I winced, both at the concept of holding his talking skull in my hand, and in slight guilt at my repeat offenses. The headless body of the skeleton walked up to me, bending at the waist in a silent request for me to return the merchandise.
I thought about it. The skeleton could obviously still talk without his body. Maybe I could use him for answers on where my guests lived, holding the skull hostage.
Which would mean carrying around a skull to have easy access to answers. Like my own personal assistant—Siri.
Skulli.
I realized I was internally humming the X-Files theme song in my head and snapped out of it.
Finally, I shook my head. Lugging around a talking skull was just really freaking strange, and I didn’t have a bag or anything to carry it so it would only get in my way during a fight. Or it would say something at the worst possible moment, like while I was trying to stealthily assassinate one of my targets.
“You’re thinking about keeping my skull, aren’t you?” he asked, gloomily.
I shook my head a little too quickly. “No. Of course not. That would be creepy.”
Somehow, he managed a doubtful look by raising a ridge-bone over his eye—the same place an eyebrow would be on a human face. Or I could have just imagined it. “You were considering it,” he muttered unhappily.
“No. Really. It’s not like you could help me or anything—”
“I could help immensely. I know the castle like the back of my hand.”
“But you won’t, of course. You work for Drac—”
“My Master has given me to you. I am yours.”
“Oh! You’re the guide!” I blurted, having forgotten about Dracula’s mention of giving me one. He wobbled in my hands—a nodding gesture. I stared down at him for a few moments, wondering how I felt about having Dracula’s henchman lurking around me for the next three days. “Then I could just plop your head back on and you can point me in the right direction, so I wouldn’t need to keep your skull. If I had been considering it, of course.”
“There is every chance I would betray you or attack you when you let your guard down. I am a dastardly fiend.”
I dropped the skull on the floor, preparing to stomp on him. “I knew it! Not so tough now, are we?” I crowed.
“That was a joke,” he said dejectedly, staring up at me. “I am no danger. I haven’t even earned the right to arm myself.” I hesitated, lowering my boot with a frown. His skull hopped back upright somehow, and he swiveled to direct his gaze at the boots and bandana skeleton body still waiting patiently beside me. “My arms. I haven’t earned the right to sharpen them to blades, let alone to dip them in the Eternal Metal.”
I stared at the skeleton’s arms, shaking my head. He hadn’t earned the right to sharpen his appendages into blades or to dip them into molten metal. The right.
“I am even less of a threat than you at the moment. We will probably both die in obscure, horrifying torment. Master Dracula obviously had no further use for me. I should have been armed fifty years ago. I am quite incompetent in combat.”
I frowned in disbelief. “You’re also one hell of a motivational speaker.”
He shook his head. “No. I am quite uninspiring.”
Jesus. I’d found Eeyore’s skull. “You’re telling me that your only value is your mind. Your head, essentially.”
He nodded. “What little ingenuity I have is nullified by my severe incompetence in close combat—unlike my brothers. I am bluntly honest, but my memory is quite good. Perhaps that is why I’m useless in combat. Brains over brawn. Many of my kind cannot even speak, let alone think. They just obey and fight.”
Wow. He was really selling himself. “Alright. I’ll just decapitate you if you cause problems. And I’ll hide your head somewhere weird.”
“Of course. I can show you some excellently strange places.”
Yeah. This guy was going with me. I bent down to scoop him up. As I was shoving his skull back onto his vertebrae with a cringeworthy, crackling sound, I decided the gesture was intimate enough to require some kind of dialogue. “Don’t you need one of the blood slaves to put yourself back together?”
The skeletons I had fought had needed magic to reanimate.
His skull snapped back into place with a faint pop and flare of sparks that didn’t cause any burn damage despite plastering the back of my hand.
He jerked his neck and it spun in a full circle, accompanied by what sounded like a string of firecrackers. He finally let out a dusty sigh and returned my gaze. “I have never needed help to reanimate. I guess that is something I’m good at. Dying. Or not dying, technically.”
“Any other helpful qualities?” I asked, trying not to sigh.
“I am remarkably cowardly.”
I sighed, giving up. “Alright. What’s your name?”
“Master Dracula doesn’t name us. He uses his sheer will to command us.”
I thought about it. When he’d struck the piano, he’d kind of slid down the keys like his bones were playing a xylophone. I kept my face blank as I looked up at him. “How about Xylo?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t get the reference. Xylo-bone.
He thought about it. “Xylo…” he mused, scratching at his chin. “I like this name very much. Can I truly keep it?”
I nodded slowly, his words making me feel guilty for how I had chosen it. “Um. That’s what you generally do with names, yeah.”
He lowered his gaze, repeating it a few times under his breath.
Perfect. Xylo-bone the Undying and the White Rose. Lookout Dracula.
“We should probably leave this area,” he urged. “Patrols are more numerous here. Follow me,” he said.
He led me towards a different door than the one Dracula and Samael had taken. I let him go first, not wanting to risk him setting me up for a trap.
Nothing happened, other than he led me into a much cozier hallway, almost like they angled towards the private living quarters of the place. Xylo led me down the hall in utter silence. We took three more doors and several additional turns in continued sheer quiet. I realized that if so many of his brothers couldn’t talk, he probably wasn’t used to conversation.
Xylo was naturally a mute. I’d have to break the ice.
“So, Xylo, you like balloons?” I asked, thinking of something happy.
He continued walking but managed to turn his head entirely backwards to look at me. “They are delightful. I found one once, but a werewolf popped it and kicked me down a well. It took me a few years to get back out. I lost the balloon down there.”
I nodded wearily, not sure how to reply to that level of bullying. Maybe silence was preferable. Much better than talking to Eeyore.
Chapter 9
The wind whipped at my hair, screaming and wailing all around me like the sounds of every soul that had ever been born here—and by born, I meant left their mortal restraints behind to decompose in the very soil of this cursed place where Dracula feasted on the poor, hapless creatures and bound their souls to his eternal service.
I’d told Xylo I needed a space far away from everything—somewhere I could somewhat peaceably gather my thoughts. Knowing I was currently in a house full of monsters, I would have been perfectly fine with knowing that the figurative torture and mutilation of innocents was happening two rooms away, rather than only one. Honestly, I hadn’t expected him to know of anything even remotely resembling a suitable place.