“Fieldworkers,” Amélia said.
“Look harder.” He placed his hand on her phantom back and beckoned me closer. “Rafa . . .”
Amélia smiled as she saw Rafa. “My granddaughter.”
“And the rest. All your children.”
“My children. Our children.” She broke into sobs. “I loved you and I gave you children, but you never loved me!”
“I am not capable of love.”
“You love her. . . .”
“I do not—I am a monster.” His voice thrummed on the strings of the Grey, resonant, and unbearable. “I raped you and beat you. You died to give me a son and I did not care. I hated you and wished you dead long before that. I would have killed you eventually if you hadn’t the luck to die before I could do it. You deserved better than me. You deserve to be free of me.” He shifted his focus to me for a second. “Hold her.”
I reached for Amélia’s tangled threads as he continued. “And I deserve to be free of you, treacherous bitch.”
I was stunned by his words and barely had my fingers in the knotted gyre of her energy, which sent a sharp, electric pain stabbing into my cut finger and running up my hand like fire, when he pushed his free hand against his own chest and tore away the tiny energetic filament that held them to each other. Amélia shrieked and writhed in my grip. Carlos spat a word at her that coruscated with spikes of obsidian black and bleeding red thorns. Then he plunged his hands into her spectral form, ripping her into shreds with two violent swipes. The hot, bright core of her energy snuffed out and she unraveled in a swift tumble of gleaming threads and a waning cry that dropped to a whisper as she fell apart and then vanished into silence.
She was gone. Still dripping wet, I stared at Carlos, aghast, shivering not from the water, but from shock and the electric feeling that had coursed through me until he tore her apart. I had seen him dissipate ghosts before, but never with such brutality, and I had never felt so much as if a small part of me had been shredded with her.
Carlos closed his eyes, his chest heaving as if his actions had cost him dearly.
“I don’t understand,” I said, rubbing my arms and trying to silence the buzzing sensation touching her had brought on.
He caught his breath, looked up at me, and got back to his feet. He glared out at the family, neighbors, and workers, arrested in their dinner, until they turned their heads and returned to their food. He swung back to me and Quinton, his expression bleak as a wasteland. “She had to be released, but she tried to kill us all and—unlike you, Greywalker—my compassion is limited.”
“Amélia . . . knew Lenoir? The one who made Sergeyev’s box?” Quinton asked, coming to put an arm around my shoulder and hold me close—though for his own sake or mine, I couldn’t guess.
“Yes. My old master. The man who murdered me.”
Carlos walked past us and disappeared into the house. I glanced out at the people in the field, but they conspicuously didn’t look back.
“I think I missed something. What has Lenoir to do with this?”
“I thought—but I never did tell you, did I?”
Quinton gave an exasperated sigh. “Tell me what?”
“The night I went out after him, Carlos had gone to talk to Lenoir’s shade at Carmo and Griffin tried to kill him—that setup appears to have been Amélia’s doing—but how would Amélia know Lenoir? Carlos wouldn’t have introduced them during her lifetime and ghosts don’t usually—”
“Get chummy after death? Yeah, I remember your saying that before. But I don’t think it would be smart of us to ask Carlos about that right now, do you?”
I shook my head.
He looked at me, still rubbing my arms. “Are you all right?”
“Feels like static all over my skin. And I never thought I’d say I feel cold here, but I do.”
“We’d better go in and dry off,” Quinton said.
“Yes,” I replied, turning with him as he led me back toward the house.
Nelia was in the doorway when we reached it. Her eyes were too bright and she smiled at us with a strange feverishness. “I knew it,” she said.
“Knew what?” I asked.
“He is Carlos.”
“You know that’s not possible,” I said.
She smiled and held out some towels, but she didn’t say anything beyond, “Put your clothes in the hall and I’ll dry them for you.” Then she walked away, leaving Quinton and me alone in the salon.
We exchanged a puzzled look and returned to our room, dampened in more than our clothes.
THIRTY
Carlos met us at the head of the stairs. “Change clothes. We still have work to do tonight.”
“Wait,” I said.
He gave me a cold look.
“Why?”
The thin edge of a razor smile pulled one corner of his mouth, but he didn’t give me the answer I wanted. “Rui will not ask that question if we fail,” he said, and turned away.
“Still as warm and friendly as a crocodile with a toothache,” Quinton observed as the necromancer walked away down the hall.
I found myself scowling and reserved any comment.
“What was that business with Nelia?” Quinton asked as we entered our bedroom. “She’s a little obsessed with our scary companion, I think.”
“She also seems to have a male admirer who isn’t happy about that. If we hadn’t made a scene, I think he would have.”
“Ah, the joys of family dynamics.”
“As if either of us can talk.”
He pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything.
I had to sort through the suitcase of mystery again and find dry clothes, but at least I knew I’d be running around in the dark, so it didn’t matter how presentable they were. I found a dark shirt and a pair of men’s pants that fit a little better than Quinton’s had and were long enough to cover my ankles. It was an inelegant ensemble, but I didn’t care.
A knock came on the door and this time I opened it while Quinton stuffed the unwanted clothes back into the suitcase.
Nelia stood in the hall with a tray. “I thought you would want food before you go out—Carlos has arranged for the car, but he isn’t hungry. And I can take your wet clothes and towels now if you like.”
“Yes, thank you,” I said, accepting the tray and turning to put it down inside the room. Then I picked up our wet things.
I stepped out into the hallway and closed the door, looking around to make sure we were alone before I spoke to her. I dropped the wet clothes to the floor and caught her arm. “Nelia,” I started, “I would avoid Carlos if I were you. Your boyfriend doesn’t seem to like him.”
She made a dismissive shudder and pulled her arm from my loose grip. “Eladio. He can go to the Devil.”
“You seemed fond enough of him an hour ago.”
“He’s a possessive prig. I don’t need another of those in my life. If I must have a man, I’d prefer one who appreciates my wildness as much as my body.” She smirked a little and bent down to pick up the wet clothes, pushing her loose hair back behind her ears. There was a tiny flicker of color along her collarbone that gave off an unnatural gleam when no light from the lamps could strike it. I peered at her through the Grey, unnerved, and saw it: a small red mark like a tiny dagger nestling in the hollow of her collarbone, right where blood would pool as it flowed from a wound high on her neck.
There was no such wound—no sign of one, but there was an odd purple thread in her aura, a subtle thing I had not noticed before and might have missed—like the tiny mark—but doubted I had. Carlos had mentioned a mark by which vampires could recognize those who fed them and to whom they belonged. . . .
I reached out and touched the mark on Nelia’s clavicle. She gasped and stood up, staring at me, eyes bright and startled. Then she shook herself and took half a step away. “What are you doing?”