Scryer by Sinden West Read Free Book Online Page A

their color, so appropriate. My
eyes were immediately drawn to a large canvas showing a woman being burned at
the stake. The crowd around her bayed for blood. The artist had made their
faces twisted and cruel, while the woman looked upward serenely as red flames
licked at her feet. This could have been one of my ancestors, tormented and
slain for her talent, until the Circle members with their lust for greed
stepped in, offering us sanctuary and a lifetime of servitude.
    “Ms. Scryer?” Felix called politely. How
many times had he said my name?
    “Coming,” I muttered, pulling my eyes
away from the terrible scene and following him to the staircase that was
covered in a deep red carpet. I held onto the curving wooden balustrade as I
began the climb. At the first landing, it split in two and Felix gestured for
us to go up the right side. We followed him up several flights of stairs until
we came to another dark hallway.
    “Please wait here while I show Ms.
Scryer to her room,” Felix told Danilo, who slumped down into an antique
armchair sullenly. Felix led me to the same room that I had stayed in all the
other times. It was beautiful with polished antique furniture and soft rugs
furnishing it. The dominant feature was the large four-poster bed with a velvet
canopy and finely embroidered bed covers. When I was a child, I had wished for
a bed like this. At the time, it seemed romantic, but now it was just like a
bribe to placate us and keep us docile.
    A narrow door led to a small bathroom.
It was just as dark as the bedroom, but the fittings were all new, yet designed
to look antique. I turned on the faucets that hung over the claw foot bath. It
would be hours before the ritual, so I may as well wash off the filth of
Danilo’s car and cigarette smoke in the meantime. Toiletry items were laid out
on a small cabinet and the brands were all luxury ones. That would be
Dorothea’s doing. There was nothing cheap about her, and she even liked the
people she fucked to smell and feel expensive. I took my time opening the small
bottles and inhaling in the scents. If I were forced to be here, I may as well enjoy
it. Once in the bath, I lathered my skin with peppermint soap, knowing that I
would probably never wish to use that same-scented lotion again after tonight.
    I lingered in the bath until my skin
began to shrivel, and after that I dried myself and rubbed in the peppermint
lotion until I was slick and smooth, and smelled like candy. I put on my own
robe; it was short, cream and silk, and probably the nicest thing that I had
ever owned. The antique clock chimed, telling me that I still had hours before
the ritual, and I sighed with boredom. I needed a drink, but nothing had been
supplied in this room. Still, I knew where to go. There was a library at the
end of the hall, and once it must have been a place where men retired to for brandy
and cigars, but now, whenever I’d been here, it was always silent. Someone
dusted it, because the leather bound books were always spotless but when they
opened, the rice paper always crackled like no one had bothered with them in
years.
    I crept down the hallway in just my robe
and my bare feet. The expectation of Felix jumping out at me and telling me in
his cool voice to return to my allocated room had me constantly looking behind
me. But he didn’t appear, and I kept going. The arched door creaked as I
entered, and just as expected, the room was empty. A liquor cabinet with
leadlight windows in the doors stood against one wall, its shelves filled with
crystal and bottles that looked old and expensive, just like everything in this
house.
    I blew dust off a bottle of French brandy
that had never been opened and examined the label before twisting the top off.
No doubt, unopened, it was probably worth a small fortune, but fuck them, I had
earned at least a thousand times that for them in the past. I deserved this.  After cleaning a glass with the bottom of my robe, I filled it and
plopped