Page 43 of Blood & Bedlam

Vladimir

CHAPTER 22

“Are you absolutely sure you want to go down this path?” Hecate’s voice is gentle, her umber eyes trained on mine, searching. For weakness, for fear, but she’ll find none of that within me. There is no emotion other than vengeance left inside the husk of a person I became the day I found her.

“Yes,” I grunt, and I can tell she’s worried of what putting this much power in a broken man will do—if the spell works at all. The Goddess of Witchcraft searches my face for a beat more, then, with a resigned sigh, nods her head and turns to the open spell book in her hands, the one she found deep in the bowels of the palace library.

Goddess. Lycans. Spell books.

The world around me has changed, altered irrevocably to include monsters and demons only whispered in legends to teach us to fear the darkness, to reach for the light.

For me there is no more light, so what is one more monster if it means destroying those that took her from me? I think briefly of my father, wonder what he would have made of this shadow world within our own. Would he have made different choices, to protect our people? I shake out the thought, because what he would have done matters not. He left me an empire in ruins, made deals he could not honor and forced this war.

She was the only thing he ever did right by me, and now she is gone.

No.

She has been stolen, and if I cannot have her back, I’ll have their blood instead. Hecate has promised me the ability to counter those who ride with the Ottomans, the Lycans and their moon magics. Whatever cosmic intervention brought the goddess here, I am grateful to it, and for her philanthropy. She sees scores of people who need saving, and so she fights for their freedom, but I fight for revenge. Their safety is merely a positive effect.

My hands shake, my body sore from the climb. Two days ago, we abandoned our stronghold and began the trek up the mountains. Deep into the terrain, against brutal cold and wind, to find a cavern on the vague instruction of folklore. The goddess remains unaffected, but I am just a man, mortal and weak.

Not for long.

“The Sagittarian Moon is rising soon. Drink this,” she instructs, pulling a vial of dark blue liquid from her pocket. The cavern around us rises high into the sky, the darkness broken only by the circle formed above, focusing a rapidly growing beam of moonlight. I uncork the bottle and down the foul-smelling concoction, nearly gagging on the putrid taste.

“What is this?” I demand as Hecate draws several sigils into the stone beneath us, then circles it with a small bag of what looks like gold, ground down into pure dust.

“It is for the pain. I hope it will temper some of the anguish.”

“Ah, yes. Untold anguish—one of the better selling points to all this,” I respond dryly, but she only ignores me and continues her work in silence. The wind howls outside, ominous this high up, and for a moment, I falter.

Magic spells. Are we so desperate to keep sovereignty that I am willing to turn to the occult? I glance back over to Hecate, to a goddess, and think of all of the incredible things I have seen her do with her own magic, and I know that, yes, I am that desperate. I want them all dead. I want my people safe. It is what she died for, and I will honor her with this, even if it destroys me.

I am ruined anyway.

“Here, Vladimir. Strip, please.” Hecate waves me to her, and I move, undressing quickly. Cold sears through me, bunching my muscles, but I have no time to worry for propriety and modesty. Naked, I take up the space between her body and the circle. I can feel the warmth of Hecate’s body heat radiating from her, and I flinch away from the comfort of another person, taking a small step back to separate us. She notices, but does not bring attention to it, knowing in that way of hers that it is not her that I am running from, not really. The kindness in all she has done for my people, in what she is attempting to do now, strikes me and I find words tumbling from my lips, open like a sieve that I cannot keep closed any longer.

“What you have done for us, I cannot tell you how much it means,” I manage, and the words feel foreign. I watch her eyebrow raise as cold sinks into my bones, causing my teeth to clang together.

“This may be the most you have spoken in an unbroken sentence since I met you,” she teases. Hecate reaches down to her feet and pulls a leather pouch filled with a shimmering golden substance and dips in her fingers, coating them down to the knuckle. “I will need to touch you.” She hesitates. I appreciate her consideration, but to walk away now would be foolish when we are so close.

I grunt in response, and that brings a small smile back to her lips.

“Back to your old self, I see,” she goads, bringing her gold-tipped fingers up, drawing sigils over my chest and arms, my neck and abdomen. My muscles tense the lower she gets, the warmth from her hand unwelcome on my body. Any other hands are unwelcome on my body.

She finishes her work quickly, and steps back to take it all in. I should feel embarrassed at my nakedness, at the impropriety of it all, but I am just cold, inside and out. Numb. Desolate.

“Step inside the circle. Once I begin the ritual, I will not be able to stop it. There is a reason this power was hidden so deeply. If I had not found the text, I would have never even known to consult the Fates about it. There will be a cost, Vladimir.” There is a shake to her voice, a warning, a lifeline for me to turn away from this path, but I cannot.

“Whatever the price, I willingly surrender to it.” Without a look back, I step into the circle. A thump of power rocks the ground as I stand in the moonlight, and I feel it, mortal as I may be, that what we are about to awaken was not as god intended. If God does, indeed, exist. Hecate begins to chant, but from behind the barrier of power I can see shimmering in the moonlight. I can hardly hear her. Wind stirs around us, pushing and pulling the dirt from the ground, curling the tendrils of her hair, but it is her eyes and their white glow that cause my heart to thump loudly in my chest.

Above me, the moon is full and bright, the circle I stand in illuminated in full relief. A red shadow creeps across the moon before my eyes and my gaze is trapped there, enraptured by the power I feel pulsing on the air. The blood in my body heats slowly, warming the stricken cold until I do not feel the bite at all, but the pleasant feeling fades quickly as I begin to burn from the inside out.

The ache rips a roar from my chest, and I drop to my knees, clawing at the skin over my torso, blood pouring from my eyes and ears and nose. Metallic iron assaults my tongue and I hear screaming, inhuman, more devastating than the screams I heard in the torture camps. I beg someone, anyone to stop the noise, but it is me screaming, my voice rasped raw as pain undulates in wide pulses under my skin.

I am being flayed alive, my chest cracked apart and forced open. My vision collapses as my knees hit the ground, the moonlight arresting my descent. I am suspended, watching my body from above and below as the bones and muscles that used to be me are blown apart, shredded and discarded. In place of the Prince of Wallachia sits a demon with black eyes, wearing my skin, grinning with teeth too sharp to be of this world.

More blood floods my mouth, my world spinning as rage unlike I have ever known tears through me, desiccating my soul, shedding my mortal coil. I am reborn and reforged as beast, the hunger inside of me a rushing river that demands the blood of my enemies. I welcome the pouring of power into my body. Even as the pain threatens to flatten me to the ground, I lean toward the feeling, embrace it.