When she pulled her awareness back to the moment, Leesil stood before her, studying her face with wide-eyed puzzlement.
"I'm…" she began. "It's nothing."
She glanced once more at her hand, the right empty and the left still clutching the bloodstained dress, and shook her head. Stepping around Leesil, she headed purposefully up the right side of the steps, watching the left-side lantern suspiciously. A trick of the light was all it had been, and she grabbed the railing to steady herself.
The porch was empty and silent.
Magiere stared at the closed front door with its outer carved panels of detailed doves and vines. She tried to look about and find where Leesil or Chap or even Lanjov had disappeared to, but her head wouldn't turn.
Her hand reached for the door's side lanterns, first the right and then the left, turning down the wicks until then-light dimmed just short of going out. Her hand wore a well-tailored, tight-fitting, black leather glove. The hand itself was wrong, wider than it should be. It grasped the brass knocker, clacked it twice against the door, but there was no sound. Magiere tried to back away but couldn't move.
Moments passed. The door cracked open. A fresh young face peered out.
She was a pretty girl with dark ringlets of hair that hung to her shoulders. The girl released a smile, as if knowing Magiere as a familiar acquaintance. Magiere had no recollection of ever seeing or meeting her before, but something about her appearance was familiar. When the girl spoke, Magiere couldn't hear the words, but dark ringlets swayed across the shoulders of her lavender gown with its saffron trim.
"Chesna?" Magiere whispered, or thought she had. The sound never reached her ears. The only thing she heard was her heart hammering.
Jaw now aching, Magiere felt her canines elongate, pushing against the clench of her teeth. Her gloved hand snatched the girl's neck and wrenched the young woman closer. When her mouth clamped around the girl's throat, lips sealing across smooth, warm skin, there came the scent of lilac from perfume or soap. Chesna's throat collapsed between Magiere's teeth as blood seeped into her mouth.
Magiere wanted to let go and scrape the taste from her tongue with her fingernails. Its thick warmth trickled to the back of her throat. Her head abruptly ripped back, and Magiere saw the side of the girl's throat open, exposing sinew and bleeding veins. Her hand still clenched around the girl's neck, she shook Chesna until blood soaked the lavender bodice. Her free hand came up, fingers snarling in the front of the lavender dress…
Chesna's empty eyes rolled.
"Stop it! Wake up!"
Magiere jerked away, both hands to her face as she clawed at her own mouth.
Her foot slipped off the edge of the porch. A hand snatched her upper arm, and she snarled in fear and pulled free, tumbling down the stairs to land facedown on the walkway.
Magiere lay still, unable to do anything but hold her bare hands across her face. She could still taste blood. Her heart raced so fast that she couldn't separate the pounding beats in her ears.
Hands grabbed her shoulders from behind, trying to pull her over onto her back. She blindly swung a backhand fist at her attacker. Her wrist was snatched in a grip that pulled her up and around to her knees.
"Valhachkasej'a! Open your eyes!"
Magiere obeyed.
Everything in the pitch dark around her appeared thinly luminous.
Leesil knelt before her, one hand on her shoulder, the other still gripping her wrist. The door lanterns behind him burned so brightly she couldn't look at them, and yet his face wasn't night-shadowed. She saw his features clearly, from the fine hairs of his slanted eyebrows to the faint scars on his jawline where the small undead, Ratboy, had tried to claw his throat open months ago.
"What is this?" Lanjov shouted. "What is wrong with her?"
The councilman stood in the house's entryway back from the door and stared in horrified astonishment at the two of them kneeling on his front walk.
"Quiet, please," Leesil snapped in annoyance.
"No!" Lanjov shouted. "Enough of this ridiculous-"
"I said quiet!" Leesil repeated, and leaned around to face the councilman.
Magiere couldn't see her companion's face, but Lanjov's reaction was plain. The councilman lost all semblance of anger and took a further step back into his home.
Leesil turned back to her, and Magiere saw a change pass across his features. His narrow jaw tightened, and large amber eyes flinched and widened, and she felt his sudden twitch through his tightening grip on her wrist. He looked afraid. She shrank back from him, but he held her in place.
The ache in her jaw began to fade. Leesil slowly released her wrist and tried gently to pull her other hand from covering her mouth. She jerked her head away.
"Let me see," he whispered.
This time, she let him push her hand aside. She felt his fingertips gently spread her lips. He frowned and gave a shallow nod.
"It's all right now," he assured her. "Nothing to hide anymore."
"She knew him," Magiere choked out, and ran her own fingers over her teeth. There was nothing strange to her touch.
Leesil took hold of her upper arms and pulled her to her feet.
"What are you talking about?" Leesil asked.
"I saw… felt him," Magiere tried to answer. "Chesna. She knew him."
"How could you see…" Leesil started. "What do you mean, him?”
She didn't know how to explain that she'd seen through the eyes of the murderer, followed his steps, and lived inside his moment. Tasted his kill.
"My hands." Magiere shook her head. "They were too wide for a woman. And the gloves I… he was wearing were fine leather. Custom-fitted."
"All right." Leesil hesitated as he looked her over. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "This ‘seeing' we'll get to later, but the gloves… means maybe he's masquerading as an elite or noble perhaps."
"He didn't feed," she continued. "This wasn't for blood."
"No more!" Lanjov shouted harshly through the doorway. "I have answered your questions and let you paw over her dress. You should be out in the streets hunting this creature, not putting on a spectacle for my neighbors."
Magiere slipped around Leesil and up the steps. "Chesna knew him. Who else comes here? Does anyone else come regularly to the house?"
Ashen with anger, Lanjov spit his words. "Are you suggesting the murderer is not a vampire?"
"No-he's an undead." Magiere shook her head, the vision now crystallized in her thoughts. And that one word hung in her mind-murderer. "But he didn't feed on her blood. I think he wanted it all over her. He wanted someone to find her that way."
"Leave my home at once," Lanjov said. "My daughter did not know this creature. It… he is a fiend, like those of your own town. The guard captain has taken accounts from those who were either attacked or viewed attacks by this thing, and I assure you, it was not a nobleman."
"There have been other attacks?" Leesil's voiced betrayed an annoyance Magiere could hear growing into open outrage. "With survivors? Why didn't anyone tell us this?"
Lanjov stared blankly at him, searching for a response to a question that apparently made no sense to him.
"There was no need. The city guard took the reports, and the victims were-"
"Common folk," Magiere finished in disgust. "You didn't see a need to call for me until one of your own died. So some survived these attacks to report them, but what about bodies? Besides Chesna, where are the other bodies?"
"I do not know," Lanjov answered tiredly. "Now, please, leave my home. This is a prowling creature that kills at random. If you wish to be paid, take that dog into the sewers or any other place where such things hide, and do not mention this ridiculous theory of a nobleman again."
He closed the door, and Magiere heard the bolts inside slide sharply into place.