Ceremony in Death (In Death #5)(47)

And it was Alban who greeted them. “Lieutenant Dallas.” He offered a beautifully sculptured hand graced with a single ring of thick brushed silver. “I’m Alban, Selina’s companion. I’m afraid she’s meditating at the moment. I hesitate to disturb her.”

“Let her meditate. You’ll do for now.”

“Well then, come in and sit down. Please.” His manner was sophisticated, faintly formal, and at odds with the barechested black leather unisuit he wore. “Can I get you something? Some tea perhaps to ward off the chill. Such an interesting change in the weather.”

“Nothing.” Eve thought she’d have preferred a quick hit of Zeus to anything brewed in that place.

The gloom suited it, she decided. The dank light, the wicked hiss of rain and wind on the windows. Then there was Alban, with his pretty poet’s face and warrior god body. A perfect fallen angel.

“I’d like your whereabouts for last night between the hours of three hundred and five hundred hours.”

“Three and five a.m.?” He blinked as if translating the military time. “Last night — or this morning, rather. Why, here. I think we got back from the club a bit before two. We haven’t been out yet today.”

“We?”

“Selina and myself. We had a coven meeting, which concluded around three. We cut it a little short as Selina wasn’t feeling herself. Normally, we might entertain afterwards, or continue with a smaller, more private rite.”

“But you didn’t do so last night.”

“No. As I said, Selina wasn’t feeling well, so we went to bed early. Early for us,” he explained with a smile. “We’re night people.”

“Who attended the coven meeting?”

His smile shifted into a serious, almost studious expression. “Lieutenant, religion is a private matter. And still in this day and age, one such as ours is persecuted. Our membership prefers discretion.”

“One of your membership was indiscreetly murdered last night.”

“No.” He rose, slowly, keeping his hand braced on the arm of his chair as if unsteady. “I knew it was something horrible. She was so disturbed.” He took a deep breath as if preparing both mind and body. “Who?”

“Lobar.” Selina said the name as she stepped through a narrow archway. She was deathly pale, her cat’s eyes shadowed. She wore her black hair loose today, with a wide dip over generous br**sts. “It was Lobar,” she repeated. “I saw it just now, in the smoke, Alban.” She pressed a hand to her head, swayed.

“Quite a show,” Eve murmured as Alban rushed across the room to catch her, to hold her against him. “You saw it in the smoke.” Eve cocked her head. “That’s handy. Maybe I should take a look at the smoke myself, see who cut his throat.”

“There’s nothing in the smoke for you but your own ignorance.” Leaning on Alban, Selina walked slowly to the sofa. She sat with a rustle of her robes, lifted a hand to Alban’s. “I’m all right.”

“My love.” He brought her hand to his lips. “I’ll get you a soother.”

“Yes, yes, thank you.”

She bowed her head while he went quietly out. Oh, it was hard to keep a cat grin off her face, to stop the glorious images from playing back in her brain of the rite, the sacrifice, the blood.

And only she and Alban knew of the excitement, the power of that moment when Lobar had been offered to the master.

Only she fully understood the thrill of making that sacrifice with her own hand. She shuddered once with dark pleasure, stirred by the memory. The way Lobar’s eyes had met hers, the way the athame had fit cold in her hand. Then the hot fountain of blood when she’d used it.

Imagining the shock, the fury Eve must have felt when she’d found Lobar so carefully positioned at the entrance to her own sanctuary, Selina nearly snickered. She pressed her fingers to her lips a moment, as if holding back a sob.

Alban was a genius, she thought, for truly only a genius would have created such beautiful irony.

“Visions can be a blessing or a curse.” She continued in a voice strained with weariness. “I prefer to think of them as blessings, even when they cause me sorrow. Lobar is a heavy loss.”

“Laying it thick, aren’t you?”

Selina’s head shot up, and her eyes glimmered with something more of hate than grief. “Don’t mock my feelings, Dallas. Do you think power such as mine means I don’t have them? I feel, I experience. I bleed,” she added and, with a lightning movement, raked one of her long, lethal nails over her own palm. Blood welled dark and red.

“A demonstration wasn’t necessary,” Eve said easily. “I know you bleed. Lobar certainly did.”

“His throat. Yes, that’s what I saw in the smoke.” She reached out for Alban when he came in, carrying a shallow silver bowl. “But there was more. Something else.” She took the bowl, tipped it up to her lips. “Mutilation. Oh, how they despise us.”

“They?”

“The weak and the white.”

She took a black swatch of cloth from the pocket of her robe, passed it to Alban. He lifted her injured hand, raised it to his lips. With quick efficiently, he bound up her wounded palm. Selina never spared him a glance.

“Those who view our master with hate,” she continued. “And more, those who practice the magic of the foolish.”