Chapter 14 #2
My husband’s face darkens. “I did it because he was a miser and a murderer. After you summoned me, I roamed the entirety of Wormsloe, from end to end. One night, as I was prowling near Valenkirk, I saw Beresford and his gardener taking a woman from a coach and dragging her into the house. And she wasn’t the only one.
After I ate his soul, I saw his memories.
He raped and tortured countless women, Sybil.
I found the bodies of three victims hanging in the very chamber where I keep my collection.
The harnesses and chains in that room—those were all his.
Hence the isolated estate in the countryside, with the mansion set far back from the road.
Hence his seclusion and his reluctance to engage with his neighbors or anyone else. ”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I can show you the bodies of the last three women he killed,” my husband says calmly. “I buried them, but I can dig them up if you need proof. And I suspect there are more remains on the property.”
Again I fight the urge to vomit. I want another drink, but I’m already feeling hot and hazy. Any more alcohol and I won’t be clear-headed enough to deal with my fucking husband.
“Who else did you devour? Who else have you become?”
“You saw them!” His voice is strained, like he’s barely holding himself together. “You saw them all.”
“Why do you keep them hanging in that room?” I exclaim. “Are they trophies?”
“I told you, to be a matagot is to be a collector,” he replies. “When I bite someone, my saliva enters the body and preserves it. I must keep my subjects in a charmed, protected space if I wish to take any of those forms again.”
“The symbols on the door,” I say, more to myself than to him.
“Exactly. If a body is taken out of that room, my connection to it will fade quickly, and I won’t be able to assume that form again… unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless I eat the skin, flesh, and organs. Everything but the bones. If I do that, I no longer need the preserved carcass. In the case of the she-wolf, I ate her whole, so that form will always be mine, no matter how grotesque it may be.”
For a moment I’m torn between the impulse to vomit and the urge to swallow the rest of my drink. I opt for gulping down the burning liquor.
“Most matagots devour their victims’ bodies as well as their souls,” he says. “I have eaten animals, but not humans. I prefer an external collection rather than an internal one.”
I choke on a bitter laugh. “You think that makes you better than others of your kind?”
His bearded lips form a thin line, and he looks away.
For a moment I stay quiet, focusing on my own breathing.
I’m feeling the urge to scream at him, even though he’s doing exactly what I wanted—confessing to me and being painfully open about what he is.
Raging at him because I feel out of control won’t help the situation, and it might make him withdraw into himself.
I can’t allow that. I still have so many questions.
“You said that you are Beresford,” I say in a measured tone. “So if you only plan to be Beresford, why keep the other bodies? Why not let them go? Bury them?”
“It’s part of who we are as a species.” He says it patiently, but with a defensive edge in his voice. “We collect forms for protection, like a city with multiple walls around its center. Having only one or two forms is unheard of. It is foolish. It would leave me vulnerable.”
“Surely you could give up Herron, at least,” I say. “Leave his body for his family to find. Give them some certainty about his death.”
Regret etches his features. “I am sorry about that one. When he was in the forest, he saw me transform from Beresford into the wolf. He would have told everyone. I had to keep that from happening. But his mind was under the influence of something, a sort of magical drug, I think, and it interfered with the absorption process.”
“That’s why he acted so strange when I encountered him.”
“Yes. I took his form, thinking I would allay your fears about his disappearance, but when you showed up, I didn’t have a firm grasp on his nature or behavior. I had to improvise, and it did not go well.”
“And the others?” I prompt him. “What about the gardener?”
“When I became Beresford, I took the souls of the few servants who worked here and hired new ones. They were all complicit in Beresford’s crimes, so I feel no pity for them. When I took the old gardener’s soul, I obtained his knowledge, and I’ve used it to care for the plants.”
He pauses, examining my face. I know he’s remembering the time we spent in the greenhouse together. Maybe he’s looking for a sign that I cherish those moments, too. But I keep my expression severe. I want his entire confession. “Besides the wolf, what other animals have you eaten?”
“Shortly after the grandmother, there was an old, injured horse,” Beresford admits. “She’d been abandoned by her owner and limped into the forest. She was going to die anyway, and I was hungry. I took her form to bring you to the first orgy you attended.”
“That’s another thing I don’t understand. Why the orgies?”
A shadow crosses his handsome face. He grips his glass so tightly his fingers turn red and white.
“I hadn’t experienced any sexual pleasure in years.
I suppose I was starved for that, too. When I told you that I wanted you from the moment I first saw you, that was the truth.
I craved your sweetness, your compassion, and your beauty.
I longed to connect with the soul that set me free, on both a spiritual and a carnal level.
But before I approached you in that way, I wanted to observe sexual activity as it typically unfolds in this realm. ”
“But you had memories you could consult.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “I had the memories of the murderous Beresford, Grandmother Riquet, an old gardener, and a few morally despicable servants. If I’d relied solely on those people for information, I doubt you would have enjoyed yourself very much.”
The smile that curves my mouth is as much of a surprise to me as it is to him. I touch my lips lightly, bemused by it. Beresford’s answering smile is tentative, hopeful.
Turning from him, I set my glass back on the tray and resume my seat on the sofa. Beresford joins me, leaving a cautious distance between us. I love him for that, for respecting my space and my frame of mind. For not pushing me to grant him grace.
I love him.
Biting my lip, I gather up the sofa pillow again and resume tormenting the tassels.
“You can’t imagine how great an impression you made on me that first night,” he says softly.
“All I had known for decades was torture, weakness, starvation, and abuse. You touched me so gently and spoke to me with kindness through your own suffering. You changed everything. I left to find sustenance, yet I always knew I would return to you. The more I learned about your world, the better I understood the kind of man you would need and want. So I became him.”
“You’re male, then?” I ask uncertainly. “Not that it really matters, but… I’m curious.”
“My kind has no gender unless we choose one. I have always identified as male. It suits me, as does this form.” He looks down at himself. “You seem to like it, too.”
There’s a twinkle in his eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. He wants to move past this. My smile gave him hope that I’ll accept him, even after everything he has revealed tonight.
I close my eyes briefly, just to shut out his beautiful face, the face that I love so much. I need him out of my head so I can think.
“You’re not human,” I say, with a calmness I don’t really feel.
“I understand that you don’t fully comprehend how we think.
Even the memories you’ve gleaned aren’t a replacement for growing up human or learning our moral code.
Still, you must realize that what you’ve done is horrific.
You tricked me, killed my mentor, took the face of a murderer, and hid information about my own abilities and our first meeting.
You concealed so much, Beresford. I’m married to you, and I don’t even know your real name. ”
“My kind don’t have names,” he says. “We usually refer to ourselves by the name of our favorite form. Sometimes, in our native tongue, we use a composite designation, a descriptive phrase that encompasses the primary three subjects in our collection.”
I open my eyes again, stunned by the enormity of everything I don’t know about him. “What is this other realm that you come from?”
“I don’t know what to call it,” he says. “To me it was the only reality, until it wasn’t.”
“And the Barrow-Man lives there?”
“He does. The Barrow is an ancient pathway between realms. From her memories, I know that your Grandmother Riquet called my realm ‘the Under,’ but it isn’t so much under as other.”
“Do you know how she and my mother met?”
Beresford pauses, his gaze growing distant as if he’s sorting through the memories in his head.
“Your mother wrote to her. Your father had heard of her at court, and your mother thought perhaps she would be willing to come to Wormsloe, both to help you control your ability and to ensure that nothing could emerge from the Barrow again.”
“And since she’s gone, her influence over Wormsloe is waning,” I say. “That’s why the demons are fleeing the woods. The Barrow-Man is angry that they escaped, and he wants them back.”
“Yes. And he wants me more than all of them.”
“Then why have you been wandering the woods?” I shake my head, exasperated. “Isn’t that dangerous, not to mention foolish?”