House of Salt and Sorrows(105)

My stomach lurched. “What?”

She gasped for air. “Viscardi and I had to seal our bargain somehow…. Once it was set, Ortun fell at my feet, begging for forgiveness, begging for another chance, begging to come back to my bed. And I let him. I let them both in. And then…I let them ravish me.”

Her groans turned to a shriek of anguish as a dark shape hurtled from her, spilling onto the bed in a mess of tangled limbs and dark, membraned wings. My eyes couldn’t seem to focus on the details, couldn’t make sense of the shapes flailing through the air. A mouth too wide, too full of teeth, opened and let out a lusty wail.

It wasn’t a baby. It was a monster.





Camille burst back into the bedroom, her face flushed and smudged in soot. “Lightning struck the roof. The fourth floor is on fire! We have to get out!” She came to a screeching halt as she saw the writhing mass on the bed.

The thing flipped over, exposing its winged back, and grabbed at its umbilical cord. It tugged on the opposite end, and Morella cried out in pain, clutching her stomach. Raising the cord to its mouth, it bit through the muscle in one snap, freeing itself. I turned to the side, unable to stop myself from throwing up.

Camille grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. Servants ran by, shouting for us to hurry downstairs. The fire couldn’t be controlled. We needed to escape now.

“Wait, don’t go!” Morella called to us, her voice high and reedy. For a brief moment, her eyes lost their madness and she looked like our stepmother again. “I can’t get downstairs by myself! You wouldn’t leave me to burn to death, would you?”

Standing on the threshold, I dug my heels in, stopping Camille’s race for the stairs. “We can’t just leave her here.”

She groaned in exasperation. “That’s exactly what she’d do to us!”

Morella struggled to free her blood-soaked legs from the wet sheets. She tilted her head, listening to something beyond our hearing. From the adjoining sitting room came the sound of heavy footsteps. My mouth went dry as a black spider of fear sank its fangs deep into my stomach.

Viscardi had arrived.

Camille yanked on my arm again. “We can’t stay here! The fire is already in the hallway!”

The door to the sitting room whipped open with a crack, stopping us in our tracks. A familiar dark figure appeared, silhouetted in smoke and flames. His silver curls sprang out, writhing like snakes.

As he strode past the fireplace, like a king traversing his throne room, he cast a shadow on the far wall. A great horned three-headed dragon was shown in stark relief, wings puffed out in ferocity and teeth bared.

Morella burst into a fresh set of tears before him. “My lord, I don’t understand. My son was born dead. You betrayed me!”

He raised up one finger with fluid grace, swishing it back and forth. His voice dripped like honey, melodious and modulated. “Morella, my sweet. Is that any way to greet me?”

“You lied!”

In a shaky, jittering flash, he stood over her, looming, leering like a gargoyle from hell. On the wall, his dragon shadow glowered, flexing and snapping, while Morella’s writhed beneath it.

“I. Never. Lie!” he snarled.

“My son is dead!”

He shook his head. “Our son lives.”

“Ortun’s is gone. You swore I would have a son! You swore—”

He held up his hand, silencing her. “I swore you’d have a son. And you did. Was the little body taken from this room by your husband not the perfect specimen of maleness?” His face turned stony, his eyes narrowed. “Next time you summon the god of bargains, remember to ask for exactly what you want.”

“I did!” she howled.

Viscardi shook his head, his eyes hidden in the dark shadows. “You went into great amounts of detail with what you wanted—the husband, the house, the son you so foolishly thought would inherit the estate—but you failed to specify the child should be born alive.” He reached out and cupped her cheek, running an elongated thumb across her lips. “But just think, my darling. Your boy provided ours with all the nourishment he’ll need for the long trip home.”

He scooped up the squalling monster from the bedclothes, peering down at the tiny, fanged face. Viscardi’s visage softened with tenderness. He even gurgled coos as the creature bit at his finger.

“No!” Morella cried, struggling to stand on the uneven mattress. “No! I gave you your son. You’ve taken two of the Thaumas girls. Our deal is off. I want this bargain broken!”

He whirled back to her, cradling his son in the crook of his arm. “Broken? Who are you to take back an oath?”

“I don’t want any part of this oath. You took my son; you don’t get the other girls!”

With fire swirling in his eyes, he licked a forked tongue over his teeth, considering the small woman in front of him. Across the wall behind them, the dragons reared back, giddy with bloodlust. “You can’t just say you want our bargain ended and expect it to be so. You know the price I demand. The only thing I’ll accept in payment.”

Morella blew out a shaky breath and nodded, resignation clouding her face. She glanced over his shoulder, meeting my eyes. “Don’t tell your father any of this. Tell him…tell him I loved him. Always.”

Viscardi looked back at us again, his lips—too thin to even call them that, really—raised into a painful smile, and he winked. Then, in that strange blur of movement, he descended on Morella, suddenly so much more than a man. Wings and scales and talons slashed in and out of the bedlam.