Page 44 of Mortdale

Her hand rested against my chest. “What about him? Do you not care at all about him?”

“It’s not like that between us. He didn’t want this. I think you know that, too. I heard the king forced him to marry me. Would you care about someone who was forced on you?”

Her gaze searched mine for long, tense minutes. “Then perhaps it is for the better. If it is as you say.”

She put a hand to my shoulder, leaving me there alone again.

Wind beat heavily against the glass windows, branches whipping against the glass to compose a stiff ostinato. And our old pasts felt so close to my fingertips, so conjoined, as I traced them over his belongings. I stopped in front of another portrait. One much duller in colour. Painted in a hurry as if afraid their smiles wouldn’t last. Cassandra held him on her lap, proud and joyful.

“Hello, Cassandra,” I whispered, tracing the small hand clutching her finger. “What happened to you?

I startled when the bulb overhead blew. Moonlight slowly seeped into the room from the dark windowpane and its glass surface turned ectoplasmic, like the waves of a speckled lake. On the other side of the milky surface, someone was watching me, fading in and out of sight.

She lifted a hand, resting it against the window. That’s when I noticed the deep cut across her wrist; it was still bleeding, blood gushing down her elbow.

“Run,” she whispered, flashing against the wind like candlelight. “Leave him. Leave him, please. Run, Willow!”

And then the milky waters dragged her back, and the glass reflection settled to frame the dark night outside.

An ice-cold breeze pushed the bedroom door wide open, shattering off the hinges with a groan.

Run, the wind echoed. You have to run. Leave him.

I followed that voice out into the corridors, searching the shadowy ends for any sign of her. “Wait!”

Tree branches hit the corridor window, shaking furiously from the summer storm brewing in the distance. With one last glance in the direction of Piper’s warm laughter, I followed the evanescent phantom outside.

Cassandra dragged a trail of blood down the dry parterre, heading for the surrounding woodland as thunder started striking the rocky cliff. She glanced at me over her shoulder from time to time as I followed her from a distance, flitting in and out sight.

“Wait,” I called, tripping over every branch and dip as I followed her deeper into the woodlands. “You’re a witch, aren’t you?” I asked, losing count of how many trees I’d left behind. “I saw your mark. And I read your letters. Did…did the same thing as the others happen to you? Is that why no one knows about your death, about what happened to you?”

Her floating body turned in my direction as she came to a stop near the edge of the cliff leading out to an angry sea crashing thunderously against the rock. “I am sorry, Willow Briar. I have to protect him.”

“Protect him from what?”

“You.”

What? I shook my head. “Why would I hurt him?”

She vanished into the wind along with my answers, and a pair of hollow milky-white eyes stared back at mine instead. The hollow-cheeked vampire cracked his neck sideways, a rattle slipping out of his bloody mouth as he parted it wide open to brandish his fangs. His hiss forced me a step back. And then another when he lunged in my direction, crossing the long space between us at a speed I could hardly rival or outrun.

“Shit,” I muttered, tripping a few steps backward as I quickly unravelled a long string from the lace bertha, twisting it as fast as I could between my fingers to lock in the paths of chaos. “Fires of Old—”

A rifle went off, and a bullet cut through the vampire’s glenohumeral joint, dismembering the vampire’s arm clean off his body. The severed limb spasmed all over the woodland floor next to the hissing vampire.

The red ashes of a lit cigarette were all I saw in the dim darkness, yet I breathed a sigh of relief. Logan stepped out of the shadows, cocked his weapon again and took aim at the raging vampire still crawling in our direction. “No. Spells.”

“I thought he was going to kill me. Burn me for wanting to summon a little fire.”

“Fires of Old?” he shouted, loading a few more cartridges in the rifle and shooting the creature’s other arm off. “That’s a little fire to you? Summoning fire from Hell?”

“That’s all I could remember!” I shouted back.

“You insolent witch!” he bellowed in return, blowing a wide hole through the vampire’s head.

“And what about it!” I yelled back.

His jaw was set tight as he removed his tie and lit it on fire before throwing it at the vampire’s twitching remains, watching it get enveloped by flames. “Walk.”