Read Online American Gothic by Michael Romkey - Free Book Online

The lyrics were Italian, an aria from another opera Peregrine did not recognize.
    A sharp gesture brought Peregrine’s glance back to Mrs. Foster.
    She had become suddenly, even dramatically rigid, as if she were in the grip of a grand mal seizure. Her fingers clutched empty air, and her legs were stuck out straight in the air. One slipper came off and fell to the carpeted floor, the sound hidden beneath the soaring music. All the while Mrs. Foster was held tight in the embrace of the long-haired man whose face was buried in her neck. Her eyes were open wide, her mouth contorted with animal passion.
    It was an expression he had seen before, on Evangeline’s face.
    Peregrine could not stand silently by and watch as Mrs. Foster was slaughtered. He started to move toward them, but a small hand on his arm stopped him before he’d taken his first step.
    “Don’t.”
    Peregrine found himself looking down on a slim, olive-skinned woman with jet black hair and eyes as dark and shiny as black pearls. She was a gypsy, Peregrine thought, though his only evidence of that was the riding boots she wore beneath her long, sheathlike dress.
    “You cannot stop it,” she whispered in a low voice colored with an indeterminate accent that might have been Russian. “Do not try or you will only cause your own death.”
    She stepped around him and put her hand against the wall. The wooden panel started to move away from her the moment she touched it, and she was halfway gone before Peregrine realized she wanted him to follow her through the hidden door.
    But Mrs. Foster—his honor would not let him turn his back on a woman in need.
    The gypsy was still in the passage, her eyes intent upon him, waiting, when Peregrine decided to follow.
    It was already too late for anyone to help Mrs. Foster.
    The door closed with a dull click, merged into the wall of bookcases. Peregrine doubted he would be able to find it, assuming he had the opportunity to try.
    The hidden library was windowless, the walls covered with bookshelves that extended from the floor to the ceiling fourteen feet above. A fire burned in the fireplace carved from marble, a baroque fantasia of cupids and filigree that probably was once part of a Florentine villa. The furniture was French—brocade chairs, parquet tables, an ornate chest. In the corner, sitting at an angle, was a big marble-topped table, each leg a carved lion’s claw grasping a globe. A heavily carved wooden chair, imposing enough to have served as a throne in a bishop’s palace, was pulled up to the table. Open on the blotter—as if the reader had been called away in the midst of study—was a large, leather-bound book. The printing on the page was in a language Peregrine did not recognize. Not Latin, Greek, or even Cyrillic, he thought. The alien script in the illuminated manuscript resembled Celtic or Norse runes. He stared down at the book. Perhaps this was the language of these creatures.
    The woman standing by the fireplace watched him with an expression that seemed to indicate she knew his thoughts. She was an exotic creature. He had not noticed it before, but her eyes were like a cat’s: large, wise, sensual, and predatory, in a quiet feline way.
    “I should have stopped that,” Peregrine said.
    “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”
    “I could have tried.”
    “Safian would have torn your throat out with his fingers without looking up from his fun. He does not like being interrupted by underlings.”
    What sort of name was Safian? It sounded foreign and menacing, matching his appearance.
    “I am no man’s underling,” Peregrine said.
    “Safian is not a man.”
    “He looks like a man.”
    “In outward appearance, yes, but he has been something else for a long time.”
    “How long?” Peregrine said, pretending to scan the titles on the shelf nearest him. Some were in English, others in the weird language of these creatures.
    Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “You’re