“Move. Your. Feet,” he commands.
The crowd, my mother’s face, the torches all blur together in a swirl as he forces me forward, the onlookers parting for us. The clearing at the center of the park, shielded on both sides by an alley of live oaks, is to be my planned place of execution—mere feet from the place Arabella Meade died. The scent of jasmine mixes with the smoky tallow from the torches and the stinking sheep’s bladder tucked into my bodice, sickeningly sweet with an earthy gaminess. Winthrop drags me forward, and the crowd gathers close, leering at me with curiosity. I do my part. I roll my eyes, sneer, wriggling in his arms. He grasps me by the hair, exposing my throat, and cracks the whip against the tabby path. I flinch, involuntarily. I can feel his heartbeat against my back. He’s excited. He’s enjoying this.
“A vampire—this undead creature—can be killed in one of two ways,” he says, his voice commanding. “By fire, or by destroying the creature’s heart. This evening, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll slay this monster by the latter means.” He drops the whip and produces the sharpened stake, brandishing it. “I promise you, after tonight, your daughters will no longer fear this monster’s lurid hunger. They need no longer hide themselves away.”
This is the challenge. The hidden message to the real killer.You’ve been found out. If this continues, you’ll no longer have a scapegoat.
A scapegoat. Because that’s all I’ve ever been. For Rebecca’s murder. And now, for all the others after. I begin to shake. But this time, it’s not out of fear. It’s out of anger. Out of hatred for these well-bred men and women who would rather make me a monster than examine the rot corrupting their core. How they use the enslaved to prop up their vanity and build their kingdom, how they play at being royalty, when their souls are anything but noble. It is they who are the real vampires.
Suddenly, my long-hidden rage comes roaring out, fierce, hot, and hungry, like a wildfire burning unchecked. I thrash and howl, breaking free of my bonds. I lunge toward Patrick Calhoun, remembering the cruel way he spoke about my father. My sister. “Good god!” he swears. The young woman at his side swoons into the arms of the older gentleman next to her.
I laugh, wickedly, then turn and growl at Georgina McClintock. She places one gloved hand over her mouth, averting her gaze. None of them can bear to look me in the eye. As I scan their faces for any scrap of empathy, I come away lacking.
“Lillian!” My mother pushes through the crowd, her eyes brimming with tears, her heart-shaped face still lovely, despite all her years of grief. Dr. Broadbent reaches for her, restraining her, at the same time Winthrop tackles me, throwing me to the ground. She fights her way free and holds out her hand. I grasp it, desperately, her fingers gripping mine.
“Mama ...” I say, reverting to my childhood name for her, hot tears falling from my eyes.
“Oh, Lil, my darling, my angel.”
“I love you,” I say. “I’m sorry. I wish. I wish ...” The words come out as a garbled lisp, thanks to the ivory fangs, and my panic, but I fight for the right things to say to her all the same.
“Why, Lillian?” she asks. “What have you become?”
And then I realize. Shebelievesit. She believes their lies. This ridiculous myth, that I’m a monster. An inhuman killer. The pain of it lances through me like a poisoned barb. But she convinced herself I killed Rebecca, too, didn’t she? She believed her own lies, and mine. And I so willingly took the fall. Better I die than accuse the one I’ve always protected. The one who murdered her own daughter, slowly, year after year, until the poison finally overcame her.
Instead of saving my sister, instead of saving myself, I saved my mother.
And sheletme.
“Mama, I didn’t—”
“Enough!” Winthrop slaps a hand over my mouth, his knee in my back. “Shut up, Lil,” he growls in my ear. “Shut up.”
Dr. Broadbent pulls Mother away, though her heartrending wails hang in the air long after she disappears into the crowd. I’m thankful she won’t witness what comes next. Winthrop flips me over, straddles my hips, pinning me to the ground. I strain and buck as he leans forward and grasps the stake. Its polished point gleams in the lantern light. I see a chilling hardness in his eyes as he regards me. The harsh torchlight etches the face I love—Kate’s face—into that of a stranger. My heart gallops. This is it.
He lifts the stake and brings it down. The first, hard blow from his mallet sends it into the sheep’s bladder. A fountain of cold, stinking blood gushes forth. The crowd gasps. I scream, and it’s as if I’m watching the scene from above, as if my soul has separated from my body. The mallet comes down again, and I close my eyes. Pain cascades over me as I feel the sharp point pierce my flesh. He’s gone too far. Too deep. Blood trickles down the collar of my dress, warm this time.Myblood. My eyes snap open, shock cutting through the fog of my surreal, dreamlike state, followed by panic.
Winthrop smirks down at me, his eyes utterly devoid of feeling. Had he intended this all along? HadKateintended this?We must make it convincing, Lil. They have to believe it.
Rebecca’s words echo inside my head.Do you trust her?
My vision blackens around the edges, a high-pitched whine sharp in my ears. This time, when Winthrop rolls me over, I don’t have to pretend. I don’t have to act. I faint, dead away, the crowd, the lights, the screams of the onlookers fading as I plunge into oblivion.
A Vampire’s Diary
What a spectacle. A splendid farce! And those fools, those ignorant, superstitious simpletons, lapped it up like kittens with a saucer full of milk. The ruse has served its purpose and enabled my escape. The dreaded “vampire” has been vanquished, but my work will continue elsewhere. I’ve untilled pastures ahead of me. I’m so close. So very close now. Just a few more weeks, or months, until my labor is rewarded. Truly, I owe Lillian a debt of gratitude. The myth has died with her, along with any suspicion that might have been cast my way. Now, as I pack my trunks and prepare to take my wife and make a home elsewhere, I think only of the future, and the glory that awaits me.
Twenty-Four
I wake in our bed, hours or days later—I’ve no recollection how much time has passed. A shaft of sunlight slices across my eyes. I blink, and then I see Kate, her form silhouetted against the window. “Ah, you’re awake,” she says.
Anger trammels through me. I sit up, ignoring the rush of dizziness. I brush the hair out of my eyes and look down at my chest, where she pierced me. A square of gauze, plastered in place, covers the top of my left breast, right below the neckline of my nightgown. “You hurt me,” I say.
“I had to,” she says, sitting on the edge of the mattress next to me. “You were breaking character, Lil. You nearly ruined our act.”
“So you did it to punish me, then?” I spit, seething.
“No,” she says steadily, as if speaking to a child. “To focus you. To bring you back into character.”
