Craven Manor(68)

If Bran heard him, the bird didn’t show it. Black writhed over black as shadows and crows tangled. It was impossible to see what was happening. Then Eliza let out a final, screaming howl, and plunged away from the mass. The crows followed as she darted between two of the statues. She crossed over a salt track, and a billow of smoke rose from her back as she lurched into the forest. Within seconds, she and the crows had vanished.

Daniel gained his feet. His arm, the place he’d been bitten, no longer hurt. Instead, it felt numb. He touched it and recoiled. The flesh had turned cold and lumpy.

“I am sorry.” The wheeze sounded barely human.

Daniel staggered around the fountain. Bran lay in the scuffed dirt and shredded plant matter where the fight had unfolded. The man’s breathing was rapid and shallow. He tried to roll onto his side but flinched and slumped back.

Daniel knelt beside Bran. He reached towards his friend’s shoulder but didn’t touch it for fear of hurting him more. “Can I do anything?”

“No.” Bran’s smile devolved into a grimace.

Daniel felt ghastly. The fight had taken all of his remaining energy. Even in the wan moonlight, he could see something was seriously wrong with his arm. The red flush had vanished, and black lines ran out from the bite wound. They extended as low as his wrist, and he suspected they ran across his chest, as well. “I’m infected, aren’t I?”

Bran didn’t reply, but there was sadness in his eyes.

Daniel ran his good hand over his face and sighed. He was glad it was night; darkness helped hide the growing bulges as the fungus writhed through him. He hoped he would succumb to it quickly, before dawn. “I screwed everything up. Everything. I never should have—”

“To err is human.” Bran’s eyes drifted closed. “She would have found a way out eventually, with or without your help. My containment was imperfect and was slowly decaying.”

“I sure didn’t help, though.”

“If anyone is to blame, it is me for withholding my family’s past from you. Pride is truly a deadly sin, and I let it cover up the darkest parts of my history. And now we all pay for it.”

Daniel stared towards the forest. He could no longer hear any sign of Eliza or the crows. Even if he’d had the strength to run, he doubted he could catch up to her. And he was helpless against her without any weapon. There was nothing he could do except wait.

Annalise curled up at Bran’s side. She was trying to hide her presence, but Daniel caught glimmers of her outline when she moved. He wondered if she would stay after he and Bran were gone. He imagined her spending a century amongst the trees and crumbling walls, alone and forgotten, and he understood why Bran had put his own afterlife on hold for her.

Daniel tilted his head back. An orange glow lit the tops of the trees to his right. At first, he thought it was dawn come prematurely, but then he tasted smoke on the air and realised its source. “The house is burning.”

“Good.” Bran’s inhale was like sandpaper over wood. “It is tainted ground.”

“Still, it feels wrong, doesn’t it? So much history bundled up in one building. And not all of it bad.” Daniel wrapped his good arm around his knees and rested his chin on their tops. He was freezing cold. When he focussed on it, he could feel the plague spreading through him. His arm felt too large, the skin stretched tight, as fungus crawled through his veins like fuzzy, repulsive caterpillars. He knew he would break into a screaming, crying mess if he watched it, so he fixed his eyes on the orange glow and began talking, nearly desperately. “All of those bedrooms. Your family must have been big when the place was built. Even with the dust and dirty windows, it was still a magnificent home. I bet it would have been amazing with the candles all lit and full of guests.”

“If you care for the damn building so much…” Bran lifted a hand towards the sky. He spread his blackened fingers then contracted them into a fist and pulled it back towards his chest.

Daniel blinked at the treetops, but it took a second for him to taste the change in the air. The stars began to disappear. Then a speck of cold water hit Daniel’s cheek. It was followed closely by more, then a flash of lightning brightened the scene for a moment as rain clouds swarmed the area. The rain came thick and hard, smothering them. It plastered Daniel’s hair to his face and washed the dirt, salt, and dust off him. The stone statues looked even grimmer with rain saturating their forms, but it also softened them in a strange way. They no longer seemed judgemental, but merely sad. In the distance, the glow from the fire began to abate.

“That’s a cool trick.” He gave a shaky laugh. “Must make watering the gardens easy.”

Bran was silent. His pallid face had become slack, and the pained crease between his eyes was gone. Daniel watched the raindrops ping off his skin for a moment then buried his face in his knees. He couldn’t see Annalise any longer. He felt wholly alone. It was just him and the hideous growths spreading through his body.

Rain washed over him, filling the fountain and turning the ground to mud. Daniel clenched his teeth as he tried to keep his cries silent. Something moved through the plants ahead. Daniel made himself lift his head. The sounds came from something large. It snapped branches and crushed leaves underfoot, and beneath the churn of motion was an undercurrent of harsh breaths.

Has the shadow beast come back to finish what she started? Let her. I have nothing left, so my death may as well buy the people in town a few more minutes.