Belmary House Book Three (21 page)

“There’s nothing like vengeance,” Liam said, and for a second, Tilly outright feared him. Instead of the hapless bumbler she mostly liked, stood a man who radiated power and rage. Good heavens, but she was glad he was on their side. “We should summon them immediately.”

“Don’t summon them,” Kostya said sharply. His shoulders slumped and he eased himself into one of the chairs. “Just go and get them discreetly. A summoning spell will have the guards here in an instant.”

“Smart thinking, Kostya,” Sorin said, trying to hide his smile that Kostya now seemed at least a little on board.

Tilly offered to go with him, having nothing else to do since she couldn’t be part of the strategizing. It was already devolving into Ashford and Liam arguing anyway.

“It’s not safe,” Kostya and Ashford said in unison, and she shrugged helplessly at Sorin, hunkering down in a chair to wait until she was needed for catalyst duties.

“Hey, Sorin’s still alive,” she said a few minutes after he left. “Can’t I eat the food now?”

“No,” the three of them said.

She balked at their obstinacy and demanded to know why she couldn’t have a little bread.

“Think about the kids who ate the witch’s gingerbread house in that fairy tale,” Liam said. “It’s better not to be beholden to them.”

“Hansel and Gretel?” she grumbled along with her empty stomach.

“I don’t think I know that one,” Kostya said. “But he makes a good point.”

“The witch locks them up and tries to eat them,” Tilly explained, expecting him to laugh at the absurdity of it and let her have some food.

Instead, he nodded seriously. “That sounds accurate,” he said.

Tilly began to feel odd, a strange floating sensation that had nothing to do with her hunger after the long hike. Ashford and Liam were nose to nose trying to agree on anything, but Kostya noticed her sudden discomfort and shook his head, moving closer to her and speaking in a low voice.

“Why are you here, Tilly?” he asked. “What’s got into Ashford to let you come?”

“I’m his catalyst,” she explained, thinking he ought to know things like that, having grown up in a magic rich environment. “He can’t do, you know, that sort of thing without me around.”

He cast his eyes heavenward. “What absurd nonsense,” he said. “Did that man Liam come up with that? I can’t believe you’re trusting the father of the man who caused Ashford so much trouble over the years.”

“Liam helped get rid of Solomon. It was basically his plan all along, actually. And it’s not nonsense, we tested it.”

He looked at her pityingly. Not as if he thought she was a fool, but in a way that made her stomach roll over with nerves. As if he would truly miss her when she was gone.

“When things get out of hand, you need to run as far and as fast as you can. Head due north, that’s the quickest way to leave our boundaries. She’ll tear you to pieces if she gets her claws on you.”

Her dizziness increased and she reached out for the nearest thing to steady herself. Kostya took her clutching hand and led her to the small bedroom, pointing behind the bed.

“When she gets here, stay out of sight. It might take a bit for her to get started as she likes to gloat, but like I said, when things go bad, you run.”

Sheer terror threatened to overcome her at his calm delivery of such frightening instructions. “What do you mean, when she gets here? I thought Sorin said she doesn’t know yet. We hid ourselves with all sorts of hexes.” He swallowed hard, his look of pity intensifying, and before he could answer, a sharp rap sounded at the door. “That’s Sorin,” Tilly hissed. “Your cousin’s back, right?”

She saw the three men turn horrified looks to the door as it started to slowly swing open. Kostya shoved her to the floor behind the bedroom doorway and moved around the other side to stand next to Ashford and Liam.

She lay flat on the ground and edged her way to the end of the bed, rolling under it and peeking around the carved wooden leg. The end of the quilt hung down and partially obscured her view, but a stooped over skeletal woman wearing the most amazing turquoise ball gown swept into the front room. She had to pull the billowing sides of the dress forward to get through the door, stopping with a majestic swish of satin and glaring at the men with eyes that were sunken in a face so wrinkled it looked mummified. Wisps of yellowing white hair clung to her withered scalp and spilled around her shoulders, drawing Tilly’s eyes to a huge swan pin made of pearls and feathers.

As if by instinct, Ashford swiftly drew his gun and aimed it at her, but with a flick of her wrist, the weapon went flying across the room, skidding through the doorway and landing a disconcerting few feet from Tilly’s head. She forced herself not to duck back and risk drawing the woman’s eye with her sudden movement.

When she finally spoke, Tilly’s insides shriveled, her voice a raspy, echoing sound that made her think of shrill birds fighting over a dead thing.

“Konstantin,” she said, pointing a bony finger to Kostya. It moved slowly toward Ashford. “Julian, correct? Camilla’s brother. I’m surprised you didn’t heed my warning, though it’s lovely to see you again, dear.” Her finger ended at Liam. “I don’t know you.”

None of them made any move to introduce him, seeming frozen with shock at seeing her there. She laughed, the sound reaching into Tilly’s head and squeezing all her worst memories to the surface. Was the same thing happening to the others? All she could see were their backs, continuing to stand in a row.

“You know their appearance is a shock to me,” Kostya said in a flat voice. “Send them on their way and we can get back to our original proposal.” When Liam grunted his dissent at that, the terrible old woman bent her finger, sending him to his knees.

“I don’t think so, dear,” she said, barely glancing at the man who now writhed in agony at her feet. “It seems you aren’t the one I thought you could be. Bothersome, so bothersome. It’s not wholly up to me, though.”

She snapped her fingers and four shrouded figures filed into the cottage, lining up behind Kostya’s grandmother.

“Where’s Uncle Dolan?” Kostya asked. “Down with the flu?”

Tilly saw the old woman startle and look behind her. The four people standing there shuffled and murmured and she could tell Uncle Dolan’s absence pissed her off. It was still five against three, and it hadn’t seemed promising when it had just been the grandmother, not when Liam still lay gasping on the floor.

“Summon him at once,” she said angrily. “I won’t have this.”

Sorin burst into the room, a gaggle of people with him. Tilly’s heart sank to see a small girl, two people who had to have been her parents huddling close to her, an angry, undernourished looking couple, tightly holding each other’s hands, and an ancient man, as old and stooped as the grandmother.

“He’s with us,” Sorin said. It would have been dramatic if their little group hadn’t appeared so haggard and weak. “Even members of your council have turned against you, Grandmother.
Dear
,” he finished with a triumphant, sickly sweet voice.

The four figures behind her mumbled in shocked tones, gathering closer together. “What is this about, Dolan?” one of them demanded.

“I’m tired of her taking my children,” he said. “Over a hundred years and I haven’t been able to raise one of them.”

“You shouldn’t have been such a rutting boar and stopped breeding when I warned you,” the grandmother said. “If you continue being such a fool you’ll follow your children.”

“I no longer fear that,” he said, his voice stronger than his withered body appeared.

Tilly noticed the other members of the council, while gathering close to each other, had moved further away from their evil leader, and she wondered if this was going to be the turning point, if they had lifelong grudges too. The grandmother noticed their defection as well, and they cried out in pain, hurrying back to her side. Ashford was the next to drop to his knees, clutching his head beside Liam.

The newcomers backed up, but didn’t run away, instead clasping hands and raising their arms in front of them.

“Do you really think to fight me?” Kostya’s grandmother said, turning calmly from the group to face her grandson. “Are you going to stand by and watch them all die? Tell them to go back to their homes and the punishment will be less severe.”

The little girl cried out in pain, but didn’t drop the hands she held. Her small, sweet face twisted with whatever cruel thing happened to her, and her mother began to cry.

“We won’t leave,” she said through her tears. “No matter if we all die. We’d rather be dead than continue to live as we are.”

“All of this ungratefulness disheartens me. I shall arrange for you to have very long, very miserable lives,” the monstrous old lady said. Tilly clenched her hands in empathy for the others’ suffering. “You can be like my grandson and never die. You think losing your son was painful, Irina?” she asked the woman clutching the little girl’s hand. “You don’t know painful, my dear. Perhaps you need to lose another child.”

The little girl’s legs gave out but they didn’t let go of her hands. She dangled grotesquely between them, barely conscious. Tilly felt tears streaming down her cheeks, and knew she should run. Kostya was right, they were destined to fail. She saw the back door from where she lay like a useless coward. She could crawl quietly past them or try to climb out the bedroom window and perhaps save herself. Kostya seemed to think she’d be safe if she made it outside the boundaries of Povest land. She wiped at her tears, knowing she could never leave Ashford. He was still on his knees, but managed to turn and give her a look filled with pain and regret.

“Do something,” she mouthed, trying to think like a catalyst, and his eyes turned resolute.

Gritting his teeth, he stood back up and grabbed onto Kostya. He kicked at Liam, who took hold of his ankle, and they moved to join with the others, surrounding the old woman and her council members in the small room. A white light, wavery and tenuous, filled the air and tried to move toward the center, but the hateful old hag only laughed again.

“Tatiana, surely you’ll be reasonable,” she said, directing her words toward the other woman in the group. “You’ve always had such a lovely sense of self preservation. I admire that about you.”

The thin woman shook her head, all her efforts going toward helping maintain the white glow that moved steadily closer to the grandmother. “Not today, I’m afraid,” she said through clenched jaw.

“Pity.” The grandmother bowed her head and the man next to Tatiana fell to the ground, eyes open and mouth agape.

Even half hidden behind the quilt, Tilly could see he was dead. Tatiana screamed and the white light was doused when she dropped to the ground over her lost loved one.

Ashford growled there was nothing more to do for him, and to stand at attention, but she couldn’t hear him over her sobs. They tried to close the circle, moving around her and the fallen man, but when they moved, the little girl could no longer hold on, and also fell to the ground.

Tilly couldn’t watch anymore, she couldn’t bear to see them fall one by one until it was Ashford and Kostya’s turn. Her gaze fixed on Ashford’s gun, the dark metal of the barrel a lonely blot on the worn wood floor. Pushing aside her revulsion for the thing, she slowly reached out, past the bedframe and the hanging quilt, until she hooked the trigger guard with her finger.

The sounds of Tatiana’s crying covered the slight scrape as she pulled it toward her, inch by inch, thinking any second she’d be stopped by the force of the fearful grandmother’s deadly powers. She hoped it would be fast, like what had happened to the man just now, but she didn’t think she’d be that lucky. The grotesque old woman seemed to be having far too much fun torturing those that still continued to fight her, on the other side of the bedroom door.

Tilly hugged the gun to her chest, pressing it hard into her sternum, trying to get her breathing under control. There was no way they didn’t know she was back here, they were just saving her for last. The weak human who had no powers. Would they bat her around like a cat with a mouse for the rest of eternity, keeping her alive so she could suffer longer? Ashford cried out her name, his voice wracked with pain. She wanted to see him alive one last time, and with her heart thudding against her ribs, she crawled out from under the bed and moved carefully until she crouched behind the settee.

The carnage was severe. Tilly wasn’t sure the little girl was still alive or not, the way she lay motionless on the floor. The betraying council member looked to be dead, his tongue swollen and lolling out of his mouth, his hands curled into stiff claws. Ashford sensed her movement and turned, meeting her eye. She tried to smile at him, not sure she succeeded through her crippling fear. The remaining rebels tried to keep their white light going, tried to get it to reach the center and hopefully weaken the evil woman who stood there laughing.  

None of them were going to make it much longer, and the grandmother didn’t look as if she was tired at all. Her four council members stood behind her, keeping the beams of white light from touching her, and Tilly could see that they at least were working, their faces tight with concentration beneath their hoods.

Her hands hurt from gripping something and she looked down to see the gun held tight in her two fists. She shuffled closer to Ashford, hoping to touch him, maybe give him a last burst of strength. As soon as she moved from behind the falsely safe confines of the settee, Ashford howled with either rage or pain or both. The terrifying old woman smiled calmly and settled her gaze directly on her, and Tilly felt a chill such as she never had before.