Chapter 32
Kat
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
I sit up with a start, my heart pounding in my chest. The room is dark, except for the slice of moonlight coming in through the window, and beside me Crane snores softly in a deep sleep.
How long have I been asleep for? Can’t have been more than an hour.
“Crane?” I whisper, putting my hand on his forehead. His skin is hot to the touch and he doesn’t stir, his eyelashes fluttering in dreams. “Crane?” I say again.
Did I just hear the ghost of Vivienne Henry outside the door?
But he sleeps on, and I don’t have the heart to wake him. I eye the bottle of laudanum on the desk and wonder if he took some when I was already asleep. Then again, after the night we had, the ritual, the blood play, the sex, the emotions, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s truly that exhausted.
I’m tired too, but I still could barely sleep. All I could think about was the fact that Crane proposed to me and I said yes. That we’re engaged. And I’m possibly pregnant with his child.
And all I could think about was Brom. I know he’s angry, I know Crane said some fairly cruel things to him out of fear, but if I could talk to Brom, maybe I could get through to him.
I saw the pain and anguish in his eyes when he said he was a stronger person with the horseman inside him, and I know why he thinks he can cling on.
But the horseman will never help Brom the way he thinks he will.
In the end, the Hessian will only divide us.
I swing my legs out of the bed, wondering how angry Crane would be if I snuck on over to Brom’s dorm to check on him, when the thumps sound again, just outside the door.
“What do you want, Vivienne Henry?” I say into the air.
Silence.
I get up, glancing back at Crane, hoping he’ll wake, but he’s still snoring away, his mouth open. I’m surprised he’s not drooling.
I grab the candlestick and conjure a flame with my finger, lighting the wick.
Even that act of magic drains me a little, but I need to be able to see.
I grab Crane’s coat and slip it on against the chill, then cross to the door and open it, peering down the hallway.
The trail of blood goes past and around the corner, just like last time.
I glance back at Crane and then softly close the door. I want to know what Vivienne has to show me this time, but I’m not about to head into the basement alone if that’s where she’s leading me.
With the candle slightly shaking in my hand, I creep down the hallway. It’s so quiet now, especially knowing that the teachers Desi and Daniels are gone, and even though Crane has mentioned that the custodian lives here too, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s disappeared.
I go around the corner, expecting to see the path of blood leading down the stairs, in which case I planned to turn around and go back to Crane’s room, but instead the blood continues across the mezzanine and turns the corner into the women’s wing.
I quicken my pace after her, careful not to get my bare feet in the blood, then slow down as I’m about to turn down the other wing.
I go around the corner…
And let out a soundless scream.
Vivienne Henry is standing a foot away from me.
The woman stares at me with her empty white eyes, her mouth a black open hole, as if she’s swallowing my screams, as if she’s going to swallow me whole.
Then she suddenly moves backward and to the side, out of my way, and points down the hall with a crooked bony finger.
I can’t even breathe, my lungs are gasping for air, and my heart feels like it might quit on me. I clutch my hands to my chest, and my gaze follows where she’s pointing.
She’s pointing at Ms. Peek’s room, the door closed.
I look back at Vivienne. She’s a rotting, festering corpse, with a giant gaping hole in the middle of her, staining her torn nightgown with crimson. It looks like all her organs have been removed and she’s bleeding profusely onto the floor.
And yet, even in those white eyes, I don’t sense anything malicious or evil. I think she’s trying to help me, not lead me into a trap.
Goodness, I hope I’m not being na?ve.
“You want me to go inside there?” I whisper to her.
Vivienne raises a finger to her nonexistent lips and nods once.
I gulp down my fear and start toward Ms. Peek’s room. It feels wrong to turn my back on Vivienne, but I do.
Then, when my hand is on the doorknob, I stop and look back at her over my shoulder.
The hall is empty.
There’s no blood either.
Vivienne Henry is gone.
I take in a deep breath and open the door, finding it unlocked.
Ms. Peek’s room is dark save for the moonlight. It looks exactly like it did when I was last here, and though there is no lit incense or cigarettes, the room smells of it anyway.
I step farther inside, leaving the door wide open, and look around. The painting of the raven has been slashed, the raven cut right out of the canvas, sending chills down my spine. Her bed is unmade, and a few drawers of her dresser are open, undergarments spilling out.
A small bottle lies toppled over on her desk, the cork beside it. I pick it up and hold it to the moonlight, seeing just a little bit of black liquid inside. I sniff it, a licorice scent, and then look at the label, which is handwritten in ink: Carbones Corrumpebant. Something with charcoal.
I put the cork back in and slip the bottle in my pocket, thinking Crane might find it useful for something.
Then I hear a splash from the bathroom.
My heart stills.
Oh God.
Leave the room, the voice inside me says. Leave the room and run to Crane.
But what if it’s Ms. Peek? What if she’s alive still?
Vivienne Henry told me to come in here, didn’t she? Isn’t she trying to help?
I try to steady my breath and I slowly, silently, creep toward to the open door of the bathroom.
I step inside and gasp, dropping the candle, the flame going out.
The bathtub is filled to the rim with blood, the full moon from outside reflecting on the surface.
And as I stand there, staring at it, the blood starts to ripple and move.
A head starts to rise out of the liquid.
At first I don’t know who it is, if it’s Ms. Peek, if it’s Vivienne, or maybe even Marie.
Then the head fully emerges, dark hair plastered down the sides of the face, rivers of blood falling away from its features. The eyes open and stare directly at me, fully black.
And familiar.
It’s my mother.
“Mother?” I squeak, frozen in shock. I don’t dare get any closer to her, but I couldn’t move even if I tried.
“Katrina,” she says, and despite the fact that her eyes look so inhuman, the fact that she’s bathing in a bathtub full of blood, she sounds normal. “You shouldn’t be here.”
I shake my head violently. “No. I…I don’t understand. Why are you here? What is this?”
Her black eyes hold my gaze steadily, and I can feel power in them that she’s using to pin me in place, like a butterfly on the wall.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to be here either,” she says, looking around, mercifully breaking her stare.
“I had a hard time getting through the wards. What has happened to this place?”
“Why are you in a bathtub of blood in Ms. Peek’s bathroom?” I ask sharply, surprised at the strength of my voice.
She stares at me for a moment before she sits up in the bath, draping her arms over the sides, blood splattering to the floor. “This is my replenishing. I do this every full moon. Though it seems this time they wanted to keep me out. Thought the wards would discourage me, did they?”
“We’re on lockdown,” I tell her. “The sisters strengthened the wards a week ago so no one could come in or out. Didn’t you know that?”
She shakes her head. “No. You know I only come here once a month. I suppose I’m lucky they made an exception for me.
Or maybe this place just knows me so well.
They may have kicked me out of their coven, but it doesn’t mean the school has done the same.
It’s probably why you’ve been able to recall what you learn here; your bloodlines are entangled with this place just as mine are. ”
I blink at her, trying to understand the horror of it all. “And you come here to sit in a bathtub of blood? Is this what you’ve been doing every month? Whose blood is this?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. After the sisters are done with the candidates, done with their organs, it’s hard to know what the person originally looked like. I took whoever was left downstairs and brought them to the first empty room. All I need is their blood.”
Left downstairs?
Dear God.
“From the web room?” I ask, feeling sick.
“From Goruun’s den,” she says darkly.
Oh, goodness. I stumble backward until I hit the wall, needing something to keep me upright. “This building sits on top of a demon’s den?” I gasp.
“Most of the buildings are built on top of something,” she explains.
“This land held magic long before the first settlers arrived, even before the covens. What my sisters did was build the school directly on top, all the better to draw up the ancient energy into the teachers and students and then back into us.”
“You mean siphon,” I say bitterly. “Just like you did to my father.”
She narrows her eyes at me, and I feel it inside my brain, like I’m being poked with a hot iron. “Your father served his purpose. He provided me with the energy and magic I needed to stay alive. It was a transaction, nothing more.”
“And you also had me to use as your pawn.”
“Better you than me,” she says coldly. “I would have had to marry Liam Van Brunt. Awful man. Your father was at least kind and entertaining.”
“So then I would be the sacrifice instead of you.”
She blinks at me, drops of blood flecking on the water. “Sacrifice? You would have had Brom’s baby, it’s what you always wanted anyway. I hardly call that a sacrifice.”
“But you would have taken the baby and then killed me and Brom.”