The silver clasp of the Black Cloak lay in his open, dead hand. She wanted to grab it, but the snakes coiled round his arm.
As horrified as she was by what she’d just seen, she tried to tell herself that what had happened was good, that these snakes had just killed her enemy. It was over! Her enemy was dead.
But she shook her head and growled. There weren’t rattlesnakes in Biltmore’s gardens. Vipers didn’t hunt in groups and attack people on paths in the shrub garden. They’d been brought here by an unnatural power. If he was evil, Grathan should have been controlling these snakes, not getting killed by them! The puzzle wasn’t solved. There were just more pieces!
At that moment, she heard a tick-tick-ticking sound behind her, followed by a long, raspy hiss, not a rattle like a snake’s, but the clicking sound of a barn owl. She felt the hot air of a breath on the back of her neck.
‘I thought I’d got rid of you,’ said a voice behind her.
Serafina spun, ready to fight.
But it was Lady Rowena standing a few feet behind her. Serafina’s first thought was that she must have been mistaken in what she had heard and felt. Lady Rowena stood before her holding a twig in her hand, as if to defend herself with it. Serafina was just about to ask her what she was doing there, when Rowena spoke.
‘I see . . . the Black One is here,’ Rowena said in a peculiar voice. When she said the words, Serafina couldn’t help but glance at the Black Cloak’s silver clasp, which still lay in Grathan’s dead hand.
Following her glance, Rowena’s eyes opened wide. Then she smiled. ‘Oh. Thank you. We’d misplaced that.’
Rowena moved towards Grathan’s body, seemingly undisturbed by the fact that he was lying dead on the ground and that he was draped with rattlesnakes. She stepped among the snakes as they coiled and raised their heads and watched her with their searing yellow eyes, but they did not rattle or bite her. She bent down and picked up the silver clasp. ‘I’ll take that off your hands,’ she said to Grathan’s dead, swollen face.
As Rowena spoke, Serafina realised that she sounded different from how she had before. Her snobbish English accent seemed to have decayed into a casual, snarling tone, as if she’d grown weary of the ruse.
‘I’m afraid Detective Grathan here had been doing a bit too much detecting,’ Rowena said, ‘and he was getting dangerously close to telling Vanderbilt his theories. I guess the poor, lost soul saw himself as some sort of demon-killer, a fighter against evil. The fool thought he was going to assassinate me with a dagger.’
A loud and sudden howl erupted from the woods, the call of a wolfhound, so close that it startled Serafina into pivoting towards it. But Rowena didn’t seem bothered by the howl at all.
When Serafina looked back at her, the small stick in her hand had become a gnarled and twisted wooden staff. In that moment, Serafina remembered Lady Rowena’s riding crop, and the wooden pin in her hair, and the parasol on the south terrace, and the hiking staff in the woods. It goes with my outfit! she had insisted in her snobby tone. Every time she’d seen Rowena, the girl had been in different clothes, but she’d always been carrying something long and wooden.
Serafina realised now that Mr Grathan hadn’t snuck into the garden to kill Braeden with his dagger, but to kill Rowena. He wasn’t a police detective like he was pretending to be, but an occultist, a hunter of the strange and unusual. And he’d found it.
‘There and there,’ Rowena said, pointing the staff to two positions along the garden path, and the snakes slithered to where she pointed.
Finally, Rowena turned and looked at Serafina. ‘Yes, I thought I’d got rid of you.’
‘When was that, exactly?’ Serafina said, trying to stay bold despite her confusion and her fear.
‘When you and the dog went over the stair rail.’
‘Eight to go, I guess,’ Serafina said, her eyes locked on Rowena.
‘I was none too pleased, believe me.’
‘Actually, you looked scared.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Rowena scowled. ‘I was just surprised. You’re a tougher little creature than you look. But I should have known with your kind.’
As they spoke, Serafina couldn’t help glancing towards the house to make sure there were no signs of smoke or flame, but she immediately regretted it.
‘What are you looking for?’ Rowena asked her. ‘It’s too late, you know. I already lit the fires. There’s nothing you can do to stop it now. Your precious house is going to burn. I told you I was going to finally do something to make my father proud.’
Serafina tried to leap away and run, but she couldn’t move her feet. She looked down at the ground. To her astonishment, vines of ivy were growing rapidly round her ankles and up her legs.
Before she could tear the ivy away, she heard the sound of a single horse coming swiftly down the path.
The image of Biltmore’s bronze statue of a rattlesnake-spooked horse flashed in her mind.
Rowena turned towards the sound of the horse.
Braeden came round the corner on horseback. ‘Serafina, I’ve been looking all –’
‘Braeden, run!’ Serafina screamed as loud as she could as Rowena raised the Twisted Staff.
The rattlesnakes struck out and sank their fangs into the horse’s legs. The horse squealed as it went up, rearing and striking, its head thrashing and its eyes wild with panic. Braeden fell from it, and there was a horrible cracking sound when he hit the ground.
Serafina tried to leap to Braeden’s defence, but she immediately fell headlong, the ivy tentacles clamping her feet to the ground.
As she frantically ripped the ivy away, a snake rose up in front of her face, hissing and rattling, preparing to strike. With a quick flash of her hand, she whapped it on the head so fast that it never knew what had hit it. Rattlesnakes were fast, but she was faster. When a second snake lashed at her with its fanged strike, she leapt straight up into the air to dodge it, then pounced on it and crushed its head.
But even as she killed the snakes, the ivy grew around her feet again, entrapping her. As Serafina tried to tear the vines away, she glanced up to see thick plumes of dark smoke roiling up from the walls of the house. Biltmore was on fire!
Serafina saw Braeden squirming out of the way of the rearing, stomping horse. The horse wasn’t just frightened of the rattlesnakes. Suddenly, it wanted to kill him. The earth shook every time it hit the ground with its huge black hooves, Braeden frantically rolling this way and that, barely escaping being crushed. One stomp and Braeden would die. There was nothing she could do to save him.
But, at that moment, a lean dark mountain lion leapt out of the darkness and tackled the horse in a tumbling, screaming collision of wild beasts. Waysa had arrived. The catamount wasn’t large compared to the massive size of the horse, but he fought with a lion’s speed and power, moving so fast that sometimes he was nothing but a brown blur.
The five wolfhounds came running into the battle. Rowena pointed the Twisted Staff at Braeden, who was trying to get himself up onto his feet. The dogs attacked him, easily bringing him down. They clamped onto him with their fangs and dragged him yelling across the ground.
Serafina snarled and hissed in frustration as she tore the twisting ivy from her legs. Waysa’s arrival gave her new hope. The second she was free, she ran towards Braeden, grabbed one of the wolfhounds by its haunches, and yanked it away. When the angry dog spun round and lunged at her with its snapping jaws, she dodged the strike and struck its head.
‘Get her staff!’ she yelled to Braeden, but he was on the ground, kicking and screaming, fighting for his life. One wolfhound had hold of his right hand. Another, his left wrist. And a third had hold of his leg. They weren’t just biting him, or trying to kill him – they were dragging him away. Serafina knew that Braeden had barely even seen Rowena, let alone understood the complexity of what was happening. Serafina had seen the whole thing, and even she didn’t understand what was going on. The snakes could strike him. The dogs cou
ld rip out his throat. But they weren’t. The dogs were dragging him away.
It wasn’t until Serafina heard the terrible clatter of the four stallions’ hooves in Biltmore’s courtyard that she began to understand. The wolfhounds, the Twisted Staff, the stallions and the carriage. Uriah and Rowena wanted Serafina dead and out of the way. But they wanted Braeden alive!
Waysa charged out of the bushes at the staff-wielding Rowena. When she pointed her weapon at two of the wolfhounds, they hurled themselves into the lion’s charge. The catamount and the two wolfhounds exploded into a vicious battle of tearing fangs and ripping claws.
Rowena slashed the staff out into the forest and shouted something Serafina didn’t understand. Sensing that she was bringing in more animals twisted to her command, Serafina rushed towards her. The only way she was going to defeat Rowena was to get the staff.
A massive bear came charging out of the trees. Serafina gasped, barely able to believe her eyes. Black bears were normally such quiet, unaggressive creatures of the forest. She had no idea how she could fight the snarling five-hundred-pound beast.
The bear hurled itself at her with its great maw of teeth. She dodged its first attack, but the animal spun round with startling agility and lunged again, roaring with anger, swiping at her with its massive paws, its teeth clacking. She dodged again, and then again, surprising even herself with how fast she could move when her life depended on it. She knew if the bear got hold of her, it’d be the end of her. She darted this way and that, beneath it and around it, so close to it that she could smell its fur. Even when its claws missed her, the force of its bruising shoulders against her chest shot lightning bolts through her ribs.
As she kicked and shouted and thrashed and dodged the bear, the wolfhounds dragged Braeden’s body up to the carriage with the four dark stallions waiting at Rowena’s command. Serafina didn’t understand what was happening, but she knew she had to help him or she was going to lose him forever. But she couldn’t save him. She couldn’t even save herself!
Rowena and the wolfhounds pulled Braeden’s now limp, unconscious body into the black carriage and disappeared inside. The stallions reared up with terrifying neighs, like they’d been prodded by a painful goad. Gusts of steam poured from their mouths and nostrils. The horses burst into a run, pulling the carriage behind them. And in the distance great clouds of smoke filled the sky.
Serafina scurried and rolled, dodged and darted, between the swipes of the bear’s slashing paws and the snaps of its deadly teeth, but she could not escape.
She caught a glimpse of Waysa battling the wolfhounds. Rowena could control many things, but she could not control him. His soul was still half human, which made the catamounts a particularly dangerous enemy to Rowena and her Twisted Staff.
The bear threw itself into its next attack. Serafina ducked to the side and tried to dart away. When it spun round and lunged at her with a mighty swipe of its paw, she leapt up a steep incline. Bears could run much faster than humans, so she couldn’t outrun it. They climbed trees with great speed, so that was no good, either. Playing dead was certain death. Nor did she have the strength or claws to damage the bear, or a weapon to fight it with. All she had was her agility and her mind. She darted into the sticks of a bush, thinking that the steep incline and dense thicket would give her a chance to escape. But that meant nothing to the bear. It charged up the slope and crashed through the thicket like it wasn’t even there, roaring and swiping as it came.
Serafina knew that she was outmatched by the bear in almost every way, but then an idea sprang into her mind. There were still a few things she could do better than a bear.
She turned and she ran. Just as she knew it would, the bear dropped down onto all fours and chased after her. She knew she only had so many steps before it caught up with her and attacked her from behind. It would drag her to the ground and maul her with its teeth and claws until she was dead. She heard the pound of its running feet and the bellows of its breath coming up behind her. Terrified, she glanced over her shoulder as she ran. There it was, charging towards her at full speed, its muscles rolling beneath its heavy black fur. Her short, frantic breaths exploded through her. She was running as fast as she could, but it would overtake her in half a second.
Finally, she came to what she was running for and jumped. Thank God for Mr Olmsted, she thought as she fell through the air. She landed in the crushed stone of the long, formal, rectangular Italian Garden, which was sunk deep into the natural terrain and surrounded by a twelve-foot-high stone wall.
The moment she hit the ground, she turned around and looked up. The bear did not stop. It came barrelling over the drop-off and leapt into the Italian Garden right behind her, determined to catch her and kill her. She scrambled out of the way just as its huge form hit the ground with a great crash beside her, shaking the earth. It immediately swiped at her with a mighty swing of its paw, then lunged with snapping jaws. She scurried up the white marble statue of a Greek goddess next to the garden’s wall, climbed to the top of its head, and then leapt.
‘It’s not an Italian Garden, Mr Olmsted,’ she said as she landed on the top edge of the wall, clinging to it with her hands and feet. ‘It’s a bear pit!’
The bear roared and charged forward to follow her, but as it tried to climb the statue its flailing paws and massive weight broke the Greek goddess into pieces, and the beast came tumbling down. The bear sprang to its feet, looked up at her and roared again, but it could not climb the stone wall or leap to the top. The bear could jump into the walled garden, but not out of it.
She’d done it. She’d escaped.
Serafina quickly ran along the top edge of the wall and disappeared into the bushes before the bear found its way out on the other side. Leaving the Italian Garden behind her, she ran through the shrubs and came to the road. But it was empty. The carriage was long gone. Serafina’s mind had been filled with confusion since the moment Rowena had appeared. Who was she? And where was Uriah?
She looked towards the rooftops of Biltmore in the distance, and her heart sank in dread. Dark smoke and mist poured across the hilltop, blurring her view of the house. It looked as if the towers and the rooftops were being enveloped by a conjurer’s spell. Rowena’s fires were burning! Serafina wanted to run to the house and scream for help, but she couldn’t. She had to put her faith in Essie and go save Braeden.
Pulling herself away, she ran down the road in the direction that Rowena had taken him. But even as she ran she knew it was no use. The stallions pulling the carriage were fast. She’d never catch up with them. She could hear the sound of their hooves receding in the distance.
Once again, she needed far more speed than her lousy two feet could give her. As she ran down the road and the immediate fear of the bear began to wear off, she couldn’t believe how foolish she’d been to not know that Rowena wasn’t who she had pretended to be. She felt angry and disgusted with herself. She was stupid. She was weak. She was slow. It felt like her feet were heavy, like she was plodding down the road.
But, somehow, she had to save Braeden!
I want to be fast, she thought in frustration as she ran. I want to be strong! I want to be fierce!
Waysa’s words came into her mind. Once you envision what you want to be, then you’ll find a way to get there.
She had envisioned her mother in her lion form many, many times, and it never did her any good, but as she ran desperately down the road to catch up with the carriage carrying her friend away, a flash of memories splintered through her mind.
She remembered Uriah saying Find the Black One! as he offered the wolfhounds a scrap of cloth.
She remembered the black strands that Essie had cut out of her hair.
As she ran after the carriage, she could feel her feet hitting the ground and her lungs gasping for more air.
She remembered seeing the reflection of her yellow eyes in the mirror.
She remembered Rowena saying the Black One is here, then moving her eyes to w
hat was in Grathan’s hand only after Serafina had looked there.
A fierce emotion poured through her. She had to run and run and keep running, driving all her anguish and her pain down into her muscles, pumping her chest, pulling air into her lungs, pounding blood through her heart, and driving strength into her legs.
She had been trying to envision her mother in her mind all this time, but she realised now that it wasn’t her mother she had to see.
She felt her speed doubling, then tripling, her muscles rippling with sudden power. She leapt off the road and tore through the forest. She bounded a ravine and burst into new speed on the other side.
As she came round a bend in the road, she saw the carriage in the distance, pulled by the raging stallions, their shoulders and haunches bunching and bulging as their hooves clattered across the road. Their steel horseshoes threw flashes of sparks beneath their feet as they ran.
She found herself catching up. She heard herself growling. She felt the length and sharpness of her fangs. She felt her claws ripping across the earth. The powerful bellows of her lungs pumped in air.
And even as she ran full tilt, her eyes and ears sensed everything around her, behind her and ahead of her.
She saw flashes of grey and brown coming towards her from the left and the right. They were fast runners. Long tails. The flash of snarling teeth. Dozens of coyotes charged in at her, biting at her sides.
Serafina wanted to turn and fight them, but she knew that if she did she’d lose the carriage. She’d lose Braeden. So she kept running, blazing through the forest. Two of the coyotes dived in and clamped onto her sides. Then a third bit her haunch, holding on to her with its teeth. She stumbled and regained her balance and kept running, but then another coyote clamped on to her.
Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series) Page 24