Hester opened her mouth to start yelling again. ‘No!’ I said sharply. Clearly everyone was feeling the tension of the evening far more than I’d appreciated, and there was something sinister underlying the atmosphere that I didn’t understand.
I marched towards the Bone Zone as quickly as I could. Tempers were high but nobody was dead. That was important. Things were not that bad. Nobody was badly hurt and, I repeated silently, nobody was dead.
‘Oh, he was definitely dead,’Hugo said. ‘And he had been for some time.’
I pressed the base of my hands into my temples. With every member of the Primes in attendance, plus Hester, Otis, Duchess and me, the Bone Zone meeting table was crowded. Unsurprisingly, Duchess’s large body took up a lot of the space and there was no chair – or even a window seat – that would hold her massive frame. She was at least twice the size of any bogle.
Hugo had altered the door several weeks ago, enlarging it so that she could get into the Bone Zone if need be. He’d reasoned that she sometimes had knowledge and ideas that the rest of us did not, but mostly he’d been trying to keep her quiet and happy; however, as we were frequently reminded, that was an ongoing process. She was currently sitting on the floor on top of several squashed cushions, displeasure emanating from her every pore.
‘Take me through it from the beginning,’ I said, ‘Tell me what happened after I got into that taxi.’
Hugo nodded. ‘We noticed them almost as soon as you’d gone,’ he said.
Duchess cleared her throat pointedly and shot him an icy glare. ‘We?’ she demanded.
‘Duchess noticed them,’ he amended. ‘At least half a dozen vampires, all watching the castle. There’s no way of telling how long they’d been out there – there’s enough tree cover for them to hide out during the day without receiving too much sun damage.’
The troll jerked her yellowing thumb at Hugo. ‘He wouldn’t let me kill them.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘He does not want me to enjoy myself. And there is nothing more fun than crushing vampire bones.’ She licked her lips.
Becky, the youngest and often most enthusiastic member of the group, looked at Duchess earnestly. ‘We’ve been through this. If they’re reporting back to Athair, which seems the most likely scenario, we can use them for our own purposes and feed them misinformation.’
It was a reasonable plan; it wasn’t that which was upsetting me. ‘So you made sure we didn’t say anything when we were outside that might alert them to what you’ve been doing this evening,’ I said. ‘I get that. But why were you still concerned once we were inside?’
Several of the Primes twitched uncomfortably and when I looked at Hugo I realised he was barely containing his fury. The tips of his pointed ears had turned bright red and his knuckles were white. The last time I’d seen him look that pissed off was when we’d met for the first time and he’d realised I was a spider’s silk user.
‘Hugs left for Culcreuch from the rear of the castle to avoid being noticed by the vamps.’ Becky was aware of his anger and speaking softly as a result. ‘When he did, we discovered signs of an intruder. One of the old store rooms has a smashed window and a small amount of food has been stolen from the kitchen.’
‘That was probably Duchess,’ Hester said, folding her arms.
The troll bared her teeth. ‘It was not! I don’t sneak around stealing chocolate brownies like you do. I don’t know why you eat them anyway. Isn’t it like cannibalism, a brownie eating a brownie?’
I spoke up before anarchy descended again. ‘You think someone in Athair’s employ might have gained access and be hiding here?’
Hugo growled because he didn’t want to believe it, but several of the Primes nodded. I passed a hand in front of my eyes. Cumbubbling bollocks.
‘Why can we talk freely in here then?’ Otis asked.
‘Because with the door closed, no sound will escape these walls and nobody else can possibly have come in here,’ Hugo said. ‘A while back somebody sneaked into this room and tried to steal a valuable object. Afterwards I had a witch come by and set up a ward to prevent anything like that from happening again.’
I eyed him. ‘That was me. I sneaked in and tried to steal the dragon’s egg.’
‘Yep. Your attempt made it clear that we were more vulnerable than I’d realised. It’s not practical to keep the entire castle warded, but one room is manageable. Anyone not in thisroom at this moment is not keyed into the ward magic and will find it almost impossible to enter.’ His jaw tightened. ‘And in the unlikely event that someoneislurking in the castle, we will find them.’
‘We’re under siege,’ Otis whispered. ‘From within and without.’
There were a lot of pale faces around the table. Hugo and his Primes were used to putting their lives on the line but they weren’t used to being attacked in their own home. None of us were.
‘Okay.’ I tried not to look too worried. ‘Okay. Tell me about Culcreuch Castle. What happened there?’
Hugo launched into his tale. ‘I got to the castle without too much difficulty. There were more vampires, but I was expecting them. They were outside the castle walls and busy feeding, so they were preoccupied and easy enough to avoid.’
Hester squeaked. ‘They were feeding?’
‘On chickens,’ Hugo said. ‘Not people. There was a crate of live chickens out front.’
‘Athair is keeping his vampires from starvation,’ Rizwan muttered. ‘But he’s not satisfying them enough to prevent them from being useful.’
‘Because there’s nothing more useful than a hungry vampire.’ Hester rolled her eyes.
