by Ana Calin
“Then maybe threats? Against her family, her friends?”
“You should know,” I hiss between my teeth.
“Saphira, I never lied to you. I don’t have to, you see, because I’m in a position of power. So believe me when I tell you—I’m not the mysterious man.”
I measure him up and down. Tall and strong, dark eyes intense and sovereign in his ivory face, he looks honest and confident, and even a shade respectable. I decide to at least assume he’s telling the truth.
“Say I take that for a fact. What do you suppose the ‘mysterious man’ was after? Why did he need to get inside the asylum?”
He doesn’t even pause to think. “The sewers underneath the asylum link to the catacombs under this manor. He wanted access to those sewers and therefore to me. He wants my head.”
A revelation hits me. I unclasp my wrists. “You think the mysterious man is Ivan Basarab. The Slayer.”
The Marquis snorts as if insulted. “The Slayer. Undeserved distinction for a coward who fights from the shadow. He’s afraid to face me one on one.”
But he’s still dangerous to you. “You think he succeeded in breaching the sewers?”
“If he did, it’s irrelevant. I secured them from halfway to here. But I do have something more on Basarab’s true identity. I think he’s a Northville local.”
A shock. “Say what?”
The Marquis continues. “Your friend, Vivienne Grant, clearly knew him, and she knew him well. Her mother knew him, too.”
I surprise myself indulging him. Tension dissolves from my body as I begin to understand things.
“So Ivan Basarab is a false name for a man we already know.”
“That’s right.”
He looks hard at me with those impossibly black eyes that seem to hypnotize me, only that this time I’m sure he’s not trying. Silence settles between us for moments in which I just stare, unable to rip my eyes from him.
“What are you thinking?” he whispers, lowering himself so close that his bitter-sweet breath touches my face, the mattress and the pillows giving in under his weight as he leans on his hands. I feel lost.
“I’m wondering why I find it so easy to take your word for everything,” I whisper.
His expression deepens, his eyes now flooding mine. It’s hard to breathe, they seem to weigh on me.
“Because I may be a villain, but I’m the only person who’s never lied to you. All you ever got from me was the truth. You’re beginning to trust me. And I wish nothing more than for you to trust me.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“It’s the key to your affection.”
A pang goes through my heart. “You desire my affection?”
“I liked it,” he says, his eyes lowering to my lips, “when you staked your claim on me this morning in front of Miss Lauren.”
CHAPTER XVII
FULL MOON AND THE SERPENT
The Marquis’s mouth closes on mine, soft and warm, while his arm curls around my waist, pressing me gently to him. He smells manly and alluring. I turn to jelly in his arms, allowing him to stretch me on the bed under him with no resistance. His kiss makes me dizzy, and small stars seem to circle my head.
This feels very different from what happened last night, even though his passion grows in the same possessive way. His hands explore my body greedily as his tongue consumes me in deep kisses. My mind empties as I part my legs, ready to accept him, but he breaks the intimacy, bridging to distance with thirsty pecks on my lips.
He pulls away and stands, yet the expression in his face shows it’s not easy. His neckline is open, his hair a bit ruffled and his face so youthful and handsome that it hurts. He retreats as I scramble out of bed and advance toward him, wanting him so badly that I lose control and all sense of shame.
“Please,” I beg, losing my bra and letting my panties fall to the floor. I now stand completely naked before him, smeared with soot, my hair a messy blond broom, hoping that I look depraved enough to stir the animal in him. I want him inside of me so much I barely refrain from touching myself.
His dark, hypnotic eyes wander all over me with a hunger that makes me moisten and lose a sigh.
“Please,” I insist.
“It can’t be, Saphira, not now,” he says, his voice low and husky. “Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain.” He retreats further, his white hand now on the doorknob. I see the skin patching into alligator leather, then fading into white human flesh, then pulsing into faint spots of leather again, and I realize he’s fighting to keep back the serpent.
My eyes find his just in time to see them narrowing, his black irises turning to slits. He makes a pained grimace and yanks the door open. The fight between human and serpent makes him bare his teeth, a pointy tongue slithering out and licking his upper lip. When he speaks, his slivery voice makes my hair stand on end.
“Trust me, Saphira. Please, trust me,” he hisses and throws the door open, lunging into the obscurity.
For moments I stand there, naked, stunned and with my heart pounding until Zed appears in the doorframe. He can’t help looking me up and down. I snatch the duvet from the bed and wrap it fast around me.
“What’s with the Marquis?” I say, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“It’s a bad night,” Zed says and throws a glance out the window. I follow his eyes.
“Full moon? But, is that—”
“It has nothing to do with the occult or magic,” Zed interrupts. “The moon has power over the inner workings of the Serpent as it does over the tide.”
He turns to leave, but then turns to me again on a second thought. “We have strong reason to believe your friend Vivienne Grant is alive. The Marquis ordered us to find her.”
Joy surges in my chest, but then it subsides. I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “Why didn’t the Marquis tell me this himself?” But Zed doesn’t reply. He looks me up and down coldly, and leaves the room.
CHAPTER XVIII
ESCAPE FROM THE DARK TOWER
Zed closes the door. With the duvet wrapped around me, I pace around the room, chewing on my fingernails and struggling to switch on my wits.
My best bet regarding Basarab’s identity is Ronald Lord Barkley, the head of the lunatic asylum. He’s despicable enough. I need to talk to Vivienne’s mother as soon as possible, and for that I need to see the Marquis right away.
I take a quick shower to get rid of the soot, wash my hair—to save time I apply no conditioner—so when I bang on the door my hair resembles messy hay that goes perfectly with the aerial dress, making me seem a lunatic myself. I’m aware of the effect of my golden eyes without make-up, when staring out of my thin and pale face. So I expect the security guard to back away a couple of steps at the mere sight of me.
Only no one answers my knocks. I realize that after Zed left I didn’t hear the locks. I turn the knob and find the door is indeed open. I stand on the landing before the stairs spiralling downward, and a thrill goes through me. There’s no trace of the men usually guarding me. Remembering Zed’s tense demeanour, what’s happening with the Marquis tonight must have the whole staff attending to him.
A crazy idea leaks into my mind—all are busy with the Marquis; maybe there’s little to no security down in the catacombs that I now know lead to the lunatic asylum, so I can use them as a way out, too. I know he secured them from half way, but there must be a way out before I reach that point.
With a candle in my hand—the only portable illumination item I found in my chamber—I descend the spiral stairs, at first watching my every step. But soon I panic under the delusion that insects crawl from their cracks towards me. I’m aware it’s only anxiety, but I’m unable to control it and increase pace until I take two stairs at a time, stumbling and bumping between wall and banister. I spin out of the small exit into the corridor on the ground floor, relieved at the haze of moonlight that seeps in through the high arched windows, revealing the contours of b
aroque-framed mirrors.
The corridor is empty and obscure, the sound of my steps rebounding against stone and glass. The many mirrors make it creepy.
The candle drips hot on my hand and will soon burn out, making me desperate for an alternative. There’s no way I’ll make it through the catacombs without sustained illumination, so I venture to the Marquis’s study at the end of the main corridor.
The double doors are the tallest I’ve ever seen, as well as heavy and creaky. I find the study empty, only a faint beam of silver from the moon seeping between the heavy curtains. My heart picks up a crazy pace. This is indeed a fantastic chance at escape. I don’t even know if it’s the right decision, but the temptation is too great.
I decide not to run to Jeremy. I’ll go to my parents’ house, enter through the back, get money from Father’s safe in a few minutes and take the next train to London. I’m sure that, as soon as he’ll discover my escape, the Marquis will search for me at Jeremy’s, and only afterwards at my parents’. London will be far down his list, and by then I’ll be long in the South, with Vivienne. If she escaped the fire and is now running from Basarab, that’s where she’d go, to her aunt and uncle.
With wobbling legs and trembling hands I grope through the Marquis’s study and find a flashlight in the upper drawer of his mahogany desk. But then it hits me. If I do pull out the escape, I’ll never see him again. I stand still, exploring the feeling—the Marquis’s beautiful face, his lips on mine, his velvety fingers sliding down my back, giving me goose bumps; it will never happen again.
I slap myself twice, cursing the monster’s power over me. If I stay, it will only grow until I become his slave body and soul. With a jolt of will I decide in favour of freedom and hurry out the doors, the round stain of light from the flashlight darting its way before my feet that run seemingly of their own accord.
The opening in the wall that leads down to the catacombs is hidden behind the foyer where I ran into Vivienne at the engagement banquet, and then down another corridor, chilly, very narrow and smelling of wet stone.
Down in the catacombs cells roll by me like rusty landscape by a lazy train, and I wish I were faster, much faster. I take a turn, my legs flexing in a desperate attempt to pick up yet more pace, but after the second turn I slow down, my eyes widening. My heart stops.
Dry snakeskin stretches before me, thick and crumpled and trailing around the next elbow-shaped corner like a dead mega-python. I understand where it’s coming from, and dread makes my skin crawl. Still, compelled by a hypnotic pull, I walk slowly along the dry serpent coating around the curve, where a mind-blowing scene unfolds.
The Marquis is naked, with his back at me. I recognize him immediately, even though he looks nothing like the man I know. My heart hammers inside my chest as I watch this creature with spiked spinal cord writhe, his flesh transparent and slimy. My eyes pop out of their sockets as his muscular serpent tail spans and throws up his torso—the only part of him that still resembles anything human.
My heart drums in my ears, mixing with the whistling sound the monster makes, his bitter-sweet scent strong as varnish, stinging my brain through my nostrils. His tail is curved on the floor, now sustaining him in a standing position, the tip of it slashing the air left and right. It swings until it hits a cell gate, bending one of the iron bars with a bang. The muscles in his torso swell from under the transparent skin that turns opaque here and there into patches of thick reptile skin. He squirms and hisses as he shreds his skin, driving me to press my hands to my ears.
For a moment I catch his profile, and fail to keep back a shriek. He turns to me full-face, and I burst out in a long scream that I don’t hear, but feel vibrating in my throat. His black eyes protrude like blisters from his eye-sockets, his nose is sunken in and his nostrils vertical slits, truly like a snake’s. Only the bone-structure of his face is recognizable, and his lips that looked so beautiful in their human form are black and wet like moving leeches.
My hands drop from my ears and I hear myself scream. The creature bares vampire-like fangs in a whistle, the muscles swelling in his arms as he raises them, his hands taking the shape of claws, and his nails shooting out from the tips of his fingers, turning long and sharp as blades. He’s a huge monster perched on his dragon tail.
Horror runs through my limbs, and so does adrenaline. I turn and run as fast as I can back the way I came—or so I think. The monster is chasing me, I can hear his tail slashing the floor as he slithers his way after me, his calls splintery.
“Saphira!”
I scream in panic, but manage to go on, taking curve after curve and by some miracle managing not to skid or stumble.
He hisses closer. I cry out in a surging effort of putting distance between us, and at the next turn I see a round black opening, a tunnel.
I plunge into what I discover is a dry sewer, but dread courses down my spine as I realize there’s a long way to a real way out. Left and right there’s no option but further tunnels, and above my head there’s a rusty grate that I reach for. It opens to let me into yet another tunnel. Blood still races through my veins, which can only mean that I’m still alive, so either adrenaline has turned me into Catwoman, or the snake has desisted from the chase.
I lie on the floor and listen to my own breath. My brain refuses to ask itself questions, but decides to keep looking for an exit. Turning back isn’t an option. The fright seems to have reduced my intellect to the most basic functions—search for safety first, think later.
I reel through the tunnels, feeling dizzy and trailing the wall with my palm. The lack of ventilation makes breathing difficult, and the less oxygen I receive, the less reliable my senses. Soon the place begins to spin with me, but then I see it. Right before me, a grate that leads outside, to the moonlight shining on rocks covered with moss. The fields. The bars seem to have enough distance from each other that I could slip through them, however difficultly.
I hurry to them, but bump into a glass pane that I failed to see. Of course. No ventilation in the old sewers to prevent infiltration by enemies. I reach for the crumbled wall bits on the floor, grab a bigger stone and swing it at the pane. But what the darn thing does is drop at my feet, and I realize that the lack of air has rendered me a zombie that can’t even throw a stone.
I pick the stone up again and bang it on the pane—me leaning on it with my mouth open and slobbering—until it cracks. I manage to take a few steps back and launch the stone at it again. The glass splinters and tears from my path. Shards remain around the frame, irregular and menacing like the teeth of a shark, but I manage to slip between two central bars with only a few scratches.
The oxygen hits my brain, and I begin to reason again. I realize that this exit could be guarded by the Marquis’s men, so I keep to the wall at first, waiting for any sign of sentinels. It seems no one’s there, and I decide to venture in the open fields, but the full moon doesn’t make it exactly easy to keep inconspicuous.
The cold bites into my flesh, the wind hitting me hard in the face. It’s so strong that I’m reminded of the train rides where I used to stick my head out the window, and gasp at the gush. The dress is dirty and glued to my body, feeling icy from the sweat, and my ankles crackle and hurt as I slip on the mossy stones.
To my horror the Marquis emerges from behind a group of big rocks. I stop in place, my heart beating in my throat as I watch the man I’m running from walk to me, dressed in jeans and what looks like a suit jacket over his bare torso. As if he put on whatever he could find first. His face seems a statue sculpted in marble, and his pitch black eyes send voltage through me. Their intensity is the only reminder of the terrible beast I’d seen in the catacombs, the difference between that and this beautiful young man mind-blowing.
As he approaches, drops of rain begin to sting my face and shoulders. The Marquis reaches out to me.
“Saphira, come.”
My tongue is frozen, I can’t say a word.
“Saphira, it’s full moon,”
he urges. “It’s the Serpents’ Night. They’re uncontrollable, dangerous.”
I walk backwards out of instinct, and he increases pace toward me.
“Listen to me! I don’t know how long I can keep myself under control, let alone the others. Let me take you to safety.”
I understand he’d desisted the chase in order to get a grip on himself and approach me as a man. Even though I’m still scared as hell, I stop to let him talk, but it’s too late. A slimy tail coils around my ankle and pulls, making me fall flat with my face in the freezing mud. Another tail punches my jaw as I raise my head, causing me to see stars for a few moments, and when vision settles again I cry out loud.
Right before my eyes, a huge snake mouth opens, its jaws big enough to swallow my head in a snap. My eyes widen as the four fangs and rosy flesh beyond them dart close, but the instant before it can bite my face off a huge dragon tail punches the snake so hard that the hit thunders in my ears. The Marquis now stands with his back at me, again in his serpent form, his dragon tail coiling protectively in a circle around me as I lay on the ground. Hisses and slimy crawls fill my ears, and then we stand surrounded.
The Marquis shields me from the other serpents. I can’t bring myself to stand, tasting mud in my mouth, my fingers clawing the cold pasty earth, the rain battering my back.
I try to tell myself this isn’t real, but every bit of my body feels it is. Serpents squirm, some tangling with each other and building a slimy circle around the Marquis and me. They look like him, the torsos of men with monster faces, and serpent tails.
Suddenly, one of them launches toward the Marquis, whose long claws shoot out from his fingertips and slash the creature while it’s still in the air. It falls to the ground, writhing and whistling, but only a second later another one swings forward.
The Marquis’s tail coils around my body, his dragon scales wet but coarse as it slides on my skin, tightening until it immobilizes my arms along my torso. He lifts me in the air, away from the snakes. I close my eyes tightly to reduce the vertigo as the tail’s jerks scramble my brains.