Page 57 of Wolfsbane Hall
“What else is there?”
Margot’s nose flared. “Love, life, happiness. So many things, you fucking monster.”
Margot didn’t wait to watch the light leave James’s eyes. She had thought she wanted to watch him suffer as life left his body, but she found his presence—even half dead, disgusting.
He’d die, and she’d go in search of her next victim.
17
Saturday, November 11, 1939
The Balcony
Margot glared down at two more dead bodies, their blood painting a mural across the floor.
Beautiful.
Maybe James was right and she was also a psychopath like him. But she wasn’t born one. She was made—made to crave the blood. Luckily, the self-righteous vessel was sleeping in her mind. She’d passed out when Margot killed again.
Dispatching the Ashbrook uncles took barely any effort at all. She simply ran into them in the hallway and used James’s gun to put two bullets through their skulls. There was no need for a big show with Jon and Walter. They were useless when Margot was still alive, and now they were useless dead.
Ah, it was sweet how the lovers held hands as they died. Every Ashbrook had a secret, but their secret was wholesome. At another time, it wouldn’t need to be a secret at all. Their sin? Loving the same sex when it was illegal.
To hide from the world, Walter married his lover’s sister and moved them both into his house. Margot was pretty certain that marriage had never been consummated. Irene didn’t mind the arrangement, because she’d been in love withArchibald since she was a child, but he married another. It turned out he preferred his lover to his wife.
To be fair, anyone was better than Lorraine. A vampire, a beast, or even a gruesome reanimated corpse would have been better than Lorraine. So, while Walter and Irene never consummated their marriage, they still had heirs and children.
Margot shivered. What a disgusting thought. It was like imagining her own parents rutting in the sheets. Margot shook out her borrowed body but stumbled and had to steady herself against the wall. The vessel was sickly. It was something she’d fix once she had total control.
Her gaze latched once more on the dead bodies. The blood tracked toward her heels, the thick crimson crawling in a beautiful pattern—a Rorschach painting spidering out on the floor. It looked like a dove taking flight. She shuffled to the right so it wouldn’t get on her shoes. They were horrific Mary Janes with scuff marks covering all sides. The Phantom had made her dress like a maid again.
Margot didn’t know which one of the Ashbrook boys was the Phantom, but it certainly wasn’t Everett. He’d never force her to wear something so heinous.
Turning her back on the dead bodies, Margot made her way further into the house. She had bigger targets now.
She’d killed Jon and Walter because they’d done nothing. They didn’t watch with glee like James, but they didn’t intervene either. A pattern with the Ashbrooks. A pattern she’d make them pay for.
Margot had two purposes in death: to find a way back to life and to get her revenge. And while it was almost a certainty that the Ashbrooks would come back to life—they were parasites like that—she’d still take the opportunity she was given. She would have her revenge. Perhaps it was foolish to murder the people who held the answers to the riddle she needed tosolve to keep this body, but then Margot had always been a little too impulsive of a creature. Becoming…whatever she was, didn’t change that fact. If anything, it intensified her darker, baser instincts.
She shrugged. She’d find a way to have both. Maybe she could torture the name of the Specter out of them before they died.
Warmth spread in Margot’s chest as she scratched her head with the barrel of the gun she was still holding.
That was the answer.
Three murders down. Six to go. Perhaps five—she hadn’t decided yet if she would also kill Everett. He’d deserve it, but then he was her one weakness. The one place where her revenge would falter.
Where to start?
Vivian maybe?
She’d be fun to cut open—perhaps pull out an eyeball or two—and Margot would force her to tell her everything she knew.
A twisted smile snaked across her lips. It didn’t matter which Ashbrook Margot killed next. Any would do.
The vessel clawed against the edges of her mind, trying to stop Margot’s tirade, but she didn’t pay her any attention.Ah, I see you’re awake again. It doesn’t matter.The girl would never overpower her. Weak minds were easy targets, and this gorgeous, broken thing was one of the most pitiful she’d ever possessed. All the girl cared about was making the men in her life proud and being a good girl for her Specter. She pretended not to care what the Ashbrook men thought, but their approval was all she cared about. It was revolting.
Margot would never stoop so low.
