The Cursed Blood, стр. 80
“This won’ do.” He tisked as he eyed our nakedness with an offended shake of his head and again snapped his fingers.
We felt clean and warm as a black dress straight out of a gothic Venetian ball was suddenly about us hugging us with silk and lace. We stared down at the man in the hood and The Doctor ripped off the hood. I gasped when I saw Sergeant Blake who knelt there in terror as he stared at us.
“Make it quick, but not too quick, yeah?” The Doctor laughed as he tossed the leather mask away and leaned on his walking stick to watch, red flecked eyes alit with anticipation as we stalked forward, seething rage boiling hot.
“I’m sorry, Ben. Thank you for this,” I/she whispered as I/she clenched lace gloved hands tightly. Pointed, black painted nails digging into flesh until they drew blood that dripped to the floor in thick pooling droplets of crimson.
“You proved yourself to me, and I shan’t forget it. Not ever, my love.” The last was a whisper softer than the dance of a falling rose petals in a summer wind as tiny, dark, wicked things with glowing eyes, wicked claws, and hooked teeth crawled laughing from the cracks of the bloody stones at our feet.
Sergeant Blake shrieked, cried, babbled, gurgled, and made less describable noises as his blood pooled and expanded at our feet. As with wet rending, tearing sounds the fiendish things ripped him to ribbons and carried the strips back down into the stone from whence they came with wild gleeful screams.
“They are all going to pay, Ben, for everything. For what they made me do to your family, what they made me do to you, for what they did to us here… I promise!” Her voice built to a trembling shriek of anger then everything went blank and spinning yet again for me as she sent my consciousness home to the echoing boom of The Doctor’s maniacal laughter.
Chapter Thirteen
The battle beneath the birch tree…
The Elvish High King, his dusky face drawn and deeply lined in concentration with his head bowed, was the first to note I was back as he was standing over me. A look of deep disgust, pain and concern lined his brow as his eyes scrunched tightly shut.
The ornate jade and gold ringed forefinger of his right hand pressed hard onto my forehead. He blinked then smiled down at me weakly as he stiffly lowered his hand from my forehead, a dull throbbing fading with his absence that was replaced by a biting chill. He appeared deeply troubled, a strained, tired pall hanging over his visage like a palpable weight that seemed to age him terribly.
I later discovered that the moment Fazool had figured out what was happening to me when an all by hysterical Aunt Milly had portalled White Owl and I (evidently, when he’d carried me over his shoulder through the portal and stepped unexpectedly into the living room Gramps had almost had another cardiac event and had to be sedated by the Halfling Witch) back to Craggmore, they had sent for the Elvish Wizard straight away.
Surprisingly, he had teleported himself and his ever-present guard (that Gramps had banished from the lodge and onto the porch when he caught them suspiciously inspecting his fridge) to the Lodge the moment he’d received the message, though he also had had ulterior motives of his own regarding the promise I’d made to him.
“He’s awake,” High King Efferieal Rain announced as he straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. Gramps dumped his coffee onto his lap in his hurry to stand and rush to the bedside. Fazool and Aunt Milly, however, beat him to it. Briefly I wondered where White Owl was.
“Do not try to move. Yes, what you suffered in the bonded vision, alas, indeed your own body suffered here,” the King advised as I tried and failed to struggle up to my elbows. Gasping in agony I fell back and breathed laboriously as my shaking hands tracked my bare chest beneath the flannel sheets to find it tightly wrapped with gauze.
“I’m deeply sorry, young Benjamin Bright; no magic can heal wounds such as those on your back. You need to give them time to heal. But I’m afraid you shall bear their marks forever.” This seemed to trouble him, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Oh dear, sweet boy,” Aunt Milly who looked to have been crying if the state of her mascara and red eyes were any testament exclaimed as she wrung her hands. “I haven’t the words…”
Her eyes, sad as they were, held a volcanic fury. Fazool, at her side seemed unable to speak. Pale, grim, and anger written all over his face, the Halfling was clutching at his walking stick as though he would have liked nothing more than to have bashed someone over the head with it until his arms gave out.
“You saw it all, then?” I asked in a harsh rasp of a voice I barely recognized as I felt my face redden. Gramps took a long breath and nodded. Fazool stared at his feet and Aunt Millie’s jaw clenched until I feared she would shatter her teeth.
“All of it,” King Efferieal Rain answered grimly as he paced from my bedside to lean on the wall by the window. “It seems my brother Wizard has fallen to a darkness I can’t begin to fathom. It is as I feared. The Balance, it would seem, has righted itself. Even with Eric entombed alive in the catacombs, evil has infected our ranks.” He shook his head as he stared out the glass to the lodge grounds and fell silent.
“Morgan?” I asked. You could hear a pin drop in the room at my question and for a moment I feared the worst. I imagined the horrors my uncle or the Wizard would inflict on her and my