Baz
On the drive back to Charleston, I do some reading about the leannán sídhe on my phone.
I’ve looked up my people before, but it’s been a while, and my research then was half-hearted, hampered by grief. I figure it’s time to refresh my memory and maybe learn something new. Especially since today Dorian is going to show me the portrait my ancestor, Basil Hallward, painted of him back in 1886.
The portrait is the dread relic of a magic Basil didn’t understand at the time. And even after he found out, there must have been some unbreakable law of silence handed down to his progeny. From what Mom told me, our family has suppressed this power and kept it secret for generations. She didn’t explain why or how it started, beyond the mention of Basil Hallward’s name. But now I have the chance to connect all those dots.
Everything I read aloud to Dorian in the car confirms what Lloyd-Henry said—that my family is different from other leannán sídhe . In Celtic lore, the leannán sídhe were muses who inspired bards, poets, storytellers, and artists, but they also fed off the creativepassion of those humans. It was a mutual exchange of energy, harmless in most cases, though I found some stories of leannán sídhe who drained the people they were meant to inspire—sucked all the humans’ motivation into themselves, leaving the humans dull and dry.
“That’s interesting,” Dorian says slowly. “There were several artists in our circles who quit painting or sculpting around the same time I met Basil. They said they might as well not try to compete with such brilliant work as his.”
“Maybe Basil was meant to inspire other artists, but instead he took up the brush himself,” I say. “Maybe he started to drain the creative life from others. Only when he came to you, it was like a hunter meeting a gorgeous stag in the forest. You were not only handsome; you were a musician, an artist in your own right. He was mesmerized by you. Totally obsessed. So he managed not to drain you of your vitality. Instead he preserved it, captured it, protected it within the painting. He did all that without realizing what he’d done until you told him.”
Dorian nods. “It makes sense.”
I settle back against the seat and read through a few more websites, but none of them add any information to what we already have. I’m not sure anyone will ever know why our line diverged from a muse’s role of inspiration into this perverted kind of soul capture. But I have a weirdly intense desire to see the painting that started it all.
Lloyd’s penthouse is empty when we return. I pace the living area while Dorian showers and changes out of his sandy clothes. Thankfully, I had a pair of flowered shorts and a white lace tank top in my overnight bag.
I stare out the wide windows at the blue ocean, the bridge, andthe strip of land beyond. My hands are still bandaged, but the sting of the burns isn’t too bad.
Dorian appears at the mouth of the hallway, wearing dark slacks and a crisp white dress shirt. I don’t know why he’s so dressed up, but I don’t question it.
“Ready?” He sounds a little breathless, and his tight lips barely move over the word.
“I’m ready.”
“Come on, then.” He spins on his heel and leads the way down the hall.
I haven’t seen his room until now. It’s luxuriously furnished, of course, in a more old-fashioned style than the rest of the house. But it doesn’t feel like him. He’s only a guest here, after all.
Dorian goes to a massive wardrobe and slides a nearly invisible panel upward along its side. The press of a fingertip and a quick code makes the giant, heavy piece of furniture detach from the wall with a grinding clunk. When it swings slightly outward, I see a safe behind the wardrobe—a big one.
“Lloyd arranged this hiding place for me the first time I came to visit him,” Dorian says. “I usually prefer more security. At my house in Nashville, I have a much better vault for it.”
He’s entering another code, pressing his finger to another scanner. The door to the safe clicks, and he opens it.
Inside is a hard-sided container about the size of a big suitcase. “Fireproof and bulletproof,” Dorian says. He places it on the floor, kneels beside it, and spins the dials on the case’s latch, entering the combination to unlock it.
I glance at the bedroom door, even though there’s no one in the penthouse but the two of us. All these layers of security are ramping up my nerves, driving my pulse higher.
Dorian opens the lid of the hard case. There’s a velvety scarlet cloth inside, with a transparent corner peeking out from beneath it.
“This is Level 3 bulletproof acrylic. Absolutely impenetrable. The only way to get into it is this titanium combination lock and the fingerprint scanner.”
I lean forward, marveling at the thickness of the acrylic slab, judging from the corner I can see. “Damn, you take this seriously.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Definitely.”
My palms are sweating. I’m about to see his truth, the glutted painting that holds over a hundred years’ worth of debauchery and lies, larceny and apathy, addiction and death. Every wound he has ever suffered during that time, large or small, will be marked in the figure on the canvas. The decay that time should have wrought on his statuesque body will have rotted his image instead.
Dorian reaches for the cloth, his long, pale fingers trembling a little, as if they’re too fragile to bear the weight of this revelation.
“It’s hideous.” His voice is so low I can barely hear him.
“I can handle it.”
