witch’s magic on the people in the room was wearing off, fast. Screams erupted from those nursing serious burns, while people scurried out of the way of the vampires and Elle, huddling into corners of the room. One man followed Lucy’s lead and began smashing clay pots. Not a one looked anything like the ones Lucy had smashed, but he looked happy to be helping, at least.
‘You sure you should be worried about me?’ Lucy asked as Missy approached, catching movement out of the corner of her eye. The question gave Missy the moment’s pause needed to stop her from getting out of the way of Boris, who charged into her from the side, sending her flying against the far wall. Given the witch’s frail new state, Lucy half expected her to shatter into pieces, but she landed on her feet like a tossed cat, alert and ready to charge.
Before Lucy could brace herself against the tiny old woman’s retaliation, she was blindsided. Adam appeared next to her, scooping her up in his arms, kicking out at Boris as he went. The burly vampire brother went sprawling to the ground.
‘Through here,’ Elle said, appearing by Adam’s side, the huge casket with the Duchess’s remains inside in her arms, carried as though it was nothing. Lucy tried to struggle, but the vampire’s grip was too firm.
‘Let me go,’ she said, struggling to breathe against Adam’s tight embrace, but he set his jaw in silent determination and followed in Elle’s wake.
A wall of murky air cut the other vampires off from them, their movements as though moving through treacle. Mercy’s wizened figure stood between them, moving her arms about as though conducting rag dolls to dance on strings. The air thickened further, turning to what looked like pudding around them, leaving two witches, a vampire, and a Lucy at its heart in a solitary bubble of air.
Elle waved at a wall, which dissolved to reveal a secret door. Another flick of the witch’s wrist flung the door open, revealing an entirely impossible room beyond. There was no space for it, and yet there it was. Lucy gave up struggling — it was to no avail, and her strength was better conserved for whatever came next.
The new room was unlike the rest of the house. Green and white tiles covered floor and wall, with peeling white paint taking over halfway up and carrying on up to the ceiling. It was as though they’d teleported into some kind of Victorian sanatorium. Given how little Lucy knew about the power these witches commanded, she realised it was possible they’d done exactly that.
Old lady Missy sealed the door back up with a wave of her hand and turned to Lucy, striding forward as Adam set her gently down on the floor, bringing her tiny frail arm up in a wild slap, which connected with enough force to send Lucy stumbling, her cheek stinging and flushing red with pain.
‘You’re going to pay for breaking those spells,’ she hissed, squaring up as though to come back with a second swing, but Adam got between them.
‘Think, Missy. You want a nice new vessel? Or do you want one with half its teeth missing and a scar on its face? Those restoration spells of yours return to a baseline, and you know that.’
‘I don’t need restoration if I’ve got a vampire body,’ she hissed in return.
‘I don’t know if we’ve got time,’ Elle said, from across the room. She stood by an old wooden dresser, its doors spread open to reveal hundreds of tiny jars and old notepads with browning paper bound by string. It would have looked shabby chic if the jars didn’t have eyeballs in them. She turned to Adam, her hands full of jars. ‘If you turn her, how quick can she resurrect?’
‘it could be a few hours.’
‘Um, I don’t want to be a vampire,’ Lucy said. ‘In case anyone’s interested.’
‘You don’t get a say,’ the Missy said in a singsong voice as childlike as she no longer looked.
‘Oh yeah?’ Lucy said. ‘So I understand — I’ll be a vampire, but I’ll also have two people living in my head with me? A hundred-year-old child witch, and a half-millennia dead serial killer? Trust me, I’ll be heading for a sunrise the first morning I get the chance.’
That stopped the other three in their tracks.
‘That’s… not how this will work,’ Adam said.
‘And you’re sure about that, are you?’ Lucy said. ‘Done a lot of these rituals, have you? I vote we get to stay in the bodies we’re in, or the casket, and everyone’s a winner.’
‘No,’ Missy said, the sound coming out more pout than word, her bottom lip protruding like some kind of festering, bloated worm.
‘Let’s take this one step at a time,’ Elle said, dumping urns onto a metal trolley and wheeling it into the centre of the room. ‘Adam, kill her.’
Adam hesitated for a second.
‘Don’t do this,’ Lucy said, as her lover approached uncertainly.
‘Adam, you’ve known this girl for less than a week,’ Elle said contemptuously, half her concentration on the pestle and mortar in front of her, the mix of ingredients at its core releasing a pungent smell that stung Lucy’s throat. ‘After searching for the Countess for half a century. This was more important to you than whatever nomadic life you’ve chosen to hide in. You don’t have to be alone anymore. You can be a king, be part of a family.’
Adam stared forward past Lucy’s shoulder, contemplating the far wall and what he wanted. In that moment, Lucy realised nothing she said would matter. She didn’t enter into this. Every moment with Adam so far had been, to him, about him.
‘Adam,’ she said, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
‘I need her, Adam,’ Missy cried. ‘The age gaining on me — it hurts. I’m fading away.’ She looked more frail, Lucy thought, with a minor note of satisfaction. ‘Hurry, Ellie.’
Screams carried through the walls, anguished howls of panic and fear. The people. The vampires must have turned against the house guests when they couldn’t find the witches, taking their violence out on the people who they were used to taking violence out on.
Lucy’s stomach turned. To think she imagined she might do some good here. All she’d done was put herself forward for a pointless death, one that could usher untold pain and despair onto the world. Clinging to her earlier thought, she bit her bottom lip and tapped her heel on the floor in frustration. She would stay a part of herself, somehow, cling on enough to bring an end to the whole sorry affair.
Adam heard the screams, too. He stared forlornly at the door. Any trace of empathy she had toward him evaporated, and she realised there was no way out that didn’t start and end with her. There was no help to come from him.
With Adam momentarily distracted, Lucy ran across the room toward Elle and grabbed the end of her trolley. Shoving it with all the violence she could muster, it clattered across the room, spilling Elle’s magical concoction over the floor.
‘No!’ Missy and Elle cried in unison.
The powder, a strange rainbow blend with a muddy brown hue, splashed against the tiles, and promptly ate through them, releasing a steam that caught in the back of both Lucy and Elle’s throat. Lucy hacked and coughed, trying to move away from it at the exact moment Missy moved toward it.
The tiny old child lady, beyond grief at the loss of her rebirth, stumbled forward, bending down to scoop up the powder. She scooped up green-brown murk even as it ate through the wrinkled old skin of her hands.
With the smell of burning flesh filling the room, Lucy stumbled backward, pressing herself against the tiles at the far end of the room. Missy screamed, shaking the powder out of what remained of her hands, heavy droplets of acidic goo shaking the burning flesh from her fingers. The howling and shaking intensified, sending toxic mess everywhere.
Stumbling, Missy placed what remained of her hands on the casket of the old dead vampire, as Elle hovered a few feet behind her, weeping, wanting to console her friend but not daring to touch her. By shaking her hands like she had, Missy had sealed her own fate. Burns pitted her gown, aged flesh burning underneath, each marking another nail in her resurrection.
‘Quick, Adam,’ Elle said. ‘Turn her. We still have time.’
‘No,’ Adam said, watching the spectacle unfold in horror. ‘I can’t. I won’t. It’s over.’ He turned to Lucy as though he was about to offer some kind of apology, but stopped himself.
Elle stepped forward, holding her hand out to her companion but falling short of contact. Missy moaned, sliding down the stone casket, leaving a groove within the thick stone that bubbled away even after her touch. She fell to the floor beneath it, moaning, weeping.
‘Elle,’ she said, the word barely making it past her sobs. ‘I didn’t want it to go like this.’
‘I know,’ Elle said, crouching before her, tenderness in her voice. ‘I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I never should have trusted a vampire.’ She shot Adam a look of pure hatred, and Lucy realised they were far from clear of this thing.
‘I love you, Elle,’ Missy said, even as the flesh of her lips fell away. She was so small, so frail, dying what looked a horrible death; but Lucy couldn’t quite bring herself to empathy, nor did she feel the normal compulsion to intervene, to save the old witch.
Within the stone coffin, something thudded.
Where Missy’s acidic freakout had burned rivets in the stone, tiny cracks and gaps appearing along their surface. Lucy looked at the coffin anew. All this time they’d been talking about the Countess’s remains, but this box, this was no ordinary coffin. Nearly seven centuries into its life, it looked more like…
A prison.
Fingers appeared at one crack, or at least, what may once have been fingers. Now more like pure white leather stretched over bone. They scratched and clawed at the hole, making it bigger, fussing and worrying until the hole was the size of an orange. Whatever was in there, it didn’t lack for strength.
Thudding sounds came from inside, not that Elle paid attention to them. She was too busy weeping at the body of her friend.
The coffin above her shattered, which finally drew her attention. Too late. Out rose a figure, a horrific vision of wasted flesh and bone, eyes like sunken pits, hair dank and limp black plastered over what remained of the face. It moved with raw power and speed, gripping Elle by the throat and lifting her up in a fluid movement so graceful and powerful it took the witch entirely by surprise. Before Elle could react, the creature’s mouth closed onto her throat, tearing it open and drinking deep, tearing the artery so severely the body expelled blood faster than the mouth of the newly released Countess could keep up.
Lucy looked behind her, wondering if the witch’s death might undo her magic, bring back the door that would allow her to flee into whatever alternate hell was happening behind them. But no door came, even as the witch’s eyes turned glassy with death and her body dropped to the floor.
Countess Bathory transformed before her eyes, flesh filling out, eyes sparking with red fire, skin flushing with colour. The nose turned from a thin outcropping of bone to a full Roman hook. She turned to Lucy and smiled.
‘Éhező,’ she said, the voice like sand moving over concrete.