Chapter 50
CLICHé
Poppy
The quiet, steady crackle of burning wood slowly drags me up from an endless abyss.
Memories flash through my mind like strobe lights: frescoes; mismatched eyes; a serpent that had been lying in the shade and waiting to strike.
Quinn.
A lion wearing lamb’s skin.
Fury ignites in my veins, burning me awake. I wrench myself out of the drug’s grip, only to be choked by a collar clamped tight around my throat. Chains wrap my body from ankles to shoulders. My spine is straight as a sword, my boots planted on a slab of wood.
Am I chained to a fucking pyre?
Adrenaline dumps through my system as I frantically absorb my surroundings.
I’m in the middle of St. Aurelius’s necropolis, centered on the pentagram carved into the stone floor.
The wall sconces are lit, popping merrily in the undercroft of Leviathan’s founding families.
Smoke and the stench of burned flesh clogs the air, thick as fog.
Ash and soot stain the floor in patches, as if…
As if this is where Leviathan has been taking my family.
And burning them to death.
Fear washes through my rage. My head swings left, and I see Mama around the corner of the pyre. Papa is to my right. Both are chained and unconscious, their chins to their chests.
No. No, no, no—
“At last,” breathes a demonic voice, “she wakes.”
A pair of masked figures emerge from the farthest shadows of the crypt.
I can do nothing as they approach, their robes slithering behind them like snakes.
Their faces are completely concealed. As they near, their silhouettes take shape.
Neither of them are built like the man with heterochromia I saw at the masquerade.
“What the fuck is this?” I snarl, struggling uselessly. “I spoke with your boss. I told him to take this up with me, not my fucking family. Where is he?”
One says, “I’m afraid whoever you spoke to, Poppy, does not speak for Leviathan.”
The other says, “At least, not anymore.”
“Let’s not confuse her further, Acolyte.”
“Why not, Magus? It’s been so entertaining watching her spin in circles all these months.”
“Mm. It has, hasn’t it?”
Their sniggers sound like fiends cackling over fresh meat.
My focus darts between them, unsure who is saying what. “Is there a clause in your creepy cult handbook that says you can’t show your faces to the dead-to-be? Or are you all just fucking cowards?”
They tilt their heads and share a glance. The left one moves first, doffing the mask with gloved hands to reveal cinnamon ringlets and sapphire doe eyes.
I snicker. “How underwhelming.”
Quinn scoffs. “You’re not even going to ask me why?”
“Don’t insult my intelligence. You’re a fucking cliché, Quinn Wildes.
Raised by a cop, only to learn they’re just another shade of gray disguised in blue.
Drawn to the dark side, because, well, we have cookies and morally black men.
Speaking of the latter, you fell in love with one.
Kudos on living out the age-gap fantasy, by the way.
You discovered his secret in some way or another—let’s be honest, nobody cares—and became his understudy.
Made up that bullshit lie about being blackmailed.
Willingly helped him with the purge of my bloodline to earn yourself a place among his people.
Explains why you aren’t branded yet. But you will be, right?
After your task is complete. Oh, and let's not forget about your fake friendship with the coroner who'd been hunting me for ten years.
He gobbled up all your lies, because he sees the good in people.
But you're not good, are you? You're the villain, and you always were.” I smirk at her scowl. “Did I get anything wrong, Acolyte?”
Quinn remains damnably silent. Her superior, though, chortles as if impressed.
“You missed your calling in profiling, Poppy.”
“Wasn’t in the cards.” I shrug. “And who are you, Magus?”
“You’re not going to guess?”
“Don’t want to flex too hard. Might hurt myself.”
Another chortle. “Oh, how I’ve forgotten your fire.”
My eyebrows knit as the gloves come off first, unveiling a fresh manicure and a stunning opaline ring. Then the mask slides from golden beachwaves and a misshapen ear that I distinctly remember my bullet grazing after I’d been stabbed. Thick lashes lift, and chocolate eyes solder to mine.
I shouldn’t be shocked. We knew she was involved with Leviathan in some regard. Yet I feel like I’m staring at Medusa shedding her snakeskin.
“Margot.” I suppose the poppet we found in the academy archives wasn’t made for her, but by her. “Now, this is a surprise.”
A sinister smile spiders over her Cupid’s bow. “Would you like to psychoanalyze me now?”
“Not enough therapists in the world for that.”
“That’s what I like about you, Poppy: you’ve got balls. Unlike the rest of your boring family.” A dismissive flick of her wrist at Mama and Papa, both still knocked out cold. “So, tell me. How is Bronte? Is he as delicious in bed as his brother?”
“Fuck you.”
Margot chortles as she idly toys with the ring—the Bourbon heirloom.
It reminds me of Bronte’s eyes, the gemstone casting a kaleidoscope of colors over her grin.
“There’s a story behind this ring that isn’t widely known.
Apparently, it was forged by a guardian angel who fell in love with his mortal charge.
He was of course banished from Heaven to live eternity in Hell.
Legend says his lover ended her life early to be with him forever.
That mortal was supposedly an Aurelius. When Ancient Rome fell, the ring was lost and later found on the shores of Baie des Anges in Nice, France by a Bourbon. ”
It takes me a moment to catch onto what she’s really saying. “You targeted Dante for the ring. His past didn’t scare you off. You got what you wanted and left.”
“Très bien, ma chérie. Let’s try another round, shall we? While we’re on the subject of ancient history, do you know what happened to our founding families?”
“They were all hung while Felix burned.”
“All except…?”
“Octavia Morgenstern.”
“Bravo. Why?”
“She flew from the noose on her broomstick.”
Margot’s dark gaze slides to Quinn. “Do you remember the story, Acolyte?”
“Of course, Magus. Upon joining our Father’s inner circle, Octavia was promised a cure for her infertility.
A ritual was planned to fulfill this vow, along with those promised to the other members, but the night of their sabbath was raided by witch hunters.
Octavia stood at the noose alongside her peers and watched our Father burn.
She prayed to Lucifer to save their lives. He saved only her life, and—”
My snort cuts her off. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“I assure you, Poppy,” Margot says, “you’ll want to listen closely.”
“This is fucking psychotic, but sure. Finish your pitch. Not like I’m going anywhere.”
Margot nods to Quinn, who continues, “In exchange for saving her life, Octavia agreed to bear Lucifer’s child. Rumor has it they were star-crossed lovers and that he forged her a ring of black diamonds not unlike the Aurelius ring.”
My attention flits briefly to Mama’s ring. Swallowing suddenly becomes a Herculean effort. What are the chances this is all fucking real?
No. It’s not real. It’s just more stories told by a radical and ludicrous satanic cult.
I bark a laugh, half hoping my parents wake up. They don’t. “So, you’re telling me that my ancestor was in love with the Devil, and I’m from a long line of Antichrists?”
Quinn arches an eyebrow. “Who’s the cliché now?”
Margot lays a silencing hand on Quinn’s shoulder.
“You’re focusing on the wrong angle, Poppy.
Everyone was meant to die that night. Octavia cheated death.
No one does so without disastrous consequences.
Look at all that’s happened to your family over the years since then: your war with the Volkovs, the fall of your empire.
Don’t you see? A debt has yet to be paid.
Death won’t stop until it’s collected what’s owed. ”
I don’t believe any of it, but she does. So, I play along.
The longer she talks, the more time I have to get out of this mess. Bronte will be looking for me by now, especially if he checked that tracker and found it inactive.
“Where does Sebastian fit in?”
Margot drifts to the Bonaparte casket, drawing her fingertips through the dust. “Many of us have been lying in wait for the moment we could make a move to undo Octavia’s curse without breaking our most fundamental rule: We, the Church, do not engage in the Crown’s affairs.
There’s been disagreement among our ranks regarding how to handle the death of a legacy by your hand, causing a rift in leadership and splitting all the way down to the bone.
Simply put, we are at war with ourselves.
Our people are now slaughtering each other.
Death’s curse has afflicted us as surely as you.
The only way to stop it is to correct Octavia’s mistake and satisfy death’s craving by spilling every last drop of Morgenstern blood.
” Her gaze pins mine like nails in a coffin. “And begging Lucifer for forgiveness.”
My upper lip curls. Here I am thinking I’m insane.
Margot suddenly brandishes a wicked knife from her sleeve and grabs Quinn’s curls. In a blink, blood splatters the stone at their feet. Quinn gasps, hands flying to her slit throat.
And the lion becomes the lamb.
“Your sacrifice will be remembered, Acolyte,” Margot murmurs, watching Quinn drop with bored apathy. “Rest now in the fires of Hell.”
Rage flickers within me once more. If anyone had the right to claim that cunt's life, it should've been Bronte.
Quinn twitches in the last throes of death. Her irises dull as her blood soaks into the pentagram. Margot wastes no time, conjuring a ball of flame with a mere flick of her wrist and tossing it into the kindling circling the pyre.
“What the fuck?” I shout, unable to comprehend what I just witnessed. “What are you?”
“I’m a witch, Poppy.” Margot kneels outside the pentagram, drawing a grimoire from her robes with a wicked grin. “Hush now. It’ll all make sense soon.”
Her eyes roll back as she chants Latin verses. As if she’s actually planning to summon the fucking Devil.
Flames lick at the bottom of my boots. Their stifling heat scorches my lungs. Mama and Papa are still asleep, unaware they’re about to be burned alive.
An impossible breeze lifts my hair, an electric current sliding over my skin. My eyes play tricks on me, elongating the shadows. I swear I see the pentagram pulse a vibrant, bloody red.
Not real. It’s not fucking real.
Smoke swirls around the pyre, gripping my throat tight. My eyes slam shut against the sting. I don’t know what is happening or how. Magic is fiction, not reality. Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’ve finally lost what little I had left of my sanity.
It doesn’t matter because I’m about to die.
But it’s not myself that I care about. It’s my parents on either side of me, the mother and father I’ve been lucky enough to have my entire life. It’s the people I’d be leaving behind. It’s the man I fell for, the angel of a soul I trusted enough with my whole black heart.
For just a moment, I imagine what we would’ve looked like captured on canvas beside each other. Bronte, his arms around me like protective wings. Me, wearing a crown like a halo and clinging to him as if he’s my salvation.
My king. My angel.
The love of my life.
As the heat of the flames flares hot enough to scald my skin, I don’t pray to the stars.
I pray to the only angel that I believe in.