The girl had looked up and raised the stitches that made up her right eyebrow.
“No, no,” Sawyer had said with a chuckle. “I imagine these guests are not the sort we want to set tea out for. Set all skeletons on alert and ensure that they are armed. I shall see if I can’t do something more about what may be occurring.”
Focusing herself on her surroundings as Sawyer wandered off, Eva shook her head.
“Sawyer doesn’t know that it is me. He just thinks that something is going to be attacking.”
Serena gave a light hum as she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Is he fleeing?”
“No,” Eva said with a shake of her head. “He’s preparing defenses.”
“Then we still have time,” she said with another yawn.
Why vampires needed to yawn, Eva couldn’t quite understand.
But, at the end of her yawn, Serena pulled the covers of her bed up over her head, leaving only a few strands of curly blond hair peeking out at the top.
Eva stared for a moment at the unmoving lump beneath the blankets before shaking her head. Serena was right. There was no need to run into things right away. Sawyer had obviously invested a great deal of time into setting up his ritual. He wouldn’t just abandon it without a fight.
And there definitely would be a fight now.
Sawyer was pacing through his warehouse. Somewhere along the way, he had gained four enigmas and four skeletons at his back. One room that he passed through had a summoning circle set up inside.
Oddly enough, there were no shackles anywhere to be seen. It was a wonder that he was still alive.
Then again, perhaps he had found a way to specifically target the enigmas. Eva hadn’t seen any demons wandering around. Not even the demon hybrids that he had used to attack the academy. However he had managed to tame the enigmas, it probably worked instantly. Similar to Devon dominating demons. He would have no need of protection between himself and his summonings.
Unfortunately for Eva’s curiosity, he didn’t actually stop to summon more enigmas. He went outside the warehouse and into a smaller building that might have been offices at one point in time. It was dark inside; the windows had all been boarded up. The sunlight coming in from the door didn’t reach very far beyond the entryway.
Walking through the corridors made from cubicles, Sawyer eventually came to a small room deep inside. There were no windows at all, not even boarded up ones. Maybe a custodial closet of some sort.
Pulling on a string that led to an overhead lamp, incandescent light from a fading bulb washed the small room in an orange glow.
“Hello Amelia,” he said.
Eva just stared. Not that she could do much else, at least on Sawyer’s end of her senses. But Sawyer was definitely doing something stare-worthy at the moment.
‘Amelia’ was a corpse. And Sawyer was talking to it.
Its jaw hung wide open. With its lips rotted away to reveal the teeth, it looked like it was screaming in horror. Gaping holes and the back of a skull were all that remained of its eyes. Its skin was tight and gaunt around its bones. Both hands were frozen, clawed across its chest as if she had died while eating something upsetting. Its bony legs were pressed together, crossing right at the ankles. Rope had been strung around the ankles to suspend the entire corpse upside down in the small room.
Oddly enough, there was no smell. Not like the other corpses. Eva was mostly certain that she hadn’t just grown used to it.
The decay was different as well. All of the skin was a tan color with a leathery texture–she could tell when Sawyer reached forward to brush against the thing’s arm. Its stomach and chest were so sunken in that there couldn’t be anything left inside.
Which probably helped the smell, now that Eva thought about it.
“My dear Amelia. I might be having guests soon. Unwanted guests. Vampires, most likely. I don’t suppose that you might be able to do anything about them?”
The rictus gape of horror didn’t move in the slightest. No sound came forth. No motion was made on the part of the corpse.
It was somewhat surprising. Sawyer, being a necromancer with walking skeletons handling his laundry out in the other room, could easily make something like this move.
“No, no. The Elysium Order has quit. They decided that operating in North America is just too costly these days.”
Sawyer moved into the room and took a seat on a small stool. It was the perfect height so that when he sat, his head was level with the corpse’s upside-down face. They could stare at each other without having to crane their necks. Which was good for them. ‘Amelia’ might find turning its neck to be a little difficult given the fragile-looking state of its body.
That state didn’t stop Sawyer from nodding his head as if he were agreeing with something the corpse had said.
“It could be bounty hunters. But I doubt it. It is far more likely that my pet vampire was found out and now the rest of the coven is upset.”
