Page 101 of Blackwicket
His features became a rile of contortions, the telltale sign of something other moving beneath his flesh. As I’d seen in Victor, the very shape of his bones began to change, transforming hisface into a monstrous vision, jaw unlocking, stretching. From his mouth emerged the hands of a Drudge. It rose, its face nothing beyond its squashed skull and two lipless mouths, teeth gnashing as it plunged toward me.
My defenses were raised, but the onslaught of this malevolent power was far stronger than any I’d encountered. It tore at me until at last it touched a tender spot, and my magic welled. Grabbing hold, it triggered my response to consume, to welcome it into my body. The screaming of guests was followed by the clattering of chairs, shattering of glassware as people attempted to flee from the atrocity unfolding in front of their eyes.
William held me as my knees buckled, the Drudge clambering, the violation of it oily and alive. It had a voice, which chittered as it burrowed.
Mine. Ours. Forever.
Feelings not belonging to me took root: hatred, lust, vile visions of dismembering every soft human body here, swallowing their screams. I was aware of Jack yelling, beating William with his fists, hysteria filling every corner of the hall, and I lost myself, my soul making room for this thing to inhabit me.
The deep, eldritch echoes of Dark Hall penetrated the chaos, freezing everything in place. Jolted from his trance, William’s assault came to an abrupt end, his connection to me dissected. He dropped me in favor of the new, riotous view in the hall. I collapsed into a near-senseless heap, struggling to maintain consciousness, resisting the abyss of corruption whispering and pulsing in me. Dominating the center of the pandemonium was another Drudge, Victor’s, towering over the guests, unleashing from itself a torrent of curses, flooding the room wave after wave. They rose in a dense fog, fluctuating with ancient power, taking on shapes reminiscent of creatures emerging from a primordial swamp.
The curses from Blackwicket House.
This is where they had gone, swallowed by Victor to be deposited here, where they had nothing to placate them, no access to Dark Hall’s calming hum, and no hope of a Curse Eater coming to free them. Their natural instincts to feed on magic had consumed them, and they crawled their way up the guests. Candles had been knocked from their tables, catching tablecloths aflame. One rolled to a curtain, which ignited with eagerness, begging to burn.
William gazed in exaltation at the unfolding chaos.
“Look, Fiona,” he cried, but it was not just my sister’s name he called. In voices of varying tone representing the creature he harbored in his bones, rose the discordant vocalization of each name of the Blackwicket women.Fora, Isolde, Fiona, Eleanora.
The knife lay nearby, and I reached for it as Victor’s Drudge turned towards the stairs, wading among the devastation. As my fingers closed around the weapon, Thea’s voice called, panic-stricken and urgent.
“Jack!”
The spell of shock broken, the boy jerked his head up to find Thea waiting in the doorway, a handkerchief covering her mouth and nose, smoke separate from the inferno below billowing from the hallway. Other parts of the Nightglass estate were ablaze. He ran to her, and as they fled, she spared a sorrowful glance in my direction. She wouldn’t help me. To her, I was already gone.
Using the banister, I dragged myself to my feet. Victor caught sight of me, slowed, waiting to see what I would do. Every nerve fired, muscles seizing with the agony of the curse I’d been forced fed. I didn’t expect to survive this, but I was going to try. The next part of my plan wasn’t difficult. The beast in me wanted it, wanted to drink blood like wine. With renewed strength, I lunged at William, plunging the knife into his neck,below his ear. There was a vile popping noise as the point penetrated flesh and muscle, a spout of warm blood as I used my weight to drag the blade down past his Adam’s apple, until it stuck firm in his collarbone. He grasped the handle of the knife as I let go, trying to pull it free, his mouth opening to shout, gurgling instead.
I shoved him.
He tumbled down the stairs, head over heels, his body breaking as he went. His spine was crooked by the time he reached the bottom, disappearing as he was enveloped by the red smog, which had caught fire and churned together, a sea of flames. Victor stood in the middle, watching me, the tongues of fire lapping at his legs.
Despite the desire of the thing I harbored to watch the horror continue to unfold, I didn’t want to, couldn’t, witness Victor burning to death. I stumbled from the mezzanine into the smoke-filled hall, the strangling veil of it mimicking the foul miasma within my body. I crashed against a hall table, the vase atop it shattering as it fell from its perch. I called on my magic, but the Drudge William had given me a portion of constricted, smothering it.
Broken. Used. Nothing. Rotten Nothing.
Whatever this was—this thing William had made—it was sentient and cruel, urging me to submit to my dismal thoughts so my magic would spoil. It didn’t want magic. It wanted more curses. My awareness of this was of little use; the pain in my wrist, the skin shining and red where William had seared the flesh, mingled with the ghastly whispers in my head, recounting every horrible memory—everyone who’d ever hurt me, everything I’d ever done to hurt someone else. Its voice was mine.
Lie down and die.
The thing keeping me on my feet was the vague knowledge that this thing wanting me to die was reason enough not to.Oxygen was sparse, and I was sightless in the deadly smoke, searching for doors. At last I found a handle, the door opening, allowing me to stumble into an empty bedroom. There was a balcony door here, glass, and I staggered to it. It was unlocked, the handle moving freely, but still it didn’t budge. Magic held it closed.
Coughs and sobs warred in my throat as I slid to the floor, inches away from fresh air and escape.
I wanted my mother. My sister. Someone to comfort me in the last moments of my life. But Blackwicket women were fated to die alone.
As awareness slipped away, I was jostled, sat upright. Cool hands passed along my skin, misty and soothing amidst the haze of smoke. I lacked the strength to respond, but managed to open my eyes a sliver to the hazy silhouette of a woman. Like water on parched lips, strands of foreign magic wove through the wailing cyclone of Drudge, plucking at fragments as they flowed—one strand, then another. The tainted power trembled, seeking to free itself, remaining ensnared. But this power wasn’t merely binding the Drudge, it was restoring what had been drained, revitalizing me as I’d once done for Victor.
The giver began to undo the Drudge from me. It was painful going. The stranger didn’t take it all, but relieved the horrible trilling of voices. More aware, I strained my eyes, attempting to focus on the face of my savior.
Auntie stared back, the muscle of her jaw working her exposed teeth back and forth, as though she would speak, but only a trembling whistle emitted, high and sad as a ghost keening for the lost.
A further noise, heavy footsteps, startled Auntie away, sending her fleeing just before a new figure entered, arms encircling me, lifting me to a broad bare chest, topcoat and shirt in charred ribbons. Victor. The jarring of movement rocked metowards unconsciousness, before the sudden frigid bite of fresh air shocked me awake. We’d arrived in another room, its balcony door standing wide—Thea and Jack’s exit.
Victor jumped from the balcony onto a sloping canopy, sliding, and falling the single story to the ground, with me clutched to him. His body altered, changing partially into the inhuman thing that allowed him to land with little impact. I drew endless breaths of winter air, coughing and retching, and still he kept running, putting space between us and the house, now a pyre in the night.
Victor’s face was gaunt, nearly skeletal in the aftermath of what he’d released, all the magic he’d parted with to deliver retribution to the Authority. He’d been planning on giving it all, but hadn’t.
Voices raised, growing louder.
