Chapter 26

Astrid

T he darkness holds no tears for me now.

Locked up for several hours in a small room, I calculate my odds of getting out of here alive. With all my body parts intact. Mainly, I'm concerned for my child. But the darkness?

I welcome it.

Sliding to the floor, I place my back against the drywall and think . Every moment of my capture and imprisonment floods my mind.

I haven't left Gnarled Pine Hollow. It was only about one mile from home that the van turned right and headed due north. We hit a dirt trail of some sort, which wound around a few times before coming to a sudden stop.

The blindfold they kept over my eyes allowed me to see at least sets of feet and light. Three men took me. One grasped my shoulders and shoved me off the back of the vehicle, while another caught me in his arms. My hands are tied behind my back, even now, with a stiff rope that my fingers work slowly to unbind.

Cement steps. Hardwood floors. Polished. New. A Persian rug. Plush, so likely expensive. A bullnose threshold to wooden steps. Carried down fourteen, then right and another… Then, the room.

Linoleum flooring. Drywall. And no light. Nor sound.

"Echo!"

My voice bounces against the three walls nearest me, but is absorbed by the one in front. Standing, I slide my shoulders along the surfaces and measure out the distance. An eight-by-ten box. Some type of spongy material pads the front wall. A solid wood door, the back of which is also covered.

Nothing else in the room.

This must mean they are holding me to wait… But for what?

Or whom…

More hours pass, and I use the corner to take a piss. At least my thumbs can dig into the back of my panties and pull them down. Drip drying is no fun. This is no House Strauss cell.

The acrid odor of my urine means I'm dehydrated already.

"It's okay, Bert. We'll get some more water soon." Not sure if it helps, but I speak softly to her for reassurance.

She keeps me company over the next several hours. I sing her songs that my mother used to sing to me when I was a child. At some point, I doze off.

Light flashes underneath the blindfold, and I sit up at the shuffling approaching me.

A voice calls through the room.

"Give us the child and you can go free."

My brow furrows. "No." Of course, in saying the word, I am concerned they'll just suck her right out of me. Perhaps force me to take a pill and abort? I'm not sure. Hopefully not slice into my insides with a scalpel.

From my studies, though, I know they don't want my blood spilled until one of the ritual days. The next being on Winter Solstice. So perhaps they want to keep me until then?

Two sets of feet hurry to my sides and lift me off the ground. I'm carried into the hallway we'd arrived from, then through a door that leads onto grass. A brown lawn. The light has changed so much that it appears to be either late evening or early the following morning. How long was I asleep?

I don't feel rested, so it must be dusk.

My bindings are ripped off my arms, and I revel in the relief of being able to hold my arms in front of me. Someone's fingers dig into my hair and pull off my blindfold until I'm staring down at a deep pit. But hovering over it…

Is a coffin.

My heart stops for a moment, but I grit my teeth to keep them from chattering. Some of my hair gets caught under the guard's grasp, forcing my neck up, and I grunt but keep my mouth shut. Several men stand around me, dressed in suits, with black ski masks covering their faces.

In the front of the stack is a person cloaked in billowy red fabric, wearing a metallic-looking owl mask. She seems to be overseeing the festivities. Through an odd, modulated voice, she speaks in a distorted tone.

"Astrid Lynx, daughter of Barrington. You have betrayed your family name and mated with the bull. As we cannot spill the blood of the ancient snake on an unholy day, you will be buried, only to be resurfaced when the abomination is dead inside of your body. On the day of reckoning, we will take it out of you and replace it with one of our own."

One of the men opens the coffin and my handlers swing me toward it, then stuff me inside. My pulse skyrockets as I try to fight them off.

"No!" I scream and claw at their skin with my nails, breaking one clear off and screeching at the pain. My head is shoved down as they lower the lid, and I'm once again in the pitch black.

Curling up, I push with my feet against the lid, but the sound of a lock clicks just to my right. My breath pants out in shaking huffs as I fully digest the situation.

I need to conserve energy. There's only going to be a finite amount of air, so I can't use it struggling against something formidable.

Lying still, I steady my heart rate and breath calmly through my nose, letting it out just as delicately through my lips.

"It's okay, Bert. They want us alive. Well, me… But you're with me. And you're not going anywhere." I try to comfort her.

Mainly, I comfort myself.

Panic threatens to take control of my chest, however, when the hum of a machine fills the small area and my new home lurches as it's lowered into the ground.

That isn't the worst part… No.

The worst is when I stop. Then the sounds of dirt being shoveled on top pelt through the cracks in the lid.

A single tear travels down my cheek, into my hairline. That is all I will afford them. And nothing more.

I could play the awful game of what if . But I won't. It's useless. I should have taken a gun with me when I walked outside. And a bottle of water, some bombs, and a tank. Silly to think of this now. I was ambushed. They were just waiting for one of us to slip up. I ventured too close to the driveway, and I was taken. I made it so easy for them.

But here's me and Bert. Waiting.

Alone in this casket, in the silence, I have to think. And the worst part of all of it is knowing that those feelings for the consort weren't even real. He was just using me all along. Everyone has always taken from me. Stolen and roped me into things I never wanted to be a part of as I sat by. That rage settles within my veins, so palpable that it's more crushing than the weight of the dirt on my grave.

Turning my head, I try to get as comfortable as possible, and my nose hits a tiny plastic tube. When I feel it with my finger, a whisper of air escapes. Is this the air they afford me? My mouth suctions over it and inhales lightly. It could be carbon monoxide or something worse, but it seems like it helps a bit.

I think about the Crystal Maiden in an attempt to keep my mind positive. The path I want to take to reach it. What the cavern will smell like and what the temperature there will feel like on my skin.

I imagine buying farmland there in Belize and growing a garden. Me and Bert living it up and growing mangoes and cashews. She'll twirl in pretty pink dresses, and we'll have tea every afternoon, making sure to never miss a sunset.

What I don't picture is my husband. Because if I think about him and his wanton need for revenge, the one tear turns to many. I can't make him a good man. He never will be. But my longing for him could be my downfall. His definition of love seems so immature. It's possessive and selfish. I don't think he's capable of loving me or our child.

The pain sears through my heart. I wish he'd chosen me. Or, better, that he'd chosen the people of this city to defend. But that's too much. I'm sure he's worried right now, thinking of where his vengeance baby is. I thought I moved past being a womb to him, but I guess not.

Rubbing my belly, I think the words to Bert, so I don't speak and use up too much oxygen. You're not a captive weapon, Liberty. You'll be free.

So if consort Strauss cannot save these people...

I guess it's up to me.

It's been probably twenty hours without food or water. Obviously, I need those. And more air. Really, this place is much nicer than the crate. No splinters and a bonus cushy silk pillow beneath my neck.

A small chuckle trickles from my lungs. They really have no idea who they're messing with. Small spaces, darkness, loneliness, rape, betrayal, pain, despair…

Nothing can break me.

I am the angel of death. All I need is a butcher knife.

My heart skips a beat when the coffin jolts, the familiar humming deafening my ears. The dirt must not have been heavy on top because it slides away easily, the waterfall of its departure a relief.

Just as I thought… They need to keep me alive. Strauss was right.

For several hours, I wondered about why they asked me to give them the child… Did they mean to end the pregnancy? Did they mean to go through with the pregnancy and then give them my daughter?

Why ask my permission?

Just like when I finally understood the consort, I know.

I have the power.

As the lid lifts, crisp wind flows into my lungs like a vacuum, and suddenly my brain becomes less fuzzy. Thoughts are clear. The light shines so bright, it's blinding. A white winter sky streaked with gray clouds greets my face as streams of sunshine warm my cheeks.

I'm weak. Hungry, cold, and tired. Please, Bert. You're strong. Stay in there .

A few men lift me out. One carries me back toward the building. After a few blinks, I scan the area, and my stomach knots at the vision around me.

I'm in a neighborhood. A plain, normal looking suburbia. The house is just like all the others surrounding it, except the van that must have brought me here is parked on the grass. Brick monstrosities lie so close together they could be joined. Almost all of the yards have four-foot fences to outline their faux plots. Ones with perfectly cut grass and landscaping.

Did no one see the gravesite in the middle of this one?

It's genius, actually. Hiding in plain sight. My husband likely has no clue where to look for me.

The breeze shifts and a strong smell of burning sulfur rears over to us as the man sways his hips to the back door. A very faint sound of sirens blares in waves, then gets louder. Craning my neck above the two-story rooftops, I see it…

It's not gray clouds…

The sky is on fire.

Gusts of billowy musk float like raging ocean waves across the tops of the roofs, and more seeps closer. As my ears adjust, I hear screaming, screeching, terrorized yells echoing between the bricks from the street.

My captor grips me tighter as another opens the door and leads us into a basement. Plain box rooms line the hallway we enter. It's completely empty here, like a laundering front for a mafia that they have in the movies. Except this is a housewife's dream.

As we climb the wooden steps, the man sets me down in a hall leading toward a large, open living room. Men in tuxedos and women in capes with owl masks crowd the area. At least, I assume them to be Herodius and Clavius from my studies.

Their eyes stare me down with veneration. And that is the reason I won't die like my brother. Because they need me and because I have Bert.

My throat tightens, thinking of Vincente. Of the little boy who could have been so much. The consort's determination and tenacity. If only he used his forces for good instead of evil. I think I could love him.

But what is love? Is it the feeling I have for him whenever he's near me? Fluttering in my belly, yearning for him to enter me?

No.

It's the action involved.

Love is a choice.

And I can't love him. I cannot. If I do, then what does that make me?

I think I'm just like him.

"Astrid Lynx, daughter of Barrington." One of the owls approaches the center of the room as I stand awkwardly, trying not to fall over. My knees shake as my thighs almost give out on me, but the man who carried me grips my shoulder and forces me to stand.

"Yeah, that's me. But, actually, it's Strauss now." A collective gasp flows through the room. If only I had machetes…

"Stand before your masters." The sound of her voice is tinny behind the mask she wears.

My collar itches my neck, the constant reminder of my connection to my husband. "I only have one master."

A tall man smoking a cigar steps forward. He's one of the few men in a mask. It looks like it's made of a flat black metal and covers the upper half of his face, leaving his lips free to puff repeatedly on the tip of his stogie.

"Prepare the table." He tosses his voice to the bigger men behind me, and two carry forward some white chair apparatus with straps. It seems like a medical contraption to hold me down. Another man grabs a very long syringe and my belly twinges.

They're going to try to take Bert from me. Is it a fake? I thought they couldn't spill my blood. Were we wrong?

"Wait. Stop."

The man holds his cigar away from his face as his masked eyes glance at me with indifference. "Yes? Will you take the pill to eradicate the demon within you? Or shall we do this another way?"

Hot fingers grip the skin of my shoulder, and I twitch at the intrusion, but the man who carried me only opens his palm in front of my face, showcasing a blue pill.

Chloe. Lydia, Nari, Yasmina…all of those backbiters. Gossips. Complainers. Despite entering a world where I was unwanted, their lies could not defeat me. What they want most is my blood, but they also want one other thing…

"I'll do neither. Instead, I will leave here and return to House Strauss."

A few of the men chuckle as the owl masks bob like I'm their latest hired entertainment.

Cutting through the raucous laughter, I clear my throat and swallow with the very dry spit in my mouth. Projecting my voice, I command my audience. "I don't think you understand me. I am Astrid Lynx Barrington. And I will return with Vladimir Vincente Strauss the third and lay him at your feet. Would you like him dead or alive?"

Quietness blankets the space for a long minute before one of the owl women steps forward. Her mask is different and some of her black hair falls forward over her cape. "What makes you think we're letting you go? We could just wait until the appropriate time and then impregnate you with the Johns' baby on this very medical table. All fifty of them here."

As I falter with dizziness, the man beside me clutches me tighter with a grunt of frustration, and I collapse into his chest. Throwing my arms around his waist, I grab his gun and slip back from him.

The crowd retreats, some pulling out their own guns, but I hold it to my head dramatically. "Because I will kill myself right here or before then if you don't let me go. You see, I figured it out. My brother didn't work for you . He paid a sacrifice for all of us. And I'm his blood. I have no issues doing the same. Then your precious snake venom will be gone forever." My brother died a hero. But I want to live. However, if it takes my sacrifice to save the city, then so be it.

"Stop. Don't. Put that down now." The man with the mask waves his hand at me.

I don't obey.

The owl speaks again, this time slowly and calmly, as if her words can make me not pull the trigger. "We want him alive, but bound. Not here, though, kneeling in front of us during the Winter Solstice. At the altar of the Crimson Angel. You should also come with him for your ritual. If you do not, then we will come for both of you. And House Strauss's bombs will not deter us this time. Not with the number of forces we will bring on that day."

As I thought…they can't take our blood until their gods say so. Perhaps they've planned to move right in on the House the day of Winter Solstice all along.

She pauses and asks again, "So will you bring the bull with you to the altar on that day?"

Shifting my hips, I give them all a sly grin while pressing the barrel to my temple.

"Consider it done."