The House (18 page)

“Richard
SinClara’s study,” I said in the blandest voice I could manage. No
automated voice answered me but the carriage started to move. It
had always freaked me out; I was never sure if it had understood me
or not. There were some parts of the Covenant you really didn’t
want to end up in unexpectedly. And everyone would laugh at me if
it took us to the wrong place.

I looked
around. We barely fit into the small space. It was luxuriously
decorated with soft red cushions on the wraparound sofa and a solid
oak coffee table stained dark. The walls were panelled with the
same dark wood and the floor carpeted in soft cream carpet that
invited you to take off your shoes and push your toes into it as
Stripes was doing. I smiled at her and she hurriedly slipped her
feet back in her shoes. I giggled quietly.

Jalas gave me
a dirty look for that so I flashed him the biggest grin I could
manage. His frown deepened, making him look ten years older though
maybe he did that on purpose. I’ve learnt never to underestimate
the power of vampyre that used to be witches. You really don’t want
them to surprise you; bad for your health. I’d have rather faced
the five rogues again before I faced Jalas in a bad mood. I
wondered occasionally if he did change his appearance - subtly, but
still ... It wasn’t something I wanted to know badly enough to ask
about.

The
minutes-long journey seemed to take an age, and nobody spoke a
word. The carriage got more and more claustrophobic with every
passing moment. I would have broken the silence myself if I could
have thought of anything to say. Most of my energy went into
carefully avoiding Jalas’ gaze. The myth that vampyre can be-spell
people with their eyes is just that, myth. I just didn’t want to
see whatever emotion he’d plastered onto his face. I couldn’t
decide which would be worse, longing or indifference.

The carriage
glided smoothly to a stop outside a red brick building so covered
in ivy that for a moment that’s all that looked to be there. I
wondered if the ivy ever damaged the brickwork; best not to ask.
I’d probably end up with a lecture about ‘something-century
architecture’ or referred to the library then tested later. I was
past needing to prove myself to these people.

I had to shake
my head to clear it. This place always made me feel like I was
still the little girl who ended up here after her parents were
killed. I mean, that’s still me, I’m just not a little girl
anymore. I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to. The people
at the Covenant didn’t, however, seem to have gotten that through
their heads. Then again, they expected everyone to do as they were
told. I guess when your age runs into the hundreds of years most
people seem like children to you.

I really
wanted to say something, anything, as Jalas lead us into the
building and through what seemed to be endless corridors and
staircases. The carpet was a deep, thick red and reminded me
forcibly of blood. Images of other parts of the Covenant filled my
brain: Blood everywhere and not a drop of it mine; the man they’d
brought to us still alive in his shackles; Pain and terror
permeating the very air as I walked a long stone corridor, blood
seeping from under several doors but they weren’t my concern.

“Are you
alright?” Hercules asked me quietly, though everyone would have
heard him. “You look kind of pale.”

“Beatrice is just remembering some of her ...” Jalas paused
dramatically. “...
activities
from when she was here I believe.” His smile
curled cruelly at the corners of his mouth. “Has she not told you
all that she did during her stay? She was living here for nearly
ten years.” He laughed then. We’d stopped walking but I couldn’t
see any way to easily get past him and carry on. “You told them
nothing, did you ... all of the things that we did.” That damn
smile was starting to get on my nerves. “It makes me shiver just to
think about it.”

For the life
of me, I could not figure out which of the “activities” we did
together he was talking about anymore. I hoped against hope that
everyone would assume I’d been into kinky sex or something; it beat
the hell out of the alternative. Although most of the shifters
tended to believe that I was sexually deviant anyway. Nothing beats
a good rumour. And we do love to gossip.

“We all have
things in our past that we do not wish on our present,” Eddie spoke
up. I was so surprised I just stared at him, dumbfounded. “If we
are not required to divulge all of our secrets then Trix can keep
some of hers.” The message was clear, if I wanted to know about his
past then I had to tell him about mine. I decided that, screw it,
Marie could deal with him when she got back. I just didn’t have the
energy or inclination to recite my whole sorry history. Nor did I
have a particular wish to delve through his. He just didn’t seem to
understand that we wanted to help him, not judge him.

Hercules gave
me a sad smile. Of everyone, strangely, he knew the most about my
less than angelic past. Then again, apart from Marie, who also knew
everything about everyone, I knew the most about his. Yet he still
didn’t know this, the part of my life I hid away even from myself.
I had never intended to return to the Covenant. I had never
intended for my past to come so strongly into my present.

“Are we going
to discuss past lives all night or can we see my grandfather now?”
I asked sweetly. What scared me the most was that it was almost
exactly the same voice I had used with Jalas before. He might be
slightly unhinged but he had a sense of honour. If you acted like
an innocent damsel in distress he wouldn’t normally hurt you.
Normally.

“We have
important business here Vampyre,” Marlow added. He made it sound
like a name or a title. Like ‘vampyre’ deserved a capital letter.
There was nothing nice in his tone and I’d seen what was under the
coat he wore. Marlow was stronger and faster than Shayana, and he
knew how to use a weapon or ten.

I looked up at
Jalas. I was standing close enough that to look at him I had to
look up. He is really very tall for someone so old. People used to
be shorter you know. However, Marlow had to be nearing two metres
tall and he towered over pretty much everyone.

“Cool it
Marlow, we don’t need to fight right now.” I stepped back from
Jalas and gave him a not-so-quick once-over. A few years back that
look would have been pure sex. Now it was all about what was hiding
under the navy suede jacket and loose-fitting cream trousers. Jalas
was still the only man I’d ever known who could pull off cream
trousers. I could clearly see the sword buckled at his waist - he
never left home without it - and that alone at this range would be
plenty to finish off the bigger man.

Strength is
not everything; centuries of training also play a big part. And
there were bound to be other surprises on him, but the sword would
cinch it since I knew Marlow couldn’t hide one of them on his
person. A knife fight would be about skill but weapon choice makes
a difference when it comes with that much training.

“Yes, pick
fights that you can win,” Jalas said to Marlow, his voice dropping
an octave. He was trying to sound scary. For me, it had long ago
lost its bite but Marlow’s mouth compressed into a thin line. I
could see him rethinking his strategy on the spot. He couldn’t
bully the Covenant into helping us. It would be all up to me, and
clearly that did not sit well with him.

To me, Jalas said, “Your grandfather’s office is at the end
of the hall. It’s moved since you were last here. I have to go and
check on my ...
other
responsibilities” I shivered, and he laughed then was gone.
He moves faster than most shifters but I glimpsed the tail of his
jacket swishing around the corner. The thought of his other
responsibilities and what would be happening to them was enough to
send the fear spiking down my spine where his voice had failed. I
had too many memories of his voice as a lover, and too many
memories of his smile as he worked, for it to be any other
way.

“Shit,”
Stripes said.

“Yep, that
about covers it.” I smiled grimly; it was the best I could manage.
Confidence inspiring it was not but from bad to worse didn’t even
begin to cover where we were going now. “Come on,” I said.

I opened the
door without knocking; people never knocked in the Covenant. You
learn that pretty quickly. He was sat in the big comfy armchair
that he’d had longer than my lifetime, with a book in one hand and
a cup of tea in the other. It was like he’d seen a picture of what
a grandfather looked like and was trying to copy it. He rarely
looked so normal. He looked up as we entered, his eyes widening as
we all trooped in.

“When you said
you were bringing friends I assumed that you meant Marie,” he said
simply. He put down the teacup carefully in its saucer and gently
put an old bookmark into the book before walking, slowly, to the
bookshelf to put it away. I managed not to sigh or scream at him to
hurry up. I did, however, steal his chair while he was going about
everything so painfully slowly. His only response was to raise his
eyebrows and pull out his desk chair to sit on. I was mildly
surprised that he hadn’t known who I was going to bring. I was so
used to him knowing absolutely everything about me that I guess I’d
forgotten that knowledge dwindles when you lose contact for four
years.

The room was
bigger than the carriage. Painted a soft blue colour, with rich
cream carpet and pale furniture, it was so different from the study
I remembered that I took a minute to look around. He had always had
a big study. The last time I’d seen it, it had been a dark
green-walled room with a red-brown carpet and furniture so dark
that a shade more and it would have been black.

“Nice study,”
I laughed. “I never pegged you for the pastel colours though.” His
expression hardened. “But then we aren’t here to talk interior
design. Shayana is missing.” I glanced to Marlow, who nodded. “We
need to find her.”

“Why did you
come to me? This is a shifter problem and I was always under the
impression that the shifters took care of their own problems. There
certainly seems to be enough of you. Could you not mount a search
for your missing ...?” He glanced at Marlow.

“Sister,”
Marlow supplied and my grandfather nodded. “We are exploring
possible avenues. No human took Shayana. I think on that we can all
agree.”

“Why do you
say that?”

“Because
Shayana is physically better than I am,” I said. I looked into his
eyes; my own grey-green eyes stared back at me. “And she’s smart
too. Either she was taken by someone she knew or she was taken by
someone, or someones, stronger than she is. There aren’t that many
people stronger or faster or better trained than Shayana. She’s a
true-born.”

“There was a
time when you would never have admitted anyone was better or
stronger than you, Beatrice,” he smiled. “You have grown up some
since you left.”

“We don’t need
to be talking about me, four years is plenty of time to grow up.
What you want to know is if you can still manipulate me like you
used to.” I stayed in my seat but it was a struggle. I did not want
to allow myself to be manipulated and it was starting to seem
inevitable. Of course my grandfather would never admit it.

“I have never,
nor will I ever, seek to manipulate you. You are family. If you
need help finding this friend of yours then I will do everything in
my power to help. I just don’t think that my power will stretch
that far.” He arched his eyebrows at me expectantly and I found
myself falling back into old patterns.

“So who do I
have to go to, to get help? Who do I have to impress or please
now?” Anger radiated from me so strongly that I was amazed that
nobody seemed to be able to see it. It felt like it should have
raised the temperature of the room.

“We are here
to ask if you can help us find Shayana. If you can’t help then
we’ll leave,” Marlow stated. He sounded so calm even with his fists
clenched at his sides. I realised that nobody else was sitting down
even though there were enough chairs. My grandfather must have
realised the same thing because he gestured to the other chairs and
told everyone to take a seat.

He seemed
strangely resigned. I had expected him to start trying to
manipulate me back to the Covenant within minutes of getting there.
There was something amiss about it all but I couldn’t quite put my
finger on it. I was just hoping that whatever it was I was missing
wouldn’t come back to bite us later. Yeah right, it would be just
my luck if it did.

“Who do you
think took her?” he asked. He wasn’t talking to me anymore -
surprise, surprise. He’d try ignoring me for a while to ‘put me in
my place’. It hadn’t worked when I was fourteen and it wouldn’t
work now.

Marlow glanced
at me this time. I inclined my head ever so slightly to tell him to
say whatever it was he was going to say. It wasn’t like I had any
ideas to put forwards. I was blank. “Vampyre,” Marlow said, plain,
simple, unemotional. He had reverted back to the man that gave me
the creeps. He sounded like a killer when he spoke like that.

“What would
witches want with a shifter?” my grandfather asked.

“Not witches.
Vampyre,” Hercules corrected and I shot him a look that clearly
said he was being stupid and unhelpful. Well, it would have if he’d
bothered to glance in my direction. My grandfather just ignored
him; he’s very good at ignoring people. Hercules sunk down into his
chair while Stripes patted him absently on the shoulder. She
whispered her explanation while the important conversation
continued.

“How do you
know that the vampyre did not act of their own will?” Marlow asked.
I knew where this was going and it was going to get bad. I also had
a funny feeling that Jalas was probably eavesdropping from the
other side of the door. I did not want him to know the next part,
although my grandfather had probably already told everyone.