Page 11 of Claim the Twilight
“Get back in the carriage,” Godor orders. “No more stopping till we get to the mansion.”
Jacqueline’s mansionwatches us with its many dark, empty eyes as we approach. Abandoned by its mistress, it sits surrounded by land. A lonely confidant which harbors her secrets in the echoes that paint its halls.
Christian called Jacqueline a witch. A witch desperate for a cure, but from what Lorenzo told us, and what Orina learned on the Isle, there is no cure for the infection that plagues witches. Only the immunity that runs in Orina’s blood can help, an immunity that can only be passed on genetically; otherwise, they would surely have synthesized a cure by now. But how can they synthesize a vaccine for a virus that isn’t even a regular sickness? It’s mystical. Mystical like my mullo infection.
It does explain why Jacqueline wanted Orina’s blood. She’d known who Orina was. But although Orina’s blood slowed down the infection in Jacqueline’s veins, it couldn’t cure her.
The batlings wait with our carriage, now on high alert, because if one monster can appear out of nowhere and take two humans, then what’s to say that another won’t materialize here and attack us?
Is anywhere safe?
Godor accompanies us up the drive toward the front door, which is ajar. Inviting anyone to enter.
“Looks like she left in a hurry,” Holly says.
“Let’s work fast,” Godor advises.
Inside, the dark corridors seem longer, and a chill permeates the air. I take the lead and guide my team to Jacqueline’s lab. I need a transfusion, and I can only hope there’s enough clean blood stored here for me to give myself one.
I shove open the door to the basement lab and freeze at the sight of Jacqueline seated at her desk. She locks gazes with me, cigarette in one hand, whiskey glass in the other.
“Took your time.” She takes a drag of her cigarette, hand trembling as she lowers it. Her hair, usually neatly pinned, is unbound, falling in manic waves about her face, and her eyes are flat and dull. “Go on then. Do it. Put me out of my misery. I’m done fighting.”
She conspired with the enemy—happy to kill my friend—and yet there’s a part of me that’s sorry for her. This tainted woman, desperate to hold on to her humanity, desperate not to be consumed by the infection ravaging her body.
My emotions must be written on my face because she sits up a little straighter, eyes lighting up with some twisted comradery.
“You understand…” she says. “You know why I did it. We’re the same, you and I. Both trying to hold on to the person we once were.”
She’s so wrong. “No. We’re not the same. I would never sacrifice an innocent person to save my own skin. Never.”
She scoffs and takes a swig of her whiskey. “Whatever. Kill me or get out. I don’t care to hear your lecture about decency.”
“You want to die now?” Merry asked. “A little late, don’t you think?”
“You have no fucking idea.” Her emotionless tone is more chilling than if she’d snapped at us. “This thing inside me, it’s not a virus or an infection like the Circle calls it. It’s something else. A subversion of magic that entered our world over a century ago and decimated the witch population. Some survived and went dark, and others…those under the age of twenty-five, thought that they’d been spared. They acted as hunters of the dark witches for a while until they realized that they hadn’t been spared at all. Turned out that the subverted magic had affected them, burrowed deep inside, waiting to manifest when they turned twenty-five.”
“The surge…” Holly says.
“Yes. Some of us can fight it, subdue it permanently. Others fail and go dark, and then there are some witches, like me, that are locked in a battle with the surge, unable to beat it and unwilling to succumb.” She snorts softly. “They call it an infection, but it’s more of a curse. It’s only an infection to humans, but even then, no cure has been found.” She tops up her glass from the almost empty bottle of liquor at her side, then drains it. “Death is the only option for me now. Christian promised to use Loviator’s power to cure me, and now he’s dead. I just used the last vial of Orina’s blood, which might keep the infection at bay for a couple of weeks, and then…it’s over for me.”
“What made you think Loviator could help you at all?” Merry asks.
Jacqueline looks up at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Hope. But hope is dead now, and I’m ready to follow it to the grave.”
Godor takes a menacing step forward, and Jacqueline flinches. “You’re not ready to die,” Godor says. “You lie.”
She presses her lips together, her eyes welling. “Fuck you. I might be afraid, but I’m ready. Do it.”
Jacqueline doesn’t know Orina is alive…She left before Ezekiel turned up. Before Orina surfaced as a vampire. This is the leverage we need. The bait to get her to help us.
I exchange glances with Holly and Merry, and they both nod, on the same page as me.
I can’t make promises, but I can pose a possibility. “What if you could get more of Orina’s blood?”
She frowns. “A dead woman’s blood is no use to me.”
“Orina isn’t dead.”
