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Smiling slightly---affectionately, just a little amused---Antha responded to Rynn with the murmur, “He does that.”
“Often,” Nicolae emphasized.
Returning to checking the books, Antha sighed and continued, “Given the circumstances…perhaps it’s best if we leave it alone. “
“Evie---” Alistair protested, pouting.
“We have enough to deal with as it is, we can’t concern ourselves with every single thing. If this demon shows up in our city again, then you can deal with it. But until and unless that happens…it’s not worth the risk, Alistair. And frankly, it’s none of our business.”
Cutting her a sidelong glance, Nicolae scoffed, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you admit that before.”
“If we concerned ourselves with every malevolent force in the world, we’d never have time for anything else. There’s a great deal of evil in this world, all you can do is take care of your own. This city is our domain, we protect it. As for everything else, that belongs to others. Let them deal with it.”
“I can live with that.” Standing, Nicolae stretched and went over to his little brother, patting him affectionately on the top of the head. “Have fun looking for a crazy old woman’s diary. I’m going to go find something to eat.”
When he was gone, Alistair looked at the closed doors and then at his sister. “You didn’t tell him about the eyes.”
But Antha continued with her books, murmuring easily, “He’s in a foul mood, the last thing he needs is to be reminded of our dead son. Besides…he’ll help. Just give him a while to settle down.”
As Antha had predicted, as soon as Nicolae had tracked down some blood and his temper had eased, he went into the parlor where they were working and, without a word, overturned the sofa and began probing the woodwork. His siblings both smirked, turned away so he couldn’t see them.
Subsequently, his mood turned foul again some hours later when they had ransacked the majority of the house and found nothing. “You know, if she was a better witch, we could’ve just called her up and asked her.”
“No use crying over spilled milk,” his sister sighed, half buried in clothes as she went over every inch of her own closet, “She wasn’t and we can’t. So here we are, in the dark, feeling up goddamn boards and---oh god!” Both of her brothers rushed over, grabbing up armfuls of clothing that had collapsed on her and pulling her out of the mess. “This is ridiculous!” she screamed when she was back on her feet, plucking a scarf off of her shoulder and throwing it irritably into the pile of clothes, “There are three hours until dawn and we haven’t even finished the whole house! We’re seriously going to have to tear it apart!”
“Maybe we’re not approaching this the right way,” Alistair murmured thoughtfully, “Maybe we need to try to think like mother…”
“How?” his twin demanded, collapsing on her bed, “We didn’t know her. Nicolae?”
“I remember the day she left us, but that’s about it.”
“Well we need to do something,” the boy said, pacing across the floor, “We’re not getting anywhere like this, we’re just wasting time.”
“If we had any idea---” Antha froze, for all of a split second, before bolting to her feet again. “Excuse me, that’s the morning sickness again.”
While she vanished into the hallway, her brothers continued to sigh and try to think of a better way to approach the situation. “Did she have anywhere else she might’ve hid them?”
“According to the Talamasca, she never left this house once she was pregnant with you two.”
“What about father? We’ve already checked his room, but could he have put them somewhere else?”
“Like I know a damned thing about the guy my mother abandoned me for.”
“Alright,” Alistair declared, like he finally had it, “Okay, so we get one of those dogs the police use to track down dead bodies, and we let him hang out in Marguerite’s lab for a while, and then---”
Staring dubiously at him, Nicolae interrupted, “You can’t be serious.”
“Do you want to tear the house apart? Because that would be a tragedy.”
It was then, while the brothers were arguing, that Antha’s voice called from down the hall. “Guys, something’s happening!”
Alarmed, they ran into the dark hall expecting trouble of some sort. There usually was trouble after all, where Antha was concerned. Instead, they found her walking quietly beside a wisp of a phantom---not a ghost but a projection, a memory from the spirits inhabiting the house playing out. So quietly, curiously, the boys stood on the side of the hall and watched the image of Antha, perhaps ten with a satin bow in her hair, struggle to drag a Victrola down the hall with her tiny arms. “That’s Oncle Louis’s Victrola,” Nicolae noted, to which Antha nodded.
“When he died, I brought it here to hide it from Aunt Bianca when she was burning all of his things. I took it---” In the hallway, the breathless little child phantom paused and looked around like she was looking for a place to hide. Just as the real Antha glanced towards it, the child put her arms back around the heavy contraption and began dragging it towards one of the particularly neglected guest rooms, slipping and struggling. The Mayfairs followed, quietly, watching as the phantom took the Victrola across the room and then paused, prying open a compartment in the floor and then struggling to lower the delicate machinery into it without breaking it. With that done, she left and came back (instantaneously) dragging a rolled-up rug and unfurled it on the floor, covering the secret panel, before giving a massive exhale of breath and dropping down in front of the nearby armoire. “I waited here for hours,” Antha murmured, like she was just remembering it, “Until someone told Aunt Bianca I’d taken the Victrola and she came looking for it.”
As if on cue, the phantom flickered and was joined by another, voices already ringing indistinctly as Bianca, petite but a giant compared to the small child, towered over her, stomping her feet and screaming. “She asked me where I hid it,” Antha narrated, as Bianca turned and began tearing through everything she could get her hands on, “And then she started looking for it. I just sat there the entire time.” Bianca left and then came back, her golden hair in disarray and floral skirts torn. The child Antha still sat, blank-faced, in front of the armoire with her legs crossed, obstinately refusing to say a word, staring at her aunt with utter loathing. It was hard to say if it was that look in her eyes or sheer frustration, but Bianca finally grabbed her roughly by the arm, dragging the small child up and practically throwing her across the room to collapse on the floor while she threw open the armoire and searched every inch of it. When she found nothing, she threw the doors closed again with such force that it wobbled and came crashing down, barely giving Bianca the time to jump out of the way screaming as the heavy piece of furniture made contact with the floor. The curious thing, of course---the part that Antha didn’t remember in the slightest---was that a piece on the back had cracked and sent a flurry of papers that had been tucked beneath it spilling out.
Bianca left mere seconds later, screaming inaudibly (though they could have guessed what Antha knew, that they were threats). The phantom child, taking a moment to rub her bruised leg, went over to the window to check that she was gone and then turned to the armoire, recklessly gathering up the papers and stuffing them back beneath another piece of wood on the armoire before struggling to lift it, desperate to make sure the Victrola hadn’t been damaged.
Nicolae didn’t wait for it to finish. He walked straight through the little phantom and took hold of the dusty armoire, toppling it and laying it flat on the floor as if it didn’t weigh a thing. To no one’s surprise, a sheath of yellowed papers had been tucked haphazardly between the backing and a wooden beam. Antha stopped him from yanking them out, extracting them more carefully and laying them out, her eyes running over the small, nearly illegible script.
“It’s not even in English,” Nicolae complained.
The twins simultaneously rolled their eyes. “Scientific jargon,” Alistair explained, patting his shoulder.
Antha, meanwhile, was mumbling aloud to herself, “Incubator, five-thousand volts---solution, two parts opal essence, five parts saline, one part synthesized syncytiotrophoblast---induce syncytium---”
“I maintain that none of that is English,” Nicolae asserted stubbornly, “Is it what we’re looking for or not?”
Pulling out of her trance, Antha looked up at her brother and then back at the papers, nodding. “Unless there was another mad scientist with a complete disregard for human sacrifice in the family. And some of these notes in the margins look like mother’s handwriting.”
“And you knew where it was this entire time?”
“If I remembered this,” she said irritably, cutting him a glare, “Do you really think I would’ve been crawling under chairs to check the lining? It was nearly a decade ago, and I was only concerned with Oncle Louis’s Victrola.”
“More importantly,” Alistair murmured, taking up one of the brittle pages and inspecting it, “Is there anything useful?”
“I can’t say for sure.” Antha sighed, gathering the papers up and leafing through them, “This data is nearly a hundred years old, and it’s not even conclusive. But it’s hard to say anything for sure until I talk to Vittorio.”
“So now…what, we wait?”
“Unless you know anything about advanced chemistry and obstetrics.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“And you,” she continued, turning to Nicolae and adopting a curious expression, “Didn’t I give you a coven to run?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he murmured, ruffling his hair, “I’m taking care of it.”
“Ah, I think I forgot to mention…” she began, as if she had just recalled, dropping down to sit on the creaking old bed. Her brothers thought that, as they watched her, they could physically see some of the tension seeping out of her. She even managed a small, though tired, smile as she continued, “Courtland and Jack are getting married. Tomorrow, actually.”
“Of course they are.”
“You could probably still make it to the bachelor party. I imagine they’ve got hours of drinking left.”
“Antha.” The vampire’s eyes narrowed, arms folding. “What kind of deranged joke does that sound like to you, a vampire in a strip club with his mortal enemy?”
The girl cocked her head, curiously, before asking, “You mean Cian, don’t you?”
“Yes I ******** mean Cian.”
Antha only sighed, rolling her eyes and leaning her head against the bedpost. There was no point in arguing with him, it would only make him angrier. Alistair, on the other hand, used his position as a non-involved party to say gently, “Cian’s not bad. If nothing else, he’s the father of your niece and nephew.”
“Whom you still haven’t seen,” Antha murmured, accusingly.
“Neither of you are making me want to kill him any less.”
Finally, Alistair sighed and shrugged, a sardonic smile lingering faintly on his lips. “Your hit list must be exhausting just to look at, big brother…”
“It’s more like a dizzying cloud of scalding hatred in the back of his mind than an actual list,” Antha said, tapping the side of her head, “Courtland’s still in there somewhere, as far as I know, and Dorian and Armand. Oh, but---”She perked up suddenly, growing serious and glancing between Nicolae and Vikteren, “Before I forget, you can’t tell a soul that I’m pregnant again. It’s a complete and absolute secret until and unless Ciel survives.”
“Ciel?” Nicolae repeated, brows knitted, “As in blue?”
Antha pursed her lips, like she wasn’t sure she should tell him, but eventually murmured, “Because of his eyes. He has Oncle Louis’s eyes…Ezra’s eyes.”
The vampire tensed, eyes flashing darkly, but gave himself a moment to calm down before responding childishly, “What sense does it make to keep it a secret? It doesn’t seem worth the effort.”
It was this that made Antha’s eyes sharpen. “Try to empathize a little, Nikki. They can question it all they want,” she said, pointing at Alistair and Rynn, “Because they don’t know. But you do. You know exactly how painful it is to lose a child and I don’t believe you’d intentionally inflict that on another person, even Cian. You’re not that cruel.” She stood, brushing off her skirt and casting him a sharp glance as she headed for the door. “And if you ever do stoop that low, just remember that Ciel and Ezra have the same eyes.”
Nicolae said nothing for a while after that. He stood with his arms folded, sulking, while Alistair rummaged around in the scattered boxes until he found an envelope to keep Marguerite’s notes safe. “Since we’re finally done,” he said cheerfully, tucking the envelope carefully into his jacket, “We should probably head home. It’s been a rough couple of days for all of us.”
Making a small sound of frustration, Nicolae’s arms fell to his sides as he muttered irritably, “That’s just not fair. She can’t just use our dead son to get me to do what she wants.”
“Think of it this way,” Alistair mused, pausing in the door, “Ezra’s protecting his little brother, in case they share the same fate. But more importantly…” Glancing down the hallway, he pointed towards Antha’s room. “I think we’re going to need your help here.” Going to see what he meant, Nicolae found Antha soundly passed out on her bed, a jacket in her hand as if she’d been in the middle of putting it on. “She hasn’t been sleeping much lately,” her twin explained with a little apologetic smile, “With the crying babies and all. She’s been passing out in the blink of an eye lately.”
Sighing, Nicolae went over and pried the jacket out of her hands, handing it over to Alistair, and pulled her arm around his neck, gingerly lifting her in his arms. “Come on,” he said, nodding down the hall as Antha stirred in her sleep, adjusting herself in his arms. “Can either of you drive?”
“I’ve got it,” Alistair volunteered, “I know the roads around here as well as Antha.”
Outside, Nicolae loaded his sister carefully into the backseat of her car, kicking and mumbling in her sleep until she was comfortably settled. “Are you going to be alright with him?” he asked his younger brother meanwhile, nodding at Rynn, “He looks shiftier than usual.”
But the boy smiled in his usual way, standing in the driver-side door with his hands folded on the hood. “Rynn always looks shifty, it’s how you know he’s nervous. You get used to it.” He briefly flashed the full force of that smile on Rynn, and again it was oddly and subtly suggestive. “Anyways, you should come by the house tomorrow night for the wedding reception. Courtland will never forgive you if you don’t, and besides, you really do need to meet Vanessa and Sebastien.”
The vampire crossed his arms, visibly sulking. “…I’ll think about it.”
His brother smiled as if it had been a definite yes, opening the door and waving enthusiastically, “Bye bye, big brother! Rynn, let’s go.”
Watching the car’s lights vanish into the darkness of the swamp, Nicolae just sighed, turning to Vikteren and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go home. These people ******** exhaust me. You can meet our new recruits---they’re all terrified of me, it’s awesome.”
In the car, in the faint blue glow of the dashboard lights, Alistair was humming along to the low thrum of Antha’s classical music. Antha was more or less still as death in the backseat, with the exception of the sudden thick murmur of “---nobody wants your stupid honey, bear---” Alistair smiled, easily navigating the soggy, winding gravel road through the blackness, and after a moment reached back and gently poked her hand. She inhaled deeply, rolling over and kicking the door. “---can’t live in a ******** forest, Courtland---”
“If Cian doesn’t spend hours every night getting her to talk in her sleep, then he fails at life,” the boy chuckled, returning his attention to the road and adding quietly, “Courtland and Dorian used to do that. They’d get drunk and throw pieces of paper at her for hours and try to piece together what she was dreaming. It was my favorite thing when I was drifting around, just listening to her and then diving in her head when she woke up to see how far off the mark they were.” He smiled, amused at the memory, but in the back of his head could only think how glad he was to be made flesh after so many years of watching. “Being in that house brings it back,” he said, very quietly, and his smile faded to the faintest trace. He barely even registered he was talking, it just rolled off his tongue as if he couldn’t bear to keep it in, “The place where I died. Five minutes ago, I was standing on the place where Liam took me and buried me.” And then he stopped, as if he’d realized it, and smiled very sweetly to dismiss the transgression. “Before I forget, lock your door tonight. The cousins have a habit of crawling into other people’s beds when they’re drunk, but locks confound them.”
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