When she’d died from her wounds a week later, Jack had felt as though his soul were torn in two. He’d no longer cared about right and wrong, about heaven or hell. All he’d known was that he would do anything not to feel that crushing impotence, the exquisite agony of losing someone he’d loved. He’d crawled to his father’s chest of drawers, searching for the athame. He’d never be powerless again. At least, that was what he’d hoped.
His eyelids fluttered, and the succubus clutched him tighter. Mercifully, Druloch’s power began to surge through him once again. Amauberge’s flesh grew soft, and her lips dampened. Her hand ran under his shirt, stroking his newly smooth skin, and he curled her hair around his fist, pulling her face from his. When she looked like this, he could keep going, but the hag would drain him if he kept at it long enough. Given enough time with her, even Druloch wouldn’t be able to save him.
Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, and she moaned almost imperceptibly. “I’m not sure what’s my favorite part. Elizabeth’s fate in Salem, or when Fiona left you to be eaten by the Fury and you realized your entire existence was pointless.”
“You know, pretty as you are, I’m not really in the mood anymore.” He pulled her arms from his neck and rose, smoothing out his shirt.
“Just as well. I have a score to settle with my husband.”
Gods’ blood, he needed to get out of here. “Good luck with that. I have a flight to catch.” Crossing to the latticed window, he yanked it open and heard the hag screech as he leapt through the window to the garden below.
He raced over the grass to the riverbank, crossing the lawn in a fraction of a second.
Munroe stood in the shadows, her eyes wide. “Jack! What—”
George’s agonized voice interrupted from the house. “What have you done? Where is Jack?”
“What’s happening?” Munroe whispered. “How are we going to get out of here?”
He gripped her arm, yanking her to a copse of hemlock trees, but the idiot moved at a snail’s pace. “Hurry up!” Damned humans.
George’s cries rumbled through the ground, shaking the trees’ leaves. “You betrayed me!”
Jack spied a small sapling, and he pulled the athame from his pocket. Whispering a spell, he sliced through the trunk, felling it.
“What are you doing?” cried Munroe, clutching the bourbon.
The smell of rotting leaves filled the air. George’s dark fury was palpable, and Jack scrambled to rub the herbs on the tree. He straddled the sapling. “Get on,” he barked.
“What?”
Jack glanced behind him, catching a glimpse of Percy Plantation. Black vines crawled over the exterior, shattering windows. George’s form loomed in one jagged window. “Jack!”
His ancient heart hammered. “Get on and hold on tight, or I’m leaving without you.”
She hiked up her dress, and her trembling arm slipped around his waist.
Jack uttered the ancient spell for flight. Around them, the trees groaned, their branches thickening and reaching for him as his feet left the ground. The leaves curled around his skin, the wind whispering through them, Traitor. With a grunt, he broke through their sylvan embrace, racing into the chilly night air. Munroe’s nails dug into his flesh, but he was free.
48
Tobias
Something was wrong. Tomorrow was the day the hellhound would come for him—his last day on earth—but his mind was on Fiona.
He wasn’t sure how he knew, but could sense a change in her. He circled over the Proserpine, which stood moored by the Fiddler’s Green in the darkening evening. One of the Picaroons remained on the ship, bound by iron chains. The others filtered out of a sea grotto, jubilant.
Black clothes drenched, Fiona emerged from the cove and shoved a gold coin in the Captain’s hand, grabbing his pipe from him and sticking it in her mouth. One of the Picaroons leaned in close, lighting the tobacco, and Fiona took a deep breath. Victorious, she held her arms over her head.
Tobias circled overhead. Was that a tattoo peeking out from her shirt?
But she wasn’t quite the same. She moved differently, fluidly, like ink in water. He had the feeling that something dark and primordial lay coiled inside her.
The Captain called the skiff to him, and it drifted over the water to the shore. As the sun disappeared, Fiona raised her face to the dusky sky, a faint smile on her lips. Her eyes landed on Tobias—no longer amber, but black as pitch and fixed right on him with a stony glare. A chill rippled over him. She was as beautiful and cold as a marble statue.
Losing interest, her eyes roamed to the skiff, and she stepped in. She was one of them—a Picaroon.
No, she was something else. Something he’d never seen before.
She’d made it. He was certain all along she could do it, and now he just wanted to wrap his arms around her. But he was no longer sure she’d welcome his embrace.
Turning a wider arc, he watched as Nod rowed the skiff to the Proserpine. After it pulled up next to the ship, Fiona effortlessly scaled the side, and the Picaroons followed.