The Blood: A Denouement

On a day bed, in a high walled, well appointed chamber lays a languorous woman with rich red hair backlit by the sun coming through sheer drapes that gave a gauzy view of the green lands beyond. Lawrence Malone noted that climbing up these very high walls like vines were stacked one over the other, paintings of people who could have no relationship to this creature. The woman lounging on the day bed had ivory skin, glowing skin, and deep green eyes, and she lifted the glass of blood to her pretty lips and drank slowly. She was in a light gown open at her chest with breast too firm to threaten to spill out by accident, though she seemed like the sort of person who might just intentionally reveal one.

But Tanitha’s eyes settled on a young Black woman sitting by the bed and as Laurie’s nostril’s flared, Tanitha said, “Eve Moreland!”

The young witch blinked, disconcerted.

“I’ve heard so much about you, my dear. You’re a long way from Long Lees. Are you hiding from your grandfather’s wrath?”

Stiffly, the black haired beauty said, “Both I and my brother have already felt my grandfather’s wrath. And I’d rather not discuss it.”

“If it’s anything like my wrath,” Tanitha said, “for your sake I’d rather not hear it.”

Eve Moreland rose and slipped her purse over her shoulder.

“I’ll give you all some privacy.”

“That’s vety courteous of you,” Tanitha smiled at her.

As Eve was leaving, Tanitha added, “And you needn’t fear Mr. Malone. He hasn’t any heads in bags for you, today.”

When the door shut behind Eve, Tanitha said, “You’re hiding exiled witches in your house, now?”

“Ethan and Eve were… left homeless by association with me,” Rosamunde said, “and so with me they will stay, which is a great imposition, for stripped of any power as they have been, I’m sure Augustus Dunharrow can see into my house just by his blood being in it.”

Augustus, Laurie thought. Eve. Ethan. My Loreal’s brother and sister.

“Tanitha,” Rosamunde continued, never acknowledging Laurie, but the small dark brown, black haired woman who stood before her, “what can I do for you, or have you come to rip out more of my teeth?”

Rip out more of her… there was a story there.

But Tanitha Kertesz resisted stories. She was the very opposite of her cousin the Lady Rosamunde Court. She stood elegant in a smoke blue gown, but over it was a great black, man’s coat, and her black hair fell down her back. Her impossibly blue eyes smiled with deceptive mildness. So when Rosamunde asked if Tanitha had come to rip out any more of her teeth, Tanitha simply said, “Not today.

“But,” her cousin lifted a finger and came to sit on the day bed, gesturing for Laurie to sit down in a Chippendale chair while Lady Rosamunde frowned, “I did want to know about other things.”

“Are you still holding court in that dingy house in America?” Rosamunde asked. “You could do so much better? Have some real influence even in that backward land.”

“You have to understand,” Tanitha said to Laurie, “Rosamunde still thinks it’s 1700. And,” Tanitha looked back at her cousin, “she still evades my questions.”

Fingering her sleeve, Rosamunde said, “You haven’t really asked a question.”

“The Strauss family.”

“The who?”

“The werewolves. German. You and Evangeline—”

“Don’t bring that bitch’s name up!”

“She’s dead,” Laurie said.

“Really?” the first time Rosamunde had paid him any mind. “At Uncle Kruinh’s hand, doubtless. Or at her brother’s.”

“At Dan Rawlinson’s.”

“Dan? My Daniel?”

“He’s actually in London,” Tanitha said. “We kept him back because we didn’t want him to kill you.”

“At least not today,” Laurie murmured, and Rosamunde raised a hateful eyebrow at him.

“I know the jug eared one with the silly face is a werewolf,” Rosamunde said, regarding Myron, “but who is this monkey faced Irishman you’ve brought with you? He isn’t young. There is power in him.”

Myron interrupted, saying, “How did you know what I was?”

“Because I have seen several of you. Both in Europe and in America.”

“Strausses? Kellers?”

“Yes,” Rosamunde said, “but I mean werewolves. Surely you didn’t think you were the only ones?”

Myron blinked. He hadn’t really thought about werewolves at all.

“Even in ancient times,” Rosamunde said, “your family was divided into two branches. We had no relations with them though.”

“A second branch?” Myron said.

“They were French,” Rosamunde said with a shrug. “Last I heard they went to America the same as your household. But this business bores me now. Back to the Irishman.”

“Lawrence Malone, madam.”

“Lawrence…” Rosamunde’s face changed. “Oh!” she looked gleeful.

“Evangeline had plans for you. But,” she tilted her face and smiled, “So did my Daniel. I can smell him all over you. He was my favorite kill. You say he’d kill me, but last time he was in my presense he fucked me so I could hardly stand. I can still feel him inside me.”

Rosamunde gave a low groan of contentment, sinking deeper into her day bed.

“Is that the way he fucks you?” she asked.

“Rosamunde!” Tanitha snapped. “The Strausses!”

“Oh we killed them,” Rosaumnde said, negligently.

“Not as thoroughly as you thought,” Tanitha said. “They are very much alive. But why did you try to kill them in the first place?’

“They were becoming too powerful. We had made compact with them. We had a drinker sub clan.”

“You had a sub clan? A renegadeclan.”

“If you must call it renegade…”

“We didn’t know anything about it,” Tanitha said, “so it was renegade.”

“Well, then fine. We were in Bavaria, controlling… oh, a great number of things…and the Strausses were our partners. Enforcers? Well, we enforced each other. In fact, some of them even fed off of us, becoming stronger than most of their kind. It would have done strange things to them. It did a few strange things to us. I had Evangeline in control of that clan. And, when the wolves got above themselves we went to war.”

“You killed them all.”

“Tanitha, you know better than anyone, when Drinkers go to war, it is total war. Believe me, no one stepped in to save them, no mortal was sad to see them go. However, with them gone, we also had to be gone.

“So yes, we attempted to destroy them all. I thought we had,” she said, and this was the only moment Laurie noted regret in her voice.

“But how were you even in league with them?” Tanitha demanded. “How did you even know about them?”

“You could say we shared blood.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” Myron demanded.

“Peace, Herr Werewolf, peace. It means what it means. We shared blood. They benefited from things that did not benefit me. I thought the alliance would mend that. It did not. We killed them.”

“But, as you now know,” Tanitha reminded her, “not all of them. They had the help of witches.”

“Oh!” Rosamunde said. “Well, we never could do much against witches.”

“Why is that?” Laurie asked.

“Why is what?” Rosamunde seemed as bored as ever. “Work against the witches? Oh!” her eyes gleamed with a new understanding. She began to laugh, and looked to Tanitha.

“He doesn’t know!” she said, gleefully.

“Well, if you’re going to be an ass,” Tanitha said, “then I’ll tell him.”

“Because they made us,” Rosamunde said, quickly.

Laurie blinked.

”I know,” Rosamunde said. “Werefolk can change into different beasts, and we have immortality. We have great speed and can enter into each others minds while witches remain distinctly mortal and often unmagical. Magical to us because they can do things to us, but around other humans, very often very human. And, of course, even the longest lived one of them is mortal. But it was they who made us, and so they have the last word on us. This is why no blood drinker can lay hands on a true born witch.”

Lawrence Malone stood there absorbing this. Laurie had certainly known he had no power over any of the Dunharrows, and he had seen Levy expel Evangeline’s crew with a mere command. But this bit, why Levy Berringer was able to do it, and yet not save himself from an abusive stepfather, was unknown to him.

And yet, Chris and Lewis came at the very moment the guy was beating on him, so who says Levy didn’t save himself? The ways of witches…

But Tanitha was not dwelling on the ways of witches. She was dwelling on her cousin.

It was Tanitha who asked, “Is there anything else you know?”

“Oh, yes,” Rosamunde said, sitting pretty and smiling as she smoothed her gowns.

“There’s a great deal I know.”

“Excellent,” Tanitha said, a beatific smile spreading across her face, “because as entertaining as I’ve always found you, unless tell me everything, and leave out no thing, I will kill Eve Moreland, her brother, your entire staff, and lastly yourself. And then, I will burn this house down.”