awake to the most blissful joy you’ve ever known. Do you understand?”
Her eyes were already closing as she whispered, “Yes.”
And that would have been comforting to James, if Rhiannon hadn’t immediately said, “We’re going to need more bodies, Roland. You can’t put it off any longer now.”
“On my way, love,” Roland replied, clapping James on the shoulder as he left the basement, carrying the sleeping woman in his arms.
James staggered a few steps backward, stunned by what he’d just managed to do. He leaned against the wall and wished this task had fallen to anyone else but him.
8
After Brigit left, list in hand, Lucy worked on the translation for the better part of two hours, until her eyes were beginning to glaze over and water from the strain. She longed for her glasses. Her nerves were jumping with frustration. She was as curious about what the tablet had to say as any of them—though not because she thought it would prevent the extinction of their species, admittedly. Still, a new tablet was always a cause for excited anticipation. And yet there was very little she could do without her books and her notes. Oh, she knew several of the more common words, but it was almost always the uncommon ones that told the story, and without those, there was no context for the bits and pieces she knew by sight.
Eventually, she felt sure, she would fall asleep there at the table if she didn’t get up and move around at least a bit. She decided to explore the rest of the house. Not the entire house, of course, just the hidden, secret section—behind the walls, beneath the stairs. It was all very much like something out of a Nancy Drew mystery.
Still, Brigit had told her to make herself at home, to look around freely, but not to emerge from the secret depths of the crumbling old mansion, and she’d decided she had nothing to lose by obeying. She didn’t want to rock the boat or do anything to anger these people. She didn’t want to defy them or fight with them. She wasn’t a rebel plotting a coup. She just wanted to go home. And the simplest path to that goal, as far as she could see, was to just do what they wanted, and hope they would keep their promise when she finished and send her on her way.
Beyond the big room, with the computer and conference table, the room she thought of as the office, other rooms led into each other like a long railroad flat. No hallway in between. There wasn’t room for one. The rooms were all shaped the same, long and narrow, and they followed the outline of the house all the way around two sides, as nearly as she could figure. The room beside the office was a kitchen of sorts. It held a fridge and some cupboards, a microwave, but no range. There was a sink, too, with running water. Relief flooded her at the sight of the fridge. She was hungry—Brigit’s offering had filled her briefly, but she craved something more solid than fruit. Tummy rumbling, she opened the refrigerator to see what was inside, then gasped and slammed it shut again.
Bags of blood with the Red Cross logo on the front. Deep red fluid within. God.
Her hunger pangs turned into queasiness, and she didn’t explore the kitchen any further. She left it behind, going to the room after it, which was a bedroom. Tall false windows with glass one couldn’t see through. She noticed the big locks on the doors between the rooms and, although they were unlocked at the moment, she shuddered at the implication.
Next in line was another bedroom. There were four of them, all told, each one arranged the same way, each one with locks on both its doors.
The final room’s door was closed, but as she approached it, the door swung open, revealing a bathroom and James, who paused in the act of exiting it, spotting her and going still.
He looked…tired. Tired enough that she had to wonder what could have happened to him in the two hours since she’d seen him last. Not to mention how he’d gotten into the secret section of the house without walking past her. There must be another entrance somewhere, she realized, and filed that knowledge away for future use. His hair was tousled and damp, as was his face, as if he’d been splashing water on it in an effort