Chapter 595
She finished up, then dried and pulled the clean shirt on. With the evidence removed, she felt better, as though it had never happened.
In the main room, she found Brandle at a table decorated with deer skulls and empty bottles, flipping through a book.
"What's that?"
He offered a crooked grin. "A guest book, it seems. As the station attendant intimated, this was a hotel of sorts."
"More like a hunting lodge." She nodded to a collection of taxidermy animals.
"An odd choice for a woman, but then Kalipardon, Lilithis an interesting woman."
"That's one word for her." Katelina realized that Brandle had been attending parties with her for years. "How well do you know her?"
"Not well." He closed the book and replaced it. "We didn't socialize outside of the parties, which were only held every fifty years. Even then, I can't say I ever spent time alone with her, or even lost in conversation. I'd heard she was Egyptian, though she never quite looked it. I know she doesn't like cinnamon."
"That's not very helpful." Disappointed, Katelina pushed through the nearest doorway to a dining room that had several tables. Cobwebbed chandeliers were made of deer antlers. Lightbulbs only worked in one and threw weird shadows, like grasping fingers. Three overturned chairs and a splatter of blood on the wall made the scene even eerier.
"The blood isn't very old," Brandle said, following her gaze. "I'd say our lone caretaker had company in the last two weeks."
Katelina shivered at the murder scene, then moved on to a disused kitchen. Copper pots were dull with dust. A row of cereal boxes had been chewed by mice, leaving trails of the treats across the shelves. A sink was heaped with moldy dishes, and a dead cell phone sat on a shelf, abandoned. From the dust, Katelina guessed it belonged to the previous owners, not the vampire.
Katelina nodded past it all, to a heavy door with a padlock. "What's this?"
"I don't know. Sorino had the downstairs. The rest of us were on the second floor when Jorick rushed out to save you." Brandle's eyes twinkled with amusement.
"So there might be someone inside?" Though the dead vampire said he was alone, she wasn't sure she believed him. She sniffed, as she'd seen others do. The cacophony of smells told her nothing. She tried to reach out with her mind, but there was no sense of life. Of course, some vampires could hide their presence.
Katelina rattled the door. She wished Jorick was there so he couldshe stopped. What was she thinking? Thanks to the gifts she'd inherited from Micah, she'd ripped out a vampire's heart without trying. She should be able to tear the door off the hinges. She didn't need to wait anymore. She could take care of it herself.
"It's a habit, little one, just like your daily showers..."
Right.
With a cry, she kicked the center of the door. The wood gave way. She stumbled. There was a nanosecond sensation of tumbling forward, before Brandle grabbed her.
"Whoa there! That was effective, I'll grant you, but perhaps not the best way to go about it."
The last bits of wood clattered to a stop below as she wiped splinters from her shirt. "No, I guess not. I didn't realize there were stairs on the other side."
"One never knows what to expect when exploring. Perhaps next time we should pull the padlock off? It's not as spectacular, but it gets the job done."
Her cheeks flushed. Before she could agree, Kai appeared, looking curious. He figured out the situation quickly. "A cellar."
Katelina had been in plenty of vampire cellars, and she wasn't in a hurry for another one. Except it was the likeliest place for clues. Vampires would burn in the sunlight, so a dark place was a safe place, and a safe place was where one would keep their most importantand hopefully most incriminatingthings.
Katelina plunged ahead, kicking bits of door off the steps as she went. She'd only gone a few steps when a light clicked on. She looked back to see Brandle give a thumbs up, Kai behind him with a flashlight.
Right. Because Kai can't see. She understood why vampires had left her in the dark so often; if they could see, they didn't realize everyone else couldn't.
Another habit.
Katelina pushed on down the stairs. She expected an unfinished basement of dirt, something that matched the rest of the decor. Instead it was built from painted cinderblocks with a linoleum floor. An arrangement of furniture on one side suggested a game room. A low doorway in the back wall led to more subterranean chambers.
She glanced at a bookcase, then moved to the next room. Jumbled with old chairs and boxes, it was apparently for storage, though it looked like things had been dumped there in a hurry.
She moved toward the boxes when she caught a scent that made her stomach tighten: blood. She inhaled deeply, and closed her eyes, concentrating. It wasn't fresh blood, but old blood, older than the dining room. Spilled weeks ago, and left. Though it was sour, there was no smell of rotten flesh to go with it, which meant there probably wasn't a body.
"My thoughts exactly." Brandle moved around the heap of junk. "I think we found it."
Katelina followed to see yet another padlocked door. The closer she got, the stronger the scent of blood, and the smell of something else; old bodily functions. As if humans had been stored inside, left with no facilities, kept like animals for food.
"It's not an unusual practice," Brandle offered as he tugged on a heavy padlock. "Care to try it?"
Katelina gripped the padlock tightly and yanked. The lock stayed intact, but the hasp ripped free.
Brandle nodded his appreciation, and pushed the door open. He stepped inside, made a small noise in his throat, then turned to stop her from following.
It was too late.
Inside, the smell was overwhelming. Dry human excrement was scattered in one corner and a rusty bucket was tipped on its side, probably the source of water for the prisoners. Blood was smeared on the walls and floor. Though she couldn't really hear the ghosts, she imagined them in her mind, men and women sniveling in the corner, crying, waiting to die. Wondering what they'd done to deserve this.
She turned back for the exit. The doorframe was gouged in long scratches, a prisoner's attempt to flee. Blood was splattered up the door and smeared. At the edge of the mess was a perfect handprint. Not adult sized, but small.
A child's handprint.
She picked out another. And another. She realized then who Lilith's prisoners were. Not adults, captured for food, but children.
Children kidnapped and locked in the dark, waiting to die.
