Page 18 of Unbroken (Rath & Rune #4)

Mrs. Norris lived in an enormous home, as if the same magic used on her flowers had caused an ordinary house to swell to monstrous proportions.

It crowded closer to the street than its neighbors, as it took up more of the lot, offering only a short carriageway to park in.

What green space remained was overrun, a wilderness of colossal flowers that threatened to devour the low walls and carriageway.

Many of them should have stopped blooming weeks ago, or else not yet started, another sign something out of the ordinary was happening.

The door opened as Irene parked, and a slender young maid hovered at the top of the steps. Mortimer climbed out, followed by Sebastian, Irene, and Ves.

“Mr. Waite,” she said, giving a little curtsey when she saw him get out of the auto. Ves realized she was the same maid who answered the door when they’d come calling last week. “Mrs. Norris is expecting you. Please, follow me.”

They entered the house behind her. Though the staff had clearly been keeping up with the dusting, there was an odd, moldy scent in the air. Most of the lights were turned off, leaving great pools of shadow between rooms.

Sebastian gasped and clasped a hand to his left forearm. Either the Book of Blood was here, or its magic was. Ves’s pulse quickened, and his tentacles ached to burst free, ready to fight.

“Mrs. Norris’s room is up the stairs and to the right,” the maid said, her voice trembling slightly. “She and Mr. Norris are ill—I was surprised to find the note she’d left, asking me to send the letter.”

“She’s still sick?” Mortimer asked, while at the same time Irene said, “Note?”

“I suppose she must be better.” The maid’s hands clenched her white apron nervously.

Mortimer’s face took on a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid your mistress may need…assistance,” he said in a kindly voice. “Of course you don’t want to spread tales, but we are here to help her, and anything you tell us will be kept in strictest confidence.”

She wavered a moment, then said, “I haven’t actually seen or spoken to her or Mr. Norris since they fell ill.

Mrs. Norris communicates strictly through notes left at the top of the stairs—she’s forbidden us to go up there, except to leave food at the top of the steps.

” Her hands twisted her apron into knots.

“I…the handwriting on the letter doesn’t look like her normal handwriting. ”

Ves’s senses seemed to sharpen. Either Mrs. Norris was using the Book of Blood upstairs and didn’t want the servants to see, or something terrible had befallen her.

“Was it her handwriting on the notes?” Irene asked.

“I…thought so?” The maid seemed unsure. “It was shaky and uncertain, and I assumed it was because of her sickness. But she wouldn’t allow a doctor to be summoned, she was clear on that in the first note.”

This was some sort of a trap. It had to be.

“Thank you,” Mortimer said to the maid. “We can show ourselves out when our business is done, so feel free to retire for the night.”

“Thank you, Mr. Waite,” she said, and practically fled. The poor girl—the trees only knew what sounds and smells she’d been exposed to, drifting down from the forbidden floors. No wonder she was frightened.

As soon as she was gone, Sebastian said, “Good work, Mortimer. I don’t like the bit about the different handwriting. Whose do you think it was?”

“Only one way to find out,” Ves said. He slipped off his coat and hung it on the banister, though he didn’t put his tentacles out yet. “I’ll go first.”

Sebastian fell in behind Ves, followed by Irene and Mortimer. At the top of the stairs stood a small table with two bowls and two plates, both scraped clean—the remains of tonight’s dinner, no doubt. “To the right,” Sebastian murmured. “I can feel the presence of the Book’s magic there.”

As they went down the corridor, the clinging smell of rotting meat greeted them. Irene clasped a hand over her mouth and nose. “Good God, what is that?”

“Someone is dead,” Ves said, tentacles slithering free and hands curling into fists.

The stench seemed slightly less overwhelming once they reached the lone door at the end of the hall.

Beneath it, Ves caught an incongruous smell: green leaves and rich earth.

Maybe Mrs. Norris kept one of her altered plants in a pot in her room?

He stopped at the closed door. “Get ready,” he whispered, and opened the door with a swift kick that sent it flying half-off its hinges.

There was no moon, so the only light came from the corridor, revealing the wreckage of what had once been a feminine sitting room.

Torn curtains, broken chairs, destroyed paintings.

The only thing that remained whole was a portrait of a man and woman—presumably Mr. and Mrs. Norris—hanging on the wall.

Nothing moved, but again the scent of forests cut through the funk of rot. He started across the room toward the door that presumably led to the bedroom. From inside came the sound of a window opening.

He charged toward the door, just as Sebastian cried out in pain from behind him.

* * *

Sebastian stared around at the wreckage of the sitting room. What the hell had happened here? His scars tugged, seeming to pull him in two directions at once, which made no sense—

What felt like an icy-cold needle plunged into his neck from behind.

He let out a shout of pain and tried to pull away. But hands grasped his arms, and there was a horrible sucking sensation on his neck, and…

Impressions flashed through his mind, glimpses from something outside of himself. Standing in this very room, lifting a slice of cake and stuffing it whole into his throat, even as he choked and fought to breathe.

A sleeping man, a woman bent over him. She wore a hooded cloak, but when she drew back, blood dripped onto his pillow from a hole in his neck.

Fury—the hooded woman’s. Breaking furniture, snarling, because it didn’t work, none of it had worked…

Sebastian staggered forward as the proboscis buried in the back of his neck was ripped free. He flung himself away from his attacker; for a moment, hands clung to him, before being torn away as well. His legs propelled him forward, and he tripped over a broken chair and went to the floor.

Ves grappled with the leech that had attacked him. Though its skin was gray with death, Sebastian recognized the woman in the portrait in its distorted features. It clawed at Ves, raking nails across his face as he gripped its proboscis, holding it away from him.

Sebastian reached for his abilities—he could break its arms—but a wave of dizziness swamped him. Fortunately, Ves didn’t need the help.

Keeping a tight grip on the thrashing tube, Ves forced two tentacles into the leech’s open mouth. He pulled its jaws wider and wider apart, until the lower one came off with a crack—

The feeding tube came up by the root, dragging viscera with it. Ves hurled it away, and the leech collapsed into a motionless heap.

“Sebastian!” He rushed over.

“I’m fine,” Sebastian said, as Ves lifted him to his feet. “I lost some blood. And…saw things. While the leech was attached.”

“Later.” Irene yanked down Sebastian’s collar, even though she looked rather green herself. “You’re still bleeding. Here, hold this and apply pressure.”

She pressed a handkerchief to the wound. Sebastian did as she ordered, hoping the creature hadn’t injected him with anything foul, like an overgrown mosquito with malaria.

“I saw Mrs. Norris’s memories. Someone else was here,” Sebastian said. “A woman—I didn’t get a good look at her.”

“Damn it.” Ves rushed to the bedroom door, tore it off its hinges, and tossed it aside. “The window’s open—whoever it was must have fled.”

“We’re on the second story.” Mortimer followed him into the bedroom. “Those stupid flowers are underneath. I supposed they might have cushioned a fall.”

Sebastian joined them, handkerchief still firmly on his wound.

The bedroom was in better shape than the sitting room, though the bedding had been piled into something like a nest atop the mattress.

A forgotten spoon lay on the carpet, and a film of damp still clung to the tub in the adjacent bathroom, as if someone had used it only hours before.

The walls were covered in paintings.

Not framed pictures like the portrait in the sitting room, but painted, slashed, and gouged into the plaster, just as they’d seen in the abandoned house where the Book had been hidden.

Mrs. Norris stuffed cake into a mouth painted as a gaping maw, and Rulkowski posed in a window.

That painting had been slashed over, and a second done beside it: Rulkowski leaping from the cliff, while fireworks exploded all around.

A twisted tree-like shape dominated one wall, with horrible toothed mouths showing between its drooping branches and long leaves.

A chill went through him. “This is like the building where the Book of Blood was hidden. Whoever was squatting there came here. Probably the woman I saw in my vision.”

Ves surveyed the paintings. “Was she already here, or did she relocate when she realized we’d disturbed her hiding place?”

“She must have snuck in here and done the painting of Mrs. Norris quickly, before she could be disturbed. Which suggests she was in a hurry to find somewhere to hole up.” Sebastian paused, trying to bring the glimpses he’d seen into better focus. “She killed Mr. Norris, too. By draining his blood.”

“Did she use the Book in a misguided attempt to turn herself into a vampire?” Mortimer wondered.

“I don’t know, but based on the empty plates returned to the maids, I assume she doesn’t subsist purely on blood.” Sebastian took a step closer to the tree drawing, then had to catch himself on the bed as a wave of dizziness swept over him.

Ves noticed. “You need to sit down—you’ve lost blood.” He put out an arm, and Sebastian gratefully leaned on it.

They returned to the hallway, where Irene had retreated to get away from the rotting corpse. “Stay here,” Ves said, and left Sebastian leaning against the wall while he went to the door at the far end. A few moments later, he returned. “Mr. Norris is dead in his bed, as Sebastian said.”

Mortimer cleared his throat. “We have a problem. The police won’t overlook something like this. They can’t—the Norrises are too rich, and the maid knows we were here. At one time, I might have been able to protect us, but…”

“Don’t concern yourself.” Irene waved a dismissive hand.

“I’ll go to Hattie as soon as I return to the estate—she’ll arrange for everything to be put to rights, or at least as much as it can be.

As for the maid, we’ll either hire her ourselves or find her employment away from Widdershins, with enough money in her pocket to keep her silent. ”

“Why do I hear an ‘or else’ in there?” Mortimer asked.

“As if the Waites are any better.”

Sebastian cocked his head to one side. “Should I be concerned that the Endicotts have arrangements in place for cleaning up crime scenes?”

“You should be grateful not to go to jail for killing the Norrises.”

He couldn’t argue with that.