Gertriss shrieked, and her dressing gown fell. Buttercup giggled, and at that very moment Fate arranged for my door to fly open and for Darla, my Darla, to walk in.
For a moment, all was stillness and silence.
There was Gertriss, mostly naked. There was Buttercup the freshly bathed banshee, completely naked and hanging onto a Markhat who was naked from the waist up. The floor was covered in cast-off clothing of both male and female varieties. Obeying some capricious law of garment behavior, a pair of Gertriss’s bloomers was hanging from a lamp.
Darla merely nodded at me, raised her right eyebrow and put her left hand on her left hip.
“I see you’re keeping busy, darling. I didn’t knock because I was told you were mortally wounded. I’m pleased to see you’re not. Yet.”
Momma Hog stepped into my room, joined by Evis, who was swathed from head to toe in yards of pure black silk.
Mama gobbled something incomprehensible at Gertriss, who wrapped herself in the blanket and fled for my bathroom.
Evis broke into hissing vampire laughter. He doubled over. He did manage to hide his mouthful of fangs behind a black-gloved hand.
And then Darla marched past Gertriss, pushed Buttercup gently aside and kissed me on the lips.
“So dear, tell me all about your day.”
I seated Darla on my right and Momma on my left. Gertriss wound up beside Mama, who was still clearly not in a mood to forgive Gertriss’s earlier state of dishabille. Buttercup tried to sit in my lap, but hopped up on the huge empty dining table after Darla fixed the banshee with her trademark icy stare.
Evis fidgeted in his chair right across the table from me. Even buried beneath a tent’s worth of silk and wearing tinted spectacles, the light was obviously causing him great discomfort.
Lady Werewilk herself had shooed her idling household staff out of the kitchen, which had taken on the role of gathering place for all of her displaced servants. She hadn’t had to ask twice after word got around that the funny man dressed all in black was a halfdead from town.
“I’m sure you’d all enjoy a bit of privacy,” said Lady Werewilk, before she opened the door to the hall. She’d impressed me by not treating Evis as anything but another guest in her home. She’d even inquired as to any special accommodations she could make on behalf of Evis.
Evis had politely declined.
Once we were alone, we all swapped stories.
Darla and Mama, it turned out, had both received messages that claimed to be from Lady Werewilk. The message was the same to both, short and simple-Markhat is dying. Come at once.
No details. Nothing but that. Mama had been determined to set out, on foot, at that very moment, but Darla had convinced her to head to Avalante before leaving Rannit.
Which brought Evis, genteel halfdead, aboard. Upstairs, Evis had told me in a hushed voice that he’d also brought Victor and Sara, the married halfdead couple I’d met some months back. Victor and Sara were lurking somewhere shaded, out in the forest, waiting for night to fall before coming to the House themselves.
He never stated it, but I knew they’d have a good look around on their way. They’d spot the army of watchers. Vampires would be able to sneak right up to campfires and have a good listen without raising an alarm. Maybe we’d get lucky and someone out there would mention a name or two.
Once Darla and Mama had demanded to see Evis at Avalante, they’d relayed the message they’d received. I was touched to learn that Evis had simply ordered a carriage brought around. No delays, no consulting with his superiors at the House.
I’d need to get him an extra nice pair of mittens for Yule.
Darla, Mama and Evis had then made their way from Rannit to House Werewilk in a carriage emblazoned with Avalante’s crest. I wasn’t even sure if Momma and Darla knew they were being flanked by two more halfdead. And I wondered if the Avalante crest on the carriage left the men in the woods leery of carrying out an ambush.
Evis and Mama and Darla denied ever seeing any hint of the secret forest army.
That didn’t sit well with me. Marlo had seen them. I’d seen them. They were as thick as briars out there, and weren’t taking great pains to conceal that fact-so why hadn’t Evis or his vampire shadows detected even a hint of snacks on the hoof?
There was only one answer to that, and it raised the hair on the back of my neck.
Sorcery.
Sorcery cast by someone who knew me and my associations well enough to bring us together at Lady Werewilk’s big oak table with just six short words.
Mama and Darla saw it too. Evis took a moment, maybe because his own lexicon of mortal enemies is much longer than any of ours.
“Hisvin. The Corpsemaster.”
I just nodded, unwilling to speak the creature’s name aloud.
Darla’s face went dark. “Has to be,” she whispered. She squeezed my hand. She’d had her own brush with Hisvin, the same night I walked with the huldra. We’d neither of us ever forget, ever be able to forget.
It’s a hell of a bond to share.
Mama made growling sounds in the back of her throat.
“I should have seen the lie in them words,” she muttered. “I knowed good and well you wasn’t dead.”
Darla managed a smile. “I didn’t think so either. Not in my heart.”
Buttercup scowled at Darla and tried to slide off the table and wiggle between us. Darla pulled her into her own lap instead. Amazingly, the banshee not only tolerated the act, but smiled and settled against Darla.
Evis’s chair legs made a loud shrieking on the floor. He pushed it back into a shadowed corner and propped his hands against his chest, gloved fingertips together. “What a fascinating creature,” he said, quietly. His dark spectacles were fixed upon Buttercup. “She seems to be quite taken with you, Finder.”
His grin was wide and toothy.
“He’s been sneaking around feeding her corn bread since we got here,” added Gertriss, without the least hint of accusation.
Darla smiled at me. “Now that’s enough, both of you,” she said. “Markhat can’t help it if women find him charming. I myself do, at times.”
Mama snorted. She was clutching a dead bird in either hand, and she was careful to keep them both between her and Buttercup.
“That there ain’t no normal livin’ creature,” she said, putting a lot of rasp into it. “There’s old magic in its veins. Old dark magic.”
Buttercup responded by turning up her nose at Mama and resting her head on my chest. Darla laughed, and stroked the banshee’s hair.
“Poor dear. He’ll only break your heart.”
I sat Buttercup upright and shoved a biscuit in her hands. She took it and began to nibble, watching us from beneath that mane of clean but wild yellow hair.
“All right. It seems fairly obvious who brought you here. What escapes me is the why.”
“If-he-wanted us dead, there’d be no need to call us together first.” Darla made vague wand-waving motions with her hands. “He could just say poof, and we’d be gone.”
Mama nodded grudging assent, still keeping her suspicious Hog eyes fixed on the biscuit-gobbling banshee perched happily in Darla’s lap.
I nodded. “Well. Let’s assume for the moment that you-know-who lured you out of Rannit. I’m sure the Corpsemaster has his reasons. Unfortunately, there’s only one way to find out what they are.”
“You don’t mean that.” Darla’s hand closed on mine.
“I’m afraid I do,” I said. “I’ll wait ’til dark. Perhaps Mr. Prestley will step out with me. If that’s acceptable to Avalante, of course,” I added.
Evis waved a gloved hand dismissively. “I’m not here on behalf of Avalante,” he said. “I just happened to be visiting in the neighborhood and decided to drop in when I heard music. But I will be only too happy to accompany you later this evening.”
Mama made a snorting sound. “How you plan to find that devil, boy? You know where he is?”