Chapter 45 Ruin & Rot #2
I stilled and shook my head, then looked around the chapel.
A pair of black boots were just visible between rows of pews, and I approached cautiously.
I had seen more than my fair share of death, and of corpses, but this one sent a chill through me.
There were no visible wounds, and he could not have died more than two hours ago, but his skin had already turned ashen gray and his eyes were sunken deep into his face.
Gaunt cheeks and dark, spidery veins gave him the appearance of someone who had died of poison several days ago.
“Don’t touch it,” said Jon quietly from behind me, “but look closer at the face.” I carefully stepped around the body and crouched beside his head. The skin around his eyes was black, as if painted, but it had a faint, oil-slick sheen to it that I recognized immediately.
“The Rot…” I looked up at Jon in horror and he nodded solemnly.
“I think we know what someone’s been doing with that cave full of Rot-infected Archer’s Cup.”
“Oh…” I fell back to sit on the cold, stone floor, holding my head and trying to steady my breathing. “Archer’s Cup…the nectar is dropped on the eyes, yes? So…someone used it on these men…”
“That would be my best guess,” Jon murmured.
“But how? Why?”
Jon’s gaze drifted over to the altar, to Sissi’s body, and the shattered top of the stone table. “Archer’s Cup creates love when it would not otherwise exist. Maybe…the bastardized flowers do the same thing with…hatred…”
“Gods above,” I groaned. “But no one has access to that cave! It’s been guarded day and night since we found it!”
“Then we need to find out who’s been there, and when. Come on, let’s keep searching. Is there anywhere else you can think where the Sisters might hide themselves? The belltower? Or a cellar of some kind?”
I gasped loudly and scrambled to my feet. “The potato cellar!”
It was all Jon could do to keep up as I raced through the corridors, trying to avoid those that were choked with black smoke or flames.
Luckily, the kitchens had not been engulfed yet, and one of the enormous, wooden preparation tables was not in its usual place.
I motioned to Jon to take one end and we slid it aside.
Beneath it was a trapdoor, with faint sounds coming from beneath.
Jon bent and grabbed the metal ring, nearly wrenching the thing off its hinges so I could kneel down and peer inside.
Through the gloomy darkness, I saw at least a dozen young, terrified faces staring up at me, and then a shrill scream rent the air.
“May!” It was Jazmina, who hauled herself out of the cellar first and nearly knocked me over. I held her tightly and allowed her to cry into my shoulder as Jon and I exchanged a grim look.
“Oh, thank the Mother, you’re safe.” I pushed her back and held her shoulders, searching for any wounds, then looked back into the cellar.
The youngest of Locksley’s Sisters had been spared, it seemed.
Some were just girls, barely fourteen, while others were only a few years behind me.
Jon held out a hand to the nearest one, but she balked at the sight of the half-naked, feral-looking man, and held up a meat cleaver.
Some of the others, I saw, were also clutching deadly kitchen implements.
“I need you all to listen,” I said firmly. “Jon is a friend, and he is here to protect us. We need to get you out immediately.”
“Sissi?” asked Jazmina, her eyes swollen and red from crying. “Teodora?”
I shook my head slowly and she let out a grief-stricken cry. Her companions began to lift themselves from the cellar one at a time, then comforting one another as best they could.
“Jaz, did you see Tuck and Will? Were they here?”
“Yes.” She and several other girls nodded. “Yes, they were both here when it started, but then Teodora ordered us into the cellar, and we didn’t know what was happening after that.”
“I need you to tell me everything,” I said, desperately keeping my voice as even as possible for her sake.
“W-well,” Jazmina stammered, “it was just a normal day, but then Sheriff Scarlett and the Iron Fist came. Sissi met them at the gates, and they told her Archbishop Piers was dead, and that they were taking control of Locksley now. Sissi refused to let the Iron Fist inside, and the Sheriff tried to arrest her, but Tuck…he had a sword…and they fought. Tuck knocked him down, and Sissi told him to…to ‘go fuck himself’.” She let out a weak giggle.
“But…he didn’t like that. They tried to come in, so Tuck and Will helped us bar the gates, but the soldiers somehow ripped them right off the hinges.
Teodora got us to the kitchens, but…May…
they just…they just started killing everyone!
” She broke down and I held her as she cried, battling tears of my own.
“Did they say why they were taking control of the Abbey?” I asked.
“Something about our tax payment,” Jazmina sniffled, “and Lady Helena’s disappearance, and all those men who were found dead in a wagon. I don’t know if you heard…wherever you’ve been…”
“Yes, I heard…” was all I said before she continued.
“The last thing I heard…was something about magyk, and the Fair Folk.”
Jon and I exchanged another desperate look.
“I need you all to come with me,” I said quietly.
“I’m taking you to the Arden, but you needn’t be afraid.
I promise.” The girls began to whisper amongst themselves, or cry softly, so I took Jazmina’s hand and led them back out into the corridor.
Jon went ahead of us, holding a kitchen knife in one hand and a huge cast iron pan in the other, while the young girls kept hold of their own improvised weapons.
But all we encountered were bodies. Too many to count, and too many to bury.
As we passed by the Iron Fist, I checked their faces for signs of the Rot.
Every single one had been infected and the pit in my stomach threatened to swallow me whole.
But I had to keep moving. One foot in front of the other, one breath and then the next, until we found an exterior door not blocked by flames.
Before I could step out, though, Jon stopped and turned around.
“Tell them to shut their eyes and join hands,” he murmured. “They don’t need to see this.”
I whispered his instructions and the girls obeyed, covering their eyes and forming a chain so I could lead them outside.
When we stepped onto the grounds, Jon put a solid hand on my shoulder and pointed.
Dangling from the top of the south wall were five bodies—all elder Sisters, including Teodora—strung up by their necks.
Their wimples had been torn off, gray hair tangled with blood, and eyes still open.
I couldn’t fight the sensation that they were staring directly at me.
Beneath their limp, bare feet, was a macabre message scrawled in black paint:
MAGYK brINGS DEATH
ONLY MARTYRS’ BLOOD
WILL CLEANSE LOCKSLEY’S SINS
My stomach lurched, and I turned to vomit on the side of the gravel pathway.
Jazmina clutched my hand tighter, but said nothing.
With no choice but to continue, to get the young Sisters to safety, I followed Jon toward the front gate.
He went out first, ensured it was safe, then beckoned us forward.
I stood aside and counted each girl as they left the Abbey in a line.
Fourteen.
Out of Locksley’s two hundred Sisters, only fourteen had survived.
And it was my fault.