Renegade (30 page)

And then a strong blast blew up—scattering some papers, what looked like letters, from the front of the boat.

Quickly, she pulled away from him and helped collect the letters before they fell into the waters or were damaged in the rain.

He thanked her, kissed her again, and promised to return to her sometime after she had slayed the girl.
But be prepared
, he had told her. Arabella Sharp would be there in a few weeks.

As Max rowed his boat away and she turned to walk back inside her house, she saw that she had missed one of the papers. The wind and rain were whipping even harder, and she fought to stay upright as she walked toward the paper and picked it up. It had been glued to a rock by the pounding rain, and when she opened it, only one line was readable. She frowned, not knowing what it meant, but saved it nonetheless.

When she returned downstairs that evening, she had hope that William might regain conscious. But he remained unconscious for the rest of the night and for half of the next day. It was only on the following evening that he awoke. She was sitting in front of the fireplace, near the place where he lay, painting, in large brush-strokes, another portrait of her keeper. This time, she painted his eyes dark, darker than they actually were. She painted them such a dark green that they were nearly black—for they seemed black to her then, a library of secrets.

“She’ll kill you.”

Seraphina had turned sharply, seeing the beautiful young man still lying on the ground, the shackles about his neck. She’d expected him to fight against the restraints once he awoke, for she’d seen the bruises, the marks upon his body and knew that he had probably fought against Max. But now he was weary, and wisely knew a fight would be futile.

Seraphina had smiled. She had ignored him. But as she painted, she kept feeling William’s eyes upon her, his gaze fiery and unnerving.

“I know your plan,” he said. “I heard what you’re planning to do to Abbie Sharp. It will never work.”

Although she said nothing, she felt her hand shake a bit. William had a scratch on his arm, and she smelled blood even from it. Her stomach growled.

William laughed. It was a mocking laugh. “What has Max told you? It sounded like he has not told you what happened to the rest of the Conclave.”

She looked sideways at him. Glared. Then returned to her painting. “They are in London still, last I’ve heard.”

William threw back his head and laughed. He roared with a hearty, frenzied laugh that echoed throughout the bedroom and the great hall. After several moments, he straightened his head and considered her seriously. She felt her hand tremble; the paint under the brush had dribbled, bled black upon the canvas. She felt fear rise within her. Then the fear gave way to rage.

“You’re a pretty but foolish one,” William had said contemptuously. “What are you? One of his whores?” The rage continued to rise within her as his voice trailed off. “I’m weary of foolish women. Poppets. Pretty, stupid things.” He paused. “Like you.”

She’d felt the venom flow a bit, in her mouth. Her hand trembled even more. Violently this time. How dare he? She tried to control her breathing, but she could not. She snapped her paintbrush handle. She tasted the venom again; this time it pooled on her tongue and she wiped a trickle of the fluid away from the corner of her mouth.

William’s voice had sharpened. “They’re all dead except for Max, you know. She killed them all.” He gave that terrible laugh again. “She nearly beheaded Reverend Perkins.”

Seraphina stood up from her painting stool, looking down upon him. “You lie.”

He laughed, crossed his arms over his chest, the chains making a terrible rattling noise. “Never. I never lie. Max lies, though—all the time. Abbie Sharp killed the Conclave last November, immediately after refusing their offer. If you think you have a bustle-clad, well-behaved London miss coming here who can barely lift a teacup, you couldn’t be more wrong. She killed them all. She’ll kill you easily.”

Seraphina couldn’t repress it anymore. “Do you know what I am?” she roared, feeling her insides shake as if they were on fire.

But he didn’t look a bit afraid. She smelled his blood once again. The smell was overwhelming, and her stomach continued to growl. She remembered how her breathing had quickened in that moment. Max
wouldn’t
lie to her. The Conclave couldn’t be gone. What would happen to her if they were? They were the only ones who knew how to make the elixir. And who was this pert young man?

He was her prisoner. She could kill him in one bite.

She stood immediately in front of him, trying to control her rage. Again, she asked: “Do you know who I am?”

She was wearing one of her favorite gowns, one her keeper had brought back to her two years before from Paris. She wasn’t about to rip it because of this stupid young man before her. But she couldn’t help herself. Since returning to her diet of human flesh, she’d found it harder and harder to control her transformations. And then it happened. In one instant, her painting bib burst and her lamia body exploded out of the dress, tearing it to pieces.

At the sight of her, the confident, darkened expression had melted away from the young man’s face. But he’d seemed not so much fearful as bewildered. As bewildered as all of her victims were, not trusting their own eyes. It was always the same expression. William, like all of those she killed, thought he was in a beautiful, terrible dream.

“It cannot be,” he had said, amazement upon his face.

It was then that she’d taken her first bite. Lurching forward, she ripped his shirt apart with her claws and bit him hard in the chest, avoiding his jugular, the place where she usually dealt her fatal blow. He screamed out in pain, and Seraphina tasted the faint traces of chloroform and alcohol in his blood. The distaste of this might have saved his life, as it prevented a feeding frenzy. She pulled back and steadied herself hard, to control her breathing.

Do not kill him.

Do not kill him.

Do not kill him.

William was screaming and writhing in pain, and she saw the bite wound on his chest oozing blood. She saw that her talons had punctured his shoulders and chest as well, from when she had grabbed him. She watched him yell for a few minutes and realized that he could not merely be screaming over the wounds, which were deep but certainly not fatal. Rather, he screamed as her venom swept through the veins like fire.

She steadied herself again, but she could not will her human form to come. She’d thought he would be fearful of her, that he would be quiet after this attack. If he did remain quiet, and if she could stand the sight of him—his fresh flesh and the smell of his blood—she might even help attend to his wounds. After all, she wasn’t supposed to kill him.

To her surprise, William recovered his composure after only a few minutes. Although she saw that his expression was still contorted in pain, his face had turned scarlet in anger and he’d strained hard, jerking both arms hard against the restraining shackles.

“Bitch! Freak!” he screamed. “What are you? One of Robert Buck’s specimens? Something he found in the Amazon? In the wild somewhere? Let me out of these, and I’ll tear your throat out. She’ll still kill you. And if you hurt her—if you hurt her at all, I’ll tear you to pieces myself. I will not let you hurt her!”

She couldn’t help it. She lunged at him again, this time biting his thigh, hard. She tried to keep the bite from going too deep, but she wanted to make it hurt. She wanted so badly to hurt him, to eat his heart.

The venom and blood dripped from her face.

Leave. Leave.
She knew that if she didn’t leave immediately, she would kill him.

Still quaking, she felt confused and baffled—both by him and by what he had said. She could kill him quickly, swiftly, and yet he had yelled at her that way, called her a freak. Her mind flashed back to when she had transformed in front of her fiancé, his reaction …

Who does William think he is?

“One of Robert Buck’s specimens.” Those had been his most infuriating words. She tried to forget the words, knowing that in a way, she was indeed one of Robert Buck’s experiments. She ran through the doors of her bedroom into the empty hall, surrounding herself with all the half-finished portraits. Most were of the members of the Conclave. She felt their eyes then upon her, staring at her. Robert. Julian. Marcus. John. Were they indeed dead? Could that even be possible? Had Abbie Sharp killed them?

Seraphina’s bewildered emotions coursed through her. She had thought that they would help her someday, that Robert would find a cure, that they would make her one of them. Although she hadn’t seen the Conclave in almost a century, they had become protective fathers to her in her mind. However, like her own father, who had never quite accepted her, the Conclave seemed troubled by her very existence. And in that moment, as she’d stood in the great hall, she’d been forced to face the truth: that they cared as little for her as Joseph Umphrey had.

These thoughts were too much, too heavy. And how could she make sense of the Conclave, of her life, when her only link to reality had always been Max? He had loved her. She thought of all those nights they’d spent together. He must love her.

She had run up the stairs, gotten herself outside, before she could change her mind and finish her attack. She dove into the water, swimming deeper and deeper into the icy depths, her gills pulsating under the currents. She needed to hunt fish. But she also wanted flesh, human flesh, and she knew the temptation would be too much if she headed toward the shore near Bromwell. She’d seen the boat parties during the day, and at night, their lanterns scanning the waters around the shore.

Except to pour water and broth down his throat, Seraphina had tried to avoid contact with William since her attack upon him that first evening. The smell of his blood was too tempting for her. It had been almost three weeks now since Max had brought her William, and thus the Sharp girl should be arriving soon. Seraphina hungered for her more and more, each time she restrained herself from biting William again. But her willpower was weakening, weakening to the point where she did not trust herself even to clean his wounds.

She wondered exactly when Abbie Sharp would arrive. In the firelight of her bedroom, she watched William as he lay upon his blood-soaked mattress. In the days following her attack upon him, he had faded in and out of consciousness and his words had been nonsensical, delirious. Now he had not moved in four days; the venom, infection, and loss of blood had taken its toll. He would be dead soon.

Seraphina sighed. This was not what she had wanted, and for the first time in a century, she regretted her rotten temper.

Twenty-five

W
hen Simon and I finally stepped off of the ferry onto the muddy shores of Bromwell, Hugo by our side, I saw that this town was even smaller than the last. Houses lined the streets tightly, uneven but clustered together as if for protection against the strong Arctic winds. We held on to our luggage and scanned the place. I smelled the strong odor of sea, the odor of fish, everywhere we walked. The storm had diminished and the sun now shone brightly, glaring white as it reflected off the roofs of the houses.

After Simon inquired about the location of an inn, we began walking through the town. As we walked, I saw sketches of the lamia posted on many of the shop doors. Many sketches advertised rewards for the creature’s body. If she hadn’t been real in my mind, it would have seemed so peculiar as to be almost humorous.

As we stood in front of some sketches, I said quietly to Simon, “At least we know for sure that she exists, and that she’s been attacking people here. We know that that part of what Max has said is true.”

“Yes, our lady has created quite a stir,” Simon replied.

My nerves felt more heightened. We were so close to William, and he was in the clutches of this creature. My anxiety increased by the second.

“We don’t need rooms,” I muttered grumpily as we walked across town toward the inn.

“Abbie,” Simon said, nearly cutting me off. “Now that we’re here, we need to study the map carefully. As I’ve explained, we must do this patiently if we are going to be successful. We might even need to study the shoreline. Remember, even the people here do not know of this island. We need to formalize a plan, and to do this, we need rooms.”