"How did Blackwood manage the haunting at Amber's house.
Was it you?" Her lips tightened in frustration, and her eyes lit up like the vampire she had been.
But she answered me.
"No.
It was the boy, James's little experiment." Outside of the cages and out of reach was a table stacked with cardboard boxes.
A pile of five-gallon buckets--six or eight of them--was on one corner.
They fell over with a crash and rolled to the drain in the center of the room.
"That's what you were," she called in a vicious tone that sounded wrong coming out of that grandmotherly face.
"He made you vampire and played with you until he was bored.
Then he killed you and kept playing until your body rotted away." Like Blackwood had done to Amber, I thought, except he hadn't managed to make her into a vampire before he'd turned her into a zombie.
Here and now, I told myself.
Don't waste energy on what you can't change just now.
The buckets quit rolling and the whole room was silent--except for my own breathing.
She shook herself briskly.
"Never fall in love," she told me.
"It makes you weak." I couldn't tell if she was talking about herself or the dead boy or even Blackwood.
But I had other things I was more interested in.
If I could just get her to answer my questions.
"Tell me," I said, "exactly why Blackwood wants me." "You are rude, dear.
Didn't that old wolf teach you any manners?" "Tell me," I said, "how Blackwood thinks to use me." She hissed, showing her fangs.
I met her gaze, dominating her as if she were a wolf.
"Tell me." She looked away, drew herself up, and smoothed her skirts as if she were nervous instead of angry, but I knew better.
"He is what he eats," she said finally, when I didn't back down.
"He told you so.
I'd never heard of it before--how should I have known what he was doing? I thought he was feeding from it because of the taste.
But he supped its power down as he drank its blood.
Just as he will yours.
So that he can use me as he wants to." And she was gone.
I stared after her.
Blackwood was feeding from me, and he'd gain ...