Not Everything Dies Read online

  Ruxandra looked over the whip. “I’ll kill you first.”

  Elizabeth lowered the scourge. Her voice became as cold as the water beneath an ice-coated lake. “Right now, my soldiers are strapping the girls. Ten lashes each because of your interference.”

  Ruxandra dashed for the door. Elizabeth moved faster, blocking her way.

  “After, they will stand naked in the courtyard until they tell me how the girl escaped. Because of you.”

  “Do not blame me for—”

  “Because of you!” Elizabeth screamed. “If you do not do as you are told, if the soldiers see anyone but me approach the girls’ apartments, they will cut their throats before you can say a word to them. Do you understand?”

  Ruxandra sized up Elizabeth and looked at the door.

  “You will not get there in time,” Elizabeth said. “If I scream, the girls die. If they see you before me, the girls die. Now, take off your clothes and bend over the bed.”

  Ruxandra’s hands closed tight into fists, driving her own talons into her flesh. She shook with fury.

  “When I am done with you,” Elizabeth said, “you will never, ever, disobey me again, or that is the fate they will suffer. You will not command my soldiers, and you will not attempt to evade me. The girls are being watched at all times now, and God help them if you attempt to interfere or if anything happens to me. They will all die screaming. Now strip!”

  Furious, helpless, Ruxandra pulled the dress from her body and bent over the bed.

  The first blow tore Ruxandra’s skin and muscles like the claws of the bear she had fought years ago. Silver blood spattered across the room. It hurt nearly as badly as the bear’s claws. Elizabeth whipped her from her calves up to her neck and back down, again and again. She made her turn over and tore chunks of flesh from Ruxandra’s breasts and belly and thighs. Every time she opened up Ruxandra’s flesh, it healed at once. Elizabeth swung harder with each stroke, cutting deeper and deeper.

  Ruxandra did not make a sound, could not allow herself to make a sound.

  The Beast wanted to howl, to grab Elizabeth and rend her to shreds. Only Ruxandra’s desperate grip held it back.

  I will not let you. We cannot risk hurting the girls.

  When the midnight bell rang, Elizabeth stopped.

  “Pity you don’t scar anymore,” she said. “Scars are always the best reminder.”

  Ruxandra let her legs give way and fell to the floor.

  “I am going downstairs,” Elizabeth said. “You will stay here until called for. If you behave yourself, I will give you one of the girls to drink tomorrow.”

  Elizabeth walked out of the room and down the tower stairs, leaving Ruxandra on the floor.

  The last of the fresh-ripped flesh pulled back together.

  The last of the pain vanished.

  The Beast settled.

  Ruxandra became unnoticed and headed to the door.

  I will not let her keep me here.

  I will not be her pet.

  I will not let her win.

  She didn’t bother to dress. Clothes would get in her way. She moved slowly and silently, listening and looking hard, as she made her way down the stairs. Even if Elizabeth could see through Ruxandra being unnoticeable, that didn’t mean that Ruxandra would be seen.

  She was still a hunter. She knew how to stalk prey.

  She slipped through the castle, her nose leading her; her ears open for any sound of approach. She could smell Kade, his scent guiding her through the castle.

  She heard the girls, crying in the courtyard.

  She heard the men and women sleeping in the bedrooms.

  She heard the rats in the walls.

  No one heard or saw her.

  His scent led her to another tower, away from the main building. The lower room held a large table with bowls and a mortar and pestle. Shelves of strange jars filled with foul-smelling potions and powders lined the walls. Ruxandra slipped through it and up the steps to the bedroom above.

  It held only a single shelf of books, a desk and chair, and a narrow bed. Kade was deeply asleep.

  Ruxandra took down the first book. It was a treatise on chemicals and their properties, written in Latin. She tried to read it, but Latin had never been her favorite lessons, and the book made little sense to her. The next book was titled Convocatis Dæmoniorum. The first page promised spells to summon the most powerful creatures to do one’s bidding. Ruxandra closed it and went through the others.

  There was nothing about vampires.

  She picked up the Convocatis Dæmoniorum again, felt the heft of it in her hand. Then she launched it in the air in a neat spinning throw that brought it down on Kade’s stomach with a whap.

  “OOF!” Kade sat up hard and fast. He looked around, his pupils wide as he struggled to see in the dark. “Who is there?”

  “Why can I hurt Elizabeth?” Ruxandra asked. “Why her and not you?”

  “Ruxandra?”

  “Will killing her break the spell on me?”

  He pursed his lips but said nothing. She saw his hands bunching beneath the blankets. For a moment hope rose inside her, accompanied by a terrible sadness. Elizabeth had been her friend—pretended to be my friend. Even though she had betrayed her beyond all reason, a small part of Ruxandra thought that, somehow, they would be able to reconcile.

  Then Kade spoke, and her hope vanished.

  “You already killed her,” Kade said. “When she drank your blood, she died and became a vampire. She planned for it and made certain the spell would bind you to her in life and death. Even if you destroy her utterly, you will still be bonded to her. You will haunt the place of her death, grieving for her for eternity.”

  Of course she did. She planned everything and played with me until I fell for it. Ruxandra started shaking with fury. She went unnoticed and slipped out of the tower.

  The girls stood in the courtyard, hands on their heads, their skin red with cold. Their bodies shook. Their breath frosted the air in front of them. Tears lay frozen on their faces. Three of them had lost control of their bladders, leaving puddles of urine to turn to ice at their feet.

  In her mind Ruxandra saw Valeria and Adela, kneeling in the snow as the nuns’ straps slashed down on them, ripping open their backs.

  I cannot let them stay like this.

  Six soldiers stood guard around them. All looked grim, rather than gleeful, at the sight of the naked girls. Curious, Ruxandra reached out with her mind to feel their emotions. Resentment and anger overwhelmed five of them. They did not want to be there, did not want the girls there. The sixth one was blank, with no emotions emanating from him at all. He had bite marks on his neck.

  Just like Dorotyas.

  Ruxandra scanned the grounds and the walls, sniffed the air and listened. No sign of Elizabeth.

  Ruxandra slipped away from the wall and circled the girls, still unnoticed. She sniffed at the air, breathing in each girl’s scent. Halfway through she realized that Cristina Czobor’s daughter was not among them.

  No wonder Elizabeth is so furious.

  Thank God she doesn’t know how to hunt. Otherwise, she’d have found the girl by now.

  She slipped into their barracks.

  It made the convent’s dormitory look comforting and warm. The girls slept on mats on the floor, with only one thin blanket for each bed. There were no candles and one fireplace that sat cold and cheerless. Ruxandra dropped to her hands and feet and scurried across the floor, nose to the ground.

  That one.

  One mattress smelled faintly like Cristina, as if she had only lain there for a moment. Ruxandra breathed in the scent deep. Then she circled the mattress in an ever-widening spiral until she caught the scent on the floor.

  It was nearly imperceptible, but it was there. She followed it. It crossed once to the long tables where the girls ate their meals—gruel, from the smell of it—and again to another bed. Ruxandra followed the trail to the latrines.

  Ruxandra circl
ed back out. There was no return trail.

  No one walks exactly the same path both ways. If she went at night it should lead back to her bed. So what happened to . . . Ruxandra looked back at the latrine. She didn’t.

  A double layer of plain, rough wooden planks with three round holes in them covered the latrine. Ruxandra sniffed again. Her eyes watered from the stench coming from the drains below. She gritted her teeth and leaned closer.

  There, on the edge of the planks.

  Ruxandra grabbed the planks and pulled up. The entire thing lifted, and the hole below was easily large enough for a terrified girl to descend.

  Oh, you foolish creature.

  Ruxandra retreated from the barracks. She scanned the courtyard, found no sign of Elizabeth, and slipped out. She walked up the stairs to the top of the wall and jumped down to the uneven, rocky slope below.

  She landed wrong and rolled down the hill. She bounced off two boulders, dug her talons into the ground, and skidded to a stop. She lay still, eyes and ears wide.

  The guards must have heard me.

  There was noise above her. She saw the guards looking over the parapet, but no one raised the alarm. She reached out for their emotions. Like the men in the courtyard, they were angry and resentful.

  Is the entire castle like that? Is Elizabeth nearing a rebellion?

  Ruxandra sat up, careful not to groan, and followed her nose to the refuse pile.

  Even in the frigid cold, it reeked. Steam rose from the rotting garbage and sewage that coated the ground, five feet deep and twenty feet around. She watched it for a moment and circled it for a better look. Then she made herself noticeable and knelt down before it.

  “Good job going to ground,” Ruxandra said. “No one would think a well-bred girl would stay in a refuse pit, covered in sewage.”

  There was no sound or movement.

  “How long were you planning to stay?” Ruxandra asked. “Until the guards are called off? Because they won’t be. Elizabeth will keep searching, and her guards have orders to rape you when they find you.”

  The pile didn’t answer.

  “We must get you out of there,” Ruxandra said. “We need to get you someplace safe, so I can tell Elizabeth how you escaped, and the other girls can go back inside.”

  Still, the pile didn’t move.

  Ruxandra sighed. She turned her head away and took a deep breath. Then she reached in, grabbed the collar of Cristina’s dress and hauled her out of the rotting garbage. The girl squawked in surprise.

  “Hush!” Ruxandra commanded in a whisper. “No more sounds until I get you out of here. Understand?”

  Cristina nodded.

  “Now get on my back and hang on.”

  The girl’s stench was nearly enough to make Ruxandra leave her, and the slimy feel of her dress made Ruxandra’s skin crawl. She pretended it didn’t bother her and sent her mind wide, searching for a place to put her. The town below the castle was too close. Elizabeth’s men would find her there. She needed to go farther away.

  Much farther.

  Ruxandra ran hard and fast. In two hours she covered the ground the carriages had traveled in a day and stopped in front of the inn.

  Ruxandra hammered on the back door until one of the cooks opened it. Three commands later, Ruxandra and Cristina stood naked in the stables. The women of the inn, led by the innkeeper’s wife, scrubbed and rubbed at them with brushes and doused them with buckets of warm water.

  “Now don’t you worry,” she told Ruxandra. “We’ll make sure no harm comes to the girl, and that no one finds her before her family arrives. What about you, dearie? You can’t wander around like this.”

  I can’t go back now. Ruxandra looked out at the lightening sky. Those poor girls.

  She spent the day in a darkened room with Cristina.

  Ruxandra fretted half the day, worrying about them. She slept fitfully, waking often. Every time she woke, she heard Cristina weeping.

  I should comfort her.

  I should command her not to say anything about vampires.

  She didn’t have the heart to do either. Anyway, she thought, it’s too late. Her mother knows about vampires now—and so does the king. Maybe half of Vienna as well.

  As soon as the sun sank beneath the horizon, she vanished from notice and ran back to the castle. The road was empty, save for one lone horseman, riding hard through the night, a torch in one hand. She passed him without either he or the horse noticing.

  Elizabeth will be furious with me but at least I can tell her how Cristina escaped. Then maybe the girls can go back inside.

  Then I must find a way to break the spell.

  The last thought occupied her mind until she reached the castle. She stayed unnoticeable, scaling the wall rather than having the guards see her naked. The courtyard was empty.

  Where are the girls?

  “They’re in their rooms,” said Dorotyas. “Preparing for their next punishment.”

  Ruxandra spun, shocked.

  Dorotyas’s body had changed. The fat and extra flesh had vanished. Her frame was narrow and lean. Her nose was sharp and narrow, her eyes pale blue, and her skin white as snow.

  Dorotyas’s eyes narrowed, and her face twisted into a rictus of a smile. “You owe me a death, whore.”

  DOROTYAS CHARGED FORWARD, fists flying. She caught Ruxandra still flat-footed and staring. The first two punches broke Ruxandra’s nose and slammed into her ear hard enough to make her head ring and the world spin. She stumbled back, trying to create distance. Dorotyas grabbed her hair and slammed her fist into Ruxandra’s face again and again.

  Ruxandra ducked her head and slashed out with her talons, opening up Dorotyas arm from the wrist to the elbow. Her hand fell away, useless. Ruxandra slashed twice more, ripping open Dorotyas’s dress and belly before jumping away.

  “Slut,” Dorotyas hissed. “Slattern. Whore.”

  Ruxandra growled back. Then she attacked.

  Dorotyas moved like the men Ruxandra had seen in the taverns in Vienna, the ones who knew how to fight and were looking to do so. She protected her body and head with her arms and dealt out punishing punches. Her fists bruised Ruxandra’s ribs and cracked the bones in her face. In return, Ruxandra lashed out with talons and teeth, tearing and ripping into Dorotyas’s flesh.

  Both women healed at once.

  The men on the walls watched the fight. No one called for reinforcements. No one moved to stop them. They stared at the two women with revulsion and horror.

  “Enough!”

  Elizabeth’s voice rang through the courtyard. Dorotyas froze. Ruxandra dropped to one knee and raked her claws through the woman’s knees, ripping out the tendons. Dorotyas fell backward, screaming.

  “I said, enough!” Elizabeth dashed out of the great hall and into the courtyard, her flail in her hand. “Ruxandra, stop. Now!”

  “Why did you bring her back?” Ruxandra demanded. “How could you do that?”

  “Because she is loyal,” Elizabeth said. “Unlike you.”

  “She’s a vicious, murdering bitch!”

  “Unlike you,” Dorotyas said. She sat up, her face twisted in pain. “You’re nothing but a spoiled brat and an animal.”

  “You were supposed to stay in your room.” Elizabeth advanced on Ruxandra, the flail rising.

  “I went searching for Cristina Czobor,” Ruxandra said. “She escaped through the latrines, spent a night in the garbage heap, and ran. I tracked her five miles to the river. I searched up and down the bank for her trail until morning. Then I hid until I could return.”

  “Liar,” Dorotyas said. “You were trying to leave.”

  “Go sniff the garbage pile if you don’t believe me,” Ruxandra said, knowing Dorotyas wouldn’t. “The girl probably drowned.”

  “Probably is not good enough,” Elizabeth said. “If she is alive, I want her back here. If she’d dead, I want her body to send to her mother. After all, why deny the woman her grief? It’s a pity I can’t see her
face when she gets the news.”

  “I wish I had killed you when I had the chance.”

  “You never had the chance, dear. You were mine before I ever let you out of the cage.” The Beast roared in Ruxandra’s mind, and she forced it down.

  “What about the girls? What happens to them?”

  “They didn’t tell me where she went,” Elizabeth said. “Their punishment resumes tonight.”

  “They didn’t know where she went,” Ruxandra said. “They woke up and found her gone. You’re torturing them for nothing.”

  “I am punishing them,” Elizabeth said, “for allowing one of their number to leave. When I am done, none of them will dare try again.” She stepped closer to Ruxandra. “So you know, there will be soldiers with them, with orders to kill the girls if you attempt to rescue them. Since both Dorotyas and I are here to stop you, I assure you that you will not be able to stop them before it happens.”

  Ruxandra stood and let her talons retract back into her hands.

  “Dorotyas, take Ruxandra to her room,” Elizabeth said. “Ruxandra, every time you resist, one of those girls will be flogged. Do you understand?”

  Ruxandra glared at her.

  “Five lashes for the oldest one,” Elizabeth said, her voice implacable. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Ruxandra ground out. “I understand.”

  “Good. Dorotyas, you may beat her when you reach her room, but no using her body for your pleasure. It is mine.”

  While Elizabeth had beaten Ruxandra to punish her, Dorotyas beat her to maim. She broke Ruxandra’s arms first. Then she broke her legs. She stomped on her face, and every time the bones started to come together, she stomped it again. She broke Ruxandra’s fingers one at a time, every hour, for the entire night.

  Ruxandra had not felt so much pain since her fight with the bear. Unlike that time, though, Ruxandra’s injuries healed within moments. Knowing it gave Ruxandra the ability to endure and contain the Beast.

  The Beast didn’t care about the girls, didn’t care about anything except destroying whoever was hurting it. If it got free, she would lose everything that mattered. She had to fight with her wits, and that took time. The Beast didn’t understand, though, and Ruxandra used every bit of her strength to prevent it from breaking free.