Gypsy Moon (All The Pretty Monsters #4)(94)

“Why the hell are you singing that right now?” I ask her quietly, moving to cut off her view of Violet.

Her glare narrows on me before she starts singing again, louder this time, as a solid sheet of rain abruptly plummets from the sky as though it’s been unceremoniously ripped open, pelting us without warning.

The wind starts to stir.

“Six gypsy families all stood nigh. Five gypsy families for one sacrifice. Four gypsy families broken apart. Three gypsy families turned cold of heart.”

Violet’s eyes go brighter, the color almost solidly taking over, as her pupils start to retract.

“Two gypsy families couldn’t back down. One gypsy family went underground,” Marta adds on a softer melody, her words carrying over the wind as I finally start toward Violet. “Forever is such a long time to bleed. Worst are the gypsies brought to their knees.”

“Leave her be, Damien,” Emit snaps, pulling me back by my shoulder, as Violet’s heartbeat ticks down ever so softly, the beats loud enough to hear over the rising storm in the background, as Violet clings to her tray.

“This is her purpose,” Marta tells me, ambushing us with this shit like she has every right to make decisions, making her all the more suspicious.

“If your only argument is the fact this is her alleged fucking purpose, then why did you hide it from her all this time?” I grind out.

“Because of Idun,” she spits out like the words leave a bad taste in her mouth. “I didn’t want that evil storm raised or on my daughter’s conscience when she slaughters everything in sight just for fun.”

Just as I open my mouth to argue again, a voice whispers over the wind in a familiar chime that can only be impossible.

“Sing, gypsies, sing of your lies,” the mostly mute Simpleton sings from nowhere, the fog lifting to show the black trees that mark the places of their dismembered bodies.

There are a lot more trees than people…than what I remember. Only twenty come to mind, but there are at least sixty, maybe more, trees. For fuck’s sake, how many were there?

A chorus of phantom singers jump in for the next line, as the wind howls harder, dragging their voices to us as the fog rolls back in. “Never trust a gypsy with no gypsy pride!”

Emit and I look around as Bobo’s melodic voice mysteriously sings again, the ghostly tune wrapping chills around us.

“Sing, gypsies, sing of your truths.”

A hushed, eerie silence follows, the freak storm halting like it’s been put on pause.

I continue to look around, stepping back toward Violet, reaching for where she was, but finding nothing but vacant air and her red boots. I’d be worried that I’ve gone deaf if not for the sound of my dull heartbeat thudding in my ears as panic claws its way up me, my gaze jerking from spot to spot in search of where she’s gone.

Emit sucks in a breath of surprise, and I look up just as Violet lifts the tray over her head, standing in the middle of a fucking dead tree forest she shouldn’t be able to stand in, snow barely stirring around her bare feet as a breeze sneaks by.

“The apples have all rotted; the oranges just bruised,” she says in a trance as she throws the tray.

“Violet, no! Not in the center!” Marta shouts next to me, as we all crash into the third threshold’s barrier.

How the fuck did she get there?!

Emit bangs his fist, as flames erupt outward, circling around Violet, as salt starts seeping out of the ground, skittering across the rotted tombs it has wrapped for centuries.

“She can’t be in there! It’ll suck her in if she’s not strong enough to raise them yet!” Marta says in more of a panic. “She was supposed to toss the tray out there and let me do the rest from here!”

She holds her hands out and starts chanting like she’s trying to bypass the third barrier to make it to Violet, and her panic just fuels my motherfucking panic, while I watch helplessly at the ominous shadows slipping up from the ground.

Violet remains oblivious, as salt spills onto the earth, and Emit shouts for her to run.

“Violet, the wraiths! Pay attention to the wraiths!” Marta screams.

All the salt on the ground explodes and rains into the air, just as lightning crashes somewhere behind us.

The flames explode higher into the air, their goal looking to reach the stars, and the wraiths shriek an ear-splitting sound that sends snow spraying into the air.

“Violet, get out! You’re not going to have enough!” Marta shouts, throwing herself against the barrier.

“I can’t leave them!” Violet cries out, salt still climbing up, swirling into the winds that are gathering faster and faster around her, leaving her in the middle of the cyclone of burning salt.

Emit and I stagger back a step, as my heart hammers, my monster on the verge of slipping out.

Emit drops to all fours in fur, a howl erupting from him as he charges the barrier again, slashing at it with claws to no avail, as Violet makes a scream of exertion, blood leaking from her nose.

“Violet, get out!” I shout again.

“I can’t,” she says as tears leak from her eyes. “No one else will ever get them up.”

She leans down, eyes glowing brighter as she grabs her Van Helsing blade from her ankle. “I was born the perfect conductor the same reason I was born to fuck up potions,” she says as the wraiths remain trapped on the other side of the swirling flames. “For the same reason salt moves as freely by my fingertips as thread. And for the same reason I can take a lot of pain.”