Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [382]
“Irina’s worried about you.”
“Not safe,” Odolf murmured, almost imperceptibly.
“What’s not safe?” Elise asked gently. “Is Irina not safe?”
“Nobody’s safe.” The big head shook back and forth as if caught in a seizure. When it passed, Odolf peeled his lips back off his huge fangs and dragged in a deep breath of air. “At the cross lies truth,” he muttered on the exhale. “‘Turn your eye…turn your eye.”
“What does it mean, Petrov?” Elise read the entire passage back to him. “Can you explain it to us? Where did you hear this? Did you read it somewhere?”
“‘Castle and croft shall come together,’” he repeated. “‘To the borderlands east, turn your eye…’”
Elise moved forward another half-pace. “We’re trying to understand, Petrov. Tell us what you know. It could be very important.”
He grunted, his head going back on his shoulders, tendons stretching tight in his neck. “‘Castle and croft shall come together under the crescent moon…To the borderlands east turn your eye…At the cross lies truth.’”
“Petrov, please,” Elise said. “We need you to help us. Why isn’t it safe? Why do you think nobody is safe?”
But the Rogue wasn’t hearing her now. With his eyes squeezed shut, head tipped back, he whispered the nonsensical phrases over and over again, a rapid, breathless stream of insanity.
Elise glanced back at Tegan. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is a waste of time.”
He was about to agree when Odolf suddenly began to snicker. His mouth spread wide, he dropped his head down and started whispering in a voice so small Tegan could barely hear it. He caught bits and pieces of the riddle, then Odolf blinked and it was as if a crystal clarity settled in his mind.
In a completely rational, coherent voice, he said: “That’s where he’s hiding.”
Tegan’s blood ran cold. “What did you say? That’s where who’s hiding—Marek?”
“Hiding away.” Odolf chuckled, already slipping back into his madness. “Hiding, hiding…‘at the cross lies truth.’”
Once again, Tegan considered the glyph they’d found in the journal. The Breed line it belonged to was long extinct. But then again, maybe Marek wasn’t the only one to come back from what had been merely a presumed death. “Is this about Dragos? Is he alive?”
Odolf shook his head, eyes falling serenely closed. He launched into another chorus of the riddle, murmuring it in a maddening, singsong voice.
“Goddamn it!” Tegan growled, stalking right up next to the cage. “Is Dragos in hiding somewhere? Are he and Marek allied in some way? Have they been plotting something together?”
Odolf kept chanting, unresponsive now. Not even when Tegan grabbed hold of the metal box he was in and gave it a hard shake did Odolf show any indication of awareness. The Rogue had mentally checked out.
“Shit.” Tegan raked a hand through his hair. In his coat pocket, his cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. He flipped it open and barked into the receiver: “Yeah.”
“Any progress?” It was Reichen.
“Not much.”
Behind him in the cage, Petrov Odolf was snapping at the air, growling and cursing. No point in lingering any longer. Tegan gestured for Elise to follow him out of the Rogue’s holding cell and into the adjacent observation room.
“We’re just wrapping up,” he told Reichen. “Did you get anything on the Minion?”
“Yes, we have something. I’m at Aphrodite with Helene. She’s seen the man in here before once or twice. Had some trouble with him, in fact.” Reichen cleared his throat, hesitating. “He, ah, apparently works for a blood club here in the city, Tegan. Probably supplies women for it.”
“Jesus.” He looked at Elise, his veins going tight at the thought of her being anywhere near trafficking scum like that. Blood clubs among the Breed, while illegal, had once been the preferred entertainment of a certain class of vampire. They catered to the bored and affluent, and those with appetites that tended to run toward the cruel. “Any idea where I might find this place?”
“Naturally, to avoid unwanted attention, the clubs seldom meet in the same