Chapter Twenty #2
“In a way, I was ready to meet my end,” he continued.
“I didn’t want to die, but everyone I loved was gone.
Until, one night, when the man in the bed across from me passed in his sleep.
It was common then, to witness so much death.
Only he didn’t stay dead. Later that night, he returned as a walking corpse.
There was no intelligence or awareness in him.
His eyes lacked any color and his skin was gray and gaunt.
It was terrifying to see, but Gertrude was delighted.
It was only later that I found out she was the one creating these monsters, after bringing them back from the brink of death to be her loyal soldiers.
They were nothing but empty vessels manipulated by the strings of her power, loyal only to her, their master. ”
“She was using necromancy,” she said, horrified. The practice was frowned upon, even among witches who used sacrificial magic. It rarely went right, and more often than not, souls did not want to return to this world once they passed on. Even if they did, it wasn’t pretty.
“Yes,” he said. “I was so close to death myself and knowing what my fate would become, I tried to flee but I was too weak. Then Nathaniel came,” he said, a ghost of a smile forming over his thin lips.
“He was so powerful, in everything from his stride to the way he commanded the witches there. He discovered what she was doing, how she had become possessed by the idea of growing an army, no matter the cost. See, witches were mercilessly persecuted then, so I understood her desire to protect her own. It was not her motives, but her method. To bring someone back from death, you must sacrifice an innocent. Someone pure of heart.”
“No adult is innocent,” Charlotte said.
“Exactly.”
Her stomach churned. “Oh, God.”
“She wanted to protect her family but also gain more power and she didn’t care who she had to kill to get it.
It wasn’t just her. Nathaniel’s ex-betrothed was helping her too.
They both sought immortality without resorting to vampirism.
Fortunately, Nathaniel killed them, including his mother.
We have one rule: we do not feed upon children.
For the longest time after, Nathaniel would meticulously track his prey, only feasting upon those he deemed deserving. ”
“Yet he hunted my bloodline,” she pointed out, the only thing he’d done that she actually struggled to reconcile with.
“He became desperate to become mortal again. Believe me, he hated himself for it. Then, one day, something changed and whatever shred of morals were left in him was gone.”
“What changed?”
“He thought he'd killed the last of your line and when the curse didn’t break, he lost all hope. He traded his soul to murder hundreds of your ancestors to break it, and it was all for nothing. After that, he fell into darkness, and I walked into it with him. After all, he saved me and countless others. I looked up to him. I still do.”
Her heart shattered as the scenes formed in her mind’s eye from Alexander’s words. “How is Gertrude alive?” Charlotte asked. “You said you believed Nathaniel killed her, but she might have found a way.”
“She must have.”
“Nathaniel said it could be a trick.”
“I do not believe it is, but I can hope, because if not, then we are doomed. I have lived many lifetimes and have never come across evil like that since.”
Charlotte jolted back when the doors opened. Alexander jumped to his feet, planting himself between her and the door, but it was only Zachariah.
“What happened?” Alexander asked, his voice rising an octave.
“We need you!” he stated, wild-eyed and pushed his fingers through his dark-blonde waves and out of his face. “Gertrude’s threatening to kill everyone unless Lord Sallow brings the girl.”
“What about the protections?”
Oh no.
“They didn’t work,” he replied.
“Where are they?”
“At the entrance still. Fortunately, the guests are distracted.”
“Stay here,” Alexander ordered.
“Wait–” she called out, but he was already at the doors, opening them before she could argue.
This was all her fault. If she’d know the woman who cursed her family would return, she would have taken her chances with Nathaniel. Judging from everything Alexander had said, Gertrude was far less merciful than her son.
The doors slammed shut behind them and Charlotte rushed forward, relieved to find they’d left them unlocked in their haste.
A thrum of magic ran through her when she splayed her fingers over the polished wood. There were innocent people inside. While Nathaniel and the vampires could withstand the Avery’s powers, people like Hartley couldn’t. Then there was Duke. She wouldn’t leave without him either.
“Damned to Hell,” she whispered, running her fingers down to the handle, her heart pounding in her ears.
Slowly, she opened the doors to the crowded ballroom, pushing her way into the fray. It was unlike any event she had ever been to. The beautiful dresses were torn, masks had been discarded and tossed to the ground, and drinks spilled over the marble floor.
Wisps of unruly curls flicked into her vision as she hurried toward the receiving hall.
The deeper she moved into the room, the more debaucherous it became, with couples breathing kisses against each other’s necks, hands gliding up inner thighs.
Groups of threes engaged in salacious activities enough to force a blush into Charlotte’s cheeks.
One man dragged his tongue over the throat of a lord, while his wife hiked up the skirts of her dress and pressed her palm between her legs, eyes rolling back in ecstasy.
Perfume, sweat and wine intermingled with the rising heat, making it difficult to breathe.
With labored breaths, she made it to the end of the room, her eyes fixed on the gilded doors.
Her gloved fingers grazed over the ornate woodwork as she walked into the foyer, her breath catching when she spotted the Avery witches standing in the center of the foyer, mid-argument with Nathaniel, cloaked in deep purple, their velvet hoods embroidered with silver symbols.
Under the fabric, waves of auburn hair cascaded around their chests, their genes woven in each of their freckled diamond-shaped faces. Except for the man, who stood next to the tallest of them, and the elderly woman in the middle, with dark gray hair.
“You’re not getting to her,” Nathaniel warned, with Alexander, Irene and Zachariah blocking the entrance.
She spotted Katherine, standing to the left, while two servants stood frozen by the coats, terrified to move as they watched.
Charlotte hid behind a doorway, keeping to the shadows, her heart pounding as she watched the gray-haired woman take a step forward.
Candlelight illuminated the dagger clasped in her bony fingers, and the scars marring her bulbous nose and cheeks.
Chunky necklaces, strung with crystals and talismans, bounced around her chest when she walked.
“Do you want to feel the breadth of my power again, son?”
Son.
Were it not for the resemblance of her grave-gray eyes, she would never have guessed that she was Nathaniel’s mother.
“You never said how you returned,” he snapped.
“Like you, I found a way to slow the hands of time,” she said, shrugging the comment off as if they were discussing something as trivial as the weather.
“Yet, you have remained a witch,” Alexander said from behind him.
“Indeed,” she said, removing her hood. “Now, enough chitchat.. Where is my sacrifice?”
The possessive tone set Charlotte’s nerves on edge.
Nathaniel snarled, fangs pointing over his bottom lip. “She’s not yours. She is mine.”
Her heart fluttered unexpectedly.
Step aside, my son, and allow me to finish this,” she said, her eyes cutting to Nathaniel’s. “I do not want to use my power on you, but I will.”
“I overpowered you once,” he snapped. “I won’t hesitate to do it again.”
A woman stepped away from the throng, her fingers outstretched as she muttered an incantation under her breath.
Nathaniel lunged at her before she could finish, his fangs sinking into her throat, ripping flesh from her like a savage beast. His fingers curled against the witch’s chest, her scream lost in a gurgle.
Charlotte yelped when she saw Gertrude and another of them grabbed the two servants and dragged their daggers across their throats, spilling a waterfall of crimson onto the polished floor. A loud hum of power lifted through the room.
Her palm flew to her mouth as she muffled her scream, eyes widening while she watched them die.
Alexander launched his way across to help Nathaniel as one witch that Charlotte recognized, the one who came to her home that night and called herself Beatrice, tried to pry him off his victim.
“Enough,” Gertrude shouted.
A predatory smile stretched her thin, wrinkled lips.
She lifted her hand toward Alexander, who was about to bite one of them.
He hunched over the floor before his fangs could reach her throat.
On all fours, he let out a loud groan, and Nathaniel dropped the body of the dead witch with a thud, before wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
Gertrude let out a weighty sigh, clicking her tongue. “How easily you resort to violence. It should come as no surprise. Your father was a brute too and you still bear his name. Sallow.” The word dripped like venom from her tongue.
“I would rather have his name than yours,” Nathaniel spat blood on the ground, chin jutting out.
She walked to him, stopping just a foot from them both. “I miss when you were little. You had no time for your father, but you used to look at me as if I was your entire world. How so much has changed. Now, when I look at you, I see nothing of that little boy I loved so dearly.”
“You do not know how to love,” he snapped.
“Of course I do,” she said with a scrunch of her nose and brows. “Everything I do is out of love.”