the alchemical wedding: chapter fourteen
Summary: Discovery of Witches AU. When Dr. Lucy Preston, historian and reluctant witch, stumbles on an enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, she crosses paths with the mysterious vampire Garcia Flynn. They must work together to discover its secrets, their conflicted family legacies, and the shadowy enemies who want to claim it. As they do, they are increasingly and unwillingly drawn to each other, but that may be the most dangerous and forbidden magic of all.
Rating: M
Status: WIP
Previous: Reap The Whirlwind
NOTE: Still would appreciate reblogs to boost visibility, as I am not sure I am allowed to show up in the tags yet (this website is truly the devil) and am continuing to try to help people to find me. So yes.
Chapter 14: In The Wastelands
Lucy has no idea how long they are in the air. All of her attention is devoted to not freezing to death, as the night wind scours her face like ice, numbs her extremities to blocks of wood, and squeezes tears out of her eyes until it starts to crystallize in her lashes, almost blinding her. Not as if there is much to see. She isn’t even sure what has hold of her, aside from some sort of monstrous, overgrown harpy, its claws still digging into her shoulders and almost drawing blood. She isn’t wearing much, her jaw is chattering like a nutcracker until she’s briefly afraid she’ll bite her tongue off, and she’s lost one shoe, her socked foot dangling limply in the slipstream, a mile above the rough dark ground. She desperately wants this to be over, but she’s more afraid of what might happen when it does.
Furiously, she tries to rally her magic. It was just spilling over, back in the bedroom with Flynn – it seems impossible that it can’t come to some kind of defense now. But if she struggles too hard, she’ll fall, and unlike whatever is carrying her, she doesn’t have wings. The time to figure out any new magical abilities she might be able to unlock is not when she is plunging to her death in the middle of nowhere. Which way are they going? At night, it’s impossible to tell, and she fights a sudden fear that they might head out over the Atlantic and drop her into the sea. But if it was a matter of just killing her, the harpy-thing could let go of her anywhere, and Lucy knows that she is far more valuable alive. She’s being taken somewhere, a prize of war, for whoever has craftily arranged to snatch her directly from Sept-Tours. The same person who sent Gennady Sokolov? Or worse?
Lucy tries to take deep breaths, to control the panic banging in her head, since completely losing it is not going to help her. Squinting through her streaming eyes, she tries to make out any recognizable feature on the landscape blurring by below. It still looks like France, and she doesn’t think they’ve flown far or fast enough to have crossed into a new country. Here and there, the isolated pinpricks of car headlights curve down a deserted motorway, or a few farmhouses are visible in the rolling green downs, but for the most part, they stay well clear of any populated centres. Lucy has turned to a human block of ice by the time they dip below a low-hanging cloud, and she spots a spectral ruined castle on the hilltop ahead, something straight out of a Gothic novel. She can’t be sure, but it reminds her of the fortified city of Carcassonne in the south of France, which she visited a few summers ago. Are they somewhere in the Languedoc? That would fit with the duration of flight, at least, but what –
No time to ponder. They’re decelerating fast, they’re close enough to the crumbling tower wall that Lucy thinks they’ll hit it and instinctively jerks her legs up, and hurtle down toward the remnants of the bailey, nothing more than a cleared space of dirt surrounded by broken stones. The moon flits eerily through the empty windows, the roofless hall, and the harpy negligently lets go of her, causing Lucy to tumble for the last several feet and do a somersault. It knocks her wind out, and she lies flattened, gasping vainly, as the harpy descends with unexpected dainty grace, shifts and transforms, and hits the ground in heeled boots as if it – as if she – has just strode off a catwalk somewhere. She regards the wheezing Lucy in cool, cruel amusement. “Evening, princess.”
Somehow, this comes as both a wrenching shock and no shock whatsoever, even as Lucy feels it lurch through her to the back of her spine. She remains where she is, staring balefully up at Emma Whitmore, who seems to be thoroughly enjoying the effect of her dramatic entrance, red hair tossed in the night wind and green eyes glittering triumphantly. “Surprised to see me?” she goes on. “You know, I didn’t underestimate you this time. You had a powerful accident, the last few times we crossed paths, but I know what I’m doing. That makes a difference.”
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