But she didn’t like beetles. Didn’t like the look of them, didn’t like the clacking sound of their bodies. And especially didn’t like the crunch they made when you stepped on them.That sound always made her stomach drop and filled her knees with jelly.
Her little secret. Everyone was entitled to one or two irrational fears.
Rattle. Rattle rattle rattle.
She watched them swell as they filled the tub, more and more of them coming out of the drain. Watched them swell, bigger and bigger, until they were the length of her palm and almost as wide. Bigger and bigger until…
POP! POP POP POP!
They burst. Their shells split down the middle and…
A sensation. On her hand. A light sensation, since it was against the shield and not her skin.
She looked at the hand resting on the sink. It was covered by a beetle.
Just one beetle.
She flung her hand up, sending the beetle flying through the air. And shescreamed.
That piercing scream.
What in the name of Hell could makeSurreal scream like that?
Rainier flung open the door at the other end of the storage room and rushed into an empty room similar to the one he’d just left.
“Surreal!”
He ran across the room, yanked open the door, and charged into the hallway just as Surreal rushed out of another room. He dropped the poker and grabbed for her, only realizing when he felt a shield hitting a shield that she wasn’t wearing anything above her waist except a brassiere and her Gray Jewel.
“Surreal!”
“Be—be—be—”
He shoved the candle and pillowcase into her shaking hands, grabbed the poker, and strode into the room, ready to do battle with whatever had scared the shit out of her.
And found himself staring at a bathtub full of huge, split beetles.
“Be-be-beetles.”
Relief made him giddy for a moment. Or maybe the giddiness was caused by his yanking himself back from the killing edge.
He glanced over his shoulder and fought not to grin. Damn things really must have startled her.
“Do you think they’re edible?” he asked. The beetles were the size of a small lobster tail, and the meat looked like cooked lobster that had been pulled out of a split shell.
“Wh-what? That’s not meat; that’s exploded bug guts.”
Rainier watched the beetles change back into little beetles that went scurrying down the drain. Nothing but an illusion spell. And most likely, even the little beetles were an illusion because they’d have to come out of the drain at the proper time. Since there wasn’t much about dealing with blood and guts that usually threw Surreal off stride, it was his duty as a friend to tease her about getting excited over a bug.
“If you ignore the fact that they’re insects instead of—”
“Say it, and I will rip your face off and shove it up your ass.”
The threat sounded sincere.
Her tone pricked his temper, especially when he was still just one short step away from the killing edge, but he tried to cajole instead of squaring off with her, since that would lead to at least one of them getting hurt.
He turned toward her. “Come on, Sur—”
He reached up and shifted the ball of witchlight in order to get a better look at her.
Her gold-green eyes were glassy. Not glazed with cold rage, but glassy with shock. And she was breathing in these funny little hitches.
This had struck more than a nerve with her.
“Hey,” he said softly, moving with a deliberateness that wouldn’t startle her. “Illusion spell. That’s all they were.”
She was shaking. He could see the effort she was making to regain control, but she was shaking.
“Go back in the hallway,” he said gently. “I’ll get your clothes.”
“Check them,” she whispered as she stepped back.
He retrieved her shirt and jacket, pushed the witchlight out ahead of him, and left the bathroom.
He set everything on the hallway table next to the unlit candle, including the globe candle and pillowcase he’d handed her. Then he looked at her left side.
“How bad is it?” he asked, his fingers hovering over the blood-spotted paper covering the wound.
“Not as bad as it could have been. The Black Widow who attacked me had lost the finger with the snake tooth, so I don’t have to worry about venom.”
The bitch could have coated her other nails with poison. He was about to remind her of that—and then realized there was no point in telling her. She had been an assassin. She knew more about using poisons than he did.
“If there’s any in me, I’ll feel it soon,” she said quietly, looking past him as the hallway got lighter.
“Whoever made this house trapped at least onecildru dyathe in here. Maybe more.”
“Along with two demon-dead Black Widows. Not good odds if they all decide they want someone for dinner.”
Rainier looked back at the children, then shifted closer to Surreal. "Any suggestions?"
She sighed. "I’m tired, Rainier. We’ve only been in this house a couple of hours, but it feels much longer."
"I think it has been longer, but we’ll talk about that later."
"My suggestion is to go back downstairs. We’ll check that sitting room again for surprises. Then we’ll put a shield around the room and a Gray lock on the door. That will keep out unwanted visitors."
"That will close two more exits."
"I know."
He nodded. "Main staircase should be that way."
"You’ll take point?" Surreal asked.
"We’lltake point." He shook out her shirt and jacket, then helped her into both. "Don’t argue about it."
She hesitated. "Wasn’t going to."
That told him more than anything else that she needed time to regain her balance.
They gathered up their various kinds of illumination and their weapons.
Rainier looked at Kester, put a finger up to his lips, then pointed at the doorway that would lead them back to the main staircase.
He and Surreal led. The children followed.
The front upstairs hallway looked just as he remembered it. That wasn’t right, but he couldn’t figure out why—and didn’t care once they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Then Surreal said, “It’s different.”
Daemon capped his pen and vanished it. He folded the paper and tucked it in the inside pocket of his black jacket. Then he was up and moving toward the parlor door, slipping past the irate Queen of Halaway as he said, “Thank you for your assistance, Lady Sylvia. And Mikal’s as well. I appreciate it.”
As he opened the door, she balled up her fist and slugged him in the shoulder.
He turned on her, snarling.
“Don’t you dare criticize Tersa,” Sylvia said. “Don’t you dare make her feel bad about what she’s done.”
His temper chilled, and he replied too softly, “You’re out of line,Lady. ”
“I saw your face,Prince. When Mikal walked out of the room and you didn’t have to pretend to take a disapproving stand, I saw your face. Tersa may not understand the mundane world she tries to live in, but she understood her boy. If you were still Mikal’s age, you would have been as fascinated by her spooky surprises as he is. Especially those damn beetles.”
In that moment, he understood why his father had fallen in love with the Queen of Halaway. He could picture Sylvia squaring off with Saetan over whatever had lit her temper or nipped her sense of justice.
But he doubted Sylvia had ever slugged his father.
“No response?” Sylvia asked tartly.
“My father told me I should never lie to a Lady,” Daemon replied.
“So?”
“So I have no response.” Because he wasnot going to admit she was right. “Good evening, Sylvia. I’ll see myself out.”
She changed from irate woman to concerned Queen in a finger snap.
She touched his arm. Just a gesture of concern. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
As he left Sylvia’s house and caught the Black Wind to return to the landen village, he knew it was going to take more than luck to get Surreal and Rainier out of that damned spooky house alive.
SIXTEEN
“There was a mirror on that wall, and a coat-tree near the door,” Surreal said as she looked around the front-entrance hallway.
“That ‘caretaker’—whoever he really is—might have moved things to cause confusion,” Rainier said.
She frowned, then shook her head. “Wasn’t really paying attention to the wallpaper, but I think that’s different too.”
“An illusion spell could change the wallpaper. A person could move a mirror and coat-tree.”
Was it as simple as that?
“Does the front door work?” Kester asked.
The boy sounded upset, angry. She understood that. She’d had more than enough of dealing with this damn house and was feeling the same way.
“We’ll check out the hallway and that sitting room to make sure we have some safe ground,” Rainier said. “Then we’ll check the door.”
“Why wait?” Kester demanded.
“Because the odds are good that a door or doorway also has a trap,” Rainier said with strained patience.
“You waited to make these shields to protect us, and Ginger and Trist died,” Kester said. “Why wait for something else bad to happen?”
“Don’t start a pissing contest, boy,” Rainier warned. “Not here, not now. First we find some safe ground, and then we can—Kester!”
Kester bolted for the front door.
Rainier raised his hand, and Surreal felt the mental stumble as he stopped himself from using Craft to…Do what? Put up a barrier in front of the boy? Slam an Opal lock on the door, preventing it from being opened? Either action would have required a second use of Craft to undo what had been done.
But the moment passed when a choice might have mattered. Kester reached the door and pulled it open.