Hemlock Veils (44 page)

The red-haired woman’s eyes hardened, changing her face, and as she struggled with the weight atop her—the weight that would crush a normal human being—somehow the beast was thrown from her again. She lunged for him, hands curled like claws and teeth bared like an animal, and with a roar of her own she was atop him, the two of them rolling in another struggle impossible for Eustace to see.

“Eustace!” It was Elizabeth, and he’d never seen such desperation.

He turned to Taggart, who watched the brawl with a dumbfounded expression. In fact, everyone did. No one could take their eyes away from the enigma they couldn’t explain. Nicole stood back with her arms over herself, and Brian was nowhere to be seen. Probably he had run away like the coward he was. Eustace yanked the keys from Taggart’s belt and found the small cuff key. While fidgeting for the lock wedged behind Elizabeth’s back, he looked down on her. “Beth…I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Eustace,” she said with distraction. Probably his apology was the furthest thing from her mind. The cuffs clicked, loosening. She brought her wrists in front of her, touching them tenderly, and he swallowed at the raw, bloody abrasions. When she nodded, an understanding passed between them, a kinship much like the one they’d shared in this same forest on the night they’d met. Funny, how back then he’d been the one convincing her to believe in magic, and tonight she was the one who had to do all the convincing. Back then he’d felt there was something about her, something that would save them all. And now he knew she would.

Elizabeth’s eyes shifted to the fight, to the whiz of blackness, and she hesitated with a distressed brow. Was it love she felt for the monster?

When the blur stilled, the beast was a mangled, bloody thing, his chest heaving with fatigue. The red-haired woman looked a mess, too, but not like the beast. Then Eustace heard it, clear and vague at the same time, coming from inside his mind but from nowhere.
Take her. Take her away from here, Eustace.

His vision shot all around him, then ended on the monster. He stared at Eustace, his large, marble-like eyes—usually evil and full of terror—somber and glazed. Somehow it had come from him, Eustace knew, and in his daze, all he did was nod.

But before he could take hold of Elizabeth’s arm, the beautiful demon pulled a long golden knife from a sheath on her inner thigh and drove it into the beast, just below his ribs. She moaned as she did this, a sensual sound of pleasure, and the beast roared with his fangs toward the moon—the fangs that would always give Eustace the willies.

Elizabeth released a tortured cry when he fell to the ground. Eustace tried grasping her, but she was gone too fast, his fingers catching the air. The beast saw her running toward him, though, and growled, returning to his wobbling feet.

He stared her down with a threatening look, one of competition. He was communicating with her the way he’d just communicated with Eustace—probably telling her to stay back.

Elizabeth did, grinding her teeth, and her attention, as well as Eustace’s, shot to the temptress as she laughed that horrible laugh. She began circling the beast, whose back legs gave out, and she ignored Elizabeth completely. “You know why I’m in this form again, Monster?” Eustace couldn’t stand her voice. There was something unsettling in it, as though the tone had been altered by some machine to make it more feline-like.

The beast snarled at her.

“Because I don’t want to simply poison you.” She examined her long, gold knife, stained in red. She wiped a finger down the blade, leaving a clean, golden streak amidst his blood, and this too seemed to give her pleasure. “I intend to kill you now, Monster. I told you I’d be back, didn’t I? If you even
thought
about breaking the curse.”

Eustace would have bet the beast sent her thoughts, since her face changed, became irate. Though it frightened him, Eustace couldn’t help his curiosity of this curse.

“Lies!” she cried, swiping the knife at the beast; he backed away, the blade barely missing. “You
have
thought it, or I wouldn’t be here!” Again she smiled, regaining composure, and as the beast lowered the rest of himself to the earth in weakness—or maybe even surrender—she said, “But don’t worry, Monster. I’ll kill her when I’m finished, if that’s what you want. I’ll do the job for you, since she
has
made mine more difficult.”

Silence again. The beast’s eyes were fastened so soundly to her he appeared as nothing more than a statue. Her face fell. “You would…give your life for her?”

“No,” Elizabeth began arguing. She tried approaching, but this time Eustace held her back. While she struggled with Eustace—weakly—a silent exchange passed from the beast to Elizabeth, and whatever he said, it was enough to bring her to her knees. She slid out of Eustace’s hands and with a despairing shake of her head, sobbed.

“Very well,” the redhead announced. “I suppose I can spare her.” The next part happened too quickly for Eustace to process, and he didn’t realize
what
had happened until it ended, until Elizabeth choked on her own blood. Somehow, she’d gotten from beside him to the witch within a matter of two seconds. Somehow, she knew just the right time to make a run for it: just as the temptress drew back her knife. She was about to drive it into the beast’s heart when Elizabeth leapt in front of him, catching the blade with her chest.

Eustace had never seen a sight so awful, nor had he heard a sound to match the wretchedness so impeccably. The beast’s howl was so deafening it brought every resident of the woods to attention. But it wasn’t just the beast who roared his opposition, for the temptress wailed as well, dropping her knife and watching with hands on her head as Elizabeth’s body fell to the ground. “No!” she cried, deep and gravelly.

Elizabeth lay on her back and looked to the stars, choking on the red that drizzled from her mouth. For some reason, this disturbed Eustace more than the spilling of it from her chest did. Elizabeth bleeding: it was so wrong.

The beast, with a new strength gained by probably nothing but adrenaline, lunged for the witch, and his teeth tore so brutally into her neck that Eustace could actually hear the ripping of flesh. In his rage, he shook her—a dog shaking a chew toy—and after he threw her feminine body against a tree, still she stood, miraculously. She stared at Elizabeth, mouthing
no
and holding her blood-gushing neck. She bled, yet stood as though unharmed.

Then the beast approached Elizabeth with a gentleness Eustace would have never been able to fathom before. He stood over her as her eyes became glazed and her chest heaved with the final croaks and coughs of death, blood now pooling beneath her as it traveled from the wound, down her ribs. He nudged her with his long, monstrous snout, even licked her a few times—licked away the blood on her chin. The gentleness astounded Eustace. It reminded him again of a dog, this time trying to save his wounded master. The beast communicated with her, because Elizabeth—still unafraid in her dying moments—reached a hand to the monster’s face, grasping his dark fur.

Eustace stepped closer so he could hear. While stroking his fur, in a voice so soft he barely heard, she whispered, “It’s all right, Henry.”

Tilting his ear in their direction, Eustace had to have misunderstood. After all, his hearing
had
been pretty terrible the past few years.

The beast huffed and howled another agonizing cry, then looked back at her, whimpering from deep within his throat.

“Because,” she said, “you’re free now.” Tears left the corners of her eyes and it seemed her voice was more difficult to come by. “Please don’t cry for me, Henry. This was the only way—”

She gagged, turning her head to the side as she coughed again, and this time Eustace knew he hadn’t misheard. Henry.
Henry?

“I…” she added in a strained whisper, a smile lighting her face. “I can be your antidote.”

The beast groaned.

“I love you, always. Never…forget it, Henry.” And with that her eyes closed and her hand fell from his fur, her body going limp. As the beast wailed, his howl the most painful sound Eustace had ever heard, it began to sound more human. The sound of a shouting man. A shout of rage: “
Nooooo!
” Eustace was about to question his own sanity, but then the earth began to tremble.

He took a step back, absorbing the pulse beneath the rubber soles of his boots, and the beast began vibrating himself, pulsating with a visible heat. He shouted, again that shout of a man, and as he collapsed to the ground beside Elizabeth, it appeared his body had turned inside out, and by the sound of his cries, Eustace would bet it was something agonizing. He wanted to look away, his stomach turning from the gruesome sight, but he couldn’t.

Then all fell still and what lay there wasn’t a beast anymore, but a man. Eustace actually rubbed his eyes, just to make sure he saw correctly.

Then he put everything together.
Henry
, he thought in awe. Of course.

Henry, body contorted and lying face-against-dirt, pushed himself up; Arne, whom Eustace hadn’t seen arrive, ran to him. He placed a blanket over Henry and helped him sit. At the same time Eustace realized he hadn’t been paying attention to the crowd at all, his eyes welled. He turned to the other faces, the awe-struck expressions and even some tears. Regina’s, for one. Her hands were clasped in front of her and her large chest shook with weeping. Nicole’s arms were still wrapped around herself as she too shed tears. Still, no Brian was in sight.

Then there was Taggart. The awe factor had brought him to his knees, and in the dirt, he stared at the scene as though this moment was his final. Eustace turned back to Arne and Henry, and Henry appeared disoriented as he tied the blanket around his waist. But the disorientation didn’t last, for he stared at his hands, turning them over a couple of times, and then at the stars. He jerked around to Elizabeth’s body, and the sob that shook him made Eustace’s own throat close.

“Elizabeth!” he cried. Arne, with wetness in his own eyes, put a hand on Henry’s shoulder, but Henry shook it off and picked up Elizabeth, bringing her to his chest. “You can’t leave me, not like this,” he mumbled desperately, over and over again, and through tears Eustace hadn’t known he was capable of. He mumbled more pleas, some of which Eustace couldn’t make out, and none of this felt real. The idea of Henry and Elizabeth in love was almost as shocking as the reality that Henry had been the beast all these years, and that Elizabeth had known—and that they’d been sneaking away together at night. Eustace was a damn fool for not seeing it sooner, for not seeing who he was.

He realized then that he was
the
Henry: his old friend. He saw him now, as clearly as though he’d been thrown back forty years. Henry had been here the whole time, the same man now as he had been then. Eustace fell to his own knees at the wonder of it all. At the heart-wrenching way Henry clung to Elizabeth, the only woman who’d been able to see him for who he was. Eustace’s own heart broke, too, his soul mourning for hers. The soul he shared a kinship with.

There was something excruciatingly humble about a man who had once appeared to have everything in the world but emotions, weeping—begging almost pathetically. And that sound was the only one in the air, the denseness of the nighttime forest insulating his cries. If Henry knew anyone else was there, it didn’t show. He had an audience to his most personal of moments—the sacred moment of mourning—whether he wanted one or not.

Then his eyes, bloodshot, darted to everyone else’s before ending on Doc. “What are you just standing there for? Help me save her!”

“But it’s too late.” It came from the witch. Eustace had forgotten she was here, her form hunched in the shadows. She stepped into the light, her blood gone. But even in her wholeness, there was something different about her, something weaker. Something more human. Her voice sounded drained and her body looked tired. Even her beauty appeared less…hypnotizing. Henry’s expression hardly changed at the sound of her voice. “She’s gone,” she finished. She seemed as distraught as the rest of them.

“No,” Henry replied, his brow still furrowed. “There’s got to be something…” He shook Elizabeth again, stroking her hair. “Please,” he barely managed in a breath. “I need you, Elizabeth. You can’t…leave me alone.” He brought her to his body again, nearly crushing her as he held on, and cried into her neck. She looked so dainty and fragile in his large arms, like nothing more than a ragdoll.

“You fool,” the witch growled, angry and irreverent. “Don’t you see? You’re a worthless man again! That means she’s
gone,
Monster.”

Henry turned to her so sharply she flinched.
“Go!”
he yelled, his voice as booming as the beast’s bass growls. Both his and the witch’s teeth were gnashing. “Leave me alone,
Aglaé
. You’ve done enough, and you have no power here anymore.”

With a hiss, the witch—who it seemed was nothing but a powerless woman now—was gone, running through the trees until Eustace could hear her no longer. Henry didn’t watch her leave, since his eyes scanned Elizabeth’s face desperately. Tears still managed to fall, even though his sobs had subsided, and Doc approached then, kneeling before them. Eustace crawled to them too, despite his weak and hurting knees, and Henry met his eyes. Eustace gave a nod, trying to show his sympathy, his understanding. His apology.

“I…” Doc started. “Let me see what I can do.” The look in his eyes said he had no hope, that he was just doing it for Henry. Perhaps as a way to make amends for the mess the whole town had caused.

Whether Henry thought it hopeless or not, Eustace didn’t know, for he laid Elizabeth gently on the ground at Doc’s knees. He brushed the hair away from her face tenderly, where it stuck to the blood on her left cheek. It wasn’t right seeing her this way, a shell of what she used to be, and in seeing her up close for the first time, Eustace brought a fist to his mouth, a sob swelling in his throat. But he hid it, as painful as it was, since it would be a mistake to let it go in front of Henry.