Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1)(42)

I peeked over her shoulder and saw a woman reading quietly. When she looked up at us, I jerked back, lifting a fist to my mouth. Her skin moved—like thousands of tiny insects crawled just beneath the surface.

“No.” Shaking my head, I backed away quickly. “I can’t do bugs.”

The woman held up a pleading hand. “Stay, please—” A swarm of locusts burst from her open mouth, choking her, and tears of blood streamed down her cheeks.

We slammed the door on her sobs.

“I choose the next door.” Chest heaving inexplicably, I considered my options, but the doors were all identical. Who knew what fresh horrors lay beyond? Male voices drifted toward us from a door at the end of the corridor, joined by the gentle clinking of metal. Morbidly curious, I inched toward it, but Coco stilled me with a curt shake of her head. “What is this place, anyway?” I asked.

“Hell.” She guided me up the corridor, casting a furtive look over her shoulder. “You don’t want to go down there. It’s where the priests . . . experiment.”

“Experiment?”

“I stumbled in last night while they were dissecting the brain of a patient.” She opened another door, surveying the room carefully before pushing it open wider. “They’re trying to understand where magic comes from.”

Inside, an elderly gentleman lay chained to an iron bedpost. He stared blankly at the ceiling.

Clink.

Pause.

Clink.

Pause.

Clink.

I looked closer and gasped. His fingers were tipped with black, his nails elongated and sharpened into points. He tapped his forearm with his pointer finger rhythmically. With each tap, a bead of inky blood welled—too dark to be natural. Poisonous. Hundreds of other marks already discolored his entire body—even his face. None had healed over. All wept black blood.

Metallic rot mingled with the sweet scent of magic in the air.

Clink.

Pause.

Clink.

Bile rose in my throat. He looked less a man now, and more a creature of nightmares and shadows.

Coco closed the door behind us, and his milky eyes found mine. The hair on my neck stood up.

“It’s just Monsieur Bernard.” Coco crossed the room and scooped up one of the manacles. “He must’ve slipped his chains again.”

“Holy hell.” I drifted closer as she gently clasped the manacle back around the man’s free hand. He continued staring at me with those empty eyes. Unblinking. “What happened to him?”

“The same thing that happened to everyone else up here.” She smoothed his limp hair from his face. “Witches.”

I swallowed hard and walked to his bedside, where a Bible sat atop a lonely iron chair. Glancing at the door, I lowered my voice. “Perhaps we could help him.”

Coco sighed. “It’s no use. The Chasseurs brought him in early this morning. They found him wandering outside La Forêt des Yeux.” She touched the blood on his hand and lifted it to her nose, inhaling. “His nails are poisoned. He’ll be dead soon. That’s why the priests have kept him here instead of sending him to the asylum.”

Heaviness settled in my chest as I eyed the dying man. “And—and what was that torture device Father Orville was carrying?”

She grinned. “You mean the Bible?”

“Very funny. No—I meant the metal thing. It looked . . . sharp.”

Her grin faded. “It is sharp. It’s called a syringe. The priests use them for injections.”

“Injections?”

Coco leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms. The white of her robes nearly blended into the pale stone, giving the illusion of a floating head staring at me across Monsieur Bernard’s body. I shuddered again. This place gave me the creeps.

“That’s what they’re calling them.” Her eyes darkened. “But I’ve seen what they can do. The priests have been tampering with poison. Hemlock, specifically. They’ve been testing it on the patients to perfect the dosage. I think they’re creating a weapon to use against the witches.”

Dread crept down my spine. “But the Church thinks only flame can truly kill a witch.”

“Though they might call us demons, they know we’re mortal. We bleed like humans. Feel pain like humans. But the injections aren’t meant to kill us. They cause paralysis. The Chasseurs will just have to get close enough to inject us, and we’re as good as dead.”

A moment passed as I tried to grasp this disturbing development. I glanced down at Monsieur Bernard, a bitter taste coating my mouth. Remembered the insects crawling beneath a woman’s skin only a few doors down, the bloody tears on her cheeks. Perhaps the priests weren’t the only ones to blame.

Paralysis—or even the stake—was preferable to some fates.

“What are you doing here, Mademoiselle Perrot?” I finally asked. At least she hadn’t used her real name. The Monvoisin family had a certain . . . notoriety. “You’re supposed to be hiding with your aunt.”

She actually had the gall to pout. “I could ask you the same question. How could you not invite me to your wedding?”

A bubble of laughter escaped my lips. It sounded eerie in the stillness. Monsieur Bernard’s nail tapped against his manacle now.

Clink.

Clink.