Page 55 of The Villains of Winter

His body was careening forward, and James had tried to grasp him back upright, but James’s normally quick hand felt nightmarishly slow. James couldn’t breathe. His heart went dead. His lungs refused oxygen. His hand refused to obey him.

Elliott fell straight forward into the stacks of wood and without hesitation, the burly huntsmen marched over to him and grabbed him up from the splinters and cuts of wood, spreading vinegary, gamey, livery salts beneath his nose.

The whispers of pity were unbearable.

“One of Mrs. Ledgerman’s orphans?”

“An orphan chosen this year…poor child.”

Earlier that day, James’s hands were bathed in blood. He was removing the entrails of a subject, a nameless corpse, the organs putrefied with necrosis. The eyes were gouged.

Professor Wulfram had supervised behind him. He disliked when James buried the bodies with humanity and compassion, instead, bearishly, Wulfram disposed of them in the local coroner’s incinerator. Wulfram frowned in disapproval whenever James placed a cloth over the eyes out of respect for the deceased. In his perspective, it was a waste of cloth.

All James Wilde could think of now were Elliott’s soft bichromatic eyes.

He couldn’t let that happen to Elliott.

James bolted into movement. He needed a strategy. He sprinted down the rough-hewn, splintered, timber steps of the raised platform. He checked his wristwatch, it was exactly 2:00 AM in the morning. It was godlessly early, but the crepuscular dark worked in his favor.

The sun wouldn’t rise for another four or five hours, which meant visibility would be low in the woodlands. No one would see him in the moonless dark. The Eisenhower Woods were secluded, compactly small, one of the only mountain forests nearby without cabins or private residences like in the Nixon Forest, because it was considered a sacred memorial ground. No one was permitted to enter on the day of the killing.

It would be Elliott’s final resting place with the hibernal sacrifices of years past. Only Elliott and Lucien would be given entry to the sacred path.

No one would be permitted to escort them either, not even the police. The police only intervened to shoot the sacrifice in the chest or the head, if they attempted to flee at the ceremony. A bullet-related death was unacceptable to the College.

A bullet was brutish–bullets pulverized cranial bone, ruptured through crucial tissue, fragmented important cartilage, damaged vital organs with unnecessary holes, and rendered the critical muscle unsalvageable.

After all, the College needed the body anatomically intact for alchemy experimentation.

To the public, however, the College merely claimed the preservation was out of dignity and humane civility.

At last, the hibernal ceremony was over.

All at once, everyone returned to their lives, yawning and chattering in the freezing winds. It took every ounce of restraint in James’s muscle to remain grounded and not give into the barbarous rage to curse them all to hell.

His eyes darkened with a mixture of fury and hatred.

He vowed he wouldn’t simply slaughter Lucien Montclair. He would desecrate his body. He’d be resourceful with whatever means nature gave him to raze him down to the earth.

As if emerging from his murderous thoughts, the smirking, prideful creature approached him. His large, coarse stag antlers that wreathed his head were nearly as broad as his shoulders. The wisps of his light blond hair rustled in the wind. “The grandeur of the winter play will be interesting this year, won’t it?”

James had to physically coerce his jaw to unclench. “You have your Cadmean victory, enjoy it while it lasts.”

Lucien tilted his head towards Elliott. “Do you think he will cry?”

A profane warfare raged an unholy bloodbath in James’s mind. He barely remained silent. He was dangerously close to bursting the blood vessels in his pupils. He restrained himself within an inch of committing a massacre.

Unaware, Lucien luxuriated himself in a victory lap. “I will miss your performance this year it seems. As I’ve said, it upsets me, because there’s none as beautiful as you in the magnitude of theater.” Lucien angled his dark bident towards the unconscious Elliott. “Nor is there anyone as idyllic and saccharine than him in our institution. His attraction is bewitching, isn’t it? When he gazes at someone, not even the loveliest woman or the finest man compares to Elliott Archway. What a pair you made.”

Do not say a word to him, James. The battlefield is not here. It is not time.

Lucien feigned pity. “A wholesome young man with pure love inside of him. His natural innocence almost makes you want to corrupt him, doesn’t it? He makes you want to commit acts on him that are wretched. Taint his soul to see if there’s a wolf inside of him, like the rest of us. There’s a magnificent light within Elliott, wouldn’t you agree?” Lucien’s pale lips stretched further. “I will delight in draining the light out of his eyes. No matter how beautiful they are.”

James nearly bludgeoned Lucien to death with the metal bident in Lucien’s grip. James didn’t care that there were scores of children in the audience. He didn’t care that there were elderly citizens with cardiovascular conditions. He didn’t care about the mothers carrying their Crucian baskets for offerings. James cared even less about the rows of students with holiday festivities to attend as they started to depart, stretching their hideous Yule tunics as they all waved final good-byes to Elliott on their way out. James would’ve rammed the bident into Lucien Montclair in front of them all until all that remained of him was pulp. Saps of his corporeal membranes spread everywhere.

However, James only had an hour and forty-five minutes before the winter production began at Thysdrus at 5:45 AM.

Therefore, for now, James needed to remain in place. He couldn’t vanish and endanger his alibi.