The Bone Palace - Amanda Downum [57]
The vampire toppled, clutching at his ruined throat. The wound didn’t pump as a human’s would, but leaked viscous dark fluid. His lips moved, but in the flickering light Isyllt couldn’t read the shape of the words. The look on his face was clear enough, though: shock and betrayal, a confused and childish hurt.
Her own confusion was enough that she didn’t realize what Spider was doing until he moved again. Her throat ached; she was shouting at him to stop, but she couldn’t hear her own words. The kukri flashed in his hand as it arced down and metal sparked on stone. The vampire’s head rolled free, tangling his long black hair. His lips continued shaping soundless accusations while the last of his unlife oozed onto the ground.
“He was going to tell me why,” Isyllt whispered, staring at the twitching body. Speaking made her cough, which made her throat ache all the more.
As she watched, the edges of the wound blackened and curled—the burn of spelled silver. Vertebrae glistened like pearls amid bloodless grey-pink meat. The corpse began to blanch even more as flesh shrank against bone; color drained away till his skin was white as ashes. Even his hair faded, paling from root to tip. When it was over he lay still, legs curled toward his chest, one arm stretching toward his missing head.
Trembling, Isyllt crawled on hands and knees to reach the corpse. The hand that had held her throat had been cold and undead, but still moving flesh. What she touched now was rough and unyielding as stone.
Spider took her arm and helped her up. Blood smeared her skin, already tacky. The lantern had gone out—the only light was the pulse of her ring. “Why?” she asked.
“I’m sorry.” Again, despite the roar in her ears, she could hear him. His tone and insouciant stance were anything but sorry. “I thought he was about to eat you.” He wiped the knife clean on the hem of his coat and handed it back to her.
She couldn’t argue with him, not when she couldn’t hear herself speak. She willed the witchlight brighter and turned to find Khelséa.
The inspector crouched beside the broken lantern and another petrified vampire. This one had not died as prettily—one silver bullet had shattered his breast and the other his skull. Azarné brooded over a third corpse like her namesake bird, her hands sticky with blood.
Khelséa looked up when Isyllt knelt beside her, her face drawn and ashen with pain. She only shook her head when Isyllt spoke, and when she pulled a hand away from one ear, a thin streak of blood glistened on her palm.
From the vaulted chamber, Azarné and Spider tracked their brethren’s spoor down a narrow corridor, up a flight of half caved-in stairs to another room. Isyllt knew the den was near before they reached the top of the steps; the musk was unmistakable.
The room reminded her of the lairs of street children she’d known in Birthgrave. Of places she’d slept herself. Torn, stained mattresses and nests of blankets wedged into corners, a single lamp on a broken wooden crate. Only the smell of sour sweat and stale food was missing, and Isyllt was just as glad the vrykoloi hadn’t brought their dinners here.
And as with orphan dens, the vampires had hoarded precious things, hiding them under mattresses and loose stones. But this treasure was more than polished stones or bits of glass, pennies or a sharp knife. Gold and gems sparkled and glittered under the erratic witchlight. Earrings and bracelets, chiming girdles, fabric stiff with gold bullion, slippers glowing with sequins and stones. Jeweled coffers and vials of perfume, statues of saints carved in bronze and sandalwood and alabaster.
But not all the clothing was the same size, nor all the colors those Isyllt remembered Lychandra to wear. How many tombs had been pilfered over the years?
Among the glitter of jewels, she found a long lock of brass-blonde hair, braided and coiled and tied with silk thread. A lover’s token, the kind sweethearts exchanged. Had Forsythia kept a knot of her vampire’s hair in return? Isyllt wished she could have asked him, and didn’t know whether