A Gift of Three (A Shade of Vampire #42)(33)

Serena





[Hazel and Tejus’s daughter]




All three of us headed back upstairs in search of clues.

“Wow,” Field commented as we reached the hallway, “this is a lot of junk.”

“Didn’t you see this already?” I asked, wondering how he’d left the house in the first place.

He shook his head. “Flew out of the window.”

“Right.” Of course he had. Not for the first time, I envied the Hawk his natural abilities. Not to say mine weren’t helpful, but they depended too much on my energy levels. What I could and couldn’t do relied on how many people I could syphon and how much sleep and food I’d had.

“So, a fan of taxidermy,” Field continued, picking up a moth-eaten cat. “That doesn’t exactly make me warm to him.”

“I don’t know,” I replied slowly. “This stuff is so old…what if it belonged to whoever lived here before him?”

“Whoever it was is probably buried in a basement somewhere,” Jovi muttered.

I grimaced. I didn’t want to think too much about the Druid and what he was capable of. “Put the cat down, Field,” I snapped, leading the way to the nearest door. It opened with a creak, and we all peered inside.

It was another bedroom, a bit more lavish than mine and Jovi’s had been—the floor was carpeted and a huge chandelier hung from the middle of the room, along with bookcases and a vanity table. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, giving the impression that the room hadn’t been touched in centuries. I walked over to the vanity table, noticing an open jewelry box containing expensive gold and silver necklaces and bracelets, along with a beautiful diamond engagement ring. I didn’t touch anything, but wondered who would leave all these things here, open like this, with the box unlocked. There were also old perfume bottles, still containing liquids, and a crystal powder-holder, yellowed with age. I started to seriously consider the fate of whoever had lived here before the Druid. Had they been killed? Had they been human or supernatural?

“Come on, there’s nothing in here. Let’s try somewhere else.” Jovi and Field returned to the doorway.

“Serena?” Jovi prompted.

“Coming,” I replied. “Just go next door—I’ll follow you in a second.”

As they left, I pulled open the drawer beneath the dresser. It was bare apart from a thick, leather-bound notebook. I flicked through the pages, my eyes widening as I saw neat but cramped handwriting filling each of the pages—I was looking at someone’s journal. My immediate reaction was to return it to where I’d found it. Prying into someone’s most personal, most intimate thoughts wasn’t okay, even if I suspected that person to be long dead. I hesitated before putting it back in the drawer.

What if it holds answers?

“Serena!” Jovi called, startling me.

I dropped the diary back in the drawer, shutting it hastily.

“Sorry,” I replied, joining them in the next room. I instantly realized that we’d hit the jackpot. The room we’d entered was small, and every available surface was covered in shelves with cardboard and metal cylinders. In the middle of the room was a desk, covered with a large, hand-drawn map.

Jovi and Field were poring over it, and I joined them, my interest spiking even further as I read the inscription on the top of the map, labeled ‘Eritopia’.

“Here we are, I think.” Field pointed out to a mark on the map, labeled ‘Wolstone House,’ with a small, architecturally correct layout of the building we were in. I could even see the greenhouse, and the markings of where the lawn ended and the swamps began. I looked to see what surrounded us, which was mostly as I’d seen—swamps, more swamps and then jungle.

“‘Storm Hounds,’” Jovi read out, pointing at small markings that were dotted along the swamps. “That doesn’t sound too good—what are storm hounds?”

“Not sure I want to know,” I murmured.

I focused my attentions on the two cities, or villages, marked out on the map—one to the east and one to the west, just as Field had mentioned. They didn’t look very large, but each was surrounded by rings marked in red ink.

“Does that mean danger or something?” Jovi asked, tracing his finger along the lines.

“Or it’s where a territory has been reduced,” Field remarked. “Maybe the cities were once much larger than they are now.”

“There are no pathways shown,” noted Jovi. “When we leave, we’ll have to cross through the jungle for miles before we reach any kind of civilization.”

“And we don’t know how safe they are,” Field remarked. “What I saw were walled cities—I could hardly see inside them. Like I said, not inviting.”

“Well, if this area’s as dangerous as the Druid said it is, maybe that’s not surprising. We don’t know what they’re trying to keep out,” I replied.

“Maybe they’re keeping out the Druid,” Jovi speculated.

“All that for one Druid?” I asked—it didn’t seem likely to me. He might have been powerful, but walls so high that even Field hadn’t been able to see into them seemed a bit like overkill.

“Don’t underestimate him,” Field warned me. “We don’t know anything yet—let’s make sure we stay on guard.”