“Rochefort is well aware that something happened to Drajow,” I corrected him. “Do you recall the texts he sent?”
Vander nodded to say he did recall the texts, but then he shook his head. “Something happening to Drajow doesn’t automatically result in you being alive,” he answered. “And, besides, we’re here now so we can do what we came to do. Once we get Dulcie, we get out.”
Yes, that was the plan. Simple. Easy. In and out. But, even so, I could not just swipe away the odd sensation that everything we were doing was happening too easily. I expected we should have certainly come up against someone at the very least?
“Maybe no one is here at present and Dulcie is locked up somewhere all alone,” Vander suggested as he shrugged. “Or maybe it’s our lucky day?”
I nodded, but his inadequate explanation did not provide me with any sense of relief. When we reached the top of the staircase, Vander glanced at me again. I motioned for him to go down the hallway to the right. I had to close my eyes again to determine that Dulcie was inside the last room. He nodded and allowed me to take the lead. When I reached the final door, I held my ear flat against it and listened for any voices or beating hearts. I could only detect one, which I assumed must have been Dulcie’s. Perhaps Vander was correct. Perhaps she was simply being held prisoner here and all alone. I gripped the doorknob and turned it only slightly, opening the door as quietly as I could. Inside, the room was dark.
“Dulcie?” I whispered into the empty space.
“Bram?” I heard her reply, and a flood of elation erupted inside me. Vander must have heard her voice as well, because he pushed the door open wider and together we walked into the room.
Dulcie was standing in the center of the room with a large fire burning in the fireplace beside her. The flames illuminated her long, flowing black dress and the alabaster white I beheld in the swells of her breasts stood out prominently. Her hair cascaded around her in long, wavy tresses, and I could not see a cut or a bruise that might have hinted to the sadistic manner in which she had been treated by Rochefort. She smiled at us as she stood there, her limbs unfettered by chains or handcuffs. She eyed us both in turn and appeared to all the world as if she were as happy as she could possibly be.
“Dulcie?” Vander asked in a suspicious tone, apparently just as shocked to see her in such a state as I.
As soon as he said her name, bright lights came on overhead, striking the room with a garish starkness. In seconds, an impending sense of doom seemed to settle in my ribcage.
“Bram, I must admit how surprised I am to see you.”
Hearing a woman’s voice coming from behind me, I immediately whirled around. As soon as I beheld her, my cold heart stopped and a blast of pure shock waged its destructive path through me. I could not believe my eyes and had to blink three times before I could even speak.
“Meg?” I asked finally, still doubting her identity even as I uttered her name from my gaping mouth.
She bowed very low and stood up straight again. Then she smiled at me, but it did not reach her green eyes, which were hollow, cold and empty. “The one, the only,” she said, her lips tightening.
“But, how is that possible?” I demanded as I shook my head. I briefly wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Perhaps the extreme blood loss or maybe the Loki’s blood was reacting in such a way as to show me things that were not actually there. Perhaps Meg was nothing but a hallucination, an odious trick brought on by my overly weary mind. “You were … you are dead.”
“No,” she answered with a small laugh. “You left me for dead that night, but I wasn’t dead then, and I’m not dead now.”
“Impossible!” I protested, because it was the only thing I could think of to say.
“What’s going on, Bram?” Vander inquired as he turned his attention from Meg, who walked past us to stand beside Dulcie, and returned it to me.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I fear the cat’s caught Bram’s tongue at the present moment,” Meg said as she glanced at Vander. She did not offer her hand. “I am Meg, Bram’s maker.”
“Bram’s maker?” Vander asked, clearly perplexed. “You were supposed to be dead.”
Meg shook her head and laughed. “Apparently, you are not the only one who thinks I was.” Then she faced Dulcie as she strutted from Dulcie’s left side around to her right. “But, no, as you can see, I am not dead. I am very much alive, and I have been for decades.”
“But how is that possible?” I persisted. “When last I saw you, you were torn apart, reduced to nothing but a skeleton! You were simply a burnt out torso and a skull!”
“Yes, that was so,” Meg answered with a curt nod. “After you so unsympathetically left me to my fate in that dark alley, my own master returned for me,” she replied, and her voice shook with what I assumed was poorly concealed outrage. “The bond I had with my master was still very strong. Even though I had not seen him for one hundred years at the least, he still appeared to me in my hour of dire need. His actions saved me from extinction. He brought me back from the precipice of the true death by using his own blood.” She faced Vander then. “Of course, all of this did not happen in only a day. It took weeks of my master transfusing me with his highly potent blood. Once he had given me all that he cared to, my subsequent survival was up to me.” Then she speared me with her catlike eyes again. “And survive I did, because that is who and what I am. All told, it took me months until my body was finally restored to itself, to what you see now.”
I could not conceal my shock and did not know what or how to think about Meg, my maker, now standing before me, as alive as she was capable of being.
“Then … you’re the Darkness?” Vander asked.
“I am,” she answered.
“You ordered Rochefort to drain me, did you not? And to torture Dulcie and me,” I accused her as I took a step toward her, but Vander put his arm out to prevent me from coming any closer. I was not certain if he felt he was protecting her or me.
“No,” she answered, “not Dulcie.”
“You cared so little for your own offspring?” I asked. I was almost physically unable to stomach the very thought that Meg could have stabbed me in the back again, and in such a cruel and horrible way.
“You cared so little for your maker?” she threw the question back at me without waiting for me to respond. “You are nothing to me now! Just as I was nothing to you.”
“What have you done to Dulcie?” Vander demanded, apparently growing tired of the banter between us.
Turning my attention to Dulcie then, I noticed she had not uttered a word since Meg had intervened and announced herself. To my astonishment, Dulcie was rooted in the same spot with her hands clasped behind her back and staring straight ahead. Her empty gaze had been and was still settled on something in the distance. She almost appeared to be in a trance state.
“Dulcie belongs to me now, such as fate decreed and it was always meant to be,” Meg declared.
“What the hell does that mean?” Vander demanded, his hands suddenly fisting at his sides.
“It means that I have taken control of her in a way that I should have years ago. But fate has a funny sense of humor. It tends to grant you the most precious gifts, those which you believed were irrevocably lost at one time or another, when you least expect them,” Meg continued, but her explanation made very little sense to either of us.
“You’ve taken control of her?” Vander repeated.
“Shall I demonstrate?” Meg asked, and a sinister smile contorted her face, stretching from ear to ear. “Dulcie, dear, I’ll ask you to do the honors.”
It felt like time was standing still when I watched Dulcie lift a pistol that she held concealed behind her. In only a split second, she pointed the pistol at Vander and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit him squarely in the chest, causing him to fly backwards with its impact. I rushed forward without even considering what I was actually doing. When Vander hit the floor, I ran over to him and crouched do
wn onto my knees so I could better diagnose him. I shook him slightly, but I could not determine if he were already dead because he did not react.
“You have come too late, Bram,” Meg said.
I could not spare her a glance. Instead, I found my eyes fastened on Dulcie’s as I wondered what had become of her.
Friend the Dulcie Characters on Facebook!
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Knight: https://www.facebook.com/knightley.vander
Quill: https://www.facebook.com/quillan.beaurigard
Bram: https://www.facebook.com/bram.stoker.52?ref=ts&fref=ts
Sam: https://www.facebook.com/sam.white.92372446?ref=ts&fref=ts
H. P. Mallory is the author of the Jolie Wilkins series as well as the Dulcie O’Neil series.
She began her writing career as a self-published author and after reaching a tremendous amount of success, decided to become a traditionally published author and hasn’t looked back since.
H. P. Mallory lives in Southern California with her son and her giant dog, where she is at work on her next book.
If you are interested in receiving emails when she releases new books, please sign up for her email distribution list by visiting her website and clicking the “mailing list” tab:
www.hpmallory.com
Be sure to join HP’s online Facebook community where you will find pictures of the characters from both series and lots of other fun stuff including an online book club!
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Find H.P. Mallory Online:
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Also by H.P. Mallory:
THE JOLIE WILKINS SERIES:
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble
Toil and Trouble
Be Witched (Novella)
Witchful Thinking
The Witch Is Back
Something Witchy This Way Comes
THE DULCIE O’NEIL SERIES:
To Kill A Warlock
A Tale Of Two Goblins
Great Hexpectations
Wuthering Frights
Malice In Wonderland
For Whom The Spell Tolls
Eleven Snipers Sniping (Short Story)
A Midsummer Night’s Scream
Grave New World
THE LILY HARPER SERIES:
Better Off Dead
The Underground City
To Hell And Back
Persephone
The Bladesmith (Novella)
THE PEYTON CLARK SERIES:
Ghouls Rush In
Once Haunted, Twice Shy
Big Easy Murder (Novella)
THE BRYN AND SINJIN SERIES:
Sinjin
The Scent
Blood Lust (Novella)
HP Mallory, Grave New World
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