Blood Ties

Chapter 18

Giuseppe wished that something had been at fault. Something he could hurt. If a man had hurt his granddaughter, he could have killed him for her. But the death of her brother, her lover? A sword was no good against intangible things.

She'd cried almost silently, the sobs catching in her chest, her fists clenched tight. As if she didn't want him to hear. As if she were an ascetic, with a lifetime of silence behind her. A lifetime of being unseen, unheard. He'd held her, and smoothed her hair, but his cold body provided scant comfort, and he had no words for her. No good ones, at least. What could he have said? Take it from a necromancer, dulce, every man dies?

When Rosa had died, he had destroyed every part of her. The body, first. The body was the primary connection to the physical world, most potent place to hold the spirit. He'd burned her. Held back his rötschreck as he watched the flames lick at her flesh, her favourite necklace still round her throat. It was, he'd told himself, for the best.

Al had said nothing, not reprimanded him for his grief, but had helped him drag her things outside. Burned her dresses, and her shoes. Reduced her corsets to whalebone and wire and ash. Her cosmetics had smoked a deep black, boiling and popping their cases open when the fire consumed them. Al had gathered together her brushes and combs and hairpins, and thrown them, one by one, into the fire, the tortoiseshell peeling and cracking with the acrid smell of burning hair.

The the train whistled north through the night, the clatter of the engine reverberating through Giuseppe's feet as he walked down the carriages. Marcella trailed in his wake, silent as ever. The doors to each compartment were fragile, veneers of polished oak hung on brassy hinges. They were locked, of course, but that meant little to someone of his strength. The overnight express from Venice to Munich was a marvellous invention, avoiding the wilds where the fey and garou made their homes and providing ample opportunity to feed.

He turned to Marcella. "A single passenger?"

The little ghost cocked her head, and then pointed to the compartment to his right.

A little force was all it took to break the lock, noiselessly, the thin wood splintering under his fingers as he pushed his way inside. He smoothed the damage down with his thumb, and the break looked like nothing more than a hairline crack.

"Don't scream," said Giuseppe, as he closed the door behind him.

The woman was already in the compartment's fold-out bunk, a little sherry in a glass on the table beside her. She was plump, maybe forty years old, and she looked up from her book; something in french with a marbled red cover. Her hands were blue-veined and bare. A governess, or a nursemaid, Giuseppe guessed, given that she was travelling alone. He fixed her eyes with his, and her jowls took on the familiar slackness as her mind fell under his sway. "Put down the book," he said, seating himself next to her.

"Help," she gasped, but as he had commanded, she did not cry out. "An attacker-"