Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
Page 47

The first room—a large foyer, maybe, but I wanted to think of it as a great hall—was open, with a low ceiling. Chairs and sofas were low to the ground and piled with cushions. They looked fluffy and comfortable enough to jump on. A thick red carpet muffled footfalls. Columns painted lapis blue and trimmed in gold supported the ceiling at regular intervals. Sconce-style lamps on the walls cast warm, gold light. The closest thing I’d ever seen to this was a fancy Moroccan restaurant.
The place must have been designed by the same people who did the whole hotel. Murals covered the walls, line drawings done in such detail I thought they were printed wallpaper at first. But they’d been painted in dark lines on beige backgrounds, so that they almost seemed like stone carvings. Processions marched away on either side of me: men and women, life-size, in single file, staring forward, fists clenched. The motifs seemed ancient. The figures had the curling beards and tall hats of Babylonian kings. They weren’t all fully human. They had human faces, but the bodies of lions, bulls, deer, even birds.
Some lycanthropes believed that our disease—whatever made us what we are—had its origin in the very beginnings of civilization, from a time when people were closer to nature, when people and animals talked to each other, like in so many of the old stories. We bridged the space between them, reminded people of that time. It was an optimistic, environmentally friendly attitude toward lycanthropy.
Other people—a little less nice, a little more inclined to believe in a vengeful God—believed we were spawn of the devil.
Maybe that was why I preferred to think of this as a disease. A strange disease, but still quantifiable. Because if lycanthropy was a disease, it meant I was just unlucky. Not part of a giant cosmic scheme I had no control over, not to mention no knowledge of.
The smell of the room washed over me, brilliant as any color or light. They were unfamiliar, undomesticated scents: not just the human-mixed-with-fur smell of lycanthrope, the smell of skin covering something wild. This was even more animal. Like the fur covered skin instead, and nothing tempered the animal side of the equation. It was the smell of instinct, of fighting for food, for space. Communication happened through scent—not just pissing to mark territory. Fear, anger, joy, lust, all had their own scents. A lot of emotion had been spent in this place. A lot of hunger, meaty and ripe.
Balthasar gestured, taking in the decor around us. “What do you think?”
“I like it. Not sure I’d want my own living room to look like this, but it’s... exotic.” I’d almost said sexy. “The figures—what are they? Babylonian?”
“Right in one,” he said, nodding in acknowledgment. “Do you know the old stories?”
“Some of them. Daniel and the Lion’s Den—the version where he’s a were-lion. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Mostly through modern interpretations in English lit classes and all.”
“There’s a lot we can learn from the ancients. In some ways, those were better times.”
“I don’t know, I sort of like modern medicine, TV, women being able to own property and vote. All the modern conveniences.”
“I did say in some ways.” He moved closer. I probably wouldn’t be able to just step out of his grasp. Goose bumps traveled up my arms. But I didn’t move away from him.
Behind my shoulder now, he looked at the murals, the procession on the wall, and pointed. A row of smaller, human figures lined up before a throne, where a lion-bodied god crouched and accepted the offerings, the boxes and jars they set before him. “There was a power in those times. We hide ourselves now. Then, the gods and their servants were painted on every wall, for all to see. The statues stood guard at the gates of every city. How do you think it would be, to be celebrated by your society instead of looked on as a curse? To be an avatar of the gods?” His voice was hypnotic.
He painted an attractive picture. A utopia, almost. But these societies also made blood sacrifices to their gods. We could idealize the past all we wanted, at the price of ignoring the drawbacks.
“Is that what you’re doing here? Trying to re-create that kind of society?”
He just smiled. “Come in, see the rest of our home.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. The bare part, not even touching the dress’s narrow strap. His touch was fire. Every muscle in my body clenched. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t even think of it. His words rang over me. I am part of the procession, which stretches back to the dawn of time. That made me powerful.
When I moved, my bones creaked. I heard them, and the noise jarred me. I stepped away, took myself out of the burning, alluring grasp. I took a deep breath, tried to get oxygen back to my brain. There was something in the air here...
“Ben’s missing,” I said, wincing mentally, because blurting it out like that wasn’t sly or smart at all. Not if Balthasar had a hand in it. I was supposed to be smart about this. “Ben’s my fiancé, and a crime lord named Faber might have taken him. The police are looking, but they haven’t found anything, and I’m running out of ideas. Dom said you might know something.”
“Dom?” Balthasar said, chuckling. “We don’t hear much from Dom. Let’s sit down and we can talk about this.”
I didn’t know what to call the room he took me to. It was much like the foyer, the great hall, rich in its decorations, exotic for the lack of anything I’d call chairs and sofas, anything that might identify it as a living room. I might have called it a dormitory, or a barracks: futons, made up with sheets and pillows, lined one wall. But there was also a fountain, water dribbling over round gray stones, in the middle of the room, and chaise lounges, and draped over these in a most decorative manner—dangling their fingers in the water, stretched out on cushions—were a group of young men. They were all glowingly gorgeous, smooth-skinned, bronzed, muscular. At the sound of Balthasar’s voice, they looked up at me with alluringly hooded gazes. They had wicked smiles. Balthasar was the pirate captain, and here was his crew.
Part of me really wanted to run now. But they were all so attractive.
“So you all live here together?” I said, working to keep my voice steady. “All the performers?” I was hoping Nick would be around. He’d been the first one I’d met, and for some reason he seemed like the one most likely to tell me the truth. I assumed there was another truth under all this.