Ivy pushed him away so hard that he went tumbling backwards down the stairs, lost in the thicker darkness. Everything seemed to be working on her just fine. I could barely feel my fingertips.
Heat rushed over me like a scalding wind, and swept outward into the dark. Torches flared to life in sconces along the walls with a whoosh and a shower of sparks. A large kerosene lamp suspended from the ceiling filled with fire. Its glass chimney exploded in a shower of glass, its flame burning na**d on the wick.
"Serephina will make you clean up your mess," Jean-Claude said. He made it sound like she'd spilled her milk.
Ivy walked down the rest of the steps in a hip-swinging glide. "Serephina will not care. Broken glass and flame have so many uses." I didn't like the way she phrased that.
The basement was black. Black walls, black floors, black ceiling. It was like being in a great dark box. Chains hung from the walls, some with what looked like fur on the cuffs. Straps dangled from the ceiling like obscene decorations. There were... devices placed throughout the room. I recognized some of them. A rack, an iron maiden, but most of it was like looking at bondage paraphernalia. You were pretty sure what the point was, but not how it worked. There were always more holes than I could figure out what to do with, and nothing ever seemed to come with instructions.
There was a drain in the floor, and a thin trickle of water ran down it. But I was betting that the drain wasn't there just for water.
Larry moved down the steps to stand beside me. "Are those what I think they are?"
"Yeah, they're torture devices." I forced my hand to make a fist, and another one. The feeling was coming back.
"I thought they weren't going to harm us," he said.
"I think it's supposed to scare us."
"It's working," he said.
I didn't like the decor much either, but I could feel my hand. I could have held a gun if I had to.
A door that I hadn't even seen opened to the left. A secret panel. A vampire came through the door. He had to bend nearly double to make it through the door frame. He unfolded, impossibly tall and thin, cadaverous. He had not fed tonight. and was wasting no power on looking pretty. His skin was the color of old parchment and clung to the bones of his face like a thin film barely covering his skull. His eyes were sunken and dull in his head, the dead blue of fish eyes. His sickly hands were long and bony with impossibly long fingers, like white spiders sticking from the sleeves of his black coat.
He stalked into the room with the edges of his black coat sweeping behind him like a cloak. He was dressed entirely in black; only his skin and the short cut white hair on his head betrayed him. As he moved through the black room, it looked like his head and hands were floating on their own.
I shook my head to clear the image. When I looked back, he seemed a touch more normal. "He's using his powers to make himself look frightening," I said.
"Yes, ma petite, he is." There was something in his voice that made me turn and look at him. His face was its usual lovely mask-but in his eyes, for just a second, I saw fear.
"What's going on, Jean-Claude?"
"The rules have not changed. Do not draw a weapon. Do not strike the first blow. They cannot harm us unless we break these rules."
"Why are you suddenly scared?"
"That is not Serephina," he said. His voice was very bland when he said it.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He threw back his head and laughed. The sound reverberated through the room, echoing and outwardly joyous. But I could taste it on the back of my tongue, and it was bitter. "It means, ma petite, that I am a fool."
Chapter 25
Jean-Claude's laughter faded away in bits and pieces, like the sound was clinging to the walls. "Where is Serephina?" he asked.
Ivy and Bruce walked out of the room. I didn't know where they were going, but it had to be better than this. How many torture rooms could a house this size have? Don't answer that.
The tall vampire looked at us with his dead-fish eyes. There was no pull, nothing; it was like looking into the eyes of a corpse.
His voice, when it came, was almost shocking. It was rich and deep, resonant, but not with vampiric powers. It was the voice of an actor, or an opera singer. I watched it come out of the thin, lipless mouth and it still looked like a parlor trick, like the mouth should move out of sync with the words, but they didn't.
"You must pass through me before she will see you."
"You surprise me, Janos." Jean-Claude glided down the steps. I guess we were going down. Pity. "You are more powerful than Serephina. How is it you do her bidding?"
"When you have seen her, you will understand. Now come, all of you, join us. The night is young, and I want to see you all na**d and bleeding before dawn."