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You’re coming with us, a metallic voice says from deep inside of me, and I know it’s coming from the creature. You’re coming to see Skarde.
“Lenore,” Solon’s voice breaks through. “Don’t stare too deeply.”
I blink and shake my head, taking a step back until I bump into Natalia. She reaches out and grabs my hand for comfort as the deer skull continues to stare at us.
“They have to stay behind,” Kaleid says. “Solon and Valtu. They won’t let them come with us.”
“Then Lenore isn’t going either,” Solon says angrily. He tries to get out of the grasp of those skeleton hands, but he can’t. If these are witches, dark, dark witches, then they have power over everyone here.
Except maybe me.
But yeah, probably me too. I’m not that special.
“She has to go,” Kaleid says. “If we want to do this properly.”
“Then we don’t do it properly,” he snarls. “We don’t do it at all.”
“Solon,” I say to him. “I’ll be okay.”
He blinks at me. “How the hell can you say that?”
“What, don’t you trust me?” Kaleid asks.
“With her life? No. I don’t trust anyone with her life.” Solon looks at me pleadingly. “Lenore, don’t do this. You don’t have to.”
But then the deer skull creature reaches out further and places its awful hand on my shoulder and I immediately have no control of my body anymore, like a puppet on a string.
I swallow hard, fear swarming my chest. I look at Solon. “I think I do have to.”
“She doesn’t have a choice now,” Kaleid says.
“And this was your fucking idea!” Solon booms at him.
“Hey, hey,” Natalia says. “None of us knew what would happen once we got to the other world. We didn’t know how we would get there. This is how we get there. Look, Solon, I don’t like this any more than you do, especially with these fucking things, but if we’re going to do what we set out to do, then this is the only way.”
“Well, I for one am glad to be sitting this one out,” Dracula says.
“Yeah, and I’m only here because of you,” Natalia says to him, a hint of rare emotion in her voice, and if I had any brain cells to spare, I’d wonder about their relationship. I’m pretty good at picking up on unrequited love these days.
“Come on,” Kaleid says, though I’m not sure he’s talking to us or to the Lapp Witches. It doesn’t matter though because the one holding onto me starts leading me to the lake’s edge. I want to turn my head to look at Solon one more time, but I can’t. I can’t do anything but move forward. I can’t do anything except what this creature wants me to do.
I’ll come for you, Solon’s voice comes into my head. I’ll come for you, just stay safe. Do what you can to stay safe and I’ll find you, I will.
There is so much horror in his voice that it unravels me, whatever strength and resolve starting to come apart at the worst possible time, as the red water laps at my toes.
I’ll be okay, I tell him. I’ll destroy him for you. I promise you that.
Moonshine, he says, my nickname breaking in pain. I love you. I love you.
For the ages, I say. I want to close my eyes, sink deeper into those words in my head, let his love wash over me, bolster me, strengthen me.
But I can’t. I can’t even control my eyes. I’m just a puppet. I’m walking into the blood, it is rising up around my ankles, my calves, past my knees, my feet sinking into something slimy and soft, and oh god, this is awful. The stench is revolting.
“Ew,” Natalia says, and while I can’t turn my head to look at her, I can see her and Kaleid in my peripheral, walking into the bloody lake on either side of me.
The water rises higher and higher.
The bottom disappears.
I sink into the lake of blood and leave the world—and Solon—behind.
16
Absolon
I don’t think I’ve ever felt such fear. And that is saying a lot, considering what I’ve seen since my monstrous beginnings so many centuries ago.
But to see Lenore, my love for the ages, walk into the lake of blood, led by a Lapp Witch, accompanied by my two siblings whom I don’t trust, heading to see my father Skarde, to be used as bait, I…
“I should have never let her come,” I say, to no one in particular, watching the lake as their heads disappear beneath the bloody surface. The ripples from their movement cease and the lake goes still.
My heart goes still as well.
“Well, I don’t know your girlfriend very well,” Valtu says from beside me. “But I got the impression that she would do whatever the hell she wanted to, no matter what you said about it.”
