by Denise Gwen
Wow, just like that.
A wave of revulsion flowed through her. Drakkur dispatched that poor vampire with no more care or concern than he would have shown to a fly. He simply swatted the poor vampire servant away. Never mind the fact the vampire gave up his legs and feet to Drakkur; never mind the vampire’s devotion to Ezekiel as lord and master. Father and son used the servant vampire for their own selfish purposes, and when that purpose concluded, they annihilated him.
For someone like Drakkur, surely it must be an everyday occurrence for servants to lap at his feet, begging to do whatever small favor might be asked of them. She so hated his arrogance.
“Splendid,” Ezekiel said with satisfaction. “The stage is set. We are ready to begin the ceremony.”
He plucked Maddie from his pocket, cupped her in the palm of his hand, and pointed his wand at her forehead. “Transmigformateum!” he said, and as he brought his hand down to the floor and Maddie scurried off his hand, she shape-shifted back into her human form, dressed, amazingly, in a wedding gown of black lace.
“We have the bride,” Ezekiel boomed, “and we have the groom.”
Maddie’s heart sank. “It’s over,” she whispered.
Ezekiel gazed at her, his black eyes glittering. “Yes. Yes, my dear, it is indeed over.”
Two vampire guards stepped forward and grabbed her arms. She looked into their malevolent eyes and saw no kindness there. They hissed and spat at her, drawing in on her, forcing her to walk backward toward Ezekiel and Drakkur. With every backward step she took, every step taking her closer to her bridegroom, she drew nearer to her doom.
“That’s it, yes,” Ezekiel said. “Come here, my dear.”
For the first time in many days, Maddie finally accepted her fate. All was lost. By the time the cock crowed at the first light of dawn, her life would be irretrievably changed forever, and all lost. Poor Nana, surely dead; Mama and Papa would be dispatched shortly; who knew what Ezekiel would do with Bettina—perhaps turn her into his next mistress—and Maddie married off to Drakkur, the biggest jerk in the castle.
None of it looked good.
This is probably the darkest moment of my life.
All their subterfuge and trickery, all for naught. The hiding out in the Village of Batesville, the secrecy, the plans, the spells—nothing. The entire evening, starting with Mama and Nana’s abduction from the haunted house in Batesville, all a clever, elaborate trap.
And we all fell right into it.
If it weren’t so awful, it might actually be funny.
But then, she’d always had a sick sense of humor.
****
Ezekiel tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Upon due reflection, I have decided thusly. We shall reverse the order of the ceremony.”
The vampires grew silent.
“We shall conduct the wedding ceremony first, and then follow with the sacrifice.”
Maddie bowed down her head as despair washed over her. What would be the point, after all, of further fighting? It was all over.
A presence at her side. She looked up, startled. Drakkur. He’d regained all of his former arrogance as he gazed down at her with an appraising eye. “Too many freckles,” he chuckled, and with that, he darted the freckles off her cheeks with the tip of his wand. Each dart that touched her skin stung a little, but it wasn’t the pain of his wand that drew her ire.
“I happen to like my freckles, you jerk. How dare you remove them without my permission?”
“A feisty little thing, is she not?” Ezekiel asked proudly, as if he’d been personally responsible for Maddie’s upbringing.
“I’ll tame that out of her tonight,” Drakkur said in a husky voice, “in the bridal bed.”
“Oh, you are so gross,” Maddie said. “I’m only thirteen.”
Drakkur smiled. “I wouldn’t concern myself with a worry such as that one, if I were you. One of my mistresses is even younger than you.”
“That is so sick.”
Drakkur smirked. “Tell me about it.”
“My lord,” a sobbing witch cried out. “Queen Esmeralda, she is dying.”
Everyone turned to look.
The last electric currents fading from her body, Esmeralda indeed looked close to death. Her pale, wretched form lay on the stone floor, lifeless, drawn. Her cheeks sunken into her face, her eyes shone with a hollow, unseeing vacuity; her life force ticked away.
Ezekiel gazed, long and hard at his once beloved wife and queen. To Maddie’s surprise, a look of sadness flitted across his features. It lasted only a second, but for one brief moment he looked as if he really regretted her death. Soon, though, a grin of triumph replaced the look of grief. Forgetting his wife, he turned his attention back to his son. “Once my wife dies, there will be no further need for her to fulfill her promise to me.”
“How is that so, Father?”
“Once she passes from this realm into the next, I will no longer need her permission to place you, my son, at my left side at the great table. And I will name you my legal heir and master of this court. All my legally-born offspring shall bow down to you, or they shall suffer the consequences.”
“Thank you, Father,” Drakkur said humbly.
Ezekiel’s black eyes settled on Maddie. “And you, Madeleine, proud, imperious little witch, descended from the original line of witches who settled Salem in 1342. You are the right and honorable Wiccan descendant, deserving of the fruits of my son’s loins. Your union with my son, with Drakkur, shall be the joining together of two great dynasties.”
If this weren’t all so awful, so terribly horrible, it might actually be kind of funny. Ezekiel’s talking like an actor out of a soap opera. And a bad soap opera at that.
She gritted her teeth and glowered at him. She couldn’t do anything to him, but she could hate him with all her might.
“Yes,” Ezekiel chuckled dryly. “I can see, my son, what fun you shall have with this tempestuous little filly for your wife!” He slapped his son on the shoulder. “And I envy you, my boy. You shall enjoy your little wife tonight in the marital bedchamber.”
“So gross.” Maddie shook her head. “So totally gross.”
“Papa,” Drakkur said with some urgency, “there won’t be any time for me to enjoy my new wife if we don’t move this ceremony along.”
When Ezekiel glanced out a casement window, a crease of worry stained his brow. “You are right, my son.” He pointed imperiously at the contingent of vampires standing nervously by, watching with apprehension as the first silvery strands of morning shimmered across the night sky. “You there! Fetch the magistrate.”
The vampires bowed and scurried away.
Maddie began to feel curiously as if she were no longer a part of this dismal scene; she mentally removed herself from it. In her mind’s eye, she turned back into that tiny field mouse again, suspended from the ceiling high above, looking down upon the mess below. It helped her to pretend another girl stood next to Drakkur; another girl, not herself, was being forced into a marriage with a man whom she’d never desired.
Simply no point anymore to attempt an escape; she remained trapped in this warlock’s clutches, and the sad truth of the matter was this: she’d been trapped in his clutches from the moment she first fled the castle, less than a week earlier.
It’s all been a waste, a terrible, terrible waste.
She bowed her head. Drakkur shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.
She detected movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked up hopefully, but no, the movement came from the small group of witches rushing to Esmeralda’s side as she lay near death.
Her heart sank as she gazed at their tear-filled eyes, their stooped shoulders. Their Queen Esmeralda, dead, or if not quite dead, then nearly so. In a few moments more, Esmeralda’s spirit would pass into the land of blue persuasion, the place where all good witches went when they left their mortal forms.
Those once proud, red lips turned a dusky shade of blue, her skin t
ranslucent, her body lifeless. The witches laid her out on the cold stone floor, preparing her body for the funeral pyre. The witches wept openly as they worked. Ezekiel paid them no heed.
Then, something rather strange happened—or as strange as can be considered in a night filled with bizarre wonders. A few of the female vampires stepped forward. When the witches noticed the vampires gliding forward, they hissed and spat at them.
“Go away!” a witch cried, her face streaked with tears. “You’ve done enough damage.”
“We only want to help,” a particularly pretty and very young vampire said in a sorrowful voice. Maddie gazed in surprise at her. She looked as if she were only a few years older than Maddie. She’d been turned into a vampire before she’d reached full adulthood; whoever turned her had committed a vampire sin.
The witches glanced at one another, then slowly nodded. The female vampires hurried forward and bent down over the corpse. Bizarrely, the vampires appeared to be as upset over Esmeralda’s death as Esmeralda’s own witches were. They bled blood instead of tears and smeared the tears away as they turned to the work of administering to Esmeralda’s body. Maddie did not understand this, but she accepted it. That was the wonderful thing about women; no matter the species, no matter the tribe, women are instinctively capable of reaching a common ground, a shared intimacy.
Perhaps it ought to come as no surprise that all women understand grief.
Maddie’s attention became distracted by a rustling, a bit of commotion at the entranceway to the throne room. Ezekiel’s eyes shone with pleasure. “Ah, here he is, at last.”
Flanked on both sides by a contingency of vampires, a tall hooded figure strode into the throne room. He—for he was certainly a man, with his bulky form and massive frame—bowed low. “You summoned me, my liege, and I am ready and willing to do thy service.”
“Very good,” Ezekiel said. “Please begin.”
Maddie gulped.
Okay, this is it. This is the beginning of the end of my life. Goodbye to Nana, goodbye to Mama, to Bettina, to Malamar, and to—
“Dearly assembled before this coven of witches and this consortium of vampires,” the Magistrate intoned. “We are gathered here today to bear witness to the marriage of Drakkur, son of Ezekiel and Cassandra, and Madeleine, daughter of Claudia and Daniel.”
—and to Papa.
Tears sprang up in Maddie’s eyes. Papa. That’s right. She’d almost forgotten about Papa.
14
Then, curiously, the Magistrate fell silent. The silence stretched out for several moments. The Magistrate stood stock-still, his hands outstretched, his figure immobile, as still as a statue in a garden. At first Maddie thought it all part of the ceremony, but then she realized the Magistrate was lost in thought. She didn’t know this for certain; with the hood dropped low over his features she could not see his face.
At last, Ezekiel stirred restlessly. “Magistrate,” he said gravely. “Are you ready, sir?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” the Magistrate said, recollecting himself. “Sorry about that. Woolgathering.” He chuckled from beneath his hood.
“That’s fine,” Ezekiel said in a steely voice, “but let’s get a move on, shall we?”
“Yes, your Majesty.” He raised his hands up in the air before him and repeated his opening invocation. “Dearly assembled before this coven of witches and this consortium of vampires, we are gathered here today to bear witness to the union of this man, the son of Ezekiel and Cassandra, and this woman, the daughter of Claudia and Daniel.”
As the Magistrate droned on about the couple’s respective bloodlines, emphasizing the spectacular lineage on both sides, Ezekiel visibly relaxed and walked back to his throne. As he did so, two nubile female vampires glided forward to stand on either side of him. The raven-haired vampire placed her right hand on Ezekiel’s left shoulder; the blonde vampire placed her left hand on his right. Their faces glowed a sickly shade of white.
The Magistrate paused.
“Before I proceed any further, is there anyone present who has an objection to the joining together of this young couple? Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
An ominous silence filled the chamber. Ezekiel half-rose from his chair, a dangerous look in his eye. After an interminable silence, he settled back down. Apparently, nobody felt the need to voice an objection.
What a surprise.
The Magistrate did not appear the least bit perturbed. Proceeding smoothly, he turned to the groom. “Drakkur, son of Ezekiel and Cassandra, do you take this woman, Madeleine, daughter of Daniel and Claudia, as your lawfully wedded wife?”
Drakkur, his shoulders thrust back and his head held high, said, “I do.”
Maddie’s heart thumped dully in her chest. What could she do? How could she finagle her way out of this fix? She couldn’t, she simply couldn’t. It was hopeless, utterly hopeless.
“And do you, Madeleine, daughter of Daniel and Claudia—”
There is absolutely no way I can talk my way out of this. Nobody will come to my aid. Not only that, but Ezekiel will kill anyone who attempts to save me. This is hopeless, hopeless. I wonder if Ezekiel will at least let me kiss my family goodbye before Drakkur drags me off to some hideous, drafty castle—somewhere in Transylvania, I’m sure—to do his bidding—
“—wish that you could fly back home?”
“Huh?” She gazed at the Magistrate with a look of wonder. Did he just say what she thought he’d said? She shook her head. No, her mind was all discombobulated. She didn’t actually hear that, did she? She gazed around the room, but nobody appeared to register anything out of the ordinary. “I’m sorry, but what did you say?”
“I said,” the Magistrate repeated, pulling back his hood and pointing his wand at Drakkur, “are you ready to fly back home, my dear?”
“Papa!”
Ezekiel’s eyes bulged from his face as he leaped to his feet, his wand at the ready, but for perhaps the first time in his entire life, someone else got the upper hand on him.
“Not so fast!” Papa shouted. “Anacondieum!”
A puff of black smoke erupted from the tip of his wand and out streamed a river of snakes. They flew through the air straight at Drakkur, where they coiled around his neck, forming a black, sinewy necklace. They hung on his neck for a moment, then tightened their coils around him, slowly choking him. Drakkur dropped his wand and pulled desperately at the snakes encircling his neck, to no avail. He thrashed around the room, crashed into some vampires, and then fell to his knees, his mouth an open O of horror.
In a low, level voice, and with his gaze still laser-locked on Drakkur, Papa spoke. “You kill me, or anyone associated with me, and I shall kill your son. Instantly. So act wisely, Ezekiel. I’m not putting up with any more of your nonsense.”
Ezekiel’s face flushed purple with rage. He clenched and unclenched his fists. He gazed with misery at his son, not three feet away from him, suffocating. Drakkur collapsed to the carpet, still fighting the snakes coiled around his neck.
“Your family isn’t worth the trouble anymore!” Ezekiel hissed. “You’ve all of you been a waste of my time.”
“Au contraire, my friend,” Papa said in an even voice. “It’s always been worth your time. And you know the reason why you’ve been trying to marry our two children to one another, since the moment of my little daughter’s birth.”
Maddie goggled at Papa. What was he talking about?
Drakkur turned blue. Not a good color for him, Maddie noted with satisfaction.
“Release him!” Ezekiel shouted, his voice ragged with emotion.
“Release my family,” Papa said calmly, “and I shall gladly release your son.”
Ezekiel looked as if he would dearly love nothing more than to assassinate Daniel. But if he killed Papa, then Drakkur would also perish; for when a warlock dies mid-spell, the spell locks, and there’s no power on earth or below it that could save Drakkur from Papa’s spell. Papa alone possessed the power to
release Drakkur from the spell.
Drakkur opened his mouth to scream, but no sound emerged.
Tears sprang to Ezekiel’s eyes; his jaw worked for a long moment, then his face cleared. “Go, then. Go back to the cesspool you came from.”
“You mean it?” Papa asked.
“Yes, I release you and your wretched family!”
A tingling sensation started at the back of her neck and as the short hairs stood up on end, Maddie sensed something was wrong, but she couldn’t quite place her wand tip on it.
Then it hit her.
“Papa,” she said suddenly. “Victoria!”
Papa glanced at her. “Who?”
“Victoria, my friend. The vampires kidnapped her and brought her here tonight. She’s to be the human sacrifice. She can’t die, she must come home with us!”
“A deal’s a deal,” Ezekiel said coolly, raising his wand. “Evaporoteum!”
The stream of snakes emanating from Papa’s wand stopped in mi-air, then fell to the stone floor and wriggled away. The snakes choking Drakkur released him and slithered off, disappearing into the crevices of the walls.
The skin on Drakkur’s body still looked blue; he coughed up phlegm, but his color quickly returned to his face. He struggled to his feet, already regaining a little of his imperious bearing.
“You’ve wasted entirely too much of my time this evening,” Ezekiel said, now pointing his wand at Victoria. Up until this moment, Maddie hadn’t realized her friend stood so close, but Victoria had stood nearby during the entire ceremony, concealed by a group of vampires. Now, as Ezekiel pointed his wand at her, the vampires released her, and her body floated up and into the air. She whimpered as her body floated toward the malevolent warlock.
A group of vampires stepped forward and pulled down the trappings of the wedding ceremony; in its place appeared an executioner’s block. An executioner stepped forward from the shadows. He swung an axe. A mask covered his face, but his hideous, leering mouth gaped open at Victoria.
“I’ll enjoy snapping that pretty little head of yours off that lovely little neck!” he chortled.
