“No,” Erik said. “We’ve waited this long to get Mona alone. For all we know, the moment that maid lays eyes on us she could vanish us away, just as they did to my brother.”
I supposed he was right, though I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay in this closet before my patience was entirely spent. The maid was still staring at the dressing table. I wasn’t sure what she found so interesting about it. Perhaps it was just a comfortable place to rest her eyes on.
It was only once Mona’s breathing became heavier that I realized.
A pale smoke-like substance billowed out from the small jewelry box resting in front of the mirror, and as it rose higher toward the ceiling, to my horror, the smoke began to take shape—the shape of the most ghastly creature I’d ever seen in my life. It was a ghostly form with long, skeletal limbs, sharp teeth and pointed black nails. Its glowing amber eyes sent shivers down my spine.
This must be the ghoul.
I had to stifle a scream as it hovered over Mona’s bed and reached down toward her head. I thought the creature was about to wake her at first, but as its fingers made contact with her scalp, they became transparent and disappeared into her head.
It’s continuing to poison her mind even now.
My gaze was momentarily distracted as the maid in the corner finally stood up and left the room. I could only assume she’d been waiting for the ghoul to appear all this time.
“What’s happening?” Erik’s chest brushed against my back as he lowered to my level and gripped my waist. I moved my head aside so he could see for himself. When he pulled away from the keyhole, his eyes were wide with horror.
“Where did that thing just come from?” he asked.
“The jewelry box on Mona’s dressing table.”
He took another look through the hole before turning his eyes back to me. His face was ashen, his expression dark as he whispered, “We need to kill it.”
Chapter 32: Kiev
Patricia and I barely had time to react before Brisalia vanished and several guards appeared in her place. They opened up our cell door and dragged Patricia and me out.
I fought back with all my strength, but they’d placed some kind of restraining spell on me. It was futile. My limbs were held in place as I levitated off the ground along with Patricia, ready to be taken to whomever Hagatha was.
The prison surrounding us disappeared as we vanished and reappeared in a small, dark chamber. My body was thrown against one of the rough walls. My limbs seemed to be released as I hit the ground, scrambled to my feet and launched myself at the nearest guard, but I barely managed to get three feet before I was yanked back by a chain that had closed around my left arm, fastened to the wall. I struggled against the restraint, but just as those bars in the prison had seemed to be magically reinforced, so was this. It wouldn’t slide off no matter how hard I pulled.
To my left was Patricia, huddled on the ground, her arm also fastened to the wall.
“Hagatha,” one of the guards began to repeat over and over in a deep voice. He spoke the name like a taunt.
I had no idea to whom he was calling. The room was empty but for me, Patricia and the warlocks.
After the seventh calling of the name, there was a violent banging to my far left. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I saw, in a shadowy corner of the room, there was a narrow oak door.
“She’s woken up.” The warlock grinned as he looked at his companions.
“Do you think she’ll do the job with this vampire?” one of them muttered.
“Of course,” another replied. “She hasn’t been fed for weeks.”
“Now let’s go. Jason, remain outside. Check down here again in about half an hour. As for the rest of us, Brisalia wants us to report back.”
They retreated up a flight of stairs a dozen feet away and exited through a hatch in the roof. The sound of a heavy bolt being drawn echoed around the chamber.
Patricia was now shaking as the banging against the door to our left grew more and more furious. Just as I was sure the wood was about to give way, there was a sharp click. The door swung open to reveal a pair of glowing red eyes set in an almost bald, shrunken skull. Deep blue and purple veins were visible beneath the creature’s papery skin, and its long bony body levitated a few feet in the air.
Hagatha.
A ghoul.
I barely had time to shout before the ghoul lurched forward. Patricia, being nearest to her, bore the brunt of the attack. I watched in horror as the ghoul’s dark knifelike nails tore into the witch’s gut. Patricia’s blood soaked the floor as Hagatha ripped through the rest of her stomach with razor-sharp teeth.
I didn’t need to be a physician to realize that Patricia was already beyond saving.
As the ghoul began sucking out the witch’s intestines, I strained even harder against my chains, although I knew it was hopeless. I stared down at the metal clamp seemingly bolted into my skin. And I thought of Mona.
I’d come close to death too many times in my past to keep count of. I’d been through too much to be afraid of death, or of the physical pain that would come with it.
But dying like this, while the girl who owned every part of me would think ill of me forevermore if I couldn’t reach her… it was a kind of agony even I couldn’t bear.
Anything would be less painful than this.
Anything.
Still staring at the chain fixed to my left arm, I knew I had only one option if I wanted to have even the faintest chance of seeing her again.
Extending the claws in my right hand, I dug them into my own flesh, just above the metal clamp. Biting my lip hard against the pain, I twisted, snapped and clawed until my left arm separated from my shoulder. The chain clinked as the limb dropped to the floor with a dull thud.
My head began to spin as blood gushed. Backing up against the wall, I feared for a moment that I might pass out. But I couldn’t. I forced my mind to once again focus on Mona.
The ghoul was still busy eating the witch and it seemed that she hadn’t noticed what I’d just done. But by the looks of it, it wouldn’t be long until she’d finished her meal and would be ready for more. I had perhaps less than a minute.
I lurched toward the stairs and, climbing up to the roof, ripped at the hatch with as much strength as my one arm could muster. After thirty seconds of trying, it was clear that it wasn’t going to open. My eyes shot toward the only other exit to this small chamber—the dark room Hagatha had exited from.
Leaping down from the stairs, I raced into the room and slammed the door shut behind me just before the ghoul smashed against it. This door was fragile enough as it was from Hagatha’s earlier assault. I wasn’t sure how much longer it would remain standing at this rate. If it lasted a couple of minutes, I’d be lucky.
If what I’d heard about ghouls was true, Hagatha should have been able to just glide right through the door. Hell, just escape this dungeon entirely. I could only assume the witches had cast some sort of spell on this prison that prevented her from travelling through solid structures.
I tore off my shirt and, bunching it up, attempted to stem the blood flow as I kept fighting against the ghoul’s attempt to push open the door. Then I cast my eyes around the room. It wasn’t much different than the one I’d just been trapped in—small and dark. Except in this room, there were several skeletons scattered about the floor—those of humans, perhaps even witches, by the looks of it.
As one of the door hinges broke off entirely, I was beginning to believe that losing my arm might have been in vain. But then a voice drifted down from upstairs. A male voice.
“How are you doing down there, Hagatha?” It was the warlock who’d stayed behind. He must have heard all this commotion—more than I was sure he’d been expecting to hear. “Almost finished?”
The ghoul let out a bizarre screech.
“Is something wrong?” the warlock replied. “Get back in your room and I’ll come down.”
The ghoul shrieked again,
then fell silent. The banging stopped.
“Are you back in your room?”
The ghoul let out a quieter sound in response and I sensed the creature backing away from the door. I dared open it slightly and peer through the crack. She was hovering in a dark corner of the room, just at the side of the stairs, yet not directly in view of the hatch.
What is she doing?
A theory formed in my mind about what could be going through this creature’s head, and although it seemed crazy, it filled me with too much hope for me to be able to resist playing along.
“Hagatha?” the warlock called again. “You know what happens when you refuse to respond.”
I banged the door, as if closing it.
That seemed to give the warlock the confidence he needed. The hatch clicked open and his footsteps began to descend the staircase.
As soon as I heard him yell, I opened the door again. The ghoul had flown at him and, before he could even aim a curse at her, she tore through his palms with her nails, apparently rendering him as helpless as a human. She dragged him to a corner of the room where she began ravaging him, just as she’d done to Patricia.
Perhaps she prefers witch meat to vampire meat.
I stared up at the open hatch and lunged for it like a drowning man glimpsing land. Flying up the stairs, I grabbed hold of a ledge and hauled myself up before bolting the hatch shut behind me. Doing all this with one hand was so strange. It still hadn’t fully registered in my brain that I’d lost an arm.
Breathing heavily, I cast my eyes around, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I was in a narrow rectangular room with white walls and black granite floors. It was empty, except for a couple of chairs a few feet away from the hatch and one door a few feet away. I hurried over to it and was about to attempt to open it when my eyes fell on a long dark cloak hanging over a chair. If I wanted to have any chance of blending in, I’d need to cover myself up.
I fastened the cloak around me and pulled the hood over my head so it covered as much of my face as possible, and gripped the door handle. It wasn’t locked, to my relief. I stepped out to find myself in a dim, narrow corridor.
I wasn’t sure which way to turn. I took a right first. I found myself in a maze of passages, and all I could do was guess which one I should take. Finally, when I reached what I’d thought was a dead end, I discovered a narrow set of winding stairs leading upward. I climbed them and, on reaching the top, I emerged in a corner of a grand hall. There was a wide set of double doors about fifty feet away and ornate pillars connected the white marble floors to the high, gem-studded ceiling.
Could this be… the palace?
I looked around cautiously. Only once I was sure that there was nobody in sight did I venture out of the doorway into the hall. Moonlight streamed through the massive window panes. It was late. Hopefully I wouldn’t bump into anyone.
I hurried toward one of the windows and peered out into the night. The building was surrounded by lush gardens. My heart leapt as I spotted in the distance the same gates we’d attempted to enter earlier, where Patricia and I had been taken by the guards.
Yes, this is the palace.
As I turned around to face the hall again, my jaw dropped in horror. I was leaving a trail of blood across the pristine floors. But there was no time to cover my tracks. Now, my only hope was finding Mona in time before someone tracked me down.
I sniffed the air, trying to detect any trace of her in the atmosphere. I couldn’t. From the looks of it, this palace was huge. She was probably still too far away. On spotting a wide staircase leading up to the floor above, I swept toward it and ascended it. I emerged in a spacious hallway with doors on either side. As I hurried toward the nearest one to me, a wave of nausea threatened to overtake me. I flattened my palm against the nearest wall, closing my eyes and trying to ground myself once again.
Mona. Just think of Mona.
I staggered forward until I reached the door and sniffed. I had no idea how big the room, or perhaps apartment, was behind this door, but I was certain that it wouldn’t be large enough to prevent me from detecting my girl. Although vampires’ sense of smell wasn’t nearly as acute as werewolves’, as long as I was within a reasonable distance, I should have no trouble sensing her.
I moved to the next door along and stopped to sniff the air. Still nothing. In this way, I staggered from door to door. By the time I’d reached the last one, I still couldn’t sense her. I moved up another staircase toward the next level.
I’d long lost track of how many doors I’d stopped outside of by the time I’d reached nine levels up, and I was practically blind with dizziness. It was all I could do to take even one more step. Pulling myself up the tenth staircase, I stopped in my tracks as I sensed someone approaching above me. I stumbled back down the stairs and leapt into the shadow of a nearby pillar just in time to see a couple descending—glasses of wine in their hands, their lips glued to each other. They were so wrapped up in each other, they didn’t seem to even notice my bloodstains on the floor as they reached the bottom of the stairs and moved away down the corridor.
I sighed in relief before once again attempting to climb the tenth staircase. I still had no luck detecting Mona after a dozen more doors, but as I reached the end of the corridor, I stopped. I heard a smashing four doors along from me. And as I neared, anticipation began to flow through my veins. It was only a slight hint at first—it could have easily been my imagination—but once I arrived outside the rosewood door, the scent was undeniable.
Mona was somewhere behind this door. I could feel it.
Now I had to decide whether to knock, or attempt to break down the door. I placed my ear against it. The smashing had stopped, and had been replaced by… shouts.
“Mona! Wake up!”
My brother’s voice?
There was no way I had any patience to knock now. Five sharp kicks, and I broke the door open.
I stared around the apartment. Someone shuffled toward me down the sprawling corridor to my left. I spun around to see a witch hurrying toward me. But it wasn’t Mona. She had dark hair and wore a grey cotton nightgown. She stared at me in alarm before motioning to raise her palms.
I’d had enough of being knocked around by witches for one day.
Lunging forward, I knocked her to the floor and pinned down her arms with my knees. Then, taking a leaf out of Hagatha’s book, I ripped through her palms before she could expel a curse. Leaving her bleeding and cradling her hands, I continued toward the shouting. It led me to a door at the very end of the hallway. As I pushed it open, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
While Mona lay—apparently sleeping—in a double bed, Abby and Erik were battling a ghoul that was about to slice through Abby’s heart.
Oh God, not another one of these things…
Chapter 33: Abby
Our attempt to kill the ghoul didn’t quite go according to plan. Although we never really had a plan so much as a few harebrained ideas thrown together during the few minutes Erik and I had spent exchanging hurried words in the closet.
We didn’t know much about ghouls other than what we’d gleaned from the snippets of conversation we’d overheard in Corrine’s quarters before we’d left The Shade. We’d learned that they switched between subtle and physical forms at will, and it was only while in their physical form that they could be killed. Severing a ghoul’s head was the way to end it, according to Patricia, and its neck was the most fragile part of its body.
The problem was, most ghouls’ victims witnessed their insides spilling from their stomachs before they ever got within four feet of the creature’s throat.
I’d gotten it into my head that—since the ghoul had emerged from the jewelry box—perhaps closing the lid would help to get rid of it. Since it was the least violent idea we had on the cards, I thought we might as well try it first. Erik agreed.
As it turned out, the motion only served to draw its attention toward the two of us. Its frightenin
g amber eyes shot our way as it drew away from Mona and floated toward us.
Erik ripped the mirror off the wall and smashed it against the ghoul. It let out a low hiss as it moved backward, then disappeared from sight.
“Where did it go?” I stammered, looking around wildly.
Erik’s harried breathing was loud in my ears as he reached for my midriff and pulled me closer to him.
“Duck!” he yelled, pushing me down.
I didn’t even know where the ghoul had reappeared, or which direction to duck in, but I threw myself beneath the bed, hoping that would save me.
Why isn’t Mona waking up? Could this be the ghoul’s influence making her sleep so heavily?
I would have shouted for her, but I didn’t want to give my location away. I crawled to the edge of the bed and looked up to see Erik reaching for the curtain rail and yanking it from the wall. The ghoul was now in its physical form again as it attempted to lash out at him. Erik held the rail in front of him and drove it against the creature’s stomach, forcing it backward to create a safer distance between him and those menacing black nails.
I crawled to the other side of the bed and stood up. I was about to reach for Mona’s shoulders to shake her when Erik yelled again. “Watch out!”
The ghoul had noticed my attempt and came gliding toward me. Grabbing the nearest thing to me—a bed lamp—I chucked it at the ghoul’s face. It dodged the object easily and my attempt only seemed to rile it up further.
“Mona! Wake up!” Erik bellowed as the ghoul’s sharp hands gripped for my ankles. It lifted me up in the air, hanging me upside down like a piece of meat. I screamed and thrashed about in its grasp as its nails sped toward my chest.
What followed happened so fast I could barely comprehend it.
The ghoul’s hold on my ankles loosened and I went tumbling down onto the bed. Erik had leapt up and grabbed its feet, attempting to pull it down to the ground—while a cloaked figure had just entered the room.
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