Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7)

by Delilah S. Dawson

  Since we were just a few hours from London, I didn’t pack a trunk. We would go, face the witch, fetch my Nana, and either come back to the caravan or die trying. When I stepped outside into the gloaming, everything was as it should be. Twin columns of smoke barreling toward us across the moors signaled the approach of the evening’s city folk, while the scents of popcorn, caramel, and warm apple cider floated on the breeze to lure them closer, despite the slight fear that made them shiver at the turnstile. Last night, I’d been among them, one of them. Now I prepared to say my good-byes. The facts were these: my human body was old and frail, the witch was dangerous, and Criminy was right about the danger involved. If I didn’t come back to the caravan, I wanted to tell Imogen and Jacinda how much they’d meant to me and wish them well.

  My first stop was the dining car, which was mostly empty, aside from two heads nestled close together in the corner. Catarrh and Quincy, the two-headed boy. One head turned and snickered, lips painted red. He—they were the most hotheaded, hungry, uncontrolled Bludmen I’d ever met, and even after six years with the caravan, I still didn’t trust them or know how to handle their pronouns. Crim kept them on a steady schedule of three times the usual amount of blood, as they’d been known over the years to drink from the odd spectator. I ignored them and hurried to what was left of the evening meal, still spread out on the buffet line. A few apples and oranges, a bowl of bludrabbit stew, a couple of hard rolls. I couldn’t eat now, but I could pack enough food to get me to London and the street vendors of the hot wrappy sandwiches I’d come to crave like McDonald’s whenever we were near a proper city.

  Something rustled in the corner, and I looked up. The two-headed boy had switched to the other side of the bench to watch me. A chill went down my spine, much like a mouse must feel when a hawk’s shadow passes overhead.

  “M’lady,” Catarrh said, his voice mocking.

  Quincy snickered and dipped his head in a faux bow.

  “Lads,” I acknowledged with a nod. Crim had taught me long ago that the only way to deal with them was to show them a hard, haughty front. They could smell weakness. And they liked the spice of it.

  “Master Crim went to fetch a conveyance,” Quincy said, ending with his usual odd chitter.

  “Said he’d be back shortly,” added Catarrh.

  The heads met each other’s eyes, and they grinned, slow and creepy, showing more fangs than most Bludmen possessed.

  “Shouldn’t you boys be in the tent for the show?” I asked.

  Quincy shrugged. “No master, no consequences.”

  “I’m the master’s lady,” I reminded them.

  Another furtive look passed between them, and they stood. Their shared body had extra-wide shoulders tapering to a trim waist and average-sized legs spaced just a little farther apart than usual. Since we’d lost our more talented costumers, their clothes had gotten a little ratty. Everything they wore had to be built from scratch, but Emerlie refused to have them in her wagon, much less be alone with them. One hand reached to scratch a tuft of dark hair on their chest, and Quincy snickered again. They moved to block the door.

  The only way out.

  My eyes shot to the kitchen window, betraying me. “Cook?”

  “Cook’s asleep, hen,” Catarrh said.

  “All alone, all alone,” Quincy crooned.

  I ran the count in my head as I stepped backward and reached for a three-pronged fork. Criminy: fetching a conveyance. Charlie Dregs, the stolid, good-hearted Bludman: in his puppet booth, minding his own business. Wee Pammy, the new but honest Blud child: collecting tickets. Marco the knife thrower: throwing his knives at harmless targets. Mr. Murdoch the artificer: locked in his wagon with his tinkerer’s tools. Torno the strong man: gone with my grandmother. My old friend and now Bludman, Casper: long gone, married to the Tsarina of Freesia. Criminy’s best friend, Antonin, the Bludman costumer: run away with a robot and presumed dead. Tattooed Peter, the newest Bludman: completely unaware of my peril and most likely far away in his booth.

  All my champions, all the carnivalleros strong enough to fight Catarrh and Quincy? Were gone. It was just me and him—them. The two-headed fanged monster approaching me, step by menacing step, across the dining wagon.

  I had a fork. I had a thick corset and a high, buttoned collar. And that was it. The dining wagon held no knives, no weapons, because why would we need them under the care of Criminy Stain? As I retreated backward, eyes desperately bouncing from one head to the other, my gloved hand dragged along the buffet line. There had to be something I could use as a weapon.

  And then I found it among the spices. Quickly sidestepping a table, I grabbed a ceramic pitcher of water and, with my back to the approaching monster, dumped as much salt into it as possible, hands shaking.

  “How ’bout a kiss, then, missus?” A velvet-gloved hand landed on my shoulder, untrimmed claws pricking all the way through his gloves and my jacket, straight into my flesh.

  I took a deep breath, spun around, and dashed the hastily mixed salt water into the closest face.

  Catarrh shrieked and stumbled back as Quincy hissed and grabbed for my neck. Salt water, after all, was poisonous to Bludmen. I’d managed to cripple half the creature and infuriate the other, more animalistic half. With a feral growl, Quincy shoved me in the chest, hard, and I fell back onto the sturdy table. I struggled to get up, but a firm palm pressed down on my corset, a wide torso angling to urge apart my thighs. Revulsion and fear squirmed through me, and I thrashed as my body rejected the possibility of rape and feeding with equal disgust.

  “Kill her! Kill her!” Quincy yowled, and Catarrh struggled to loosen the buttons of my tall, thick collar with one clumsy hand, opting for food over lust. I fought back, ripping at his arm with my hands and kicking with my boots as much as his closeness would allow.

  And then I remembered that the walls of the wagon were merely wood and started screaming. “Help! Help! Get Criminy! Pemberly! To me!”

  “Enough of that,” Catarrh said, covering my mouth with a filthy glove.

  I looked up at his face and shuddered. I’d never seen the effects of salt water on a Bludman’s skin, but Crim had sworn it was like acid to a human. Catarrh had never been a handsome man, but now his face was pink and bubbly, as if it might drip off his sharp bones. His eyes were red all around with burst vessels, pink-tinged tears rolling down his cheeks. But even more frightening was the hasp of one collar button unslipped at my throat, followed by Quincy’s snicker.

  “Never tasted Master’s finest vintage,” he said, giggling.

  “Blood’s blood. Always better hot. Always better when you can reach the last drop,” Catarrh added.

  As if they truly could read each other’s minds, Quincy moved to hold me down while Catarrh’s far cleverer fingers stuffed a dirty hankie in my mouth and went after the rest of my buttons. I grew frantic, terrified, spitting vowels around the hankie and scrabbling with my hands at whatever I could reach. Quincy shook my hand loose and slapped me hard, my head banging off the table. My fist pounded the wall behind my head, at first with Crim’s secret knock and then, after another slap, with inarticulate drumbeats that destroyed my gloves and pulverized my knuckles. By the time my collar and jacket had been unbuttoned down to my corset, I was running out of air and skin. And hope.

  “Now, then,” Quincy said, and Catarrh nodded in agreement. “Much better. Let’s?”

  “Let’s.”

  My vision went over spotted as the two faces descended, one monstrous with calm eyes and the other calm with monstrous eyes, twin mouths open to show long fangs. I squeezed my own eyes shut and clawed for their faces, but they each pinned an arm to the table. I shrank back, shook my head, flailed, trembled, but still their breath rolled over me like hot pennies.

  When their teeth drove into my neck, one mouth on each side, I screamed around the wad of cloth, a muffled cry of anger and fear that shredded my throat. It hurt. So bad. Like having fire in my veins, pulling, sucking, drawing ou
t every bit of who I was, what I was, and replacing it with burning acid and emptiness. I thrashed and fought, going weaker and weaker and feeling so very, very foolish. I had forgotten the number one rule of Sang: without Criminy around to protect me, I was either food or chattel.

  Right before everything went over in a haze of red, I gave a sad, quiet chuckle. A few hours ago, I had begged my husband to do this very thing. Now, against my will, I had my wish.

  The only difference was that Catarrh and Quincy weren’t going to give back what they had taken.

  8

  I was floating in a warm pool, drinking the most delicious margarita. The sun shone hot on my face, and I was stretched out and weightless, my body bronzing and suffused with comfort. Eyes closed, I curled my toes and sighed.

  “Drink more. Come on, damn you!”

  Warm porcelain pressed to my lips, and I agreeably sucked down more of the tangy, sweet liquor. It ran down my throat to pool in my belly with the heat of pepper-infused tequila. So good. I needed more. With greedy fingers, I sought the cup, pressing it closer, drinking deeper.

  “More! Come on, Letitia. Come on, love.”

  “Crim?” I murmured around the sun-warm cup, and a hand rubbed my back.

  “Yes, love. It’s me. Come on, now. Keep on.”

  I breathed in deep, recognizing his particular scent of honeyed Cabernet wine, growing vines, and sweet spices. I blinked and saw white and red, the world bleary and smeared and dreamy. Trying to focus and fight up from the warm pool, I squinted at his set lips and stubbled throat, splashed with blood. One of my hands curled possessively around it, the other trailing dead on the wood floor of the dining car.

  I closed my eyes.

  No.

  The dream. The pool. The margarita. The margarita was red. The pool was red. The sun was red. I was floating in blood, and it was glorious, and I wanted to drink it all dry, suck it up until I was full as a tick. I gulped, empty and dying of thirst, and I tried to imagine the sun shining, but all I knew was the heat of Criminy’s skin. Why was I so cold?

  He held me like a baby, cradled in his arms, rubbing my back and murmuring. As he spoke eloquent nothings, the cords of his neck twitched under my tongue. He was the pool, the drink, the cup, the sun, the world. When I opened my eyes again, he wobbled, and strong hands pulled me away from him with a sudden pop.

  “Here, m’lady. Try this.”

  Red gloves held hard porcelain to my lips and forced my head back. The blood that slithered into my mouth was dead and cold and wretched. I struggled to get away, to fight back to the warm flesh and hotter blood I craved, but still the teacup pressed and poured, forcing it down my throat.

  “No!” I spluttered, trying to push it away.

  “You must,” a voice said. I opened my eyes to confirm it. Charlie Dregs supported my back with a wiry arm, looking just as kind and sad as ever, possibly sadder.

  “No. It’s cold. It’s dead. I need—”

  “You can’t, m’lady. He’s nearly drained. You need more volume to complete the process.” He gestured to the warming cauldron of blood tubes left out for the Bludmen at each meal in the dining car, and I shuddered at the thought of all that disconnected nothingness slipping down my throat like the juice that dripped off Styrofoam trays of past-date chicken. The cauldron kept it warm, but warm wasn’t the same as fresh. It wouldn’t do. I thrashed my way upright, hunting for the source of warmth and joy.

  Hunting for prey.

  What I found was my husband, ice-blue and barely breathing on the ground. I’d never seen him limp, drained, sick. It was possibly the only thing that could have moved the beast squirming in my guts, hungering for life.

  He had no life left to give.

  “Is he—”

  I couldn’t ask, but Charlie knew what I needed to know.

  “When you’re full, he’ll drink from you, m’lady. Once the process is started, equilibrium must be reached quickly.”

  Drink from me? Memory jolted down my backbone and clenched my teeth, and I suddenly remembered what fear was.

  “Where are the twins?”

  Charlie’s mournful John Lennon face quirked up in a rare smirk. He wrapped my hands around the teacup, reached down, and held out his arms. In each hand, he clutched a shock of blood-soaked hair. The faces of Catarrh and Quincy stared at me, sightless, bone-white, and bruised purple. Their bodies were not attached.

  “He drank them dry before feeding you. Wanted you to have your revenge in the form of their purloined strength.”

  Part of me was disgusted to have anything of the freakish monsters inside me, but something new writhed deep in my gut, rising like a sleepy dragon and infusing my veins with fire and power. It was right, taking their blud. Drinking it into me, straining it through my strong heart. And it came from Criminy, and all things that came from Criminy were good.

  I nodded and gulped down what was left in the teacup, knowing that the longer the blood sat, exposed to the air, the clumpier it would get.

  “More, please, then,” I said, holding out the cup with a wobbly smile.

  Charlie tossed the heads into a corner, where they bounced like bruised melons. With a flair I hadn’t seen in him before, he selected two blood vials, popped the corks with his thumbnails, and poured their contents into the teacup with the coordination of a seasoned bartender.

  “It goes down better warm, m’lady.” He gave a genuine smile as I gulped it all down.

  “How much more does she need?”

  I spun, startled to hear Criminy’s voice. On one level, it was ragged and weak, barely a whisper as he sprawled on the floor. On the other, deeper level, it was like hearing violins, the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, multidimensional and echoing in my veins.

  “Just a few more vials, m’lord,” Charlie said, hurriedly emptying four more vials into my teacup until the blood nearly overflowed the gilt rim. Then, to me, in a whisper, “Hurry.”

  With my eyes on Criminy, I gulped the blood down. The last few sips seemed to barely fit into me, as if I’d run out of room inside. I burped softly and smiled. I’d always expected blood to taste coppery and meaty, but it was delicious, like the finest red wine, velvety and rounded with just a hint of . . . was it butter?

  Charlie touched my face, turning it left and right in the light, and nodded. “Now, m’lord.” Crim didn’t move, and Charlie jerked his chin toward my husband’s still form. “You’ll have to help him at first. Be gentle, m’lady.”

  I was cozy warm all over, as full as I’d ever been after a Thanksgiving dinner. It was strange, remembering how to navigate my limbs, which seemed to move more fluidly, more powerfully. I was sitting cross-legged, and then, as if lightning had struck me, my legs were underneath me, and I was crouching over Crim, hands on either side of his fine face. I took a moment to wonder at the smooth, unmarked skin of my hands. The knobby veins and age spots that had sprung up in the last year were fading, and my hands looked like a teenager’s. Only the faintest shading of gray told me that the process was truly ongoing, that I wasn’t already a proper Bludman and might still botch the process.

  “Beautiful,” Crim whispered, and then his cloudy gray eyes rolled back in a swoon.

  “He needs you now. He gave too much,” Charlie said, indicating a line along his own throat.

  I nodded. “He always does.” Taking a deep breath, I plucked Crim’s hand from the ground and used the talon from his pointer finger to score a deep scratch along my neck; my nails hadn’t yet found their points. I felt the blood—blud?—well up hotly on my skin and set my throat against his cold lips. “C’mon, Crim. You can do it. Goodness knows you’ve waited long enough.”

  I felt as if lightning was coursing through me, making me twitch, forming new connections and reknitting the parts of my body that had grown old. And yet, at the same time, a chill pool of fear was seeping up my throat the longer Crim lay there, unmoving, not drinking. I rubbed my neck over his lips, scored my skin more deeply, dipped f
ingers into the blood, and slipped them into his mouth. His tongue barely curled around, too dry, and I worried the wound to make it flow.

  He could only lick feebly at first. When his fingers wrapped around my neck, I could have cheered. But something in me knew that my place was to hold still, to give, to be the vessel for the man I loved, who had drained himself for my benefit when he’d claimed he wouldn’t do it until we were both ready.

  Death had a way of hurrying along readiness, I supposed.

  A long, soft sigh whispered over my skin, and I quivered and felt heat pool in my belly. I knew that sound, a sound we only shared alone, behind closed doors, or in the wilderness, pressed against a tree or crushed over a patch of flowers. His tongue dragged over my throat, and I gave an answering sigh, almost a begging whimper, and then I heard a door close as Charlie Dregs prudently left the wagon.

  “About damn time,” Crim purred, and he hooked a leg over mine and flipped me onto my back.

  In response, I let out a loud, careless laugh and ran my hands down his shoulders.

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  His fangs brushed over the wound, worrying it wider, and he drank deeper and slipped a hand under my skirts. My breathing sped up, and I felt wet all over and thrumming with new energy. Eyes closed, I saw the red sun again, and Crim washed over me like hot water pressing for entrance at every gate of my body, my being. I moaned and caressed the nape of his neck, urging him to drink faster, deeper, harder, trying to edge closer and closer to the red-hot wire, deep inside, that he was so close to plucking like a guitar string.

  “Waited forever for this,” he murmured, breaking from his thirst to kiss me with blood-painted lips, a finger held tight over the wound on my neck.

  “Don’t stop. So close.”

  He chuckled and opened my eyes with his thumbs, gently, hunting for something and smiling when he found it. “You don’t know what you’re close to, love.”