The Gates - By Rachael Wade Page 0,59
idea if Audrey, Josh or Gabe were dead, no idea what had become of the blood supply situation or Gavin’s summoning. All I’d known were Cecile’s final words, and the fate that had brought Gavin and me here, together, at the mercy of Samira’s altar. And that was enough.
Spotting Scarlet near the entry doors, leaning against the wall watching us like some cool, comfortable cougar, only intensified the dread. My journal lay at her feet. Seeing me, she simply smiled the most grotesque smile I’d ever witnessed and waved.
My journal. The windmill. It’s over. I kept my head low, barely able to look up, past the granite steps and toward the invincible vampire queen, who now stood with her back to me, hands placed gracefully on each side of the altar. She didn’t move. A long, thin-velvet drape covered part of the table, just above the rows of dolls. Thankfully, I’d never been near enough to see them up close, but I’d noticed the variety of them, each with distinctive figures and features. Some had faces painted black, others no hair, and the one on the far right, the one Samira slowly reached for, with no feet. I watched her from under my eyelashes while she extended one long fingernail to drag it toward her. Then, with one nimble turn of her wrist, she drew back the velvet cloth and unveiled the altar’s contents. A selection of pins, knives, needles, and all sorts of oils lined the table adjacent to the dolls. My heart lurched in my chest and I didn’t dare turn my head to look at Gavin. This is what it’s all come to. A slow, excruciating death alongside my love.
“Arianna.” Gavin’s voice quivered behind me. “Don’t you want to know about her before you get rid of us?”
Us. I blinked, fixated on the pins she began collecting in her other hand.
“I intend to hear all about her.” At finally speaking, Samira shifted her head to glance over her shoulder, her expression unreadable.
“I can tell you things Scarlet can’t. Things no one else knows.”
“Can you, now.”
“I won’t talk unless you free Camille. Let her free, and I’ll tell you everything.”
She snickered, her back to us, examining her weapons of choice. “I believe I have heard enough. What I do not know cannot hurt me, I am certain of this.”
“You know nothing of her life since Gérard took her from you. But I do. I can tell you. You knew her as a young girl but she grew up, she changed. I know the woman she became—”
“That is enough!” She jerked around, her glacial blue eyes alight with pure, undiluted affliction. I cowered away at her outburst, sinking my head into a protective shell formed by my neck and shoulders.
“Guards!” she shouted, keeping her body still. The grisly vampires all stood to attention and gathered near the rear doors behind the throne. “I shall barricade the castle doors. See to it they stay that way. I won’t need long.”
Grasping for any bravery I had left, I slightly shifted my head to glance back at Gavin, questioning him with my eyes. He gave nothing away; his brown eyes were hard, cold, and distraught. Did this mean our friends were alive? Could they come to help us? I’d seen some of them escaping the river’s flood, but no sign of those I loved most.
Samira closed her eyes, inhaled, and her body began to shake, her hands swaying from side to side in some mystical dance, still holding the pins she’d selected. The castle walls and the ground beneath us shook in unison, mimicking the earthquake that seized her body, causing a rupture of crumbling sounds not far in the distance. The guards looked to the exit behind the throne and waited, fear washing their faces.
“It is done.” She’d stopped shaking and opened her eyes, nodding to them. “The stone and debris will delay them. Now go.” Her watchmen hurried off with their orders while Dali and Akim returned to her side from wherever they’d cowered to. She set her eyes on Gavin again. “You think you can tell me these things and somehow it will make a difference. Somehow it will erase each aching day I crawled on my hands and knees through the castle, unable to stand because my agony forbade it, searching for my one and only daughter, the flesh of my flesh. You think it will erase the nights I spent weeping for the husband who betrayed me