Page 76 of Grotesque
I didn’t think as I grabbed an ornate vase from the nearest shelf – one of Macky’s priceless knickknacks I guessed – and charged straight at him.I wish I could have relished the look of surprise in his eyes. Too bad my body was moving faster than my brain, and swinging the vase at the center of his face before he could so much as raise an arm.Crack! I reaffirmed my grip and hit him again. On my third swing he caught my wrist and hurled me to the side.
I cried out as I landed, hard. The vase bounced on the rug. Perfectly intact, as that wasn’t what had cracked. The man’s face was covered in blood, and beneath that, it was a mask of fury.
“We’re here tohelpyou,” he said. He twisted his grip on the bat.
Somewhere else in the house, I heard the sound of glass shattering.
I backed away, rising to my feet as I did. “I don’t need your help. Besides, destroying my property is going to earn your ass a first-class ticket to jail.”
“Quint said you were crazy.” The man swiped a smear of blood from his cracked brow. “But he really downplayed how insane you are.”
“Haven’t you heard? Everyone that comes into Glamis goes nuts.”
Hands grabbed me from behind the same moment the man swung at me. I let whoever it was take the brunt of my weight and dropped to the ground. I looked up just in time to see the smooth edge of the bat miss me and slam into Quint’s chest.
He released me, winded, and I rolled away. As I stood for a second time, the temperature suddenly plummeted. Goosebumps sprouted over my arms as my hair began to stand on end.
Corban!
I bolted. I didn’t need to see what he was going to do to these assholes. I made a desperate push for the closest door I knew could be securely locked.
Someone yelled from upstairs, a high-pitched scream that sounded anything but human, and definitely not like anything you’d expect from a grown man. It was followed by a loud bang and a storm of footsteps. I slid through the still open door of the basement, my vision laser focused as I whirled to close it behind me.
Quint’s bloody face blurred as he charged through after me, but he didn’t know about the narrow steps I was standing on. He made a grab for my arm but instead pushed me back, his momentum tipping us both into free fall.
I stared up in horror as the doorway grew smaller, and the first jarring impact of the steps drove into my back, whipping my head backwards. Completely out of control, I flipped head over heels. Down, down, crashing, and rolling, I made the horrible tumble down into darkness.
The mirror rippled, distorting my reflection into an elongated face atop a long, coiled neck and scaled body. Quiet thrumming rattled the frame. There was a sudden burst of darkness across the glass, like frost climbing over steel, that revealed a pathway blanketed in snow and shadowed by twisted white trees.
“Underland,” I breathed.
I reached a shaking hand toward the moonlight, my body bracing for the violent pain that had attacked me all the times before. My fingers passed through. Cold. Frigid cold met my fingertips. I pushed my hand farther.
My vision blurred as I twisted my hand one way and then the other. I knew it had worked – well, hadhopedit had worked – but here was the proof. After so many years, so many lives, I was finally and truly free.
I pressed my chilled hand to my chest, letting the cold seep into my fast-beating heart. After all this time, the mirror that had gotten me into this mess was finally letting me go. I stepped forward, letting the cold seep into more of my body as old magik sank into my bones. It gripped my hand, pulling me forward like a lost love.
Something snapped me out of my daze. I don’t know if it was a sound or a scent, but I was aware something had shifted. I turned my head, my fingers curling, still holding onto the other side. I opened my eyes slowly, not realizing that I had closed them.
A loud crash echoed from somewhere in the manor.
I looked down the white-lit path once more before taking a step back into the mortal world. My scaled reflection rippled in the mirror. “Don’t go,” it seemed to say. “Come back. Come home.”
It was a scent, I realized. The house reeked of sweat, rage, and fear. Fear that did not belong to my Sorcha.
There was a loud crack from downstairs, but another, much closer crash came from Sorcha’s bedroom. I stepped into the shadows, materializing beside a man. Oddly, he was hammering a small table into the mirror that hung across the room from her bed.
It was one of the five boys that had come to Glamis all those years ago. He was older now, as Quint was, as they all were. They thought I hadn’t seen them hiding in the bushes, the scraggly things. One would expect that aging would have made them wiser. Would have kept them away from the horned monster and its lair.
Apparently not.
“What are you doing in my home?” A hiss trickled down my long throat as I shifted, letting my gnarled, taloned forelegs drop to the ground.
The man whirled, his eyes going wide. They flicked from my snarling face to the wings curving over my back. Shadows spilled beneath all four of my clawed feet. They wrapped around his legs, holding him in place as the color seeped from his thin face.
“You’re real,” he gasped.
“As real as the day you first saw me. Scarier now, aren’t I?” I grinned, letting him see the sharp teeth behind my scaled maw.
