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I recoiled, scooting on my knees across pebbly dirt. Every instinct in me screamed to run, but Janice made a sound, and I simply could not leave her. Torn, I glanced at her, but she was staring at the vines, alert for the moment. I thought to try plotting with her, to let her know we needed to run, but in the next moment the woman gasped.
Tracking Janice’s gaze, my own breath caught in my chest as the vines converged on Delilah. The woman scarcely had time to scream before she was engulfed by the things. One of the curved thorns dug into Delilah’s thigh and blood began to roll over its surface. She thrashed and squirmed, desperate to get away, but they had her about the waist and she was lifted from her feet.
“What are you doing?” Delilah demanded, eyes blazing.
“There’s been a slight change of plans, Delilah darling,” Mariana said.
Montgomery set his staff aside and strode away, his eyes intent on Janice. My gut flipped, recognizing the purpose in his stance.
We were out of time.
With a shout, I sliced through my left fingernail, severing it with the scalpel in one panicked move. But I sliced too deep. The whole tip of my finger fell to the dirt in a wet plop.
For a stunned moment I stared at it, agony pulsing through my finger. I dropped the scalpel and clutched my hand to my chest with a sob.
Montgomery stopped before me and grunted in disapproval. “Wasteful.”
His boots were old and covered in dirt, as though he had been walking for miles. He smelled of mothballs and mold, and the trousers and shirt he was wearing were patched in several places.
Odd. The Leslies had enough money to dress him well.
Perhaps he simply didn’t bother with the mundane aspects of hygiene.
He crouched before me, his weathered old face creased in displeasure as he took the scalpel, my dismembered fingertip, and turned to Janice. The woman frowned up at him, clearly confused, and she allowed him to take her hand.
Realizing what he was about, I scrambled to Janice’s chair on my knees, still pressing my injured hand to my chest while I reached for her. “Wait, stop! I’ll do it!”
“So that you can mutilate more parts? No.”
He slid the blade under Janice’s fingernail and levered it upward, tearing it clean from her finger in a single, practiced move. Janice screamed and yanked her hand back, eyes wide with terror. I pulled her close, ignoring the throb through my own finger as I held tight and fought for some kind of comfort to give.
Montgomery collected the other vials and peered at them, as though assessing if he needed more. Janice continued to sob into my shoulder, and I could hear her muffled plea; “Where’s Derrick? Where’s my boy?”
She was slipping away again, I could sense it. Her mind burrowing deep, fleeing from reality once more. For a heartbeat, I was unreasonably jealous, wishing I could bury myself too.
Montgomery turned to leave.
“I hope you choke,” I whispered.
He barely glanced at me. “Yes, that seems to be the general consensus among your kind.”
And then he strode off to the center of the circle, where Delilah snarled down at Mariana’s amused smile. The vines kept Delilah prone, but she was elevated to eye-height and her body was angled so that her feet were above her head. That seemed odd and the clinical side of my brain wondered what the purpose was for that position. Aside from making the victim vulnerable, of course. I could see no way for her to escape while the vines were in play, but couldn’t they have merely shackled her down? Why did she need to be above the ground?
I supposed it was at least better that Delilah did not appear worshipful of the woman anymore.
“I did all of this for you!”
“No, you did all of this for you,” Mariana said. “You wanted immortality. You simply weren’t aware of the cost.”
Immortality?
So that was why Delilah was doing this. She thought she would live forever, that the sluaghna would give her their secrets. For one moment, I pitied the woman.
Montgomery handed the vials to Mariana. “Stop playing with your food. We’re running out of time.”
Heaving a dramatic sigh, Mariana unstopped all three vials and positioned herself before Delilah’s head. With a low, sultry voice she began to murmur something in a language quite unfamiliar to me. The magic was unmistakable, I felt it ripple through the air and the runes etched into each standing stone began to glow.
I blinked once, hard, summoning the aether into view once more. Magic whirled in the air, slow and deliberate, making a circle around the standing stones, but it was unfamiliar magic. It was all murky greens, like lichen at the bottom of a lake, and it was globular rather than ribbons, like a lava lamp. All the globs fused together and parted again in the next instant as they made their slow progress through the air.
