Kissed by Midnight

by Cate Corvin

  Gilt silently gestured for me to walk. Of course he didn’t. He may be grandiose and bloated with his own narcissism, but he wasn’t stupid. Unfortunately.

  I drank in every detail as we ventured into the abyss.

  “Grandfather wanted you awake and aware for the journey down,” Gilt said, raising her chin. “The additions to Cimmerian were his pride and joy.” Even though Gilt led us easily through the guardians and curse-warded doors, it took us nearly an hour to descend.

  By the time we reached Grandfather’s cave, where the Vita Machina towered overhead, tears were openly pouring down my cheeks. I hoped they wouldn’t come for me. I hoped they’d leave me to this on my own.

  They wouldn’t make it through that gauntlet alive. There was no possible way.

  Grandfather was waiting in his wheelchair, the three albino-pale Gilt witches surrounding him. This time, there was no bonfire, and the shadows were a heavy weight pressing down on us. Patricia Gilt held up an old-fashioned oil lamp that barely cast a light over the gathering.

  “Lucrezia, my dear.” Grandfather’s voice was stronger, younger. He sounded almost masculine now instead of like dry twigs snapping. The difference was terrifying on a primal level; I didn’t want to see what he was hiding under his hood. “I wanted to meet again under different circumstances, but Mallory tells me there’s been trouble overhead?”

  That was one way of putting it.

  “We can thank Ivy for that.” Gilt sounded like she’d bitten into a lemon. Six bulging, pale blue eyes landed on Ivy, and she shivered under the witches’ stares.

  As much as I hated her in that moment, I still pitied her. Here in the depths, with only a tiny puddle of light to hover around, it was all too easy to picture that grub-pale trio descending on her in a swarm and eating her alive.

  I held back a shiver of my own and resisted the urge to wrap my arms around myself. I couldn’t see Grandfather’s eyes under his hood, but the weight of his stare was heavy on me all the same.

  “I suppose that’s my fault for letting an outsider in. We’ve learned what trouble outsiders cause, haven’t we, girls?” His hood turned towards Ivy as the Weird Sisters chittered like bats. “Your father might’ve been born to us, but no self-respecting Gilt would raise their child outside the coven and let them take another’s name. You were never truly a Gilt, Ivy Bloom, only a cuckoo in the nest.”

  Grandfather stood in a single lithe motion, his robes falling from his lap to brush the floor. A heavy brick of fear dropped into my stomach. If he could move so easily, he must’ve fed...

  Ivy swallowed hard, her throat working as she wrung her hands. “Grandfather, please… I didn’t choose to be raised outside the coven. I’ve always been loyal to Giltglass.”

  He shook his head. “Nonetheless. You raised a hand to my newest coven-daughter and drew her blood. You know the price.”

  “She’s as much of an outsider as I am!”

  Patricia raised a hand to her mouth in a strange mockery of shock, like she’d only seen the gesture performed in movies. Grandfather was silent for almost a full minute, simply surveying Ivy until she was all but quailing in front of him.

  “Lucrezia has proven herself to be more a Gilt than you ever were. Cunning, ruthless… unstoppable. Even against you, and I’ve heard much about your prowess from Mallory.” Goosebumps crept over my entire body. How much did he know about me? “You are a petulant child, Ivy. Your goals are small-minded and narrow, and you didn’t succeed at a single one. I and my coven reject you, and you are hereby banished from all further contact with this family.”

  “Aunt Mal, please don’t let him do this. Please.” Ivy stared at her aunt in desperation, white circles of shock surrounding her eyes, but Gilt didn’t so much as glance at her. Ivy was almost hyperventilating when she turned to me, but a hard hand on my arm almost made me jump out of my skin.

  Eleanor looked up at me and shook her head no in warning. The bright red fuzz on top of her head bounced comically.

  No, what? Not to defend Ivy in front of Grandfather? Would he turn his rage on me, too?

  “Do I get safe passage to the surface, Grandfather? Or is this a death sentence?” she asked, her voice hardening when she realized there was no help coming from anyone here. I hadn’t thought I’d find it in myself to feel bad for Ivy after she’d railroaded Dom into her bullshit engagement and tried to kill me, but she’d never make it up to the surface alive. Not through that labyrinth of horrors.

  Even without seeing his face, I could hear the malicious smile in Grandfather’s voice. “Try to provide for yourself for once, Ivy.”

  I shivered, and Eleanor wrapped her arm around me in a weirdly sisterly gesture. It might’ve been kinder for Grandfather to just kill Ivy right here instead of forcing her to try to make it past those guardians alone.

  Ivy stood frozen, her fists balled at her sides, breath shallow and fast. “Fine. Fuck you all. I hope you burn, Albrecht.”

  Before she turned back to the door leading to the surface, she gave me a sneer, letting every last ounce of hate she’d ever felt for me shine through. “Good luck, coven-sister. I can’t imagine any of them will want you when he’s done with you.”

  Nausea surged into my throat at her words before she strode away, squaring her shoulders for the fruitless journey to freedom. She could have the last word this time. She’d never get another.

  Unfortunately for me, if Albrecht had done what I suspected, I might not make it out of here with my sanity intact.

  When Ivy had disappeared, we were left in a lingering silence until Gilt broke it. “Would you like me to prepare her, Grandfather? I take responsibility for the damage done to her. Ivy’s deception went further than I knew.”

  Eleanor’s arm tightened around my waist, and I jerked when Annabelle appeared at my other side. Were they preparing me to become Albrecht’s next doomed bride? His next meal?

  I fervently wished Josephine’s ghost would appear, one friendly face amidst the insanity, but I was left alone with my horrible adoptive family.

  One of Grandfather’s hands slid out of his robes to adjust the fabric around his face. His fingers were no longer withered twigs, but a broad, rough manly hand, long-fingered and pale from lack of sun.

  My breath caught in my throat. When the vampires had broken in, the Helping Hands had taken six students. Was that enough for the Vita Machina to restore Albrecht’s appearance entirely?

  But if it was, why was he still wearing his hood?

  “Bring her to my quarters, Mallory. I wish to speak with her alone.”

  No, no, no, no, no.

  Only the slightest hitch in his stride as he swooped into the darkness gave away that he still wasn’t entirely whole.

  My covenmistress, Eleanor, and Annabelle herded me after him. My skin felt numb and tingly as I followed the bobbing lantern Patricia held. I stumbled over broken stones and other, longer objects that were far too brittle and organic to be anything other than bones.

  The distant wall of the cavern had been lined with bricks, and they shoved me through a wooden door after Grandfather. I steeled myself for some sort of chamber of horrors, but the room beyond was almost shockingly normal.

  It looked like an ordinary bedroom, albeit one with windowless stone walls. A large canopy bed draped with red velvet took up most of the room, and an old-fashioned dresser had several drawers askew, the mirror left uncovered and caked with dirt. A single guttering oil lamp struggled to illuminate the room.

  I held back a scream when I saw what was in the corner: an old velvet settee with a dry, crumbling corpse draped over it. The white lab-coat he wore was faded and riddled with moth-eaten holes, but a gold pin was still legible over the chest, reading Dr. Temple.

  “Ah, yes, my old friend,” Albrecht said, following my gaze. I’d stuffed my fingers against my mouth to hold in my scream. “A smart man, if not quite up to par with myself. I gave that lunatic Elijah to him, but the vampire trials didn’t yield results a
nywhere near comparable to my Vita Machina. Sometimes we have long talks, just like the old days, but old Temple’s not quite the conversationalist he used to be.”

  Standing upright, Albrecht towered over me, a specter made of cobwebs and dust. I felt his gaze on me again, hungry and searching.

  He was fucking crazy. He sat down here in the dark, talking to a corpse?

  “You murdered his sister,” I said, my throat dry. If I was going to die or go insane, I’d be fucked if I didn’t go out arguing. It was the last thing I had left. “You destroyed his home and everything his family stood for. He wasn’t a lunatic. He was furious.”

  Albrecht took a step closer and it took everything I had not to step back. He’d just pounce sooner if he knew how afraid I was.

  “Josephine was only ever a means to an end, beautiful though she was. I needed Lockheart, and her magic-binder blood was worth far more to me on the cornerstone. There were some drawbacks, of course. None of my offspring were ever able to take full control of the wards. But it was enough to keep Lockheart itself from pushing us out.”

  That’s why the mansion had been screaming for help. Josephine had been murdered solely because her blood would’ve shut down the mansion’s natural defenses. The Vita Machina was like a parasite living near its heart, and the bound cornerstone wouldn’t have been able to push it out, like a splinter through skin, to destroy it.

  I could only watch with sick helplessness as Albrecht’s hands appeared again, reaching up for his hood. His other hand was whole, but thinner and more wasted.

  The hood slid back over thick auburn hair, revealing a face that would’ve been handsome if I hadn’t known what evil lay behind it- and if he was complete.

  When Albrecht turned, he showed that the shadow-hidden half of his face was still desiccated, cracked skin, pulling at the corners of his right eye and mouth. “I miss the days of the asylum,” he said wistfully, touching his shriveled right ear. “It was a never-ending feast. We need to be much more careful in rationing out students.”

  I nearly threw up right then and there. He talked about us like we were livestock.

  “So, you get to live forever as long as you’re feeding on others.” My voice came out in a shaky rasp. “Why do you need me?”

  It probably wasn’t a good idea to taunt my captor, but the man behind the Vita Machina, a thousand deaths, the vampire trials, and Josephine’s murder was standing in front of me. He was only standing because Cadogan Brand, Clarimond Jewel, Lissa Clay, Petra and Garth Moon, and David Jasper had all recently fed him through the Cage. They weren’t just dead, but completely consumed, their spirits churned through the Cage to infuse Albrecht with stolen life.

  Albrecht smiled, and I remembered the look on his face in Locke’s dream. It’d been impossible to tell what the man was or would become while he danced with Josephine at their wedding. Had he been plotting her murder and the betrayal of her brother even then?

  I was sure that he had. He was consumed by the idea of immortality.

  “I want your wildfire, Lucrezia. True forces of nature have become very rare over the centuries. The recessive genes for wildfire, tempests, tides, and stonehearts have all but died out, and now their value is unprecedented. You alone could walk down here and burn everything I hold dear to ash- why do you believe I had my sweet Mallory charm you? Witchfire burns, but wildfire consumes.”

  I gave him a mutinous glare, but he reached out and touched my lips, silencing words that weren’t there. “Giltglass is slowly failing, our gene pool corroded and warped, but you will bear the next generation. When you’ve borne at least one child with your dominant genes, you’ll be permitted to go without the magic-binding charm. I’ll trust you then.”

  I stared up at him. I’d known deep down that I was just a shell for him to use all along. Over the years, they’d sifted through the inmates of the asylum, and later the students, until they’d come across a force of nature given away by a covenmistress too foolish to realize what she had.

  I could’ve been stonehearted, or had tides or tempests instead of wildfire, but any force would’ve suited Albrecht just fine. All he cared about was the genes that made me this way.

  The genes that would strengthen the next generation of Giltglass. Just thinking about it made me ill.

  “What would you do with the children who didn’t have my wildfire?” I tried to make myself sound considering instead of terrified, but my mouth was dry as dust. I needed to know: just how depraved was he?

  I also wanted to buy time, sorting through plan after impossible plan in my panicked mind and coming up with nothing except waiting out the magic-binding charm.

  By the time it wore off long enough for me to strike, it might be too late for me.

  “They would become part of the Vita Machina, of course,” he said, a faint frown creasing his brow.

  Not a hint of regret or disquiet touched his features when he spoke of consuming his own children’s souls. I wouldn’t mind watching him burn alive, not one bit. Rage rose up under the stomach-turning fear and I spoke without thinking.

  “I’d rather die than have your children.”

  Albrecht cupped my cheek. “Lucrezia, don’t be difficult. I’m offering you the chance to become part of the greatest invention known to witchkind- immortality without the vampirum virus. It’s completely unprecedented.”

  “You’re talking about murdering children. Feeding on them.” My skin crawled beneath his touch.

  “What can I say to persuade you to do this willingly, Lucrezia?” His breath smelled like a charnel house, all rotting meat and blood. Bile flooded the back of my throat. “You get to live in the lap of luxury and become part of a legacy, and all you have to do is bear little wildfire-possessed babies and replenish our coven. It would be an easy life for you.”

  It was clear he hadn’t set foot in the modern world since the 1700s.

  “I’m not going to help you murder anyone else.” I wanted to inject bravado into my words, but I was terrified. Ivy had worn me down and battered me to shreds. My broken hand was sending shooting pains through my arm, and I had no idea when Gilt’s magic-binding charm would wear off. Pissing off Albrecht now was the height of stupidity.

  But I wasn’t going along with him, either. Temple’s empty eye sockets seemed to glare at me accusingly from across the room as Albrecht sighed, sending hot, blood-scented breath over my face.

  “I would prefer for my new bride to cooperate, but I am willing to resort to more forceful measures.” Albrecht’s melodious voice had become tense.

  “I’m not your bride, I’m not having your children, and I don’t give a flying fuck about the future of this coven. You might as well toss me in the Cage now.” I glared at him with bated breath. Would he do it? Or was my wildfire worth too much to him?

  Either way, I had the sinking feeling I was never going to see the sun again.

  I hoped with all my heart that Dom had gotten the twins and Demonseed out to find Locke.

  Albrecht’s smile grew strained. I wondered if he’d ever been told no once in the two hundred years he’d been alive, much less in such a rude way. “You might meet the Cage yet, Lucrezia. Eleanor!” He slammed his fist against the wooden door, and it swung open immediately. “Take her to the Hole. We’ll see how long you last in there, bride. My offer stands when you’re ready to come out.”

  Holly’s illustrations flashed into my mind, a charcoal picture of me screaming, surrounded by fanged mouths.

  The trio took hold of my arms and dragged me bodily out of Albrecht’s room into the darkness, towards the grim future Holly had drawn for me.

  Chapter 14

  Roman

  “Bambi’s not back yet.”

  Shane’s voice was tight with sudden strain. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the newly-turned vampire in front of me.

  We hadn’t known Beckwith Tatter very well before his catatonia- he’d been sent to the Hole his first week here after vandalizing the North Entrance, a
nd had come back a drooling vegetable. I wasn’t even sure how the guy managed to get to all his classes.

  It was supposed to be impossible for a vampire to maintain their sanity when they were around other vamps. Beck almost looked like a normal guy who’d just rolled out of bed, drawing everyone’s fascination. Almost was the operative word. Like all vampires, he’d been smoothed out and perfected, a dangerously attractive version of the lanky, vaguely forgettable guy he’d been before.

  But thanks to Tatter’s unexpected transformation, we’d taken our attention off Lu for all of thirty seconds and she’d vanished, following Ivy Bloom towards the North Entrance. How stupid could we have been?

  “Who?” Tatter asked. Shane just glared at him, his incisors already sliding out and disfiguring the shape of his mouth.

  “Roman. Let’s go.” He exploded out of his clothes, becoming a massive, slavering wolf. Daphne shoved her plate back and stood up, still barely able to look at me. I felt a twinge of guilt for how shitty I’d been the last time I’d talked to her- hell, I could’ve at least tried to be nice when I cut her loose.

  Cimmerian shook underfoot as soon as I left my chair and a small cloud of dust sifted down from the ceiling. Shane snarled, leaping for the exit.

  “Get out of here, Daphne,” I snapped, and donned the wolfskin lying just under my human skin, feeling fabric shred and tear around me.

  The wolf’s feelings amplified my sudden anxiety and protectiveness a thousand times over, every inch of my skin bristling with the need to find Lu and surround her.

  I plunged into the dark hall of the North Entrance, only to immediately found myself caught in midair. Sharp pinpoints of pain flared to life all over me. My twin struggled just ahead of me, his jaws snapping at what looked like dark snakes pouring from the walls and ceiling.

  Lu’s scent was fading, hidden under the sharp smell of sap, but I felt her sudden shock and agony flare through me.

  I struggled against the ropes binding me and realized they were vines, with massive thorns digging deep into my flesh. The hot, coppery scent of blood mixed with the sap as we struggled.