Page 62 of The Doctor and the Devil
“No!” I shouted, rushing forward. Anger and horror propelled me forward, and no small amount of stupidity. “Please! Don’t kill them!”
Laszlo whirled around, a low growl spilling from his throat.
“Please,” I begged Derais again. “Just let them go!”
Confused, still enraged, Derais turned to me. “My dear Doctor, why the hell should I? They’re abominations—they should all be wiped off the face of the Earth.”
“They’re not,” I insisted. He turned the pistol on me, and I froze. “They’re cursed, as you say. But the plague was not their fault—it was an accident, and they have suffered enough. They did not come here with malice in their hearts. If you do believe in God and divine justice, you must also believe in penance and forgiveness. The Draculs have been paying penance for longer than any of us have been alive. Leave them, Derais. Let them go home. Let them live.”
For one heartbreaking moment, I thought he would listen. But Derais hissed out a breath, madness clouding his eyes.
“The Order is the right hand of God, and I am acting on his behalf.”
The shot cracked the silence of the night in the same instant that Derais screamed. I staggered back with the force of being hit but didn’t understand how. Laszlo had Derais by the throat, and Marguerite was slumped on the ground, sobbing those strange vampire tears of blood. Slowly, cold seeped through me, and it became difficult to draw breath.
How strange.
A phantom pain throbbed in my chest and at last, I looked down to see a sticky wetness spreading down my new waistcoat.
Understanding dawned.
“I’ve been shot,” I huffed, stunned. I took a step forward, then my legs failed, and I crumpled onto the damp ground.
There was a strange rushing in my ears, and I was suddenly exhausted.
Mina.
It was Laszlo in my mind again.
Mina, you have been shot in the heart with a powerful bullet—one made from Judas silver. You are dying. Do you wish for me to save you?
I opened my eyes, unprepared for the shock of seeing Laszlo’s demon form looming above me.
“Save me? From death?” My voice was strangely distant.
Yes. You asked for time. Do you still wish for it? I can give it to you—all the time in the world. I can turn you, Mina, if you wish.
“But the sunshine…” I said thickly. I didn’t want a life without sunshine. No, that wasn’t right. I didn’t want a life without Rafael. I didn’t want to die without Rafael. Curiously, Daphne’s words drifted through my mind.Sometimes, when it is truly quiet in the small hours of the night, I could swear I have heard the stars singing. The truth was she was right—my life had always circled blood and death and darkness. Even without Rafael in it, that was where I took comfort. I was never the lightness of a summer afternoon or a lemon-yellow gown. The darkness in my life was mine—it was me. It wasn’t because of Rafael. He was the only thing that brought me true joy and passion, and who gave me the ability to value life as much as I did. And with remarkable clarity, I knew my answer.
Yes, Laszlo. Give me more time. Give me darkness. Give me a chance at a future with Rafael.
The terrifying demon nodded once and bent his head to my neck. He raised his wrist above my lips and sliced his arm open with one long, sharp claw, and black liquid copper slid over my tongue and down my throat. Then he bent his head, and his lethal fangs found my throat—his claws digging into the bullet wound in my chest at the same time. I would have screamed from the agony, but my vocal cords no longer worked. Eternities of pain crashed through my body, igniting every nerve in a symphony of suffering, and then a cold, silent darkness descended, and I knew no more.
21
RAFAEL
April 28, 1768
Cimetière des Innocents
“Rafael,stop trying to wrench those bars apart; they’re not going to move,” Charlotte called to me from across the dungeon. “We have to come up with another plan.”
“Damn it, why can’t I pick this bloody lock?” Daphne shouted, discarding her fourth bent hairpin onto the floor.
I ignored the lot of them and heaved my shoulder against the hinges in the door, near feral with desperation to get to Mina. To keep me sane, I fantasized about all the ways I would torture each surviving member of the Order and punish Laszlo and Marguerite for betraying me.
The insistent throb of pain in my head and spreading weakness in my limbs sang the Judas silver’s song. Each time I flung myself at the bars, the pain echoed louder and louder, but I wouldn’t—couldn’t—sit in this pit and donothing.
