Inside, the house is quiet and dark, gloomy with the blue of evening and the brownish orange of the day's last light. It has the air of an abandoned place, filled with an oppressive stillness and a silence I fear to break. If I didn't know better, I'd think there was no one home.
Squinting, I struggle to make out details in the dimness, never having recovered my glasses after losing them by the lake.
Everything appears as I remember it: the entrance hall with its dusty rugs and dark antiques, the arched doorways to the dining hall and library on either side, and the arc of the grand staircase, sweeping upward to the second floor and the broad balcony above.
There's no sign of Aengus—or of anyone else.
"Where is—" I start to whisper, but Ambrose cuts me off with a sharp hiss and motions to the others to be still.
As he does, a distant wail reaches us, carried on the air like the doom-song of some wild banshee. There are words in it, I think, though I can't understand them, and I realize that it must be Shanti, calling the rakshasas to hunt.
From deeper within the house, far in the darkest shadows, I sense a stirring of the air as something that slumbered is awakened by the call.
Ambrose's eyes widen and his grip tightens where he holds my arms, and then, with swift and sudden strength, he pulls me around and shoves me hard against the wall, crowding close and shielding my body with his own.
No sooner has he done this than a roar of wind sweeps through the room, surging down the stairs and rushing from far along the lower hall. I shut my eyes, knowing it carries incorporeal shapes, roused to a lust for blood and seeking prey.
For a terrible minute, I'm certain they will find me and tear us all to shreds; then, though, the piercing wail comes again, and the demon wind swirls once more round the room before pouring through the still-open door at our backs and racing forth beneath the descent of night.
As the last of it leaves, the door slams shut in its wake with such force it shakes the wall.
The dust settles—literally—and as silence returns we release a collective sigh of relief. Ambrose loosens the painful grip he'd had on my arms, which was probably hard enough to bruise, and I rub the back of my head where I'd knocked it against the wall.
"Ow."
"Sorry," he murmurs, smoothing his hands over my arms to soothe the hurt away. "I was afraid they'd spot you."
"Yeah, no shit," I agree, feeling a little dizzy for some reason. "At least they're gone now. But where is everyone?"
As I speak, Dane and Freya's expressions shift towards alertness and alarm, and then a voice hails us from the above. Looking up, I see Aengus himself standing at the top of the stairs, one hand balanced casually on the rail. He keeps the other in his trouser pocket, possibly holding a weapon of some kind.
I feel a twinge of indignation at the sight of how 'at home' he looks—dressed in checkered slacks and a loose cotton dress-shirt, his dark auburn curls, streaked with gray, greased back from the dome of his brow—before reflecting that, disturbing as it is to consider, he's actually been living here quite a bit longer than I have.
He looks down at us, his gaunt, waxy-looking face appearing almost spectral in the gloom, and his resemblance to Ambrose is striking enough to be uncanny. Ambrose said he didn't actually share Aengus' blood, but it makes me wonder just how intermingled the Thornes and Oakfields might really be.
"You've arrived just in time, Penelope," he says, his low, raspy voice and the familiar curl of his accent grating on my nerves.
He grins, and for an instant, I see a flash of something awful—shrunken eyes in a face barely covered by a stretch of discolored, papery skin, a hint of bone showing at the jaw, and rotten, browned teeth. Then I blink and his smile is spotlessly white again, his face youthful if oddly mask-like, his illusion restored.
"I wondered if you'd thrown your mother to the wolves, after all."
"What's he talking about?" I ask over my shoulder as Penelope, visibly shivering, steps forward and looks up him.
"You haven't hurt her, have you?" she asks.
"No more than I promised that I would—and I do keep my promises, you may be sure," he replies.
Beginning to descend the stairs, he addresses the rest of us, an easy smile on his lips.
"Dear Penelope may not have much of a conscience, but even monsters love their mothers. Isn't that so, Nellie dear?"
I look at her, a sinking feeling in my heart, and see that her mouth trembles and her eyes are filled with tears.
"Please... You promised," she whispers.
He nods. "And what did I promise, Nel, eh? Tell your new 'friends,' why don't you."
She turns to me with a tortured expression and wrings her hands. "He... He promised he would let us live, and keep our Gifts, if only I brought you here."
"Not 'only,'" Aengus says, still smiling. "Bringing you here was but half the bargain."
"Penelope... What is he talking about?" I ask, still trying to shake the dizziness that had come over me. Maybe I'd hit my head harder than I thought.
Aengus grins, answering for her. "I'm sure each of you remembers, at some point, Penelope touching you: shaking your hand, taking something you offered, brushing against you as if by accident. It was no accident—rest assured. Penelope's something of a savant when it comes to poisons, aren't you, Nel?"
Ambrose looks at her, aghast. "Penelope... you didn't..."
"I am so sorry, cousin!" she gasps, and clamps her hands over her mouth to stifle her own sobs. "He promised!"
"You little fool!" he snarls, moving to put me at his back. "He can't get what he wants and let you keep your Gift—how can you not know as much?!"
"Oh, cousin! It is you who does not know!" Penelope cries, falling rather dramatically to her knees.
At least I think she's being dramatic until my own knees go weak, and I catch myself against Ambrose's back.
Aengus laughs. "An ingenious bit of chemistry, indeed. One compound, inert on its own but easily absorbed through the skin, reacts with a second when inhaled through the lungs. Nonlethal, but quite effective as a sedative, and most helpful to have on hand. Who knew having a murderess in the family would prove so convenient?"
I recall the strange odor I'd detected when we'd arrived, and the onset of my dizziness. Penelope seems not immune herself, having handled whatever the first ingredient might have been, and being the smallest, she'd feel the effects first.
Followed by me.
Dane, as the largest, would be last, and if the poison works slow enough, he might still get away, get to Shanti, or get some other help, if only—
The sound of a double thud makes me turn, and my hopes plummet. Dane has collapsed against the wall, head hanging forward, while Freya lies stretched on the floor. Ambrose, too, slumps against me, and as I'm barely standing myself, we both fall. Oddly, only Julian seems unaffected, kneeling by Dane with his eyes wide and lit with a fierce amethyst light.
"Penelope adjusted the dosage for size, of course," Aengus remarks, frowning at me. "Appears she underestimated you, though. Perhaps you are less weak than you look. As for the Fae, well—" Aengus laughs again, nodding at Julian, "—it is to him I owe the changes in my plans. I couldn't believe my luck, to come across such a creature—here, in Spring Lakes, of all places!"
I can't seem to form words, but Julian voices my question for me.
"What are you on, you sick fuck?" he snaps.
White teeth show sharp at the corners of his lips, and I remember Dane telling me that whatever ancient Fae magic his bite had awakened in his mate, the effects come out most strongly at the full moon.
At any rate, he hunches protectively over my brother, hissing words like a pale, angry cat.
"If you want to die then fucking die already," he spits. "Come here, and I'll help you along myself!"
Aengus merely smiles. "I did want to die, yes. What other release could I hope for, to end the misery of endless decay? But as I watched, and listened, and learned from my unfortunate 'son,' I formed a new idea. I've attempted this ritual twice. The first time I failed, the second time I was fooled. The third time—this time—I will succeed: for this time, I at last have the right ingredients, and a powerful Gift for the dragon-lord."
"What are you talking about?" Julian snarls, though his face has gone deathly white.
"Well now, the original ritual calls for a specific set of things. Nine supplicants, nine relics, a medium to channel the dragon's soul, and... one other thing. What was it again?"
He grins, his illusion flickering to reveal the awful, rotten face beneath.
"Ah, yes. A child. Or rather—the potential for one."
I stare up at him in horror, realizing he must have overheard me speaking to Ambrose in our room, or heard it from Ambrose himself, while Ainach was dominant. Either way, it comes down to one unavoidable truth.
A lot of this would never have happened if I had never come to Spring Lakes.
That guilt-ridden thought is my last, and carries me into the dark.
~ ☾ ~
A splitting headache calls me back to life. It takes a moment for my blurry vision to clear enough for me to see anything beyond a sort of hazy smear, and when it does, I almost wish I'd stayed unconscious.
It's full night, and the silvery sphere of the moon rides high overhead.
I'm outside in the back yard, lying on my side in a sort of fetal curl. My wrists are bound in iron to a matching chain, which is anchored to a thick ring set in the earth.
Or rather, set in a big slab of concrete, which I'm pretty sure hadn't been here before.
Blinking, I raise myself up and try to understand what I see.
I'm at the edge of a circle of cement about six meters in diameter, set a few inches below the topsoil. The dirt, as well as the scrubby lawn that had covered it, has been scraped off, and lies in a pile, like the mound of a freshly dug grave, to one side.
Aengus must have put this here, I realize, in preparation for this moment, and I shiver to remember the many times I'd laughed and played with Dougal over the very spot.
The circle of man-made stone is grooved with lines that form a nine pointed star. Symbols of ritual magic have been drawn in the smaller triangle of each arm, as well as at every interior angle, all inked in fresh black paint.
At the circle's center sits a small altar of sorts, atop which are piled the stolen relics. I see Thaddeus' hideous portrait, Mathilda's silver mirror, August's empty bottle of fine Scotch, and Brutus' bronze bust. Jumbled among these, but less visible are—I imagine—Jack's lucky coin, Rowan's ring, Penelope's inkwell, and Aengus' watch.
Meanwhile, arranged around the circle's circumference, each at a point of the star, are Dane, Julian (who glares amethyst fire), Freya, August, Aileen, and Mathilda, all bound as I am. Most appear to be, like myself, navigating an uncomfortable return to consciousness.
Penelope kneels—weeping but not chained—at another vertex, and Aengus stands at what I take is the 'top' of the star, consulting a small, leather-bound book.
My attention, though, focuses on the man at his back.
Ambrose stands with his hands clasped behind him, bare to the waist, his loose red curls spilling over trim, strong shoulders in a tangled cascade. His eyes are lit with the fire of the deep earth, his face is pale and set like stone, and magical symbols painted in what looks like woad (they're blue, anyway) adorn his chest.
I try to call out to him, but the rag in my mouth renders my efforts as a string of variations upon the theme of "Mmph!" which I can't blame him for failing to understand.
What I can blame him for, however, is the way he looks at me, the flame in his gaze inextricably impersonal and cold, while Aengus laughs softly to himself.
"Don't fret, 'little wolf,'" Aengus sneers, "The 'Ambrose' you know is sleeping, still. This—" he gestures at the man who stands at his back, "—is the dragon, Ainach, to whom your heart, life, and fate, shall very shortly belong."