Legion tilted their massed head to the side. “Did what?”
“Loud thoughts.”
Legion shrugged. “It is my mind. I will think about what I like.”
“You believe that if you put all that crap in front of me I won’t push beyond it? That mydistastefor what you are will stop mefrom knowing the truth about the Sect of Dawn, not to mention the truth of you?” Balthazar asked.
“My killsarethe truth of me,” Legion assured him.
“Your kills are trying to fill a hole inside of you that can never be filled!” Balthazar scoffed.
“You know nothing of me. You are not a predator. You are… prey,” Legion growled. “Pretty prey. I bet your screams are like music.”
And then they started to imagine doing those things to Balthazar that they had done to countless others. Balthazar let his head tip back and let out a snoring sound.
“You think I cannot do these things? I have to many,” Legion gloated.
“No, you cannot, Legion. And not because you are in there and I am out here,” Balthazar told him.
“Because you are Eyros? I saw you fall,” Legion chortled.
And, for a moment, Balthazar saw himself fall too. In a midnight Ever Dark field. Elgar was by his side. His Childe curling over him as claws, teeth and more came to rip them apart. Vampires had killed him and Elgar. But not just Eyros Vampires as he’d thought. Every Bloodline.
Every Bloodline was against me. Interesting. Legion must have been there when I fell.
“Let me tell you about yourself. And I won’t look in your mind to do it.Likely, your parents didn’t love you and abused you hideously. You likely even had a head injury when you were young. You wet the bed far beyond the age when that should have stopped. You, undoubtedly, had a fascination with fires. And, I bet, your first kills were of helpless animals. A family cat or dog. I’m guessing you killed it and then dissected it. The smell of rotting flesh and blood has never bothered you. Having sex with the dead is the only time you’re comfortable engagingin such acts because the person can’t reject you. Have I got that right?” Balthazar asked.
Legion just stared at him.
“I really didn’t look in your mind, you know. Almost all serial killers have these experiences and commit those acts. You’re not special, Legion. You’re regrettablynormal,” Balthazar said as he leaned back in the chair.
“Why are you here alone?” Legion asked, changing the topic conveniently. “Kaly left.”
And he had left Shaela a muttering wreck in her cell, though all he had done to her was talk. Balthazar sifted through her mind while looking at Legion and found that she was shocked, terrified and undone. By words. By truth. But that was often the way of it.
“Caemorn is interrogating Roan with Christian’s assistance. Christian can read the minds of the dead. They don’t need my help with that and I don’t need their help with this,” Balthazar remarked. “Oh, and Elgar–the one that saved you and damned you, all at once–is going on a date.” He narrowed his eyes. “But, surely, there isoneperson you are really interested in who isn’t here.”
Legion shuffled again. Their skin was a mixture of scales and long hair. They stank as if they had rolled in something dead. They probably had.
We should have known they were in Nightvallen by the stench alone.
“You will not tell me where my Master is,” Legion guessed. “So why should I ask?”
And yet the wild hope was still there that he would tell. That he would give Legion a single crumb of information about Weryn. The fact that Weryn had literally dropped them off and gone to check on Grayson had stunned Legion. They truly thought that Weryn–even if it were out of hatred–would befocused upon them. But he wasn’t. Ryder had simply left without a backwards glance.
“Oh, on the contrary, I will tell you.” Balthazar smiled broadly. “He’s making love to Grayson right this minute. You know: the real Childe of his Heart.” Balthazar thumped a hand over his chest in time with its beating. “He is not thinking about you at all. I can assure you of that.”
Legion went still. They imagined breaking Grayson’s pretty neck. They imagined ripping it off and drinking from the geyser of blood. But they mostly imagined the look of pain and anguish on Grayson’s face just before they did so. And they imagined performing that act only after torturing Grayson for endless ages.
“It’s not Grayson’s fault that Weryn doesn’t love you, Legion,” Balthazar said. “Just because he’s found the Childe of his Heart hasn’t extinguished Weryn’s love for his other Children or his Bloodline. He just doesn’t loveyou.”
Legion’s strangely beady eyes narrowed. “Roan was your Master, was he not?”
“Want to commiserate about Masters who didn’t love us?” Balthazar laughed.
“He hates you. He thinks–”
“Roan? Or Kaly?” Balthazar stopped him.
