Page 21 of Blood & Ice (Princess Procedural #3/Haven Hollow #41)
Maverick
Moving Astrid’s body was even harder than moving Wanda’s, due in large part to her age.
Astrid wasn’t long-limbed and gawky as some teenagers could be. Poppy’s son was beginning to get the look about him as he grew into the man he’d be someday. Astrid’s body was a lot smaller than I was used to and unfinished for the rest of eternity. It wasn’t obvious at a glance, since she’d become more serious of late, but she was technically still a teenager.
That somber responsibility was beginning to show, making her look older, even though nothing had outwardly changed. It worried me, watching her grow up so fast.
“Aww. You really are a big softie, aren’t you?”
Astrid’s voice was loud and unwelcome in my head. I was straining the limits of her vampire hearing to pinpoint where Morgana’s dolls might be.
“Morgana?!”
Astrid’s voice actually rose to an indignant screech in the shared confines of her head, and I actually jerked in place. It was like she’d poked a bruise at the base of my skull, sending waves of pain rippling through us both. Remaining in control of her body took most of my concentration, and there seemed to be a physical cost to it, too. I was going to have one spell of a headache when I woke from the death sleep I’d been placed under. I wasn’t sure how to control the new power level, and juggling Astrid’s moods alongside it felt impossible.
“Sorry,” she whispered, seeming to feel the pain, if only distantly. “Did you just say ‘Morgana’s dolls?’”
“Technically, I thought it.”
“Wiseass. Seriously. What are you talking about? Morgana is dead.”
Astrid’s lips twisted into a bitter smile, but it was my grim mood that prompted it. I didn’t like her, but I could understand the motives behind her actions. We were like slanted reflections of each other. One tilt this way or that way of the pane, and we’d have been exactly the same. The reasons we’d been rejected were different, but I understood exactly how much the chip on her shoulder weighed.
“She’s not dead. She was blooded, and she’s been developing her powers in secret.”
At least Astrid was decently horrified by the thought. I’d been afraid she might side with the bloodsuckers on this issue. Wanda had ended up falling for the bastard that had tainted her with blood.
“It’s different,” Astrid said, sounding genuinely offended I’d doubted her. “Lorcan didn’t understand. Once he did, he tried his damnedest to undo what he’d started. He apologized and she forgave him. This was willful. The vampires knew Morgana wouldn’t want to be blooded, but they did it anyway. I know how that feels, believe it or not.”
She tried not to let her thoughts drift to Valserak. Tried not to let me see. But we were bound by blood, pressed mind to mind. She couldn’t stop herself from reliving the pain. Valserak hadn’t been as vicious as Janeth, ripping into her over and over like a rabid dog mad with its bloodlust. One keenly torturous bite and it was over in minutes. She’d actually been relieved he’d withheld the coveted anesthetic from his bite, even as she’d thrashed, making it worse. At least he hadn’t made her enjoy dying.
The desperate screaming and sobs would never leave my ears. I squeezed the sounds down into a tight knot of grief to be dealt with later. If I let myself feel the helplessness of that moment, I would freeze. We couldn’t afford that with Morgana’s dolls wandering around, laying in wait for us. Morgana wasn’t an idiot. She had to know Astrid had figured out at least part of her plan since she’d de-lusted Rook. That meant the dolls wouldn’t be trying to ambush two fornicating vampires. It had gone from a trap to a fair fight. We could make it out of here if we were strong enough.
That was a big if. Morgana had given more of herself to Knox than I had for power. She wanted to know every trick, no matter how vile or blasphemous. I’d never been convinced that anyone could be purely evil until I got a peek into her mindset. Honestly, Knox and Morgana deserved each other. It was why I had to kill Morgana, no matter how distasteful I found the thought.
Astrid shrank back from the thoughts flitting through my mind. The magic inside me was too dark for my white witch sister.
“I’m not a witch,” she mumbled.
“If Poppy is considered a witch—well, enough to be in a coven, so are you. He doesn’t get to steal that from you.”
“I can’t get that power back, Mav. It’s a nice sentiment. I could hug you for it but...” She heaved a heavy sigh. “I can’t go back. I have to embrace what I am, not what I lost. That means I learn what fae Astrid could have been like. If Mom had gone with Dad, we might have grown up in Autumn. You might actually like Uncle Reynard.”
I snorted. “Never. I don’t care what timeline we’re on, I will never like Dickhead Reynard.”
Astrid might have replied aloud, if Rook hadn’t slapped a hand over our mouths, pulling us into the deepening shadow beneath one of the rolling ladders. His grip on our shoulder was so tight, it was almost bruising. I sucked in a sharp breath through her nose and froze, going completely still against Rook. At that moment, I didn’t care he was manhandling Astrid. If I’d been there in person, I would have been doing the same. They were coming. If they heard or saw us, we were going to die.
Our eyes darted sideways in time to see the first doll stalk past, making soft clinking sounds as its porcelain joints scrubbed against each other. If Astrid had a heartbeat, it would have been in her throat. Instead, it was my heartbeat providing a drumming beat in our head. It felt like my heartbeat for both of us at that moment. She fought the urge to gasp like a swimmer breaking the surface. For just an instant, life flooded into her body. One beat. Two.
Rook froze in place, somehow going even more rigid than before, staring down at us. The blip didn’t last long. Her heart went silent once more, but it had beat. Which meant vampirism was potentially reversible with blood magic. Goddess. That shouldn’t have been possible. I knew exactly what Knox was doing. Dangling the ultimate carrot. He could give me the impossible.
He could make Astrid a witch again.
The doll’s head turned with a whisper of sound. Its face looked much cruder than the Cici doll. The inked-on smiley face was somehow more chilling than the porcelain doll effect. This one had been a male doll, judging by the proportions. Blood had dried to a rusty color on its front. The dolls had fangs, which solved the mystery of what had beaten and killed Vivian. It was a bleak thought that she’d died like a slasher victim. Mauled by something soulless with large teeth.
The PA system crackled, and it took everything we had not to jerk in place. A single twitch might alert the doll that we were here. They were more primitive than the Cici doll. As long as a vampire stayed still, they wouldn’t be distinguishable from another doll. But we couldn’t stand still forever. They’d stumble on us, eventually.
“You have to give me credit,” Morgana’s voice crooned over the speakers. “I did try to get you laid before you died, Depraysie. It would have been a shame for you to die a virgin.”
It was Astrid’s embarrassment that glued our tongue to the roof of our mouth. It was just as well, in the end. I wanted to snarl obscenities at her. I’d been the one to foil her plans for world domination, not Astrid.
“I helped.”
“Maybe a little.”
If I’d been there in person, she would have thrown an elbow into my ribs. It worked better now that she was a vampire. More muscle behind those spaghetti arms. Her indignant squawk after I thought the words almost made me smile.
The bloodstained doll finally moved on. Rook waited a full minute in taut silence before he motioned for us to move. The moonlight from the windows above cast a gossamer spiderweb across the library. We were safe in the shadows of the stacks but had to constantly cross the light to get away from the dolls. I felt like a fly getting hopelessly tangled in a web. I couldn’t see Morgana, but I could feel her.
“I was planning to come for you two last, you know? I had bigger fish to fry. But you minnows can’t help but latch onto the hook, can you?”
I resisted Astrid’s urge to puff up at the ‘minnow’ comment. Giving Morgana a reaction would be deadly. I stayed right where I was, the edge of a clawfoot table digging into my ankles. The dolls were circling closer. We were running out of places to hide. I’d have to act soon.
“Do you like my dolls, Chesley?” Morgana simpered. “They were gifts from your daddy, you know? Or should I call him our daddy, now? Isn’t that what your sire is? Your big blood daddy?”
The way her tone wrapped around the words was awful. I didn’t like vampires, but even I didn’t like the insinuation she was making. We couldn’t reply, of course. I could only inch toward the exit, praying we made it at least a few inches closer. If we could make it into the corridor, there was a chance we could escape. I didn’t like our chances if we had to fight.
“How dangerous are they?” Astrid whispered, asking the question Rook couldn’t.
“Very. They’re basically homunculi. Artificial bodies she can project her magic into. She’s seeing through their eyes, hearing through their ears. It’s a power the really old vampires used to have.”
Astrid was silent for so long I was afraid she’d keeled over from sheer fright. When I pressed at the edge of her thoughts, I found her pensive instead.
“Aunt Celestine was right, then. That our magic—blood magic—was dangerous. That we should have been burned.”
I didn’t have an answer to that. On the one hand, I understood that Knox couldn’t make it back into the world. On the other... well, it was hard not to want to live. There had to be an answer to the riddle that didn’t end in fire. “No. She’s still wrong.”
I inched forward, just a little, navigating a creaky floorboard on instinct after coming here so often last semester. The library had been one of my best resources while looking for my missing sister. So much of history just waiting to be discovered if you bothered to look. Unfortunately, Rook didn’t seem to share my adroit footwork.
He stepped on the floorboard. It let out a moan of protest that sounded like a death rattle in the confined space of the stacks. The bookshelf next to ours shuddered as something bounced into it from the other side and begin to scale the shelves. They were coming for us.
“Run!” I screamed.