A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(78)

They were in danger. They could kill Rook.

“What is happening?” Blackwood blocked my exit.

The candles and the lanterns throughout the entire house snuffed out at once, plunging us into pure darkness. Women screamed below. I relit the wall sconces nearby, but the flame thinned, a breath away from being swallowed again.

“He’s here,” Maria whispered. I could feel some presence, some animal intelligence that dwelt in the shadows. Don’t fall down. Don’t scream. Work.

“We need to get everyone out,” I said, rushing downstairs. “The party is over. Thank you for coming,” I called.

Everyone stared at me now, and mumbles of confusion and anger began to surface.

“What the devil is going on?” Magnus said, slipping through the crowd with Eliza in tow.

“Get the women out of here.” I stepped around him and walked onto the floor, preparing to tell the crowd something, anything, when screams erupted from down the hall. Several maids raced into the foyer, caps askew, not giving a damn about the party or anything else. They kept looking behind them, into the black entrance to the downstairs hall.

“There’s a Familiar in there,” one of them shouted. “In the dark!”

The sorcerers summoned what meager flame we had onto their staves and moved forward to investigate. The cold kiss of the black air ate at my fire. Protecting one another’s backs, we headed silently down the hall. When the grandfather clock chimed the hour, it felt like an explosion going off.

“Does anyone even know what we’re looking for?” Valens asked.

Something rustled ahead. We heard the clicking sound of claws on a marble floor, and the world froze.

“Rook?” I whispered.

The beast came out of the darkness.

He lunged at me with his mouth wide open, fangs gleaming. Hooked talons reaching out to catch me. Soulless black pits where his eyes should be, lengthened bones, a face twisted by cruelty.

He wasn’t human. Not anymore.

Several sorcerers fell, their flames extinguishing. Screams, then gurgling cries, then silence and the smell of wet blood. The shadows pulsed, feeding on the dead.

“Attack!” Valens swung his stave, shooting a stream of flame.

I joined him, shooting fire into the monster’s face, and Rook shied away, hurrying back to the shadows.

Together, we drove the monster into the main hall with waves of flame. Rook curled in on himself, darkness flowing over his body like a cape of protection. He grew larger, more monstrous—the new shadow and fog. But he did not know how to control it, and he shriveled in the face of our assault.

We were going to kill him.

“Stop!” I shouted, trying to push through to Rook. He roared in pain, leaping into the air.

Someone screamed at the corner of the room, by the staircase—Eliza. God, she hadn’t left with the other women. She gaped up at the beast, her face white with terror. The sorcerers were all caught off guard by her cries. With shadows bristling on his spine, Rook roared toward her.

Someone threw herself before Eliza.

“Run!” Fanny shouted, her body protecting the girl.

Rook dragged Fanny to the floor as Eliza escaped. Fanny’s legs kicked wildly as he buried his fangs in her white neck, and I could have sworn I heard the smallest, most sickening crunch. He began tearing and thrashing like a dog shaking the life out of a rat. Even in the near darkness, I could see the blood gush onto the floor. Fanny stopped striking at Rook. I attacked him then, blindly, because I knew that it wouldn’t hurt Fanny. Horrified, I knew she was beyond all that now.

And I heard Magnus’s wail.

The sound was agony itself. He charged into battle with a mass of fire at his fingertips. Rook leaped off Fanny and snarled, his mouth dripping with rich, dark blood. Magnus launched fire, strengthening it with wind, and all the others joined him. The onslaught sent Rook crawling across the floor like an animal. Magnus moved to shield his mother’s body, his face illuminated, his eyes frenzied.

The front door blasted off its hinges with a squeal of metal. Splinters of wood rained onto the floor. Dark figures in the doorway surged forward, cackling gleefully. Too fast to make a sound, several sorcerers fell, blood gushing from their necks.

“Kill them!” someone roared.

We opened fire on the shadow Familiars, catching two, three, five of them. But there were so many. Two landed on either side of Rook—of what had once been Rook—and lifted him high up into the air.

“Little lady sorcerer,” one of the Familiars cackled. I knew it was Gwen. “The bloody king has claimed what is his. You should have gone to him!”

Shoving forward, I exploded in fire, a searing column that took out a group of Familiars. They tumbled to the ground, crisping as I went after Gwen while she laughed and laughed. The men about me shouted to stop—I was going to take the damn house down with me.

There was enough reason in me left to know they were right. The column disappeared, and the room around me was all smoke and darkness and death again.

Gwen and the remaining Familiars flew back out the door with Rook between them, leaping over the threshold and up into the night sky.

I ran alongside the other sorcerers, though I was barely conscious of what I was doing. Pouring outside, we discovered the Familiars and Rook had vanished utterly. The night sky was clear.

Amid the screams and shouts of terror from the guests, Blackwood was shaking me, saying my name. I could barely hear anything, couldn’t feel anything.