Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (32 page)

Max’s head jolted away from mine suddenly and his eyes snapped open.
“They are waiting,” he whispered with eyes filled with desperation and concern. “What do we do?”

             
I sighed heavily in frustration and straightened my posture. “What can we do,” I said, offering Max a reassuring smile. “I guess it’s time we go say hello.”

             
Max’s eyes widened at me and I could see he wasn’t keen to help feed me to the ravenous beasts, but with no safe way of escape or better alternative there wasn’t another choice for him to make.

             
“Come on,” I said, resigning myself to the situation. I slipped my right arm through his left and began ushering him towards the decorative, double doors.

At first he fought, clea
rly dumbfounded my by suicidal actions, but after meeting my eyes once more, he stopped and walked gracefully along beside me. “Promise me,” he said, mournfully, as we reached the doors, “that you won’t go out without a fight.”

             
As we paused momentarily, I turned my head and smiled up at him, feeling a glint of my evil side shine through. “I can do better than that, honey,” I said, saucily, as my other half took her rightful place beside me in my mind. “I won’t go out without a massacre.”

             
Together, my two halves took shared control of my body and turned my attention back to the double doors. I grinned confidently as I felt her power burn through my limbs and fill my body. Finally, I felt whole again.

Then, w
ith a laugh common among mad scientists, I grabbed hold of the doorknob and moved to open the door. “They don’t know who they’re dealing with,” I said.

Twenty-Three: Death f
or Dinner

I had never in my life seen so many unusual, beautiful faces and they were all grinning at me, proud and impressed with something I hadn’t yet done. There were immaculately elegant vampires in one corner, rough, rowdy and hairy werewolf men in another and the rest of the many strange and unique citizens and creatures of Saint Jean in the middle of the room.

There were some people
like storybook fairies, with an unnaturally glowing aura and others with skin like scales and jagged white teeth like sharks. There were those that looked normal and harmless on first glance, like Cantrelle, but whose dangerous features gave away their true nature. Then there were a few whose cat-like eyes and robotic motions were so extraordinarily abnormal that they even looked alien. It seemed to me that if they hadn’t all been smiling at me, appearing to accept me as one of their own, I might have actually been scared enough to wet my pants. Creatures like this, my desperate denial exclaimed, things I hadn’t even had the imagination to dream up, shouldn’t exist.

Max led me slowly into the huge, medieval ballroom, while the creatures in front of us parted and created a clear path before us. I glanced around the room, from ethereal faces to hideous ones, from the sharp,
colorfully crested swords and shields on the dark granite walls to the bright, golden, candle-lit chandeliers hanging above us and to the glistening sparkle of the patterns on the marble floor beneath me.

Then
directly in front of me, in the space cleared for Max and me by the supernatural beings around us, I saw my mum and Louis. They were standing on a marble stage, with four large, royal chairs sitting empty behind them like thrones. My mum’s cold, undead hand was held firmly in Louis’ and their cheerful, white grins portrayed the happiness and contentment they felt for the nearing of my life’s end.

Max gripped my linked arm tighter as we came closer to the marble podium and when I glanced up at his face, I could see
that it was out of fear more than necessity. His eyes seemed to tell me not run, probably for fear that if I did the entire room would swarm on me like locusts on a corn field and I was pretty sure that I didn’t feel like being everyone’s dinner.

As our feet reached the first step to the stage, Max pulled me to a stop and we waited.

Louis, who was dressed in an elegant tuxedo like his son, stepped forward, dropping my mum’s hand from his and clapped his hands together in front of him. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Louis said loudly, stealing everyone’s attention from me back to himself.

I tried hard not to smile at his odd choice of words, feeling
peculiarly sure that there were no proper
ladies
or
gentlemen
in the room, but soon thought better of it when his vibrant, gold eyes connected with mine.

“Our guest of
honor has finally arrived,” he said smugly. “And what a pretty guest of honor she is.”

That comment seemed to get quite a response from the crowd
and while most seemed to agree in unison, others let out a loud whoop to show their appreciation. As I thought before, ladies and gentlemen, these were not.

“Alright,” said Louis, as he looked up again with a wide grin and raise
d his hands to quieten the room. “You’ve all made your point. The young lady can’t help but feel at ease after that welcome, can she?”

His intimidating eyes came to mine yet again and I gave him a tight-lipped smile. He could think whatever he damn well wanted to, just as long as he didn’t see
me coming. I doubted my going out fighting option would last very long in a room like this, but if I could take out my major enemy before everyone else tore me to bits, I would die happy. I just had to wait for my moment.

“Well,” he said
pleasantly to the full room behind me. “Shall we begin?”

A ruckus of approval turned the quiet room into chaos once more, until Louis raised his hands and silently ordered everyone to settle.
“We are gathered here this evening,” he began, reminding me vaguely of a priest at wedding, “to steal the life from the very last daughter of Lilith and bring her back as one of us.”

A few hoots of excitement burst through the room and then at Louis’ glare
, a quiet hush returned. “As this is the very last ceremony,” continued Louis, “ever to be performed on a daughter of the Goddess Lilith, I decided to make it interesting.”

Max’s
grip on my arm tightened even more until I was sure that there was no circulation left in that arm. Glancing up at him, I saw fear overwhelm his eyes and felt certain that he was worried about what his father had planned for me. Together we turned our attention back to the ringmaster in front of us and awaited his plans for my death.

Louis waved his hands in what seemed to be a grand gesture with no great, grand outcome
. Until suddenly, two men, one from either side of the podium, wheeled a large cloth covered trolley each into the room. Both men, who if I had to guess were hairy enough to be loyal, lackey werewolves, steered the trolleys beside Max and me and then stopped and seemed to wait for further instruction.

Louis grinned proudly at his guests and then gestured at Max, who reluctantly escorted me up the three steps to the top of the podium. When we reached the top, Max hesitantly dropped my arm and turned to face the crowded room, forcing me to follow. As soon as I was facing the front, Max and Louis’ arms linked through each of mine and held me firmly in place.

A sudden feeling of being inescapably trapped came over me and I yelled at myself internally for not trying to run earlier. My heart thudded hard inside my chest and I felt my pulse quicken. I knew Louis would feel my fear, but there wasn’t much I could do about it short of passing out. Instead, I held my head high and tried to ignore the cold adrenalin entering my veins pleading with me to choose: flight or fight.

As I expected
, Louis turned his head to face me and shone his bright, glowing, golden eyes down at me clearly conscious of my fear, while his grin widened. His free hand gestured to the werewolf men with the trolleys at the bottom of the stage and without hesitation they threw the white covering cloth to the floor. As the crowd around us ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ at the metallic device the werewolves were constructing down the steps in front of us, I tried hard not to think too much about it.

It didn’t take long for the two men to finish and once they had
, a sigh of understanding seemed to wash over the entire supernatural gathering. For a moment, I tried not to look down on the probably torturous creation weaving down the stairs in front of me, but it wasn’t long before curiosity got the better of me.

Feeling as though I was looking at something I shouldn’t be, I warily glanced down at the metal apparatus and found myself a little confused over exactly
what
I was looking at. The wide metallic tray standing in front of me sloped into the middle, towards a deep hole that was connected to a pipe, which travelled down the stairs and stopped a ruler length or so above a second flat tray that was standing in front of the evil crowd. I still wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but my imagination, with the help of my evil half, was coming up with some scary enough ideas.

With another wave of Louis’ hand
, a final trolley came out, covered entirely with wine glasses and an eerie mental picture of the pain I was about to endure entered my mind. I grimaced and all the sensitive nerves in my body seemed to twinge tenderly at once. I hoped fearfully that Louis was in no way planning the torture I was imagining, but as I looked up at his delighted and excited expression, I knew otherwise.

A loud applause began to fill the ballroom, slowly at first starting with a single clap until the whole evil audience was showing their thunderous approval and appreciation for Louis’ painful plan for me.
Nervously, I moved closer to Max and once again started to scold myself for not making a decent run for it earlier. As I glanced up at him, unable to hide the fear from my eyes, his already ashamed expression filled with guilt and he dropped his eyes from mine and wouldn’t reconnect them. The hopelessness in his eyes and the defeated nature of his posture reminded me that I was in this alone. I knew that although earlier, a part of Max had appeared to want to help me, his true family, his only family—Louis—would always be more important to him than me. Max would always obey Louis’ orders without question, even if it meant killing me and while a part of me respected his loyalty, the other half wished that he’d be a disobedient son just this once.

With his left arm still linked firmly through my right, Louis raised his free hand to the crowd again to silence them and then clasped his cold, dead hands tightly in front of him across his chest. When the crowd had sufficiently shushed, he bowed slightly to the audience, pulling my left side down a little and then back up with him.

“Thank you,” he said smugly. “Thank you. I’m sure, by now, you have all gathered an understanding of what I have planned for this evening.”

A whisper of agreement filled the room and then Louis continued.

“As our beautiful guest here will be the final sacrifice of the pure Lilith bloodline,” he explained confidently, “I have decided, quite generously, to share her with each of you. As all your powers empower me, I will empower you, by giving you a taste of the purest evil, the powerful rush of the sweet, hot blood fresh from her veins. Your power is my power, your strength is mine, and together we will grow stronger with the sharing of her life.”

Another applause broke out, although I had to wonder why. As leaders go, Louis was definitely up there with the evilest of them and his short speech was more about the benefits he received from sharing my death rather than how he was actually
honoring his people. As the applause continued and Louis lapped it up greedily, I made myself search for a flashing, neon ‘applause’ sign. When I found none, I had to assume that the supernatural beings in the room were either too thick to understand the narcissistic nature of Louis’s speech or that they were just playing along for effect.

All in all, I hoped for the latter of the two, because there was no way that I was about to be eaten and then brought back to undead life to join a city of creatures who were all a sandwich short of a picnic.

Louis clapped his hands gently in front of him, arrogantly appearing to clap in appreciation of his people, but more likely clapping because he wanted them to shut up. As the room began to quieten, I decided to test my luck and tried to wiggle my left arm free of its tight confines wrapped around Louis’. For a moment, Louis’ arm seemed to slacken and I almost believed that I might have been able to pull it free, but no sooner had I thought it that Louis’ eyes were on mine and his arm was linked through mine more tightly than ever.

Once a polite silence had filled the echoing ballroom, Louis
’ reprimanding eyes left mine and shone out at his adoring crowd. “Now,” he said, officially, “we shall begin.”

A hushed excitement filled the room and Louis
waved a hand to the hairy, werewolf-like man standing attentively to his left and waited.

The man, like the other facing him on our right and many of the other presumable werewolf-men in the room, was dressed in a dark black and midnight blue uniform. It consisted of black slacks and shoes and a silky black, military style, long-sleeve, button up shirt with thick blue stripes on his shoulders
and a blue tie. Unlike the majority of the guests, who were dressed up in large and slender, but definitely ambitious ball gowns and perfect, penguin tuxedos, the werewolves’ distinctive uniform made them look as though they were still on duty.