Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,67
do you want to talk to me about?"
Thomas opened a door on the far side of the library and slipped into a long, quiet room. He flipped on the lights. There was thick grey carpeting on the ground. The walls were grey as well, and track lighting overhead splashed warm light over a row of portraits hung across three walls of the room. "You're actually here. I mean, I never thought you would be in one of our homes—even this one, near Chicago. And I need you to see something," he said quietly.
I followed him in. "What?"
"Portraits," Thomas said. "Father always paints a portrait of the women who bear him children. Look at them."
"What am I looking for?"
"Just look."
I frowned at him but started on the left wall. Raith was no slouch as a painter. The first portrait was of a tall woman with Mediterranean coloring, dressed in clothes that suggested she had lived in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. A golden plate at the base of the portrait read, EMILIA ALEXANDRIA SALAZAR. I followed the paintings around the room. For someone who was supposedly feeding on people through sex, Raith had done comparatively little begetting. I was just guessing, but it didn't look like any two portraits happened within twenty or thirty years of each other. The costumes progressed through the history of fashion, steadily growing closer to the present day.
The next-to-last portrait was of a woman with dark hair, dark eyes, and sharp features. She wasn't precisely pretty, but she was definitely attractive in a striking, intriguing sense. She sat on a stone bench wearing a long, dark skirt and a deep crimson cotton blouse. Her head had an arrogant tilt to it, her mouth held a self-amused smile, and her arms rested on the back of the bench on either side of her, casually claiming the entire space as her own.
My heart started pounding. Hard. Stars went over my vision. I struggled to focus on the golden nameplate beneath the portrait.
It read, MARGARET GWENDOLYN LEFAY.
I recognized her. I had only one picture to remember her by, but I recognized her.
"My mother," I whispered.
Thomas shook his head. He slipped a few fingers under the turtleneck and drew out a silver chain. He passed it to me, and I saw that the chain held a silver pentacle much like my own.
In fact, precisely like my own.
"Not yours, Harry," Thomas said, his voice quiet and serious.
I stared at him.
"Our mother," he said.
Chapter Twenty-One
I stared at him hard, my heart lurching with shock, and my view narrowed down to a grey tunnel centered on Thomas. Silence filled the room.
"You're lying," I said.
"I'm not."
"You must be."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because that's what you do, Thomas. You lie. You use people and you lie."
"I'm not lying this time."
"Yeah, you are. And I don't have time to put up with this crap." I started for the door.
Thomas got in my way. "You can't ignore this, Harry."
"Move."
"But we—"
My vision went red with rage and I hit him in the face for the second time in six hours. He fell to the floor, twisted his hips, and swept my legs out from under me. I hit the ground, and Thomas piled onto me, going for an armlock. I got a leg underneath me and sank my teeth into his arm as he tried to get it around my neck. I pushed up and slammed him against a wall with my body, and we both staggered apart. Thomas got to his feet, scowling at his arm where I bit him. I leaned against the wall, panting.
"It's the truth," he said. He wasn't as winded as I was from the brief scuffle. "I swear it."
A half-hysterical chuckle slipped out of my mouth. "Wait, I've seen this one before. This is where you say, 'Search your feelings; you know it to be true.' "
Thomas shrugged. "You wanted to know why I'd been helping you. Why I risked myself for you. Now you know why."
"I don't believe you."
"Heh," Thomas said. "I told you that, too."
I shook my head. "You said it yourself: You use people. I think you're playing me against your father somehow."
"It might work out that way," he said. "But that's not why I asked you to help Arturo."
"Why then?"
"Because he's a decent man who doesn't deserve to get killed, and there's no way I could have done it on my own."
I thought that over for a moment and then said, "But that's not all of it."