Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
ATTICUS
The mansion is the embodiment of someone who has too much money and doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. Even from the outside, the amount of décor littered about has made the front of the historical mansion look cluttered.
The knockers on the doors have been replaced with mermaids with tails that swing, and I decide that I’d rather kick the doors in than use one.
So I shove the doors open while Johnny trots after me. I told him to wait in the car, but sometimes he listens as well as Yorick does.
A beaming face is the first thing I see, and just a single look at it fills me with disgust.
“It’s a pleasure to have you—”
I grab the man by the throat so fast that he doesn’t even have time to react before I have him lifted off the ground, my hand tightening.
“You actually believed you could fuck with me? I will slaughter both of you for even thinking you can touch what is mine, and then choosing to flaunt it in front of me like I’m a dog chasing a ball. ”
“Atticus, please, there’s no reason for violence,” another vampire says, stepping into the hallway. She’s at least wise enough to keep a little distance from me and shows absolutely no sign of assisting her twin brother, who might not be long for this world if I get my wish.
I throw the insignificant vampire against the wall of her ridiculously furnished entryway. Gaudy paintings clatter to the ground along with his body as I start toward her.
She stands her ground until I’m directly in front of her, forcing her to look up at me.
She’s an attractive woman with long blonde hair in perfect ringlets.
She still dresses like it’s the eighteen hundreds and has always been eccentric ever since she became a vampire well over five hundred years ago—the exact date, I don’t know since I’ve never chosen to care.
“You think you can manipulate me, Priscilla?”
She tosses me a charming smile, like she thinks such a thing works on me.
Does she truly believe I’ve lived as long as I have and could easily be seduced by women?
“I’m sorry it came down to this, but you wouldn’t listen when I asked you to.
It’s the only way I could get you to respond. We need to talk—”
“Where is he?”
“He is fine,” Percival says as he stands and dusts himself off like we can just forget the fact that I would like his throat to remain crushed. Why he even chose to speak is beyond me.
These two are the last thing I want to deal with. The twins drove me mad the last time I interacted with them, and now they think it’s within their rights to control my actions? To manipulate me into playing their game?
“You will tell me where he is or I will crush your throat and then your sister’s throat,” I snap.
Percival hesitates, and I realize that one of them actually has a brain inside their useless skulls. “Sister, we could possibly discuss things with him after we pass over his pet,” he says.
Priscilla stares at me for a long moment; it’s so long that my fingers twitch and her eyes quickly drop down to them. Getting the hint that I’m itching for a fight that she will not win, she nods and begins walking.
She flashes me that smile again, like she thinks it could cause me to care about her in the slightest. “Someone is killing vampires. Specifically, those we used to interact with. Sybil was killed a month ago and Reges was found deceased just last week. Their murders were clearly premeditated.”
“You think I give a single shit about some people I knew hundreds of years ago?” I ask.
“You seem to care about this one,” Percival tosses out. The look his sister gives him tells him that he should keep his mouth shut before I pull his tongue out.
“Atticus, I believe our maker is the one killing them,” she says.
“What would Morpheus want with such insignificant beings? Stop speaking foolish things.”
“And what if you’re next?”
“Then I will kill whoever dares to step into my path. Now where is he? I don’t have all night for this bullshit. If you don’t take me to him now, you will no longer have to worry about anyone coming to take your life because I will have already taken it.”
Her expression is cool as she looks over at Percival. “Please bring the vampire to him. Make sure he’s ready to go.”
“Of course,” Percival says as he dashes off, but I turn to follow him.
Priscilla reaches for me but smartly pulls her hand back at the very last second.
“Just stay here, we’ll bring him out in just a moment.
” Ignoring her, I gesture that Johnny should wait while I follow Percival, who nervously looks back at me after every few steps down the stairs, making me feel like I’m playing a part in a slasher film.
Oh, how I would love to paint these walls red.
He stops outside a door. “He just needs a few drops of blood, and he’ll be as good as new. You know he wouldn’t have complied with us if he wasn’t a bit… weakened.”
I reach for Percival and he just runs back upstairs, probably to hide behind his sister. He was always weaker than Priscilla and far more of a fool. There’s no way Yorick wouldn’t have won in a fight between them if Percival hadn’t resorted to such dirty methods.
I grab the keys he’d inserted in the door and unlock it before stepping inside.
The poodle, noticing a familiar face, hops up and hurries over to greet me. He’s whining and streaked with blood, but he appears just fine, which is good for them. If he was wounded, there would be no hope for either of the siblings once Casimir joined the fray.
Yorick, on the other hand, is nowhere near fine. Percival’s wolves did a number on him after the poison took hold. He’s staring vacantly at the ceiling when I walk over to assess his wounds. He must hear me because he slowly turns his head in my direction.
“You sure know how to get yourself into shit,” I say as I gaze down at him.
“I’m just so pretty… everyone wants me.”
I scoff while I reach down, using the keys I’d nabbed to unlock the shackles on his arms.
“You saved me… do you have the hots for me too, Atticus?”
“Casimir wanted his dog back. I’m here for the dog and took pity on you.”
“I assumed as much,” Yorick says as he tries to force a grin on his face but seems to give up rather quickly while I eye the wounds he’s received. He has to be in horrible pain, desperate for blood, but he still chose to suffer instead of feeding from the dog.
I examine his arms, ripped open down to the tendons and bone.
His throat has been slit, leaving a gash that’s only partially healed, and he’s holding his hand at an odd angle.
The blood on his clothes tells me that what I can see is only a small portion of what still hasn’t healed.
“You must enjoy suffering to have not even taken a sip from the dog.”
“Knowing you… for nearly five hundred years… has built up my tolerance for suffering. Just seeing your smiling face makes me suffer,” he says. “I’m also smart enough to know that if I even licked a scratch on that dog… Casimir would kill me anyway. I might as well die like this.”
I reach down and pick up the dramatic man. He’s struggling to even keep his head upright as I cradle him in my arms and start toward the door. “Yorick, do you remember the promise you made me back when I turned you?”
I can feel his entire body stiffen. “I wish I could forget.”
“It’s time.”
He falls silent, and I’m surprised I get no snarky reply out of him while I carry him up the stairs. I look down to check that he’s still conscious.
Upstairs, I find Priscilla and Percival casually waiting, like they think this is the end of it.
“So I really would prefer some help from you,” Priscilla says, almost offhandedly, as though she doesn’t see the rage eating through my body.
I guess I have perfected the art of hiding my emotions.
The man in my arms is likely the only one who has been around me enough to figure out a hint of them, but he still misses so many.
I carefully set Yorick into Johnny’s arms and turn to deal with the two of them.
“We have a room here; three rooms if you decide you want your whole crew to stay,” Priscilla says.
Percival evidently has a bit more of a survival instinct since he starts to creep away.
I’ve never met two beings so confident that I wouldn’t opt to kill them the instant they let me through those doors.
Percival tugs his sister back, and she finally gets the hint that I am not pleased with any part of this.
Her charming smile falls but she stands her ground, unlike her brother.
“You’re getting flustered over such a mundane thing.
I thought you didn’t care about that one? Isn’t he just a tool to be used?”
“I don’t want anyone else touching my tools, and I definitely don’t want anyone else trying to break them.”
Her face twitches and she jerks back, but she’s not fast enough as I grab her and lift her up until her feet dangle.
“I will destroy your miserable life if you ever try something like this again, understood?”
Seeing as I’m busy crushing her throat, she doesn’t get much more than a gurgle out.
“My dear sister can’t really seem to talk right now, but I’m pretty sure if she could, she’d be saying that she fully understands,” Percival says.
I toss her, leaving her to hit the ground where she holds her throat, waiting for it to heal. “And you.”
The color drains from Percival. “I was just doing as I was told! My sister made me do it!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know she had complete control over you and that you had to do everything she threw at you. Maybe I should end your life so you can finally be free from her in the afterlife.”
Percival scrambles back. “Come on now, you already did the whole strangle and throw thing to me, did you not? I believe my sister and I have received equal punishment. We definitely don’t want to—”