Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
The world shifted, the color bleeding into gray tones. While there was freedom in the absence of the intolerable agony that had shredded her body moments before, the feeling was temporary, lost to the melancholy that came from being entirely alone.
Charlotte looked at her body destroyed beyond repair. Reaching out to touch her pale skin, her chest wrenched with a sob. She was dead and there was no going back.
Duke caught her attention as he darted onto the altar, laying himself over her moonlit, blood-drenched remains, nudging his nose under her chin, his paws padding her still chest.
“Duke!” she ran to him, her fingers ghosting his fur, which stood on end at her touch. “I’m right here. Please, see me.”
Yellow eyes pierced hers through the veil. He meowed loudly and a sigh rattled her body.
“Get out of here, Duke. Before they hurt you!” she begged. “Go. You can’t help me anymore.”
Glossy eyes stayed fixed on hers, a sadness creeping into every part of his face. They’d saved each other countless times, but this time it was too late. No one could help her.
He emitted a high-pitched yowl, hissing when Gertrude pushed him away from Charlotte’s body.
“Run! Please, Duke. Go!”
His tail twitched, ears flattening as he landed on the ground next the crypt. With a final, drawn-out howl, he sped down the path, disappearing into the shadows.
Charlotte watched Gertrude, who stood dead and center in the circle of Avery witches, her eyes closed, a subtle smile playing on her lips as waves of magic pulsed into her body, stolen from her.
A heart-wrenching scream shattered through both realms, the kind that not only reached one’s ears, but their heart too.
Nathaniel had awoken and crawled to the altar, his fingers over her bloody torso, pulling her close to his chest, cradling her head in his large hands.
Turning his bloodshot eyes to Gertrude, he spluttered in a tone so broken, it didn’t even sound like him, and asked, “What did you do?” He grew louder when she didn’t immediately answer, and shouted, “What the Hell did you do?”
Nathaniel’s blood-curdling scream shook the veil when he held her corpse close, listening to the hollow silence of her heart.
He clamped his eyes shut, lowering his head as a howl erupted from the pit of his stomach.
He choked on another visceral, agony tainted wail, fingers crumbling into the stone slab, turning it to dust.
Charlotte watched through blurred eyes as he turned, crimson painting his fingertips, and lunged at Gertrude, the grief so potent it sliced through their spells, magic no match for raw, visceral pain.
Freezing for a moment under the spell of incapacitation, he growled loudly, breaking free of it in seconds.
Gertrude stumbled back, fear potent in her eyes as she grabbed another Avery witch’s wrist, the corpse-sewn monsters blundering toward him, but he was too fast for them.
Blood painted the headstones, cracking echoing around them as he pounced on their backs, his arms locking around their necks before wrenching off their heads with unsettling speed, blood and saliva dripping from the three sets of his fangs, more beast than man.
His pupils slitted, darkening as he tore them apart, one by one, spitting their flesh on the ground, animalistic rage guiding his every movement.
Gasps and screams filled the air, cloaked figures scattering. Magic skittered through the ground as they incanted spells, but nothing worked.
“Enough!” Gertrude yelled, but he fought his way through every spell thrown his way, his grief so potent it hurt Charlotte’s soul.
Snapping the neck of the last witch who hadn’t yet run, he tilted his head, glaring at his mother. “I left you for last.”
“She’s going to come back. I fed her the blood,” Gertrude said slowly, caution rimming her dark eyes.
Charlotte spotted the empty vial of vampire blood beside her body, the crimson liquid inside coating her icy lips. Gertrude had fed her Alexander’s blood, but she hadn’t come back.
The demon. Of course, it was for the Smiling Woman.
This couldn’t be happening.
“She is too far gone!” he spat, his voice shattering the air between them. “And even if she wasn’t, you should be.”
“I am immortal,” she warned, stepping back and almost stumbling on a discarded limb.
“Not like me,” he said with a tilt of his head, blood soaking his shirt, covering his chin and lips. “You are not invincible. You may be able to survive a snap of your neck but let's see if you can come back if there’s no body to return to.”
“Don’t do this, darling. My sweet boy. I made you into this, I know, but everything is going to be different now. We have more power than ever.”
“I want nothing from you expect your death.”
“Everything I did was for our family. We were persecuted and your curse was supposed to be temporary.”
“What about now?” he asked, brows rising, fangs bared.
“Do not do this. I am your mother.”
“You stopped being my mother centuries ago,” he spat, getting closer. “All I see now is the evil bitch who took away the person I cared about more than anything.”
The revelation stilled her, as it did Gertrude.
“Please, think about this. She will return.”
“Then why is she still dead?” he yelled, causing a murder of crows to take flight from a nearby tree.
Gertrude turned, lifting her hands as Nathaniel lunged at her.
The ancient spell crept through the ground, vines erupting through the earth, wrapping around his ankles until he was forced onto his knees.
Thorny vines bound his wrists and legs, and Charlotte was by his side, her fingers hovering over his face as he yelled, his pain now hers.
Come on. Get up.
While he could not hear her, something had changed. He forced himself up, snapping the vines, his lips curving into a sadistic grin when he watched his mother stumble backwards, before falling on the ground.
She shot another spell his way, but he just laughed, as if the pain she’d sent crawling over his body was nothing but a mere inconvenience.
Towering over her, he let out a humorless laugh and said, “I’m going to ensure you stay dead this time.”
She grasped around her, carving her fingers into the soil, yelling incantations as she lay surrounded by the bodies of her fallen family who did not escape on time.
He kneeled, his fingers wrapped around the sides of her head.
“Please, my son!”
Her ringed fingers dove for his eyes, but he just laughed, holding her still as he slowly tore her head from her neck. With a loud pop, and a grunt, her head ripped from her body, but it wasn’t enough.
Screaming, he ripped apart her limbs, lost in a rage she was worried no one could ever pull him back from. Her limbs tore from her body, her flesh peeling away from bone. Piece by piece, he ripped her apart, painting the ground with her blood.
It was a truly horrifying scene to watch, but Charlotte was transfixed on her monster as he destroyed what little was left. The night was silent when all was done, Nathaniel’s tears falling thick and fast.
“No!” he screamed into the sky. “Katherine, I am going to destroy you!”
Charlotte glanced around at the bodies. Katherine was smart enough to run while she could, but he would track her down. Of that much, Charlotte was certain.
Her fingers twitched as a faint heartbeat thrummed from her body, guiding Nathaniel’s eyes to the crypt.
“Charlotte.”
Her name left his mouth in a desperate plea. He ran his fingers through his blood-soaked, messy hair and raced to her, grabbing her hands.
It was happening. She had to get to her body. Running on the other side was like trying to push her way through deep water.
Come on. Please.
She had to get back to him.
A bone-deep chill spread through her as shadows moved in her periphery, briefly fading the grief that ached her heart. A prickle of goosebumps ghosted her ankles. The ground trembled slightly, drawing her attention down.
She stumbled back when she saw wisps of light carving through the fog-soaked earth below, unsure of what they were.
It was only when they got closer to her feet that she realized the spectral light was in the shape of fingers.
Her mouth fell open in a silent scream as hundreds of hands reached for her, arms growing longer as the spirits came for her.
Fingers clasped around her ankles, iciness running bone-deep, touching flesh that no longer warmed. A hoarse, raspy breath left her mouth when she tried to scream again as they slid up her calves, pulling her deeper, the earth giving way beneath them.
Soil crumbled around her legs, hips, then abdomen as she tried to fight against the things trying to drag her away.
When she looked up, half-buried in the thick soil, she saw the Smiling Woman standing by her body, neck angled, her grin more sinister than ever.
The demon's voice filled her head as Charlotte was dragged slowly into the ground.
You!
Charlotte gasped, watching her.
Yes, the demon confirmed as they conversed through their minds. Your body has long been promised to me. Your father leaving you alive was no accident. We ensured that you remained alive. That why he removed his hands from your neck just before your last breath.
Fingers hooked into her soul as they dragged her down, but every sensation was desensitized to the sheet of shock permeating her mind.
Why my body?”
Delanie stood a few inches off the ground when she spoke into her mind again, each sick reveal driving a harsher nausea into her stomach.
Gertrude needed your power and I wanted your body. She promised, for centuries, that she would break me out of that mirror our family imprisoned me in.
Charlotte’s eyes widened.
Our family?
Yes, my name is Delanie Lysanmore.
Goosebumps pricked her soul. No, it couldn’t be. She knew that name. He had mentioned it.
You were Nathaniel’s betrothed; she realized.
Yes, I have been waiting patiently for centuries to make him suffer.
He robbed me of a life where I would become the most powerful witch of all time.
Now, I will take the body of the only woman he loved, and you will watch, helplessly, as I make him fall in love with me, and then break his heart as he did mine.
He won’t believe you are me.
Yes, he will, the demon responded, her voice so certain it sent a tendril of dread through Charlotte.
Delanie’s frown deepened, making her wince in pain. It was then she noticed the carved wounds on either side of her mouth. She touched her face, her humorless grin spreading outward.
Charlotte’s heart pounded, the earth reaching her chin now. You have been in my head this whole time. You pushed me from the attic that night. You persuaded me to dig up those bones…oh God.
Yes. They were my bones. You were so susceptible and now all you have will be mine. I will know how it is to live again, while you will take my place in the mirror and rot with the men who you murdered.
No! This couldn’t happen. Desperately, she tried to claw her way out of the earth, but the grips on her soul were too tight.
The last thing she saw, before she was dragged from the graveyard, was Delanie step into her body and awaken to Nathaniel, who held her tighter.
No. No. Please, no!
Mouth wide in silent screams, Charlotte clung to the ground while hands pulled her down the path and toward Lovett Manor.
With a sudden rush, she was back in those familiar halls and up into the attic.
The power of the mirror pulled her closer, and she glared at the reflectionless glass of her eternal prison and the souls behind it who were waiting for her.