SEVENTEEN
An old woman enters the bedroom, her silvery hair piled in a messy bun at the back of her head.
She walks with a slight hunch in her back and leans heavily on a knotted walking stick as she shuffles across the floor, now made slippery with blood.
A severed bit of gore sticking to the east wall falls to the floor with a little splat.
With pursed lips, she surveys the carnage, her expression more like a nursemaid inspecting a child’s room than a civilian walking in on a pile of fresh corpses.
It’s her eyes that make me stiffen in alarm: a striking, icy blue.
Identical to the unsettling little girl we had last seen fleeing into the alley.
Strega. There’s no question about it; we are looking at a witch.
“What a delightful mess you’ve made,” she remarks, clicking her tongue. She cocks her head at Dante, lips curling as she drinks him in. “If it isn’t my gallant hero. Come, dewdrop. Unless you’d prefer to become a pile of ash.”
She beckons the two of us with a bony hand, turning back for the door. I exchange a wide-eyed look with Dante, both of us caught between what the hell is happening and what other choice do we have?
In tandem, we spring into motion—him toward the doorway in pockets of shadow, while I scramble to grab our belongings. Weapons, clothes, anything we can’t spare. I sling both heavy bags over my shoulders and stuff my bare feet into my boots before racing into the hallway after them.
For a woman with a cane, the witch moves with shocking grace. We are forced to hasten to keep pace with her. Dante snatches the bags from me as we bolt down the last few stairs, effortlessly slinging them over one shoulder—allowing me to move quicker.
On the first floor, what appears to be the entire kitchen staff is filtering into the main room—faces ashen and alarmed, whispering about the body in the street, the broken window. They shout as we pass, hackles raised.
“Look away,” Dante says, distractedly lifting a hand toward them, scarcely losing momentum. The energy of his hypnotism is like flickering static this time. He’s not focused fully, his eyes darting with vigilantly to every pocket of light creeping across the floorboards. “You’ve seen nothing here.”
He doesn’t stop walking as he makes fleeting eye contact with the civilians, and I don’t get a chance to see if his authority has taken its usual sway on them.
The witch marches us into a storage pantry behind the bar, shoving aside a crate of produce with a grunt.
Beneath, a weathered hatch is set into the stone floor, the iron handle long since rusted over. She hefts it open, hinges whining.
“In you go, sweetlings.”
I step up to the edge, peering down. It’s a short drop down, but it connects to a passage that’s unfathomably dark.
My stomach does a flip as I wonder what might be waiting there, unseen.
But the witnesses will be coming out of their stupor soon, joined by half of Terralta no doubt.
Dante seems to read my racing thoughts. He leaps down, forgoing the ladder altogether.
The witch gestures to me, expectant, as the clamor in the adjoining room heightens.
Fuck me. With a silent prayer, I climb down the rickety ladder after him.
When the witch joins us and shuts the hatch behind her, it’s pitch dark. I can’t even see my own hand in front of my face until I hear the old woman whisper, and a tongue of fire ignites over her palm.
“Don’t dally.” She brushes past us into the tunnel, her tattered shawl flowing out behind her.
As we hasten along the path, the sounds of the inn fade away, buried under thick layers of mud and wet stone. I frown, saddened to think of the horses abandoned in the stables. But there was no going back for them now. We will have to find replacements elsewhere.
“So,” Dante calls up, his voice catching strangely in the passage. “You seem to, uh, know what I am. No issue there, I take it?”
“That I do.” The old woman glances over her shoulder, weathered features both maternal and insidious in the flickering glow of the lone flame. “I’ll admit it’s been some time since one with your beautiful affliction has crossed my path. The last wasn’t nearly so agreeable a specimen.”
Dante gives a derisive scoff. “Well, agreeable and vampire don’t tend to coexist. Present company excluded, of course.”
The passage twists and turns, growing more narrow as we press ahead, boots scuffing over damp, packed earth.
Soon, it’s so tight that I’m forced to file after Dante.
From behind, I see the familiar, ominous stiffening of his spine, every muscle in his back pulled tight as a bowstring.
Tension radiates off him, surely bracing for a trap.
Between the two of us, I’m certain we could make quick work of a single strega. But what if she’s leading us to a coven? My heart skips a beat when I recall how valuable virgin blood is to many worshippers of the black arts.
The path gradually ramps upward, an unmarked door coming into view. It opens into a cramped cellar, packed with crates up to the ceiling like a hedge maze. We have to squeeze between them to follow the witch up a stairway.
The witch sighs, giving Dante a warm appraisal as she shuts the cellar door behind us and notches a wooden beam overtop. “That’s better, isn’t it, dear?”
We’re standing in a thatched roof cottage, though looking around, I can’t remember passing such a dwelling on our ride into Terralta.
The curtains are already drawn tightly—like she’s been expecting him, I think—obscuring the view outside.
I mentally take note of the general direction and distance we’d traveled from the inn.
We were probably near the forest, just outside of the village walls.
“The view could be better,” Dante remarks, his hand still resting atop the dagger’s hilt on his belt. “But it’s infinitely better than becoming a pile of smoldering ash, so… Thank you.”
He eyes the chaotic shelves and work tables, herbs, and what appear to be experiments across every surface. The scent of mugwort and rosemary hang heavily in the air, along with something sour—like rot.
Even still, Dante relaxes a little, his skin slowly healing in the sanctity of the candlelight.
“Excuse the mess,” the witch clucks. She sweeps up a stack of yellowing spellbooks, clearing some space at a round table by the hearth. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
A grey shorthaired cat leaps off a shelf, its ears flat as it skulks further from us.
“My short-tempered Henri,” the witch says, chuckling as the cat glares, tail flicking. “He’ll warm to you. Be at ease, dears. It’s alright—you can have sanctuary here. No one will find you.”
“And I suppose you want something in return,” I growl, folding my arms over my chest. I glance at every corner, like more witches might materialize from the shadows to ambush us.
“Perish the thought! You’ve already eliminated those nasty hunters for me. What pests they’ve been.” The witch shakes her head. “The lot of them, chasing me through the village for days on end. I mind my own business, don’t I?”
She pulls out a chair, patting the back for me to sit.
“We’ll only be here until sunfall,” I say firmly, glancing sidelong at Dante for any protest.
“If you wish.” The witch shrugs. “You have a place here as long as you need. And by gods, you look like you need it. I hope you don’t mind me saying so. Sit! Sit, and rest. I’ll fetch something for you to drink.”
She pats the chair again, smiling at me like I’m some long-forgotten grandchild before hastening into the adjoining room.
Now that we’ve stopped running, the fog of adrenaline begins to clear, making space for a self-conscious pang about the state of myself.
I shift from foot to foot, suddenly remembering how exposed I am in my short, tattered nightgown.
I must reek, too, splattered with both human and vampire blood in places I can’t even fathom, sweat caked on my brow and back.
Even a frigid bath would be a godsend, but I can’t let my guard down in front of a damn witch.
Still, my body craves rest—it’s painful to muscle it down and stay alert.
“Do you prefer wine or coffee, dear?” I recognize the witch’s lilt, but it’s a child’s voice this time.
The young girl we’d encountered earlier trots out of the kitchen, her raven hair hanging over her shoulders in silky locks.
She brushes past me with a silver tray bearing a bowl of sugar and sets it on the table.
“I, er, don’t drink,” I stammer, slightly agape from the sudden transformation.
“How good of you,” the little girl says brightly. “A lady who likes to keep her wits about her. I can appreciate that.”
Dante lifts a brow as the girl returns back to the kitchen. He catches my stunned expression and shrugs, returning to his inspection of the shelf of jarred oddities over the fireplace. He’s particularly fixated on one that appears to have severed fingers suspended in amber fluid.
“How charming,” he mutters.
The grey cat—Henri—prowls near his feet, fur puffed. It hisses at him, ears flattened. Dante, without missing a beat, hisses back.
Loathe as I am to let my guard down, I sink into the offered seat by the fire. Dante’s gaze drifts to me—to the gash on my shoulder.
“That isn’t too deep, is it?” he asks.
I gingerly touch my shredded nightgown sleeve, still damp with blood. “I’ll live.”
When I glance back up, I’m puzzled to see him fighting off a smile.
“Something funny?” I ask tersely.
“You continue to surprise me. The feral creature you are, hiding under that sweet face.” He gives a little shrug. “You’re so tiny, I thought that last hunter would crush you.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I am not that short!”
Dante’s lips purse in a mocking pout, cocking his head to the side like my irritation only heightens my more endearing facets.
“You know,” I say, thoroughly soured under his scrutiny. “You have every opportunity not to be a complete and utter dick at any given moment.”