Chapter 21 #2
“Up one or two floors, I would guess. I think there are only five from looking at the windows. Prisoners will be down. Hurry,” he said, ushering me to the stairs. “They’ll know something’s up if we don’t go to them soon.”
We went up the steps two at a time to the second floor. It looked almost as abandoned as the lower level. Dust and sand covered any remaining furniture, and there was little of that.
As we hit the top of the stairs at the third floor, things changed.
A tapestry on the wall opposite the stairs was clean and the gray walls weren’t coated with dust. Someone or something used this area often and recently.
I stopped on the top step and let Manus take the lead.
He swung around the corner and kept moving. I peeked around and then followed.
The first room was a bedchamber that looked much like Tynan’s at Castle Dracula. Gray, carved-stone walls held huge portraits, and heavy drapes in dark maroon matched the rumpled bedding. The bed had been slept in but was now empty. Somehow the bed didn’t look like Bran’s style.
Something on a side table caught my eye.
I walked to it, traced my fingers over the delicately engraved dolphins covering a brush handle.
The hair in the brush was fine, long, and white.
“Feldema.” Even I said it, I still couldn’t believe it.
Who was she sleeping with, Bran or Nessum?
Even she wasn’t capable of sleeping with a Slaugh, was she?
Manus saw the brush and shook his head in disgust before motioning me forward.
The next room was a living area that seemed to serve as a trophy parlor.
It took up the rest of the floor. There was a modern-looking bar set up at the far end and the rest of the décor was new.
Persian carpets graced the floor and plush leather furniture was arranged in two different seating areas.
Along the two longest walls were the spoils of plundering and battles, more personal than the junk tossed in the shacks outside.
These items had been handpicked and well cared for.
Skulls, treasures, and trinkets were precisely lined up within bookshelves and hung purposefully on the walls.
I didn’t see Trevina’s blade along the walls.
There were others, but I would recognize my mother’s sword from my vision.
I didn’t need to study the others to know hers wasn’t on the wall.
I scanned the bar area in the back—not there either.
I turned to ask Manus a question but the words were lost before they left my mouth. My stomach knotted, and I felt as if all the air in the room had suddenly vanished.
In one of the seating areas, protruding from her own skull, was my mother’s sword.
A wooden platform held the skull, the blade sticking out of the top of what was once my mother’s forehead. Too weak to stand, images from that vision floating in my mind’s eye, I fell to my knees.
The display, obviously made for the purpose, held the skull at an angle, the jaw dropping to make it look as though she were perpetually screaming. The blade pushed through the back of her skull and out her open mouth.
I couldn’t help it. Silent tears started to fall.
I sucked in a ragged breath, the pain reached my chest and I started screaming.
Rage and sorrow over the death of a woman I couldn’t remember overcame me.
Images of my sister sitting in the leather chair next to our own mother’s skull, sipping wine and laughing with her lover, were more than I could bear.
Manus had turned from the wall he’d been searching and was at my side instantly. He stood looking at me before taking a step forward and kneeling, reaching out for me. I shoved his hands away and stood.
After gaining a bit of composure, I pulled the sword gently from the skull then sliced a large swatch of material from one of the fancy drapes.
I wrapped my mother’s remains gently in the maroon velvet.
Still sucking in air and crying hard. I dumped the iron chain to the floor and tucked it inside the backpack.
My mother’s blade felt like it had been made for my hand as I tossed and spun it, swinging my arm from side to side to get the feel of it. Perfectly balanced, it fit my hand better than the custom blades I had brought with me.
I didn’t bother to say anything to Manus before turning and heading back down the stairs. He followed silently. Keena, Priestess of the Wild, was now a warrior with a very clear mission. I needed no pep talk or advice from my guardian to be ready for this fight.
We met two of the Slaugh on the landing to the main floor.
I sliced through both of them without slowing my pace.
They disintegrated into the fine sand that made up the lifeless island.
I felt my power surge as I hit the stairs leading to the basement.
It was the Demon power, and very unfamiliar to me.
I had to contain it if I was going to get through this without blasting everyone in the basement. I turned at the bottom of the stairs.
A basement it wasn’t—a dungeon it was.
The thing looked like it had come straight from a Hollywood movie set.
Large sconces with burning candles adorned the walls, lending an eerie yellow light to the room.
There were shackles and torture devices scattered on the walls and floors.
The place reeked of the dead. There were several large crucifixes and one small one.
One with dry bones in a pile at its base.
Abbey was tied to the smaller one in the far left corner and looked to be unconscious.
I prayed she was passed out. My father was hanging from nails in his hands and a chain around his neck.
Every bit of exposed flesh was scarred or open and bleeding.
The horror of the sight was overwhelming.
I felt the bile of true hate in the back of my throat.
I thought I had felt hate before, but now I understood. I was baptized by it.
My father tried to crane his head up to see me as I barged in. It was a struggle, but he managed to open his eyes, to focus. The tiniest of smiles showed on his parched lips. I swallowed hard. His body couldn’t have weighed more than seventy-five or eighty pounds.
“Look, Coyle, I told you she was coming to join you.” Bran stepped from behind a large column to my left.
His voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.
I turned to face him, the blade of Trevina in my right hand and the one from his treasure trove in the left.
“Keena, Priestess of the Wild…welcome to my humble abode.
His grungy face was actually smiling under the cape.
I could see the glow of his red eyes. The stink of him reached my nose, making me sneer even more.
“Humble is a generous adjective for this, Bran.” I kept eye contact with him but heard Abbey moan. I was afraid to look at her again and draw attention to her.
“You have broken a long-held truce by coming here, priestess.” He stepped closer to me. I didn’t back up.
“I believe that my sister has been breaking that truce for a while, Bran. Would you like me to talk to Doran for you?” He didn’t flinch as I stepped slowly over to the right to try to put myself between Abbey and the King of the Slaugh. He circled with me, never breaking eye contact.
“Dark comes soon, Keena.”
I stepped toward him. “I won’t be long. I’ll just have these two and be on my way.”
“I think not, Witch. You may join them, but you won’t be leaving my little oasis. Nessum will be pleased.”