Nora Walker, a psychic vampire, is conscripted into a task-force of supernatural legends that care more for themselves than the cataclysmic threat they face...
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Our little tour group entered a hallway of glistening black stone. When I ran my fingertips along the surface, they came away wet, confirming my suspicion. The entire bloody wall was a water feature.
"Owning Superstition must be very profitable," I muttered under my breath, taking a moment to wipe my hand on the bottom of my shirt.
Jerome brought our group to a stop, gesturing at an opening in the wall, not unlike the entrance to a changing room at a swimming pool. A burnished lioness silhouette hung above the entrance, while the male facilities sported a lion with a full mane. It was a quaint if not strange choice for a mansion full of wolves.
"Ladies, this is your stop," Jerome said, taking it upon himself to state the obvious. "I'll have someone bring hot towels and some of your clothes —"
Ivy was already shaking her head. "I'd rather use the bathroom in my apartment. I don't want anyone rummaging through my stuff."
Jerome hesitated. She obviously hadn't invited me to tag along. "I was hoping you could show Honora the way to the restaurant when you guys finished up."
I took one look at Ivy's strained expression and had to wonder if Jerome was stupid or selectively blind. The training session had drained something vital from the silver-haired girl, and she needed a moment to herself, to recuperate away from prying eyes.
So did I, to be honest.
"Whoever brings my clothes can show me the way," I told Jerome, taking care to step on his toes as I ventured into the bathroom. Not even his delectable accent could justify the use of my full name. "Later gators."
To my surprise, the bathing facilities were more like a private bathhouse than the public changing room I'd been expecting. The floors and walls were tiled in chocolate brown, complimented by wide ceramic basins, the stark white of a movie-star's smile. Pothos hung from the exposed wooden rafters and peppered the marble benches with splashes of green. The greedy vines even wound their way around the stone tubs set into the floor, framing the quaint wooden signs that depicted the oddly specific temperature of water in each pool.
I didn't understand why anyone would bother discriminating between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius, but I was sorely tempted by the prospect of soaking in the 35 degree bath — the hottest of them all.
At least, I was until I glimpsed myself in the mirror. I looked absolutely wretched, pockmarked with scratches, scrapes and bruises from the morning's ordeals. My hair was matted with mud, saliva and even a little blood.
Suddenly I couldn't stand the thought of stewing in all that mess; of soaking in the blood of the man I'd murdered. I made a beeline for the shower bath behind the dividing wall, which was really just a slab of marble propped up on its side.
There were no privacy screens, so I was glad to be alone as I tried to pick off the scabs my muddied clothes had become. It was no easy task, palsied as my hands were from the day's anxieties and exertions, but the effort was worth it when I stepped beneath a jet of boiling water that made my scalp prickle. I squeezed my eyes shut, letting my head loll back on my neck as the steam wafted into my lungs. Alone at last.
