Heir to the Shadows

dangerous.

The candlelights brightened, chasing the shadows into the corners.

'Come where I can see you,' said a querulous voice.

Menzar slowly approached the desk and almost laughed with relief. This was the High Lord? This shrunken, shaking, grizzled old man? This was the man whose name everyone feared to whisper?

Menzar bowed. 'High Lord. It was kind of you to invite me to-'

'Kind? Bah! Didn't see any reason why I should torture my old bones when there's nothing wrong with your legs.' Saetan waved a shaking hand toward the chair in front of the desk. 'Sit down. Sit down. Tires me just to watch you stand there.' While Menzar made himself comfortable, Saetan muttered and gestured to no one. Finally focusing on his guest, he snapped, 'Well? What's she done now?'

Tamping down his jubilation, Menzar pretended to consider the question. 'She hasn't been in school this week,' he said politely. 'I understand she'll be tutored from now on. I must point out that socializing with children her own age-'

'Tutors?' Saetan sputtered, thumping his cane on the floor. 'Tutors?' Thump. Thump. 'Why should I waste my coin on tutors? She's got all the teaching she needs to perform her duties.'

'Duties?'

Saetan's mouth curved in a leering smile. 'Her mind's a bit queered up and she's not much to look at, but in the dark she's sweet enough.'

Menzar tried not to stare. The Dark Priestess's friend had hinted, but. . He'd seen no bite marks on the girl's neck. Well, there were other veins. What else might Saetan be doing – or what might she be required to do for him while he supped from a vein? Menzar could imagine several things. They all disgusted him. They all excited him.

Menzar clamped one hand over the other to keep them still. 'What about the tutors?'

Saetan waved his hand, dismissing the words. 'Had to say something when that bitch Sylvia came sniffing around asking about the girl.' He narrowed his eyes. 'You strike

me as a very discerning man, Lord Menzar. Would you like to see my special room?'

Menzar's heart smashed against his chest. If he invites you to his private study, make an excuse, any excuse to leave. 'Special room?'

'My special, special room. Where the girl and I… play.'

Menzar was about to refuse, but the doubts and the warnings melted away. The High Lord was just a lecherous old man. But no doubt a connoisseur of things Menzar had only read about. 'I'd like that.'

The walk through the corridors was painfully slow. Saetan went down flights of stairs crab wise, muttering and cursing. Every time Menzar became uneasy about their descent, a leering grin and a highly erotic tidbit vanished the doubts again.

They finally arrived at a thick wooden door with a lock as big as a man's fist. Menzar waited restlessly while Saetan's shaking hand fit the key into the lock, and then he had to help the High Lord push the heavy door open. Who helped the High Lord at other times? That butler? Did the girl follow him into the room like a well-trained pet or was she restrained? Did Saetan require assistance? Did that butler watch while he… Menzar licked his lips. The bed must be like… he couldn't even begin to imagine what the bed in this playroom would be like.

'Come in, come in,' Saetan said querulously.

The torchlight from the corridor didn't penetrate the room. Standing at the doorway, once more uncertain, Menzar strained his eyes to see the furnishings, but the room was filled with a thick, full darkness, a waiting darkness, something more than the absence of light.

Menzar couldn't decide whether to step back or step forward. Then he felt a phantom something whisper past him, leaving a mist so fine it almost wasn't there. But that mist was full of many things, and in his mind he saw a bouquet. of young faces, the faces of all the witches whose spirits he had so carefully pruned. He'd always considered himself a subtle gardener, but this room offered more. Much, much more.

He stepped inside, drawn toward the center of the room by small phantom hands. Some playfully tugged, some caressed. The last one pressed firmly against his chest, stopping him from taking another step, before sliding down his belly and disappearing just before it reached his expectation.

His disappointment was as sharp as the sound of the lock snapping into place.

Cold. Dark. Silent.

'H-High Lord?'

'Yes, Lord Menzar,' said a deep voice that rolled through the room like soft thunder. A seductive voice, caressing in the dark.

Menzar licked his lips. 'I must be going now.'

'That isn't possible.'

'I have another appointment.'

Slowly the darkness changed, lessened. A cold, silver light spread along the stone walls, floor, and ceiling, following the radial and tether lines of an immense web. On the back wall hung a huge, black metal spider, its hourglass made of faceted rubies. Attached to the silver web embedded in the stone were knives of every shape and size.

The only other thing in the room was a table.

Menzar's sphincter muscles tightened.

The table had a high lip and channels running to small holes in the corners. Glass tubing ran from the holes to glass jars.

Stop this. Stop it. He was letting his own fear beat him. He was letting this room intimidate him. That old man certainly wasn't intimidating. He could easily brush aside that doddering old fool.

Menzar turned around, ready to insist on leaving.

It took him a long moment to recognize the man leaning against the door, waiting.

'Everything has a price, Lord Menzar,' Saetan crooned. 'It's time to pay the debt.'

The water swirling into the drain finally ran clear. Saetan twisted the dials to stop the hard spray that had been pounding him. He held on to the dials for balance, resting his head on his forearm.

It wasn't over. There were still the last details to attend to.

He toweled himself briskly, dropped the towel on the narrow bed as he passed through the small bedroom adjoining his private study deep beneath the Hall in the Dark Realm. A carafe of yarbarah waited for him on the large blackwood desk. He reached for it, hesitated, then called in a decanter of brandy. He filled a glass almost to the rim and drank it down. The brandy would give him a fierce headache, but it would also soften the edges, blur the memories and twisted fantasies that had burst from Menzar's mind like pus from a boil.

Brandy also didn't taste like blood, and the taste, the smell of blood wasn't something he could tolerate tonight.

He poured his second glass and stood naked in front of the unlit hearth, staring at Dujae's painting Descent into Hell. A gifted artist to have captured in ambiguous shapes that mixture of terror and joy the Blood felt when first entering the Dark Realm.

He poured his third glass. He had burned the clothes he'd worn. He had never been able to tolerate keeping the clothing worn for an execution. Some part of the fear and the pain always seemed to weave itself into the cloth. To be assaulted by it afterward. .

The glass shattered in his hand. Snarling, he vanished the broken glass before returning to the small bedroom and hurriedly dressing in fresh clothes.

He had scrubbed Menzar off his body, but would he ever be able to cleanse Menzar's thoughts from his mind?

'You understand what to do?'

Two demons, once Halaway men, eyed the large, ornate wooden chest. 'Yes, High Lord. It will been done precisely as you asked.'

Saetan handed each of them a small bottle. 'For your trouble.'

'It's no trouble,' one said. He pulled the cork from the bottle and sniffed. His eyes widened. 'It's-'

'Payment.'

The demon corked the bottle and smiled.

'The cildru dyathe don't want this.'