by K. C. Cross
I turn and look back at the cathedral. The shadow took the ring and Grant is gone. He left behind his magical scent and slipped into a brand-new one.
No.
Not a new one, an old one.
The one he came here with fifty years ago.
A rage builds inside me. It starts in my chest and radiates out, pulsing and undulating through my muscles. A hatred. A malice with a nice dose of malevolence mixed in with bitterness and spite.
Who does he think he is? Who gave him permission to walk away from this prison?
But I already know the answer. The new scent. Female. Young. Uncorrupted by the curse of an unrelenting punishment.
I approach the cottage, acutely aware of the way her scent triggers the monster inside me when I swing the door open and track her through the rooms, up the stairs, to the window. And the missing car.
She watched him leave.
She… is the reason he left.
Because she does not belong here.
He does.
I jump down the stairs, pass through the open door, gallop up the hill and into the atrium. I pause at the bottom of the stairs, sniffing. She is so close, her scent so strong, I almost become intoxicated from it.
And I can hear her. A soft voice.
Then Tomas. Cautioning her. Warning her.
I take the steps seven at a time. There are at least a hundred, so in sixteen strides I am in the grand entrance. And there she is.
Tomas’s arms around her. One hand held firmly over her mouth.
Her eyes track up my body, starting with my hooves and land on my narrowed eyes.
The look she gives me is pure terror. She pulls the hand from her mouth and screams, “What the fuck is that thing!”
Thing.
Thing.
Thing.
It echoes in my head.
She breaks free of Tomas, runs for the door, and even though I know she can’t escape—she is part of the curse now, and there is no way around that—I go after her, prey instinct triggered like a wild beast, jaws grinding, teeth gnashing, fingers reaching, claws… snagging.
I pull her back so hard, she flies up in the air.
“No!” Tomas yells. “He’s gone, Pell! He’s gone! We need her!”
I already know this. I don’t need the rules explained to me. I have lived within the boundaries of my curse for two thousand years.
But it’s too late.
I am nothing but rage and hate.
And I want to take the full wrath of my fury out on this young human woman for daring to walk into my sanctuary. The one place on this godforsaken earth where I am permitted to exist.
For daring to change my world.
For daring to make me change with it.
And now I blame it on her. I put it all on her.
It is now her fault that I’m here. Because she let the only man who could set me free from this wretched curse walk out.
Because now I have to start over from the beginning.
Because there is no way this stupid girl will be able to match the skills of Grant.
Grant. In my mind I sneer his name. “He left!” My words come out as a ferocious growl.
The woman hits the ground less than a moment later. Her head smacks hard on the polished marble floor, the air in her lungs escapes with a grunt, and she slides for a good distance before her body goes still.
“You fucking idiot!” Tomas yells. “You fucking idiot! We need her!”
I turn and pace down the length of the entrance hall, my hooves clomping, my breath heavy with leftover anger. My chest rises and falls at a pace that leaves no room for doubt that I am pissed.
I turn back to Tomas and direct all this rage at him. Point at him. Accuse him. I can’t accuse the woman again, because she is unconscious, so Tomas is my new target. I pin it all on him now. “Where did he go! Why did you let him leave?”
“I have no control over Grant! You know that!” But in this same moment, he bends down to the woman and places a hand on her cheek. Then he gently slaps her, trying to bring her around. “Hello? Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”
And this is new. And weird. And disconcerting. Because Tomas should not be able to touch this woman. “What the—”
But he cuts me off. “Don’t just stand there, you disgusting monster! Help me get her into the apothecary so I can find something to wake her up!”
I look over my shoulder at the apothecary at the north end of the great hall. The massive wooden door is framed by an intricately carved, Gothic arch with images of… me. Monster me. Raging me. Killing-machine me. And of course, that stupid fucking poem that practically sits above every single door in this place.
“Never mind,” Tomas growls. “I’ll do it myself.”
He grips the woman under her arms and begins dragging her body across the polished marble. I just stand there and watch him, curious. He pauses at the door, balances her with just one arm as he maneuvers the lock, then pulls and props the door open with his hip.
A moment later, the woman’s legs disappear from view as Tomas drags her into the apothecary.
“Huh.” I scratch my chin. Some of the anger dissipates inside me as I consider the strange turn of events with Tomas.
But this curiosity doesn’t last. It’s not enough to distract me from the reality of my new situation.
I turn towards the staircase, fully intending on going back out to my tomb, when I hear the woman moan. I pause.
Tomas hushes her from inside the room. “Shhh. Just lie still. I’m sure Grant has something in these bottles that can help.” She groans again, and again Tomas gently admonishes her.
I let out a long, angry sigh. Because he’s not allowed to do these things. This woman is mine. She is here for me and me only.
Tomas has no power here. He is trapped here. He is nothing here.
So he should not be talking to my woman, or consoling my woman, or helping my woman.
He should get his filthy fucking hands off my woman.
And then the rage is back.
I stomp over to the apothecary door, push it open so hard it bangs against the stone walls and shakes hundreds of glass bottles on tens of dozens of shelves, and I just stand there under the arch and watch Tomas as I seethe.
“Fuck you,” Tomas spits. Because after two thousand years, he can practically read my mind. “Do you see?” he taunts me. “Do you see what’s happening here?”
I do. And I don’t like it one bit. “She is mine. You know this. Don’t you touch her. Don’t you—”
“Fuck. You. Monster,” Tomas sneers. He’s pulling potions off the shelves, quickly reading labels, then putting them back and moving on. “Looks like this one’s different. And I’ve been here, under your thumb for far, far too long.” He laughs out that last bit and then he finds the potion bottle he’s looking for, turns towards me, and snarls, “It ends now.”
He has placed the woman on a lounger, and he sits next to her, the potion bottle in one hand. The other slips around under her head and gently lifts it up as he pulls the cork from the bottle, spits it out in my direction, and then places the lip of the bottle up to her mouth. “Drink,” he whispers. “This will bring you back.”
I squint my eyes at the bottle, trying to read the label. There was a time, many, many decades ago, when I was interested in what Grant did in here.
I was hopeful, and he was a competent alchemist, so I let him soothe me with all those false promises. But I never trusted him so the shiny newness wore off quicker than most of the other caretakers I’ve had. It became apparent that Grant was not truly working on a way to lift my curse, just biding his time until he could escape his.
And today, he did escape.
I didn’t even care that he was making no progress. He was stuck in the curse with me. And he would spend eternity here if he couldn’t find a way to break it.
But today—the miracle he had been waiting for happened.
This woman walk
ed into my sanctuary and Grant walked out.
The woman sputters, choking on the glowing lavender liquid. “That’s it,” Tomas soothes. “Sit up a little. It will be easier.”
The woman is not really responsive. Her choking is but an instinct. But Tomas helps her sit up and props her back against the cushions, hovering so close to her, for a moment I imagine he might try to kiss her.
A low growl builds in my throat.
Tomas doesn’t even look at me. But he does swipe a lock of hair away from her face and whisper, “Don’t worry about him. You have me now. I will take care of you.”
“Fuck,” I mutter, then turn and walk towards the door. “Go to hell, Tomas. Oh”—I pause and look over my shoulder as I scoff—“I forgot. You’re already here.”
“Go jerk yourself, Pell.”
I walk out and seventeen leaps later I’m at the bottom of the grand staircase.
I cross the hall and go outside. The moon is dark tonight. New. Fitting.
But I have only one thing on my mind at the moment, and that’s Grant.
His scent lingers in the cemetery. It’s everywhere, and this just makes the anger inside me build once again.
But it’s mixed with pheromones tonight. Fear, mostly.
And he should be afraid. He should be very afraid. Because if I ever see him again, I will tear his head right off his body.
But that’s not that part that pisses me off. Because mixed in with the fear is a dose of excited anxiety.
That growl in my throat is back again. Deeper now. Rage. Hate.
Because he left this place with expectations.
He left this place with hope.
I tilt my head up to the black sky and roar out my rage. Then I gather myself, walk down the path, down the hill, up to the wooden gate that separates us from the outside world, and peek over.
His car—El Camino, he named it—is gone.
He is gone.
I take many deep breaths as I force myself to come to terms with what has just occurred.
This woman is magical. That’s a given. The ability to enter Saint Mark’s Sanctuary without invitation is a skill that runs in the blood. It skips two generations and is only passed on if both parents have a recessive gene for sight.
Or so Grant said.
But how would I know? I have not been schooled in the knowledge of alchemy. Almost anyone can work spells, but I’m not an alchemist. And I only have a few innate powers. None of which are particularly helpful or have anything to do with the curse of Saint Mark’s.
My head is thumping to the beat of my heart, that’s how angry I am right now.
Calm down, Pell. You must think clearly.
It was a nice ride with Grant. It has been easy for more than fifty years. Predictable. But he never did anything for you. This girl is a fresh start.
Here’s my problem. I don’t like the fresh start. I prefer the predictable. I enjoy the easy. And maybe I am whining a little bit—only internally, of course—but the easy is gone now. Grant has left and in his place is this woman.
Woman? Hardly. I have not spent a lot of time outside the gates of Saint Mark’s because Grant had to escort me, like a fucking babysitter, whenever I wanted to go somewhere. But I have kept up with the times. I think. So I have a cursory understanding that in this day and age, the woman in the apothecary is considered to be young. Early twenties. A girl. Barely more than a child.
In my day, a woman her age might already have a daughter who was having daughters. She would be wise to the ways of the world. She would’ve been practicing her craft for well over a decade. She would have discovered things. New things. Important things. She would have ideas about potions, and herbs, and she would not only have opinions about how things inside the sanctuary apothecary worked, she would be plotting ways to make the potions and herbs stronger and more effective.
She would be an asset. But this girl? I scoff into the night, my breath creating a stream of white steam across the blackness.
She will know nothing. She will be useless. She will be a millstone around my neck for decades, possibly even centuries. And maybe I didn’t have a lot of hope that one day I might break this curse, but at least Grant knew what the fuck he was doing.
And now this new thing with Tomas. Surely he is also considering his change in fortune. He is also plotting a way to lift his curse. If that’s what it is.
And he is planning on using my woman to do that.
I place the tips of my fingers up against my forehead and make little circles.
This is more than I can take.
Well, do something about it, Pell. You left him alone with your new woman. He could be telling her things. Things about you. Things Tomas has no right to divulge.
I whirl around and gaze back up the hill at the cathedral. And then I’m running. I will stop him. She is mine. He will not use my slave to fulfill his needs or gain his freedom.
I burst through the doors, leap up the stairs, and then I’m huffing with anger under the arch of the apothecary door.
“Take your hands off her!”
Tomas sneers at me. But I’m not focused on him. I’m focused on her. She turns her head and I already know what’s coming before the scream leaves her mouth.
I turn back around because I’m tired of it. I didn’t bring her here. I didn’t put this curse on her. She did this to herself. She and her family—her bloodline—they are the entire reason I’m stuck here. So she doesn’t get to look at me like I’m the monster when she is the reason I’m cursed.
“Get away from me! Stay back!” She screams this as she scoots to the furthest end of the lounger.
And Tomas is spewing his threats. “I have this,” he says, holding up a flask filled with bright green liquid. “I have this, Pell. And I swear to fucking God, I will use it if you come any closer!”
I’m not afraid of Tomas’s little potion bottle. That’s stupid. But the look on this girl’s face right now?
It’s more than terror as she gapes at me. At my monster body.
It’s… disgust. It’s hostility. It might even be hate.
And fuck that. She has no right. So I turn and leave, slamming the heavy wooden door with all my might, so hard the doorframe cracks a little.
Good. Let it crumble. It was carved by an asshole called Antonius who spent ninety years with me almost a millennium ago. He didn’t even get the story straight. But did he care that he was carving lies all over my home?
No.
Antonius never did a single thing to make my life easier. I was actually happy when his replacement showed up and he got to leave. He died in the back gardens—this was when the sanctuary was still located across the ocean in the Old World. He lived five minutes outside the walls after his spell was broken.
More than he deserved.
I walk out to the center of the grand reception hall and breathe deeply, trying to calm myself. But my mind is still hyper-focused on what is happening in the apothecary when a flutter of wings up in the ceiling makes me look up.
A tiny sparrow is in my grand hall.
“Huh.” I rub a hand over my face as I consider this. I have never seen a bird in the sanctuary. Not even outside. They can’t get in here. They can’t get past the magic. Everything that enters needs an invitation, including this bird.
So how did it get here?
Obviously, it came with the girl.
Wonderful. Pets. Now we have pets.
What else will this girl bring?
I forget about the bird and go back down the stairs, telling myself the entire way that this is why I stay out of the cathedral. I don’t like what happens in here. I don’t like the people in here and I don’t need to be reminded of my story, thank you. I lived it.
At the bottom of the stairs, I push through the doors and wander into the cemetery, picking my way around the hundreds and hundreds of tombs.
The cursed. This is the only place on the property where I truly feel I belong.
<
br /> They like to keep us all together in one place, I suppose. Cuts down on the need for dozens of magical bloodlines to keep us all contained.
I go first to Tarq. I visit him each night. I like to keep him up to date on things. He can’t respond, obviously. He’s a fucking statue. But I like to imagine that he can hear me and that he appreciates my visits.
There are dozens of pathways that weave through all the tombs in the cemetery, but finding Tarq’s is easy because he’s smack in the middle of the west lawn.
At nearly eight feet tall in statue form, Tarq is incredibly imposing. But even back in his real-life body he was a big monster. Built like a warrior with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms and thighs as thick as tree trunks. We never fought each other, so it’s unknown who would win that fight if one ever took place, but most people would put their money on Tarq just due to his massive bulk.
In statue form he doesn’t just look dangerous, he looks… evil.
He is made of black marble that is so detailed, you want to run your hand down the slick rock just to test it out and see if that stone is made of hide. His fur, in real life, is slick, jet black like his long hair on his head. His skin is a light shade of brown and he has welted brands declaring him the property of the god Saturn on both biceps.
My legs are much the same, but they more resemble a ram’s than a bull’s, and they are covered in fur the color of wheat straw. I have the branded markings of an owner as well, but much to Saturn’s dismay, I never belonged to him. I was the property of the goddess Juno.
We, the monsters, we were all made by the infamous alchemist Ostanes for the gods to play with. But even though they are gods, they are not perfect. Far from it, in fact.
The gods I knew were petty, jealous creatures. Always competing with each other. Doesn’t matter what, they always needed to compete. Saturn and Juno were the most powerful. Mates at times. But their pairing was only out of necessity to keep their bloodlines going. They birthed the rest of the gods and then everyone went their separate ways. You can’t trust the gods. Even the gods don’t trust the gods. This is why they needed us. The monsters. We were their children. They lived through us. They used us.
