Storykiller (5 page)

Snow was running out of things to say to Bluebeard and if he waxed poetic about one more useless antique tea set she was going stab him with a cup. She yawned as he pointed out the slight chipping on an otherwise flawless hand-painted set he’d acquired the previous weekend. He smiled at her as she stifled the yawn.

“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here, Snow. Not that I don’t enjoy the company.”

“Yes, well…that is something of a delicate matter,” Snow said, walking back toward the couch. She made the mistake of glancing at the stairs. Understanding broke across his ugly face.

She saw it and opened her mouth to scream for The Scion but only got out the first half before he hit her across the face with a silver serving tray.

Tessa spun around as Snow let loose a scream loud enough to practically tear out all the windows in the house.

“SCIIIIIIIOOOO—“

But it cut off abruptly, as if Snow had been silenced. Tessa looked into the hallway and heard someone coming up the stairs. Whoever it was, they sounded big. Tessa nodded at the three of them to help one another, and then kicked Micah the keys again before going into the hallway. Tessa gripped the bat with both hands and planted her feet some distance ahead of the door, fully prepared to take his head off if it came to it. Though she definitely hoped it wouldn’t.

As he reached the top of the stairs, she drew in a breath. He was indeed big. Broad-shouldered and at least six foot four with a face that looked like it had already been hit with a bat today. His dark-blue, bushy beard looked like he had slept face-first in a basket of blueberries. Tessa drew in a breath.

“So then, that is a
literal
blue beard we’re talking about,” she said. A flash of rage swallowed up his face and he ran at her. There was no room to swing the bat in the narrow hallway, so Tessa thrust it in front of her and ran toward him as if it was a tiny battering ram and he, a castle gate. She swore that there was a hint of happiness in his eyes as she came at him. A second later, she understood why as he deflected her with seeming ease. She went crashing into the stairs that led to the next level.

Tessa nailed one of the steps with her chin and her jaw snapped shut with such force she was shocked her teeth didn’t shatter. Rather than turning over to fight, she pushed herself up and ran up the stairs to the third level, hoping he would follow. He did but he was too fast, managing to grab her ankle just as she neared the top of the flight and yanking her back down a few steps. She came down on her jaw again, nearly shattering her teeth a second time. Tessa cursed under her breath and rolled onto her back just as he came at her. She was barely able to get her foot up in time to kick him in the gut, sending him flying down the stairs backwards. He landed with a crash but was back on his feet almost instantly. She groaned and scrambled up the last few stairs. She’d lost her bat on the second level and she looked around frantically for a new weapon.

At the other end of the hall, a pair of swords hung on the wall, all decorative and shining. Tessa tried to make a run for them but as she launched herself across the long hall, Bluebeard’s hand came up the stairs. Unfortunately, the rest of his body followed. Tessa lurched to a halt and backed up a few paces, looking around desperately. Short of a table with a bright green vase on her left, there was nothing but drywall.

“I knew this was a good idea,” he said, standing up straight and taking Tessa in, his face both amused and utterly unimpressed.

“What idea?” Tessa asked, unsure.

“Grabbing your little pals to flush you out. I mean, look at you. So green. Totally untrained. Word is spreading from Story to Story about you like wildfire.”

“And the word is?” Tessa asked, gritting her teeth.

“Well, there are a few, but first and foremost that you’re a girl, and thus The Last of the Scions. And if you’re the last, then killing you will close the border to Story. And I like this world. I like it very much. If I can end you, I can close the dimension border and never have to worry about Story coming to drag me back, kicking and screaming.”

Tessa blinked, she hadn’t actually expected a villain-esque soliloquy.

Bluebeard smiled wider and added, “Someone also might have mentioned that you were like a stupid baby lamb, ready for slaughter,” he said, shrugging. Tessa narrowed her eyes and while he was gloating, she flung her arm at the giant vase. It flew at him with shocking speed and hit him square in the face. The instant it connected, Tessa ran, launching herself over him. Her heels clipped the ceiling, but she cleared Bluebeard with ease and hit the hardwood a half-dozen feet behind him. Tessa tucked and rolled and stood up right in front of the wall-mounted swords. Tessa yanked one sword off the wall and as she did the other clattered to the floor. She grasped the sword with both hands and looked at Bluebeard as he turned around to face her. She felt good.

“Yeah, well, now stupid baby lamb has a sword, Beard-o,” Tessa said, grinning.

Bluebeard growled at her and picked pieces of shiny green vase out of his face.

“That was 14
^th
Century Ming, you brat.”

“So sue me,” Tessa said, shrugging. “But I don’t think you’re going to have the chance being all weaponless as you seem to be, what do you think of that?” But her witty repartee didn’t seem to phase him, and she was instead rewarded only with another creepy wide-mouthed grin.

“I’m not worried,” he said, reaching out his right hand and shouting, “La Colombe Noire!”

As soon as the words left his lips, there was a crackle of bluish-black light and a pinch of static. A massive double-headed battle axe that looked as much like a sharp,
black bird as it did an axe appeared out of thin air and snapped into his outstretched hand. “You’ll see I’m covered in any situation, Scion,” he said, pointing the massive axe at her.

“Balls,” Tessa said under her breath, as he came at her with the axe.

Tessa, having never used a sword before in her life, felt certain she was no match for Bluebeard’s axe. The man looked like a freaking pro and a half. So instead of standing her ground, Tessa kicked down the door nearest to her and dove through it. She slammed it shut behind her just as he turned to follow her, but she’d broken the lock mechanism when she kicked it in, so she leaned against it to keep it shut. While her back was flush against the door, she felt the jolt of what must be the axe biting into the wood on the other side. She couldn’t stay there long or she’d end up with the blade buried in her back. Tessa reached out in the dark and felt a chair, which she dragged over by its leg and wedged between the door and a big wardrobe nearby. Tessa could hear bits of wood splintering off into the hallway as she skittered back from the door. She stood blindly and groped around the room for a light switch in the dark. After a moment of panic, she
found it and snapped it on.

The moment she did she wished she could take it back.

All around her hung the bodies of headless young women. At least a dozen women and girls hung from the ceiling like gruesome party decorations. “Oh my God,” Tessa breathed, staggering backward. Bluebeard peered through the face-sized
Shining
-style hole he’d managed to chop into the door.

“Scion, meet my brides, er, former brides. Former brides, meet The Last Scion. I’m sure you’ll all get along famously. Especially when I add your head to the pile. In fact, Scion, you can be the jewel of my collection.”

Tessa plunged deeper into the room, away from the door and the bodies. She crashed into a window draped with a heavy, dark velvet curtain. Throwing the curtain back, Tessa yanked the window open, tearing it from the frame in her rush to escape. She heard the door to the room break. He would be through it in a moment. She slid out the window and edged herself around the gable toward the heavily steeped roof. In order to climb, she would have to lose the sword. She dropped it and clambered up the roof unsure if he would follow her or not (she guessed he probably would). At the top, she slid down the other side, catching her feet on the edge a moment before she went shooting off into oblivion. A matching gable met her on this side of the house and she wrenched open the window in front of her and climbed through, hoping more bodies didn’t await her. In the light of the moon,
she realized she had found the girls’ missing heads. Tessa choked back something between a sob and a scream. She wanted to die. She wanted to just give up and go home. To forget all of this was happening.

To definitely keep her head.

But she thought of Micah and Brand, Bishop, and even Snow all trapped elsewhere in the house. She couldn’t imagine a way in which she could live with herself if she actually escaped and left them behind.

She’d be better off headless.

Tessa inched the door open and peered into the hall. The sword that had fallen off the wall shined a few feet from her. Bluebeard was nowhere to be seen. Tessa slipped into the hallway, feeling both exposed and claustrophobically trapped. She picked up the fallen sword and crept down the hall. She made her way down to the second floor, but when she stepped onto the landing he came barreling at her from behind. They crashed together into the railing, and their weight snapped the wood with a sharp crack. To Tessa it was almost like they paused midair for a moment before they fell down to the ground floor, end over end. Tessa avoided landing directly on her head but still smacked the parquet floor with incredible force. Her vision spun as she looked for Bluebeard. He had landed similarly, and Tessa saw him lose his grip on the axe as it clattered across the floor toward her. Tessa reached for it, but as she did it disappeared right in front of her eyes. On her hands and knees, she stared at the place it used to be and heard him call out behind her.

“La Colombe Noire!”

She felt the same pop and crackle of energy as before and when she turned her head it was to see him standing over her, the axe magically in his hand again. A damn good trick. Tessa kicked him in the stomach from her low position, and he rocketed backward, smashing into a small table, sending all the things atop it crashing to the ground. He looked at them and grimaced.

“You’re ruining all my things!”

Tessa scrambled away from him, catching a glimpse of Snow, nothing but a silvery-white unconscious streak on the thick, red carpet. Tessa’s eyes searched madly for a replacement weapon. Her sword had been thrown deep into the parlor, her bat was still on the second floor, she was totally exposed. As Bluebeard swung the axe toward her, Bishop appeared from out of nowhere and jumped onto Bluebeard’s back. He was half the size of Bluebeard,
but he held on tightly as the giant man reared back and thrashed.

“Tessa, run!” Bishop shouted. Tessa scrambled into the parlor and grabbed the sword but as she did so she heard a horrible snap behind her that turned her blood to ice. When she whirled to face Bluebeard she saw Bishop on the ground at Bluebeard’s feet, his neck turned grotesquely, his eyes wide open and fixed. Tessa blinked stupidly at the sight of him.

He was dead.

It had taken only an instant and he was dead.

It was so fast.

There wasn’t even any blood.

This man Tessa barely knew had risked his life for her and now he was dead. So many thoughts and emotions swarmed Tessa that she didn’t know where to put any of it. Bluebeard stared down at her, utterly unimpressed.

“Was that your Advocate, child? Tut, tut, what a shame. And what a truly terrible Scion you’re turning out to be, last or otherwise.” He slammed the axe down into the thick carpet narrowly missing one of Tessa’s feet in the process.

Tessa half-ran half-crawled through the room, losing her sword in the process. Bluebeard’s axe whizzed through the air so close behind her that she could feel the breeze it created. When she reached the dining room, Tessa dived under the giant wood table just as Bluebeard swung again and took a huge chunk out of the side. He shouted something Tessa didn’t understand, but that sounded decidedly like cursing.

“TOVA! Tovaien ticcht!”

Tessa covered her face with her arms as he stood above her hacking the thick table into bits with his axe. When he broke through, she peered up to see him staring down at her, red-faced and breathing heavily. He looked completely insane and absolutely delighted with himself, the axe raised over his head, ready to deliver what could only be a killing stroke. Tessa could not believe she was going to be killed right now, here, in this stupid living room.

What a disappointment she must have been.

Tessa clenched her eyes shut, was this really how it all ended?