Chapter 7
// thank you for reading this far. From this point and into the rest of the story I feel the need to reiterate the horror themes, violence, gore and uncomfortable scenarios since not everyone is always mindful of the tags. Love you! Hope you enjoy!
The boathouse was a home built for leaving.
That much was evident by how easily it capsized in on itself. Two Ouroboros held their wands out straight. Wisps of white light surrounded the edifice, then it was gone. Four walls and countless windows, the rickety porch and the broken chairs that it adorned it. All condensed down into the belly of a stolen pocket watch on a gilded chain. One of the many souvenirs from holding up Borgin and Burkes.
There would be no more coming and going from that place, not for the time being. Enoch and Thimble the house elf would be safely tucked into the pocket of Arkady Kallizov’s jacket. Food, medicine, magic, anything they would need, now no larger than twelve roman numerals on an ivory face.
The rocks on the the rivers edge took a hammering that sounded like hoofbeats on dry land. Off in the distance, a car radio paused its bass for an interval to let a dog howl at the watching moon. The whole scene sent a flitter through Tommy’s stomach that she eased by digging her pinky nail into the flesh of her wrist.
It was better this way, safer. There was no other option now.
The early morning had begun on a sour note. Enoch hadn’t been conscious. But, even through his sleeping moans and covered lids, Tommy could sense displeasure on him. If he were lucid he would have referred to his new predicament as a prison. Equally, if he were lucid then Tommy and Dmitri wouldn’t have had to wrestle Atlan out of the house. Enoch would have seen the sense in it, somewhere deep down in his black heart, and ordered the boy out himself.
There weren’t more than twenty words spoken between the five Ourobos in the hours leading up to their departure for St. Pauls. Atlan had cursed a few times, which Sinai mirrored in more flavorful language. Arkady mumbled death threats under his breath, not only toward the Deatheater that had yet to show his face on the steps of the cathedral, but also toward the birds, passing cars and his brother. Really, he was aiming at any target that threatened to move. Dmitri smoked a cigarette on the rafter of the church and told, and re-told, some nonsensical and poorly translated Bulgarian proverb about a fox and a hare. In a shocking twist of events, he was the only one that showed a semblance of sense on the situation.
Nobody else was pleased, least of all Tommy. She had made the order to pack their things and they followed, because that is what they did. They hated her for it, because that was human nature. She could either spend her morning staring up at the darkened clouds and forming pleads for forgiveness, or she could govern. There was no middle ground. Tommy governed.
Regardless of how adept Tommy considered herself with a wand, there was no world where she could take down Vittra alone. They needed the mask, which required one womans death. All five of them would have to make a sacrifice for it.
“You lied,” Regulus said as he apparated onto the highest steps of the monstrous church. His face blended with the ivory marble for a moment. Though, there was no mistaking him for holy.
“So did you,” Tommy returned, tilting her head toward the three Deatheaters at his back. It would be disingenuous to say she was happy to see him. However, he was the only person that had addressed her directly in the previous twelve hours and she appreciated his forthcoming nature.
“I brought them because I saw you bring yours,” he smirked.
“Bullshit,” she shot back, “I watched you all fly out of that tunnel in Camden and come straight here. You had absolutely no intention of arriving alone.”
“You caught me,” he conceded with a wide smile, taking the steps two at a time. “I had a premonition that you would betray me.”
Tommy rolled her eyes, “premonition is too weighted of a word to throw around before sunrise.”
The galley moved in toward the base of the stairway, save for Dmitri would kept put on the roof. Regulus dragged his eyes over the Ouroboros, seemingly realizing that he was still outnumbered by one, and scowled. Tommy did the same to the three extra Deatheaters, though they were very close to even. Caius Avery was so tall he technically counted as two people.
“This is Regulus black,” Tommy said to her members.
At the same moment, Regulus had opened his mouth to say, “you all know Tommy Crane.”
The two heads stared at each other in equal annoyance. A laugh broke out from the heavens. Tommy couldn’t tell if it was God or Dmitri.
“If I may-“ Regulus started.
Tommy lifted her hand in a mock gesture to let him speak.
Regulus cleared his throat, “For the time being, there will be no in-fighting between us. In turn, you will not make allies of yourselves. Though, I strongly doubt that would ever happen. Still, don’t fucking kill each other until this is done. We’ve had enough messes to clean up.” He motioned to the Ouroboros, “Unless they try to kill you. Then, you know, fucking have at them. Rip their spines out if you must.”
Tommy raised her brow. He seemed to be done speaking, but she figured he would at least add a more appropriate final word. He did not.
She shook her head, “well, since you’ve put it so eloquently.”
“I’m a man of few words.”
His left eye twitched when he lied. That was a valuable tell for Tommy to catch.
She addressed her own camarades in a whisper, “just try not to release them of their limbs until this over.”
Arkady breathed through his nose and pointed to Caius on the steps. “How about half of a limb? That big cunt surely doesn’t need his full wingspan.”
Caius cackled, thumbing at the object in his pocket that was either a wand or a dagger. “You used to play quidditch for Durmstrang. I remember watching you flail on the field like a broken winged dove. Have your reflexes improved?”
“Mine certainly have,” The voice came from over Caius’s shoulder.
Dmitri had dropped from the roof and ambushed him. The Bulgarian placed a quick kiss on Caius’s cheek and disapparated to the base of the steps before his attack was even fully realized.
Caius seemed to consider chasing him, but held his stance at Regulus’s disapproving glare. He wiped his cheek instead. It was going to be an exceptionally long mission.
“What’s your plan then?” Sinai asked, crossing her arms.
The question was aimed at Regulus, but it seemed to land on everyone in equal measure. Tommy slumped her shoulders.
“There will only be two chariots,” he sneered. “We’ll have to squeeze.”
The carriages were reined by the dead and their equally deceased equines. A corpse sat at the helm of each trace, their sockets and muscle fiber largely hidden by the same velveteen fabric that lined the roofs and seats of the coach. There was no denying they had been thoroughly in the ground some hours prior. The scent of rot had left their shrouds, but the earthy grit that lined their bones still wafted in the morning breeze. The horses jerked to a halt rather than slowed; their hoofbeats little more than dull thuds on the concrete. Their shoes sparked against the cobble, completely worn down by years of tread. It couldn’t hurt them to run for long periods, the beasts hadn’t felt a thing for some time. Still, a natural instinct pervaded; Tommy watched the lead horse chew on an invisible bit, its lower jaw knocking sharp teeth against palate plate.
The trains never ran on schedule, but this was an excessive alternative.
Tommy swiped a finger over the muzzle of the lead horse and checked her finger pad for dust.
The female Deatheater, Lucia, reached into her cloak pocket to procure two coins. She flipped them into the skeletal hands of the coach drivers. They didn’t have lips, but the frontrunner seemed to smile.
“Will these carry us all the way to Scotland?” Tommy asked Regulus as the others reluctantly found their places inside. A six seater cart for each faction. At least that was a benefit.
Regulus rocked his head back and forth, “They would, if thats where we were going.”
“Everyone knows that the Vitruvian’s hideout is somewhere in the Hebrides,” Tommy scoffed, “I figured we would get as close as possible until we were able to narrow the exact location down.”
Regulus furrowed his brow, “Can you truly not see her with your little trick?”
Tommy turned her gaze toward the cathedral. A gargoyle had landed on the spire, shaking rock unto the earth. The sun hadn’t shone in London for years, but like the vampires, the creatures still feared the possibility of daylight seeping through.
“I’ve tried,” she sighed, “My sight only leads me far enough to see them flying over the Isle of Skye. After that, they seem to have a very powerful veil in place.”
“Gross negligence on your part,” he rolled his eyes. “You’re looking on the wrong country. A group of them have taken up shack in Paris. I suspect Vittra will attend the Delavore’s ball. She’ll be masked, of course. You’ll be able to sniff her out.”
“I wouldn’t be capable of seeing her exact location without knowing her face. What if she never arrives? The best I could do then is track down her closest associates.”
Regulus raised a hand to the towering church. “What’s the saying? Build it and they will come?” He then turned his attention to the carriages. Lucia had begun to board, her hand in the doorway. He quick flitted his wand to snap the carriage shut before she could make a full entrance, a lock of her curly hair severed and floated to the damp ground. “You and Avery ride with the serpents, Crane and I will need to have discussions on this long haul.”
Tommy cut her eyes to the Ouroboros carriage. Sinai had yet to board. Tommy motioned her to the Deatheaters coach. There was no way in hell she was taking a parade through half of the country without one of her own close by.
“Where are your bags?” Regulus asked in an accusatory tone.
“We pack light,” she returned.
He eyed the teardrop necklace around her throat as if it were the only thing she was wearing. “Let’s hope you have a ball gown up your sleeve.”
The only remaining soul in their allotted compartment was the unnamed Deatheater that sulked by the window. He lifted his largely concealed gaze as Sinai shifted into the seat across from him. Though, only long enough to take her in and turn away. Tommy paused on the steps, risking a look toward where Atlan Baatar had stuck his torso through the door of the other carriage to watch her board. She wanted desperately to call all of them over for one last word, despite his scowl. Not to mention, the scowls of those she could not see through the rotted wooden boards but knew were plastered on their faces.
Nothing would happen. She would see them in France as long as Dmitri kept his insults to a minimum. Then again, more foolish women had hoped for more less impossible things.
She gripped Regulus’s arm as he came in behind her, turning on her heel to properly catch his eye. Beneath the soft sleeve, his skin contracted. He was a lean boy, but made of muscle and ire. “I will slaughter you in your sleep like a Christmas lamb if this is a trap.”
“Interesting,” Regulus smirked, “I was thinking the same thing.” He made a motion with his spare hand as if he were wringing the throat of a small creature. “I do prefer goose, though.”
The hours passed quickly. Well, as quickly as time feels below water. Every moment a gnashing fight to return to the surface. Nonetheless, time moved with the tick of the second hand on Regulus’s gleaming wristwatch. He had abandoned his cloak on the coach floor and crumpled it into a pile with his foot. Tommy and Sinai had also discarded their covers. All of that breathing in a confined space demanded it.
The figure by the window, however, kept his shrouds pressed tightly to his cheekbones. Tommy previously suspected that he had fallen asleep somewhere around Dover. Yet, his eyes would flicker open momentarily. The honey of his irises spanned the carriage, then closed again. Silent as a mouse. Unmoving as a marble sculpture. He was certainly the boy from the train.
Regulus referred to him as Sebastian. That was almost certainly not his real name. Tommy would have pulled the notebook from her pocket and cross checked the list of known Deatheaters for a Sebastian, but she didn’t need to. There were few things about this world that one could consider airtight. That list was one of them. They were all liars. But why?
She thought about it through the hum of Regulus’s deep sighs that worked on an interval of twenty minutes. He was quiet otherwise, no hint of the ‘discussions’ that he had referred to as the reason they needed to share a carriage. He merely wanted to keep an eye on her at all times like a falcon tracks a hare. That was fine with her. And she suspected, perfectly acceptable to Sinai. They were doing the very same.
Foul considerations crept in with each bump in the road. Through the rattle of the coach wheels, Tommy could make out the exasperated clinks of the drivers ribcage against the column. After an uncomfortably large rivet in the mud, she thought he might have lost a skeletal limb. Something clanged against the undercarriage and cracked. There was no way to tell. The windows had been covered and Sebastian didn’t seem keen on the prospect of opening them. They kept moving.
“Comment est ton français?” How is your french? Regulus asked with a sneer.
“Mieux que la tien,” Tommy returned. Better than yours.
“It’s le, not la,” he corrected her. “Le tien.”
Tommy leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
Sinai mumbled her first word since leaving London, “Connard.”
Her accent didn’t need to be pristine. He seemed to get the point.
When Tommy opened her eyes they were as near to the ocean as she had been in years. Though, the hidden islands were on the other side of the country. A rocky acreage of lands that sat undisturbed near Ballycastle. It was difficult to recall any striking landmarks about the place. If she thought hard enough, she could smell the cold fog rolling in over the tufts of watergrass. Far off in the distance, a loon cried melancholia. That was really it. The bulk of her childhood memories had been washed out with the tides. She pictured her sister screaming, open mouthed and writhing, in order to see the kitchen door propped open and the blood that trailed down to the coastal taverns. She imagined her mother in a heap on the porch to spot the sky broken to allow the occasional beam to shine through. Those memories were always there. Even when the surrounding scenery had been disjointed and abandoned. At least the bleakness had worked to cement some part of the island in her mind.
On some days, she could swear the whole scene had played out on the banks of the Thames right across from the boathouse. That there had been no oyster carcasses to pluck from the sand and make necklaces of. Nor, children running barefoot in the wind until the chilled waters bit at their ankles and sent them hollering up the dock. Only the city and the blackness it was made of.
She remembered the first time she had met Enoch. He was wearing a emerald rose on his breast, eyes wide with youth and not at all fevered. That was home.
You were having horrible dreams, he had whispered.
Tommy opened her eyes at another jolt of the coach. Home was in Arkady Kallizov’s cloak pocket. Both versions of it, the literal and figurative, were separated by wooden wall and four rotting wheels.
Sinai gasped, and then held her breath to disguise it. Tommy followed her gaze to the window.
Sebastian thumbed the underside of the velvet curtain with his head rested against it. Each movement of his finger spread a tendril of light through the cabin. He noticed their gawking and paused.
“Is that?” Tommy asked.
“Sunlight,” Sinai finished. “Real sun.”
Tommy stood, nearly bumping her head against the low wall. “Tell the driver to stop,” she ordered toward Regulus.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “We’re running behind schedule as it is.”
Her eyes widened, and she felt like a scolded child for the first time in a very long time. She didn’t care. She would kick and bite if she had to; deny her dinner and break her toys if necessary. She opened the door. Light flooded in like beams of powdery cotton. There was still an overcast gray about the treetops, but a valley had come illuminated on the other side of the road. She had half a mind to dive out and roll.
“Please, cease,” she said to the driver.
He turned to her, cocked his fragmented skull, and kept moving.
“Tell him to stop!” she demanded, tucking her head back under the roof.
“Are you not going to say please?” Regulus placed a palm to his chest, “you said please to him.”
They stared at each other for a full moment before Tommy sunk back into the seat with her arms crossed.
Regulus rolled his eyes, stood, and tapped his knuckles on the roof.
Caius Avery was the first to exit the secondary vehicle. He stomped through the packed mud on the roadside. With shoulders slumped and chest heaving, he burst through the clearing and into the tree line. Lucia towed behind him, slowly at first, her eyes locked only on Regulus. When she picked up speed it was a dead run. Tommy didn’t know what the conversations in that coach had been like. Evidently, not very positive. Arkady threw them a rude hand gesture as he plodded down the stairs.
Atlan appeared to be in a pleasant mood. He smiled as the sun graced his high temples, rolling his neck back to catch every ounce of light on the lengths of his wavy dark hair.
The first sun in five years did them all well. For a moment, they were children once more. Tall grass up to their knees, calendula whispering in the soft wind as it broke tangerine petals over their brows. The barbed wire fence that separated road from clearing had been damaged some time ago, welcoming them into the home of primrose tufts and butterflies with wings so white they seemed to carry the clouds on their shoulders. Poppies fell victim to their steps, producing a scent in the air that was so fragrant it almost stung.
Halfway into the field, an insect landed on Tommy’s cheekbone. Lead thin legs pressed into her skin. She jerked, brushed it off and nearly lost her footing in the process. It was only a grasshopper. Perfectly round eyes stared at her from the sprout of a tall thistle. Green eyes, far from onyx.
“He forgives you,” a voice whispered to her right. Sebastians accent was thick with dropped vowels. Tommy was unsure of the origin, and shocked to hear him speak at all.
She peered back down at the grasshopper she had mistaken for a wasp. He did appear forgiving.
Through the flowers and near the woods, the band broke off in chunks. Arkady and Dmitri dropped to the earth and closed their eyes. Sinai and Atlan plucked clods of mud and launched them at each other in a game that appeared both jovial and painful.
It was difficult for Tommy to keep the bugs from landing on her. They hopped and played around her crown and shoulders, thoughts small and unmeasured. After multiple attempts at gentle swats that only seemed to egg them on, she abandoned the field for the trees.
Quiet.
Cracks of sunlight broke through the bower and illuminated hoof marks on a worn down path. Centaurs, possibly, or merely wild horses. Someone made a home of these sweet woods. A living home. So heavy with oak that the sap had stolen life from a multitude of little critters to immortalize them in the beads of brown resin. Murk and damp filled the air as leftover rain droplets cascaded down to break over stumps and root.
Tommy turned a corner at a dense Holly tree and very nearly broke Regulus’s chin open with her forehead.
He pressed a finger to his lips and pointed. A group of will-o-the-wisps lay dormant on a patch of bark. Amorphous blobs of white energy. They slept, dreamed and cooed with the hum of the magic that seeped through the interconnected root system of the trees.
Tommy reached her finger out, not near enough to touch them. Her only intention was to feel the lightness they were composed of. A group of them awoke, breaking free from the bark to flow in the air in perfect swimming synchronicity.
Regulus swatted the air as they flew toward him. He looked exactly as she had in the field. Wide eyed and nervous. A will-o landed on Tommy, it’s softness braced the bridge of her nose. The others crawled down the Deatheater until it looked as if he had fallen ill with a version of the pox. Tommy laughed without meaning to. She raised her hand and calmed his swatting arms before she knew what she was doing.
The moment he stopped fighting the creatures, they took flight again. Only this time, they paused above his head in the shape of a crown.
“I think they love you,” Tommy said.
Regulus watched them with a dull sullenness, eyes toward the leafy canopies, mind somewhere else entirely. He snapped back into the present with a blink. “They don’t have their own minds. They’re incapable of singular thought, let alone love.”
Tommy realized her hand was still on his arm and pulled away. The sun had fried her brain in such a short time.
It had grown too quiet. The sort of pregnant silence that allowed a scream to carry for miles. When that scream did break loose it was feminine and gargled, followed by a heaving retch.
Tommy’s eyes whitened to see where Sinai stood. She was in the clearing, sun on her cheeks, a clot of mud on her brow. Notably, perfectly fine.
“Who?” Regulus asked, lip turned upward.
“Must be Lucia,” Tommy answered. She had only gotten the ‘L’ out before Regulus tore through the foliage.
Lucia stood in another clearing with her back to a pit. She shook, but hadn’t sustained any injuries. Caius braced her with a cold hand to her shoulder, lip curled as if she were making a fool of herself. One did not have to wonder what had sent her into such a state. The smell alone could curdle milk and pull curses from nuns lips. Rot, acrid, sickeningly sweet. There was a multitude of ways to describe the breakdown of a human body. Whoever had thrown the victims into the dirt had skimped on using lime to cover their tracks.
Tommy counted thirty before she had to turn away. There were certainly more than that. The pit was large enough to house a lorry and no space had been left unfilled. Limbs had been torn from torso on a number of them. They floated in their own blood and fluids, too much of it to fully soak into the earth. A femur near the top had been touched by sunlight, bleached at the nubs. It looked identical to Tommy’s wand. Dried muscle where the runes should be. The flies were the worst part of it all. She found no guilt in swatting each and every one that crawled on her arms. Wasps were attracted to decomposition too.
“There’s children..” Lucia whispered.
Adults as well. Men and women of all walks of life. It wasn’t possible to say if the bodies were muggle or otherwise. Which bothered Tommy more than anything. They all looked the same in death.
Regulus appeared to have a similar thought. That is, if a man of such apathy was capable of empathetic considerations. He cocked his head, lip upturned, and said, “it’s all just meat, isn’t it?”
“That one’s missing a shoe,” Caius remarked toward a man in a church suit.
“They’re missing a lot of things,” Tommy huffed. “I’ll go out on a limb here and assume this wasn’t your peoples work?”
“Was that meant to be a pun?” Caius asked.
“I’m glad you can find humor in this,” Tommy shot back.
“Vitruvian,” Regulus said, and pointed to a disembodied hand near the bank. It was clutching the the torn fabric of a white robe. “We should keep moving, no more stops.”
The boys sulked back into the treeline without so much as a look over their shoulders toward Lucia. She was still retching, tears down her face from the heave of her abdomen. Tommy considered trying to console her. That idea was immediately shot down. Lucia looked at her as if she were the next body to be kicked into the hell pit before plodding after the rest of her party.
Tommy turned back to the mass. She wasn’t sure how to leave them. A prayer might do, if she knew any. Though, she doubted any of them would hear it. This wasn’t the sort of place that a soul would choose to stay in.
A figure moved from the opposite end of the woods. Tommy reached for her wand and pointed it at Sebastian. He didn’t even notice. She lowered it, and he dropped to his knees above the stench and carnage. His hand reached down to grasp that of a smaller body. A child. Her blonde hair tucked back into a set of Dutch braids. Tommy made to scream at him about diseases, maggots, bacteria and worse. Something told her to remain silent.
Sebastian leaned in and placed a kiss on the little girls hand. It was such a gentle gesture she was certain she had imagined it. He was a Deatheater, and like the rest, had little consideration for life and what came after. It was too difficult to sit with, too human. She turned away.
Unlike the others, she had to spare a look over her shoulder before entering the woods.
A single glance back to watch a little girl with dutch braids crawl up the bank of the pit.