“Good evening.”
We turned back, found Vincent and Nessa walking together down the hallway. Nessa had taken up her friends’ fashion and wore a blousy ivory tank and long, wide-legged trousers in a chalky blue, the same homespun fabric Astrid and Vincent wore. Her dark mane was braided loosely across one shoulder. She looked, I thought, less a vampire than a goddess, but I wondered if goddesses had ever looked so sad.
“Good evening,” Ethan said, then gestured to the building. “This is an impressive structure.”
Vincent nodded. “The building was created as a corporate retreat center. The business failed, and we were able to obtain it at minimal cost. Many of our vampires find us because they are escaping unpleasant situations. We try to give them a safe and lovely place.” He gestured toward the linear building, and we followed him toward it.
“We find living communally, without the presence of humans, gives us a chance to truly be ourselves.” The sound of trickling water blossomed, grew louder. There was a fountain that ran down the middle of the space, a small spout that poured a thick and gleaming stream of water into a narrow canal through the bricks. The canal was lined with cloudy blue-green glass, the water gurgling as it moved through the channel to the other end.
“Very nice,” Ethan commented, clearly sensing that Vincent was seeking compliments. “And how many residents?”
“Thirteen of our fifteen present members.”
When they began to discuss potentially applicable NAVR regulations, I glanced around the building, caught familiar streaks of blue and green in a painting on the opposite wall.
I walked toward it, squinted at the long and straight brushstrokes, the light gleam of varnish, the aged cracking of oil paints used to render a luminous valley landscape. Although the angle was slightly different, it was the same scooped valley, the same familiar crags of mountain on either side.
I glanced back at Nessa, smiled. “This looks familiar.”
Nessa nodded, pleased I’d realized it. “It’s a Barrymore—the same artist as the painting at the guesthouse. He traveled through Colorado in the 1890s, did nearly one hundred landscapes, including these two of Elk Valley.”
“You’re a collector?” Ethan asked, joining us.
Nessa looked back at him, sadness pulling at her eyes. “Actually, no. They were Christophe’s paintings. He had a great love of art, and he’d bought them in the hope he and Fiona would be able to build a larger home. We had them restored, Taran and I.”
Ethan nodded, and his voice softened. “Are you ready to return to the house?”
Nessa nodded shakily. “Yes. I mean, no, of course I don’t want to see where he—where Taran—was killed. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live there again. But if my going back can help . . .”
Vincent touched her hand. “If it’s too soon—”
Nessa smiled politely but firmly. I guessed she and Vincent had had this conversation before. “It’s necessary. But thank you, Vincent.”
We were walking toward the front door when magic prickled my neck. Since Damien and I both stopped short in the hallway, I guessed he felt it, too.
There were guns, sure. But their magic was dwarfed beneath a bigger and heavier magic, like an ocean of deep blue water resting on grains of sand.
Damien and I exchanged a glance, nodded.
“Everyone else stay here,” I said, and used a pointing finger to warn them into place while we jogged back to the circular part of the building, where windows flanked the front door.
Sentinel?
Shifters, I told Ethan, glancing through glass to see Niall and a few of his closest friends. Men and women this time, most of them young, with lean bodies and eyes hungry for violence.
Ethan ignored the request to stay back and stormed forward, magic rolling off him like boiling water. “Gabriel was supposed to handle this.”
“He will,” Damien said without hesitation. “They must have been on their way before Gabriel left.”
“Or he’s meeting with Rowan, and Niall wasn’t happy about it.” I gestured through the window. “Rowan’s not out there.”
“So we have Rowan talk to him, and they walk back into the woods. I’ll call Gabe, make that happen.” But when Damien pulled out his phone, he swore. “There’s no signal out here. We’re too far away from anything.”
Ethan looked at Vincent, who’d joined us. Vincent shook his head.
“We don’t have a phone line. We normally find it unnecessary.”
I was beginning to find Vincent unnecessary, much like the rest of the Marchands and McKenzies.
“Fine,” Ethan said, hand on the door. “We go outside, and we talk to them. We remind them there’s a law enforcement investigation under way. Me, Merit, Damien. Everyone else stay here.”
“I’m going with you.”
Ethan looked hard at Nessa.
“I’m not going to cower in that house while they accuse me of murder.”
Ethan glanced at Damien, who shrugged.
“Fine,” Ethan said, and looked at Vincent. “Stay here and keep the rest of your people calm.”
Vincent didn’t argue and seemed to have no qualms about staying inside.
Ethan opened the door and slowly walked onto the stone patio beyond it, Damien and I behind him, Nessa at the rear. I rued the fact that I’d left my sword in the car. But then again, this was just supposed to be a pickup.