15. Howl at the Moon #2
The long silver pendulum swung back and forth at the base while the hands ticked, ticked…
backwards? Rubbing my eyes, I stood on my tiptoes to peer closer.
Yes, the clock was all wrong and going backwards, not forward.
Something blinked to life, and above the hands of the clock, two eyes opened.
With a gasp, I jumped back, instinctively reaching for a dagger that was no longer attached to my hip.
A mouth opened next underneath the ticking hands, which looked like a mustache now, and the clock spoke with a deep, slow voice. “Hello, newcomer. There isn’t much time left, is there?”
An unsure whimper left my throat as I backed away slowly, gripping the banister.
What the hell was that? A talking clock?
What sort of sinister magic haunted this place?
It was as if a man were trapped behind the glass…
transfixed into a grandfather clock. The horror of that thought sank in as its sleepy eyes watched me shakily inch down the stairs.
When I reached the bottom, I jolted as a squeaking mouse and a rush of gray whirled by my feet.
My cat hissed as the mouse climbed up an entryway table and perched on the base of a dripping candlestick.
With relief, I swooped the gray cat into my arms, just thankful he was okay and to have a bit of home with me in this dark and creepy place. “Where have you been?” I scolded.
“Well, firstly, he’s been shedding near the library, and, miss, not to be rude, but cat hair is terrible for books,” a small voice answered.
“Oh, goddess.” I gripped my hissing feline closer. “Is the candlestick talking now?”
The sentient grandfather clock had me questioning everything as my pulse pounded in my ears.
A tiny chestnut mouse stood on its hind legs and waved from the foot of the candle. “Pardon my manners. I am Wormwood.” He looked around with his beady little eyes. “And my wife is around here somewhere…”
My mouth dried. A talking mouse? Moving paintings, a humanistic grandfather clock…
Stumbling away from the studious rodent, my back hit something hard, and my cat leapt from my arms, running as if the devil himself were behind me.
Turning and craning my neck, my heart froze as I stared up at Spade Blackthorne.
His air of annoyance was evident in his downturned brows, a slash across his one eye shone ghastly and harsh in the dusty morning light.
I hadn’t noticed it in the darkness of the cellar.
Somehow it only accentuated his masculine and sharp features.
I wondered what witch or creature could have given it to him.
Crossing his arms, he growled. “Why the fuck are you still here?”
“Because you haven’t given me what I want yet.” I fought to steel my gaze against his and even my tone, but it was a struggle. The feel of his magic gripped my shoulders like talons of a mighty bird and dug in its sharp claws, making me squirm. I’d never felt power so dark and lethal.
The corner of his lip upturned ever so slightly as I gawked up at him, my head only coming to the tops of his ribs. Spade had to be at least seven and a half feet tall. The darkness of his hair and the pale blue glint in his gaze mirroring the dark power that pushed down on me.
“Kill me, hex me, please do.” He opened his arms in invitation. “If you survive here within our walls of bones and death.” He jerked his chin over my shoulder as I fought to breathe in his presence. Turning slowly, terror froze my body in a cold panic at what I beheld.
Six gangly skeletons stepped forward from the darkness. Had they been there the entire time? Skeletons… their bones clanked as the hollow holes in their skulls stared back at me as they inched forward.
A scream belted from my throat, and I ran—ignoring Spade’s dark chuckle in my wake. The animated skeletons didn’t reach for me as I sprinted past them, and no sounds of footfalls from Spade followed, but I ran as if I were being chased by a mighty fearcat.
I couldn’t do this.
My crone and coven were wrong.
I wasn’t ready for this kind of power and menace. These boys were so evil it stretched out over their castle, touching everything in dark magic. From artwork to wardrobes, mice and clocks, and now the walking dead traversed their lair.
No, no, no.
Home. All I could think of was home. My cozy, protected cottage with its burning logs and memories of my mothers and sister. I’d get Prism back some other way—I’d find a way. But the Blackthorne Boys were a dead end. They could very well be my end if I stayed—then I’d be no good to Prism.
My coven would mock me, look down on me for failing my quest. I was a coward, for sure, but…
the thought of hollowed skulls and clanking femurs made my chest heave as the doors to the castle opened on their own for me.
Looking over my shoulder as I pumped my arms, no one followed.
Even still, I bounded down the stone stairs and into the hills littered with graves.
Heat burned in my chest as my lungs constricted, and my overextended legs forced me to stop and catch my breath.
Clutching a cool headstone, I heaved, sweat plastering my hair to my forehead, fear screaming at me to keep going. The gates were in sight.
As my throat burned and my knees buckled beneath me, something hunched appeared through the mist. “Oh, goddess, what more?”
Coarse auburn fur covered a rounded back as something sniffed around a grave. Suddenly, the wind blew at my back, and the creature jerked—catching my scent. Instinctively, I reached between my shoulder blades, finding no arrow.
This place was worse than any wither-filled forest… and I was unarmed.
A bear? A fearcat?
In an instant of swiftness, the creature stood on hind legs, eyeing me as it did. Lifting its snout, it let out a piercing howl. With long, lanky arms hanging at its side, it took a long step toward me. Jagged teeth hung over its snout as it sniffed.
“Lycanthrope.” I trembled as I named what my witch blood knew instinctively as it howled its moon song.
There was a lycanthrope on the Blackthorne property.
It was no longer a mystery why there were so many graves.
Next to a wither, a lycanthrope had to be the strongest of creatures in the realm—and incredibly rare. I needed a spell, any spell. Racking my brain, all I could think of was an ant fog. It smelt terrible, and with a lycanthrope’s keen senses, it may stun it long enough for me to run past.
Rallying my nerve, I pushed off of the headstone and sprinted again.
The lycanthrope dropped to all fours and was still taller than me.
It snarled as I got closer and shouted, “Vermin gone, nary an insect bite, banish the mind of bugs this night.” A puff of yellow smoke exploded in the creature’s face, and it fell back, pawing at its snout as I raced past him.
Thank goddess that worked.
My relief was short lived as a howl echoed behind me. Terror shot through me. If the lycanthrope was chasing me, I wouldn’t survive. Stumbling down the slick dirt hills, somehow, I reached the gates.
My palms hit my knees as I gasped for breath. Extending a trembling palm toward the foliage laden iron, I croaked:
Thimbled skin
No force too quick
Allow my garden
No scar, no prick
The spell that had let me inside, didn’t budge. I repeated,
Thimbled skin
No force too quick
Allow my garden
No scar, no prick
After a long moment, a vine moved, then another.
Relief tempted me, until the vine shot up and toward me.
Another scream wrenched from my soul as the vine wrapped around my ankle, snaking up my thigh.
With no dagger, I pulled at it, but it was no use, as two more vines struck, swirling around my legs and lifting me upside down in the air.
Kicking with all my might, the vines only ended up wrapping around my torso, binding me like a fly woven into a spider’s trap.
Footfalls sounded, crunching dry leaves as they came.
One shadow, one piercing light, two men standing before me then.
Two men scarier than any wolf or skeleton army.
Riot snapped his fingers and the vines turned me upright.
I turned my chin, using my last bit of freedom to avoid looking at my captors.
With a small laugh, Riot snapped again, and a small vine wrapped around my chin and jerked my face towards them.
Riot picked at a piece of lint on his white shirt. “Leaving so soon and with such empty pockets, little thief?”
“I think your candlesticks are safe,” Spade drawled, regarding me with disdain. “She was scared of the mice.”
“I’m not afraid of anything ,” I spat. “But you have me bound for the second time, and you won’t let me leave, so who’s fearful of whom here?”
Riot smiled a disconcertingly wide smile and, in equal and opposite measure, his brother frowned.
“She has no idea what she’s done, does she?” Spade said lowly.
“I’m right here,” I admonished, annoyed that he treated me like I was lesser than he was. “And I may be tied up in vines, but you two are the only weak, pathetic, embarrassments I see.”
Riot took a lazy step forward. “Is that so? Do tell.”
Somehow, I momentarily slid one arm free from my binds and pointed toward the castle.
“That magic could have been put to use in Willowspire. My people are hunted by withers and stolen by Asunder. My coven’s magic is reduced to managing dust bunnies.
Meanwhile, you two fucking cowards spend your energy making mice and clocks talk and ordering the dead to do your bidding.
My sister was stolen because of your neglect.
The least you could do is release me. Let me go so I can offer the town and my sister some measure of protection that you’re too weak to provide. ”
Spade’s jaw tightened as a rumble vibrated from his throat. “You can no more exit this estate than the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs can sprout legs and saunter out.”
Riot lifted a finger. “Actually, he might be able to. I’ve been skeptical of who has been stealing from the cookie plate in the kitchen at night.”
Spade waved off Riot’s smart-assery and leveled me with a cold stare. “Even if we wanted you to fuck off, and trust me, I’d love nothing more than to rid my estate of your filth, you’re stuck.”
“I don’t understand.”
Riot came closer, his intoxicating scent enveloping me as his magic prickled down my arms. He was just as tall as his brother, and with the vines holding me up high, we were at eye level for the first time. I hated his chiseled features, his long white hair.
I hated his brother’s thick arms and wide shoulders.
I hated how my stomach flipped as my hair twirled around his long index finger.
Rearing back, I spat in his face.
“Disrespectful little—“ Spade charged forward, but Riot extended an arm across his brother’s chest.
Taking the same lock of my long dark hair, he used it to wipe the spit from his cheek.
“In a hundred years, no one has managed what you’ve done.
Though, look around you, countless have tried and failed.
” He gestured to the graves. “You made it past the wards, the house sees you as one of its own. You are a fixture of the Blackthorne Castle now.”
Fresh horror bolted through my heart like a lightning strike. The feel of both brothers’ magic danced over my body. “A fixture ?” I screeched. “What, like a-a fucking chandelier in your dining room?”
Riot lifted a shoulder. “I see you as more of a bearskin rug, personally, but sure, a chandelier.”
“No. I am not your property,” I protested as horror squeezed me tighter than the vines.
A raven cawed loudly, and I looked up as it circled us and glided down to perch on Spade’s shoulder—somehow making him all the more menacing. Spade crossed his arms as he and his onyx raven stared at me bleakly.
Riot let out a demented laugh and clapped his hands.
“But you are.” Suddenly he was upon me, gripping my face and pinching my cheeks tightly in his hateful hold.
I fought to escape, but there was no use as his hot, peppermint breath hit my lips with his reply.
“That’s exactly what you are. Good work, you dumb rat.
You are now the property of the Blackthorne Boys. ”