Page 43 of Tell Me Why
She straightened.
Aloof.
They sold vampire parts, here.
Daryll had as much as confirmed it.
That was…
Well.
Tina was kind of attached to her parts, and a place that actually understood the work ofdismantlinga vampire was probably one of the more dangerous premises she’d ever set foot upon, but at the same time, she had a hard time taking it seriously.
She wasn’t sure why.
Maybe it was just simple denial.
They weren’t going to cutherparts off.
Why had they been at June’s?
A place where they’d openly absconded with vampires in order to sell them.
That was…not… a coincidence, was it?
Italian Andrew hadchosena place that traded in the same wares as Daryll.
Italian Andrewknewabout this place.
Right?
That was the only way they ended up here?
And Tell had known the moment he’d smelled their cell room.
Oh, the things hewasn’ttelling her.
At least she’d figured it out, if not as graciously as Tell had.
They got to the end of the stairs and found a red-carpeted hallway with oil-paint portraits on either side. It didn’t seem to imply a genealogy, but with vampires, who even knew?
“This is it,” Daryll said, breezing past Tina to open a door. “We’ll thank you not to wander around the house without invitation. You are guests, but you don’t know where the public space ends and where the private space begins.”
Tina thought that Tell could smellexactlywhere that boundary was; the problem was that he would clearly beeline for it.
“Is there going to be a party tonight or tomorrow night?” Tell asked. It was a question of selection, not of determination: heknewthere was a party coming, and just wanted to knowwhen.
Tina had no idea what he’d seen to suggest it.
“Tomorrow,” Daryll said. “We’ll wait and see if you’re gonna be invited.”
He paused just a moment, making a statement that he was the one in control, and not Tell, then he closed the door.
Immediately, Tell started cycling through the room the way he had done in the basement.
Tina looked at the door, an odd impulse to just goopenit passing by, then she went to sit on the bed.
There was a very ornate chaise on the wall that fronted the hallway; likely that was where Tell was intended to sleep, because there was just one over-large bed in the room.
