He kept us. In here. The woman’s eyes shifted to Molly’s empty hand. Following her gaze, Molly saw Tom’s ring pulse bright, the little points of light aimed at the ghoulish woman.
“Who? Thomas?” Molly asked, unable to unravel her meaning and boggled as to the ring’s apparent malfunction.
Father.
“What…” Molly stopped as the woman held her stomach, bending over and coughing. The corners of her lips split and tore, her cheeks separating and ripping all the way to her ears, as if a phantom blade were slicing through her head, which swelled, along with her limbs. To Molly, it looked as if she were watching something too big to be wearing a human skin try to cram itself into one. The eyes shrank in size, retreating back into the sockets, and her tongue, thin and long like a rope, fell from her mouth in ribbons as she lurched over, regurgitating a great mass that stretched her neck and plopped onto the ground in front of her. It was one of Leon’s men, dead as a rock and half digested. “Ignis,” Molly mumbled, crafting a hot fireball in her free hand, her pistol rattling uncontrollably in the other.
Give it to me! The whisper was harsh and angry. The woman regained her posture and her shriveled eyes glared at Molly from inside her cavernous skull. Bony ridges developed in her forehead, and two little points bulged from them in front of her temples.
“Give what to you?” Molly stammered, charging her fireball with heat and steadying her trigger finger.
Mother! The shriveled eyes locked onto Tom’s ring, which was pulsing with light and pointing to the dark woman. Molly did not understand the connection until her own ring showed her something she had not noticed sooner. On one of the woman’s fingers was Harlan’s ring, glowing with evil, violet intensity.
“Go from here,” Molly ordered it. “Leave, now.” She revealed the blazing concoction in her hand and drew back her arm. The whisper in her head hushed, and a hollow, thick, demonic one replaced it.
No. A great heaviness fell upon the garden, an oppressive, sinking weight that stretched the appearances of the walls and hedges. The demon’s face seemed to widen, squish and stretch through the crushing haze. Molly had seen it happen before with Thomas in London. Experience telling her she was in the presence of pure evil, she holstered her pistol and began to search for an escape. There was none. Vertigo struck her. Everywhere she looked, there was only an endless expanse of brick, blackness, warping paths and melting sky. An image of Thomas appeared before her. His face was hollow and decayed. By his feet was her father, also a twisted corpse. They both began speaking nonsense at the tops of their lungs, the demon’s voice among them. Its face took the place of Tom’s and her father’s, shrieking at Molly as a burning pain seared her skin.
“I said leave!” Molly roared, shaking the visions from her head and facing the demon straight on. Hope was miles away. Fear, sorrow and anger swallowed her. Nearly given up, Molly fought back until her disorientation waned. When the nightmare cleared, only she and the demon were left. The garden was gone, and a void surrounded them. There was silence, and then the demon stretched out one hand and clawed at the air slowly with both hands, producing an ear-splitting screech. When Molly dropped her defence and covered her ears, the demon sprang at her, taking her to the ground and wrestling her for Thomas’s ring.
“Ignis sanctus!” she screamed, spraying it in the face with a blast of blessed fire. Crying out in pain, it leapt away, vanishing into the void. Suddenly, the garden reappeared, and Molly heard no sound. She was alone again. For a moment, the ordeal seemed to have passed, and then an icy wave of fear crept up her spine.
“Molly!” Thomas shouted, running into sight from the brick archway opposite her. He was beaten and bloody, but smiling.
“Thomas?” Molly answered hoarsely, wanting to cry. She wanted him now more than ever before in her life. Mistakenly, she let her excitement win her over. “Thomas, where have you been?” With little energy left in her legs, she went to him.
“Won’t I?” said Thomas.
“What?” Molly stopped as Tom raised a pistol to her and pulled back the hammer. Confused, she backed away from him slowly. She had walked right into another one of the demon’s tricks.
“Won’t I? You think I won’t?” he shouted, one eye swollen shut.
“No!” Molly wrenched at her hair and dropped to her knees. She couldn’t find herself. She had lost control of the fight. The life left in her body felt as though it would depart any moment, and her will quickly drained out her quivering knees onto the stone. How could she fight this evil? If only Thomas were there, he would know what to do…
“Won’t I?” Tom repeated, his eyes shrinking back into his head and his lips parting along the cheeks, the demon’s voice boiling up from his throat.
“No…” In that moment, in the silence before her surrender, one thought crossed Molly’s mind. Something spoke to her, telling her not to believe in the demon’s lies. The figures in the garden were not Thomas or her father. These little whispers came from Thomas’s ring. She was not alone after all. A fury, greater than her fear, brought her back to her feet.
Angry with her cowardice, Molly rose. Thomas could not help her now. She could not hide, or run, and she wouldn’t. If this monster had any intention of keeping her from Thomas, it was a fool. An ear-splitting crackle rocked the air and drowned out the demon, whose surprised shrieks rang like a banshee’s. Warmth overcame Molly, driving away the darkness around her. The demon looked on in terror as beams of white light burst in all directions about Molly’s shoulders, like ethereal wings, that lifted her off her feet and suspended her on a cushion of pure magical force. Molly felt the presence of someone new, who Molly, somehow, identified as her mother. The presence left as quickly as it came, and when it did, Tom’s ring began to behave strangely. The gold band softened, and ran across her digits like liquid, dividing and spreading. A heat of solar intensity had melted it, and the little face containing the magic within cracked. Before it burst, flooding the gardens with light and life, Molly thought she saw it smile. The mahogany discs around her pupils dilated and contracted, and in an instant she could see clearly through the blaze of light that would have smitten any mortal’s eyes. The demon shielded its face and cried out. Molly held out her right hand, conjuring up a maelstrom of the whitest fire. Intuitively, she reached into the concentrated flame and seized the raw magic with her left hand, pulling back and stretching it out. With a flick of her wrist, she balanced the ribbon on the sweltering air and danced her fingers along it from one end to the other, pinching the stream into jointed segments.
Seizing under the intense light pouring forth from Molly, the demon turned its back and fled. With a snap of her arm, Molly lashed it from behind with her fiery whip, the flames wrapping tight round its neck and forcing it to one knee.
Lucia…The voice came from the demon as it struggled against the strangling flames. The voice was soft, innocent and ageless. It told Molly its name—Maria. A lifetime of memories flashed before Molly’s inner eye. Unfamiliar places, unfamiliar events, years of pain, jealously, and spite unfolded before her. The feelings belonged to Harlan Crowe, and Maria begged to be released from them. Gripping the fiery white whip with both hands, Molly twisted her waist and pulled hard, pruning the wicked head from the demon. With one last howl, the gnashing gob rolled away from its body, and every last trace of the evil burned white until only a black scar sullied the garden court.
“Where is she?” asked Tom, lungs on fire, a trickle of blood tickling his right elbow and distracting him. He pressed himself close, against the flat of Leon’s épée, keeping the huffing vampire pinned to the marble column that kept the ceiling above from falling in on itself. Tom’s canines elongated, and his forearms sprouted streaks of tarnished-gold fur. Outside, a line of cannons pelted Montmartre from the northwest. The French army had mobilized and begun to surround the hill. Most of the Blood Moons inside Chateau Beaumonte had retreated outside, arms full of valuables, preparing to leave with Jack’s command. They
had come to collect honey, not to destroy the hive. Jack’s billowing roars shook the halls from somewhere nearby. What sounded like a hefty chuckle followed, and then all was quiet again, except for the sounds of war outside.
“Thomas, all of it was Corvessa’s doing.” Leon knew nothing he said would affect Thomas, but he tried anyway. He’d successfully lured Thomas inside and away from the lawn. He’d danced Thomas round and round in the assembly chamber, parrying clawed swipes with Fantome and only angering Thomas, who belittled Leon for not fighting back. Tom was insulted that Leon had brought him to Paris to kill him, and then fought him in a defensive, disinterested way.
“Your modesty isn’t going to excuse you!” yelled Tom. His nose told him that a trace of Molly was on Leon’s jacket. The trace allowed him to detect her lingering presence in the palace. In his mind he envisioned her location, on the second floor of the north wing.
The ceiling of the chamber burst in, and a great rush of wind threw up debris and dust. The Black Coats poured in through the roof, shrieking and filling the palace. They fled from the assembly chamber, pursued by a supernal light that pierced the hole in the ceiling, falling from a source high in the sky—a cyclonic pool of clouds that hovered above the palace gardens, churning with light and power.
Leon, swearing in pain as the light scraped his skin, threw Thomas aside, flew from the chamber and followed the swarm, directing them to the catacombs far below the chateau, sealing the passageway after the rest of the surviving vampires clamored through. Thomas let him go, prioritizing Molly, and transforming. He propelled himself out of the chamber on powerful lupine legs; his clawed feet gouged the floor all down the north wing corridors, skidding into the stair. The wall buckled where his shoulder impacted it as he tore into the stairs, climbing to the second floor and chasing Molly’s scent to a bedroom at the end of the hall. Before he left for Wallachia, he wanted answers from Molly, and he wanted Brother.
One press of his large paw crushed in the bedroom door. Molly’s scent and belongings were everywhere, but Molly was gone. Her dress and undergarments were on the floor. Leon’s scent was also present. All the conclusions his mind cooked up were the worst kind. Thomas bared his teeth and snorted, snapping up the dress in his teeth and chewing it to pieces. The delicate dress fell to the floor in flakes, and he stood still in the dark, letting go of his care. The dreigher was pleased by the emotion Tom fed to it. The backs of his eyes throbbed and his mind emptied. His monstrous hands found Brother somewhere in the room while his mind was away. His heart sank like an anchor, and his soul was dragged along, its ankle twisted up in the rope. If the French artillery had put a cannonball through the room he would have missed it.
Out on the lawn, Tom heard the boom of guns and cannon. The unarmed majority of Paris darted about in the streets, calling out for help or running with buckets of water. The Blood Moons strolled among them, sporting the Beaumonte fortune around their necks, on their fingers, and in their arms, twirling their knives and firing their pistols into the air as they left Montmartre.
“Captain Darcy, they’re marching!” one of the raiders shouted to a large, old bearded pirate who walked out onto the lawn. Wolf features still showed on his face and in his limbs.
“Who?” He replied, mocking the French army by pretending not to have noticed their arrival. “Ah! Look, the infantry is out for a walk.”
“Jack Darcy?” Tom said, walking up from behind.
“Hm?” Jack turned a questioning eye on Tom, mistaking him for one of his crew and quickly realizing the werewolf was a stranger.
“Thomas Crowe,” said Tom, introducing himself and wiping a trickle of blood from his face that dripped onto his cheek from a cut in his left eyebrow. “Which one of your lot infected me?”
“I don’t recognize you, but you’re welcome to ask these gentlemen if you’re certain it was one of them,” said Jack sarcastically, directing Tom to the hundreds upon hundreds of werewolves crawling around Paris beyond the hill. He chuckled to himself and looked away just as a commotion came from the other side of the lawn. Several uniforms peeked over the hill.
He turned with a start and drew a pistol, firing across the lawn. Tom spun and ran for cover as a crowd of soldiers crested the hill, wheeling in a pair of cannons and firing upon Jack, who made a suicidal charge at them, bursting into his immortal skin and swinging Quarter. The squad unloaded their ammunition. Jack’s crewmate took a fatal silver shot to the head and fell. Before Jack diced the soldiers, one of the cannons put a large ball through his stomach. After he minced the seven or eight attackers, Jack lowered to one knee, shedding his fur and rolling over on his back as a human. Tom drew Brother from its sheath and ran to Jack.
“Who bit me?” he hissed, putting a foot on Jack’s chest and flipping Brother upside down, letting Jack know he was prepared to carve an answer out of him. A chorus of howls rose from the streets. Jack turned his head and squinted. The Paris Clan had come to the aid of the French Army, and the tide of the night was swiftly turning.
“Call my men,” Jack told Thomas. “Let them know I’m here.”
“Who bit me?” Tom’s ears were deaf to Jack’s request. The bloodstone in Brother stared Jack in the eyes, the gravity of its thirst tugging at his years as the seconds passed. Jack, laughing, ignored Tom and began to hum a tune to himself. “Who bit me?” Twisting his foot, he placed more of his weight on Jack’s chest, but received only a repugnant, corn kernel smile from the brazen old pirate. As badly as he wanted to drive Brother through Jack’s black heart, he felt it would shame the codger more to be found and arrested by the mortal French authorities, so he sheathed Brother and left Jack to his fate.
“You’re Harlan’s brother, aren’t you?” said Jack. “Treachery must run in the family.”
“If I were you, Mr. Darcy, I would not pick a fight with a werewolf half my age and twice my cunning,” warned Thomas, without looking back, “Lest I wished my tongue to be cleaved out.”
“You ought to kill me, Mr. Crowe,” advised Jack. Tom had finally struck a nerve. “Kill me now, or I will find you! I’ll bury you in a lovely chest full of my favorite jewels. I’ll even find you a little crown. And I’ll bury you, you insignificant cur!” Jack snarled the words with an insane glee. Tom heard Jack humming again as he was abandoned.
Stepping out of the gardens, Molly’s eyes first saw a great whirling mass of light high above in the sky, sheets of light cascading down from it and blanketing all of Chateau Beaumonte and Montmartre. Her right hand felt warm and radiated the same light. She saw that the ring Tom had given her, one of two made by her own father, had melted and fused to her hand, but in what appeared to be a purposeful pattern. From the thick knob of gold where the ring had been on her right index finger, little streams branched out. One followed the curve of her thumb, wrapping around it on the palm side and back out again. Another split and crawled up both her index finger and middle finger, ending in spirals at the first joint of each finger. A third stream seemed to have rushed to her ring finger, where it branched out in a bloom, and her littlest finger was speckled in gold droplets from the burst. Little bits of magical essence orbited the hand; the dust cloud of energy left over from the creation of the whip. Molly brushed her hair with one hand and saw that it was pale white from the buildup of light around her head and shoulders.
Corvessa watched from atop the colonnade as Molly appeared through the garden gate. Stepping around a marble sculpture of Psyche, she frowned in displeasure. Gabriel’s daughter had triumphed; her garden grave took her in and she dug her way out again, interring a past, one she didn’t understand entirely, in her stead. Even more, the rumors surrounding the conditions of her birth, her father’s talent, and her power had been actualized. Lucia Vasquez was becoming aware, waking from the dream that the Black Coats had meant to distract her until they could marry her into the cult. Corvessa’s feelings were mixed. Half her worries had been presumably dealt with as soon as Molly rejected marriage to Leon Beaumonte, b
ut Molly, alive, was no good to Corvessa.
The residual magical essence around Molly began to move energetically when Corvessa appeared before her, the shadows of the colonnade peeling back and the light of the vortex high above coating her pale skin. Though untransformed, Corvessa’s body endured the immersion easily.
“What did you do to Thomas?” Molly asked Corvessa as she watched the vampire descend the colonnade stair like a dragon leaving its cave.
“I told him truths. The kind I thought you would have shared with him by now. Lovers do not keep secrets, so I was surprised when Thomas reacted,” answered Corvessa, holding her head high.
“What I did not tell him was not dire enough to spur quite the reaction you received,” argued Molly. Bands of bright light whirled around her, the dust on the ground sweeping away. “What your words did to Thomas is a kind of pestilence only the foulest tongues can spread,” she spat out, as rays of light burst around her shoulders, bending and rippling like banners.
“If your ineptitude in capturing a man speaks to your equestrian skills, I’m sure Samuel was more than happy to send you away from that farm.” Corvessa bent forward, hands on her hips, smiling as she delivered the insult.
“Careful you don’t open your mouth too wide, Corvessa. I would hate for the gardens to brown before winter.” Molly’s right hand burst into white flames, and with no warning she flooded the courtyard, stair and colonnade with a flash of fire, faster than Corvessa expected. The fire poured from Molly’s palm with more force than she had ever seen from her ruby ring. Somehow she knew how to tap and control the reservoir of magic that now boiled inside her, and without speaking any incantation, she wielded it with near mythic mastery.
The blaze ceased only when Molly lowered her hand and capped off the stream of fire leaping from her palm. The flames retreated from the stair and colonnade like sea foam, as a cold deluge of air drove away the heat. Glaring down from the stair at Molly, Corvessa covered herself with one arm where her dress was burned away and hanging by smoldering threads. The right half of her face and most of her forehead were eaten away and singed to the bone. Corvessa did not flinch.
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