Page 5 of Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Five

B efore I knew it, I’d been with the coven for an entire week.

It was then that I’d been allowed to leave Morrigan’s bedchamber—and her attentive, sometimes anxious care—to explore my new home and get my bearings in this unfamiliar place. It seemed that they trusted me if they let me wander. And I was more sure of myself now, less fatigued, ready to put my new vampiric senses to the test.

No matter where I was, I could hear the beating of Morrigan’s heart, a susurration ebbing and flowing as the sea that broke upon the rocky cliffs. And if I quieted myself, I could make out Gwen’s and Josephine’s. It had to be part of the magic I’d inherited through blood, but I wasn’t yet skilled enough to tell my new coven-mates apart from their pulses alone.

Getting lost in the estate’s labyrinthine halls was far too easy, though I supposed it was a part of the learning, finding my own way. Like Sonia’s coven-house, I encountered locked doors, unused rooms that had been closed off since their cataclysmic fracturing.

For all its drafty windows and ancient black stone—always chilly to the touch—and high, shadowy ceilings, their cliffside estate felt more comfortable than Sonia’s sprawling, dimly-lit castle. Perhaps I’d tired of its enduring gloom because I’d spent countless days scrubbing floors and dusting every nook and wall hanging even though it was a futile effort. Dust and cobwebs flourished in that ruin. It didn’t seem to care how often I tried to fight them off.

There were always a great number of candles burning about the cliffside estate, warm gold dispelling the many shadows that liked to gather, forcing them into the deepest corners. The usual tapers stood in elegant sconces and candelabras, the mild scent of beeswax filling the rooms. Wax often overflowed wherever it pleased, adorning mantlepieces and tables and alcoves.

And still I found candles in shapes I’d never seen before nestled among them. A fallen autumn leaf carrying a scent like spiced apples. Hearty pumpkins that had an aroma of a freshly baked pie. Outstretched bat wings, where I scented stormy air and salt and sea. And the most abundant—candle wax that held the exact form of a mortal skull, dark with what smelled like cold rain on a smoky autumn night and slight undercurrent of pomegranate.

It made me think of Morrigan.

“Those are Gwen’s doing,” Josephine said, when she caught me hefting a waxy skull in my palms, the wick unlit. I’d never held a real one, but the proportions and intricate details seemed to be precise. It was a little unsettling, the hollows of its eyes. “She likes to do the decorating for the autumn season. She’s set to work on an anatomically correct heart next. Had to hunt down healers’ textbooks for her. She’s meticulous about details.”

I lifted the skull-candle to eye level, squinting. “And the pumpkins? With the red flames?”

Josephine fought to control the wayward stack of books in her arms while she balanced on the second last step of the spiral staircase. She’d been on her way back up to the tower, which seemed to occupy most of her time, as she could scarcely be found in the halls. “Gwen only carved up the pumpkins. That ,” she drawled with a smirk, “is an alchemist’s trick.”

I shot her an interested glance. “Like the warming bottles.”

Something mischievous alighted in her laughter. “Almost.”

“How does it work?”

Her answer drifted downward, reverberating, already halfway up the staircase’s spiral. “Trade secret.”

As I ventured down the corridors, I discovered Gwen indeed had a talent for filling every corner with seasonal decorations. Carved pumpkins sat on the staircases and windowsills and the darkened corners of each hallway, filling them with flickering red light. Seasonal mums were abundant, from the parlor-room hearths to the dining room and the seldom-used kitchen. Gwen had taken care in their arrangements, blending rusty oranges with deep reds and yellows, and wine-purple.

October was a festive month all across Dreadmist Harbor, one that we took as seriously as the old ghost stories that had been passed down through generations about the wharf. It was the season of the macabre, where the infamous fog tucked in close and thick and the days gathered an almost mystical darkness. Dreadmist reveled in it—the season of decaying leaves and howling tempests, of grinning pumpkins adorning its streets and windows, of lavish balls and séances and dark indulgences.

At month’s end, we’d celebrate the autumn Blood Moon, a tradition once begun by the ancient vampires who had settled the harbor. For them it had been a harbinger of Dreadmist’s founding, a seemingly divine omen of their sanguine desires. Every thirty-first day of October since, a blood-red moon had risen on that night to turn the sky an otherworldly crimson.

I’d begun to wonder if the cliffside estate held its own untold ghost story.

A woman’s distressed weeping had lured me to a forgotten wing on the lower floor one evening. I had thought it might have been Gwen or Josephine, but I couldn’t sense either of their heartbeats. The sound was everywhere and faraway at once; an apparition, a lost memory echoing into the present. I found no one, though the woman’s crying resonated still, prickling strangely at my ears. It brought to mind the ancient folktales heeded by generations of sailors and fishermen, warning them not to be tempted to a watery grave by a siren’s ethereal song.

The corridor was long abandoned. There were no gaslights here, just unlit sconces—brass bats in flight—and several inches of dust upon everything.

A set of floor-to-ceiling doors occupied the end of the wing, the black wood inlaid with more bronze bats, guarded by a pair of snarling, fanged gargoyles that had held candles at one time or another. I laid my hand atop one of the door handles, its crystalline facets glimmering weakly like rubies. It didn’t want to turn in my grasp.

“Elspeth?” Gwen’s bright voice filled the silent corridor, making me startle. “Is that you? Mor’s been wondering where you’d gotten to.”

She appeared, barefoot despite the uninviting stone floors, in a sage green day dress, her pale red-gold hair tamed into an elegant updo, curled strands framing her round face. A paper garland of rich autumn colors was draped between her arms, fashioned into different shapes.

“I’m sorry… Is there a key to these doors?”

“If it still exists,” she said, breezing past me, leaving the cold of the neglected wing as quickly as she could without a glance spared, “it’s gone missing over the last century and a half. Morrigan’s in the front parlor.”

I hadn’t gotten the chance to ask about the weeping woman or what the doors kept locked behind them.

I found my way back eventually, though I was delayed a few minutes more when I took a wrong turn down what I supposed might’ve once been a back stairwell used by housekeeping staff.

Morrigan lounged on one of the settees in the front parlor, a half empty teacup left on the table. Scarlet stained the delicate porcelain, patterned with rust-orange bats with their wings spread. So many bleak reminders of their curse left as artifacts all around the estate—how could they stand the sight of them?

“Hungry?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” I sunk down beside her. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long.”

She dismissed the notion with an absent flick of her wrist. “I’d rather you acquainted yourself with the house. Are you finding everything all right?”

“Mostly.”

I watched her bring the cup to her lips, casual as if it had contained tea with sugar instead of blood. I’d taken all of my feedings straight from the vein so far. From what I’d learned, vampires preferred it fresh—and now I understood why—but others had it delivered to their households to keep in the icebox, same as the daily milk and eggs.

Mortals and dhampir were not shy about keeping the harbor’s stores well-stocked. I’d never given blood, but I’d heard friends’ stories of the blood brothels strewn about the harbor and how they accommodated different social sets. The method of collection was said to be as pleasurable as the bite. When done correctly, of course.

Whose blood had Morrigan taken? The stab of jealousy seemed unfounded and visceral, since I was in no position to have her feed from me yet. She’d told me just yesterday it would be some time before I had the strength, and that sharing became easier once the fledgling bloodlust subsided.

Morrigan drained the cup and set it aside. “I’m sorry to interrupt your exploring,” she said. The vibrant, deep ocean blue of the gemstone in her ring flashed against the light as she combed her fingers through her hair. “There’s the urgent matter of a wayward vampire we must attend to now that you’ve recovered.” She rested her hand on my knee, thumbing circles over me. “I need you to tell me what you remember of the attack.”

“It all happened so quickly, I don’t…I don’t recall much,” I answered, the words halting. “That night feels so far behind me, I’ve forgotten the details. They’re lost to me now.”

Morrigan gathered my hand between hers. Her tone was reverent-soft, a whispered plea in some long-abandoned house of worship. “The mind protects. It buries the hardest things we have to carry. With some work, we can dig it up again. It won’t be easy. I’d rather not put you through it, but we need to find them.”

Her fingers relaxed, lacing through mine. I exhaled. “She wore a cloak. Likely made it a point not to be seen. I saw her eyes. Vampiric grey, like the harbor’s sky before a storm.”

“Anything else? Even the smallest details. Anything at all.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Morrigan released my hand to push locks of hair behind my ear, a newfound habit of hers that I quite liked. “She spared you no mercy, didn’t leave a trace of blood for me to follow. I tried. Josephine kept your bloodied clothes, brought them to her tower. Most of it had washed away in the rain.” She stretched her arm across the back of the settee behind my head. “But if you let me, I might find something from her bite.”

“You can do that?”

“Sometimes.”

Leaning my head against her arm, I stared into the fire until my vision blurred. That night was too agonizing to relive so soon. What would it do to me to feel it all again? It was a long while before I answered her, still gazing into the flames without seeing them. “If it helps us track her that much faster.”

“I’ll be quick.” Morrigan kissed my temple. “I promise.” She moved her arm and angled herself into the corner of the settee. “Lay down on your side with the scar facing toward me—yes, like that.”

I did as she asked, resting my cheek on her thigh, stretched across the cushions with my knees slightly bent. She cupped the back of my head gently, her thumb tracing an arc behind my ear, before she moved the hair away from my neck. The bite Morrigan had given to Turn me had healed without a trace left behind. But I was forever marked by the vampire who had tried so violently to claim my life.

My body remembered that violence. Even while Morrigan’s touch was light and safe and without malice, I flinched away from her questing fingers upon my neck. She recoiled and gave me a breath or two to settle. Then her fingers were in my hair, massaging against my scalp with feather-soft strokes, helping to quiet the surging terror.

“You’re all right, Elspeth,” she reminded. Her next words were hushed, an intimate vow spoken in the dark. “You’re safe with me. Close your eyes and find the beat of my heart. Follow it, anchor yourself to it.”

For the first moments, I couldn’t hear anything except the frantic pounding of my own pulse, like riotous hoofbeats on cobblestone. Almost mortal once again. I burrowed against Morrigan’s trouser leg, nuzzling into her, and I found her in the chaos—her heart calm and steady as her touch. The languid, measured pulse of an elder vampire. Strong and unwavering. My anchor amid a churning sea. She felt my measured exhale and pressed two fingers across the raised skin, ravaged by puncture wounds, scarred by the vampire’s careless brutality.

I shivered but held fast to her heart.

“Whatever happens,” she said, the air between us suddenly burning with the scent of rain-soaked iron, “you’re safe.”

At once, we were plucked from the cozy-warm parlor and dropped into the narrow alleys of the wharf draped in gloom. The air was chilled and heavy with the oncoming storm rolling in. I shivered under Morrigan’s hands. But she was there in the memory of that night instead. Though I felt the whisper of fog and scented the briny sea, it was Morrigan who had taken my place. Morrigan who had been cornered in the alley, seeking escape and finding herself an immortal’s prey, the shadowy, cloaked vampire her captive. Morrigan who stole a glimpse of the vampire’s eyes as Death hovered over her shoulder.

“I feel her,” she gasped. “I see her.”

Her fangs ripped into Morrigan’s throat—the shock of its pain tore through us both, too searing to be an illusion dredged up by her blood magic. I must’ve cried out, or perhaps it had been Morrigan, holding tight to my hip while my fingers curled into her. The connection shattered like a bolt of lightning striking the mast of a tall ship, blasting it to pieces.

A stray tear rolled down the side of my face. Morrigan’s fingers carded through my hair. Together, we rode out the aftershocks of that single memory, our breaths mingling, loud and shallow in the tranquil parlor. I rubbed at my throat as though it would banish the resonating pain. Morrigan’s hand stayed at my hip.

“It’s all right, darling,” she soothed, despite the ragged tone that threaded through it. “It’s done.”

It’s over , I repeated like a litany. It’s over. Nothing but the past.

All I scented was blood. Morrigan’s blood . It lay thick on my tongue, my fangs aching with hunger, the back of my throat watering from its heady aroma.

I bolted upright, alarm drawing my brows together. I touched her cheek lightly with my fingertips. Scarlet red dripped from one of her nostrils, the first few drops staining her tunic. “Your nose is bleeding. Are you—”

She swore. “It’s nothing.” As she pinched the bridge of her nose, growling, I caught a hint of her sorcery burning the air. Morrigan cursed again, her eyes shut, her silvered brow creased. She was lying. This was more than the pain that had reached through my memories to hurt us both.

“But it doesn’t—”

“We cannot take advantage of this, either,” she said, reading my thoughts, my restless hunger that her bleeding had stirred with surprising haste.

Morrigan moved from the couch with long strides, her uncanny elder vampire speed bringing her to the foot of the grand spiral staircase before I’d even stood. Confident and controlled and graceful in her movements, her immortal body. It would likely take me a century to outgrow my fledgling clumsiness, even if I had her power in my veins.

“Grab something warmer from the cloakroom and meet me in the foyer. We’re going to the wharf.”

“Shouldn’t we tell Gwen and Josephine?”

“No time.” She’d left my sight, but her voice resonated down the stairwell. “It’s already nightfall. Sonia’s coven-mate will be prowling about now that she doesn’t have to contend with the daylight. We must catch her, and quickly.”