Page 590 of Flirting with Darkness

Another boom filled the night sky, followed by another immediately after. A blue and green blossom formed next to one that shone a bright gold and white. Inside those delicate sparks and flames, the shape of an enormous lion’s head briefly emerged.

As soon as Ghost saw it, it began to melt away, pouring gold fire over the lake.

Another boom echoed through the night sky…

…and every person standing around Ghost collapsed.

* * *

They lay on the black stone, whimpering and moaning.

Ghost noticed only then that the Count had led them out to a round area of the flagstones, just beyond the edge of the black stone fountain. In coaxing them out to look at the fireworks, he had brought them to his killing pen.

The place where he intended to butcher them.

The realization flashed in Ghost’s mind, stunning him.

He stepped back, alarmed, when the dark-haired Cossack with the furred hat reached for him, his eyes pleading for help. Ghost stepped out of the circle of flagstones altogether, looking around in horror once he realized what he was seeing.

They were bleeding, all of them.

They bled from their eyes, their noses, their mouths.

Even their fingernails seeped with blood.

From the blooming and darkening stains on their elegant clothes, they bled from other parts of their bodies, as well.

“What in depths of foul Hades is this?” Ghost burst out.

His father had joined him.

His servants and acolytes stepped outside the circle too.

The Count watched the goings on with his guests, a clinical, detached look in his blue eyes. From his expression, he could have been an academic scientist conducting an experiment, looking to see if a particularly complex reaction was proceeding correctly.

Or perhaps he looked more like an animal trainer assessing a horse before a big race, making sure its body appeared sound.

Whatever the accuracy of either comparison, the Count watched his guests writhe and groan without making any move to help them. He stood there, silent, as they lay down on the stone-covered ground. He watched as they gasped, hands around their throats, eyes wide in terror, faces pale to the point of death.

Through all of it, Ghost’s father appeared unmoved.

“Will you really kill them all?” Ghost demanded bitterly. Disgust and fear colored his voice where even he could hear it. He never stopped staring at the people covering the face of the stone dais.

“…You will let them all die? The Tsar’s son, too?”

“Of course not, dear boy.” The Count sounded openly impatient, verging on annoyed. “Nothing that happens to them will stay with them to the morning. They will remember none of this. There is a reason the rumors at my house center around orgies and other debauchery… it makes it far easier to clean and return the clothes in the aftermath if I bewitch them to rut and debase themselves while my servants clean and dry their clothes.”

Ghost felt his throat close.

He turned and stared at his father, half in disbelief.

He knew without asking the old man was serious, however.

“Seems a lot of trouble to go to,” Ghost growled softly.

“I do not dictate these things entirely, my boy. Magick is something we harness, but it has its own rules. It has its own needs and hungers. I can only alter the rituals so much.”

Ghost didn’t answer.

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