Page 15 of The Midnight Order
He rolls his eyes, looking longingly back toward the woman’s house. “Just another hour.”
I know better than to impede his stalking, so I stuff my hands in my slacks and head off for home.
“Tell Corvin not to drag this one out, will you? I’m sick of taking so much time only to toss them back.”
I could tell him he’s doing the same thing, but I don’t.
“I will, but I think it’s Asher we should tell with this one,” I muse, thinking of the beautiful woman hiding from us beyond the trees.
Cops pull up, and lights paint the night sky.
“She is pretty, isn’t she?” he asks, turning to look at me.
“That she is.”
“Be home in an hour,” he tells me, his voice sounding slightly deranged, more so than usual.
“See you then.”
The walk back to Thorngray takes moments, even while I try to go slow. Its sprawling lawns and overly manicured foliage tell of our wealth, but really, it’s all we have to do anymore: maintain the estate.
The four of us are the last remaining in the Midnight Order, and if we weren’t cursed, I don’t know that we’d still be here.
Actually, Iknowwe wouldn’t be here. We’d choose to go elsewhere.
Anywhere else.
The wind blows me through the door, and I slam it behind me as Milly passes with her skirts swooshing, a broom in one hand and a bucket of cleaning supplies in the other.
She never stops; I swear it.
“Milly, I don’t see the point in—” She keeps walking, ignoring me entirely as Corvin comes down the stairs to my right.
“Oh, give up. You know she doesn’t listen to you, anyhow. Listen, I was thinking maybe we add this extra blood test this time to?—”
“About that, Lowell’s asking that you don’t drag your portion of this out, and I have to agree. He seems a bit off-kilter, and we should grant him this one thing. Just this once,” I repeat to drill my point home.
Corvin slams the book in his hands shut, his face growing stoic. “Fine. Just this once. The next one, however, I want to test for any relation to past vampiric lines.”
He turns on his heel and walks toward the kitchen.
“Stop!” I shout, and he halts, turning back with a grin on his face.
“Why would you need to know that?” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
He steps closer, his eyes lighting up as they do when he’s found something to dig his hooks into. “Well, I have a running theory that the curse lets some through because it senses a kindred spirit. Like a long-lost relative with the vampiric strain,” he adds, staring at me as my brain tries to work his theory over.
“Will the key be of vampiric lineage?” I ask him.
He thinks about it, and his face falls. “I don’t know, but it’s letting them in, so, logically, it senses something we don’t.”
Hence, why we allow him to run the gamut of tests on the subjects that the curse feeds us.
“Fine, add the test. For the love of everything, don’t tell Lowell,” I plead.
He nods. “I’ll sneak a sample with my others and be quick. It won’t take the results any longer to run, anyhow.”
I pin him with a stern glare. “Be sure that it doesn’t.”
