Ruby held up three fingers and counted down.
Three.
Two.
22
One.
When my grandmother’s last clawed finger went down, the room exploded in movement. I went for my old friend the teapot, pulling off the top and tossing the steaming-hot blood within at Merissa’s face. Ruby and Torno snatched her arms to pull her back, and Torno’s huge hands squeezed Merissa’s wrist until she dropped her scalpel. While they held her pinioned, Criminy drove his knife into her chest, aiming, I was sure, for her heart. If she even had one.
Merissa gasped, and Ruby and Torno let go as she staggered back. I snatched a tea towel from the cart and held it out to Criminy, who murmured, “Thanks, love,” and mopped away the blood pouring into his eyes from the eyebrow gash. I went up on tiptoe to see how bad it was, and that was when Merissa attacked.
The knife Criminy had put into her chest stuck fast, right in my side.
I looked down, confused. The bitch had somehow managed to slip the blade in between the steel bones of my corset. Before my nursing training could kick in, I pulled it out and dropped it. It seemed like more blood—blud?—should have gushed out, but it was such a small wound, just an inch wide, the same size as the one now pink and scabbed over on her neck.
A pain shook me, deep inside. Like cramps . . . but worse.
It was a long knife. Ah, but Merissa knew just how to hurt me and Criminy the most.
Ruby led me to the couch, pushed me down. “Stay still. Don’t move. Let it heal. You can get through this,” she said.
“It’s not me I’m worried about.” My eyes flashed from Criminy to my belly.
She nodded in understanding. “Getting up to fight won’t help anything. See? Torno’s there.”
Merissa was trapped between the two men like a feral cat, her bright green eyes hunting for another weapon, for a way out. Crim blocked her access to the knives on the tea cart, and Torno blocked the door. Finally, they made the decision for her. Torno caught her by the shoulders, and with one deft movement Criminy snapped her neck, a move I’d only ever seen in action movies. She let out a small sigh, and Torno dropped her body, looking nauseated and disgusted by such violence.
Criminy was at my side in a heartbeat, holding my hand with both his own. “Are you all right, love?”
“The baby—” I started, and he shook his head.
“I’m worried about you now. The world’s full of babies.”
“But—”
From the ground came a strange, mad sound: Merissa laughing.
Criminy let loose my hand and turned to her slowly. “Why won’t you die?” he asked, exasperated.
She sat up, put a hand on either side of her face, and twisted her head until it was facing forward, although something about it was still eerily skewed. Clearing her throat, she said, “I told you, Stain. I’m a necromancer now. You can’t kill me. I possess—”
“No,” he said simply. He bent over, and with the knife I’d pulled from my side—the same knife he’d put in her throat—he slit her neck open from ear to ear.
“Finish it this time,” I muttered.
“Damn skippy,” my grandmother added.
With a dark look between them, Criminy and Torno grabbed Merissa’s arms, dragged her into the witch’s workroom, and threw her thrashing body onto the scarred wooden table. After her first scream, someone stuffed something in her mouth, and the door closed. The sounds I heard—sawing and wet thumps—were too much. I was going to throw up if I had to keep taking it all in.
“I’m going to pass out now, Nana,” I said.
“Go right ahead, sugar. You’ve earned it.”
23
When I woke up, I was curled on the witch’s sofa under a mound of dusty blankets. The fire burned just as cheerfully, smokeless and cold. Across from me, Hepzibah the witch was awake and tied to the wingback chair with the golden rope that Merissa had used to bind Criminy. The magician himself was flat on the ground at my side, still clutching my hand in sleep as the knife slices on his face faded to pink scars.
“Do you know what else I saw in your cards?” Hepzibah said, a cruel smile on her lips.
“I don’t want to know.” I let go of Criminy’s hand and gently placed it on his chest before cautiously sitting up, one hand to my belly. The wound hurt, and I was sore inside, but I’d know if the baby was gone, wouldn’t I? Did predators bleed or just reabsorb their losses? I’d barely lived through a miscarriage on Earth, and I was terrified of the emotional and physical desolation it would put me through on any world.
“I can tell you the truth of it, if you like.” Her eyes shot to my belly and back to my face, taunting.
I stood and walked over to her, feeling fragile in my skin. “You’re a shitty aunt, you know that? I mean, I get that you’re a mean old witch and a vampire and you tricked me fair enough before either of us knew we were kin, but what’s your problem now? Why do you want to hurt me so much?”
She shrugged. “I have my reasons. You’ll understand one day. Probably soon.”
And then, like a mad-crazy bitch, she started whistling an off-key song.
“Oh, sweet Aztarte,” Criminy groaned, sitting up and plugging his ears with his fingers. “Will she never stop torturing me? I should’ve left her for the bunnies.” Then he looked up, keen, at the witch. “Speaking of, how did you come to join forces with my darling Merissa?”
Hepzibah giggled. “I was traveling, and she came to me for some powders. We found a shared interest. As it turns out, we both have trouble getting rid of pesky Stains.”
I looked around the witch’s lair. “Where are Ruby and Torno?”
“Distributing bits of Merissa to impossible places,” Criminy said, standing and putting an arm around my shoulder.
“Good,” I said. “Because I’ve got a score to settle, and I’m guessing my grandmother wouldn’t agree with what I’m about to do.”
Hepzibah cocked her head. “Sororicide? Aunticide? You don’t scare me, kid. Besides, you glanced on my death. You know how it’ll end.”
I laughed, one hand to my belly. I’d seen so much over the years, little flashes of lives both happy and sad, of moments quiet and loud and terrifying and beautiful. And yes, I had seen her death when I touched her hand and lost five years of my life. Because of this woman, or whatever she was, the last six years had been a slow death, a constant worry, a heavy tread toward a choice I wasn’t ready to make. All because she couldn’t handle getting old, all because she wanted to be beautiful and powerful and didn’t care whom she hurt on the way there. And for what? Ruling this pathetic underground lair, alone with her stupid clockwork lemur?
It waited patiently by her side, still and nearly silent in the manner of automatons, its eyes blinking occasionally and its tail curled up in a question mark, just like Pemberly’s did at rest. My mouth slowly curled into a smile.
“You’re not going to kill your kin, are you, Letitia?” Her eyebrows went up, daring me. “You do that, and you’re the bad guy. I’m helpless. It’s not even a fair fight. I don’t think you have it in you.”
I stepped close, one hand over my belly. “You don’t fight fair, so I guess this is fair enough.” I’d finally gotten over the lisp of newly grown fangs, and I leaned close, then closer, until my dark-blue eyes were inches from hers. “I’ll never rest safe knowing you exist in the world, not when I have something to protect.”
At the tea cart, my fingers roved over the knives and scalpels Merissa had left behind. Crim crossed his arms and smirked, curious to see what I would do.
“You’ll be a murderer,” Hepzibah hissed. “You’ll have to live with yourself.”
“I already am a murderer. And it’s better than living with you.”
Quick as a blink, I grabbed her clockwork lemur’s long tail and swung the heavy creature with all my strength, bashing her in the face with the bulk of its body. After Merissa, I had to look to be sure. All that was left was pulp and
bone shards, and even the beast inside me wanted none of it.
I couldn’t help remembering the day long ago when I told her she should look out for flying monkeys. And yeah, a lemur was not a monkey. But it was close enough.
“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” I said.
24
As Hepzibah had predicted, my grandmother was not pleased.
“You can’t just go around killing your annoying relatives,” she said, peeking under the blanket we’d thrown over the tangled flesh and metal. “And you took out the clockwork, too, which means who has to clean up this mess? We do.”
I spun on her, teeth bared. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore. This is your fault. If you’d stayed in the damn caravan, none of this would’ve happened. Crim wouldn’t have been poisoned, no one would’ve been stabbed or cut. He’s going to have a goddamn scar for the rest of his life.”
Criminy traced a finger down the slice mark from his eyebrow to his cheek. “I rather like it,” he said, with his usual smirk. “It’s quite rakish.” At least the tip of his nose and ear had grown back.
“Well, I don’t like my scar. And I’m not too pleased that, in addition to being a lying, life-sucking witch, she set us up with a necromancer who wanted to carve my husband up into tidbits.”
“That was a bit much, I’ll admit.”
I stepped closer, and to her credit, my young and beautiful grandmother didn’t step backward.
“And we’re only here because of you,” I said. “You led us right to her. Based on a glance! You didn’t even ask me first, didn’t even discuss it. You didn’t trust me to do the right thing. I brought you here because I love you and wanted you to have a better life, and you basically betrayed me by almost letting her kill my husband and my unborn child.”
My last word echoed in the silence, and Torno hummed his disapproval from Ruby’s side.
But she was anything but cowed by my outburst. Drawing herself up, she squared her shoulders defiantly. “And you’re fine, Tish. I knew it would end up fine. I wouldn’t have set it into motion if I hadn’t been sure that you’d be better off in the end than you were in the beginning. Look at you! Beautiful and fierce and pregnant, beside a man who loves you. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?” She caressed my cheek, and I whipped away from her. “Do you know how hard it was, watching you with Jeff, knowing that he was chipping away at who you were, making you less, just like your daddy did to your mama and just like your grandfather did to me? All I could ever do was be there to catch you when you fell. So yes, when I saw what your future could be, I went for it, sugar. Without asking permission. And I’d do it again. Because you needed this. As much as I don’t feel like your grandmother anymore, this makes us even. I helped you get what you needed. And now I need to be here, where I belong. Taking Hepzibah’s place.”
“Taking what, now?” My jaw dropped as she moved around the space, touching books and flicking dust off a crystal ball.
“She didn’t tell you about the potion, did she? The one she gave to you, the one you gave to me to bring me here. It had her blud in it, among other things. It was meant to draw her successor, just like Criminy’s ruby necklace drew you. Hepzibah needed someone to tend to her magics, to keep her scores, to learn what she knows. Surprise, surprise—it didn’t do what she said it would. She thought it would be you or Criminy, but it turns out it was me.” She grinned and held her hands up, murmuring a word in Sanguine. The chandelier above us lit in one furious burst, throwing the room into sparkling gold light like a disco ball. “This was all meant for me.”
“So you’re just going to take her place?” I sputtered. “That’s going to be your life’s work?”
Ruby patted my cheek, not gently. “It’s a gift, Tish. She gave me youth, strength, power, life, a real purpose. I’m going to enjoy this.”
“No! Criminy did that. Criminy gave you that gift. The witch poisoned you!”
“Her poison was her gift. He was just the conduit.”
Rage sang through me, and I snatched my changeling grandmother by her cravat. “So you’re abandoning me in order to become an evil witch?”
She untangled my fingers from the fabric. “Baby birds got to leave the nest sometime, sugar.” Then, teeth clenched, she growled, “And don’t grab me again unless you want to snatch back a nub.”
Beside me, Criminy chuckled softly. “I see where you get it, love.”
“What? The ability to be annoying?”
“Your power.”
The only noise was the crackling of the fire and the slow drip of the witch’s blood.
“I might understand why you did what you did,” I finally said, “and I guess I’m happy for you. But I don’t forgive you. You’re not welcome in the caravan.”
“But my strong man!” Criminy protested.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
I started the long walk out of the tunnel, back to whatever sunshine London could provide.
By the time we returned to Demi’s cabaret, it was late at night. More than one person had passed closer to me on the street, concerned for my health and safety until they saw my teeth . . . and then ran away for dear life. For the first time, I was the scary thing haunting the cobbles, and I didn’t care. As if sensing my mood, Criminy followed at a safe distance, close enough to help me if I faltered or got lost but far enough to avoid provoking my rage. Ruby and Torno had simply stood there as we left, saying nothing. Tears coursed down my cheeks, and I dashed them away. I’d lost my friend, my grandmother, and my last real tie to my life on Earth. The woman who’d bandaged my wounds as a child and protected me from Jeff as an adult had become a stranger—and a cruel, dangerous one at that. As Criminy had always warned me, Hepzibah’s magic came with a steep price.
Still, something about being a Bludman now just made me shrug at how things had ended. My Nana—Ruby—had made her choice. Even if it had been influenced by an evil witch’s potion, the choice had to be hers. That was the risk I’d taken, bringing her here. My conscience, at least, was clear. But I already missed the hell out of her. Criminy and I were alive, and that was the most important thing. That and the flutter I imagined in my belly.
I was so hungry we had to stop twice for blood on the way back to the cabaret. We chose far nicer sip shops, this time.
As it was now nighttime, the front doors of the Demimonde were thrown open, flanked by beautiful daimons in resplendent costumes. Their professional masks faltered for only a moment as I dragged my sorry carcass into the foyer and darted through the door behind the Employees Only sign. I met no one, thank goodness, and undressed woodenly before crawling into bed, clumsy and pathetic as a salt-sprinkled slug. Our room upstairs was less posh than the one where Criminy had lain, near death, sprawled among Tsarina Ahnastasia’s fur pillows. I didn’t care. I needed time alone in the darkness to process all I’d been through.
No. That wasn’t what I needed at all.
“Criminy?” I whispered, and the door opened quietly as he slipped in.
“What do you wish, love?” His voice was a sweet whisper in the dark, a tenderness backed by the frantic orchestra and the pounding feet of the dancers below.
“Just hold me,” I said. “Make it right again.”
A low chuckle was followed by the grunt of him pulling off his boots and the thunk of them on the floor, followed by the soft whump of his coat and the thump of his hat, all the little noises I knew so well from six happy years in a train car by his side. He exhaled as he always did when untying his cravat; we both preferred it worn loose and rakish, as I’d seen him for the very first time in a locket in my own world. That locket was a charred chunk of nothing now, back in the caravan, its limning of Criminy all burned away. But who needed a palm-sized painting when the man himself was lifting the covers and sliding in beside me, his arms curling possessively around me and drawing me close so I could settle, like a panicked horse, to the steady thump of his sweetly beating heart?
“Ever
ything is right, love,” he said into my ear. He smelled of victory after a bloody fight, of rage and a predator’s musk mixed with red wine and crushed vines and copper. I exhaled and snuggled back against him, matching my breathing to his. One of his hands found my belly and settled there, soft as a bird.
“There’s one thing I can’t figure out, though . . .” I started.
“Yes, little love?”
“How did you find me in Hepzibah’s lair?”
“Magic.”
“Bullshit.”
He chuckled. “Fine. Not magic. My beloved, you’ve not yet learned the subtlety of a hunter. Demi pulled the entire cabaret together to see who saw you last. Blue told us you were looking for your grandmother. You’d told me yourself that the lair was underground. I went out the gates and followed my nose to the stench of a poorly concealed and inelegantly drained corpse. Then I just had to look for dried blood on the rocks. Rather elementary, really.”
“You’re too clever. But weren’t you too sick to fight?”
He nuzzled my ear and whispered, “Yes. Still am. Fooled you, though, didn’t I?”
“Idiot.”
“But I’m your idiot, Letitia.”
“It all makes sense now, I guess. Except for my Nana.”
His sigh tickled my cheek, and I could feel his smile. “Best beloved, there’s an old saying. If you love something, set it free. If it chases you, it’s yours. In your old world, she was a child again in death, and you knew her only as a broken, needy thing. You gave her a new life, and you can’t be surprised that she took it with open arms and ran with it. The only thing you lost was a burden. In time, when she’s done embracing her new world, or perhaps when she needs the advice of a more accomplished spell caster, she’ll likely come back to visit. But you’ll be equals then. Did you really believe she’d wake up here anxious for a coddled life under your wing? Pish-posh. Even you fought your destiny when you arrived.”
Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7) Page 15