Peter #2
I look at Wendy. She’s slumped in the chair, her eyes unfocused, her chest heaving. She looks like a woman who’s realised the cage doesn’t have a door because she no longer wants to leave.
“Now,” I say, standing up and offering my hand to her. “I believe it’s time for dessert. Upstairs.”
The dessert course never arrives.
Instead, the massive stained-glass windows in the dining room shatter inward in a rain of jagged, crystalline confetti. The heavy oak doors aren’t opened; they are breached.
Six men in tactical gear—Viktor’s elite, the North End’s finest wolves—swarm the room.
Vane and Torin are on their feet in a heartbeat, weapons drawn, but I don’t move.
I don’t even put down my wine glass. I just feel Wendy’s hand clutch the fabric of my sleeve, her fingers digging into my arm like talons.
A man steps forward, his face obscured by a mask until he pulls it away. It’s Mikhail, Viktor’s youngest nephew, a boy with too much ambition and not enough scars.
“Wendy,” Mikhail says, his eyes ignoring me entirely to fix on her terrified face. “We’re here to take you back. You don’t belong in this den of vipers. You’re the key to the city’s peace. You’re more important than you know, girl. Your blood is a currency you haven’t even begun to spend.”
He reaches out, his hand gloved in black leather, and grabs Wendy’s wrist to pull her from her chair.
She lets out a piercing, animalistic scream. It’s a sound of pure, instinctive terror. She doesn’t run for the door; she lunges for me. She dives behind my chair, cowering in the shadow of my shoulders, her face buried in my back as she sobs.
“Peter! Peter, please!” she shrieks, her voice raw.
I let out a slow, dark chuckle. I stand up, and the room goes deathly silent. Mikhail freezes, his hand still outstretched where Wendy’s skin had been a second before.
“Tut-tut,” I say, the sound a soft, mocking click of my tongue against my teeth. “You touched what is mine, Mikhail. And you did it at my dinner table. That’s a catastrophic breach of etiquette.”
“She’s coming with us, Hale,” Mikhail spits, though his voice wavers. “The Council decreed—”
“The Council isn’t here,” I whisper, stepping around the table. “I am.”
In a blur of movement that even Vane can’t follow, I have Mikhail by the throat. I don’t snap his neck. That would be too quick. Too merciful. I slam him onto the obsidian table—the same table where Wendy just came for me.
“Vane, Torin. Hold the others,” I command. “Julian, get the salt. The heavy bags from the pantry.”
Wendy is screaming, her hands over her ears, backing away until she hits the wall. “Peter, stop! Just let him go! Please!”
“I can’t do that, Darling,” I say, my voice sounding like a lover’s caress as I pull a silver-handled scalpel from my breast pocket. “A lesson unlearned is a mistake repeated.”
I start at Mikhail’s hairline.
Mikhail is pinned beneath me, his breath coming in shallow, pathetic hitches of terror. Behind me, the room is a chaotic tableau of drawn steel and held breath, but I only have eyes for the boy who dared to reach for what is mine.
“You have such fine, porcelain skin, Mikhail,” I murmur, the tip of the blade tracing the line of his jaw. “It’s a shame you didn’t value it enough to keep it on your bones.”
“Hale, please—” Mikhail gasps.
“Shh. Don’t spoil the acoustics.”
I press the blade in. The first cut is a clean, sharp line from his temple to his chin. A bead of red follows the steel, perfect and bright.
“Peter, stop! Oh god, Peter, please stop!” Wendy’s voice is a jagged shriek from the corner of the room. She’s on her knees, her hands over her eyes, but she’s peeking through her fingers, unable to look away from the train wreck of my mercy.
“Julian, the salt,” I call out, not breaking my rhythm.
I work with the steady, unhurried hand of a man peeling a grape. I slide the blade beneath the dermis, the sound a wet, rhythmic shick-shick-shick as the skin separates from the fascia. Mikhail’s initial scream is a high, vibrating whistle that ends in a gurgle.
“See this, Wendy?” I hold up a small flap of him, looking back at her with a wide, manic grin. “It’s like wet parchment. Nature is so incredibly delicate when you take the time to look.”
“You’re a monster!” she wails, her body racking with sobs. “You’re a fucking demon!”
“I’m a craftsman, Darling. There’s a difference.”
I grab the heavy bag of sea salt Julian holds out. I don’t dump it; I sprinkle it, a light dusting over the raw, quivering red of Mikhail’s bared chest.
Mikhail’s back arches off the table, his mouth opening in a silent, agonising O. The salt hits the exposed nerves, and his muscles begin to dance a frantic, involuntary jig.
“Oh, look at that,” I laugh, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “He’s dancing for you, Wendy! Isn’t that gallant? A North End boy giving you a private performance.”
I go back to work, stripping him down, piece by agonising piece. The room smells of iron and brine. Wendy is hyperventilating now, a thin string of bile trailing from her lip as she watches the man she once thought of as a saviour turn into a biological diagram.
“One more piece for the collection,” I grunt, finally pulling the large, singular sheet of his torso and face free. It’s heavy and warm in my hands.
I walk over to the velvet curtain rod, the blood dripping onto the mink rug in a steady drip-drop. I drape the skin over the gold bar, smoothing out the wrinkles of his face until his empty eye sockets are staring directly at the dining table.
“There,” I say, stepping back and wiping my hands on a silk napkin. “He looks much better as decor, don’t you think? Gives the room a bit of that ‘Old World’ charm.”
I turn to Wendy. She’s slumped against the wainscoting, her eyes glazed, her mind finally snapping under the sheer, gory weight of it. She’s making a low, keening sound—a broken whistle of a voice that has no words left.
“You… you killed him,” she whispers, her gaze fixed on the skin hanging like wet laundry.
“I transformed him, Wendy,” I say, kneeling beside her and pulling her head into the crook of my blood-stained neck. “I made him a permanent part of the house. Just like you. Now, stop crying. You’re getting salt in your eyes.”
I pick her up, her body limp and unresponsive in my arms, and walk past my silent, horrified lieutenants.
“Vane,” I call out over my shoulder. “Clean up the mess. But leave the laundry. I want to see it in the morning light.”
The dining room doors creak on their hinges, and for a heartbeat, the only sound is the wet drip, drip, drip of Mikhail’s essence hitting the floor. Then, a sharp, jagged intake of breath cuts through the silence.
Clara is standing in the threshold. Her hair is a bird’s nest, her expensive silk blouse torn at the shoulder from her escape, and her face is a mask of pure, unadulterated horror.
Her eyes travel from the raw, quivering heap on the obsidian table to the gold curtain rod where Mikhail’s face is currently drying.
Then, she lets out a scream that makes the remaining crystal glasses on the table vibrate. It’s a manic, lung-bursting sound, a siren of sanity breaking in real-time.
“PETER! OH MY GOD! PETER!” she shrieks, her hands flying to her mouth, her knees buckling until she’s clutching the doorframe for dear life. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? WHAT IS THAT? WHY IS HIS… WHY IS HE HANGING THERE?”
I don’t look up from Wendy’s hair. I just close my eyes for a second, a weary, bored sigh escaping my lips.
“Oh, for the love of God,” I drawl, my voice dripping with an almost comedic exhaustion. “Another one? Is it a requirement in this family that every woman must have the lung capacity of an opera singer during a crisis?”
“HE’S INSIDE OUT!” Clara bellows, her voice cracking into a frantic, sobbing laugh. She points a shaking finger at the curtain rod. “HIS FACE IS NEXT TO THE DRAPES, PETER! YOU HUNG HIM UP LIKE A FUCKING TOWEL!”
“He was damp, Clara. I didn’t want him to mildew,” I snap, finally looking at her with a look of profound annoyance.
I adjust my grip on Wendy, who is still a dead weight in my arms, her eyes fixed on the ‘laundry’ with a terrifying, blank intensity.
“And do stop pointing. It’s incredibly gauche to gesture at the guest of honour. ”
Clara stumbles into the room, her eyes darting to Vane and Julian, who are standing like statues in the shadows. “Help her! Someone help Wendy! He’s a monster! He’s a fucking butcher!”
She lunges toward us, her movements jerky and manic, but I move Wendy just out of her reach.
“Clara, darling, if you don’t lower your volume, I’m going to have Silas put you back in the library with a very large roll of duct tape,” I say, my voice regaining that sharp, witty edge.
“I’ve had a very long evening. I’ve hosted a dinner, I’ve fended off a kidnapping, and I’ve done a significant amount of upholstery work.
I am not in the mood for your theatrical debut. ”
“You’re sick!” Clara screams, her face inches from mine, her breath smelling of the cheap wine she must have found in the library. “You’re actually, genuinely insane! Look at her! Look at Wendy! You’ve broken her!”
I look down at Wendy. She isn’t crying anymore. She isn’t even blinking. She’s just staring at Mikhail’s empty eye sockets, a tiny, haunting smile tugging at the corner of her bitten lips.
“She isn’t broken, Clara,” I murmur, my voice turning soft, almost tender. “She’s just adjusting to the new decor. It takes a moment to appreciate the finer details of the Hale lifestyle.”
I stand up fully, Wendy cradled against my blood-soaked chest like a precious, shattered doll. I step over a pool of brine and blood, heading for the door.
“Vane,” I call out, not looking back. “If my sister doesn’t stop screaming within the next thirty seconds, throw a bucket of ice water on her. She’s becoming a distraction.”
“PETER! YOU CAN’T LEAVE HER WITH HIM!” Clara’s voice follows me out into the hall, a frantic, echoing wail that fades as I climb the stairs. “WENDY! WENDY, PLEASE!”
I reach the top of the stairs and kiss the top of Wendy’s head.
“Don’t mind her, Darling,” I whisper. “She’s always been a bit of a drama queen. Tomorrow, we’ll pick out some new furniture. Something to match the red.”