I give a play-by-play to the group of what I’ve seen so far.
“What about Kymaris?” Maddox asks from his post about five feet away.
“I don’t see her on the main floor.” I move my gaze through the magnification slowly, letting the daemons move around in case she’s hidden behind someone.
Lifting my head a bit, I look at the upper floor. All the rooms at the back of the house are lit up and appear empty.
“Let me check the basement,” I murmur, dropping the binoculars down. That floor—that leads off to the patio and pool—is also well lit, and there aren’t as many daemons down there. In fact, I only count eight, and I immediately know I’ve stumbled onto something creepy.
“Wait a minute,” I murmur as I take it all in. “There are a handful of dark daemons in the basement, and they’re all wearing long robes of a dark red color. They seem to be standing around some type of table covered in black silk.”
I can tell they are dark daemons, of course, by the oily, black auras around them. Their facial features look decidedly masculine, so I assume they are all male, although I can’t exactly be sure.
“A ritual?” Maddox fathoms.
“Oh, my God,” Rainey exclaims, nudging me hard with her shoulder. “Let me see.”
“Wait a minute,” I growl as I tune in my keen sense of hearing and try to focus on the daemons in the basement. “They’re chanting something. They sound like monks in a monastery.”
“Definitely a ritual,” Maddox says confidently.
I almost hand the binoculars over to Rainey, who keeps nudging me, but then a door opens and a tall figure steps through it. It’s wearing a black robe with the hood pulled over its head, which is bent, preventing me from seeing its face. None of the other daemons look at it but continue their chanting, eyes forward. Even though they surround the table and some face each other, they’re not exactly focusing on the daemon across from them. Rather, their faces look blank and mindless.
“Someone just came in… black robe, but I can’t see its face. Taller than the daemons.”
“Let me see,” Rainey whines.
The black figure almost glides toward the table. I hadn’t noticed before, but there are wooden steps—just three—that sit at the end. The creature lifts the hem of its robe and climbs the small set of steps to step onto the table.
It moves to the center and then actually turns to face the windows. None of the daemons look up at it.
Pale hands peek out from the robe’s sleeves, lift to the hood and pull it back. I gasp as I see Kymaris, even though I can’t say that I’m overly shocked.
“It’s her,” I whisper.
“Let me see,” Rainey demands.
“Fine,” I grumble and thrust the binoculars at her. “She’s on top of the table.”
Rainey lifts them to her eyes, focuses, and says, “It looks like a young woman. Very pretty. I mean… for a psychopathic Queen of the Underworld.”
Of course she picked a pretty glamour. We know fae are vain.
I don’t respond. I hadn’t even bothered to look at the glamour, and while her true visage is exotic and could be considered beautiful from an artistic standpoint, the fact she’s pure evil makes her awful to gaze upon.
I can still hear the daemons chanting, and I can make out Kymaris standing on the table, but I can’t see any details… not even her face.
Rolling slightly to my side, I look up at Maddox. “What kind of ritual would she be performing?”
He swivels toward me with a shrug. “Who knows? Maybe she’s trying to increase her power somehow. Maybe she’s just putting on a show for her little dark daemons to do her bidding. Maybe—”
“Oh my God,” Rainey breathes out shakily.
“What?” I demand, glancing at her and then peering hard at the shapes in the distance. But I don’t need her to tell me exactly what happened because I can see enough to know that Kymaris has taken her robe off and is completely naked. I know this because of her skin’s paleness, although I still can’t make out details.
Maddox squats, eyes narrowed at the basement windows. Myles moves closer.
Without the binoculars, we can see that Kymaris is now lying on the table on her back and it looks like a sacrificial pose. I wonder if they are going to kill her, but that doesn’t make sense.
I can still hear the daemons chanting as Kymaris just lies there, arms by her side, legs straight and pressed together.
“Let me see the binoculars,” I say to Rainey, and she doesn’t hesitate to pass them to me. I think she’s worried herself that death might be coming, and she has never done well with blood or gore.
Peering through the magnification, I study Kymaris. Her body is thin, ribs showing, and her breasts are small. She has no hair on her pubic mound, which I find weird. I don’t see Dark Fae being the type to shave or wax, but maybe she does it because she’s royalty. I study her face. It looks placid… almost serene. Her eyes are closed as if she’s been lulled to sleep by the chanting.