Page 61 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

With a determined set to my jaw, I took the painting down.

It was stupid, anyway, putting a painting of myself directly behind my desk. Anyone who was in a meeting in my office would already know what I looked like. I lugged the painting down a short hallway to a room bustling with activity. The records I’d taken from the school were spread out across every desk in the room. Vampires darted back and forth with folders and books. Someone had set some whiteboards on one wall, and code breakers were busy trying to figure out the cipher. The room was full of enough people talking quietly that it had become very loud. Gwendoline was perched at a desk near the whiteboards, who had no less than three computers in front of her. Despite the chaos, she appeared utterly unruffled.

“Can you get someone to find a map of the city?” I asked her. “I want to cover that thing.” I waved a hand at the painting in its ornate frame, which I’d left leaning against the wall. As I approached her desk, the room got even louder, which I assumed meant everyone in the room was trying to listen in. Getting quieter to eavesdrop was an amateur move, and these people were extremely professional.

“Of course,” Gwendoline said smoothly. “Vintage or modern? And do you have a preference for color?” I didn’t even have time to stare blankly before she shook her head. “Forget I asked. I’ll make sure it’s dealt with.”

“Thanks,” I said. The murmuring got quieter abruptly. Apparently, the man in charge thanking an employee was enough to surprise these people. Given what my father had been like, that didn’t surprise me.

The office felt better without the portrait in it. I sat at the desk and stared aimlessly around the place. There was so much to do, it was impossible to start. With a sigh, I began opening desk drawers at random, hoping to find some direction.

Most of the drawers were fairly empty. My father had generally maintained that paperwork needed to be handled by those lesser than him, so the only folders were sleek, black, executive things to be used as props. There was the odd jumble of rubber bands and paperclips that seemed to accumulate in every desk, as well as a surprising number of knives.

It was purely automatic to check each of the drawers for a false bottom. It was obvious there would be one, just like it was obvious that if I moved one of the books on the shelf, a small panel in the wall would swing inward to reveal a secret passage. It was merely a standard feature. There were, in fact, four drawers with hidden compartments, and two more compartments hidden in the carving of the desk’s main body. Five of the hiding spots were empty. The sixth contained a small metal box the size of my palm, covered with filigree and frothy little sculptural bits.

I smiled.

My father didn’t have the patience for puzzle boxes. That was my mother’s forte. She loved the things and had passed that love on to me. She might as well have gift-wrapped it and put a label with my name on it.

I got the puzzle box open in a few easy motions. It was old but well-made, and all the mechanisms were still smooth. The note inside was written in Glagolitic script—a language my mother preferred. I wasn’t as fluent in it as she was, but I could read it.

Gabriel,

If you’ve found this, then it means that the role of leadership is now truly yours. It will not be pleasant, but I imagine you will be very good at it. I do hope you will ignore most of the things your father attempted to teach you.

Roland believes that leading is about power. This is not entirely wrong, but it also isn’t correct. Leading is about listening. You may choose to ignore what the people want, but you must always, always be aware of it. You must always project certainty. You must not let anyone see you being surprised.

Roland also believes that the way we feed is part of this. That we must drain the strong to maintain our power. That the blood is sacred and owed to us. This is, again, not entirely correct. The blood is a carrier, but it is not what we actually require for strength.

We eat life, Gabriel. By taking a creature’s blood, we take some of its life force. We cannot draw in life force naturally as other creatures can. We must consume it.

You must always project strength and poise, because that image is one of the few things that keeps humans from realizing we are parasites, and that there are many more of them than there are of us.

Be careful, my son.

I narrowed my eyes. Vampires were comparatively weaker when they drank synthetic blood. Animal blood made them stronger, human blood even more so. But I hadn’t been drinking human blood, had I? I’d fed off a witch. With Evangeline’s new power, her blood was far, far richer in life force than the average human’s. No wonder I was so much faster, stronger, more powerful. I’d entered my father’s mind easily, all because of Evangeline.

A knock at the door shook me out of my reverie. I tucked the note into my breast pocket. “Enter.”

The person who came in was carrying the huge picture frame. Gone was the austere painting of myself, and its place was a map of the city. The map was done in delicate pen lines on paper brown and speckled with age. It was big enough that I could only see the person’s legs.

“You can just set that down by the wall,” I said distractedly.

“Oh, I can hang it up for you. I don’t mind,” the pair of legs said. The framed picture floated away from them, drifting toward the wall. I ducked out of the way as the corner of the gilt frame nearly clipped me on the side of the head. On the other side of the room, Marcus smiled innocently at me. I heard the gentle noise of the picture frame settling onto its nails and shifting into place.

“How on earth did you get in here?” I asked the old witch.

His smile widened, showing a number of teeth that tipped past charming and into predatory. “I have my methods,” Marcus said. “I would’ve scheduled an appointment with your flock of assistants, but I thought it was important for you and me to have a bit of a chat sooner rather than later.”

I could feel a headache building between my eyes. “Is this about Morgana?” I hoped it was, but I suspected it wasn’t.

“No.” Marcus prowled across the room and sat in one of the slightly uncomfortable chairs across from me. He kicked his feet up onto the edge of the desk and pulled out his pipe-shaped vape. Pressing a button on it, he inhaled, then blew out a cloud of noxiously sweet pineapple-scented smoke. I was grateful I didn’t need to breathe and could therefore be spared the full brunt of that chemically saccharine stench.

“I want to know what exactly you think you’re doing,” Marcus said.

“Marcus, I don’t have the time for this,” I said. “Can we just cut to the chase?”

He watched me, eyes sharp behind his glasses. “Fine,” he said finally. “If you’d like. Have you recognized yet that it was deeply stupid to leave Evangeline, or do you need someone to explain that to you?”

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