The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(68)

She followed the direction of the witch’s pointed finger to the top of the medieval winepress. There, hunched over the wheel, half-hidden in shadow, sat an apelike creature covered in coarse hair, with pointed ears and clawlike nails. Golden eyes gleamed in the dark, hungry with curiosity as the being stared down at the sleeping Jean-Paul.

Gerda’s demon.

The creature inhaled through its puggish snout as if sniffing at one of Tilda’s pastries. It paid no attention to Elena as it crawled out of its hiding place, following the scent of Jean-Paul’s dreams with its nose. The demon crept with deadly intent, eyes focused on its prey. Not knowing what it might do to satisfy its appetite, she had no choice but to rouse Jean-Paul and shake off the beast. She rubbed the stone in her pocket and uttered the quick rousing spell, delivering him from a sleeping nightmare and into a waking one.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

He’d dreamed he’d been tied to a stake and set on fire for making wine no one would drink. Jean-Paul shook his head to chase off the last threads of the bizarre images, but then panic rose when he remembered it wasn’t all a dream. The press had come lower, squeezing against his chest so he could not take a full breath, and what air he could get reeked of sulfur. He coughed and tugged his wrists against the restraints. His head thrashed to the right, and he saw Elena standing across the room. It hadn’t been an illusion. She shimmered in the candlelight, and it wasn’t just due to the peculiar silver-threaded clothing she wore. Her very skin radiated with energy. His heart nearly broke from the desperation to hold her just once before he died.

“Run!” he tried to warn her, but his voice came out a hoarse whisper. “It’s her. Gerda is the killer,” he tried again, but she didn’t even turn.

Instead, she covered her mouth with her sleeve to keep from breathing in the same foul stench he choked on as her eyes tracked some invisible movement. But then something in the room shifted. She raised her arms against a threat he couldn’t yet see, while an ancient woman, bald and toothless, grinned from inside the circle drawn on the floor.

The black dress with the draping sleeves. The black-and-silver walking cane. It had to be Gerda. Or some corrupted version of her. He tugged again at the leather straps tying him to the press. There was slack building on the right. If he could just gain another inch of space he might slip loose.

He banged his head against the platform in frustration. When he turned his neck again to find Elena, a fairylike creature caught his eye instead. No, it was a young woman with pale-yellow hair, crouching in the shadows of the cellar stairwell. She, too, was dressed strangely, clad in a harlequin costume with red-and-black diamonds. He craned his neck to see her face. Her eyes were smudged with black kohl, and her cheeks had been rouged like the women he’d seen working the cabaret district in the city. He’d never been a great reader of women’s thoughts, but there was no mistaking the murder in this one’s eye.

As if sensing his stare, she turned her gaze upon him, held a finger over her lips, and winked. He decided then he must have transcended into hallucination, because there was no other explanation for seeing a harlequin imp toting three glinting axes in her hands while lurking inside a world-class wine cellar. She pointed to the space above the wheel, and he braced himself, certain the press would squeeze the last breath out of him. He looked up to the ceiling to say a prayer to God and instead saw the thing. It watched him from above, drooling and sniffing. Like the gargoyle in the vine row, the brutish beast sat hunched, observing him, nostrils flared. Jean-Paul flinched and tried to shrink beneath the pallet, but there was nowhere to hide. Then the thing twisted its head and shifted its weight to stare at Elena, and he pulled with all his strength against his restraints.





CHAPTER THIRTY

Waking Jean-Paul out of his bad dream had slowed the diminutive devil only a fraction. Once drawn in by the nightmare, its fixation on the flesh seemed to intensify. She stood between the demon and the bierhexe, a hand held up against each as if she could hold back the tide of their intentions.

“Call that thing off,” she yelled, ignoring Jean-Paul’s hoarse warning. She hoped he was strong enough to bear the weight of the press a little longer.

Gerda removed her ceremonial knife and waved it over the tasting cup on the ground. “You wanted to spill Bastien’s blood in the road the day you two met again,” she said. “Your will to murder vibrated in your heart so loud it drummed along the ground until I couldn’t help but tap my toe beneath my skirt to the rhythm.”

Elena recoiled at hearing the truth come from such a foul mouth. Meanwhile the demon trained its golden eyes on her as if assessing before returning its attention to the prey on the press.

“I knew then you’d be the one to take the fall for me. After all, there’s only so long one can get away with killing people’s pets before the blame piles up. Toss in a mortal and it’s definitely time to move on. But then you escaped. And I secretly hoped you might aspire to be more than a country vine witch. I can teach you the spell for immortality. Here. Now. If you desire it.”

“And be chained to a devil for eternity?” Behind her the demon unfurled its tail and crawled headfirst down the side of the wheel and onto the pallet above Jean-Paul.

“Come, be my sister. Let me show you how. You have the talent; I can see that you do.”

Anger and repulsion churned until Elena could no longer suppress her hatred. “Sister? You’re a murderer. A bloodthirsty killer. A . . . a . . .”