Chapter 29
LEGACY
Poppy
Torch in hand, Bronte wordlessly leads us down the stairs hidden in St. Aurelius’s empty sarcophagus. Jezebel follows at my side, her snout never leaving the ground.
“No footprints.” My whisper is swallowed whole by the deafening silence. “No one has been here recently.”
“Stay on guard, and keep your sights ahead,” Bronte murmurs, his gun trained on the shadows below. “Wherever this leads, I don’t think anyone was meant to find it.”
Down and down into the dark, we venture.
All I can hear is the rhythmic crunch of frosty stone beneath our feet and the unsteady breaths leaving our lips.
The faint scent of rot sours the air as we pass skulls stacked in the earthen walls, their empty sockets crawling with plump rodents and insects with too many legs.
My calves are cramping by the time we finally step onto flat stone. Bronte’s torch pulses weakly as we slowly cross into an enclosed chamber of skulls in the walls and more tombs. Carved in the middle of the floor is a perfectly symmetrical pentagram.
My nose scrunches. “The fuck is this place?”
“It’s a necropolis.” Bronte lifts the torch high enough for us to see the hundreds of empty sockets staring down at us. “A city of bones.”
Shivers shake me from top to bottom. “Fucking creepy.”
“The Morgensterns don’t have anything like this?”
“We don’t bury our dead. We burn them and scatter the ashes.”
“For once, that sounds relatively normal.”
I scoff, backhanding his bicep. “For the thousandth time, we’re not a cult.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He grins and nudges my scowl with a knuckle. “There she is.”
My cheeks warm, his touch flinging my thoughts back to what we did upstairs. I want to do it again and so much more. But not here, not now.
“Come on.” I grab an unlit torch from a nearby sconce and light it with his. “Let’s see what the saint was so scared someone would find.”
We comb through the chamber, examining every sarcophagus layered in dust for any more hidden doors. Finding none, we stow our weapons and wander the crypt. Jezebel slinks for the stairs, guarding our backs.
“Interesting,” Bronte utters, his perplexed tone luring me over to where he’s chiseling frost from a plaque above a sealed casket. “This isn’t an Aurelius.”
I raise my torch, reading aloud, “Leon Redd.” My lips purse in response to the familiar name. "He was one of Felix's students that was hanged around his pyre."
“Why would he be buried here?”
“Hm.” I approach the next casket, cleaning the plaque.
“Cheryl Nurse.” The next. “Harper Bishop.” Chillingly, there’s no casket or plaque for my ancestor, Octavia Morgenstern.
“These are all names of Felix’s students that Emi said were mistaken for satanic witches.
What if they weren’t just his students? What if they were actually members of his cult?
His cult that was mistaken for a coven?”
“Wouldn’t that make them Leviathan’s founding families?”
“Hai, that’s what I’m thinking.”
Bronte fans out, naming more than what Emi could decipher from the scanned ledger she’d found earlier. Most are archaic surnames that died with them. “Katerina Volkova. As in…?”
“The Volkovs.” I nod. “Explains why the invitation coordinates led here, to show Nik hard evidence that he’s a Leviathan legacy. A member by birthright.”
He roams farther down and then halts as if injected with cement. “Putain.”
Slowly, I join his side and follow his stare to the plaque that reads:
BASTIAN BONAPARTE
Ice chills my veins as I recall Bronte’s discovery of a Bonaparte who’d been caught in the crossfire between my family and the Volkovs. But Leviathan isn’t destroying my empire because of a casualty that happened decades ago.
They’re out for blood—because I killed a legacy.
“I don’t understand,” I admit. “Sebastian wasn’t branded. He wasn’t a member.”
“Perhaps not. Though, he could’ve been proving his worth by showing Leviathan what he could do and how long he could get away with it. Earning his way into their ranks.”
Acidic guilt corrodes my stomach as realization dawns. “So, this is why Leviathan is destroying my life and my future. The ruination of my empire, the deaths of Jett and Fiona and countless others…it's all my fault.”
“Don’t bear that mantle, Petit Diable.” Bronte reaches for my hand, his fingers twining with mine. “You didn’t know.”
Beneath his words, all I hear is: Your fault.
My gaze floats up to the demon on his neck. Its wicked stare traps me.
“Your fault,” it croons, licking its teeth like knives.
Unnatural cold numbs my limbs. Shadows crouch at the edges of my vision. A heavy fatigue settles into my bones. It feels like the moment before death sweeps in for its final kiss.
Feline yowls fade in and out. All I see is that firelit demon and its jaws opening wide, wide as a dragon’s—
“Poppy,” growls an urgent voice. “Reviens vers moi, ma reine.”
A hand cups my cheek and tilts my chin up to twin hazel firestorms within an angel’s face. He repeats his plea, leaning his brow against mine like I can absorb the phrase entirely spoken in…French?
I blink once, twice. “Bronte?”
“Merci les anges,” he breathes, leaning back as Jezebel nudges my leg lovingly. “What the hell was that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t remember?” I shake my head, and he thumbs tears from my lashes that I don’t recall shedding. “You kept saying ‘your fault’ like a broken record.”
I gulp, trying not to let this scare the shit out of me, too.
If anything, though, this is my chance to tell him how debilitating my stress really is.
“I have a confession.” He waits for me to continue, ever patient.
“Since I was little, I’ve struggled with anxiety.
I never told my parents, though I’m sure they saw it plenty before I moved out.
When I met Bax, he suggested the vape. His batches for me are already at maximum strength, but ever since this Leviathan shit started, I’ve been having panic attacks.
Bad ones. Worse than I even thought possible. ”
Bronte nods as if this is of no surprise to him. “There have been a few instances where I noticed something was off. But you never said anything, so I figured you had it handled.”
“Well”—I laugh bitterly—“I don’t.”
“What happens when they come on? What do you feel, think, and see?”
“It’s hard to explain. Sometimes, I don’t remember. Other times, I do. Like the time we were going back to Beelzebub’s after dealing with Kai. I was numb. I didn’t have any thoughts. My tattoo was talking to me.” I drag both palms down my face. “Fuck, you probably think I’m insane.”
“No, I don’t think that at all. In fact, your episodes sound like mine: mental displacement, repetitious speech, hallucinations.”
“You get panic attacks, too?”
“Oui. For the most part, I have mine under control. It took years of learning my triggers and honing my coping mechanisms to tame them. They still happen, though, like the night you gave me this.” He skims a thumb over his scarred cheek and offers a small smile. “You’re not alone, Poppy.”
Relief soothes the worst of my fear. But the problem remains that these attacks are only getting worse the deeper into this mystery we delve.
“As comforting as that is, I don’t need yet another sword hanging over my head.”
“I know someone who specializes in our type of stress, if you’d be willing to see her.”
Hope blooms in my chest, beating back the gloom. “Who?”
“My half-sister, Virgil. She’s a therapist for people like us. She practices with discretion. You can trust her.”
I don’t hesitate. “How soon can I see her?”