“The only thing I’m afraid of here is not doing the job I was sent to do. And I can’t fail if I’m trapped here,” I said, trying to sound unaffected.
As long as Hughes couldn’t get anywhere near Tristan’s estate, he was not going to get his hands on the thing there that Marianne had warned me about. Therefore, I was going to win.
But he just chuckled. “You’re no type A, pet. You don’t care about completing a job. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
I bit my lip. He had a point. I didn’t care much about that hypothetical magical thingy in the woods. I cared about Tristan. I did so for a lot of reasons, among which was that last kiss, even if it had only been a pretext for him to come and talk to me on stage. I cared because there was mystery there, and magic. And mostly, I cared because I thought he needed help, and he had helped me. We were an alliance already, like it or not.
In fact, I was just going to leave and go find Tristan now. It was obvious now he’d been kept busy by Dora, and I was worried. I would just teleport away, leave Hughes with his stupid boxes. He couldn’t hurt me in the end.
I wrapped my left hand tighter around the part of the bramble I was holding to. I was getting tired. And was it still growing thorns under my fingers now? I really hoped not.
“You know, what I like about these boxes,” Hughes said, “is that you’re really doing all this to yourself. It’s the beauty of that spell. You’re creating your own demise.”
“You love listening to yourself talk, don’t you?”
I wasn’t really in the conversation anymore. I needed to get away from here. I let my thoughts drift towards Tristan. Where was he now? Had he left like I’d asked him to, or had Dora found him? I wanted to relive that kiss onstage, even though I was too worried about him to let myself enjoy that memory just now. Also, I’d prefer not to reiterate the first kissing/teleportation fiasco.
Meanwhile, Hughes was still absorbed in his own villain speech.
“I liked that last song, what did you call it? ‘Standard Moonlight Binding Magic.’ Very cute. I found the lyrics enlightening. Understood a lot of things. You were right on the death mark problem. You really have the most peculiar reactions to magic. And this line—‘I could find you anywhere.’ Good insight. You would have made a competent pet for someone.” Another chuckle. “You really scared Dora the other day. So, how does it even go? You just think about him, and bam, there he is?”
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
“I find it very tacky that you have to lay out all the boring parts of your evil master plan to me,” I complained.
My problem was, I was too stressed out. My thoughts of Tristan were interspersed with Hughes’s inflated self-satisfaction and his sick anticipation. I wasn’t opening the portal I so needed, or whatever. My most reliable trick was failing me. It was too early to panic, but I was starting to feel uneasy. Which, in turn, wasn’t helping.
“I’m merely spelling it out for you,” Hughes said benevolently, “as your limited pet intellect seems to be making it hard for you to grasp the mechanical beauty of it. As I told you before, I haven’t got all day. I would appreciate it if you could speed things up.”
That made me laugh.
“I’m not going to commit suicide faster just to please you. In fact, I’m not going to commit suicide at all.”
More likely, that thorn near my side was going to eviscerate me first, because I would soon be too tired not to lean against it. Dammit, Tristan, where are you?
“Is that what you think?” Hughes asked. “That I’m trying to get you to kill yourself?”
He really laughed this time, a happy, booming laugh.
“No, pet, that’s not it at all. Granted, your being eliminated would help me move forward a little. The thing I want had essentially two protectors, and now I’ve got them down to one.”
I startled, gasping, and stuck myself with a mean thorn, just beneath my ear.
“Marianne? Are you talking about Marianne?”
“You’re catching on.”
“Did you kill her?”
“I’m bored with this conversation, too, you know,” he said. “I’ll just ask you a question: why do you think you’re still here?”
Because my teleportation trick is not working anymore, dammit.
A foot-long ice-cold thorn seemed to wedge itself into my heart. What if Tristan was dead now? What if this was the reason I couldn’t leave? What if there was no one left to go to?
But then Hughes asked another interesting question.
“Pet, what do you know about the Rentier family tree?”
I gasped in sudden understanding, and my tormentor confirmed.
“Yup. I may be older than Tristan, but I’m next in line. When he dies, I inherit the estate. The only problem is this family has a quirky tradition. When a boy or a girl reaches seventeen years of age, he or she has to take an oath and swear they’ll never raise a hand against a family member. Before that custom was established, things tended to turn into blood baths too easily. Now, as a result, every action takes a bit of planning, just to go around that oath.”
So, he hadn’t killed Marianne. Well, maybe not directly.
Hughes was waiting in silence now. I could hear him breathing quietly, apparently content with himself, but also alert and waiting. I’d been trying to locate another resting spot amidst the metal thorns around me but, for all my wriggling around, had found none. Everywhere, thorns were getting ready to pierce my skin. And they were indeed growing, in the small of my back, against my thigh, under my ear. The one near my nose was so close that I couldn’t let myself breathe fully anymore. Things were getting dire.
“Have you figured it out yet, you simpleton?” Hughes called again, apparently unable to wait any more. A very loud, exasperated sigh followed. “Since you’ve built this trap for yourself, isn’t it completely logical that your most useful magical powers shouldn’t be working in it? Or did you think your connection with my little cousin would withstand anything—time, distance, adversity, your own incompetence? Love really doesn’t conquer all, you know.”
I’d bitten my tongue and was tasting blood now. He was right. My escape plan was a bust. It wasn’t working. I was going to finish my life as a giant pincushion.
“What do you want, Hughes?”
I could hear him smiling again.
“You can’t escape to him, but I bet you could still call him to the rescue. Summon him here, right in front of you, so that we can both watch your wicked thorns shred him to pieces.”
32
The thorn in my side had pierced skin a minute ago, as had the one in the small of my back, and I could feel them pushing against my flesh. I’d been holding on to my improvised handle for a while and knew that my hands were bleeding, too. It hurt like hell. But the thorns that scared me the most were the ones pointing at my eye, at my neck. If I wanted to do something, I had very little time left. I’d go in a puddle of blood, but I certainly wasn’t dragging Tristan into this trap.
And now, I needed to make a real effort not to think about him, lest I should summon him. On the night of the fire, had I summoned Tristan to me? I’d forgotten to ask him. But there was a bad risk I would do it again, now, when faced with real danger again.
The only hope I saw was that wish I’d granted Tristan. If he used it wisely, maybe he could make one of our problems go away? He’d hinted at how tricky wish magic was, though.
And I was pissed off because if Hughes was right, I could really blame myself for the loss of my one and only superpower. And I was pissed at Hughes for making me feel that way.
Well, I still had that death mark thing going on for me, but how was it going to help right now? And the golden stag heart pendulum in my underwear was not going to be of great use, either. What you do with a pendulum normally is you swing it in front of someone’s eyes to hypnotize them. No one had ever heard about hypnotizing someone using your bra cups. Well, not in that sense.
But the pendu
lum option had one thing going for it. If I concentrated on it, if I thought very hard about Marianne, then I wouldn’t be thinking about Tristan kissing me, Tristan dying somewhere at Dora’s possessive hands, or Tristan being torn to shreds in this very cellar because of me.
Thinking about Marianne was much better. And the weird thing was, either the pain and the blood loss were making me delirious, or the pendulum was working at connecting us, all from its awkward place against my skin and near my heart.
One way or the other, I found myself drifting away.
It was dark and bitterly cold in the woods, and I was bleeding from a dozen different places. A harsh wind blew through the naked trees, and birds of prey called to one another through the night. I could even hear a wolf howling in the distance. I shivered and stumbled forward, setting myself into motion.
I knew this forest. I’d been there already. It didn’t mean me any harm, did it? All I needed was my guide, the stag who’d given up his heart so that people could find their way through this place. I called him in a whisper.
“Where are you?”
A realm of death, as Hughes had called this place. On my first visit, I hadn’t known about that, but now I was painfully aware of it. Was this forest dead, and all the beings in it? Was I dead, too? Had a thorn pierced something vital in my body? No way to know. All I could do now was move forward.
I was still wearing the pale pink dress, but it wasn’t looking too good anymore, all torn and stained with blood. At some point in the last minute, I must have wiped my bloody hands on it, too, because the pretty pastel knitted sweater was smeared with it all around my belly. I tried cleaning my palms on a patch of moss and the cold, wet velvety feeling was actually soothing. But it didn’t prevent blood from oozing back again.
Another wolf howled, closer this time, and I crossed my arms around my midriff, shivering harder. Where was that freaking stag?
“Come on. Show yourself. You know I wouldn’t do anything to harm you. I need Marianne’s help. Her brother is in danger.”
A rustling in the brush made me jump and hide behind a tree, my heart beating fast, and all my wounds pulsating in sync. When the crown of antlers appeared in the moonlight, I nearly cried out in relief.
“There you are.”
I tried approaching the big animal, but it was ambling away already, tracing a path under the trees.
“Wait, please.” I ditched my impractical heels among the tangle of roots of a big ghostly white tree.
A wolf howled dangerously close to us. The stag started to run, and I followed, as fast as I could, stumbling on roots, jumping clumsily over rocks. Wolves growled in the darkness behind us. They were after us now, hot on our heels. I hoped Marianne’s clearing wasn’t too far. I could not outrun a wolf, even on a good day.
Thankfully, we soon emerged from under the trees. I spotted Marianne’s wood cabin immediately and made a beeline for it, running as fast as I could, while the buck turned around and lowered his antlers for battle. I crashed into Marianne’s door, knocking and turning the handle at the same time.
“Marianne! Help!”
She was already at the door, wearing black and carrying a bow.
“Wolves?” she asked.
I nodded, and she swore.
“What happened to you?”
“Hughes has trapped me in a spell, and now, he’s trying to use me to kill your brother.”
“The wolves are Hughes’s,” Marianne explained. “He has them everywhere, the little buggers.”
It was refreshing somehow to hear a dead woman cussing. She had stepped outside, into the high grass, aiming her weapon towards the tree line.
“Show yourselves, cowards!” she screamed.
The stag was waiting, steps ahead of us.
“Is that my pink dress?” Marianne asked. “Must have looked good on you.”
For a moment, nothing happened. The night was almost silent. Then the attack happened, lightning fast. Wolves ran at us from every direction, growling and sneering, in a coordinated move. Three jumped the stag, one going at its hind legs and another one, a huge white monster, pouncing for the jugular while the last one tried to rip its belly. Soon two wolves rolled in the grass, whimpering. One of them didn’t get up again.
“Get inside!” Marianne growled at me. “You’re making them crazy with all that blood.”
I didn’t want to go inside. There were so many feral beasts, there was no way I was leaving Marianne and the stag alone, two against twenty. She was shooting arrows everywhere. I’d come to her for help and had only succeeded in dragging serious trouble right to her doorstep. Maybe more than she could handle alone.
“I want to help!” I yelled.
“Then get my fire from inside,” Marianne yelled back.
“What?”
“Fireplace. Fire. You’ll see.” She was focused, her eyes darting in every direction. Arrows swooshed from her weapon, so fast I didn’t understand how she could reload at that pace. But probably the realm of death wasn’t too concerned with upholding the basic laws of physics.
I ran inside. Everything seemed peaceful in contrast. A black cat hissed and ran away, disappearing into a dark corner. I crossed the room, ducking to avoid the odd hanging bag of herbs on my way to the fireplace. There, flames danced lazily and something foul smelling was cooking in a big metallic pot hanging from a trammel hook. How very medieval. Didn’t they have modern kitchen appliances in the death realm? This wasn’t how I’d imagined the afterlife. This really lacked sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. I really hoped I wasn’t going to be a permanent citizen of the place. At least, not too soon. But I couldn’t bet any money on that.
For now, I was supposed to bring fire to the fight. I grabbed a thin, straight log from the side of the hearth and dipped it in the fire, for lack of a better idea.
“Come on.”
It didn’t catch. In the moving light, my blood was gleaming red. I stopped to look at the palm of my left hand. It was completely destroyed, as if some toothy beast had burrowed in it and left it in tatters. It was a red mess oozing ruby-red blood. As I held it near the fire to take a better look at the wounds, a flame sprung into my palm. I jumped with a yelp. My blood was burning! Except it wasn’t. The fire was purring against the wound as if it were a big fat house cat, content to wallow in it.
Startled for a second, I brought my other hand near the fire. This wrist sported a very mean gash, from when I’d first torn my sleeve. And again, the fire leaped into the deep cut. It didn’t burn in any way. It was as if the fire dug itself a comfortable nest in my flesh. It was disturbing, but it really didn’t hurt.
“Fire would be good, now, please!” Marianne called, snapping me back to reality.
I ran back outside as fast as I could, stubbing my toe on the uneven stone floor. The clearing had turned into a bloodbath. There were dead, dying, and growling wolves everywhere, but still they kept coming. The stag was still on its feet and kept fighting, but it had been wounded in several places, and its fur was matted with blood and sweat. It looked exhausted.
“Fire,” Marianne repeated.
For lack of a better idea, I held my hand out to her. The fire was still burning in my palm, around my wrist. She let out a nostalgic sigh.
“So beautiful, so alive.”
“Hey.” She had almost looked creepy, there, for a second. I trusted her implicitly, because she was Tristan’s sister, but was starting to measure the distance between us. She was dead, whereas I, as far as I knew, wasn’t. Something told me we couldn’t really be friends.
She started dipping her arrows in the fire before shooting them. This seemed to hurt the wolves more. Some of the arrowheads exploded upon impact, shooting sparks and firebrands. Wolves that had been hit ran to the trees, whimpering pitifully. Soon the wild animals even stopped attacking, and they all retreated to the forest.
“They’re regrouping,” Marianne said, her deep blue-purplish eyes peering into the darkness. There was a dis
tinct red glow to them now. “They’ll come back later when he’s here.”
“He?”
“Their master—Hughes.”
“Can he come here too?”
She spat into the grass.
“Yes, he can. He’s done something foul to himself in order to do so.”
“And you sent me on a mission to protect your brother against that guy, without giving me any pointers as to how I’m supposed to do that?”
“You’re the protector I called for Tris when I died. It made you special. I don’t understand exactly how. Dying wishes are both powerful and unpredictable.”
Anger was starting to compete with despair, and the fire in my wound seemed to enjoy that. It really was like having a little animal in the crook of my palm. An animal who enjoyed sharp feelings and even reveled in them.
“Look,” Marianne growled, “I’m already doing far more than I should. Do I need to remind you that I’m dead? I should be lounging in heaven right now, with virgins giving me head, not fighting this nightmare!”
Crap.
“Focus,” I said. “I need to find your brother. I’m worried about him. But I’m trapped in that thorny cage, and I can’t call him. I need you to help me.”
She looked at me with a sad expression on her face. “I’m sorry, Victoire. I don’t think I can.”
What, then? A dead end? What was I supposed to do? Anger rose in me again, and the fire grew in my palm, even letting out a tiny roar.
“You should put out that fire now,” Marianne said. “There’s no need to let it all burn you out.”
I took a closer look at my palm and froze. The fire was eating at my flesh, and now my hand looked as if it had not only been jagged and burned severely, but as if some animal had gnawed on my hand, leading to its erosion.
“Ew.”
Marianne let out a sharp laugh.
“Not ew, you princess. It’s just death magic. But enough for now. Come on, let’s go inside. We need to think.”
Moonlight Binding Magic Page 18
