Shame, horror, and reality hit her all at once. Why was she hiding from Leesil?
She sat up, Leesil pushing her from behind, and turned to look at him. As she pulled her hand from her face, he grimaced at the sight of blood on her jaw. He reached out to inspect the damage to her lower lip where the nobleman's fist had landed.
Leesil pulled his hand away abruptly and glared at her, as if wary of her presence.
"What?" she asked urgently. "What is it?"
He hesitated before answering. "Fangs."
Night wind blew in from the shattered window frame across the room and stripped the last of anger's heat from Magiere's body.
The scene they found in the common room pressed Leesil down to the point where he was almost unable to perform any more action.
A lit lantern rested on the end of the bar, and Caleb kneeled by Beth-rae's body. He looked up at Leesil in confusion, wanting someone to explain everything away. Chap also sat by the body, whining and pushing at Beth-rae's shoulder with his nose. The fur on his chest was matted with blood, but from the way he moved, it seemed he was not as seriously injured as Leesil had feared.
"I went out for fresh water," Caleb said numbly. "I came back and…"
"Caleb, I'm so sorry," Magiere whispered from the base of the stairs.
Magiere still appeared shaken, but at least fully aware of her surroundings. If not for the blood on her chin and the split lip, Leesil would have thought her no more disarrayed than she was after one of their old mock battles played at the expense of frightened villagers.
Beth-rae's throat was jaggedly torn from one side to the other. Leesil knew the weapon had been a dirty fingernail.
"It was him," he said finally, "that filthy beggar boy we fought on the road to Miiska." He didn't look at Magiere as he spoke. "He attacked us… or, actually Chap attacked him, but he climbed through that front window. Beth-rae threw something over him, and he started to scream, and his skin turned black."
"Garlic water," Caleb said softly, touching Beth-rae's hair.
"What?" Magiere asked.
"We've been keeping a cask of it in the kitchen," he answered flatly. "If you boil garlic for several days in water, it makes a weapon against vampires."
"Stop it," Magiere said harshly, stepping closer. "I don't want to hear it right now. Whatever they wanted, they were just men. Do you understand?"
For the first time since meeting her, Caleb looked at Magiere with something akin to open dislike on his face. He struggled to carefully lift his wife in his arms.
"If you stopped lying to yourself and dealt with the truth, maybe my Beth-rae wouldn't be dead."
He carried the body through the curtain to the kitchen. Chap followed, still whining.
Magiere slumped down to sit on the bottom stair and covered her eyes with her hands. Strands of her loose, messy hair caught in the drying blood on her chin.
"What's going on?" Leesil asked. "Do you know?"
"The man at the Vudrask River was the same," she said quietly.
"What are you talking about?"
"He was the same-pale, bones like rock, too strong-surprised my weapon hurt him. He was the same."
"You mean the same as the beggar boy on the road, the one in here tonight," Leesil added, growing more angry. "Something else you neglected to tell me, yes?"
He took several deep breaths. Shouting at her would do nothing to help the situation, so he turned away. He wanted a drink and walked to the bar, found his old cup, and filled it.
"I can't feel them now," Magiere said, and Leesil looked up to see her hesitantly running one fingertip across the tops of her teeth, slowly, one by one. She pulled her hand away. "Maybe you just imagined-"
"I imagined nothing!" Leesil said, his voice growing louder on each word. He slammed the cup down on the bar and walked back to crouch before her. 'This is not just something in your head and certainly not in mine."
His hand reached up quickly, about to grab her jaw. Magiere started to pull away, but then remained still, staring at him. At first, her features were flat and emotionless at the closeness of his hand, and then they shifted. The look on her face told Leesil she was defying him to find again what he thought he'd seen.
Leesil moved carefully. Magiere did not open her mouth, but she did not resist as he gently pressed his fingers on her lower jaw to open it. He didn't touch her teeth, because he didn't need to. There was no sign of the elongation of her eyeteeth. Leesil let his hand drop away from her face, but he did not look away.
"We have to inform the constable about the attack," he said. "Word is going to spread soon enough about Beth-rae's death."
Magiere sank back, eyes closing slowly.
"Leesil?" a tiny voice called from the top of the stairs.
Magiere's eyes snapped open. "Rose?" she said softly, turning to look up.
A small form in a muslin nightdress rubbed her eyes and yawned.
Leesil took the stairs two at a time.
"Where's Grandma and Grandpa?" Rose asked, half awake. Her lower lip quivered slightly. "I heard noisy things in the dark."
"You had a bad dream." Leesil grabbed Rose quickly, but gently, and picked her up, holding her against his shoulder.
"Where's Grandma?"
"People who sleep in my bed never have bad dreams," he answered. "It's too big and soft. Would you like to sleep there?"
She blinked again, trying hard to keep her eyes open for the moment. "Where will you sleep?"
"I'll sit in the chair and watch over you until the sun comes up. All right?"
She smiled, clutching at his hair as she put her head in the crook of his neck. "Yes. I'm afraid."
"Don't be." Before turning toward his room with the weary child, he looked down. Magiere stood at the bottom of the stairs, leaning heavily against the railing for support. His voice was sweet and light as he whispered to the child. "Everything will be better in the morning," he lied.
Chapter Ten
Rashed paced inside the cave below his warehouse in nearly panicked agitation. He'd raced back home to find Teesha and Ratboy-assuming that Ratboy would have run home as well-in order to move them someplace safe. The hunter had clearly seen his face, and many people in town knew him or knew of him as the owner of the warehouse. Sunrise was only moments away, and not only was Ratboy still missing, but he'd come back to find Teesha gone as well.
Had she gone looking for them or taken Ratboy to safety herself? Either act was certainly in the realm of Teesha's nature, but he couldn't be certain. Rashed moved toward the lower end of the cave, ready to head back out in search of Teesha, but he could sense the time. After long years in the night, any vampire was fully aware of the time and movement of the unseen sun. Any who failed to build such an awareness had long since burned to ash in the light of day. He knew the sun was cresting the horizon, and so he stopped short of leaving, turning to pace again, back and forth in the dark.
Where was Teesha?
He'd constructed their world carefully in a place where they could exist and thrive, feed judiciously and not worry over being discovered. It was home enough, but not without Teesha. Given time, he'd even hoped one day she might be free of that specter of a husband who clung to her in after-life. If she had gone to find Ratboy and himself and been burned in the daylight? Then Ratboy best have burned with her, or Rashed would tear him apart slowly, piece by piece, over long blood-starved years, never letting the filthy little wretch have his second death.
Damn the hunter to eternal torture as well. And what a fool he'd been himself.
Blood dripped openly from the gaping wound in Rashed's shoulder, and he could not easily move his left arm. His collarbone was cleanly broken. The shallow wound down his chest seeped. Each injury burned as if he'd been dowsed with some priest's blessed oils. The wounds weren't healing at all. He remembered Ratboy's own panic upon returning from the fight on the road with the hunter, and he knew he would have to feed soon in order to close his wounds.