Trick of Shadows (The Duskhunter Saga Book 2) by Sara Roethle (free e books to read .TXT) 📕

porcelain bowls of soup. She headed back toward the kitchen again, then veered off without going inside. A moment later we could hear her feet on the stairs.

I kept my back pressed against the wall. “She must be calling them to supper,” I whispered. “Where should we hide?”

Ryllae leaned in close to my ear. “I will need a clear view of them.”

Asher had gone around us into the dining room. There were doors on two sides, and large cabinets surrounding the massive table. The far wall was lined with curtains covering tall windows. He opened one door and peeked inside, then motioned us over to peer into a small linen closet.

“Lyssandra and I can hide in here,” he said as we approached his back. “We don’t need a clear view, only Ryllae.”

Ryllae pulled back one of the tall curtains. “I’m small enough, I shouldn’t make much of a bulge.”

She was right, as soon as she was behind the curtain, I couldn’t see her at all, and she could peek out once the Montrants were focused on their food. She wouldn’t even need to use glamour as concealment.

“We can all hide in the curtains,” I decided.

Footsteps coming down the stairs preceded murmured voices.

Asher grabbed my arm and shoved me into the closet, turning to close the door so that it was open just a crack.

I resisted the urge to push him out of the way. The voices were too close. A moment later, the Montrants and a third presence entered the room. Asher moved aside for me to peer out the crack so I could watch as a middle-aged male servant seated Lady Montrant. Her husband sat across the table from her. Neither seemed to sense anything amiss, both focused on the bowls of soup the servant moved before them. He poured their wine, then went to stand stiff-backed across the room from my and Asher’s hiding place.

I felt Asher at my back, peering through the crack above me. I could sense his excitement. It wasn’t often one saw glamour from a pure-blooded Sidhe.

It started with a green light swirling at the head of the table. Small enough that one could pass it off as a trick of the eye. The servant was the first to notice. He stared at it, blinking.

The light grew, swirling larger.

Lady Montrant seemed to notice it next, though her back was to us so I couldn’t judge her reaction. “Bellamy,” her voice was barely audible.

Finally, Bellamy Montrant noticed the light. It swirled larger until it formed a feminine figure. Charlotte’s features became clear. For the first time, I saw her just as she would have looked in life. Then her features sagged, her eyes bulged.

Lady Montrant screamed.

I searched for the servant, I couldn’t see him anywhere in the room. He must have ran while everyone was focused on Charlotte.

“A phantom!” Lady Montrant shrieked, standing so abruptly that her chair went skidding across the rug.

Bellamy stumbled to his feet, slowly backing away. He turned to run, but another specter blocked his way, this one looking just like Duke Auclair. Ryllae had done a spectacular job replicating his likeness for someone who had only spied him a few times from afar.

“You killed me, Bellamy,” Duke Auclair’s specter moaned, clutching his bleeding neck.

Bellamy staggered back. “W-what do you want?”

Lady Montrant had crawled under the table, cowering with her hands over her head.

“You killed me,” the duke’s specter said again.

“You killed me,” Charlotte echoed.

A wet stain grew across Bellamy’s velvet pants. “Phantoms! What do you want of me?” he rasped.

“Confess!” Charlotte ordered.

The lanterns in the room flickered as an unearthly wind kicked up, tinged with the scent of the grave.

The duke’s face began to rot. “Confess,” he hissed, “or I will drag you to the underworld here and now.”

Bellamy fell to his knees.

His wife had collapsed under the table, sobbing. “We must confess, Bellamy! Charlotte was my friend!” She started muttering apologies.

I would have almost felt bad if I didn’t know what they had done, but I had seen Charlotte’s body. I had witnessed the duke’s murder. How many victims had ended up enslaved to vampires, or dismembered in the Nattmara’s lair?

The phantoms moved closer to Bellamy, trapping him as their bodies continued to rot. The smell of decaying flesh reached my nostrils.

“All right!” Bellamy shrieked. “We will confess, just leave us!”

“Now,” the duke demanded. “You will go to the Archduke now. We will be watching you. If you fail, I will drag you into eternal torment.” Blood flowed freely down his neck, soaking the rug at his feet.

Trembling, Bellamy reached a hand under the table toward his wife. “Come. Come now.”

She gripped his hand and allowed him to guide her from underneath the table. Duchess and Duke Auclair watched them both with scornful eyes.

Huddled together, the Montrants scurried out of the room. Steifan and Tholdri would be waiting outside to make sure they followed through.

My breath eased out of me. It was done.

“Do you believe they will actually confess?” Asher said behind me.

I nodded, still staring out the crack. The specters began to fade. “If they don’t, we will haunt them until they do.”

“Why not just kill them yourself?”

I turned to face him, only able to see a sliver of his face from the light shining through the doorway. “You mean like I would kill a vampire?”

He nodded.

“If I could send vampires to the executioner’s block instead of killing them myself, I would.”

He watched me for a long moment. “There is a part of you that enjoys the bloodshed, Lyssandra. Do not lie to yourself.”

I stepped closer to him, which didn’t take much effort in the small space. “Yes, I enjoy the thrill of battle, but if you think for a second that I enjoy taking lives, the only one lying to themselves is you.”

I turned away from him and pushed the door open, then stepped into the dining room. The duke and duchess were gone, and there was no hint of blood on the rug.

Ryllae stepped out from