At least, Xcor assumed it was a male, going by the pants and the leather jacket. Facial identification was impossible: The rats were eating him from the crown down, using the chain that was keeping everything up off the floor as a motorway to get to their fragrant meal.
So this was tragically not his enemy, but an actual dead body.
Such a disappointment. He had been hoping for something that pertained to himself. Instead, only more humans—
The crashing sound of somebody stumbling into the darkness had him clicking off his flashlight, his senses going on high alert.
Even with the stench from his friend with the meat-hook bow tie, the copper scent of fresh blood preceded whoever it was. As did the grunting of the wounded.
Awww. Someone had a boo-boo.
The flailing continued as sirens announced the Caldwell police’s arrival—but the sounds were muffled, suggesting that the new arrival to the kitchen had had the presence of mind to shut them in together.
“Fuck!”
His visitor sent some of those empty plastic containers flying as he ran into the counter. Then there was more cursing. A groan as if he were laying himself down, likely on that stretch of stainless steel. Then shallow panting.
Losing patience with the entire drama, Xcor stepped free of the refrigerator. Unlike the injured gang member, he had some idea of the layout, and he managed to zero in on the guy, thanks to his hearing and a memory of where the center island was.
Things would have been much easier with sight, however. Apart from the obvious benefits of orientation, he did not enjoy the weightless feeling that came with blindness, nor the fact that he had to rely on his ears and sense of smell to navigate. There was also the reality that anything could be in front of his feet, ready to trip him up.
But he made it over toward the stricken human.
“You are not alone,” Xcor drawled into the darkness.
“What! Oh, God! Who—”
“Do I sound like one of your own?” He was careful to roll the R a little longer than he usually would, just in case his Old Language accent was not perfectly clear.
More breathing. Heavy, very heavy. Accompanied by the acrid smell of true terror.
“You humans…” Xcor took a couple more steps forward, no longer bothering to muffle the fall of his boots. “The problem with you is that you have no true enemies. You fight amongst yourselves over the blocks of city streets or the lines of countries, because there is nothing external to unite you. My kind, conversely? We have an enemy that necessitates a certain cohesion.”
Not enough to forestall his crown-ish ambitions, however.
At this point, the human started talking gibberish. Or mayhap that was a prayer of some sort?
Such weakness. It was deplorable—and exploitable as a moral imperative.
Xcor flicked on his flashlight.
In its beam, the gang member jerked around, his bloodstained body wiping clean a section of the countertop.
Plasma … as good as Windex, evidently.
Wide eyes strained the confines of their sockets, and hard breathing whistled out of an open mouth, the former tough guy taken down multiple pegs as pain and fear sliced his bravado into nothing but a memory.
“You should know that there are others who walk amongst you,” Xcor said in a low voice. “Like, but not the same. And we are always watching.”
The man cringed away, not that there was far to go. The counter was a workspace for cutlery and sieves, not a mattress for a grown-ass man.
Any more of that and he was going to end up on the floor.
“Who … who are you?”
“Mayhap a visual rather than a description shall suffice.”
Baring his fangs, Xcor tipped up the flashlight and put his face within the illumination.
The loud scream was high-pitched, and did not last. Thanks to the overwhelming adrenal response, the man passed out cold, the stink of urine that wafted up suggesting he’d lost control of his functions.
Rather amusing, really.
Xcor moved quickly, navigating with ease over to the door, thanks to the flashlight. Assuming position against the wall, he clicked off the beam and let that scream draw its proper attention.
The Caldwell Police Department responded with admirable efficiency, a number of the officers throwing open the door, their own flashlights piercing through the dense darkness.
The instant they saw the gang member, they rushed forward, and that was Xcor’s cue for a departure.
As he slipped out the door, he heard the word vampire rise up through a chaos of conversation—and thus it was with a smile that he dematerialized out of the way of the crowd.
Back in the Old Country, he and his Band of Bastards had kept the speculations and myths going by showing themselves from time to time, always to individuals, and ever in ways that fit the misconceptions that humans had of the species.
Defilers of virgins. Sources of evil that slept in coffins. Monsters of the night.
Such pish—although the latter did indeed pertain to himself.
And in truth, it felt good to do something similar here in Caldwell, rather as a dog marks its territory. Enjoyable, too, to give the irrelevance on that kitchen island something to haunt his memory during all his upcoming days in prison.
One needed to take one’s amusement where one found it.
FIVE
When John Matthew had hit the mansion’s magnificent staircase, the last thing on his mind had been the past.
As he’d ascended, he’d been focused on, in order of importance: getting his shellan naked before Last Meal; getting her naked in their bedroom; annnnnd getting his shellan naked and underneath him in their bedroom before Last Meal.
Whether or not he was fully clothed? Not a big concern except for the below-the-waist stuff. And if push came to shove, he could totally punt on the bedroom part—provided wherever they ended up offered even a semblance of privacy.
So, yup, on his way to the second floor, he was very much plugged into the present and the presence of Xhex—who, if everything had gone to plan, had left the Iron Mask about fifteen minutes ago and was now covering the “naked” and “bedroom” part of his preoccupation.
Fate offered a diversion, however.
As he arrived on the upper landing, the double doors to Wrath’s study were open, and through them he saw a familiar tableau: the King seated behind his ornate desk; the queen in his lap; George, the golden retriever, at their feet; Saxton, Blay’s former flame and Wrath’s current solicitor, sitting off to the side on a sofa. As usual, the acre-size desktop was littered with paperwork, and Wrath’s mood was in the shitter.
In fact, that grim expression was part and parcel of the room, just like the antique French furniture that struggled to support the Brothers during meetings and the pale blue walls that seemed better suited to the boudoir of some chick named Lisette or Louisa.
But what did he know from Extreme Home Makeover.
Pausing to offer the four of them a wave, he intended to carry on to his room, find his mate, take her in a variety of positions—and then go down freshly showered to the final meal of the day.
Instead … just before he turned away … he met the eyes of his half sister, Beth.
The instant the connection was made, some combination of neurons fired in his brain, and the electrical load was too much for his motherboard: Without warning, he went into a free fall, his weight listing backward as the seizure took over his muscles, rendering them at first spastic and then utterly rigid.
He blacked out before he hit the ground …
… and when he regained consciousness, the first thing that registered was the ow-ow-ow of his head and his ass.