Page 36 of Grotesque

G rease popped and sputtered, raining tiny burning droplets on my bare hands. I’d thought the smell of bacon would have woken Corban when I could not, but I heard nothing as I pushed the crispy strips around the pan.

At least for me the smell of food always got me up quickly.

He’d stayed with me all night and was still next to me when the sun rose, but had barely moved when I tried to wake him. Just pulled me closer when I’d tried to get out of bed. Not once did his deep, sleep-heavy breaths falter.

I fiddled with the locket I still wore around my neck.

Perhaps it had something to do with the curse, and he had expended too much energy too quickly?

We had been away from Glamis the majority of the evening, plus he’d teleported us out to the car.

I sighed. I didn’t know how we were going to separate him from the manor entirely if this deep sleep was a side effect.

I rolled the shred of bacon around in my mouth, chewed and swallowed. My feelings were a mess. Help Corban, don’t help him. Be afraid of him, possibly be falling in love with him.

I stacked more bacon onto a piece of toast and took a massive bite. I needed more information. I’d been blindly letting Corban lead me into his schemes. I needed to know for certain that what I was doing was the right thing, I needed more than his word to go on, basically.

I made my way back to the bedroom quietly. He hadn’t moved an inch, his large body sprawled over the bed, both wings now draped over either side of the mattress. His glamour must have unspooled while I was cooking.

I ran my fingers through his hair, scratching my nails over his scalp. Corban let out a heavy, contented sigh. I waited another few minutes to ensure he was still in a deep sleep before padding downstairs to the library.

I pulled Rosaline’s diary and the sketchbook from their hiding spots. If there were other accounts tucked away there wasn’t time to search for them.I reread Rosaline’s last entry and flipped through the remainder of the book to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

January 10, 1812 Tonight will be my last entry. I have prepared a nice meal for Gerald and I. A last supper where I will tell him the truth before leaving him forever. I can’t go on like this a moment longer. I have tasted the divine and know now I cannot bear to live without it.

Chills raced down my spine. That’s the night she would have killed Gerald.

To prove herself to Corban. My fingers froze between the pages.

Corban said he needed three things to be free.

What if he was lying? What if he needed a sacrifice to shatter the curse entirely?

No, he would have gone ahead and killed Quint if that theory was correct.

He was too desperate for his freedom. Right?

Unless that sacrifice is you, a little voice taunted.

I looked up, my ears straining for any sign that he might have woken. I didn’t hear anything but that didn’t release the tension from my muscles. He could spill from a dark corner and I’d have no idea how long he had been lurking there.

I swallowed, tucking Rosaline’s journal beneath a couch cushion before turning to the sketchbook.

Monsters of various forms were outlined in charcoal. I flipped past the pages I had already seen. Flipping, flipping until I slowed. Slowed as the images morphed into the shape of a man I recognized.

Corban’s face was gaunt, narrower, like the apparitions sketched earlier in the book. But it was him. The eyes were unmistakable, their cruelty palpable.

On the next page “ fear the night that would consume the light ” was written.

Next to it was a stunted looking dragon with long tapered horns and curved membraned wings.

I’d seen that dragon before. I flipped back to the beginning of the book until I found what I was looking for.

The first image of the dragon with its diamond-shaped pupils.

Vertical… slitted pupils… like the ones I’d glimpsed last night, when Corban had been lost in his rage.

My stomach dropped. That wasn’t the only place I’d seen the dragon. I jumped from the couch and ran outside. It couldn’t be.

All doubt vanished the moment I stepped off the front porch and looked up.

The arch above the doorway was empty.

Where the twisted dragon had coiled over the entrance, there was nothing but a vacant space.

My heart thundered. I looked down at the book, to the likeness I should have seen carved in stone. Corban had never come to me in this form, but it was him. There was no other explanation as to why the space was free, while he slept in my bed.

Another memory came to me, of a long dark shadow slinking into the manor and morphing into a man. The shadow on the video.

My tongue felt dry when I tried to swallow.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and snapped a photo of the doorway. Even if I never showed anyone– at least I would have the proof for my own peace of mind. I flipped to the next page, scurrying back to the library. Only this time I shut the door and turned the lock.

I hope to God that no one has been put in a position where they must find my account of the monster. I made certain he could not get to my children, or their children. If he has, then his magic is stronger than I feared. His will more hungry than I could have imagined.

There is no light in the darkness. Only things made of it can slink out in the night. Evil things that want to devour.

His silver promises are empty. Do not let him out.

The creak of the floorboard above my head forced me off the couch. I scrambled, snatching the sketchbook from the floor as it went flying from my lap, and sprinted across the room to hide it.

A soft clink sounded when I dropped the volume a second time. “Oh fuck me,” I whispered. I forced the book between two others, snatched the object from the floor and hurried to the door. I threw the lock aside before taking a deep breath, fighting to regain my composure as I pulled it open.

Corban stood in the doorway, his brow arched when I stumbled back, my hand flying to my chest. “Fuck's sake!”

A slow turn of his mouth that couldn’t quite be called a smile touched his face. “Did I scare you?”

I scowled at him. “Obviously.” Could he hear how loud my heart was beating?

He looked over my shoulder. “What are you reading?”

I took a step back to let him enter.He tucked his wings close to his body and hunched forward to cross over the threshold.

“Not sure yet. I was just browsing. There are so many to choose from.” I watched him carefully as he crossed the room and dragged a long finger down the spines. “Have any recommendations?”

Corban snorted. “Half of these are useless; they carry no truth in them.”

“All fairy tales?”

Corban looked over his shoulder, a cruel smile on his face. “Oh, the fairy tales are all real.” He cocked his head.

Don’t see it. Don’t look at it , I silently begged as his gaze cut to the shelf where the sketchbook wasn’t fully tucked away. I don’t know why I didn’t want him to find it, only that I knew it was urgent that he not.

“How are you feeling?”

Corban hummed quietly. “Tired, but well.” He threw a grin over his shoulder, his lips parted to continue when his gaze snagged on something.

Please no.

He reached for the sketchbook that was so obviously out of place between the traditional hardbacks. His fingers grazed the bowed spine, stiffened over it and then tugged it free. Shadows flickered– no those were the clouds moving across the sun. Everything was fine.

“What’s that?” I piped up.

His jaw noticeably rippled as it clenched. “This was Maxine’s.” He hesitated before opening the book.

My heart raced faster. The warning I’d read repeated through my head so loudly I feared Corban would hear it. Do not let him out. My children, or their children …me! Realization smacked me full in the face. Macky hadn’t had a relationship with me, with mom, because she’d been trying to protect us.

From Corban.

Something akin to sadness washed over his face. The proud arch of his wings drooped with the drop of his shoulders. “I told you before we did not get along well, but I liked your grandmother. I hated that we could not see eye to eye.”

I swallowed, willing the dryness coating my throat to go away. “What happened to her? With the two of you?”

The shuck of paper sliding against itself sliced through the air as he turned another page.

His gaze lingered on the image of the three tall figures.

Their lithe forms seemed to sway on the page.

Slowly, he brushed his thumb over them, almost affectionately, before he turned to the next image. A portrait of himself, thin and gaunt.

“I never told Maxine what I was. I didn’t have to. She was well versed in things of my world, though to this day I have no idea how she could have known about Under. She feared me.”

The thing I’d grabbed from the floor felt cool and hard in my palm. I slid my hands into my back pockets, shoving it there for safe keeping. “I thought you enjoyed being feared. You like mine.”

“Oh, yes. But Maxine never played any of my games.” He held out a hand and curled his fingers, beckoning me toward him.

When I stopped at his side he rested that large hand over the back of my neck.

“I can smell you on the pages, Sorcha. Tell me, how far did you get before you thought to hide this from me?”

His eyes remained planted on the sketchbook, on the gnarled and twisted dragon. The weight of his hand was light, and that scared me. I was used to him being vicious and lethal, this calm coolness somehow frightened me even more.

“Not far,” I lied. The corner of his jaw ticked like he could sense it.

“But you did try to hide it,” he pressed.

Was his hand getting heavier? No, he hadn’t so much as moved. Fuck he was so eerily still. While the wings and horns fascinated me, they also made it impossible to forget that he was a predator. At least when he wore his human costume it was easier to pretend.

“Yes,” I said.

“Where are the others?”

“Others?”

His eyes snapped to me then. “The other accounts. Diaries. Where are they?”

I shook my head. “That’s all I’ve found. I thought those were just drawings.”

Corban frowned the longer he held my gaze. When I didn’t back down, he gave a curt nod and let his hand drop so he could flip through the sketchbook more quickly.

What was there that he didn’t want me to find? Others meant there was more than just Rosaline’s to be found. How many women had Corban tormented and failed with?

How many women had he killed?

I dismissed the thought in case he was able to track my attention to where her diary lay hidden beneath the cushions of the couch. Instead, I asked a question I already knew the answer to. “Are you the dragon over the door? That’s you in the book, isn’t it?”

“The grotesque,” he said. “Yes.”

“Why haven’t you come to me in that form?”

Corban shut the book and slid it under his arm before turning to me.

“You’re already fucking a monster, Sorcha.

Would you fuck a beast too?” He grabbed hold of my chin when I flinched.

“While I do enjoy feasting on your fear, it is not my desire to scare you to death. I much prefer your heart beating.”

“How kind,” I choked.

The smile he gave me looked strained, forced. He held up the sketchbook. “I do not know how far you truly got but you cannot believe everything that you read and saw. Your grandmother was not in her right mind at the end.”

Mad Maxine.

Ridiculous Rosaline.

What were all the others called?

Stupid Sorcha. Because of Corban, because of the spell he cast over us.

Even teetering on the edges of terror, I found myself wanting to tip forward into his arms. Fall into his chasm and never see the light of day again. It was toxic, this sway he had over me.

“Why do you say that?” I asked softly. “Is there something bad in there?”

His silver promises are empty. Do not let him out.

What was so terrible about returning him to his realm?

“A mind gone lost is always tragic,” he said. He cocked his head one way and then the other, assessing me. “The only harm I mean to bring to you is what I have already brought. I will not hurt you more than I already have.”

“I believe you.”

Corban’s lips pouted.“You’re a terrible liar, Sorcha. Do you know how I know? Because I can see the damned diary sticking out from under the cushions.” He clucked his tongue. “Now get down on your knees. I want to feel your lying tongue around my cock.”