Page 128 of A Resistance of Witches
The air was still as they stepped inside the opulent chamber—tall windows overlooking the setting sun, gold stars sprayed across the ceiling, and so cold they could see their breath, though a blazing fire burned in the fireplace. Rebecca saw what she thought must be snow. It floated through the air, landing on her hair and clothes, and collecting on the floor in dunes. In the center of the room, something dark and hunched shifted from side to side.
At first glance it looked like two lovers caught in an embrace. Two women, nearly identical to one another in every detail, except that one was made of flesh, while the other seemed to be composed of nothing but ink and smoke—long black hair eddying like seaweed caught in a current, sharp features obscured beneath layers of shadows. Rebeccastepped closer, and the embrace became something sinister, like a vampire feeding on its prey.
And then Rebecca blinked, and the shadow disappeared, as if it had never been there at all. Lydia was standing alone in the center of the room.
“Lydia?” Henry called softly. She seemed not to hear. He took a step closer, but Rebecca stopped him, holding on firmly to his arm.
“Lydia,” Rebecca said, louder now. This time, Lydia looked up. She was dressed in a black evening gown, face damp with sweat, an ugly wound in her side, and a bright red spray of blood arcing across her collarbone. Her arms and hands were slippery with it. In one hand she held a bone-handled knife. In the other she held the book.
“You’re alive.” Lydia smiled a broken smile. There was something wrong with her voice, Rebecca thought, although Henry didn’t seem to hear it. He went to Lydia, crossing the room in long strides, but stopped short before reaching her. Rebecca followed, peering around to get a look at what had halted him in his tracks. Then she saw.
The blond witch Ursula lay sprawled at Lydia’s feet. Her throat had been slashed, and blood covered her neck and chest, flecks of it already beginning to dry on her white cheek. Her eyes were open, staring blindly at the starry ceiling.
“Oh, God. Oh, Lydia.” Henry took a step toward her, but Lydia stepped back.
“The blood,” she said in her strange new voice. Rebecca could hear it now, the thing making her skin crawl. It wasn’t one voice that came from Lydia’s mouth. There were two.
Henry glanced at Rebecca, then back at Lydia. “What about the blood?”
“There was so much of it.” Lydia stroked the book as she spoke, leaving rusty streaks with her fingertips. “The blood soaked into the book, and now it’s…it’s…” She trailed off, and her fingers went still.
“Lydia?” Rebecca said.
Lydia locked eyes with her, and Rebecca was sure she saw something in the dark void of those eyes—something black and alive, squirming behind her pupils.
“Excited,” Lydia said.
Run, the voice in Rebecca’s head commanded.Run, run, run, save yourself, for God’s sake, stupid girl, run!But she stayed planted where she was. She watched as Henry reached out a hand to Lydia. She saw him tremble.
“Lydia,” he said softly. “Lydia, look at me.” She did, and Rebecca saw him flinch. “You can put it down.”
Something curled across Lydia’s face, a snarl of contempt. It slithered across her features, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.
“You don’t understand.”
Henry took another step closer, but Rebecca was frozen in place, as if her feet had been nailed to the floor. She felt like prey, and the thing inside Lydia, speaking with its two voices, was the predator.
“Understand what?” Henry’s voice was steady, his hand outstretched.
Lydia’s face split into a beatific smile. “I’m going to end the war.”
Henry faltered. His hand retreated.
“I didn’t understand before. I do now. I can end the war today. No more death. No more needless, bloody death. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Rebecca looked around with fresh eyes. Gray-white dust covered everything. No, not dust.Ash.It floated in the air and spread across the floor like a carpet. Heaps of it lay in a great circle, with Lydia at the center. Rebecca looked more closely at one of the piles of ash and saw what she was certain must have been a face.
“What happened here?” Rebecca asked.
Lydia’s gaze slid toward hers. “They had to be stopped.”
Rebecca tasted ash on her tongue and fought the urge to gag.
“They did. They needed to be stopped. And you stopped them. And now it’s time to do what you came to do. It’s time to destroy the book.”
Lydia frowned, and Rebecca had to force herself not to recoil.
“I thought you of all people would understand,” Lydia said, her two voices growing in number, now three, now four. “You were the one who spoke so passionately about the starving children of France. About Jewish families rounded up and carted away.Your family.I can make all that stop.”
