“Sharpshooter,” commented Baldwin.
“Marcus learned to handle a gun as a warmblood. He hunted squirrels when he was a child,” added Ysabeau. “Smaller and faster than vampires, I’m told.”
Marcus never acknowledged our presence, but he knew we were there. Janet and I set to work on the final knots that bound the alarm spell to Knox. She cast an anchoring spell, the kind witches used to shore up the foundations of their houses and keep their children from wandering away, and as I unbound the ward, I redirected its energy toward her. Our hope was that the spell wouldn’t even notice that the heavy object it now guarded was a granite boulder and not a massive iron gate.
It worked.
We would have been inside the house in moments if not for the inconvenient interruption of one of Benjamin’s sons, who came out to catch a cigarette only to discover the front gate standing open. His eyes widened.
A small hole appeared in his forehead.
One eye disappeared. Then another.
Benjamin’s son clutched at his throat. Blood welled between his fingers, and he emitted a strange whistling sound.
“Hello, salaud. I’m your grandmother.” Ysabeau thrust a dagger into the man’s heart.
The simultaneous loss of blood from so many places made it easy for Baldwin to grab the man’s head and twist it, breaking his neck and killing the vampire instantly. With another wrench his head came off his shoulders.
It had taken about forty-five seconds from the time Marcus fired his first shot to the moment Baldwin put the vampire’s head facedown in the snow.
Then the dogs started to bark.
“Merde,” Ysabeau whispered.
“Now. Go.” Baldwin took my arm, and Ysabeau took charge of Janet. Marcus tossed his rifle to Hamish, who caught it easily. He let forth a piercing whistle.
“Shoot anything that comes out of that door,” Marcus ordered. “I’m going after the dogs.”
Unsure whether the whistle was meant to call the fierce-sounding canines or the waiting Knights of Lazarus, I hurried along into the compound’s main building. It was no warmer inside than out. An emaciated rat scurried down the hall, which was lined with identical doors.
“Knox knows we’re here,” I said. There was no need for quiet or a disguising spell now.
“So does Benjamin,” Ysabeau said grimly.
As planned, we parted ways. Ysabeau went in search of Matthew. Baldwin, Janet, and I were after Benjamin and Knox. With luck we would find them all in the same place and converge upon them, supported by the Knights of Lazarus once they breached the lower levels of the compound and made their way upstairs.
A soft cry drew us to one of the closed doors. Baldwin flung it open.
It was the room we’d seen on the video feed: the grimy tiles, drain in the floor, windows overlooking the snow, numbers written with a grease pencil on the walls, even the chair with a tweed coat lying over the back.
Matthew was sitting in another chair, his eyes black and his mouth open in a soundless scream. His ribs had been spread open with a metal device, exposing his slow-beating heart, the regular sound of which had brought me such comfort whenever he drew me close.
“Fuck.” Baldwin rushed toward him. “It’s not Matthew,” I said.
Ysabeau’s shriek in the distance told me she had stumbled onto a similar scene.
“It’s not Matthew,” I repeated, louder this time. I went to the next door and twisted the knob.
There was Matthew, sitting in the same chair. His hands—his beautiful, strong hands that touched me with such love and tenderness—had been severed at the wrists and were sitting in a surgical basin in his lap.