Page 40 of Grotesque

In the post-coital bliss that had followed Corban and my escapades in the library last week, I’d almost forgotten about the small object that had fallen from Macky’s sketchbook.

I’d only found it again the following afternoon, when finally trying to create a little order in the chaos of my bedroom by putting some clothes away.

A key.

A key that had been burning a hole in my pocket ever since.

I’d been too afraid to pull it out lest it be one more thing Corban didn’t want me to have.

With the way he had reacted to the diary and the sketchbook, I suspected the key would be the same – or worse.

And with him being stuck to me like glue, I hadn’t been able to test my theory.

The only locked door in Glamis. I’d never thought much of it, but I should have. Obviously, I should have. I had tried to open it once on my first day and then forgotten about it completely. Until I found the key.

Locked doors hid secrets, and in a place like Glamis, ruled by a fae creature, it had to be something good.

Or terrible.

Tiptoeing down the stairs to the ground floor, I held my breath as I slid the key into the lock. I waited a few moments, heart thundering in my ears, but Corban didn’t appear. Even without his looming presence, something about the key sliding home made my skin crawl.

I took a deep breath and turned my wrist. The door held, then gave way with a hiss of air. I pushed it all the way open.

The smell of something sweet filtered through the air. A sweetness that reminded me of overripe, rotten fruit. That smell, while vaguely pleasant… wasn’t right. I knew it wasn’t right and yet still I looked inside.

Steep, narrow stairs angled into darkness. I cast my eyes about and spied a switch on the inside wall. Flipping it did little, the weak light illuminating only the first ten steps, leaving the rest to be swallowed by the gloom.

Perhaps this door had been locked for a reason.

I took a hesitant step down, my ears straining for any sound from Corban or from below me.

The steps were so narrow I had to turn sideways to fit my foot on them comfortably.

There was no railing to grab hold to, just dull red brick. No way this was a regular basement.

“Don’t let me break my neck,” I whispered.

BANG!

The sound was loud enough to make me jump straight out of my skin. My foot skidded and I dug my nails into the wall to keep from tripping to my death.

Bang! Bang! Bang! I whirled to face the still open door.

“Sorcha!” My name was followed by a series of garbled voices. “Do it, hurry up.”

I couldn’t tell if it was the same voice as the first but they sounded riled.I’d only made it down five steps, but I scrambled back to the top and darted for the front door where the angry voices were rising.

There was another bang against the door, splintering the frame. And just like that my fear was replaced with anger.

“Hey!” I yelled.Whoever thought they could come into my home and destroy it was in for a rude awakening.

The voices muffled. Someone peeked through one of the windows framing the door. Quint.

This fucker.

“Sorcha, let us in.”

Us. Fuck, had he called the cops? Quint alone would have been bad enough but bringing back-up? For what? Fuck, he really did have balls of steel to show up here after Corban had nearly killed him.

Or he was just a straight-up fool.

I jerked open the door. Mottled, dark green bruising crept out from beneath Quint’s collar.

The red imprints of Corban’s claws looked fresh, as if he were still bleeding from the strangulation attempt.

Petechia spotted along his face, matching the red coloring in his corneas.

If anything, time had only made Quint’s battle wounds look worse.

Jeremy and three other men stood just behind him. One pulled his sun-faded baseball cap down to hide his face; his companion, a blonde, looked at the ground with him. The other wore a 90’s band tee. In his white-knuckled grip was a wooden bat.

Before my mind could register the weapon Quint grabbed hold of me as the men pushed inside.

“What the fuck are you doing? Hey! Get out of my house!”

“Where is he?” Quint asked.He jerked me roughly against his body, his head swiveling left and right, his bloodshot eyes darting furiously.

“Come out, come out,” one of the men called.

“I live alone, dickheads,” I snarled.

Quint pulled me so hard that my feet skidded against the ground, the toes of my shoes clipping the uneven, broken floorboards as he dragged me over the threshold to the front porch.

No–the floorboard were fine, perfect as always.

I blinked away the wonky image of the house and whirled on him.

“Let go. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He stopped abruptly and looked down at me. “What the fuck is wrong with me ? That fucking monster has been torturing you and when I tried to save you, he nearly killed me.”

I turned into his body, trying to find leverage to break free. “He isn’t torturing me.”

“He’s a monster, Sorcha. I saw him.”

“He attacked you because you cornered me in a fucking bathroom. What did you think was going to happen?”

“I’m trying to save you,” he shot back. He opened his mouth and closed it, gaping like a fish. “He has you under a spell, doesn’t he? That’s what this is.”

“This isn’t beauty and the fucking beast, Quint.” How ironic that that is exactly what this was. The mortal woman had fallen for the grotesque beast, and an angry mob of men had shown up to do something about it. As far as fairy tales went, it was a classic.

Glass shattered from somewhere inside the house. I froze, allowing Quint to pull me farther away. Another sound of something breaking came from somewhere upstairs. They were destroying the house. They were going to destroy the house– my house!

I’d never felt rage before, but I supposed this was as good a time as any to experience it for myself.

It swirled inside my belly and clawed its way around my heart, up my throat, into my face until my vision flooded red.

Piercing talons sunk into the muscle within my chest, pumping my blood faster. And then everything went white hot.

The next second I was looking at Quint’s shocked face.

Maybe it was something I had said in the period of disassociation, or perhaps I had hit him.

In any case I took the opening of the stunned, stupid look he wore and slammed my elbow as hard as I could into his nose.

His head jerked back. A half second later, blood burst from his nose in an almost comically delayed reaction.

“Fuck!” He threw his hands up to his face as I slipped out of his hold and backed away.

“I will kill you before he does if you don’t get your friends the fuck out of my house,” I snarled.

“You fucking bitch. My fucking nose!” His words came out thick and wet. Quint winced as he spit out a glob of blood. Not that it helped, the torrent kept coming.

“Corban!” I screamed. I knew Corban would kill them, but they had to have known that when they walked in.

One of the men I didn’t recognize, the blonde, appeared in the doorway, blocking it. His eyes were wide, as if the commotion outside had summoned him. He looked from me to Quint and back again. I span on my heel and ran.

After a garbled shout from Quint, the man followed. His heavy steps pounded on the front porch, keeping pace with mine as I cornered the house, heading for the garden. It was a gamble, but if I could lose him in the hedges, I’d be able to double back through the kitchen doors.

What had Corban said in the kitchen that day? That the garden answered only to him?

Let’s hope it knew whose side I was on.

I was no athlete, but a burst of adrenaline sang through my blood when I heard his steps leave the hardwood of the porch as the man chased me onto the lawn. No, that was two people chasing me. Quint was right behind him. I didn’t look to confirm, I just pushed harder.

I’d traced the patterns of the hedges from the parlor balcony plenty of times, but I hadn’t actually fully explored the garden on foot, and as I broke through the entrance archway, under its fragrant wisteria, I tried not to let the sudden rush of dread slow me down.

Pausing for only a heartbeat to get my bearings, I took off in the direction I instinctively knew would lead me to the archway closest to the kitchen.

“Sorcha!” Quint panted– spat. I could feel his anger, his humiliation, burning the back of my neck as they both chased me.

Fuck he was fast, he’d overtaken the other guy and was right on my heels.

Every time I turned a corner – I didn’t remember the garden being so large when I’d looked down on it from the balcony – I thought I'd lose him, only to feel him closer than ever, and gaining.

The deadly flowers Corban had replaced Quint’s bouquet with flashed past, blurring together as I sprinted on. Somewhere behind me and to my left, on the other side of the hedge, I heard a muffled sound and then a loud thump. Like someone had tripped and fallen.

The garden seemed to be urging me onward, an invisible thread connecting me to my goal despite the impossible turns I had made, the impossible distance I had covered. There was nothing natural about this silent, rustling space, but I was hoping I could use that to my advantage.

I made another right and there – the archway – a mirror to the one I’d entered from, rose in front of me. A burning stitch clawed up my side as I tried to force myself to find another gear. I was almost there. It was so close.

But Quint was still right behind me. And he was reaching for me.

Something snagged my ankle and I stumbled, my legs buckling a little as I almost wiped out.

Quint’s momentum sent him sailing over the top of me, straight into the hedge. “Sorcha!” he shouted, trying to untangle himself from the weed-like fronds. “I’m trying to help you. What the fuck are you doing? Stop running away from me!”

A second stitch crawled up my other side. I couldn’t fucking breathe but neither could I stop. I glanced back, just in time to see a gnarled root slipping back into the earth at the base of the hedge to my left. Had a fucking hedge just helped me evade Quint?

I supposed it wouldn’t even be close the most insane thing to have happened to me at Glamis Manor.

Issuing a silent thanks to the garden I was back on my feet and running again before Quint could right himself, crossing the lawn that separated the house from the looming hedges and the secrets they clearly held.

My legs burned as I took the back steps two at a time and wrenched the French doors open, before whirling to slam and lock them behind me.

Without waiting to see where Quint had gotten to, I blew through the dining area, into the living room, where I slid to an abrupt halt.

The guy with the bat was mid-swing, and as he looked up, it slammed into the TV.

On the screen, a man was laying on a pile of glass, choking on his own blood.

Some horror rerun I had left on after breakfast.

Ironic.

I didn’t think as I grabbed an ornate vase from the nearest shelf – one of Macky’s priceless knickknacks I guessed – and charged straight at him.

I wish I could have relished the look of surprise in his eyes.

Too bad my body was moving faster than my brain, and swinging the vase at the center of his face before he could so much as raise an arm.

Crack ! I reaffirmed my grip and hit him again.

On my third swing he caught my wrist and hurled me to the side.

I cried out as I landed, hard. The vase bounced on the rug. Perfectly intact, as that wasn’t what had cracked. The man’s face was covered in blood, and beneath that, it was a mask of fury.

“We’re here to help you,” he said. He twisted his grip on the bat.

Somewhere else in the house, I heard the sound of glass shattering.

I backed away, rising to my feet as I did. “I don’t need your help. Besides, destroying my property is going to earn your ass a first-class ticket to jail.”

“Quint said you were crazy.” The man swiped a smear of blood from his cracked brow. “But he really downplayed how insane you are.”

“Haven’t you heard? Everyone that comes into Glamis goes nuts.”

Hands grabbed me from behind the same moment the man swung at me. I let whoever it was take the brunt of my weight and dropped to the ground. I looked up just in time to see the smooth edge of the bat miss me and slam into Quint’s chest.

He released me, winded, and I rolled away. As I stood for a second time, the temperature suddenly plummeted. Goosebumps sprouted over my arms as my hair began to stand on end.

Corban !

I bolted. I didn’t need to see what he was going to do to these assholes. I made a desperate push for the closest door I knew could be securely locked.

Someone yelled from upstairs, a high-pitched scream that sounded anything but human, and definitely not like anything you’d expect from a grown man.

It was followed by a loud bang and a storm of footsteps.

I slid through the still open door of the basement, my vision laser focused as I whirled to close it behind me.

Quint’s bloody face blurred as he charged through after me, but he didn’t know about the narrow steps I was standing on. He made a grab for my arm but instead pushed me back, his momentum tipping us both into free fall.

I stared up in horror as the doorway grew smaller, and the first jarring impact of the steps drove into my back, whipping my head backwards. Completely out of control, I flipped head over heels. Down, down, crashing, and rolling, I made the horrible tumble down into darkness.