She nodded and took off, disappearing down a row. He started off, his steps echoing on the marble floor, the place taking on an eerie quality without the music.
As he looked for the Keeper, he thought of his grandmother, trying to fully process that she was gone. A handful of hours ago she’d been alive. She’d called him into her office and made some lofty speech about his future and family traditions. She’d had the nerve to demand he start attending mass with her at the cathedral. All Arnauds had attended St. Louis’s since coming to the city in the 1770s. They always sat in the front pew, right in front of the flat stone that lay over the grave of Andres Almonester y Roxas. His grandmother hadn’t let up, blackmailing him until he agreed. She’d loved the fact that he came to her home to feed. She loved the control it gave her over him. In her weird way, she loved him. For his power, for the pride it gave her that her grandson was the most powerful heir in the Novem.
Still, as much as he hated her constant maneuvering for power, as much as he’d tried to remove himself from her control, he always thought she’d be there, the bane of his existence. And now she wasn’t.
And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He was sad for her death, yes. Of course. Sad for his family.
“Sebastian!”
He raced to the aisle of study tables, looking down each row until he found her far down at the end of a row, on her knees.
He dropped down beside her. “Damn it.” The Keeper had been destroyed. The tiny bronze plates that made up his “skin” were dented, the structural metal underneath them crushed at the chest, revealing bits and pieces of gears and mechanisms and wires. His legs were twisted beneath him, and his eyes, made of white stone inset with brown disks, were wide open and no longer sentient.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ari said. “Why would anyone do this?”
But he knew why. They both knew why. The Keeper was an automaton. He wasn’t designed to lie. Whoever had done this was covering the fact that they’d been here, had possibly stolen the Hands, or inquired about them.
“They didn’t need to destroy him so completely,” Ari whispered.
It seemed to Sebastian that whoever had done this had been pissed about not finding the Hands. He imagined that someone had pushed the Keeper to tell all he knew—who had been in the library, who had searched for the Hands—and the Keeper had paid for those answers.
“He didn’t know, Sebastian. I asked him myself. He was confused that he couldn’t find the Hands. His job was to keep everything in order, to be able to find whatever you needed. But he didn’t know who moved or took the Hands. Do you think he can be fixed?”
Sebastian looked at the automaton. The damage was extensive. “I don’t know.” He took Ari’s arm. “The Hands aren’t here. We should go.”
She got to her feet and gave one last regretful look at the Keeper. “We don’t know that for sure. We need to find out if he finished his inventory.” Then she hurried down the aisle to the marble counter, looking for any ledgers or books.
“He could have kept it all in his memory.”
“But shouldn’t there be a record? Unless someone took it.” She threw open doors and rifled through the drawers beneath the countertop.
Light flashed in the darkness. The jagged crack where they’d entered looked so small and far away. And it began to elongate. Someone was coming.
Sebastian grabbed Ari and they raced to hide. As a dark figure swept into the light, they moved slowly into the darkness and toward the crack. Once they were back in the study, Sebastian whisked them away.
Thankfully, they appeared in the alley between the cathedral and Presby.
He glanced up at Presby, the view going fuzzy for a second as dizziness and nausea claimed him. Too much tracing could make him sick. “I have to go back.”
“What?”
“Those guards. I can’t leave them like that.”
She clutched his arm. “You have no idea who else is in the study now, Sebastian. It’s too dangerous.”
She was right. But he had to go back. Whoever was in the library already knew he’d been there, because there weren’t exactly a lot of people out there who could do what he’d done to those guards. They’d have figured it out. Regardless, had to go back, free the guards.
He leaned down, kissed her hard, and then disappeared.
SEBASTIAN REJOINED ME SECONDS LATER. He was breathing hard, his expression dazed as though he was struggling to stay conscious. “Are you okay?”
“Okay.” He glanced up and down the alley. “We have to get to my grandmother’s house and look around before anyone else does.”
He took my hand and we raced down St. Ann. He hadn’t traced us there, which I guessed meant the tracing had taken a huge toll on his power.
We hurried through the gate to Arnaud House and down the alley to the courtyard. Two bodies, servants, lay contorted on the patio, blood pooled around them. His hand gripped mine tighter as we hurried into the house.
We were too late.
Inside, the scent of blood was so strong I could taste its tang in the back of my throat. It mingled with the faint smells of roses and furniture polish. My stomach shrank into a sour knot.
The house had been ripped apart. The broken bodies of servants, vampires, and human companions fell where they’d been slain. Not drained of blood, but struck down by brute force. Necks had been broken and spines snapped in half. In a blur of speed, one or two Bloodborn vamps or shifters could have taken out the staff in minutes. A sheen of sweat covered my skin. So much violence. Merciless violence. Whoever had done this deserved a slow, very painful kind of justice.
Sebastian and I didn’t speak, not wanting to disturb the dead as we searched Josephine’s destroyed office, then her private rooms, the bedroom, sitting room, and massive closet. Clothing lay strewn and ripped. Furniture busted. The pillows, bedspread, and mattress were torn apart, the foam and fillings in them all over the room like mounds of snow.
Josephine’s safe had been broken into. Sebastian walked inside it, stepping over trays of jewels, old manuscripts, scrolls, and other priceless objects his grandmother had collected during her three hundred years. They’d all been left behind. Sebastian picked up a stack of three thin leather-bound journals.
“Might be something in here,” he said quietly. My heart went out to him. I could tell he was saddened and conflicted about Josephine’s death. “I don’t think she hid the Hands here. There’s a reason she’s lying dead in Jackson Square.”
Because she wouldn’t share the location of the Hands, and if she had, she hadn’t given that info lightly.
“Who do you think did this?” I asked.
He swallowed, and I could tell he was just as shaken as I was. “Looks like a vampire or shifter kill. They both can be savage. But . . . there’s no scent of them unless they had a witch with them to cover the smell. Could be all three working together. I don’t know.”
We searched the rest of the house. I kept hoping we’d find someone left alive, but everyone was dead. They never even had a fighting chance. Many had been struck down in obvious surprise—in the middle of cooking, cleaning the floors, reading the paper. . . .
There was no one to ask about Josephine, if she’d left the house, or if anyone had come to call. So how had Josephine gotten to the square? From the amount of blood at the scene, my guess was she’d been beheaded
