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Like my mother had said, fruit ripe for the picking.
I fight a shudder, feeling simultaneously angry and awful over my mother dying in such a way. The terrible realization that I’m now an orphan. But that will be something I’ll have to deal with another time, if there is another time after this.
I’m about to turn to Crane and ask him if we should try going through the front door or if there’s a back exit into the cathedral, perhaps another way through the offices underground, when I turn my head and…
Crane is gone.
I stare openly, blink, look around. There’s only darkness. Did he become an even deeper shadow?
“Crane?” I whisper, reaching out with my hand, hoping I’ll touch him.
And then I do touch something.
Something hard and cold.
Something not Crane.
I gasp, withdrawing my hand as the headless horseman steps out into the light, his ax raised above his head.
Chapter 35
Kat
The moon shines on the blade of the horseman’s ax as it hangs above me and a scream escapes my lips.
But instead of bringing it down on me, his hand shoots forward and he grabs me by the throat, lifting me up in the air. I’ve never seen him this close before, never felt his hands on me, the immense power, the horrible stink of evil that rolls off of him in dark waves.
I try to breathe, to speak, but I can’t. My fingers go to his gloved hand in vain, trying to pry him off, but he holds me there, my feet dangling above the ground, and I feel him watching me despite not having eyes.
Why is he staring at me like this?
“Are you just going to stand there like an idiot?” Leona’s clipped voice says and the horseman swings around toward her. Leona is standing by a wilting dahlia bush near the back of the cathedral, Ana on one side of her, Margaret on the other. No Sophie.
She motions to the horseman with her bony hand and the Hessian starts marching toward her, dragging me along. The Sisters go through a back door into the cathedral and the thing with no head follows.
Before I know what’s happening, the horseman is placing me on a table, no, an altar, and Ana and Margaret go to my arms, holding them down above my head. The horseman keeps a firm grip around my throat, preventing me from screaming, just allowing me enough oxygen to breathe, while Leona goes to my legs, parting them wide and strapping them down to the table before I can kick free.
Then Leona does the same to my hands before she grabs a bottle of laudanum from underneath the altar. The horseman forces my mouth open with his foul-smelling gloves and Leona pours the poison down my throat.
It stings and burns and as the fear and panic take hold of me, threatening to obliterate me, I can only hope and pray that what was in the charcoal neutralizer is enough to work through this because they just gave me enough to knock out a horse.
Then the Hessian releases me and I open my mouth to scream but I stop myself. Leona, Ana, and Margaret are staring down at me, their faces now monstrous, like I saw in Ms. Choi’s bathroom, and they’re all looking at me expectantly.
They’re waiting for the drug to work.
This is the only defense I have.
I have to pretend.
I close my mouth and blink at them slowly, as if I can’t keep my eyes open any longer, and let my limbs go limp under the restraints, let my head loll to the side. With half-closed eyes I try to survey the scene inside of the rest of the cathedral.
And my heart drops.
I see Brom standing in the middle of the aisle, inside a pentagram lit by clumps of melting black candles. He’s completely nude, his cock stiff, and he’s staring straight at me with his dark and intense eyes.
This is the Brom that the horseman is controlling, I think to myself. This is really going to happen to me, isn’t it? They’re going to force him on me.
But where is Crane in all of this? I don’t see him in the room anywhere. Is he being held elsewhere, perhaps with Sophie? Or did they already kill him? Is he being sorted and sifted and siphoned right now, somewhere in the depths beneath the cathedral?
My heart feels stuck in my chest, the pain immense, and I can’t bear to think those thoughts without giving myself away, can’t bear to think about losing Crane.
But I still have to think.
I have to do something, don’t I?
I think about my power, my magic, and if only my hands weren’t restrained, then I could at least try to light the Sisters on fire. The bigger problem is the fact that I wouldn’t light Brom on fire, and he’s currently the biggest threat.
