“It seemed so. It drank the blood. Hissing, coiling around her finger, it drank the blood. He took it from her, used it like a pen, pressing its head, its fangs onto a kind of parchment.”
To steady herself, she drank tea. “She stood up, and her clothes fell away. His lust was huge. I know he signed his name—I couldn’t see what he wrote, but I know. And what he signed burned into the parchment, oozed blood, spewed smoke. The blood went black like the smoke; the smoke red like the blood. Then . . .”
She closed her eyes a moment, carefully drank tea. “Then, the smoke coiled up like the snake, and it slid, slithered into the wound on his throat. He made a horrible sound, and his body convulsed and twisted—impossibly—and the room shook, so violently that I fell. But he only sat there.
“She leaned toward him, licked the blood from his throat. The wound closed—left a scar, but closed. And closed in whatever had gone into him. She has a mark here.” Sasha laid a hand on her heart. “A symbol in dark red. A bat with the head of a snake. I swear it moved when she led him out of the room, spreading its wings. The bird swooped over me, screamed my name, dived down. And I woke up.”
Riley reached over to grip her hand. “I’d say you could use something stronger than tea.”
“No, this is working. She didn’t know I could see—I’m sure of that. She was so intent on him, on what she wanted from him, on what she intended to do to him, she didn’t sense me at all. And the man, he was completely in thrall—exactly as the term means.”
“Why a man?” Sawyer wondered. “A human?”
Once again Sasha shuddered. “I don’t think he was just a man when she’d finished with him.”
“There’s that.” Sawyer nodded. “Obviously they made some sort of deal. Contract?”
“She showed him who and what we are,” Doyle pointed out. “A man, whatever else he might be, can travel unremarked. A spy?”
“Or another kind of weapon.” Bran ran a hand down Sasha’s arm, added more tea to her cup. “As Sasha predicted.”
“She did evil to him,” Annika murmured. “If he’s innocent, we have to help him. Can you find a way to undo what she did to him?”
“I can’t say,” Bran told her. “I can’t be sure what she used on him.”
“First thing would be to try to figure out who he is. You’d recognize him if you saw him again,” Sawyer said to Sasha.
“Absolutely.”
“Can you draw him?” Riley asked. “If you can do a solid sketch, I can tug some lines. I’ve got a contact or two who could run face recognition. We could get lucky.”
“I can draw him, the bird, the room, all of it. Believe me, it’s imprinted.”
“I’ll get your sketchbook.”
When Sawyer started to get up, Bran waved a hand. Sasha’s sketchbook and pencils appeared on the table.
“Saves time.”
“Yeah, it does.” Sawyer sat again.
“He looked successful, sophisticated.” Steadier now, Sasha began to sketch. “Innocent isn’t the word that comes to mind, though Annika has a strong point. About six feet, I’d say, athletic build. Not like Doyle, but fit. Even before he drank, there was an edge about him, a calculation, a hard look in his eyes.”
Strong cheekbones, straight jaw, a narrow blade of nose, a sharply defined mouth. A rich wave of hair.
Even before she’d finished, Riley looked up from the sketch, met Sawyer’s eyes. Saw the same recognition.
“Fucking Malmon,” she said.
“Andre fucking Malmon, and he’s no innocent bystander.” Sawyer pushed to his feet.
He remembered, too well, the near miss in Morocco. If he hadn’t been quick enough, he’d be dead, his throat slit ear to ear.
“How the hell did she hit on him? On Malmon?”
Though Riley shrugged, her gaze went hard. “Like calls to like.”
“You’re sure?” Doyle demanded.