Page 29 of Visions in Blood
I winked at him.He might not have made the scones, but his efforts to make amends touched me.
He didn’t return my smile, but the warmth in his gaze was enough.I blinked away the naked image of him from last night’s dream.It wasn’t easy.
“What you told me yesterday was frustrating.”He sat, leaving several inches of space between us as he pulled the book closer.“I’ve read this entire book a hundred times over through the years, and I reviewed this chapter again this morning.I still don’t see what you believe you’ve found that could have eluded me after all this time.”
“You read the entire chapter this morning?”There were hundreds of pages for this chapter alone.
“I’m a fast reader.”
That was daunting.“I’m not sure what I found is anything of value, and it’s going to be difficult to explain.”I sipped the espresso and broke off a piece of scone, mulling over the best approach.“It’s this feeling I get when I’m hunting for a new job.More than that, it’s when I’m not really looking for a job, but I see something or read something, and this jolt hits me.I get this tingling sensation that calls out to me.”I chewed the scone and chased it with the espresso.“I’ve learned over the years to trust it.”
He nodded as I spoke, but whether it was encouragement or something he’d felt before, I couldn’t tell.“Show me.”
I noted the spot he’d opened to.It was the section that discussed an event that changed the course of history between the Trelanes and Venizis—the start of their first House war.His brows rose when I flipped to another marker.
“The House Renaud?”
I nodded.
“They’re the keepers of our history.I’ve scoured that section too many times to count.”
“I admit, there really isn’t much here other than how they became the record keepers of vamp history.It seemed surprising the Council would hand such a large responsibility to only one family until I read their process.It leaves little room for bias, assuming they documented the ugly along with the good.”
He sat back and sipped his espresso as he stared at the embers.“There have been times when the Council wasn’t happy with some of the records.Arguments broke out and loyalties were tested when someone got wind of what had been written.”
“Enough to sweep it under the rug?”
“I’ve heard rumors of shadow books.”
I nodded.“Like having a second set of accounting books.One to show the auditors and another with the real numbers.Does everyone have free access to these books?”
“Most are kept in vampire museums and libraries open to all of our species.”
“But not everything?”
“No.There is too much inventory.It doesn’t happen often, but some Houses fail or die off.Personal items are given to any remaining family, but anything considered important to vampire history is sent to House Renaud for cataloging and storage.There are many written accounts to be stored—memoirs, journals, that sort of thing.”
I wiped my hands on my pants and reread the passage that had given me the tingles the day before.No surprise.The familiar sensation shot through me again.I pointed to the paragraph.
After several minutes went by, his forehead creased as he shook his head.“I’m afraid I’m not seeing it.”
I pointed to the foreign words.“What does this phrase mean?”
Devon read the words.“De første dage.It’s Danish and means ‘the first days’.”
I reread the passage, inserting his translation into the paragraph.Now, my forehead scrunched in confusion.“It reads awkwardly in English, so maybe that’s why they switched to Danish in the middle of the sentence.”
He gave me a look I couldn’t decipher and read the passage again.“To be honest, it doesn’t make much sense if the entire sentence had been written in Danish.”
“I noticed multiple languages throughout the chapters, but they seemed to reference people and places.”
He nodded in agreement.
“But this isn’t a person or a place?”
He shook his head, but I could tell the wheels were turning.
“What if this was another book?”
