Page 13 of Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Thirteen

I ran into the cloakroom that adjoined the front parlor, pulling the door closed behind me. It took but a moment for my vampiric eyes to adjust to its suffocating dark. A slanting ray of firelight spilled through the keyhole. Crouched on the floor, I shoved aside the cloaks and jackets and forgotten cleaning supplies to peer through it. The vantage point was frustrating, though I could feel Morrigan—feel her power snaking its way toward me, coiling tight in my blood.

Palms braced against the doorframe, I went still. The skittering in the eaves became a terrible cacophony of shrill squeaking. The fire in the hearth went out in a cloud of acrid smoke, from which a swarm of bats burst forth. They flew down through the chimney and filled the parlor with their screeching and restless wings, wheeling about Morrigan’s head, knocking the teacup from Josephine’s hands, accosting Gwen with claws and fangs. Hundreds of them, their fluttering shadows thrown across the walls by the low-lit gaslamps.

Then the creatures and the shadows became one. And Lady Tremaine—Sonia—stood in our parlor in their place, draped partially in shadow.

I slapped a hand over my mouth for wont of anything else to do. My breath froze in my lungs, though it wished to flee in panic. I couldn’t see all of her from the keyhole—just the waves of her silvery hair, unbound and frazzled by sea-wind, her dark crimson skirts, a cloak that was neither brown nor plum but a muted shade somewhere in between, embroidered with leaf-shaped flourishes and the swarm of bats that had whisked her here.

Hold onto the tether , Morrigan whispered into my thoughts. She cannot find you.

I couldn’t bear to think of the power she was expelling to shield me from Sonia like this. Tearing open an old wound to keep me safe.

“It was rather thoughtful, your gift,” Sonia said. Her voice was the smoke that had begun to dissipate, a steely-cold rasp. “Saved me the trouble of cleaning an ugly mess, it seems. But…that had to have hurt . Didn’t it, Morrigan? You look unwell.”

“Look what you’ve done to yourself.” Morrigan choked through gritted teeth, fangs bared. “An abomination.”

Whatever it was that Morrigan had discovered was not within my limited sight. I heard her slow, deliberate footsteps across the rug, pacing closer to me. Pushing away from the door, I shoved into the curtain of cloaks and winter overcoats to my right, trying to disappear behind them. Closing my eyes, I could do nothing except listen and feel. Her power thrummed, but Morrigan held tight to me. And I held onto her, for all the good it did.

Morrigan cried out. I heard the muted thump of her body collapsing to the floor, then the protests of Gwen and Josephine until their words bent and twisted into sounds of torturous pain. Sonia’s power choked the entire room—there was a strange quality to it, burning cold instead of the scorching iron I was used to with Morrigan. It moved and felt like poison, a chilling, toxic fog that seized life from the air, a monster unto itself .

“It feels good to be back in the old coven-house,” she said. “It’s been a sore spot of mine, losing it to you.”

Morrigan sputtered. “You…never would have deserved it.”

Her words came out hoarse and gurgling, and the sick, wet sound made my heart clench in my chest. I rushed to the keyhole again, disentangling from the forest of cloaks to press my eye to the brass opening. Morrigan lay at an odd angle on her hands and knees. Her blood was thick in the parlor-room, the dark stain of it growing on the rug. Sonia merely brushed by her and left Morrigan gasping, clutching at her chest.

“Ah, there you are.” Sonia clicked her tongue. “You bleed so easily for me.”

Josephine and Gwen were rooted to the floor, forced to watch on, their arms twisted behind their backs. Gwen had scrapes across the swell of her cheek and the bridge of her nose that were slowly healing. Josephine’s hands clenched and unfurled behind her back, attempting to fight Sonia’s hold on her blood. Sonia forced them roughly to their knees.

She’d trapped our coven under her spell without flinching. All this power lying in wait within me and Morrigan held it back.

You’re dying , I thought, hoping Morrigan was close enough to hear it. Would my thoughts speak to hers as she’d spoken to me? Let me help. Tell me what I should do.

Sonia’s only playing a game, Morrigan replied. If she killed us right away, it would bore her to tears. Stay quiet. No interfering. Her energy was waning even speaking into my thoughts. She doesn’t know you’re here, and I don’t want to find out what she’ll do if she does.

“Rotten to your core,” Josephine said. “At least there’s no hiding it now.”

“I only did what neither of you never had the strength for,” Sonia said. “You were always a coward, Morrigan. Even after all this time, you’re just as weak…just as pathetic and uninspired. While you were teaching yourself to pull bloodstains out of clothing, I became an architect of curses. ”

“By drinking the blood of other monsters.” Morrigan groaned. “Poisoning your own.”

“I look forward to exposing you for the fragile, breakable creature you are. Everyone in the harbor will finally see what I’ve always seen in you. You were never fit for sorcery—Dreadmist must have a real blood sorcerer to lead them, not a wounded little bat.”

Morrigan’s power lashed out to meet Sonia’s, a parrying of bloody blades, a convergence that the gaslamps bowed to, guttering in their glass sconces. Frost dousing fire, iron clashing around a shadow. Whatever Morrigan had intended of her sorcery, growling under the weight of her splitting pain, Sonia did not feel the bite of it. Not so much as a sting. I saw the silhouette of Sonia’s hands moving, casting her ill intentions.

Josephine and Gwen yelled for Morrigan to stop, but of course she wouldn’t, ripping that century-and-a-half old scar to try and inflict her bloody will upon her former coven-mate. Playing her game, no matter what price she paid. Sonia silenced them both, flinging Gwen somewhere out of my sightline where I heard the tinkling of shattered glass eclipsed by her cursing. Josephine flew backward into the hearth, where the burned-away logs crackled and the impact sent up a fresh cloud of cinders and soot.

“Stop this, Sonia,” Morrigan begged.

Sonia loomed over where Morrigan had sprawled onto her stomach, blood coating her face and hands, drying on the collar of her tunic. Sonia laughed, tilting her head at Morrigan. “Why? Aren’t you going to save them yourself? I gave you over a hundred years. You haven’t learned anything new?” She kicked at Morrigan’s side until she turned over onto her back, shuddering with a groan.

It took everything within me not to break through the door, break Morrigan’s protective hold, and wrestle Sonia to the ground, sorcery or not. I fisted my hand against the door, nails biting my palm. She was wasting energy on me; if she wasn’t shielding me from Sonia, she could’ve fought back.

One day she would pay the price for this. One day I would return the favor, make Sonia writhe in agony for everything she’d done.

Morrigan glared up at her. “I couldn’t watch you destroy yourself. But you always did enjoy having an audience. Craven and bloodthirsty for attention, as usual.”

“I’ve only flourished in your absence,” she said. “You can’t bear that, can you? Watching me succeed where you’ve failed.”

“Oh shut it, you old crone,” Gwen cut in. She’d shuffled back into the sight of the keyhole, her hands braced against the settee. “Do you ever tire of hearing your own voice?”

“Haven’t missed yours at all,” Sonia countered.

She readied for another strike, a tendril of cold shadow raising the fine hairs on the nape of my neck. Entirely different from what I’d felt in the presence of Clarabella, this was ominous and corrupt. A wisp of evil in its distilled form.

Sonia gasped a cry, so sudden my heart leapt with a painful twinge, thinking she had struck Morrigan again. But it was Sonia who had been hurt, tearing at her cloak, at her dress’ sleeves, moving around so much that I couldn’t see what was happening to her. Perhaps her body was escaping into hundreds of bats again or there were thousands of tiny spiders crawling under her skin.

“You’ve gotten more insufferable since we’ve last had the displeasure of your company,” Josephine said. I saw half of her from this unfortunate vantage point, her blouse and skirts dusty with soot. “The demon blood must like it, the rot inside you. Have you missed it? The sun’s fatal kiss?”

Demon blood. Is that what she’s using?

“Sharp as ever, Josephine. You’ve learned some new tricks.” Sonia smirked, cradling her wrist against her chest. She was breathing heavily now, and I caught the scent of what I thought was charred flesh. “A shame you’re still wasting your talents on a dying coven. There’s still room enough in mine, if you’ve had all you can take. Break your curse. I’ll give you back your lovely wife, and we’ll call it even.”

Josephine didn’t hesitate. She scoffed, quick and precise with her wit. “How’s about I melt your blood and bones and turn you into a chamber pot…then we’ll call it even .”

“Nicely done, Jo,” Gwen praised.

“Well,” Sonia said through gritted fangs, “as long as we’re all here, save for dearest Clarabella…”

After the rustling of her clothes, I watched as she brandished a knife from inside her cloak. A flourish, and Morrigan’s arm moved against her will, rolling off her chest and stretching outward as if she wanted to reach for something. Before either Josephine or Gwen could shout, Sonia laid what appeared to be a thin parcel in Morrigan’s palm and stabbed the knife through both. Morrigan bit back her screaming to a whimper, but Sonia held out her palms, pinning Josephine and Gwen where they stood. Their arms were motionless, tightly bound to their sides.

I covered my mouth with both hands, swallowing Morrigan’s name before it could give me away. The light through the keyhole and everything beyond it became a watery haze. Teardrops marked silent trails down my face.

“I wanted the honor of delivering this to you personally. I know you and your…coven,” she sneered at the word, a derisive glance thrown to Gwen and Josephine, “are short on time, but your presence is requested for the autumn Blood Moon. It always makes the perfect backdrop for a ball, don’t you agree? I do hope you’ll be there. Wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

Sonia tugged in her cloak and became smoke and shadow again, the dark undulating where she once stood, forming silhouettes. Shapes blossomed from coils of pitch-black, rising into a colony of screeching bats. They took one last sweep around the parlor, flying low, grazing Josephine and Gwen before they vanished into the chimney. I could still hear them, their piercing chirps echoing across the rooftops before they finally took off into the night.

The tether connecting me to Morrigan snapped, her protective ward around me withering away the moment the last bat disappeared up the chimney.

Morrigan’s scream tore my soul apart. She collapsed, not even able to muster the strength to remove the knife that staked her to the floor.

I burst out of the cloakroom with such force and speed that the door splintered to pieces behind me. Crawling across the bloodstained rug on my hands and knees, it was another torture of Sonia’s to listen to Morrigan’s pained weeping. I grasped the knife hilt and wrenched the blade up as quickly as I could. It clattered onto the tiles in front of the hearth, the blade speckled red. As soon as it was out, the wound began to close, pulling most of Morrigan’s blood back into her veins, a tide of scarlet receding.

Yet I couldn’t ignore the way it still dripped from her lips, stained her fangs, her chin. The coldness of Sonia’s power slithering between Morrigan’s bones, strangling her sorcery. I said nothing—I couldn’t find the words—and pulled Morrigan’s head into my lap, kissing her hair while I cradled her to me.

She grasped at my arms, relaxing. “It’s all right. I’m fine now,” she reassured, but my heart did not want to believe her. The parlor was all but soaked in the smell of her spilled blood. Breath rattled out of her, shallow and fast. “I’m healing. Is everyone else…all right?”

Gwen waved off the question, dropping onto the settee. Josephine muttered her own assurances, dusting cinders from her clothes. She stooped to pick up whatever had fallen to the floor once I’d released Morrigan from the knife’s blade. Josephine broke the wax seal with her fingernail, unfolding the sturdy, cream-colored parchment paper that now bore Morrigan’s blood .

Her short laugh was bitter. “Lady Sonia Tremaine,” Josephine paced in front of the hearth as she read the gilded lettering, “and her coven ‘require the pleasure of your company at ten o’clock on October the thirty-first, beneath the rise of the autumn Blood Moon,’ to—according to her—‘usher Dreadmist Harbor into a glorious new age of prosperity and strength.’”

Gwen made a face. “Sounds promising.”

“That is not an idle threat,” Morrigan warned, sagging into me, defeat weighing on her. “She’s crafting with ichor. Draining it, letting it consume her in return. I felt it in her, colder than death. Who knows how long she’s been working with it.”

Josephine nodded. “Saw it in her eyes.”

“Ichor…? Do you mean to tell me she’s been feeding on demon’s blood?” I asked. Morrigan craned her neck to meet my wide eyes, touching my cheek—still dampened from tears—with her knuckles.

“Sonia’s never been a choosy one,” Gwen said. “But how do you think that tastes ? Because it can’t be any better than gutter rubbish.”

“To be crafting sorcery with ichor…” Josephine trailed off for a moment, collecting her swiftly-moving thoughts. “Those who align themselves with demons are willing to sacrifice. And for what? The cost is unfathomable. Even when I lost Bella, I never considered it. I was desperate, not self-destructive.”

“Power,” Morrigan answered. “Vampires who wade into the dark pool of sorcery always risk being corrupted by it—by their own greed.”

“I think the corruption’s always been there,” Josephine said. “This power just revealed it.”

“There’s only one reason why Sonia would ever return to Dreadmist Harbor. If we don’t get ahead of her coven, she’ll destroy what’s left of ours, and that’s only the start. I’m too weak to fight her,” Morrigan continued, a hoarse, raw whisper. “I’ll never survive her like this. ”

“Don’t listen to her, Mor,” Gwen replied. “Sonia doesn’t know anything about you. Hasn’t in a century and a half.”

“But she’s right,” Morrigan insisted. “We have the proof of it in this room, soaking into the rugs as we speak.”

I buried my fingers in her hair. “Don’t say that.”

“The truth is never easy. Neither is admitting one’s flaws.”

“Sonia’s always made you doubt yourself even when the two of you were studying together,” Josephine reminded. “Goes after your weak points…it’s what she’s good at. But she’s smoke and mirrors, Morrigan. We’ve seen that. She is nothing without that ichor. Nothing .”

Morrigan’s laugh soured into bitterness. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“I would,” Josephine persisted. “The only reason she split us apart is because she had demon’s blood—we just didn’t know it for sure at the time. She’s falling apart at the seams, little by little. You saw that feral look in her eyes.”

“Only she has the means to hold it off…through sheer power alone, I’d imagine,” I said.

“Her deal will come due,” Josephine promised.

“Not soon enough.”

“Everything has its price,” Gwen agreed. “She’ll get what’s hers, and she won’t like it…facing the consequences of her meddling with things she shouldn’t. You know who will enjoy it, though? Our coven. We’ll put her on our mantelpiece once Jo’s through with her. Fashion her into a gold candelabra or something.”

Josephine grinned. “I was serious about the chamber pot.” The invitation, tacky with Morrigan’s blood, hit the table under the flat of Josephine’s palm. “Though I have been after a new bathtub…might take a bit of work cleaning up the mess, but I think I could get enough. Something in white gold would—”

“We need her blood,” I cut in, the realization bolting through me with a renewed fervor. “‘All curses made in blood must be broken with blood.’ That’s what Morrigan said, yes? I can get it.”