Ten, page 43
“What? You lost a servant—”
“I lost a friend!” Steve confessed. “Yeah, he was a sanctimonious, arrogant—”
“How dare you?” Georgia gasped. “How can you even—?”
“He was obnoxious and infuriating, but he did everything in his power to take care of me and my sister. I treated him like dirt, but he never took it out against me. I know why you ran off with him. It’s because he might have been awful, but he was light years better than I ever was, and as much as I hated it, I was happy for him. I was happy for both of you. Hell, I did everything I could to get you two crazy kids back together, didn’t I? Do you think I did that because I’m a masochist?”
“I think you did it because you knew he was sick, and you wanted to look better when he was out of the way,” Georgia blurted out.
Steve actually nodded. “Yup, I did. That was my whole reason for being the sheriff’s little bitch. I thought, hey, Ren is gonna die, and that’ll be great because I always wanted to be poor and have his grieving widow come on to me for sloppy seconds! Get over yourself, Georgia,” he yelled.
“You stuck up, obnoxious—”
“Pot calling the kettle black, Sweetheart,” he fired right back. “You know what, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I think you deserve to know the truth.”
“Lay it on me,” she growled.
“The truth is, the Ren you knew, was the same Ren who gave up everything just to serve us—”
“Oh, come on. Ren hated serving vampires. He only did it so that his brother wouldn’t have to take his place after their cousin died—”
“Is that what he told you?” Steve asked. “Really, he said he did it for the pencil-pusher kid bro? Ren gave up his cushy little life in California because he was in love. Oh, yeah, that’s right, Sweetheart. The funny thing is, Ren always had a taste for blondes.”
Georgia shook her head. “If you think that this is about Minerva, and that he liked being used by her—”
“Oh, Sweetheart, it was always about my sister. The two of them were quite the item in the nineties. She was willing to do anything for
him—”
“You mean use and abuse him—”
“I mean that she was going to run off and marry him!”
“You’re lying—”
“I wish I was. It was about the only time my sister was bearable.
Ren volunteered for the job, and when his cousin was in the way—”
“Steve, why are you doing this?” she asked. “How can you even say—?”
“I’m telling you the truth because I was there!” Steve snapped.
“And because I was the one who had to make Ren forget, all right?”
Georgia took a few steps back. She held her breath. The vampire gnawed at his lip so hard that she could see a trickle of blood.
“Let’s just say that our family isn’t like the Pendragons. When our mother found out that Minerva was even potentially serious with a human, she took drastic measures. I mean, how do you think Ren got so many scars? She did things. . . yeah—”
“So, your family is terrible over multiple generations,” Georgia snapped. “News flash, I figured that out already!”
“She wanted me to make Ren and Minerva both forget, so I did my best,” Steve confessed. “My power is great for making you forget little things, but when I really use it, it changes people.”
“What, you made your sister evil- er?” Georgia snapped.
“It made them both colder,” Steve said. “I’ve only made one other person forget that much, and it turns out he became depressive and suicidal—”
“Steve, what is your damn point?”
He kept gnawing at his lip. Georgia finally softened a little.
“Steve, just tell me what is clearly eating you up,” she sighed.
“Ren didn’t die because he was that sick, Georgia. In fact, I think he killed himself,” Steve confessed.
“What?” Georgia asked, stumbling backwards.
“There was this freak show in California. It was sick even by my standards. There was this giant chipper shredder, and there were all these tubes,” Steve said, shaking his head. “All of these people, it’s like they volunteered to be vampire chow and not in some nice,
sustainable sexy way. No, this was cold and clinical, and there was a vat of something that I don’t even know what the hell it was—”
“No, no, he was sick,” Georgia said.
“That’s why there was no body at the funeral,” Steve said in horror. “I’m so sorry, but I found this in the mess—”
Georgia choked up as he pulled back his sleeve to show off an achingly familiar watch. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Why are you telling me this?” she gasped.
“I don’t know. Maybe I just thought you needed the truth and as horrible and selfish as it is, I needed to come clean. I needed someone to know. I just wanted you to know how sick and twisted my kind really was—”
Georgia clutched her chest. Steve slunk into the shadows.
“You’re better than this, Georgia. You need to get away from this world, and you need to get away from me. I, um, I finally understand that now, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t realize it sooner. I’m just. . .
I’m sorry.”
She dropped to her knees and didn’t react even as the rough pavers tore into her hose. Instead, she flopped in the middle of the garden as a deflated jellyfish, fighting back tears.
“You won’t have to worry about me anymore,” she finally whispered. “I think I finally understand what Ren was trying to tell me before he died.”
“Georgia—” Steve said softly.
She looked over at the monster hiding in the hedgerows. In the subdued light, his big brown eyes took on a sinister dark glow and his usually boyish features looked drawn out and ferocious.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “It’s so easy to forget when you take care of a helpless, wounded creature that it’s really a wild animal. It’s like I’ve been taking care of a baby tiger and forgetting all this time what happens eventually.”
Steve smiled weakly. “Oh yeah, what is that?” he choked out.
“Eventually, you have a full-grown tiger on your hands.”
31
PAIGE SAT in her room with her knees clutched to her chest. Every breath she took seemed to make the pain worsen deep in her guts.
She stared at her arm in horror as thick, dark hairs sprouted from wrist to elbow.
“This can’t be happening now,” she growled as she rolled back and forth. She tried to slow her breathing, catch her breath, but every drop of air seemed to burn her lungs.
“I am not the wolf. The wolf is not me,” she chanted. “I am not the wolf. The wolf is not me.”
She closed her eyes, and her chanting switched to prayers.
“Please god, don’t let me turn into a werewolf in a castle full of vampires. Please—”
She could hear banging on her door, but the voices blurred together. Her jaw popped out of socket as her teeth shoved against bone. “Not now,” she moaned, but her voice had already deepened into a guttural growl. She pawed desperately at her nightstand where her phone still displayed the dreaded “Emergency Calls Only” error.
“This is an emergency,” she snarled as her claws popped out.
She curled into a ball and felt her ankles pop.
“Paige!”
Her door burst open, and a surprised Lorcan made a beeline for the bed. She lashed out with her claws, but he managed to jab the needle into her neck, while only suffering a swipe across the arm.
Paige arched her back and thrashed a few more times before the
mix of tranquilizers began to kick in. As she drifted off to sleep, she could hear Lorcan whispering in her ear.
“Everything will be all right, I promise.”
“Don’t. . . make promises you. . . can’t—” she growled.
“I can do this,” Georgia told her ghastly pale reflection. “I can totally do this thing.”
She dabbed a few dots of hemorrhoid cream under her eyes to combat the bags. She studied the diagram her father had made one more time so that she could contour her face into a sunken, skeletal form. Her assistant for the week gave her a thumbs-up as he finished steaming her final ball gown.
“Are you sure I’ll be able to find Lord Pendragon at a masquerade ball?” she asked.
Even though they were the only people in the room, Ashley looked surreptitiously to the left and right. “You know; I really shouldn’t say—”
“But—” Georgia prompted.
“My cousin Jimmy delivered the Lord and Lady’s costumes. You’ll be looking for a black iron wolf mask with a matching fur coat,” her servant confessed.
“Ugh, the poor wolfies,” Georgia said.
“Excalibur will be back in the stone tonight, so you won’t be able to identify him with that, but as far as I know, he will have his normal black hair and green eyes. Lord Pendragon is not one for putting in too much effort at masquerade balls, after all.”
“Did you see what Mina, err, Lady Pendragon will be wearing?”
Georgia asked as she flicked on a fresh layer of mascara.
“I would never spoil the drama,” Ashley said hand over heart.
“Would you like to slip into your dress before you finish your makeup, miss?”
Georgia sucked in her stomach as her assistant yanked on the strings to her corset. “I will never eat again,” she muttered as he
finally tied off the top. Tattered layers of gauzy fabric dripped around her legs, while her arms and chest were wrapped up like the world’s sexist mummy. Ashley helped her pin the back of her enormous white wig, while she opened the box that contained the rest of her sugar-skull mask.
“Wow,” the assistant said as he took in her long white braid with a wreath of flowers around her crown. “Where on earth did you find this?”
“One of my best friends just happens to be a drag queen. She lives for moments like this.”
Georgia slipped on her half-mask and did a final check of her makeup. The combination of Nicolette’s texts and her dad’s diagrams had somehow magically translated into a perfect Día De Los Muertos skull face. The little roses on her cheeks matched the flowers in her hair.
“I will say, you win the award for irony,” Ashley said as he checked out her ghoulishly wrapped hands and skeletal manicure.
She gave him a little curtsy.
“Thank you so much for all your help,” she said as she picked up the two completely flattened scrolls from her dressing table and shoved them into her final clutch for the festivities. “So, am I ready for a vampire masquerade?”
“Yes, miss, I believe that you are. Tonight should be the finest of all the evenings. Be prepared for quite the show. I’ve heard that Lord Merlin himself has something planned,” Ashley said. “It should be spectacular.”
“Can’t wait,” she said flatly as she sashayed to the door. She did one final check for the scrolls. “All right, Lord Pendragon. Here I come.”
She nearly ran into a ghoul as she joined the guests all clamoring to get in the main ballroom door. A particularly large gentleman in a cyclops mask waved as she approached.
“You look most ghastly and lovely, Miss Sutherland,” a familiar island accent said.
“Did I forget to put on my mask?” she asked. “Mr. Sugar, is that you?”
“What can I say, I tend to notice the guests who have heartbeats,” he confessed. “It’s not like I can really hide either, my friend. I’ve been so busy with security that I haven’t had a chance to check on my friends. How are you?”
“Oh, same old, same old,” she sighed. “Do you think everyone will recognize me?”
Mr. Sugar leaned down to her ear. “Oh, my dear, the purpose of a masquerade isn’t really to fool people; so, don’t worry, most of the guests won’t try to figure you out. They just want the masks to have an excuse to be a little crazy, if you know what I mean,” he muttered.
“Oh, yes. I have a feeling that this is going to be quite a night.
Say hi to the sheriff for me,” she said as the doors started to open.
“Will do, my friend. Be careful out there. I’m pretty sure the blood supply is going to be quite spiked by the end of the night, and everyone will be three sheets to the wind before dawn,” he warned her.
“Great - drunk, uninhibited vampires. Just what the doctor ordered,” Georgia mumbled as she worked her way into the ballroom. She gasped at the final transformation of the magnificent space.
Massive dragon-shaped braziers surrounded the columns, sending spouts of green flame towards the roof. Suits of polished armor formed a ring around the main stage with two ornately carved thrones sitting in the center of an honest-to-goodness round table.
The table itself was actually more of a huge donut, and the center also showed off a slab of rock with a sword driven right through the middle of it.
“Holy Hannah,” Georgia said as banners unfurled from the ceiling. At the center was the now familiar Pendragon red and black crest. The green flames and lights gave all the standards a sinister glow. She couldn’t help but notice the vampires pointing and gawking at one on the far right. This one practically glowed with its blue eastern-style wyrm coiling around it.
“This should be an interesting night.”
Georgia whirled around to see a striking white mask with snakes coiling around mismatched eyes. He wore a white hood and cloak as
well, but the deep blue robe with snakes on the sleeves was quite familiar.
“Bob?” Georgia asked. Her jaw dropped as someone said,
“excuse me” as she cut in front of the Lung in white. Bam-Yin gave a polite little bow and stepped out of the way.
“They can—?”
“It takes a little effort, but I can choose to be seen when I want to, Florida,” he said. “I must say, Lord and Lady Pendragon have been ever so inclusive, haven’t they?’
“I’m guessing that there aren’t Lung banners at every party,”
Georgia muttered. “And seriously, you recognized me instantly too?”
“Well I’ve been stalking you,” he said. “Also, you have a heartbeat. Once the music gets going, no one will ever guess you. . .
probably.”
As if on cue, trumpets sounded. Musicians wandered to their seats in the upper balcony and a regal processional fired up. The crowd parted to allow a man in a rather wizardly-looking gold and black robe ensemble to amble his way to the stage. He wore only a thin sliver of a gold mask across his eyes, and the moment he flipped back his hood, his salt and pepper curls gave him away.
“It is my honor and pleasure to welcome all the great families and their guests to celebrate this precious, briefest night of the year,”
Merlin said. His voice echoed through the ballroom, and the flames surged with every breath he took. “Know that after tonight, each night will grow longer, each day will retreat, and the world will be ours, as it always has and always shall be. Let the humans hold their dear illusions. Let them walk in the sun but know that our time is coming. Know that greatest moments are yet to come, my dear children.”
Merlin stretched his hands over the crowd and smiled broadly. A collective murmur echoed around the room as the lights dimmed and a shower of what looked like fireflies drifted from the ceiling. Georgia let out a little gasp as the lights danced around her. The overhead lighting faded to black, the fires turned to embers, and only the sparks remained. Bam-Yin took her arm and swept her away from a newly formed aisle in the throng.
The music changed to a dramatic string ensemble, but Georgia could pick up the eighties rock song hidden under a full orchestral arrangement. “That is totally ’White Wedding’,” she murmured as the firefly lights turned into a curtain of sparks by the main door. A single feminine silhouette stepped through the curtain—a tall, graceful goddess in a red Grecian gown and the mask of a phoenix.
A hidden spotlight followed her as she sauntered up to the stage.
Once there, Merlin took her hand. The music changed to a drum-heavy march. Georgia could only watch in awe as the sparks parted once more and a figure all in black marched his way towards the stage. The shadows in the room curled around the creature, completely obscuring his eyes. Georgia blinked a few times as she watched light behave contrary to all the laws of physics and warp his mask into the ferocious face of a black wolf.
The crowd tittered as he walked with purpose towards Merlin. “He seems taller,” an onlooker noted as the regal stranger walked by.
The man in the mask turned his head ever so slightly as he reached the center of the room. Georgia gulped as the deep black void seemed to stare right at her. Bam-Yin made a point to slide out of view at that very moment.
The wolf man swept his cloak as he stepped on stage. The shadows pulled away to show off his empty scabbard on his hip. He then took Merlin’s other hand, and the trio bowed.
The wolf man took a bold step forwards causing another round of gasps from the audience. The collective gaze darted between a surprisingly quiet phoenix in the background and the wolf stepping into the spotlight. The entire room shifted to an eerie emerald glow as the braziers fired back to life.
“I would like to welcome you all to the hospitality of House Pendragon,” he said in a cold, proper English accent. The shadows receded from his face showing off the incredibly detailed mask.
“Now, I know that you were expecting Lady Pendragon to speak—”
The crowd broke into a fresh round of titters. The speaker waved his hands and paced in front of the table. Once he had settled the room, he continued.
“What can I say; even I must admit that times must change. For far too long, I have hidden in the shadows, watching and waiting, while you circled around me. You thought that I was idle. You may have even thought that I did not care, but let it be known on this auspicious night—a night witnessed not only by the western houses but by our allies in the east and our fair and just overlords, the Cesare—that Lord Pendragon has returned.”
