“Emily!”
She did not pause, but the young man was gaining on her. He could hear her now, her sobs, her tortured breathing. She had run from the house after finding Jackson, her husband, in the arms of that servant girl—that strange, bewitching creature with the piercing dark eyes and shining black hair. Ogden had witnessed the scene—and in Emily’s fair golden face, he had seen something twist, something shatter, as if suddenly, in a glance, she had understood every last nuance of the Madman’s evil. She turned and ran.
“Go after her,” said Montaigne—the man who had first brought Ogden to this place, who had promised him knowledge of the ancient arts, who had offered him an apprenticeship with the Guardians. “Bring her back here.”
She mustn’t be allowed to get near Devil’s Rock, Ogden told himself over and over as he ran, remembering the prediction of doom. I must stop her! I must reach her in time!
But she was already there, standing at the precipice, her long white dress billowing around her, when Ogden finally reached her. He staggered as he caught his breath, yet still managed to grab the beautiful young woman’s arm, just as both were leaning over the edge, staring down into the angry sea crashing below.
“Emily,” Ogden said, “you must come back with me!”
She spun on him, eyes wild.
“Back to Ravenscliff? Back to him? Are you as mad as he? Why would I go back, knowing what he has planned for all of us?”
“Please, Emily, you must come away from here—”
She pulled out of his grasp, stronger in her fury than Ogden could ever have imagined. How different she was now, how changed from the sweet, innocent, demure girl who had first come to Ravenscliff.
“Are you one of his minions?” Emily’s eyes were furious, accusing. “Is that it, Ogden? You and Montaigne—”
“No, Emily, we want to stop him! And we can, if you just come away with me!”
She laughed bitterly. “Stop him? You are a fool. All of you are fools if you think you can stop him now. Ravenscliff will be his—and the Hellhole beneath it too!”
“No, we can stop him!”
“Look!” She pointed up at the sky just as the first flash of lightning illuminated the night. “See what I have witnessed! Look and see!”
Ogden lifted his eyes to the sky as a loud roar of thunder shook the very rocks on which they stood. And there, as if projected against the clouds by some enormous magic lantern, was the vision that so terrified Emily. From a hole in the sky crawled the creatures of the Hellhole: eager, slobbering, rancid, malicious demons hell-bent on taking over the world.
“They will become us,” Emily cried. “Those filthy, hideous things! They will become us and we will become them!”
Ogden’s gaze was riveted to the sky. The demons crawled out of their hole on top of each other like roaches, scrambling across the firmament for as far as the eye could see. Hairy things and scaly ones, too—creatures made of human bone and animal skin—beasts with leathery wings and monsters with eight legs. Most of them were stupid, lumbering brutes, but among them Ogden could discern smiling, crafty devils, too, their malevolent intelligence shining from their eyes.
“That is the world he will bring,” Emily said. “That is his plan.”
From the distance there suddenly came a voice—the voice of the Madman himself, calling to his wife.
Emily turned toward the sound, her lovely blue eyes staring into the night. The Madman called her name again.
“That is his plan,” Emily said, calm now as the vision in the sky faded and Ogden returned his eyes to her. “But not for me.”
And before he could stop her, she threw herself from the cliff, her scream fading as she plunged into the night.
“Emily!” Ogden shouted after her.
“Emily!” echoed the voice of Jackson Muir, suddenly emerging from the darkness in a flash of lightning, stepping onto Devil’s Rock.
Ogden began to tremble. “I—I tried—”
The Madman rushed to the edge, peering over the side. From below the sound of the waves against the rocks reached their ears.
“I tried to stop her,” Ogden said, shaking terribly now.
The Madman turned to face him. There was rage in his eyes, but shock, too, and grief, terrible grief. For all his powers, he could not bring her back—at least, not to live as she once did. Ogden watched in fear and fascination as a terrible dilemma surged through the Madman’s being. Jackson threw his hands out in front of him, gesturing toward the cliff, as if his sorcery might compel his beloved wife to rise from the waves. But then he pulled his hands back, clamping them over his face, and he sobbed.
Making Emily rise might well have been possible, but she would have been broken—in spirit as well as in body. A great Nightwing sorcerer Jackson Muir might be, but he knew he could not bring his beloved wife back to a life of innocence and purity. Worse: he could not make her love him again.
And for that, Ogden knew, someone would have to pay.
“I tried,” he stammered, backing away from Jackson. “I tried to stop her.”
“And you failed,” growled the Madman, his dark eyes flashing.
He spread his arms wide and let out a scream that rivaled the thunder in its power. Indeed, the storm seemed to abate, its fury summoned into the body of the sorcerer on the cliff. Jackson Muir had always been tall and imposing, but now he seemed even more so, as if he stood not six feet but sixteen. His white teeth glowed in the dark and his eyes blazed red.
“You will pay, Ogden McNutt! You will pay for failing to save my wife!”
“No, let him be,” came the voice of another man.
It was Montaigne, having finally reached Devil’s Rock himself.
“He is my apprentice, Jackson. I will punish him. Leave him to me.”
“You dare instruct a Sorcerer of the Nightwing?” The Madman’s eyes burned holes in the night as he threw his gaze at the newcomer. “You, a Guardian, meant only to serve me?”
“And to teach you,” Montaigne said, defying his anger. “A Nightwing does not use his power for revenge.”
Jackson Muir laughed. “But you forget, Montaigne. What was it that my brother called me? A renegade? An Apostate?” He laughed again, returning his red eyes to Ogden. “Run, little rabbit! Give me some sport!”
So Ogden ran. It was futile, he knew, but he ran anyway, giving in to the basic human instinct for survival. He ran into the dark night, away from the cliff, into the woods. He blundered into a bramble of thorns, tripped over a log, fell into a puddle of mud. But he kept on, running deeper into the thickness of trees and gathering of shadows. Above him he caught glimpses of the moon, full and gold, appearing now and again in the spaces between branches, a solemn, watchful eye.
He came to rest finally, embracing a tree as a child might its mother’s breast. He understood this was the end, that there was no escaping the Madman—but even still, hope found its way to the surface. Might Montaigne have stopped him? Might he have persuaded Jackson to let Ogden go free?
It was quiet. No sound at all, except for the distant crash of the surf. Ogden thought of his darling Georgianne.
“A precious little child, isn’t she?”
The voice cut him to the quick. Ogden turned and there, standing not two feet away, was the Madman.
“Do anything you want to me,” Ogden said, “but don’t harm Georgianne.”
Jackson Muir smiled. “Step out into the moonlight, Ogden McNutt.”
Ogden hesitated just a moment, but then did as he was commanded. It was useless to disobey, to try to fight him now.
“Look up at the moon,” the Madman told him. “Look upon its face. See there your torment, my young fool. See your penalty for failing to save my wife.”
Ogden lifted his eyes to the shining orb. It was a moon of blood, dripping from the sky.
And suddenly Ogden began to itch. A terrible, burning sensation all over his body. He looked down
at his hands and saw the reason why.
Hair—sprouting all over. His hands, his arms, under his clothes. He felt his face. There, too. Thick, bristly hair.
Then pain set in. Excruciating, ripping pain. Ogden’s body twisted, contorted. His jaw was pulled, stretched out of shape. He saw his mouth thrust forward, transforming into the snout of an animal. In his mouth his teeth grew long and sharp, cutting his tongue.
Ogden McNutt fell to his knees. He could no longer stand. His shoulder blades shifted and expanded. The pain overpowered him. But when he went to scream, it was not a sound that he recognized.
It was the cry of a beast.
And then there was nothing. No pain, no thought.
Just the craving to drink warm blood.
BLOOD MOON is available from all major ebook retailers on October 29th, 2013.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to everyone at Diversion Books for bringing the stories of Devon March and the Nightwing back to life. Thanks also to Malaga Baldi and Tara Hart. And thanks to all the readers who have waited so long for this series to continue. I want to hear from you. Write to me at [email protected].
—G.H.
@HuntingtonGeoff
www.Facebook.com/Geoffrey.Huntington
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Demon Witch (Book Two - The Ravenscliff Series) Page 28