28. Something Sharp and Hungry
28
Something Sharp and Hungry
Rory
R ory listens to the sounds of Calliope making her way up the stairs. There’s an uneasiness in his chest, a sense of forbidding. He keeps rubbing his sternum to dispel the feeling, which started as she told him about her husband and her suspicion that he isn’t dead.
If Calliope’s vampiric instincts manifest as a snarling many-eyed, horned beast, then his are black fire coursing through his body. Even now, as he stirs the potion, his hands clench with the urge to snap the unknown man’s neck.
He keeps his grip on the glass stirring rod firm but steady. He thinks again of that forest she pulled him into and the vaguely wolf-like creature that stood beside her. It’s no wonder she barely has any cravings for blood if she’s managed to tame her hunger into a creature like that, one who answers her command, however reluctantly. And what did she call it? Hun? The thing that all vampires have raging in their blood, the instinct that has caused countless deaths, torn bodies apart, drank another’s life like water and she calls it Hun.
He smiles to himself and continues stirring. A flutter of wings and Kane lands on his shoulder, claws pinching his skin.
“What’s so funny?” asks the bird, nipping at his ear.
“Nothing.” He schools his expression into something more neutral. “How was it here while we were gone?”
“It was fine. Quiet. That horse though…” Kane looks outside the window. “It’s weird. Something changed while you were gone.”
Rory removes the stirring rod and places it on a clean cloth beside the stove. “Well, it’ll be gone in three days.” He turns, shaking his shoulder to dislodge Kane, and brings over the bowls of ingredients that Calliope prepared.
He begins to add them in, slowly, stirring between each one and checking for any unintended reactions—not that he would know an unintended reaction if he saw one. He’s relying on his rusty alchemy skills to judge the quality of the final product, but there is truly no knowing if what he is doing will accidentally ruin the whole batch. He finishes with a strand of Effie’s hair and watches as the liquid bubbles up around it. It disappears under the thin teal film that quickly coalesces over the top of the potion.
Kane watches, perched on the counter, and when Rory finishes, he returns to his shoulder. “And now we wait,” he caws softly.
* * *
The days pass slowly, agonizingly so. Rory continues to feel the heavy sense of something in his chest, though he’s not quite sure what it means—if it means anything at all.
It is early-August, and all the windows stay open, the house sympathetic to the plight of its inhabitants and their intolerance of the heat. Calliope twists her hair up to keep it off her neck, though the curly mass always escapes its confines in the end. Rory relents and foregoes the long sleeves, being extra cautious in sticking close to the shadows as they shift around the house.
The cauldron sits on the stove, a dish towel draped over the top.
The days pass and Rory catches Calliope looking at him oddly, with a sparkle in her emerald eyes that he can’t quite define. He’s not sure if it’s a good look or something sad. She’s going to leave, he thinks and the heavy thing in his chest squirms .
She reads through Griselda’s grimoires, looking for a protection spell or something to help keep them hidden, to prevent intruders from happening upon the house.
When Kane isn’t in the library with her, he stays close to the porch, watching the rippling shadow of the kelpie as it circles the perimeter of the lake.
* * *
On the second day, Calliope stands on the porch, eyes darting from her canvas to the lake. She makes a stroke, just one, and Rory is amazed at how such a small addition can change the entire thing, how one swipe of a paintbrush can mean the difference between an indistinct blob and something recognizable.
But suddenly, she drops the paintbrush and sits down next to him, arms folded sullenly across her chest. He raises an eyebrow as he brings his glass to his mouth.
“It’s not doing what I want it to do,” she explains. She unfolds her arms and leans forward, elbows propped on the table. “I hate waiting.”
He drains his glass in one smooth motion. “Come on.” He ushers her into the kitchen, then through the door and into the living room. He sits at the piano, patting the spot next to him. “I’ll teach you.”
The smile that blooms across her face is radiant. The thing in his chest feels warm, full. Happy .
Her shoulder brushes against his arm. He can feel her thigh pressed against his even through the thick cotton of his jeans.
She watches his fingers eagerly as he plays a simple scale, announcing the notes as he presses down the keys one by one. She emulates him, plucking out each note and nodding. Her hair, half loose from her braid, tickles his shoulder.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
* * *
The sun begins to set on Thursday, and they stand in the kitchen, observing the cauldron.
Kane drops the adder stone he found a few days ago, and it clatters against the counter. It’s just a simple rock, smooth from the persistence of the water, but the hole in the middle of it is uniquely, perfectly round. He looks up at Rory and Calliope. “Well?” He clicks his beak. “What are you waiting for?”
Rory shares a look with Calliope. “You should do it,” he says, an encouraging hand on her back.
She nods, biting her lower lip. She steps forward and removes the cloth. The potion inside is almost translucent, though with an oily sheen to it, tiny rainbows reflecting off the surface.
She lays the stone down on a piece of white cotton and picks up a freshly cleaned paintbrush. Dipping the brush into the cauldron, she begins to coat the stone. It darkens with the liquid, but otherwise, there are no other indications that the potion is working.
When the stone is completely covered, she steps back. “I guess—I guess that’s it?”
“No way to know for sure, except to try it,” Rory says.
She grabs the stone and they all file outside into the gathering dusk. Rory follows behind her as she takes the steps down to the edge of the lake. Calliope considers the stone in her hand for a moment before bringing it up to her eye looking through the hole.
Rory watches her closely as she blinks, rotating her head to get a full view of the lake. She shakes her head. “I can’t see anything.”
“We can walk along the shore.”
Kane flies ahead as Rory helps Calliope down from the steps, his hands on her waist as she lowers herself onto the slip of mud between the stone wall of the house and the lake. She holds her skirt up with one hand, while looking through the stone. She takes a stumbling step forward, and Rory grips her waist tighter, guiding her as she awkwardly makes her way through the mud and uneven ground. They are on the northern shore of the lake when Calliope stops suddenly.
“There.” She points to a spot on the lake about twenty feet from the shore. “It’s there. Just under the water.”
She tucks the stone into the pocket of her skirt and begins to remove her shoes.
“Are you sure?” Rory squints. The lake is murky, and the center is deep—deeper than he realizes, he’s sure—but the spot where Calliope pointed isn’t that far in. Surely if the kelpie has been living in the lake for a few weeks now, she would have found it as she circled the perimeter?
“Hey, Calliope—”
His words are lost with the sound of Calliope dipping below the water. He curses, slips off his boots, and wades into the lake. Before he dips below the surface, the sky darkens, the sun now firmly nestled behind the trees and an acrid green fog rises from the surface of the lake.
Shit . That can’t be good. He dips below the water.
The cold would steal his breath away, if he needed to breathe. The edges of the lake are in darkness, but Calliope is a wisp of pale skin and blue dress in front of him.
He can see the bridle, one of its gold fixtures glinting off a small, persistent tendril of light from above. But something’s not right—the bridle is wedged underneath a rock and Calliope’s delicate fingers grapple to pull the leather bridle free.
Rory kicks forward, but before he can reach her, he watches as Effie sidles up, mane floating in a black fog. Effie is changed, no longer putting forth the effort to maintain the sleek black bulk of a creature in need. She is something sharp and hungry, now .
He kicks again, but he was never a strong swimmer, and his weight is a detriment to his progress forward. He opens his mouth to call out, but his voice is distorted, wavering toward Calliope as nothing but indistinct shapes.
Effie is quickly losing control of her form, the edges of her slipping away like oil. The horse’s eyes glow green, putrid in the darkness, set back into a skeletal face.
Calliope’s focus is narrowed onto the bridle. She doesn’t notice. Rory kicks again, pushing himself forward as quickly as his bulk will allow.
She just manages to free the bridle, when the kelpie lunges forward and snaps its teeth around Calliope’s wrist, even as Rory grabs hold of her dress, her leg, anything he can get his hands on.
But the kelpie’s grip is strong, and it drags Calliope away in a swirl of mud and algae, the fish scattering, blocking Rory’s view. Still, he swims forward, arms grabbing at everything and nothing, hoping to feel his skin connect with Calliope’s warmth, desperate to wrap his arms around her and pull her back.
He swims, reaching and grabbing but finding nothing but murky water. He thinks he yells, calls her name, a curse—he’s not sure.
Water fills his mouth. Cold and stale, it slides down his throat, fills his lungs. He will have to vomit it up later, but he keeps swimming, keeps yelling, keeps calling .
It isn’t until he reaches the shore—when the ground rises to meet him and he stands—that he realizes that the kelpie is gone and so, too, is Calliope.
* * *
Rory is standing on the shore of the lake when Kane finds him. The sun has set. The heavy thing in his chest is gone. He is numb. Hollow. Lost.
“She’s gone,” says Kane. He hops closer, feet leaving prints in the mud. “You should come—”
“It took her.” Rory tears his gaze and looks down at Kane. “It took her.”
“I know.”
And then suddenly, Rory moves. He walks quickly back to the house, taking the steps to the porch two at a time. He bangs the door open, heedless of the wall or the glass or the house at all. The lights flicker, but don’t stop. On and off, strobing until several bulbs pop and burst with the surge of energy. The windows rattle and more than a few paintings crash down to the floor.
The house looks like how Rory feels. Disheveled. Chaotic. Angry.
He moves quickly through the house, up the stairs, and barges into the library, which is in a worse state than downstairs. The walls are shaking up here and the books are falling off the shelves, tumbling down to the floor.
Kane flies after him and lands on the table, only to flutter out of the way as Rory tosses a book in his direction.
“What are you looking for?” Kane hops away as Rory tosses another book on the table.
Rory doesn’t answer Kane’s question. Instead, he says, “We’re going to get her.”
“How? Where?”
Rory picks up another book and pauses. Rare Beasts. He opens it, flips through to the back page. “Broom Hollow.” He points toward the photo of Phillipa Ledbetter and then to the address below her bio:
Last Horse Publishers
Broom Hollow, TX
Rory leaves the library.
Kane flies after him, wings beating furiously to avoid a sconce that’s been shaken loose from the wall. Rory is already at the door and Kane lands on his shoulder, talons clutching desperately for purchase as he hops down the front steps.
“What about the house?” Kane asks.
“The house will be—” Rory looks over his shoulder. Where previously a bright red door sat against the stone facade, there is now a solid wall. “The house can take care of itself,” he tells Kane. And then, quieter, aimed at the house, he adds, “I’ll get her back.”
He slides into the car, and Kane flutters awkwardly to the passenger seat.
Rory fishes his keys out of his pocket. “You don’t have to come with—fuck.” He looks down at his finger where Kane has nipped him. A small bead of blood wells up even as his healing abilities kick in.
“Don’t be foolish.” Kane’s nails poke into the fabric of the seat as he settles in. “Of course, I’m coming with you.”
Rory starts the car.