Page 43 of The Villains of Winter

Lucien lied. James wouldn’t dismember his fellow peers while they were alive for study. He wouldn’t harm them at all. Lies from Lucien, all of it.

Instead, Elliott gazed at James in horror for a separate reason–James was rinsed thoroughly in blood. It was impossible to distinguish where Lucien’s blood ended and James’s skin and tie fabric began. Even his frost-white hair–that legendary spin of moonlit silk–was now crimson.

The winter snow was tinted so darkly in blood that it was as if Elliott was staring into a ravine of Rhenish wine that disgorged into the field of fresh snow.

James had slaughtered the boy completely. Lucien twitched with a gaping mouth and gawking eyes, his fingertips quivering in the throes of after death. Like a felled arrow shuddering, quaking from impact, Lucien was quavering before turning still.

Then Lucien Montclair was dead.

Slain on sacred grounds.

That stirred Elliott to his feet. “We need to get out of here–now.”

Sheriff Sangerfield would retrieve the sacrificed body at noon, if it wasn’t present for the recitation. He would investigate. It was still early morning, which meant they had the advantage of a head start. However, the boys had no vehicles, no motorcycles, no means of transportation. The nearest train was hours on foot, and the snow would callously reveal their trail of footprints to every branch of law enforcement that would undoubtedly hunt them down. Their actions would incite public outcry.

After all, the senior elector was assassinated.

This was an act of unsanctioned homicide.

In a pagan town.

James gripped his shoulders. “Listen to me. Listen, Elliott. Stop trembling. I buried my best clothes and part of my inheritance money for you. You need to shave your head and take the five o’clock train–”

Elliott rasped for air. “No–I won’t leave without you–”

“Don’t be a child, Elliott,” James hissed, “Of all times, don’t be a child right now. Be a man for her. Take Kitty and run. I will distract the police as long as I can. Then I will package my most valuable belongings. When I am killed, it will be delivered to you. It will be your belongings now, Elliott.”

Elliott trembled like the earth after an explosive.

“No–” He croaked.

“Elliott,” James growled in wrath, from the depths of his lungs. “I will be killed for this. You can’t cry and whine, it’s what will happen. Kitty can’t be abandoned on her own, do you understand?” The murder would be for nothing.

“Come with us, please,” Elliott pleaded, and he hated how he sounded like a boy. As if he was pleading with his best friend to run away with him into the woods to play, instead of flee for their lives. James was right, they were boys becoming men.

James gave his farewell. He checked his watch, there wasn’t much time.

As he spoke, James drew paths of aimless circles in Elliott’s palm with his finger. Elliott gazed at the partially frozen river reflection and he realized it was a drawn symbol. James was drawing a map of the Banebury Botanical Arboretum, where the hedge circles spun in a maze. James made a path.

“Here. Right here is where my grandfather’s inheritance is concealed.”

Even without a pen and paper, James was giving him a map plot. Elliott was losing his mind. All of the images of James dying in a wildfire, a monsoon, a twister–all of it barraged his mind.

“I always wanted someone else to find it.” James started to instruct him, “Memorize this, then dig until you hit metal, discard the iron trove, it’s full of photographs. It’s a decoy. The true metal bronze troves are buried seventeen feet further beneath–”

Elliott hauled a desperate breath down his throat. “I will kill the provost with you.”

James froze, his skilled thumb ceased the circles in Elliott’s hand, even though Elliott didn’t want him to stop. However, Elliott finally had James’s attention, and his interest, therefore he didn’t dare let it waste.

Elliott implored, “Let’s kill the provost together. I know you want to kill him.”

Elliott read his journal once, even though he shouldn’t have.

James shook his head as if he were trying to constrain his head around the gravitational force of Elliott’s words. He would never turn down a plot to kill the provost. They were both young men meant for death anyway, it made sense. However, he was bewildered. “Who will look after Kitty?”

She was too young to come with them, Elliott realized. The police department would implicate her whether she had anything to do with the provost’s murder or not. “We can’t kill the provost. They’ll punish her for what we did. But we can still leave while we can.”

Elliott couldn’t bring himself to burn down her life with him. He wanted to steal her in the night, no matter how dangerous or irresponsible it was. However, the law enforcement would have firearms. What if she was struck by a stray bullet?