Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

Four Lakes Estates

Caldwell, New York

A s Tohr re-formed out in the middle of a fucking blizzard, he got attacked by snow, his eyes blinded, his cheeks whipped, his clothes flapping against his body. With a quick pivot, he put his back to the storm, but he couldn’t say that improved things very much.

All he got was the kind of spanking even Vishous would have turned down.

However, the change in direction did give him a good look at Rhage, and a moment later, Qhuinn, who had both dematerialized out to this enclave of newly built mansions with him.

With the three of them on-site, he led the way forward even though he couldn’t see much, and had to put his forearm up to cut the onslaught. Courtesy of the nor’easter, whole sections of Caldwell had suffered power outages, but over the roar of the storm, he caught the steady whrrrrrrrrr of big-ticket generators burning through all kinds of fossil fuels.

At least the lights up ahead were a good thing to triangulate toward.

Only a couple of yards later—thank Lassiter—he stepped into the lee of a three-story house that was the size of a college dorm. Letting his arm fall to his side, he caught his breath and blinked his lashes clear.

Holy new-built, Batman. The mansion had to be ten thousand square feet, maybe fifteen, and size was the only thing the architect had gotten right. The place was a bad replica of an antique brick Lord of the Manor palace, the proportions of window levels, the Corinthian columns of the entrance, the angles of the roofline, all wrong.

Except they weren’t here to pick on the owner’s taste.

Up at the pretentious front entrance, a maid in uniform was shivering under the great lantern that hung from the portico’s ceiling, her black dress and white apron offering no protection against the cold. To go along with her proper dress code, her salt-and-pepper hair had been pulled back from her makeup-less face, but the bun wasn’t neat. Flyaways were fuzzed out around her lined forehead, as if her obvious distress had created its own static electricity field.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God . . .”

She was forcing out the words through her rattling teeth, and as Tohr mounted the steps, he noted she’d left the door partially ajar behind her.

“Let’s get you inside,” he said in a low voice.

Her eyes stopped bouncing around and focused on him properly. “I’m not going back in there.”

The gentlemale in him made him want to take off his leather coat and put it around her shoulders. But there were weapons in it, and weapons all over him. The female was not going to want to see that—yet more to the point, he had no idea what they were walking into or whether he was going to need to fight.

Well, he knew some of what was waiting for them.

“Is there anybody else in the house?” he asked.

He needed to know her answer, but the conversation was also a distraction as he turned her around and eased her over the threshold. He did not want her leaving the premises, and he was also worried about her needing medical intervention if she stayed out in the blizzard much longer.

“N-n-n-no. No one else . . .” Wide, frightened eyes locked on him. “At least . . . I d-d-d-don’t think so.”

As his brothers brought up the rear and closed the door, he glanced around and noticed first all the security cameras. Then the interior sank in. Like the outside, the black, white, and gold foyer was grand in scale, almost-right in execution—and totally tacky with too much try-hard art, too many silk flowers, too much color. As if the owners just had to buy things.

On the left, there was a parlor, and a library was to the right. Out to the back, there were more rooms, but they were all obscured by archways, doors, and hallways. And finally, in the center of it all, a bifurcated staircase angled up to a second floor, then kept going to whatever was on the third level.

Lots of scented candles everywhere. But somewhere, not far off . . . he could smell the blood.

Rhage and Qhuinn fanned out, but didn’t go far, leaning into spaces, checking out things while staying close.

“I want you to tell me where he is,” Tohr said quietly. “And stay here.”

The maid’s stare shifted to the staircase and her wrinkled hand went to the starched collar of her uniform. “H-he’s in his suite. I-I . . . each night when I come in, I refresh the flowers throughout the first floor, and then I go up to change his sheets. H-he’s supposed to be leaving for the rest of the week, so I’m the only one who came in to work.” She snuffled and took a tissue from a pocket. “I f-f-found him . . . on his bed.”

“Okay, I’m going to go up there.” When she grabbed on to his sleeve, he patted her arm. “It’s okay. Both of my brothers will stay with you here—”

“But what about you,” she said desperately. “It’s horrific, and what if there is . . . somebody still here?”

“Don’t worry about me. And don’t worry about you, either—my brothers are with you.”

He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and then nodded at Rhage and Qhuinn. And as he took the stairs two at a time, he was touched by her concern. But after centuries of the war with the Lessening Society? He was intimately familiar with death in all its forms. Mortal threats as well.

Not that he needed to spell that out for her.

“It’s to the left,” the maid called up. “His suite faces the garden. The view . . . is the best in the house.”

Tohr got to the second story and leaned over the railing. “Thank you.”

Except he didn’t need the direction. The blood was ripe up here, even with the candles and the flowers—which he now recognized were real.

He’d just assumed no one would pay for so much of such a transitory thing.

As he continued down, the broad corridor was painted a soft gray, and it had bright white doors on both sides. There were a lot of security cameras, tucked up high against the ceiling molding, guarding loud, garish modern paintings that broke up the monotony—

It was obvious when he needed to stop. For one, the scent of copper was so thick, he could taste it in the back of his throat. For another, the gold-leafed crest on the slightly open door was a dead giveaway—

Okay, bad choice of words.

Before he entered, Tohr offered up a prayer in the Old Language to Lassiter: “May the soul of the departed have found entrance unto the Fade, and be welcomed by those who have awaited his arrival.”

He pushed his way in with his elbow . . . and found himself greeted with a short stack hallway, like he was entering an expensive penthouse apartment. Everything was white. Walls, ceiling, carpet, molding, doors. And the layout opened up to a living-room-sized space that was furnished in all white decor.

“Color scheme by Clorox,” he muttered as he continued farther in.

The first of the red stains was visible through an archway, the droplets on the plush wall-to-wall. It was only a dot or two, but to his eye, they were an ocular scream.

Stepping with care, he proceeded to the entry into the sleeping quarters, scanning everything, looking for any out-of-places—some pocket litter, a tread print in the rug’s pile, a brush against the wall. Nothing registered, and with the decor being so monochromatic, he would have picked up on . . .

“Anything,” he whispered as he rounded a corner and was able to get a proper look into the bedroom.

The partially dressed body was lying cockeyed on top of the unmade bed, head on the pillows, bare feet hanging off the edge of the mattress. The throat had been cut wide open, and blood had soaked through the collar of a partially buttoned business shirt. No other wounds were apparent. Boxers were blue.

Getting his phone out, he took pictures of where the body was in the room, of the bed, of the pillow. Then he focused close in on the clean stripe across the front of the neck. The fatal slice was at a slight angle, and he imagined the killer had snuck up behind with the knife in their right hand.

A surprise job , he thought as he texted the photographs out. Done while the male was getting dressed.

Tohr eased back. Sure enough, there was a trail of blood leading into what he assumed was a dressing room—

His phone started to vibrate and he answered without checking to see who it was. “You got the images?”

There was a rushing sound, as if Vishous were exhaling after starting one of his hand-rolleds. “Pretty professional job.”

“Seems so.” He went over and looked into a room-sized walk-in closet. “We’re going to need you to come out here and go through the security system. There are contacts on every window and door. Cameras in all the corners.”

“I’m on my way. Anything else you want?”

Tohr glanced around at what was hanging on the rods. Suits. Business shirts. Polos and casual slacks that were pressed and starched. No jeans.

Nothing that a female wore.

He focused on some scuff marks on the carpet, and a pool of blood that had been absorbed by the wool fibers. This had to be where the job had been done, he thought.

Or at least he assumed that was the case.

“We also need Butch,” he said. “This is above my pay grade.”

“Roger that. He’s right beside me and getting his car keys as we speak.”

As Tohr hung up, he glanced back over his shoulder. Out on the bed, the body hadn’t moved, but in a reality-twister, he imagined the male sitting up—and being offended at the fact that his Egyptian cotton bedding was all stained and his monogrammed shirt ruined.

Returning to the bedroom, he went over to the windows that, yup, looked out into a formal garden that would have been illuminated by the exterior lighting if everything hadn’t been obscured by the swirling blizzard. He imagined the back acreage was like the rest of the place: A near-miss at the goal of old-school grandeur because the owner had more money than class.

This was the new glymera .

Bloodline used to be the only velvet rope. Now? Cold hard cash got you into the club. They’d had to lower their standards after so many of the Founding Families had been killed in the raids. After all, those rules and social slights they lived and died by required a critical mass of people who believed the bullshit.

Or bought into it, as was now the case.

He glanced at the body of Broadius Rayland again. What hadn’t changed?

“A murdered aristocrat is a big problem,” he muttered aloud.