'Twas the Darkest Night

by Sophie Avett

  Why he felt that way, he wasn’t certain. Actually, he’d just been smacked by a pixie and he was on his way to be spanked by a woman— he wasn’t certain of anything anymore. Least of all what the hell was going on with the old crone knitting patiently beneath his gaze. Perhaps he should ask her. The elderly seemed to know everything. Or at least, they enjoyed the claim that they did. Letting out a quiet sigh, he sat the stack near the coffee table and prompted Granny, “Milk or sugar?”

  Tea served, Marshall folded his frame into the last chair. He crossed his legs and balanced his saucer on the ball of his knee. “All right, I’m listening.”

  “Listening?” the Persian Madame echoed, her thick lashes fanning across her harsh cheeks. “Do you fancy a story then?”

  Cogs turned like gears in his mind as he blew on the steam wafting from his cup. “I have somewhere to be, my dear. This engagement has a rather limited supply of patience and I do hope I’m not making her wait on the grounds of a story and a spot of tea.”

  Granny snorted. “Ornery pup, isn’t he?”

  Mrs. Potts’ beady black eyes tracked him through the smoke curling from her porcelain. “How is Elsa, boy?”

  He took a long sip and relished the familiar tart of lemon and Earl Grey. “Awaiting me, as I said.”

  “He has a good soul,” the Persian remarked. “Dark, but good.”

  Marshall lifted his eyebrows and opened his mouth only to be interrupted by Mrs. Potts’ gravelly addition, “Do you want to hear a story, boy?”

  Granny smiled, small teeth sharp and white. “Oh, I think the laddie’s just itching for a tale of his own.”

  Again with the bloody stories. He clinked the cup in the saucer. “Very well, if you insist on wasting my time with frivolous words, tell me a fairy tale. Indeed, tell me the story where the knight donned in Armani and the tin-foil from those biscuits right there, rescues the maiden locked in the tower.”

  Granny huffed. “Women don’t need saving, lad.”

  “Indeed,” Mrs. Potts followed with a curt nod, “I’ve always said if you can take a dick, you can take a dragon.”

  The other witches peeled into cackles.

  “Ha! You kill me! I’m slain!”

  “Oh, that’s a good one. I’m writing that one down.”

  Granny wiped a thumb beneath her baggy eye. “No! No! I’ve got one. Once upon a time, our laddie here was…totally scrooged!”

  “A Grimm season’s greetings, indeed!”

  Mrs. Potts waved the crones off. “Oh, settle down you two. Get a little story in you and you fly off into the wordwork.”

  The Persian hid a demure smile behind a crumble cake. “That’s what happens when you’re blessed with good taste…” she winked, “in books.”

  If he could’ve blushed, he would’ve. He stiffened and sought Mrs. Potts in search of rescue.

  She pushed her glasses up. “Have you ever been in love, boy?”

  “Yes,” he said. She lifted her eyebrows and he thought better of his answer. “I don’t know.”

  Granny scoffed. “The blonde.”

  “Yes.” Marshall canted his head, wondering at the scope of power gathered around him. Just how much did these witches know? How much could they know? “I believe I loved Gwyneth.”

  “Loved?” Mrs. Potts echoed. “You don’t love her still?”

  Marshall paused for a moment. “We are no longer intimate, if that’s what you’re asking, but I assume everyone here already knew that.”

  “Such short-lived affections,” commented the Persian. “Are you sure they were worthy of being called ‘love?’”

  “It doesn’t matter what they were worthy of being called,” he snapped, suddenly annoyed by the line of questioning. “It’s over.”

  “What about before Gwyneth, boy?” Mrs. Potts pulled more thread from the rainbow knot. “Was there no one else before the blonde?”

  Granny squinted. “Ah, yes, the girl with the blue ribbon.”

  Mrs. Potts nodded, “Indeed. Whatever happened to Delilah, Marshall?”

  Warning, suspicion, anger at the nature of their questioning and the memories threatening to rise to the surface—he recoiled, ruthlessly blotting out the torrent. Shadows whispered, climbing up the window pane. Slowly stomping out the moonlight.

  “We’re finished here.” He set the saucer down on the coffee table at his side. Gripping the arms of the chair, poised to stand, he slanted a harsh look at Mrs. Potts. “Fuck you and your stories.”

  “Sit, runt,” Granny growled. Wolfish, deep. Red spectral dust leapt to life, whirling around her, sending the fabric of her old pink nightgown dancing at her ankles.

  Shadows unstuck themselves from the wall, smoke rising like a curtain behind the witches. Mrs. Potts’ needles stilled, her beady eyes drilling a hole into the side of his head. Adrenaline and the thrum of the hunt rising behind the stillness in the night.

  The Persian’s lush green eyes were tight with worry, but she reached over and soothed his knee. “Do not die this day, sir vampire. It is not yet your time, your story is unfinished.”

  “What story?” Marshall frowned at the old witch. She merely offered him a smile. Warm and bright, breaking the tension like the sun. Magnetic. Strangely…disarming. Setting down her cup, she handed him a small platter of cake and urged him back into his seat. Dumbfounded, he allowed the shadows to slip from his grip. Moonlight spilled across the area again.

  Mrs. Potts spoke. “What happened to Delilah?”

  His grip etched a hairline crack into the china. “She died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” murmured the Persian, laying a gentle hand on his arm.

  “Sad business, indeed,” Granny agreed.

  It wasn’t sad. It was life. His life. It had been such a long time since he’d thought of her. Thick black hair, blue eyes, and hands so soft, he still carried their mark in his heart. A lowly turned-vampire, his mother had employed her family to work in the castle for a season. They’d been young. Both of them. He’d barely been out of his teens.

  Quirky and with a spine made of iron, she’d been his first breath of what life outside of the coven could’ve been. She’d taken his first kiss. She’d brought light into the castle. And then, she’d died. Killed by a clandestine attack by monster hunters. Outside of Dante’s cities, such things were a regular occurrence. “Why are we talking about this?”

  Mrs. Potts touched his shoulder. “Because the past is what nourishes our bones so that we may weather even greater titans.”

  He let a hoarse laugh. “Time heals nothing, witch. Wounds do not simply vanish come dawn. All time does is allow them to sicken, and then scar.”

  Granny found his gaze. “And what of Elsa? Do you think she will sew a new scar into your heart?”

  “Do you suppose he will allow such folly?” the Persian asked. “Our vampire is convinced love is nothing more than transaction…or punishment.”

  “Then he’s wrong.” Mrs. Potts met his gaze, eyes sharp with wisdom and soft with the pain it had taken to get it. “Love is a pact between two people. An agreement to witness another’s life.”

  “Allowing them to live through you, through your memories, through your stories so that even after the Witching Hour has come and gone, they will never die,” said Granny.

  “It is the magic that threads us all together,” added the Persian.

  “My dear boy, love is friendship,” Mrs. Potts opened her arms wide, “set on fire.”

  Marshall’s mind drew him to the photo tucked in his back pocket as his throat worked. Magic, words, images swirled around his mind and he couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. He forced out the images of Delilah, annoyed when they continued to thread themselves through his thoughts of Elsa. Everything was jumbling. Shades of pain blanketing his chest until he didn’t think he could manage a deep breath without puncturing a lung.

  “How does it end? How does my story end?” he asked, unsure why that was the question. But it was. It was the onl
y question. “How does my story end, Mrs. Potts?”

  Granny’s stalks sparked as they knitted with unnatural speed. “Answer your phone and find out, laddie.”

  What phone? His eyebrows squished, his question interrupted by the shrill ringing noise in his pocket. He ripped out the Blackberry he’d tossed into the ocean earlier. Frowning, he examined the electronic. It was his. Filled with his contacts and everything. The screen flashing with caller ID, displaying his sister’s number. How did they…?

  It continued to ring and Mrs. Potts slumped back with a heavy sigh. “How I long for the days of carrier pigeons…”

  Granny spat the wad of gum over her shoulder. “Answer the phone, laddie.”

  “Yes…” The Persian gaped at the she-wolf in horror. “Answer, sir vampire. Allah forgive you, have you no shame, Oma Lee?”

  Another shrill ring and Marshall glanced down at his phone. His sister’s call had gone to voicemail. It was the front desk of the Palatine Light. He glanced at the time, noting it hadn’t even been an hour since he’d left the print shop, and levered himself out of the chair. “Please, excuse me.” He lifted the phone to his ear. “Ansley.”

  “Sir Ansley,” he recognized Lady Ghoul’s breathy voice, though it was strained, “There is a woman at the front desk, claiming to be your fiancée—Hey! Miss! Give that back!”

  Gwyneth’s sharp New Gotham accent grated on his nerves. “Marshall, tell this idiot who I am. Now.”

  * * * *

  Gwyneth had already caused a sufficient enough scene at the front desk. The only thing to do was get her into a room so he could kill her without any witnesses. He’d left the Witches-Who-Knit to their stories and collected her. Watched the sway of her hips as they took the staircase to her suite. A wave banked against the ship and she looped her arm through his for “balance,” offering him a coquettish smile from beneath the wide brim of her scarlet Carmen Sandiego hat.

  Spider Shine’s Black Widow. Expensive. Seductive. Vanilla, patchouli, and a hint of sandalwood musk. Marshall’s fangs itched at how quickly she seemed to slip into the guise of a loving couple, chatting with the skeletal bellhop trailing after them. The page wheeled the gold cart packed with four suitcases and several matching little ones into the room. The vampire tipped the man and then sealed the doors behind them like a tomb.

  Bone-numbing weariness landed like a lead blanket across his shoulders. With everything else he was dealing with, the last thing he needed was whatever manner of conniving had brought yet another mistake to bite him squarely on the ass. And more than ever, he was convinced he and Gwyneth had been a mistake.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure, Gwyneth?”

  “Why did you insist I get my own room?”

  “Kindly answer my question first, Gwen.” Tucking himself behind the awning of his defenses, he peered over his shoulder, through her pomp and expensive red dress to the fresh faced, doe-eyed beauty in the pink sun dress he’d met so many years ago. Master manipulator, she was, but she’d never been able to play him. It kept her manageable. But just barely.

  Gwyneth folded her willowy arms, fire-elemental red nails screaming against her snow white skin. “Your mother told me you were working over the holidays. I didn’t want you to be alone for Christmas.”

  “Is that who told you where I was?”

  She folded herself into a neat chaise lounge arranged before the bay-side window. Sitting in the darkness, moonlight fused her blonde hair silver and the feathery strands were just as soft as they looked. It had to be the only reason he was itching to curl his fingers into the neat shiny bob and rip the answers he wanted from the back of her throat.

  “Yes.” She draped her arms delicately on the arm rests and crossed her legs. Red stiletto heels gleaming like silver stakes. “Though first, I did call your office. Ava said you were out of town. I tried your sister, who referred me to your mother, and here I am.” Ruby lips softened into a sad smile. “Why don’t you stop lingering like Jekyll? Come in. Have a seat. We have a lot to talk about.”

  What the fuck did she take him for?

  “What exactly is there to talk about? We ended in no uncertain terms.” Marshall folded himself elegantly into the nearest chair opposite hers. “Or perhaps you would care to start with why you’re really here.”

  Gwyneth’s expression was unreadable. Her brown eyes dark, glittering. And then she let out a sigh and peeled off her hat, dropping back into the chair. “Why don’t we start with why you insisted on getting me a separate room?”

  “Why would we share a room?” he countered.

  “Is it business, pleasure, or”—she tossed the hat—“are you just fucking with someone else’s head?”

  Marshall caught the hat and set it gently on the coffee table between them, dropping his voice to a whisper. “It could be all three, but tell me, Gwen, what bloody business is it of yours?”

  “Look.” She doubled forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped loosely in front of her. “I didn’t come here to judge you. I came here to try to save something that's been in the making for a few years now. We love one another, Marshall. Or else we wouldn’t have lasted as long as we did. I know things have been…bad, but we can start over. That’s always been what our relationship has been about. New beginnings. And I just….” She lowered her face, blonde hair drifting forward to brush the curve of her delicate chin. “I miss you.”

  Lies. All of it. Marshall went still, raking his eyes over the emotions playing across her beautiful face. As if she could sense his study, she looked up. Their gazes held. And…nothing. Nothing but the rising terrible suspicion that Gwyneth was playing him. Otherwise, the sadness and longing in her eyes was true. And that just didn’t…fit.

  It didn’t fit into his perception of her. It didn’t fit with their history—her history of machinations. It didn’t fit with the woman waiting for him down the hall. It just didn’t fit with anything. And yet, the longer they looked at each other, the harder it became to hang onto the belief that everything she’d said was a lie.

  He struggled not to curl the fingers demurely seated on his lap into his thigh in search of purchase. But maybe a mild shock of pain was what he needed to remind him this wasn’t another one of the raven’s terrible visions. “I can’t have this conversation right now,” he managed stiffly, rising to his feet. “I have a business associate waiting for me and a rather pressing later engagement I must prepare for.”

  Gwyneth didn’t offer protest. Leaning all the way back in her seat, she fiddled with the silver chain peeking out of the high collar of her red dress. “What are we going to tell your parents?”

  “I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

  “It's coming a lot sooner than you think it is.”

  He halted in his tracks. “What?”

  “They're on their way. Your mother is leading the charge. I was willing to downgrade to catch the earlier ferry, but she wasn't. She'll be arriving on the next boat.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. She curled her bob behind her ear and batted thick eyelashes. Nothing but innocence. Feigned or otherwise, it didn’t matter—she had won doing exactly what she did best. Perhaps Gwyneth should’ve been the one he brought on this adventure after all. She would’ve found the fey—glamour or no—simply because of her unique way of manipulating everyone around her. She’d won and they both knew it.

  He leaned against the door frame. “Then it would seem that I am in sore need of your help, Gwyneth-my-precious.”

  Ruby lips peeled into a sultry smile as she levered herself gracefully out of the chair. “What do you need, my-darling-prince?” She closed the distance and pressed her palms to his chest. “You have but to ask.”

  He gazed down at the sickening sparkle in her eye and brushed a thick, shiny lock of gold hair behind her ear. “I need help closing a deal.” He explained the nature of his circumstances as delicately and with as much discretion as he could.

  When he finished, Gwynet
h wrinkled her delicate nose. “That miserable little shop keeper? Really? How desperate were you?”

  Bristling against her harsh description, he nodded slowly and trailed his finger down the curve of her shoulder. “Will you do as I have asked?”

  She caught his hand, trapping it between their bodies. “If I do this for you, will you promise to come talk to me tonight after you’ve signed Sinister Stitches?”

  He lowered his chin. “I promise.”

  It was strange, but as they’d stood talking, idly touching, it almost reminded him of the content companionship they’d once shared. They’d never been meant for each other, but they had enjoyed one another. At least in the beginning. It wasn’t even anything that couldn’t be fixed. If he really wanted to, he could try to mend the cracks in the foundation of him and Gwyneth. But the simple fact of the matter was that the longer he stood, looking at this woman, touching her, the more aware he was of the fact that he didn’t like her. He didn’t love her. On the contrary, he didn’t feel anything but…weariness. And his mind, his mind was halfway gone. Gone to a redhead waiting for him with a frown and a whip.

  He glanced at the clock hanging over a luggage rack. “I have to go.”

  Marshall turned to leave and Gwyneth scrambled for his arm. Wrenching him back around, she crushed her mouth to his. The kiss was as shallow as it was deep. He tore away from her, nails biting into her shoulders as he lifted her and set her a few feet back. Gwyneth’s forehead knitted, her face blank with confusion.

  “Good evening, Ms. Cage.” With that, he turned and left, desperate for the blessed peace of Elsa’s whip.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Once upon a time, her mother had explained the amulet’s power was charm. Illusion—the source of a troll’s strength. Riddles and bridges, mountains and magic, it was an illusion. Any troll could be outsmarted, any charm broken, and a troll knocked off its feet was as harmless as a swaddled babe—the source of their seemingly limitless power cut like an umbilical cord. She’d explained glamour, like any disguise, was a self-portrait. Elsa found herself standing toe to toe with her reflection. Completely naked for the first time in years. She chomped into the middle of the brownie, dark fudge and coconut, as she knitted her brows in study.