They were amused, or maybe intrigued, or excited?
It was still difficult for them to consolidate feelings and sensations that originated in their separate bodies.
Should we answer?
Not yet.
Another three knocks. "My lord, whatever has happened, we can address it. But I need you to open the door."
They maintained their silence and watched his face on the monitor. Watched his mind work through the possibilities. Watched him come to a decision.
Losham turned to Hakum. "Did you try the staircase that leads from the basement directly into this office?"
"Of course." Hakum looked offended by the question. "It's locked from the inside as well."
"Then we have no choice. We need to break this door down."
Part of them walked toward the door, positioning themselves. Another reached for the vial of enhancement drug, taking a small dose. The others remained focused on the monitors, on Losham, on the moment approaching.
Soon, he would break down that door.
Soon, he would see them instead of Lord Navuh, his father.
Soon, he would have to choose between joining them or becoming an obstacle.
They were ready.
Through eight pairs of eyes, they watched Losham give orders, watched guards rush for tools, watched the crowd grow larger and more anxious.
Should they offer him what he'd craved for fifteen centuries?
They would, but first, they had to make him understand that everything came with a price.
20
LOSHAM
The mansion's main entrance door stood open, which was the first sign that protocol had collapsed.
Losham paused at the threshold, noting the absence of the usual guards posted by the door, the way voices echoed from upper floors where they should have been muffled by proper door management. The staff had abandoned their posts, drawn to the crisis unfolding upstairs.
"Stay close and stay alert," he told Rami. "Let me know if any of my brothers show up."
Because they would.
Like vultures smelling carrion, they would soon find out that Navuh had gone over the deep end, and they would come to fight over the corpse.
That's how power worked. The moment one leader fell, a dozen others positioned themselves to fill the void. Losham just hadn't expected to see it ever happening here.
His father was supposed to be invincible. Navuh had just one weakness, the seeds of madness he had inherited from Mortdh, and it must have suddenly flared up. The most logical explanation remained the one he'd constructed at home: Navuh had finally succumbed to the madness that ran in his bloodline, murdered his entire harem in some fit of paranoid rage, and was now either paralyzed by guilt or still lost in whatever delusion had driven him to it.
The question was how to manage the aftermath.
No bodies had been found, so Navuh must have disposed of them somehow. Perhaps they were in the tunnel that connected the mansion to the harem. He would have to go in there later and check. If they were there, he would need to dispose of them discreetly. They couldn't admit that the Brotherhood's leader had lost control, and if Navuh was still raging and had not offed himself in his office, Losham would need to extract him quietly, get him sedated, and figure out a long-term solution for dealing with an insane leader who possessed the gift of compulsion.
He would need to be constantly sedated.
As they reached the second floor, Losham could hear raised voices, the sound of boots on marble, and that particular quality of barely controlled panic that could explode at any moment into violence.
