She Dies at the End (November Snow #1) (34 page)

She looked at the glass, her image gently lit by the fairy lantern.  Her irises remained the deep blue to which she was accustomed, but the whites of her eyes were now replaced by the same midnight blue.  This blue, which looked like a becalmed lake by normal light, now looked like a night sky running in fast forward.  Pinpricks of light flashed and flickered and whirled around like stars speeding in the heavens.  Her pupils, black by day, glowed with the blue-white of a hot flame.   She wanted to believe it was a trick, but she knew in her heart that it was not.  

November dropped the mirror and jumped back in her chair.  Those eyes were not human.

“Maybe everyone’s eyes look strange by fairylight,” she protested feebly.

“Don’t mine look the same?” the vampire asked her, amused by her reaction.  She darted a glance at his face and nodded.  He pulled away the blanket, and her eyes returned to normal as the ordinary light returned.  “The eyes are the only thing that says the same, from body to body.  You should see Savita’s.  They’re nearly as spectacular as yours.  Hers glow gold with red sparks."

Luka spun her chair around to face him.  He looked down at her, saying, “Now I’m sure this is a great deal for you to have to take in all at once.  We can talk further tomorrow evening.  I’m sure you will have many questions.  Dawn is approaching, and we have a little business to attend to first.”  November shrank away from him as he bent to sniff her hair.  “You reek of my father.  I must say, I don’t care for it.”

Willow chimed in.  “They had Pine strong-arm her into drinking some of his blood just a few days ago, so they could trace her.  It looked like at least an ounce in the vial.”  

“He didn’t even do it himself?  Have her drink straight from his wrist?  Does he take no joy in anything?” Luka asked, once again incredulous.  “I do hope he’ll be brave enough to come for her himself, if he lives that long.  Not that the blood will be any help to them in finding her, thanks to you."  He turned back to his new pet soothsayer.  “You have a new master now, kitten.  I’ll wait until tomorrow to bite you, so you can regain your strength.  But tonight, I need you to drink a few sips of my blood.”

Panic returned.  She struggled to think of a way out, her mind racing.  “You don’t want me to do that,” she protested desperately.  “I’ll see things you don’t want me to know.  I’ll learn your secrets.”

“That would only concern me if there were any chance of your escaping my control, which I assure you, there is not.  I want you to see visions of my future; that is part of your usefulness, after all.”  He rolled up his sleeve and prepared to bite his wrist.

“No!” the girl cried instinctively, “I won’t!”  She could not face the reality of this monster’s blood coursing through her, visions of his sins filling her mind.

He clucked at her.  “I promise you, you will.  Why make it harder on yourself?  Cooperate, kitten.  If you don’t, I shall have to punish you.  I don’t allow defiance.”  He gazed down at her face, which was already wet with terrified tears yet still full of the fight rising within her.  “You always have been too brave for your own good, kitten.  So much fight in you.  You made those Jesuits torture you for hours and gave them nothing.  You will make a fine vampire.  Willow, some assistance, if you please.”

Before she could blink, November was on her back, pressed against the table with enough force to smash the mirror into pieces.  Willow held her down by her shoulders while Luka tore into his wrist and pinched his victim’s nose closed.  As the seer thrashed, shards of glass tore through her nightgown and cut deeply into her back.  She held her breath as long as she could, but soon enough, her mouth opened seeking air, and Luka’s blood poured in.  Forced to swallow lest she choke, she finally gave up fighting, and her tormentors loosened their hold on her.  “There, now,” Luka said soothingly, stroking her brow.  “That’s a good girl.  Almost done now.”  His skin healed, and the flow of blood ceased.  

She curled into a sobbing ball on top of the table, blood soaking through her nightgown.  The last thing she heard before succumbing to the visions was Luka’s instruction to Willow: “Heal her at dawn, strip her, and put her in one of the cubes.  Perhaps a day down there will put her in a more cooperative frame of mind.   And grow her hair back while you’re at it.  I like to have something to grab hold of.”

A little girl, broken, lies in the dark, waiting for death.  Luka cuts her bonds, takes her blood, gives her his.  Her eyes are deep blue, flecked with starlight.  She is happy to die, not understanding that she can’t.  Juana.  He calls her Juana.  Luka, crippled, pulls himself along in a contraption made by his enemy.  Ilyn, running, surrounded by smoke, calling her name.  Luka, killing Agnes.  Luka, digging a hole in the ground and climbing in, covering himself with dirt.  Luka and Savita, feeding together on dazed humans in a hovel.  A werewolf, strapped to a gurney, howling as he changes form, howling in pain at what they do to him.  Two werewolves tear each other to pieces while a crowd watches with Luka, laughing.  Rubble where a building once stood, the dust still billowing.  An old woman, burning at the stake, a cross in her hands.  A young woman, throttled at a crossroads.  A girl on horseback, fleeing.  An oracle in a temple, surrounded by pilgrims.  A young girl running in the woods is suddenly a wolf instead.  Luka pulls a hatchet out of Willow’s skull.  A fairy flying, with eyes like the night sky.  Explosion after explosion.  Scream upon scream.  Rivers of blood.

She woke up in darkness black as pitch.  She reached up to touch her tender scalp, finding her long locks restored.  She felt for the cuts on her back, but her skin was once again unbroken, though it crackled with dried blood.  As her awareness returned, she realized that she was naked, freezing cold, and utterly alone.  Claustrophobia clouded her mind with fear, and she began to shake.  She told herself to focus.  She tried to give herself tasks, to calm her anxious thoughts.  This was a method she’d often used when placed in isolation at the hospital.  Explore the space, she told herself.  

She used her ordinary senses first.  She felt around next to her.  The floor was thickly padded.  She crawled until she hit a similarly padded wall a few feet away.  She moved along the periphery, finding the door and a drain that reeked of human waste.  She could feel air circulating from a vent in the ceiling.  She realized that if she was still, she could hear faint voices through the air ducts.  This calmed her a bit.  She wasn’t entirely alone after all.

Exhausted as she was, she was afraid to sleep, afraid of the visions that would pounce on her.  She sat in the center of the room and drew her knees into her chest for warmth, then cast out with her sixth sense, trying to get some idea of the layout of her enemy’s fortress.  

She found dormitories full of addled humans.  Some were sleeping, some reading or watching movies.  Others were performing chores.  They seemed healthy enough, but zombie-like.  She continued exploring.  The whole place seemed to be carved out of a mountain, a warren of tunnels and man-made caves, five or six floors worth, packed with vampires and fairies and human livestock.  She found a few surprising things, including a helicopter, a laboratory, and what appeared to be an auditorium.  She found several padded cells like her own, one of which was occupied by a man obsessively banging his head against the wall.  She wondered what his transgression had been.  

Finally, she stumbled onto a heartbreaking scene: a small group of people, isolated from the others, leather cuffs around their necks and attached to the wall by shining chains.  She gasped in distress when she saw that one of them was a child.  At first, she couldn’t figure out what made them different from the others.  Then they began to howl, the sound echoing through the ventilation system.  
Luka is keeping werewolf prisoners.
As their aching song faded, November’s heart filled with dread.  Whatever the governor of Arizona was keeping them for, it couldn’t be good.

When her mind returned to her tiny prison, she tried to think of something, anything, to distract herself from the fear and the cold.  She began to sing, softly at first, then with growing volume, trying to fill the space and warm her body.  She finished a song and grew quiet.  In the silence, she heard a voice.  “Keep singing, sister,” echoed quietly inside the vent.  So she did; for how long, she had no idea.  Eventually, her body succumbed to its hunger for sleep, though she woke often, crying out in distress.

The door opened, the light blinding her for a moment before someone shoved a black bag over her head and hauled her to her feet, propelling her into the passageway.  She stumbled, her limbs stiff from cold and from sleeping on the floor.  “Morning, Oracle.  Hope you like the accommodations,” came Philemon’s cruel voice on her left.  “You look delicious.  This walk will be the highlight of everyone’s day.”  November’s stomach clenched and her face flushed hot with humiliation at the thought of being paraded naked through the halls.

“Stow it,” Willow snapped from her right, strangely protective of her charge's feelings.

They seemed to walk forever, past endless twists and turns and up a spiral staircase until they finally removed the bag from November’s head.  She blinked in the bright light, finding herself in a large bathroom with dozens of toilet stalls, sinks, and open showers.  It was clean and bright, covered with white tile.  

Willow pointed to the stalls, and November stumbled over to relieve herself, once again mortified that they were listening to her.  In her brief moment of privacy, she tried to steel herself for battle.  She told herself that this was part of Luka’s punishment, that he wanted to humiliate her, and that the best course of action would be to refuse to let it get to her.  

Willow handed her a basket of toiletries when she emerged.  “Thank you, Willow,” she said casually, as though the situation were the most normal thing in the world.  She then proceeded to ignore them entirely.  She walked over to the sink and carefully brushed and flossed her teeth.  She then strode purposefully over to the showers and was pleasantly surprised at the piping hot water that washed over her.  She sighed with relief as the water drove the cold out of her limbs and washed off the accumulated blood, sweat, and tears of her days of torment.  Just as with the previous evening’s meal, she didn’t know when her next shower would come, and she was determined to enjoy it as much as she could manage.  Thankfully, the rushing of the water mostly drowned out Philemon’s comments about what he would do to her if he were Luka.  She stood under the water until Willow ordered her out, handed her a towel and a comb, and pointed her toward a bank of blow dryers along one wall.  

Once she was dry, Willow handed her some clothes: a long-sleeved v-necked tunic, a skirt that came down to her calf, and a pair of knee-high wool socks.  No shoes, and no underwear.  
He wants you to feel vulnerable
, she told herself.  
I am vulnerable
, her mind replied.

The sack went back over her head, and she was again dragged through the halls and stairways of Luka’s headquarters.  She expected to be brought back to the study, but instead she was taken to a small, well-furnished suite.  The far wall was taken up by a four-poster bed with dark blue linens, an armoire, and a nightstand.  The portion of the room nearest the door featured a fireplace with an overstuffed couch in front of it, a well-stocked bookcase, and a sitting area with two comfortable-looking chairs and a round table which was taken up by a generous breakfast tray and a stack of art supplies.  There was also an arch leading into a large bathroom to the right of the bed.  The message was clear:  good girls get to stay here; bad girls get locked up in a dark hole and bathe with Philemon.

“If you need anything, knock on the door, and a guard will check on you,” Willow instructed.  “And for God’s sake, do as you’re told when Lord Luka comes.”

“I was rather hoping she’d piss him off,” Philemon replied, hatred in his eyes.  November supposed he blamed her for his woman's death.

November finally turned and looked straight at her mother’s murderer.  “I’m sorry about Agnes, truly,” she said, surprising herself.  “Despite what you did to my mother.  But it’s not my fault your master killed her.”

Something blazed in his face, but quickly disappeared.  He said nothing and rushed out the door with a faint whoosh.  Willow soon followed, bolting the heavy door loudly behind her, and the captive was again alone.  She assumed she was being watched somehow, by camera or who-knew-what fairy device.  

She sat at the table, and as she had done the previous night, deliberately ate every morsel on the plate.  She noticed that the fairy lantern from the night before was folded carefully in the center of the table in from of her, a little gift from Luka to remind her of what she really was.  She had no idea what time it was or how long she’d been in the cube, but she was certainly hungry.  She wondered how long Luka would leave her alone to stew and frighten herself.  She decided that she would be better off occupying her mind and turned to the art supplies, opening the sketchpad and pulling out a charcoal pencil.  It was time to purge herself of some of Luka’s poison.  

She tried her best not to draw anything she thought would hurt her friends, but it was always so hard to tell what visions meant.  The drawings of the women she was coming to think of as herself were fascinating and frightening all at once.  Many of them she had seen before without knowing they had any significance.  It seemed she’d had a number of bad deaths, but she was comforted by the strength she saw in these women.  It made her feel a little less weak and helpless.  She wished she had access to her binders to see what other clues about her true nature might be found there.  The vision that really made her heart pound was of a collapsing building.  The details of the rubble were obscured by the cloud of dust that enveloped the sight.  
Please, God, don’t let it be Ilyn’s casino
, she pled silently.  
Please don’t let my friends be in there.