I swallowed again, wordless. I wanted to ask what had happened next, how Stefan had become Outcast, but my throat was too tight.
“My uncle’s guards drew their poniards and fell upon me.” Stefan answered my unasked question in a dry tone. “The very same guards sworn to my father’s service not a month beforehand.” He touched his chest and his back and sides—here and here and here. “There were many of them. Although I fought, they slew me.”
I found my voice. “But you came back.”
He gave a brief, brusque nod. “Yes. On my bier in the chapel. I returned to myself. Alive, awake . . . and Outcast.”
There were a few thousand questions knocking around in my thoughts, but they were banging up against a pretty strong sense that Stefan Ludovic was gently but firmly closing the door on this conversation. He’d opened himself up to me as much as he was going to today, which, frankly, was a lot.
I mean, seriously . . . Stefan was basically freakin’ Hamlet, only less indecisive? That was huge.
“Thank you,” I said to him. “You didn’t need to tell me that.”
“I know.” He held my gaze. “You’ve shared a great deal with me, Daisy, much of it not of your choosing. I wanted to do this.”
“I’m grateful.”
“I did not do it to earn your gratitude.” Stefan’s expression was unreadable, but I could sense the hunger behind it.
Damn. Maybe he really did have feelings for me.
If he did, it didn’t appear that he was going to declare them today. I let the silence stretch between us. When it became obvious that he had nothing further to say, I returned to the original topic. “Okay, well, I’m going to Bethany Cassopolis’s rising in two days,” I said. “Any advice?”
Stefan frowned. “A newly turned vampire’s rising is a volatile time,” he said. “Physically and emotionally. While it may be a transformation of their own choosing, no one is ever truly prepared for it. Many panic upon rising. I would offer to accompany you if I thought it wise . . . but I fear I do not.”
Good to know. “No problem,” I said. “I’ve got backup.”
“The lamia?”
I shook my head. “The cop.”
“I see.” Stefan steepled his fingers. “I would not anticipate difficulty. The newly risen possess considerable strength, but it takes many years to develop more dangerous skills, such as vampiric hypnosis, to their fullest potential. The others will be prepared to manage the situation, and it is my impression that Lady Eris is competent in ministering to her brood.”
“So I should just . . . let it happen?” I asked.
He gave me another of those centuries-old, gap-spanning looks. “It has already happened, Daisy. You are merely there to observe the culmination as a courtesy.”
“Right.”
We gazed at each other.
“You should go,” Stefan said presently, his pupils waxing, stabilizing with an effort. “My control is . . . strained.”
I stood, hesitating. I couldn’t resist asking. “Okay, look, I’m sorry, but . . . is it about you? Hamlet?”
He summoned a faint smile. “Are you asking if I knew William Shakespeare? No. By all accounts, the play is based on an old Scandinavian folktale. But if he had put words into my mouth, they would have been Laertes’, not Hamlet’s.”
Since I couldn’t remember which one was Laertes, I held my tongue.
Stefan looked into the distance. “To hell, allegiance!” he murmured. “Vows to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand.” His voice dropped an octave, deep and menacing. “Let come what comes. Only I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father.”
I shivered.
Words, they were just words. But they were words that evoked a moment that defined the entirety of Stefan Ludovic’s existence. I hadn’t forgotten how Cooper had described it: that one terrible, horrible, glorious moment that could never be taken back, that could never be regained. The moment that he craved to re-create, forever and always.
And couldn’t.
I wanted to say something profound and reassuring, but the truth was, I had no idea what that might be.
So instead I left.
Thirty
Two days later—or to be more precise, two days and a night later—I returned to the House of Shadows.
In accordance with the instructions on the engraved invitation, Jen and I arrived at eleven thirty. The temperature had dropped and it was a chilly night, more like October than September. We stood shivering in the courtyard for a few minutes, waiting for Cody to pull up in a cruiser and join us. God knows what would happen if things did go wrong, but at least he looked reassuring and official in his cold-weather police duty jacket.
“Are you okay?” he asked Jen.
She gave him a wan smile. “Not really.”
“Let’s get this over with.” I banged the door knocker.
Unsurprisingly, the undead doorman had a problem with Cody’s presence. I suppose the only surprising thing was that he didn’t have a problem with mine. Jen was prepared to claim me as family if necessary, but apparently being Hel’s liaison included the privilege of attending vampire risings.
Lucky me.
In the end, Lady Eris was summoned, arriving in a cloud of irritation and impatience. “There is no justification for your presence here, wolf.”
Cody planted his hands on his utility belt. “Are you kidding? There’s a dead woman on the premises.”
Lady Eris shot him a glare. “Unrisen, not dead.”
He shrugged. “Until she rises, she’s dead. And as long as she’s dead, police presence is justified.”
“He’s right,” I added, trying my best to sound authoritative. “He’s here at my request. Just in case.”
“There is no time to argue the matter.” She pursed her carmine lips and turned her glare on me. “Fine. The wolf may remain on the premises, but he may not attend the ceremony. Once he has confirmed the initiate has risen, he will depart. Does that suffice to resolve the issue?”
Cody and I exchanged a quick glance. He gave me a faint nod. It was probably the best compromise we were going to get.
“Yeah,” I said. “It does.”
With that settled, the denizens of the House of Shadows assembled to file through the manor into the . . . crypt, I guess you’d call it. Back in the day, it was probably a cellar storage room, with stairs leading down from an aisle adjacent to an incongruous kitchen. As Jen and I were escorted past it, I wondered briefly why Lady Eris’s vampire brood hadn’t disassembled it, then remembered that their mortal acolytes still required human sustenance.
Anyway.
The walls of the crypt were covered with stucco, and dozens of candles burned in niches and on stands arrayed around the cellar. A fresco of the night sky adorned the ceiling, smudged with decades’ worth of candle smoke. A big slab of marble like a sarcophagus sat hulking in the center of the space.
Jen let out a faint sound, reaching involuntarily for my hand. I grabbed hers, squeezing hard.
Bethany Cassopolis lay motionless on the marble slab, looking bloodless and pretty fucking dead. Her black hair was fanned out over the marble, her hands were folded on her chest, and her normally Mediterranean olive- toned skin was pale and ashen. The fact that she looked so much like her sister made it even more unnerving.
