Page 64 of Crossroads Magic
“You’ve suspected I am not since we met, Anna Crackstone.” Broch opened his mouth, his upper lip lifting a little. I watch with an inner stillness borne from shock as two long teeth descended over the others. They were narrow and looked sharp. The points extended only a little way past his normal teeth.
I shivered.
Broch closed his mouth. “Your shiver is that of prey recognizing the presence of an ancient predator. But vampires no longer hunt humans.”
“Vampires…” I pressed trembling fingers to my brow.
“Adjust to the truth,” Broch said, his tone sharp, but not unkind. “This is the normal you didn’t know existed until today, that is all.”
I nodded and drew in a breath. It helped, that harsh analysis. I breathed deeply again. “Harper is an enemy?” I asked.
“Hunters were our enemies throughout time,” Broch said. “Until the late nineteenth century, when we became partners with hunters to track down true enemies, those who meant to harm humans. And us, if they could. Gargoyles, demons and those who have nothing in their hearts but a need to dominate, to kill.”
I kept breathing as names of creatures I’d only ever read about in novels fell from his lips as easily as one would read items on a grocery list.
Adjust to the normal you now know.
“Harper won’t acknowledge that I am not her real enemy,” Broch continued. “But here, in the Crossing, she can make no move against me. So she seethes, always.”
Seethes. Yes, that seemed to fit with the little I knew of Harper.
I rolled my eyes as another thought struck me. “You weren’tfasting,” I breathed. “You don’t eat or drink.”
Broch tilted the tankard toward me to show it was empty and quite dry. “Although I do miss both, when I watch humans enjoying their food,” he admitted.
I finished the glass of whisky, which warmed me more than the fire did. “Broch, can I ask…where were you during the night of the solstice?”
“The night your mother died?” He shook his head. “I was right here for the early part of it. Juda was…” He paused and pursed his lips briefly. “…somewhat incoherent.”
“Drunk?”
Broch shook his head. “Juda doesn’t drink much. His vice is spreadsheets. Data. Sometimes Juda finds life a bit overwhelming and tries to retreat. The effects can be unsettling.”
“A psychotic break?”
“I don’t think he’s ever been formally diagnosed. But he was not himself that night.”
“How?”
Broch shrugged. “The usual. Talking to people who were not there. Shouting. Not recognizing any of us. Benedict and I walked him home when the inn closed at 11. Ben gave him a shot and we tucked him into bed once we knew it had kicked in. He would have been out for hours. Four at least.”
That meant Juda would have been sleeping off the drug long past midnight.
“Ghaliya likes him,” I observed.
“He’s a gentle man,” Broch said. “Even at his wildest, he has never lashed out at anyone.”
“Then these…turns are common?”
“I’ve seen many of them,” Broch confirmed. “Juda is like the idiot-savants who can outthink Einstein, but cannot sit through a meal without upsetting someone.”
I wondered how Ghaliya would feel about Juda once she had seen one of these moods of his in action.
“And the rest of your night?” I prompted Broch. “You didn’t sleep, I presume. You don’t sleep at all?”
“No, not the way humans do, although around this time of day, my energy is at its lowest and I linger by the fire until the sun sets.” He pushed the tankard away from him. “I helped Hirom roll four empty barrels back to his still, as I don’t feel the cold.”
I weighed that up. “I need to see the still.”
