didn’t stop working by chance."
"I know," she replied.
"It feels like a grave down here. It feels like we’re buried alive."
She wished he hadn’t said that, since it matched her sense of the place closing in on them.
"Do we go up?" Rainier asked.