The Cursed Blood, стр. 23

She was listening to him and nodding, puffing and nodding over and over as Gramps and a handsome, dark skinned top hatted fellow (who gave off an unsettling aura of shiftiness and power that couldn’t be overstated) in a silver buttoned great coat with long, gold beaded dreadlocks, vehemently argued. The tall, dark, mysterious man’s silver skull topped gentleman’s cane waved about as he wildly gestured and he made his ill received point in a low, heavily accented multi-toned growl that made the skin crawl.

Another, (quite voluptuous) younger woman, in a veiled Sunday church-like hat and sporting a low-cut diamond accented evening gown of deep violet (that left little to nothing to the imagination) leaned against Gramps’ mantle. Elbow length sequined gloved arms folded over her ample chest.

To the less observant she seemed bored, yawning and staring about pouting her perfectly red lips from behind her veil, as if she were looking desperately for something to occupy her fleeting attention. But, if you happened to look a bit closer (and just a bit of forewarning, staring is NOT a very a good Idea. As it’s rumored that she’s turned men into swine and had them butchered, cured, and served for supper for far, far less) you would likely note that a dangerous storm was brewing in her steely grey eyes.

It was her that first noticed I was awake, and while most young boys would find the attention of an incredibly enchantingly pretty woman like her a fine way to wake, there was just something about her that made my deeply uncomfortable as she gestured at me meaningfully with a nod and roll of her eyes.

At this, all conversation stopped.

“I told you to never venture outside at night without me. What the devil were you thinking?” was the first thing Gramps said in his telltale, scolding, whip-like grumble. And, while he was obviously miffed, he was plainly far gladder that I was laying there all snug and warm in one piece.

A feat I still can’t fully explain.

“Is White Owl ok?” I asked, as while at the time I didn’t remember much, I was very much cognizant that something terrible had happened. Given the month I’d had, I feared the worst.

“The Master is healing comfortably, thanks to you, it seems?” the Smoking Lady assured as she introduced herself as “Madam Mildred Maxine Del’Cove… You may call me Milly” with a bit of a theatrical gesture as she swooped forward a step and peered down at me from behind the shiny lenses of her huge, red framed designer glasses.

The dreadlocked man with the top hat leaned on his cane and glowered at me with eyes that were distressingly dark, but flecked with glittering red. It’s kind of like looking at a partially extinguished fire at nighttime, that had just a few embers still burning amid the wet ash.

Still leaning on the mantle as if it was a grand piano at a fine cocktail bar, the glamorously bejeweled younger woman introduced herself with an eye bating, throaty purr as “Countess Adalyn Montague Dracule.” With a pronounced eye roll she apologized for her “uncouth peer’s rudeness” as she cryptically introduced the dreadlocked, silent man as “The Doctor.”

He afforded me a sneer and bowed his head to me just once in a gesture that was far from welcoming or friendly. Then smiled predatorily, revealing perfectly white and very sharp looking teeth (that a few of which seemed to be made of gold) in a way that was somehow worse than his glowering.

“We ‘ave questions,” The Doctor stated plainly as his shudder inducing smile melted. His lyrical, Cockney accented words seemed to be spoken by many voices, all a bit off from the other, in a low tone that tightened at my neck and made my hairs stand on end as it echoed and rumbled about my brain.

“Surely that can wait.” Madam Maxine Del’Cove waved dismissively as she sipped at a green liquid from a crystal tumbler that just appeared in her empty hand. “Absence, darling. The only libation for the season.” She smiled as she took a puff from her cigarette. “It does wonders for these cold October days. So close to Halloween, you understand?”

Of course, I didn’t have a foggy clue what the old bat was going on about but just nodded all the same. She seemed to understand this as if she read my mind and let out a surprisingly fiendish girlish giggle.

“Oh, I like this one. For a boy he has spunk and a teensy wincey bit of wit. Charming…Though he could do with a bath.” She wrinkled her nose and offered me an apologetic smile as she blew out a perfect smoke ring.

“They are Fey of course, and…something else,” Gramps explained with an uneasy look to the dark fellow who had yet to take his oddly unsettling eyes off me. “Three things, boy. They are all extremely powerful, they have come a long way, and they will know if you lie. So don’t. Ever.”

I honestly felt like one of those bugs in a museum. Pinned to a corkboard and preserved behind glass to be ogled at by thick spectacled brainy types with pocket protectors, mommy issues, and stamp collections with the way they all stared at me. It gave me a gut clenching case of the heebie-jeebies.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was looking at three of the most powerful beings in the world (barring the ever-secluded Wizards, Warlocks, a few ancient demons, beings, and things best not mentioned, of course) and something that could only be described as an Arch Fiend.

“He won’ ‘ave the chance to lie,” The Doctor stated with a shrug as he conjured up a thick Cuban stogie that lit the moment it touched his lips, the smoke of it clouding about him. “And, no… I’m afraid we canno’ wait another minute.”

To this Madam Maxine Del’Cove sighed and impressively one shotted her drink, and