The Lion, the Witch, and the Werewolf Read online

  Mirrors hung on every wall and reclined on nearly every surface that could support them. The ceiling above the bed even sported one. My face grimaced at me everywhere I looked.

  I turned my grimace on Narcissus. “Let me guess; this is your bedroom.”

  “How did you know?” He gaped at me as if I were psychic.

  “Between those damn flowers and all the mirrors, it wasn't a big leap.” I rolled my eyes.

  And then I noticed the curtains. Where there are curtains, there's usually a window. I rushed over and yanked the drapes open, revealing a huge window. An antique style; one of those types with the double frame that latches in the center and can be pushed open like French doors. I nearly shouted in relief. Then I tried the latch.

  It wouldn't budge.

  “Here, let me try,” Narcissus offered. “It can be tricky.”

  I moved aside, and Narcissus wriggled it. The latch held firm. He shoved it with his shoulder, but it didn't even rattle.

  “I think I may know what that clanging was,” I said dryly. “The one that came shortly after the Mirror's threat to kill us all.”

  “It locked us in,” Narcissus said as he turned to face me.

  “Yep.” I looked around for something heavy.

  A wooden vanity sat meekly to the left of the bath, beside a folding screen that I assumed hid a toilet. A chair posed before the low table with its collection of hairbrushes and crystal jars. I went over and grabbed the chair as I shook my head at the vanity. What kind of man has a vanity? Sure, men groomed themselves—at least, the civilized ones do—but I've never known one to actually sit down before a mirror, brush his hair, and gussy himself up. But Narcissus' grooming habits weren't important at the moment. Getting out of that damn mirror-house was.

  I lugged the chair back to the window, and Narcissus stepped out of my way with an encouraging nod. I tossed the thing at the glass with all of my significant might and then jumped back; expecting shards to go flying.

  Nothing flew but the chair; right back into the room.

  Narcissus and I both gaped at it as it came to a screeching stop on a mosaic.

  “What the...” I didn't have the words.

  “So, it's war then,” Narcissus muttered as he glared at the obstinate window.

  “It seems that way,” I agreed.

  “I guess we're going to need a better plan.”

  “And a bigger boat.” I grimaced. “Or chair, rather.”

  We may not have been dealing with a giant shark, but it sure felt as if I were floating in deep water with something monstrous circling below me. Something with sharp teeth and a huge appetite.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was no way out of Narcissus' bedroom; only the door we had come through—that now had a metal wall blocking it—and the indestructible window. The only other door in the room led to a closet; a long corridor full of wooden boxes. I had expected it to be a dressing room but with Narcissus' ability to manifest clothing, he didn't need a dressing room.

  We spent hours trying to come up with a way out; Narcissus floating in his tub—he said the water helps him think—and I on one of the lounges. I was strung tightly with worry for Trevor and Kirill, but I could sense them through our bonds, and I knew they were alive. I could have even tracked them if there had been a way out of that damn room.

  Narcissus fell asleep at one point—not in the tub, he'd gotten out to lie on a chaise across from me—and I watched him thoughtfully. Morpheus had said not to trust him. Yes; Narcissus had refused to kill me, but that clearly stemmed from my promise to get him out. If the Mirror made it a choice between him or us, I had no doubt that it would be us. Not that I'd have chosen any differently. But it didn't allow for trust.

  I got up quietly and began to search the room. I might as well find out as much as I could about the narcissist when I had the chance. There weren't a lot of hiding spots in the bedroom so after I pulled open the vanity drawers and peered under the bed, I headed for the closet.

  “Aw, what's in the box?” I whined the Seven quote á la Brad Pitt. “Damn it; now, I'm thinking of heads in boxes.”

  I went to the first box and opened it warily. Then I gaped at the contents. Nope; not heads.

  I reached down and picked up a blonde braid of hair. Silky strands shone softly, bound by blue ribbon at each end. One of the ribbons had a tag attached to it. Looping script in sepia ink announced; Joy Pritchard, female, Geneva, Ohio, U.S.A. 2019. I dropped the hair as if I'd been burned. The box was full of them; locks of hair in all colors, some long braids and some just tufts in tiny pouches. My eyes skimmed over other tags; each lock bore a name, a place, and a year. I shut the lid with a soft but horrified thud. My skin ran cold as I looked down the line of boxes.

  On shaking legs, I stood and went down the row, randomly flipping back lids. Every box contained locks of hair; the years on the tags going back further and further until I reached the end of the room and found hair dating back to a time before Christ's death. Granted, they didn't say “B.C.” on them, but I figured it out from the descent in numbers and then the sudden climb. The further back I went, the fewer braids there seemed to be for each time period. Narcissus had told the truth; the Mirror had started taking more humans in recent years. What he hadn't told me was that he'd kept mementos of each victim.

  Or were they trophies?

  I hurried out of the room and found Narcissus still asleep on the chaise. I seriously considered killing him, but I wasn't certain that he was guilty of murder nor was I sure what his death would do to the Mirror and its curse. Narcissus might be the key to keeping this world of illusions from self-destructing. Magic can be tricky.

  I moved away from Narcissus and went to lie on his bed instead. I needed to calm down; I was already strung tightly because of the whole being trapped and separated from my husbands thing. The possibility that Narcissus was a psychopath on top of everything else was too much to deal with. I closed my eyes and started to breathe deeply. Maybe I could relax enough to sleep and contact Morpheus again.

  I slowed my breaths and forced my muscles to unclench until I did manage to fall asleep. But my dreams unfolded into nightmares, dark, filled with wet mist, and completely devoid of dream gods. I called for Morpheus, but the mist swallowed the sound like cotton. I felt swathed in it and tossed restlessly until a pair of soft hands slid over my skin.

  I sighed as a warm body pressed against my back; a hard shaft seeking entrance between my thighs. Lips went to my neck and nibbled me there as a hand slid beneath the blankets and then beneath my bunched skirt. Hot tongue on my neck and expert fingers on my sex; I writhed and moaned awake. A finger slid inside me as the pad of a thumb rubbed me insistently, and I ground back against the urgent erection pressing between my ass cheeks.

  I turned my face to kiss my husband, but none of them lay behind me. It was Narcissus.

  I screamed and shoved him away from me. Narcissus smiled viciously and pushed me back down to straddle my body. Naked and flushed with arousal, he rose above me, his eyes full of heat and violence. He delivered a quick slap to my face and then dove down to nestle his face against my breasts. Narcissus bit me through the cloth, and I bucked him off.

  A quick punch to that pretty face sent him sprawling but when I tried to form my hands into dragon talons, my magic wouldn't come. Narcissus shambled to his feet; looking furious and intent on doing things to me that I didn't want to contemplate. I searched the room for a weapon while I internally searched myself for magic I could use. But everything seemed to be on the fritz. I could feel it inside me but nothing rose to my call.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a door appear in the wall. I ran for it as Narcissus snarled and gave chase. It looked as if the Mirror was taking pity on me. I didn't understand; didn't the thing want me dead? Maybe that was it; it wanted me dead, not raped. Or perhaps it intended to rile up Narcissus until he killed me. Whatever motivated it, I was out of options. I took the escape offered.

&nbs
p; Another steel hallway formed as I ran; my footsteps clanging loudly in my ears. Despite the cacophony, I could hear Narcissus chasing after me.

  “Vervain! Vervain, stop!” Narcissus shouted.

  I ran faster. The corridor angled sharply to the left. I bounced off the wall when I took it too quickly. Narcissus' footfalls boomed louder. My heart rattled in my chest, the beats reverberating through my body. There I was, running away again, and every cell inside my body wanted me to stop and fight. Every cell except for the ones in my brain; those screamed at me to; Run, you damn fool!

  So, I ran.

  A maze of metal corridors veined out ahead of me. I took turns without thought; just barely keeping ahead of my pursuer. Narcissus kept shouting at me as if I might actually stop. I slapped the walls as I ran; were they closing in on me? I felt so damn claustrophobic in that place. My breath started coming in stilted gulps.

  And then, finally, the maze ended. I stumbled into a room. My relief faded as soon as it came; it was a dead end. Literally for one of us. The room had only one point of access; the door I'd just come through. It had no windows, no other doors, not even an air vent. But there just so happened to be a long table covered in weapons. How convenient. Blades of all shapes and sizes glinted at me wickedly beside the more muted finish of guns, whips, hooks, clubs, maces, and even a garrote. The only thing missing was a pair of bladed gloves.

  Oh well, you can't have everything.

  I snatched up a sword and settled into a battle stance as I faced the door. It had been a long time since I'd fought with a sword, but my hand gripped it with confident ease. I suppose a gun would have been a better choice... if my opponent had been human. Bullets tended to bounce off Gods. Hell, the sword might not even work. To slice through god necks, I had to enchant my kodachi with extra strength and sharpness.

  “Vervain,” Narcissus huffed as he appeared. He leaned against the door frame and blinked in shock. “What are you doing?”

  “Defending myself,” I growled. “What do you think I'm doing?”

  “Against what?” He glanced over his shoulder apprehensively.

  “You, you asshole!” I shouted and launched forward, blade extended.

  Narcissus screamed—like a girl—and jumped back. “What the fuck?!”

  He backpedaled as I chased him and then a transparent wall shimmered into existence between us. I pulled up short and scowled at him through the wall.

  “I don't want to fight you, Vervain,” Narcissus said breathlessly. “Why are you attacking me?”

  “Because you just sexually assaulted me!” I shouted at him and slammed the hilt of the sword against the wall. It trembled but held firm.

  Narcissus' eyes went wide. “I did not!”

  “Yes, Narcissus, you did!” I snapped. “That's what it's called when you force yourself on a woman who doesn't want you. I was sleeping; I responded because I thought you were one of my husbands, you slimy bastard!”

  “What are you talking about?” Narcissus blinked at me in shock. “I did not force myself on you. I haven't even been near you in hours. I woke up to see you running out of the room.”

  “What?” I whispered as my sword lowered.

  “I was sleeping, and I heard you scream,” Narcissus said more calmly. “I sat up, and you flailed about a bit. Then a door appeared, and you ran out of it. I chased after you. I thought you might have lost your senses, and now I see that I was right.”

  “I woke up to someone touching me.” I shook my head as I processed it.

  The clear barrier disappeared, and Narcissus cocked his head at me. “And you thought it was me?”

  “It was you,” I said firmly. “I turned around and you were there. I tried to push you off, and you slapped me. I punched you, that door opened, and I ran.”

  “Fuck,” Narcissus whispered. “It's the fucking Mirror.”

  “You're telling me that I was just assaulted by a mirror?” I growled.

  “Yeah; I think you were.” He looked back toward the room I'd emerged from and then strode past me and into it.

  When I followed him inside, I found him standing over the table of weapons. It did seem like a setup. But those locks of hair... I frowned. Narcissus and I had looked through that room together when we were trying to find a way out. The boxes had been there; I just hadn't thought to open one in his presence. But if they had been there before, that meant they weren't an illusion created by the Mirror. Which meant that I still couldn't trust Narcissus.

  But at least I didn't have to kill him... immediately.

  “I can't believe it did this to me,” Narcissus whispered as he ran a hand over the weapons. “I thought we were friends.”

  “Friends generally don't vow to kill each other,” I said dryly.

  “He was mad because I said I was leaving.” Narcissus shook his head. “I didn't take it personally. But this... he wanted me to kill you, and he didn't care about risking me in the process.”

  “It's not a he,” I said softly. “It's a curse, Narcissus. It's your jailer and your punisher, not your friend.”

  “I guess this is what happens when you're cut off from the world.” Narcissus sighed sadly as he lifted his gaze to mine. “You see friends where they don't exist.”

  “At least it wasn't a soccer ball,” I said dryly.

  Narcissus blinked at me.

  “The Mirror spoke to you,” I amended. “It tricked you just as it tricked me.”

  “It seems as if it did.” He grimaced.

  Then a steel wall shot up between us, and I was pushed down another metal corridor by yet another shoving plate. Rats in a maze; that's all we were to the Mirror.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Mommy!” Lesya's voice echoed down the corridor to me.

  I froze as panic iced through my body. It had to be a trick. But what if it wasn't? What if my brave, reckless daughter had found a way into the dressing room and then been pulled into the Mirror? I turned toward the sound of her voice, knowing that even if it were really her, she was probably being manipulated. It didn't matter; I had to know for sure.

  “Lesya!” I called to her.

  “Mommy, where are you?” She sounded terrified, and then she screamed. “Let me go!”

  All reason left me with that scream. I started running. I kept shouting for Lesya, and she kept screaming. I followed her screams down a dark hallway until light appeared at the end of it. Golden rays drenched the cold gray metal, my daughter's voice streaming through a door frame along with the light. I rushed through the opening and burst out into a village square.

  Yes; a village square. As in a clearing in the center of a village that looked straight out of early America. Wood-slat houses surrounded the packed-earth clearing, all painted in drab colors. Filling the area were people in colonial clothing holding baskets of rotting fruit and muzzleloader rifles. They were shouting and jeering at something in the center of the square. No, not something; someone.

  My daughter.

  Lesya stood on a wooden platform, its base bristling with logs and kindling, tied to a thick pole. Tears flowed down her blotchy, red cheeks and her dark hair fell in wild tangles around her tiny body. Her arms strained at the ropes that bound her to the stake, red marks already striping her skin, and her screams clawed out of her throat interspersed with feral growls. A man nearby held an ominously burning torch.

  It was an old nightmare; one I had dreamed as a child. But I was always the one about to be burned at the stake as a witch. It had to be an illusion, but how real could the Mirror make it? Could it actually kill my daughter? Would that fire burn hot enough to truly burn her?

  I pushed my way through the crowd and barreled into the man with the torch. My daughter cried out in relief when she saw me, but I couldn't reassure her. I was too busy bashing my fists into the monster who'd been about to set my child on fire.

  I snarled viciously as I hit him, and the crowd jostled in around us to watch like a bunch of teenagers at a schoolyard figh
t. My target lifted his arms to block his face; the torch sputtering off somewhere to our left where he had dropped it. He shouted something in a desperate tone, but I couldn't hear his words. Then his arms were around me; squeezing me tightly against his chest. I struggled against his hold and was about to break free when his scent hit me. Lion musk and delicious man. I froze and felt something shimmering between us; a magical bond.

  “Kirill?” I whispered as I pulled back.

  The colonial man was gone and in his place laid my husband; blood dripping from his cut lip and eyes wide with shock. His hair was coming loose from his long braid; wisps of it stuck to his angled jaw, held in place by the slight stubble. His chest rose and fell violently but his shoulders drooped in relief when I said his name.