“Stop? Stop caring? Is that what you’ve done?” Roger yelled back. He’d needed to yell. Why … why was he having a hard time hearing? What was the clattering going on?
“Look around!” Ezra broke their locked gaze and stared out at the room beyond them.
An acidic response on his tongue, Roger followed Ezra’s gaze.
Ezra’s manuscript, the furniture, the books—all of it was rotating around them as if they were the center of a tornado.A brief flare of wonder broke the anger in Roger’s heart. Everything fell to the floor in an unceremonious mess.
The sensation of a breeze in his soul, of the waves and ship, stilled. The building rage was no longer a pressured heat needing release, but his heart ached with the pain of his anger and life’s betrayals. Silver would have been easier to bear.
“I … How was I doing that?” Roger murmured.
“Clearly, you have magic,” Ezra replied.
“That’s not—I have never had magic beyond our abilities as vampire. I have never seen a vampire with telekinesis.” Roger waved at the overturned sofa that was beside the now cracked Tiffany lamp.
“I have. This is what manifesting arcane powers looks like.” Carefully, Ezra pulled his pants out of the mess and slipped into them.
“How do you know that?” Roger asked, shock making him numb. No sense of clarity came to him, but at least the rage was far, far below the surface where it belonged.
Ezra began to clean up the mess as he spoke. “Look, I know you loved James. I know that’s why he became your sireling. I also know that he grew resentful when he lost his magic after his transformation. Yes, I was jealous of your relationship with him and convinced him to run away to Alaska, but he hardly needed a nudge.”
“Why does that matter?” Roger said.
“Because once he was gone and you turned your attention to Dmitri and then whatever pretty boy you found next, I thought maybe you somehow knew I was responsible for James leaving. You were happiest with him, and I encouraged that to end. So, my logic went, perhaps if James could regain his arcane abilities, he might return. Then you wouldn’t have cause to be upset with me.” Ezra lifted the couch, rolled it right side up, and gently put it back down in its rightful place. “I had money. Time. Why notspend both with mages and warlocks like you and Candide did with artists? After all, isn’t magic another kind of art?
“In doing so, I learned a lot about the onset of powers, often called manifestations. You see it in children the most. Telekinetic quakes. Seeing the world differently than others.” Ezra gave up on collecting his manuscript and returned Roger’s chair to its place.
That did sound like some of the strange occurrences that had been happening around Roger. “I’m no child.”
“True. But this is a manifestation.”
“Could it be some aftereffect of the coma?” Roger said.
“Coma?” Ezra asked.
“She really has told you nothing,” Roger replied. “Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? The last time we saw each other, prior to our run-in at the Chateau, was in 1989. A few nights after our last chat, I was cursed …”
CHAPTER 37
“Family mealtime” was what Anton called the ritual he initiated the night after Katie moved into the mansion. He insisted that the five of them should have their “breakfast” together every night, no matter what. Often, Seamus excused himself after a brief appearance, but they were together each night for a short time.
They would gather in what Anton had dubbed the “dining room.” Instead of the usual setup, it was an irregular living room with couches and chairs. The high-end couches were covered in plastic, and the floor had a wall-to-wall plastic layer. Though there were a couple of normal chairs, there were a half dozen chairs that Zack had only seen in his family literature about “twisted” vampire practices. They were designed to restrain a victim while leaving plenty of the mortal’s arms, torso, and legs accessible. No way would it be comfortable; the person trapped in it would have to feel incredibly vulnerable.
On the first evening, Anton had clapped his hands to begin the meal. Servants had brought out the first “course” of humans, and he had declared that it was time to teach the “babies” how to eat.
Over the next two weeks, mealtime became lessons in how to use vampiric abilities to “season” a mortal’s blood, how to drain victims, and practice on personal restraint from killing a mortal. Anton, Seamus, and Takashi had different tips and techniques, often related to the same concept but different in their execution.
“Breakfast” wasn’t the worst of Anton’s ideas. He and Seamus seemed to have no idea that Zack and Takashi had explored the basement. If Phyrull had made a visit in Zack’s dreams, he didn’t remember it.
Zack bit the mortal bound to the chair in the tender part of his upper arm. The wound bled slowly, which let him savor the coppery taste before swallowing. Flickers pressed against Zack’s consciousness, and he threaded together letters of longing, trying to keep them on the mortal’s mind. His prey relaxed, and he moaned as he drew another deep drink in.
Blood just tasted so freaking good.
“Zack’s going to kill again,” Katie said in the singsong voice she had a habit of using whenever she thought she was doing better than him. Her pleated black plaid skirt, black knee-high socks, and red dress shirt made for a very vampire-meets-private-schoolgirl look. He wasn’t sure if she’d chosen the attire herself or if Anton had stocked her wardrobe full of things just like this. She’d been wearing similar attire ever since she’d risen from her grave.
“I am not.” Zack pulled back from feeding. But as soon as he did, he realized she was right. The mortal’s heartbeat was too weak. “Shit.”
“Zackery,” Seamus chided. He was sitting in the high-backed chair that Anton had labeled the head of the table, though there was no table in the room. “Language.”
