Blood Rites 5, page 11
Through the outer gate, Lazarus and Rowan sprinted towards the main gate, and from there, burst into the town in a flurry of retreating coils of white, which didn’t seem able to move quickly enough to stay out of Rowan’s path. Lazarus entered the town. Rowan stopped at the gate, gazing at the fog with her blazing green eyes, and took off in another direction.
Lazarus didn’t question her motives. He continued inside.
The town was in pandemonium. The streets pooled with blood, and black-clothed bodies were strewn like refuse in gutters and alleys. Pale, twisted faces stared up at the coming night as if in fear of the afterlife that had claimed them. Lazarus skidded to a halt in the midst of the carnage, his eyes darting around the streets, trying to find someone to blame for the bloodshed.
The townsfolk who had managed to escape the onslaught were scattered about, their faces etched with fear and confusion. But as Lazarus surveyed the scene, he realized that none of the dead appeared to be townsfolk at all. In fact, Thaddeus and his guards stood in the street with bemused expressions on their faces, as if they didn’t quite know what was going on themselves.
There was another shriek, and Lazarus’ whirled toward Haven House. Blood was pouring from the doorway and into the streets, accounting for much of the red flood he now stood in. Rage boiled inside Lazarus’s mind, covering his vision in a shroud of red as he clutched his axes and ran for the door.
But as he approached, a body flew through the doorway and into the street. Quickly, two townsmen rushed forward, rifled through the black-robed corpse’s pockets and shuffled it off to the side. They tossed the loot into a pile on the front step of the tavern where Freya and Ember were perched like birds of prey.
The women were smiling.
Thaddeus met Lazarus’s gaze and scratched the back of his neck with a gloved hand. He shrugged and pointed at the orphanage door.
Confused, Lazarus stepped inside Haven House, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim, lantern-lit interior.
Dozens of children—from toddlers to teenagers—huddled against the far wall. Yvonne and Lyra spoke to them in whispers, calming the cries of the younger ones and sternly admonishing any who attempted to stray from their fold.
In the center of the main room—where the children ate their meals and did their schoolwork—dozens more of the black robed figures cowered on their knees. The ones that weren’t cowering were already dead—heads torn from their bodies, limbs bent at unnatural angles or broken off completely. A bestial roar shook the walls of the building and made the children cry out and cover their ears.
But they weren’t nearly as afraid as the black robed interlopes.
Crouched on one of the tables, leering at the prisoners with ferocious yellow eyes, was Belladonna’s young adoptive son. At least, that’s who Lazarus assumed it was. The wolf-born child, who had been growing exponentially faster than his human peers, had doubled again in size.
But unlike his usually human visage and form, Jace had transformed into a wolf-like hybrid of a man. Thick black hairs sprouted from his body, showing through the patches of his torn clothes. A long, tooth-filled snout twisted his friendly, child-like face into a menacing mask. Powerfully muscled arms and sharp, inch-long claws gripped the edge of the table as he snarled at the black robed cultists—for these had to be more of Sanguiana’s cultists, Lazarus realized. Come to steal the children from under Lazarus’s nose as some kind of petty attempt at revenge, perhaps, for the slave caravan he’d intercepted weeks ago.
Jace’s yellow eyes rose from his prey to meet Lazarus’s look of confusion. The wolf-boy peeled his black lips back from sharp teeth in what could have been taken for another snarl, but which Lazarus realized from the twinkle of amusement in the boy’s eyes, was actually a smile.
“Jace?” Lazarus said, shaking his head in awe. “What have you got here?”
Yvonne, the large, blond mountain woman who’d taken Thaddeus for her husband, now gave Lazarus a stern glare. “Lazarus, perhaps you can talk some sense into the boy. He refuses to stand down, not even to let the guards deal with these brigands. He’s convinced they’re going to try to hurt the children. Which, I’m sure they were, but they certainly aren’t in any position to do now.”
At hearing Lazarus’s name, one of the cultists bolted to his feet and attempted to make a run for it. Jace lunged from the table, hitting the man’s back with all four clawed feet, knocked him to the ground, and promptly tore his head from his shoulders. He glanced up at Lazarus with an expectant look on his face, as if the blood paladin were the only one who might appreciate his skills.
Lazarus nodded to the boy, and lifted his axes in salute. “You’ve done a fine job, Jace,” he said. “But you can leave them to me, now.”
The child looked every bit the predator as he slunk off the dead man’s back and returned to his place on the table. His eyes glowed with a feral light, and he breathed heavily. As Lazarus watched, Jace’s form began to shift. Within moments, he was a half-naked child, streaked with blood, and dressed in torn rags, no sign of the wolf he’d become except the gleaming yellow eyes. He grinned at Lazarus proudly.
A shadow darkened the doorway into Haven House and Rowan appeared, with a gray robed sorceress bound by rope-like vines being dragged behind her.
“Found the weather worker,” she said, panting slightly. Then she gazed at the carnage and lifted her eyebrows. “You’ve made fast work of the rest.”
“Not me,” Lazarus said, inclining his head to the blood-covered boy. “Lucky for us, Jace was on guard duty tonight. Have you got any more of those roots to spare?”
Rowan lifted a hand and black snaking roots and vines slithered from outside the building to bind the surviving cultists. She glanced up at Yvonne and Lyra. “Any others we need to worry about?”
Lyra bounced a golden-haired girl on her hip and managed to pry her flute from the child’s fingers.
“Just the townsfolk,” she said, and played a lilting ditty that ended in a comically flat note. “I don’t suppose they’ll be thrilled to clean up this mess. Stinks like a cesspit in here, and I don’t imagine the street’s much better.”
“What happened?” Lazarus asked, shaking his head at the sheer volume of blood that had been sprayed everywhere.
Thaddeus’s voice rumbled from the doorway as Rowan stepped inside to make room for the captain of the guard.
“Freya and Ember left shortly after you did,” he explained. “Only to find the guards at the gate had been killed. They alerted me, and we swept the town for intruders. As we were doing this, the mists from Crystal Lake began filling the streets, making it impossible for any of us to see. By the time we realized what was going on, that these cultist bastards were here to kidnap the children from Haven House… well, someone else had beat us to doling out the punishment, I suppose you could say.”
Yvonne stomped across the room with her hands on her hips. “And the captain of the guard had his job done for him by a child,” she snapped. “I’m ashamed to be married to you!”
Thaddeus snorted and cast Jace a baleful look. Absently, he rubbed at the scar on his cheek, which had been left by a wolf attack when he had been about Jace’s age himself. “That’s no child, love,” he said, shaking his head. “A savage beast, more like. And as ashamed as you might be of me, I’m proud to be on his side. Never seen anything like that before, Lazarus, sir. And I’m not sure I care to again. But if I have to, I hope to each one of the seven hells that I’m not on the wrong side of those claws.”
Yvonne whipped a towel off her shoulder and slapped it against Thaddeus’s breast plate. “The least you can do is help us to clean up,” she said, some of the fight going out of her as she gazed fondly at the wolf-child. “We’re to march at first light, and we’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
Lazarus nodded his agreement, and made a move to step into the street when Thaddeus called out.
“Uhh, Lazarus?” he said. “Before you go… You should know that, well—” He cleared his throat. “Nobody’s told the baroness, yet.”
Lazarus cringed and turned back to Thaddeus. “She doesn’t know?”
The captain of the guard shook his head, his dark skin losing some color. “I’m afraid not.”
Lazarus sighed and motioned to Jace.
“Come on, kid,” he said, turning back toward the door. “Let’s go explain this mess to your mother.”
Happily, Jace bounded off the table and ran past Lazarus on all fours, not in the least hampered by the boy-like form that camouflaged the beast within.
11
Overwhelm
When Belladonna emerged from the crypts later that night, with cobwebs in her hair and grime under her fingernails, she was already in a foul mood.
It didn’t help that Gisele traipsed happily along at her side as if she liked diving into the depths beneath Crimson Keep to visit the upiór lair. Gisele had acted like every moment of their journey had been a grand adventure. She’d absolutely swooned over Yvila’s home, and her extensive knowledge of the ingredients Lothoss had sent her to investigate.
The cheerful little cherub of a woman hadn’t batted an eye when Yvila suggested they destroy their bond with all gods not just Valka and Sanguiana. In fact, she’d nodded serenely, as if Nocturna was agreeing with her.
Well, Belladonna had only just gotten her god back, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to sever her ties with him now, after decades of yearning to be heard by him.
Gisele had offered to carry the piles of books that Yvila had sent with her—each fluttering with flags of black lace to mark where the important information was—and hadn’t pressed Bella when she’d expressed concern at Yvila’s suggestion. So, she didn’t rightly feel she could complain about her perky sidekick.
But did she have to be so gods-be-damned cheerful all the time?
Meanwhile, Belladonna was reeling, completely overwhelmed by Gisele’s return to the flesh, Nocturna’s news that her god was waiting to speak to her, her first conversation with Lothoss, with the quest to find the components and reagents for an ancient spell to dispel a false deity, and the suggestion that mortal kind would be better off without the gods at all.
When she emerged from the tunnels to see Lazarus, waiting for her in the shrine room with that grim, end-of-the-world expression on his face, she didn’t know what to say. Then there was Baby Jace, covered in blood and howling—literally howling—at the moths that fluttered around the brazier at the center of the room… grown another two sizes since she’d last seen him—when was it? Yesterday?!
“Please don’t look at me like that,” she moaned, feeling the exhaustion hit her all at once. “Why are you looking at me like that. And why is Jace covered in blood?”
She would have been more concerned had the boy not been leaping off the walls, clearly uninjured. Whoever’s blood it was, it wasn’t his, and for a moment that was one blessing that Belladonna didn’t have the energy to question.
Unfortunately, Lazarus’s explanation shook her from her momentary complacency.
“He did what?” Bella shrieked, gazing in horror at her perfect little boy. Her perfect big boy, now, who looked more like he should be six or seven years old, rather than—what was it? A year at most? “Jace, honey, is this true? Did these bad men try to hurt you?”
Behind her, Gisele—barely tall enough to see over the mound of books she’d carried from the depths of the upiór cave—giggled like a mad woman.
“They didn’t have the chance,” Lazarus insisted. “It’s time we accept that Jace isn’t a normal child, Bella. His growth is one thing, but this transformation… its something that we need to understand and to control.”
Jace gamboled across the floor on all fours, then scrambled up Bella’s legs and into her arms. She gazed down at him with so much adoration burning in her heart that she felt she might burst. “It doesn’t sound like he’s out of control to me,” she said. “It sounds like he was just protecting his friends. Isn’t that right, baby?”
Jace blinked up at her with his strange yellow eyes, yawned, and promptly fell asleep.
“He is getting a bit heavy, though,” she said, grunting as she shifted his weight and headed for the stairs.
“You should see the mess in Haven House and the street outside before you decide anything,” Lazarus said grimly. “I know you love him, and I don’t think he’d ever do anything to hurt one of us on purpose. But for the safety of everyone in Crimson Keep, we should take some precautions. He’s still a child, after all. He just happens to be a very powerful, unpredictable child.”
Bella didn’t want to deal with this at the moment, but there was no one else she could foist it off onto. It had been her decision to adopt Jace when his mother—a wolf, transformed by a corruption of Felina’s magic into a human being—had been killed in an altercation with Sanguiana’s cultists. She had imagined giving the baby a loving home, and raising him to be a perfect little gentleman, and perhaps guaranteeing that Blackwood Manse would have an heir.
“You’re right, of course,” Bella said, glancing over her shoulder at the large man coming up the stairs behind her.
Lazarus had taken the books from Gisele, leaving the bubbly woman unencumbered and hanging off his arm like a perfect little doll. How could she look so unencumbered by life?
Bella sighed.
“It’s just too much,” she said. “To think that twenty-four hours ago, my biggest concern was that Selena wasn’t feeling well.”
When they got to the top of the stairs, Lazarus set the books on a side table and took Jace from her arms. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers, and Bella felt a flood of gratitude that she had him for a rock in this sea of chaos.
“I’m sorry—” she began, leaning into him. “I just feel like I’m drowning in problems that need sorting out. We’ve got troops marching out at first light, you’re leaving shortly after, I’ve only got a few days to figure out this spell if I’m going to be able to apply the curse to your blades… And now we have more cultists to question!”
“Don’t be,” he said, his deep voice rumbling with understanding. “It is a lot. But it’s not too much. Not for Belladonna Blackwood, Baroness of Crimson Keep.”
He glanced down at the sleeping boy now in his arms, and added, “It is hard to believe this little angel could be responsible for the carnage I saw out there. We should put him to bed. He’s probably exhausted.”
“I want to see the carnage.” Gisele’s pretty blond head popped up between Lazarus and Bella. “May I?”
Lazarus gave her a stern look. “As long as you’re there to make yourself useful, and not just to gawk at the mess.”
“I’ll help,” she assured him. “I’m a good cleaner. Especially when it comes to blood stains. Did you know, the dress they buried me in was the same dress I was wearing when I stabbed my fiancé? Nobody could tell. And I know they were trying.”
Gisele didn’t wait for either of them to answer before she flounced along the hallway, nearly running over Belladonna’s butler in the process. Victor did that thing he did, slipping into the shadows as if he wasn’t really there, narrowly avoiding the collision. When Gisele had disappeared down the hallway, Victor emerged from the shadows and floated toward Belladonna with a smug expression on his face.
“There you are, Mistress Blackwood,” he said, his voice carefully neutral, but with that tone that Belladonna had come to realize was gently mocking.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you need of me, Victor?”
“Only because I sensed you had need of me,” he said, glancing between Lazarus, the sleeping, blood-covered boy, and her. “Oh dear,” he said. “Is another bath in order?”
“That’s an excellent idea, Victor,” she said. “Thank you for offering. Also, you’ve been promoted.”
Bella snatched the sleeping boy from Lazarus’s arms, managing not to wake him, and thrust him at the butler.
For the first time in her life, Bella had the satisfaction of seeing surprise flicker over the skeletal man’s expression. “Promoted, Mistress?”
“Yes,” she said. “I need a full-time caretaker for Jace, you see. And I’m in need of someone with your… problem solving skills. It seems my son has a bit of a temper.”
Victor raised a single, narrow eyebrow at her, but he took the child without further question. “How extraordinary,” he deadpanned. “And with a calm, paragon of delicate virtues such as yourself for a mother? How could that be?”
Lazarus snorted, but he attempted to hide it by pretending to cough into his hand. Bella knew she had a reputation amongst her staff as being hot tempered and somewhat impulsive in nature. But she wouldn’t have to be so testy if her employees weren’t such insufferable jackasses.
She gritted her teeth and smiled at her butler. “Impossible to believe, I know,” she said. “Now, I need you to remain with Jace at all times, in case he as another incident. If I know you, you already know what I’m talking about.”
Victor blinked slowly at her. “Perhaps,” he admitted. “And what am I to do with him in the case of another… incident, as you say?”
“I’ll have Aria whip up a sedative of some kind,” Bella said, smiling serenely at him. “Something you won’t have to get too close in order to dispense. Any other questions? I have a lot to get sorted out, and not much time to do it in, so the faster we—”
“I understand completely,” Victor said, returning her smile with a thin one of his own. He turned his back on her and slowly walked in the direction of the bathhouse, dragging his feet along the way. “I’ll leave you to your very important duties. I’m sure Jace will turn out just fine, abandoned by his adoptive mother and left in the hands of the help…”
Bella wrinkled her nose, fighting the wave of guilt that washed over her at his words, knowing that was exactly what Victor was going for. She glanced at Lazarus, appealing him with her eyes. “It’s only until we get the rest of this under control,” she said. “I’m not a terrible mother, am I?”
