“Fine, fine,” said Malach, taking a deep breath. “And what else have you to say, Minerva? I see your dander is all in a flurry. Out with it.”
“It’s about Millicent.” There was no way to soften the blow, Mina would just have to come directly to the point. “She is compromised, my lord.”
His flesh paled and cracked with hideous efflorescence—as though it might explode into dust at any moment. The red lens, through which pulsed the soul, was suddenly subsumed by an opaline glare; it was the face of death and obliteration. “Compromised how?”
“Bitten.”
Malach stared, unblinking. “Only once?”
Mina shut her eyes against his burgeoning wrath. “I’m afraid it wasn’t one of Markus’s…”
Without warning, Malach drove his fist down over the table, splitting it in twain. Flesh and blood was bestrewn across the wall and floor. Tanith screamed and cowered against Ana, their eyes pale with terror. When the white fury in Malach’s gaze ebbed back into his sockets, and the red shone out once more, he advanced on Mina. With a long claw-like finger, he stroked her cheek and trailed it down her neck. Suddenly his hand was tight around her throat. “One of Gabriel’s then?”
Mina gave three rapid nods.
“You are sure?” He spoke in the old tongue.
She licked her lips and nodded again, her lungs aching for breath. With a snarl, he released her and she fell backwards, clutching her throat. Rage and fear billowed like smoke in her blood, but she snuffed the flames before he noticed and bowed her head to hide the blaze she knew had lit her eyes. He was much more powerful than she after all.
“And to whom do I owe my vengeance?” said Malach, his claws becoming fingers once more. “Who durst steal from me? The white one? He’s always sniffing around her skirts.” His hands tightened over the cleaver, still smeared with heart’s blood.
“No, it was the other…the black one.”
“The whole lot of them,” said Tanith, snaking her white arms about his waist, “naught but perfidious dogs and worms.”
“Yes.” He tamed his hair back, his nostrils flaring. “I confess, however, I had some misplaced faith in Victoria. I thought her capable of keeping those beasts in check; I presumed to think a cardinal law unbreakable and yet it has been broken twice now.”
“We ought to show no more clemency, my lord,” said Ana.
Malach was thoughtful. “No, I shall suffer no more peace between us. Only war shall reside in my breast.”
“What shall we do, my darling?” Tanith was kissing the blood from his hands now that they were no longer lethal blades.
“I shall have them both,” he said. “The younger Rose makes for a potent meal. And the other—make sure she remains untainted. The game isn’t over yet.”
“But his eye is never turned from Emma,” said Mina. “And her eyes have become clouded by lust. How shall we get her away from him.”
“Get her away from him?” Malach chuckled. “We shall do no such thing, kitten. No, I believe I shall use her against him before I steal her away—steal her the way she was stolen from me.”
“And how shall that be accomplished?” asked Ana.
Malach crooked his finger at her and when Ana stood before him, he lifted her chin and planted a threatening kiss upon her lips. “How else, my beauty, but that you shall seduce her to our side.”
Ana frowned prettily. “And how should you like that done?”
“With the truth, of course.” He tucked her head under his chin and held her, his gaze meeting Mina’s. “I doubt not she’ll come to her senses once the beast reveals his nature. The truth shall set her free and lead her straight into our waiting arms.”
The truth, thought Mina, according to Malach.
“Now,” he said, releasing Ana, “off you go, my beauties. We haven’t much time before the little wanton—” he grinned at Tanith “—spreads her thighs and ruins my wedding night.” The last was said with a cunning wink at Mina.
Mina met his wink with a forced smile, beneath which she clenched her teeth. Walpurgis night—Hexennacht—a night she dreaded with all her heart. A night that would arrive all too soon. And now it seemed as though Emma would share her horror. And if Emma spilled her virgin’s blood for anyone other than Malach…she would not long survive thereafter.
Part Two
The Bride of Winterthurse
“Better to rein in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Chapter Thirty-Three
Devil In The Mask
Dearest Emma,—I trust you are well and that the ‘haunting strangeness’ and ‘exquisite darkness’ you spoke of does not keep you from writing to your poor monastic relation? I long to hear more of the master of Winterthurse. God bless you and keep you safe,
Mary.
Winterly’s good claret fortified Emma’s blood as her slippers guided her towards the grand staircase. The mask and the Devil’s Bane invested her like armor. She was fatefully eager to meet the master of Winterthurse. The piquancy of that eagerness was only heightened by a nebulous black fear stirring within; fear of her own immorality? She hardly recognized the woman in the red dress who looked and sounded like Emma.
Below her the black and white checkered grand foyer was covered in glass and silver vases of all shapes and sizes. Each vase held a dense bouquet of either white or black roses, filling the air with their mysterious perfume.
Mr. Gore, the butler from London, and the equally cadaverous Mrs. Skinner materialized from the foyer below. Their uncanny black eyes flickered in the light as they peered up at her, but neither said aught. They merely offered identical nods of greeting and then glided towards the south wing like two silent revenants, one servant’s movements a macabre mimicry of the other’s.
The wispy notes of the Requiem Aeternam movement on the harp accompanied her down the curved grand staircase (how appropriate), the melody so restrained and delicate that she could hear her own train rustling down each step in her wake. The music was like a fine silver thread that drew her not towards the library but the other end of the corridor. Emma obeyed the sultry command of those silvery notes and padded softly into the great hall and from thence into the ballroom.
A lone woman was seated on a dais in the center of the ballroom, her entire face covered in a white and gold mute mask. Her voluminous skirts were spread artfully around her so that she appeared hardly human at all but like some golden statue come to life. The gilded lanterns around the ballroom seemed to shed more shadow than light, casting their stippling glow over the walls like watery spangles and spilling out into the cloistered garden spread beyond the wide, mullioned doors. The effect was otherworldly. Only the harpist’s fingers seemed to move, trailing deftly over the strings.
Outside, a sort of labyrinthine avenue of curved mirrors in all shapes and sizes had been set up along the covered colonnade. Emma paused to watch as two mysterious guests in dark dominos danced eerily before their distorted reflections. They appeared amused despite the frightening creatures mirroring their movements in the glass, and before long they disappeared further into the maze of mirrors. There were more lanterns strung from the trees in the garden, like floating silver orbs, but one had to pass the grotesque mirrors to enter that luminous Eden. Well, she needn’t go to Eden to find the snake, for he was in the library waiting for her.
Emma turned to leave. All around her she perceived the swift movements of cloaked guests as they passed by like flashes of variegated, gleaming opals. From one shadow to the next they moved, their eyes seeming to glitter behind ornate masks as they acknowledged each other with nods and whispers.
This was the most bizarre ball she had yet to attend, her limited experience notwithstanding. The ballroom itself was so sparsely populated that one had to wander where the rest of the guests where.
There was a palpable excitement in the hush, Emma could feel it coarse through her own blood as she answered the nod of a tall gentleman in a g
rinning black jester mask teaming with black and red plumage. The ethereal strains of the harp music followed her back into the foyer. Gossamer streamers had been hung along some of the walls and beams, moving phantom-like over the drafty stones like ancient cobwebs. An effect both eerie and beautiful. The castle was like a cave of wonders tonight.
In the west corridor, she came upon a silent footman at the foot of the stairs trimming the candles in the sconces, but she spared the servant as little notice as he spared her. Her focus was on the door beyond and the man waiting behind it. She could feel Winterly there—the shiver of premonition along her flesh as much as proclaimed that looming male presence. With only a momentary hesitation, she admitted herself into Winterly’s inner sanctum.
Here the quiet of the keep was like a crypt, the lamps softly disturbing the darkness. The library appeared to have escaped the wonders of the world without and stood as dark and silent as it always did, all shadows and oxblood hues. Though she felt a powerful imminence upon her, there was no sign of life here. She was quite alone, and yet the tugging of fine hairs along her nape insinuated quite the opposite.
Emma passed the leathern armchair atop which had been placed a book only recently abandoned, the same dastardly novel he’d slipped into her hand when she’d been here with him before. A reminder of how he loved to bedevil her. Had Winterly been reading it moments ago? Very likely. She sent her gaze over the length and breadth of the room in search of the book’s owner.
At length, she reached the disturbing mural beside which he’d bade her meet him and halted there to wait. A feint rustling behind her occasioned Emma to whirl around, expecting to see Winterly emerging from the shadows somewhere behind her as he was wont to do. But here too she was met with empty silence. With an uneasy expulsion of breath, she turned back towards the wall only to shriek in fright. A very large, looming creature stood before her in a black cape where a moment ago there had been only shadows.
“Calm yourself, madam,” came the droll assurance of Lord Winterly, “’tis I.” At least it sounded like Winterly. “I had not thought you so easily affrighted as this.”
He was wearing a grotesque, black vizard in the shape of a demoniacal creature with long, black horns and hollow slits through which she could see nothing of his gaze. Only his strong Grecian nose and curling lips were visible to her. Yes, she would recognize that smirk anywhere. Besides, he possessed an air so formidable that it could be mistaken for no one else’s.
“When you skulk about like a fiend without making a sound,” she said, “surely it is no surprise that I might stop my heart at the first sight of you!” Her poor heart had still not ceased its furious galloping, being far from stopped in fact, for in that instant before he’d spoken, she’d thought the very devil himself was standing before her.
“You’re late,” he said without preamble or apology. And indeed dusk had already fallen ere she’d finally left her apartment.
“I’d not have come at all had I known the devil had summoned me,” she retorted, taking a step back.
But every inch of distance she gained he countered until she was right up against the wall of cannibals, her back pressed to the plaster and his body closing in.
“You’re not eating.” His tone had fallen dangerously low, and if she’d been permitted to glimpse something of the upper half of his face just then, she imagined it would now be clouded over in displeasure. “Are my servants not feeding you?”
“I—”
“You’ve been avoiding me.” He stroked his chin. “As much as I was tempted to lay siege and starve you from your seclusion, I do not hold with denying the body its pleasures, especially the pleasure of sustenance.” Lord, he made that sound so…licentious.
“I was not avoiding you!”
“Do not lie to me,” he said, his words forming in a sibilant whisper. His lips were now mere inches from hers. “I suffered you to do as you please, even kept myself away, but I am grown bored of your malingering.” His large hands moved threateningly either side of her; she was flush against the wall. “I did not take you for the fainthearted maid you’ve latterly evinced.”
She could say nothing—was powerless to string two sensible words together. Her sudden quietude seemed not to deter Winterly in the least, the opposite in fact. He moved his mouth a fraction closer, pausing it only fleetingly over hers, before he swiftly joined their flesh.
Mercy! The taste of him was so darkly exquisite that her knees buckled beneath her. His arms swiftly precluded her landing in a drunken puddle of silk at his feet. Her own lips seemed to defy her, opening eagerly as he pressed closer and deeper. Her flesh was burning with conflicting emotions. She had the wherewithal only to fold her hands about his neck for purchase, lest she collapse again. She could not account for the way her fingers instantly curled into his lustrous black hair as though they knew their way and would have their share of him too. His kiss overpowered even her maidenly modesty, if she’d every really possessed any. She didn’t care, she was blind to her own impulses and deaf to her conscience. It was dark now that her lids had dropped, drowsy with lust. Her brain was saturated in the dusky male scent that enveloped her just as completely as his powerful arms.
A kiss that had started off hard and dominating became suddenly languid. His mouth moved towards her jaw and then down along the column of her neck before settling over her throat. She dropped her head back almost instinctively, fatally unaware of what she offered him. She felt his tongue like a hot caress. Felt his teeth, gentle at first and then more insistent. Finally, with a frustrated growl, he wrenched his mouth away with an abruptness that had her reeling back against the wall.
“Sir,” she panted, gathering her wits and calling forth all the indignation she could muster in her present disordered state, “You…you forget yourself.”
“I never forget myself.”
“You take liberties to which you have no right.”
“Ahh, but your eyes spoke otherwise.”
“You are mistook, I assure you.” She narrowed her gaze, lest he took it into his head to misapprehend her looks again. “I did not come here to talk nonsense with you, Lord Winterly. Why did you command my presence here?”
Chuckling, he reached into a pocket beneath his cloak. “I wanted to give you this.” When his hand reappeared it was in possession of a velveteen box which he held out to her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It is your birthday, is it not?”
“Only at midnight.” Gingerly, she opened the lid. Her lips parted in wonder to see a detailed dragon pendant on a fine gold chain, its ornate scales glittering with rubies. “I cannot accept this!” It was obviously a costly heirloom, for she recognized the dragon from the Winterly crest.
He lifted the necklace from its velvet nest despite her demurral and proceeded to fasten it gently around her neck so that it lay atop her gold crucifix. His hand lingered a brief moment upon her throat.
“No, it is too much.” She lifted her hand to unclasp it.
“Before you remove it, will you not first ask why I present it to you?”
“All right then, why?”
“It is a safeguard. My own mark of protection,” he said, lifting his left hand to show her the signet ring on his smallest finger where the red dragon crest was etched in bloodstone.
“All the more reason why I should not wear this!” She was not his wife, nor a member of his family, and it was entirely inappropriate that she should wear his insignia; his mark of ownership, more like.
“You are analyzing this over and above what is necessary. You need only think of it as a ward, do not fear that I am making you an offer of marriage.”
Only some dubious carte-blanche then? “I would never have accepted if you had,” she said, coloring. Then, seeking to change the subject, she looked over her shoulder at the cannibals glaring lewdly from the mural. “At any rate, I already have an apotropaic, which I am already wearing.” She had dabbed the Devil’s Bane on h
er pulse points before she’d left her room.
“A fact,” he said distastefully, glancing down at her throat, “I am well aware of.”
She did not know how she knew his eyes had shifted there, but they had—she could somehow feel his gaze probing her pulse.
“But I must warn you,” he continued, “that your little defense does not do its office quite as you imagine.” His hand slipped behind her neck and he dipped his head to place a light but heady kiss on her throat just below her ear. “It only masks your scent, confuses the senses a little.” He lifted his head so that his mouth brushed softly across hers. “Just an unpleasant little sting on the lips when I forget myself.” With that strange statement, he pulled away. “But make no mistake, Miss Rose, I know who you are and I keep my distance only because you have yet to say yes. But you will. It is one little word easily spoken. A word I know you long to utter.”
She feared he was right. Even now the word hung precariously on her tongue. Either her mask blotted her rectitude or the wine had smothered her scruples. “What will you do if I refuse to wear your crest?”
“There are other ways to make you mine.”
“I belong only to myself.”
His smile, however, defied her claim. “Keep the necklace, I expect nothing in return. It is merely a birthday gift and another form of protection.” They stared at one another for a long moment, she uncertain and he watchful. “It is from both Victoria and I,” he added finally.
It was with a hesitant sigh that she finally nodded. “Very well. Then I thank you both, Lord Winterly.”
He held his elbow out for her. When she’d slipped her hand to rest where it was expected, he said, “We had better get you to the ball, that is not a gown to be wasted in a library.”
“As to that,” she said, looking down at her gown, “who is the mysterious benefactor of my wardrobe?” As if she didn’t know. The mask she wore—the mask he’d sent her—all but declared him.
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