Beyond the Night (22 page)

“Close. Very close. And we will find him—soon.”

H
er dreams overwhelmed her. Death's-heads. Skeletons. Fire. She woke up screaming and in tears. Rob held her tightly, kissing her, murmuring to her, all through the night.

“He should die. He deserves to die.” She heard herself sob the words; she felt Rob absorbing them, holding her close to his heart.

He let her cry. There was no other way for someone who'd experienced all that she had in one day.

Charles the bastard. Close, so close, Rob could almost taste him. He was missing something, he thought, even though he'd parsed out most of it.

It's all been about Senna and Dominick all along,
he thought, as he stroked Rula's hair. All about the possibility of the commingled blood, his plot to kidnap whichever child was born with the dual clan marks; his mad plan to use Lady Augustine to take over the monarchy, his plot to mate with Dnitra to produce another baby with commingled blood in the event neither twin was destined be the Eternal Ruler.

And then, Dnitra's death and his survival after Dominick's ravaging attack. But survival as what, where?

They'd searched Dominick's charred town house six years before. Now, the burned-out shell had been torn down but the ground had not yet been leveled. Maybe, Rob thought, they hadn't searched thoroughly enough. Maybe because they didn't know what they were looking for.

They still didn't know, except for their best guess of an incapacitated Charles, who needed a substitute for himself for mere survival. A Charles who could rely only on his mind now to wreak the vengeance he so dearly desired.

He must be nearly a vegetable, Rob thought. Charles probably wasn't able to move, to tend to himself, to touch or feel or grasp anything. He could have been a lump of dirt they never noticed.

Rob hugged Rula closer.

If his supposition was anywhere near true—God, what an end for Charles. And if everything that had happened led back to Dominick and Senna, and if Rob believed that Charles had appropriated the town house because it belonged to Dominick, then it warranted another search of the house—to finish it, finally, for himself and for Rula.

In the morning, he summoned Naik, Dvora, Zekka, and Deklan to Mirya's.

“New plan. Boru has another assignment. I need you four to come with Rula and me. We're going to go search Dominick's town house again.”

“There's nothing there to search,” Zekka said. “They tore down the building. All that's left is rubble. No one could have survived all these years in there.”

“Someone could who is alive by virtue of his brain and not his body,” Rob pointed out. “Charles isn't a vampire, though he requires blood to sustain him. He's not Vraq. He's an entity to himself and he's being kept alive by Rula's twin brother. Add that to the fact that every scheme Charles ever conceived is connected in some way to Rula's family. I know we searched there six years ago, but we didn't know what we were looking for then.”

“And what
are
we looking for?” Zekka asked.

“A lump of dirt the size of a grave.”

They would have to dig from the top down and from wherever they could find a likely entry from below. Naik and Deklan were detailed to approach from above, while Zekka, Dvora, and Rob would try to enter from what had been the coal-cellar slide at the back of the house.

In addition to shovels, Rob had come prepared with stakes, axes, picks, and the warning that excavating the site would not be easy—or quick.

They began by parsing out the outlines of the first floor, and where the staircase to the kitchens and the storage rooms would have been. Naik and Deklan began shoveling there, while Rob, Zekka, and Dvora climbed over the dirt bed to the rear of the house.

The carriage house was there, still intact, but an avalanche of dirt, caused by the destruction of the remnants of the house, had blocked any rear entrance they could have accessed.

“I didn't think it would be easy,” Rob muttered, “but damn—and where the hell is Renk's access?”

That entry had to be somewhere here in the back of the house, where there'd be no witnesses, where a body could easily be insinuated into the ground.

Rob signaled to Naik and Deklan. “We should be looking back here.” When they'd gathered around him, he went on, “Look, Renk is bringing him bodies. That requires a fair-size space to contain both Charles, his victims, and room for Renk to deliver the victims. By Rula's account, he transhaped into a large owl with this last kill. Where in this area”—Rob motioned to the blocked-up rear of the house—”could an owl enter the house with a body in its claws?”

“Has to be from above,” Deklan said. “Someplace he could drop the body and leave.”

“But he couldn't count on the drop being anywhere near Charles, could he?” asked Zekka.

“Maybe Charles is positioned under this drop so Renk wouldn't need to do anything more than provide for him.” This from Dvora, who had paused in her shoveling and was listening closely.

Rob shook his head. “No, I rather think there's some kind of cavern under here where Renk brings him what he needs. The question is—where is it? It has to be somewhere he can get to easily.”

“It was buried under when they took down the house,” Dvora said.

“But Renk still can get in. How? Where?”

“The coal bin,” Deklan said suddenly. “They'd hide it so you and I couldn't find it, but Renk knows exactly where it is. The opening is big enough, there would be enough space . . . well, for anything.”

“Someone—check out the neighboring houses and get a bead on where we should be digging,” Rob ordered.

Deklan was closest to the back entrance. He returned in five minutes.

“Right to the left of what was the back door,” he reported.

“All right, let's pace that off and begin digging there.”

Ru-ula . . .

The enticing voice of her nemesis, somewhere in her dreams.

Ru-u-ula—they're here without you.

Who? Where? Now she felt groggy from what seemed like a long nap. However, when she gained consciousness, she realized she'd slept through the night and Mirya was at the table, teacup in hand.

And Charles was plucking at her mind again. It wasn't enough to burn him. It wasn't enough to outwit him, she thought as she washed herself and changed her dress.

Nothing was enough. Charles would be in her head for the rest of her life.

As she sat down to breakfast, she asked Mirya, “Where's Rob?”

Mirya went silent.

“Mirya?”

Mirya said nothing.

“Charles is calling to me this morning, He says they're here without me.”

Mirya's expression changed. “They have gone to Dominick's town house.”

“Without me.”

“Rob thought it best.”

“Rob knows nothing about what's best for me,” Rula said tensely. “I want to be there.”

Mirya eyed her for a moment. “Do you?”

Do you?
Charles's mocking voice echoing Mirya's.

Rula put down her cup emphatically. She knew what they meant, she knew what Rob's intentions were.

“Yes, I do,” she snapped, grabbing a shawl and bolting out into the cool, foggy morning.

Ah, Rula, you finally come to me of your own will.

She'd never get rid of that voice in her head. She had to be there when Rob rendered the final judgment.

She scurried down the alleyway to Lombard Street, and into the early-morning traffic.

And there it was—the wrought-iron cover to the coal bin, unearthed easily after several false starts.

It was square, covering an opening more than large enough for a man to fit through—and other objects.

They stared at it as if it could burn them if they touched it.

It felt like it. It seemed to reek of the fires of hell. It was more than likely that what remained of Charles was under that iron cover in the rubble of the coal bin, where someone who aided and abetted him would get ash on his shirt.

Senna had guessed. Dominick had refused to believe it.

“When we open it, we'll release all the demons in hell,” Rob said, thrusting his shovel into a nearby pile of dirt emphatically.

He picked up an ax and tried prizing open the cover. “This will take a couple of us. Grab anything we have with a point.” He covered his eyes as he caught a movement at the rear of the carriage house.

Rula.
Damn.
He should have expected it. He watched as she picked her way through the rubble, and rather than argue with her, he handed her an ax. “That wrought-iron cover is heavy as hell. And all of you, guard yourselves—the stench will be horrific.”

They bent to the task. Only a creature of superhuman strength could move that cover. Or the untainted children of vampires. It took the six of them altogether—Rob, Rula, Deklan, Naik, Dvora, Zekka—to shift the cover to the point where someone could enter the space.

The blast of death rot and fetid air almost knocked them over.

“Who wants to go first?” Rob muttered. “God, I'm swallowing that shit. Forget it. I'll go first. Naik, Deklan—the rest of you stay out here. You don't want to see whatever there is to see.”

Oh, yes, you do, my dear Rula. It is time for us to meet and mate.

Rula made a little sound. “He's in my head. He's goading me to come into his space.”

“Let us go first.”

There was no arguing with that. The air was sickening. Nauseating.

Rob grabbed his ax and bent over one side of the hole. It was devil dark down there, and the rot smell nearly cost him his breakfast.

He jumped—he heard Rula's cry of dismay—and then Deklan and Naik followed him down.

They landed on a pile of bones, tumbled off and down onto the grave dirt illuminated by the opening. The space was large, larger than Rob had imagined.

I'm here.
Charles, infiltrating his mind.

But where?

And then Rob saw—toward the back of the space, near the opening where servants would shovel the coal into the furnace—and his stomach heaved.