Page 108 of The Gloaming

“There was dirt on the windowsill too,” Adam added. “With the blood.”

“Soil. Earth. It’s everywhere. I cut off that creep’s hand, stands to reason she’d still be bleeding.” Tom shifted the books in front of him into a pile, absently. “None of that helps us figureout which of Murray’s friends has turned kidnapper.”

Adam dragged one of the thicker diaries closer, scattering loose papers. “Wait…”

“What?” Tom sat up straighter.

“Well, you saidfriends,” he murmured. “We assumed whoever did this was someone Nick befriended and later crossed – it made sense, given how carefully they’re mimicking his old murders. But perhaps…” Adam turned to the back of the diary, searching the dates.

“I don’t follow.”

“In 1889, Nick and I hadquitethe argument – we parted ways for several months and didn’t reconcile until 1890, when Isabel forced him to speak to me again.”

“Go on…”

“We’d always resided together before that – at least when Nick wasn’t off fighting in one of his wars. After our row, I didn’t see him some time; it’s the one part of his life I wouldn’t be able to account for,” he explained. “Until recently, anyway.”

“We kept an apartment in Paris. When I finally returned, the concierge mentioned something rather singular – a passing comment, really, about a stranger coming and going at all hours with Nicholas. I had assumed…” Adam’s usual composure faltered slightly. “Well, I confess it stung at the time, the thought of him hunting with someone else. Quite childish of me, looking back.”

“So Murray had a, uh – a partner?” Tom asked.

“Not that sort of partner, no. Nicholas might not be a monk, but he hasn’t truly dreamt of anyone but our MissConrad since long before I knew him. I rather thought he’d invented her, until recently.”

“Get on with it, Locke,” Tom grumbled.

“If someone was hunting with Nicholas…” Adam paused, considering. “A lodger, perhaps? Someone of no particular consequence at the time.”

“Whoever it was must have known what Murray was – or have been a vampire themselves. He couldn’t hide that, living together,” Tom finished.

“Yet why wouldn’t Nicholas mention him?” Adam stared at the diary entries as if willing them to reveal more. “There’s not a single reference to anyone else in these entries. Look—” He passed the book across the table.

Tom examined the stitching on the spine of the diary. It must have been damaged at some point; the cotton thread was newer in places. He could think of a thousand reasons a vamp would keep secrets, but he had to admit Murray honestly seemed to care about Erin.

“Maybe he thought they were dead?” Tom shrugged.

“Vampires are not so easy to kill, Tom,” Adam reminded him. “The world isn’t as full of hunters as you might like to believe.”

“Wait…” Tom leaned forward. “What years did Murray tell us to check again?”

“Between 1889 and 1946,” Adam replied. “Rather a broad span.”

“1946… that’s right after the war.” Tom’s voice got quieter. “When Murray was in that camp place?”

“Sachsenhausen?” Adam asked, surprised.

“Yeah – I’m not gonna try to pronounce that. But he told Erin about it – that he didn’t try to escape because he wasn’t sure if their weapons could kill him.” Each word came faster as the connection clicked. “And you said you refused to go with him. So if he went with someone else – another vamp – and they got caught, and the experiments… he might have no idea if they survived.”

“All those imaginative new ways to destroy their enemies – for someone like Nick, in a place like that… he had good reason to be concerned.” Something dark passed across Adam’s usually composed features. “It was partly why I could never bring myself to enlist inthatwar, more than any other – not after the first. I heal at a normal human rate, you see. I didn’t know what might happen to me, subjected to…” he trailed off.

Tom grimaced. Sometimes humans could be monsters, too.

“You didn’t go. Wyatt wasn’t there. But he wouldn’t have gone on his own—”

“It isn’t too much of a leap to say he’d have taken someone along with him. That much is true. Whether it was the same person is an entirely separate matter,” Adam said gravely.

“It would explain a lot,” Tom pointed out.

“The connection is rather tenuous. Someone he knew in Paris that I did not, and who was still around in the Forties…” He shrugged. “Only he would know. We need to speak to him about this when he awakens,” Adam added. “But if we are to believe we’re dealing with a person he left for dead in a place such as that…”

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