Page 20 of Dark & Darker Still (Vane and Roc: Origin)

Nineteen

Roc

When I wake, it’s like clawing out of a fever dream.

Everything is foggy and very far away.

What day is it?

What time is it?

I shove back the sheet and climb out of bed. Beyond the walls of my room, I can hear the beating of two hearts, the inhale and exhale of breath, a pencil lead scrawling across a page.

A jabberwocky has heightened senses on a good day, but after a feast? They are incomparable.

I come out of the room and Vane and Alice look up at me from the table by the windows.

There’s a plate beside Alice with a half-eaten sandwich.

She has a notebook open in front of her, her hand wrapped around a glass of Summerland whisky.

Across from her, Vane is kicked back, his boots propped on the opposite chair, a cigarette burning between his knuckles.

They look tired and stressed.

“You’re awake,” Vane says.

“How long?” I ask.

I’m positive I ran out of time sometime around midnight. Right now the sky is a soft shade of blue with the last rays of orange sunlight just glancing off the rooftops across the street.

“Less than twenty-four hours,” Vane answers.

I exhale, relieved. So, I didn’t miss too much.

“Was it contained?”

Alice sets down her pencil. “We think so.”

“Who was in the billiards room with you?” Vane asks.

I drop into the chair next to Alice. She shoves the plate toward me and I gladly take up the half-eaten sandwich.

Even though it happened just the night before, the memories are distant and hazy, and I can’t be sure all of them are real.

I try to place myself back in the Joker’s Den in the billiards room. I can see the Captain of the Princess’s Guard across the table from me, lining up a shot.

I can see two of his lower ranking men behind him, chatting and drinking and smoking.

There’s another woman in the corner holding a leather bag and a glass for?—

The Lorne princess.

I look across the table at Vane, mid-chew.

His mouth is closed, his jaw tensing.

“The princess…did she escape?”

“No,” he answers.

My stomach rolls. The bread and ham suddenly taste like ash on my tongue.

I devoured a princess. And not just any princess, but the princess of the family my own father tried to overthrow. They’ll see this as another act of aggression. Another bit of proof that we cannot be trusted.

There has always been a disconnect between me and the monster. What the monster does feels like someone else’s life. I don’t often remember the screams, the taste of their blood. So, it’s always been easy to pretend I am absolved of the guilt of what the monster devours.

But not this time.

This time, the consequences will be dire.

How the fuck did I miss the time? I remember looking at my pocket watch and thinking I had an entire hour to spare.

Vane stubs out his cigarette. “Who did you devour first?”

“Probably the princess,” I answer. “She was nearest me.”

“Then?”

“The lower-ranking guards, but the captain ran.”

“I killed him,” Vane confirms.

“And the girl?”

Vane and Alice meet with a look.

“What girl?” Alice asks.

“The princess’s lady-in-waiting. I can’t remember her name…I don’t think I devoured her…did you…”

Vane’s teeth grit harder. “No. She must have slipped out before we saw her.”

“Fuck,” I say.

Vane lurches away from the table. “I can still contain this. I can bribe her. Threaten her. She’ll keep her mouth shut?—”

A floor below, at the front of the Joker’s Den, there’s a sudden pounding on the door.

We all look at one another.

“Out the back door,” I say, and we start gathering our things in a rush.

Alice grabs her hat, then her boots. I grab the first shirt I can find and slip into it. Vane grabs his pocket watch, then tosses me mine.

We hurry down the stairs in a line.

The pounding sounds again, the door rattling on its hinges.

We slip through the backroom and then emerge from the Joker’s Den in the alley running behind it.

But we don’t make it far.

The Crown Prince is there with a dozen of his guards. They all have guns trained on us.

Normally, I wouldn’t be worried—guns are useless against us.

But just behind the prince, partially hidden by the line of his broad shoulders, is Callista, the palace witch, former Heart Witch of the Wonderland court.

She knows our secrets.

She knows what will subdue us.

One of the guards steps forward and aims. When he pulls the trigger, the pop of the bullet echoes off the surrounding buildings.

It hits me in the shoulder.

Pain lances through me.

I’ve been shot before. A dozen times. But those were normal bullets shot from normal guns.

I smell the mercury first, then comes the eye-splitting pain.

I’m on my knees in an instant, clutching at the gaping wound where blood and liquid mercury leak from me in rivulets.

They shoot Vane next. He gets a bullet in the thigh and goes down hard on the cobblestone.

They don’t shoot Alice, but a guard stalks forward and whacks her with the butt of his gun and she collapses next to us, blood gushing from her face.

Well, now…

I think we’re well and truly fucked.