The older woman was on the phone in the kitchen. She spoke in a rush, her voice lowered to a careful whisper, unaware of Tavia's approach or the fact that Tavia could hear her as plainly as anything in this powerful new form that had overtaken her.
" - process has been activated. Yes, Master. Lewis is in with her now. Of course. I understand, Master."
Tavia's legs felt a bit unstable beneath her as she listened to her aunt speak. Strange words. An odd, flat intonation. Servile and unfeeling. Tavia had to work to find her voice. "Aunt Sarah?"
She abruptly hung up and wheeled around. "Tavia! Are you all right? What on Earth was going on in there? Where is Dr. Lewis?"
Tavia didn't even blink. Aunt Sarah's concern felt altogether false now. As false as Dr. Lewis's had proven to be. Sad with a sick, dawning comprehension, she said, "I killed him." "You - you what?"
"Aunt Sarah, who was that on the phone?"
She busied her hand over her cheery Christmas apron, brushing at nonexistent wrinkles. "It was, ah, Dr. Lewis's office. The way things sounded in there a moment ago, I thought I'd better call ... to see about ... having them ... send ..."
The lie died on her lips. Her face relaxed into a strange kind of calm. Emotionless.
Tavia shook her head, noting that Sarah's eyes had taken on the same flat luster that Dr. Lewis's had. She could see it now, her vision clearer than it had ever been. No more medicines to mute this preternaturally powerful part of her that had been living inside her, probably all her life.
Sarah moved back into the kitchen, away from Tavia. She pivoted to return the phone to its cradle.
"You betrayed me," Tavia said to the rounded bulk of her grandmotherly back. "All this time. You and Dr. Lewis both. You've lied to me."
"It wasn't you that we served."
The admission opened a cold pit in Tavia's chest. "What are you talking about? Who do you serve?"
"Our Master." Sarah turned to face her again. She had a butcher knife in her hand.
Dread and sorrow crept up Tavia's spine. "You would actually kill me?"
Sarah gave a small shake of her head. "Whether you live is up to him to decide. He owns you too. He's owned you from the very beginning, child."
"Him, who?" Tavia asked, but already a sickening thought was cleaving into her brain, as cutting as the edge of Sarah's knife. "Dragos."
She thought about Senator Clarence and what Sterling Chase had said about him. That Dragos already owned him. Now Aunt Sarah and Dr. Lewis too?
"Tell me what's going on," she demanded of the old woman. She moved forward, prepared to rattle the truth out of her if she had to.
"I have my instructions," Sarah replied evenly. And with that, with not even the slightest hesitation, she sliced the blade across her own throat.
Her body dropped to the creamy linoleum floor in a lifeless heap, blood pooling in a dark red slick beneath it.
Tavia stood there, numb and shaking, staring down at the corpse of the woman she'd never really known in truth. She felt bereft anyway. She'd just lost the only family she'd ever had. She also knew her house was no longer safe for her. Dr. Lewis and Aunt Sarah were dead, but there had to be others. Others who served this evil named Dragos.
He owns you too.
He's owned you from the very beginning, child.
Tavia shook off the debilitating feeling that rose on the wake of that thought.
She ran out of the house without looking back.
Everything had changed now, and she could never go back. Not to this house that had been the only home she'd ever had, nor to the life she'd been living for all of her twenty-seven years. A life that had been nothing but a terrible, monstrous lie.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MATHIAS ROWAN WAS LATE.
The Enforcement Agency director had been shocked to hear from Chase earlier that afternoon when he'd called Rowan from the long-unused landline in Chase's empty Darkhaven.
Nevertheless, to his credit, Rowan had agreed to make the trip over to the Back Bay as soon as the sun set. But now it was dusk and no sign of him yet.
Chase was dressed for battle, having pulled out black jeans, lug-soled boots, and a black long-sleeved knit shirt from the back of his old wardrobe. His holstered Agency-issued pistol felt insubstantial compared to the pair of 9-mm semiautos he was used to carrying as a member of the Order.
He didn't care to admit just how much it stung to realize he would likely never ride out on another patrol with Dante or the other warriors. He'd let that honor slip through his fingers, too busy grasping at selfish indulgences to realize what he stood to lose. Now it was too late to call it all back, no matter how much he wanted to prove himself worthy of their trust. Assuming he wasn't already too far gone to try.
With darkness settling outside, Chase's veins were lit up with the urge to hunt, and it was taking a hell of a lot of effort to resist the feral pull of his hunger. Instead he began a tight prowl of his vacant quarters, pacing the study and trying to ignore the insidious whisper of his blood thirst, tempting him to step outside and let the cool wash of wintry night air soothe some of the fever from his senses.
It was a siren's call and he knew it. A beckon toward disaster.
If his blood thirst didn't seize him the moment he stepped outside into the dark, there was a damn good chance human law enforcement would. Chase didn't want to risk either scenario, least of all letting his current notoriety inadvertently lead the cops or feds to Mathias Rowan's Darkhaven across town.
God knew his careless actions had jeopardized enough people he cared about lately. He wasn't about to add Rowan and his kin to that list.
Tavia Fairchild either.