Chapter 55
The guards did not allow Will to collect his luggage or put on a coat.
Six more joined them outside the gate, and they led him into the freezing night, where frost covered the fence like moss.
The guests watched from the balcony, the lights of the wedding shining through the tall glass doors and spilling into the alley.
One corner farther on, the voices and music faded.
The blood moon hung large and low above the sea, its red light making the ice resemble frozen blood.
Bloodgrove looked like the Red Hand’s palace, wrapped in a crimson spell—or was it a curse?
Will’s thoughts lagged so far behind what was happening that he felt trapped inside one of his dreams.
When had everything gone so terribly wrong?
He had the sense that he was overlooking vital details in the wild mosaic of information.
I expect no gratitude. Had Eric truly betrayed him—or had this been his misguided attempt to save him?
But from what? What had he said about Elodie and the sacrifice?
But Will knew what Elodie was planning. Elodie had made him her ally. She had told him everything—or had she? Will faltered, and the guards dragged him onward. Vampires howled in the distance, and they raised their weapons. Shaking his head, Will tore himself from his thoughts and looked around.
“The station is in the other direction.”
“We have orders from the Red Hand,” one of them snapped and shoved him onward.
Behind heavily barred windows, the residents’ lives continued, their warm lanterns offering a promise of comfort from which Will had been excluded. A few faces stared out into the street and watched him pass, but no one came to his aid.
“Where are you taking me?” Will asked, though it was hopeless. The hands gripping his arms might have been made of steel. Panic slowly seeped into his stunned mind along with the cold creeping through his wedding suit.
Gradually, he recognized some of the grand houses.
He had often accompanied Elodie to engagements here.
Across the street stood the Senate building with its three immense gates and the rosebushes to which Eric had once bound Elodie with thorny vines.
Beside it stood the courthouse, and he remembered a soirée at the home of a judge nearby.
Beyond them, the enormous silhouette, like a cathedral, rose above the rooftops, casting every other building into shadow.
Slowly, Will understood, and cold terror seized him.
The Red Hand wanted him for himself. He meant to make Will one of his vampires.
It was the perfect punishment for Elodie’s defiance, and at the same time, the man would gain the plaything he had desired since their first meeting.
Cold sweat broke across Will’s skin. It was a fate worse than what the vampires had intended for him.
Albatross. Hopelessly, he called the name into the emptiness of his heart.
The moon hung vast above the city, and the north wind carried frost from the sea.
After the angel’s revelation, he had wanted nothing more to do with the god until he knew enough to propose a new bargain, but desperation rose higher in his chest with every step.
Albatross, I need your help. Please.
His rib cage felt empty, nothing but a prison of bone and flesh holding his organs in place, the glyphs carved into him cold and silent.
Oh, Albatross, I will wait for you every night. He dug through his memories, drawing out every night they had shared, from their first encounter with his swollen belly to the embrace at the solstice. No one will ever come between us again. My darling, I am ready for you.
Something like mocking laughter echoed through his mind, and Will almost wept with relief.
What do you promise me? the Albatross asked, and suddenly Will felt the worm inside his belly. Thick and heavy, it twisted through his entrails, pushed against his abdominal wall, and a second heartbeat joined the nervous flutter of his own.
You want love, don’t you? You want my love. I will give it to you. He was not certain what he was agreeing to. Whether from now on he would wake every night with a monster above him, somewhere between pleasure and captivity, somewhere between beauty and horror. He shuddered.
But it was better than losing his free will.
Hmm… Will’s bones vibrated with the god’s voice. I will give you what you want. For now, my beautiful one. Because I love it when you call my name.
“Albatross!” Will screamed the name into the night.
The guards stopped in irritation. “Are you trying to attract the vampires?”
One of them struck Will across the back of the head.
“Albatross! Oh, my love!”
The guard holding him clapped a hand over his mouth, but Will fought free. His teeth sank into the man’s glove until he released him. “Oh, my storm, who carries my heart out onto the raging sea!”
Another guard drove the barrel of his rifle into Will’s stomach.
Will coughed and swallowed down the nausea. “Catch me when I jump!”
Before he could say anything more, white light exploded from his chest.
The guards were hurled backward. The blast thundered through the quiet night like a bolt of lightning. In the silence that followed, their bones cracked loudly as they struck the walls. Lifeless, they collapsed onto the pavement.
Only slowly did Will’s eyes adjust to the darkness again.
As though a salt-laden wind had swept over them, crystals of ice and salt crawled across the bodies.
They spread over the street like rays of sunlight, while frost flowers glittered across the windows around him and tiny snowflakes hung suspended in the air. Red moonlight fractured within them.
The houses beyond had gone dark.
Panting, Will turned in a circle among the corpses. He no longer felt the cold, but the taste of salt lay on his tongue.
You are mine, my pearl.
Salt crystals crunched beneath his soles as Will turned and ran back toward the grand townhouse.