Cold water splashed Eulalia’s face as she dove into the barrel of floating apples, her sharp teeth searching for red skin to break.  She bit into a large apple and brought it up, grinning so wide that the fruit threatened to fall.  Opening one of her bags, she spat out the apple, and it tumbled inside amongst pieces of candy corn, bloody ogre heads, chocolate bars and myriad clumps of herbs.

“I don’t understand why the Alliance celebrate All Hallow’s End,” Cian said, when they stopped at the outskirts of Southshore and he could drop his stealth.  Eulalia and Ingomar had wanted to trick-or-treat at the inn.  He thought he would wait until they were finished before he threw the bomb he was holding, which Ingomar eyed warily.  “It’s our holiday.  Around this time a few years ago was when we Forsaken regained our free will.”

“But there’s candy,” Eulalia said, as if this explained everything.  “And apples.  See?” She opened her bag, and he saw the apple, juice still dripping from where she had bit into it.  The bite marks were neat and deep, like what a vampire would leave on a victim’s neck.  Well, night elves did have fangs, not that Cian could ever imagine Eulalia draining someone of blood by any method other than a volley of arrows to the stomach.

“Olidays are ‘olidays,” Ingomar said. “Must ye whine even durin’ a party?” She pointed a wand at him, and he suddenly metamorphosed into a bat.  Ingomar laughed. “There’s a pleasant skin for ya!”

Cian chattered, and flew towards Southshore with the bomb clutched in his little claws.  “I must do my duty as a Forsaken, and throw this stinkbomb into your filthy human settlement.”

He attempted to hurl the bomb, but a bat’s wings weren’t well suited to hurling, so instead he just dropped it huffily on the grass.  It cracked open and a foul, sulfuric cloud spewed forth, orange in color and devastating in odor.  Ingomar’s eyes watered and she wondered if her divine shield would protect her from the smell, which was a mad alchemist’s stew of rotten meat festering with maggots, old eggs left to crust, wet fur, and decayed flesh, all seasoned with blood, piss, and bile.

Eulalia cried and hid her face in her groaning cat’s fur. “Why would you do that?”

“Duty,” Cian chirruped.

Ingomar stepped forward bravely, armed with a scroll.  She read it aloud and the scroll shimmered, releasing a burst of pine fresh energy at the offensive cloud.  The odor and its smoke dissipated, leaving behind only the sweet aroma of burning autumn leaves and disinfectant.

“Killjoy,” Cian said.

“I’m gonna get me some candy for ‘at,” Ingomar said. “By the way, poof!”

She waved her wand at Eulalia, who became a human ghost.

“I wonder if I can walk through walls!” Eulalia said.  She marched up to the Southshore barn and attempted to pass through the doors of a horse’s stall. “Ow.”

The horse looked down on her with pity.

“It’s just a costume, Eulie,” Cian said. “You’re not really a ghost.”

“But I can see through my hand,” Eulalia insisted. “And I’m so short.  I never realized how short humans are.  How sad for them.”

“Wot’s this about short?” Ingomar said.  She munched a pumpkin-shaped candy, which did her the favor of turning her into a male human pirate. “Nice.”

“I have to report back to the Wickerman festival,” Cian said.  He discarded his bat form. “As much as I enjoy impersonating a flying rodent, they’re unfortunately unable to summon mounts.”

“That’s a party we were invited to crash.  Lead the way,” Ingomar said.

“And what are you going to do?” Cian said warily.

“Set the place on fire?” Ingomar suggested.

“Nooo,” Eulalia giggled. “It’s only recon—reconna—uhm—looking around.”

“I suppose my mere acquaintance with you branded me a traitor a long time ago,” Cian said, shrugging. “Follow along, then.”

Tirisfal Glades, where the festival was held every year, was some distance away from Southshore.  Getting there required passage through Silverpine Forest, which, like the Glades, was haunted by specters of the past—among other things.

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived in Silverpine, which prompted Ingomar to recommend stopping for the night.

“There’s a human village closeby,” she said. “We can rest there.”

“We?” Cian said.

Ingomar pulled a different want from her bag and anointed Cian with it, transforming him into a human pirate.  “Aye, we.”

Interestingly, the costume bore some resemblance to Cian’s actual human self—thick, dark hair, pale skin, small, scrutinizing features.  He felt his face with quiet pleasure.  The disguise was total.  His flesh was warm and soft, and for a moment, even Cian thought there was real blood flowing through his veins.  He permitted himself to indulge the fantasy, if only for a moment.  Cian missed humanity, like he supposed most of his kind did.  He thought their situation was a bit like being rich and then coming home one day to find everything you had robbed from you.  It was a worse situation than if you had been born poor, because at least then you would never have known anything different.  His people had memory: they had to exist with the sweetness of life on their tongues but without the ability to taste it.

Pyrewood Village was their destination.  It was a small village bordered by a tall, spiked wooden fence, except for one house, which stood outside the wall and slightly off to the east.  Cian noted it as they rode up to the gates: it was foreboding somehow, and all the windows were dark.  Occupied by a hermit, perhaps, or was it too tainted by remnants of the plague?  Pyrewood was one of the only pockets of human life to resist the plague of undeath, but Cian was unaware of the secret to their immunity.  Still, he had heard stories.

Before they went into town, he said, “The humans of this place are a little odd … even for humans.”

“Why d’ye say that?” Ingomar said. “They’re perfectly friendly.”

“I know.”

They were, in fact, gushingly friendly.  Everyone they passed as they walked to the inn greeted them with wide, almost wild smiles.  Some waved, as though these strangers were old friends.

“They’re touched,” Cian said. “And they attack us viciously.”

“Humans tend to do that,” Ingomar pointed out.

“No, but—I’ve seen other forsaken torn limb from limb by these villagers.  Sometimes with the vital bones missing.” Cian shuddered.  “I can’t imagine what they do with our remains.”

Eulalia made chomping sounds. “I’ve heard femurs are very tasty.”

Cian thought back to the apple as Ingomar said, “Lass, I … no.  I dinnae want to know.”

“What?” Eulalia said.  “A troll told me.  He was planning to eat mine, see.  Had me tied to a palm tree and everything.”

Cian shifted uncomfortably on his mount.  He liked that image and was therefore repelled by it.  “That sounds like a tricky spot.”

“Oh, but we had the nicest talk,” Eulalia said.  “Then Kitteh bit off his foot and chewed through my ropes while the troll ran ‘round screaming.” She sighed. “I had to kill him, I’m afraid.  Trolls have very good throwing arms and I didn’t want an axe to the head, yanno.”

“Tragic,” Cian said.

The Pyrewood inn was almost empty, except for the innkeeper and the cook.  The latter presided over a long marble slab piled high with hunks of meat, which he was zealously addressing with a machete big enough to decapitate a bear.  He grinned at the trio as they entered, and called to the innkeeper, “Guests!”

“Helloo!” The innkeeper, an attractive young woman with brown hair tied in a bun and wide, green eyes, curtsied before them.  “Welcome to our humble inn!  What can I do for you, friends?”

Cian caught flecks of gold in the innkeeper’s eyes as he watched her gaze shift from guest to guest.  Her irises were curved, like a moon or a scythe.  He winced at her shrill, effusive voice, but Ingomar and Eulalia didn’t seem put off at all.

“We’d like a coupla rooms if you please, lassie,” Ingomar said.

“Wonderful!  Of course!  This way!” The innkeeper directed them to the stairs.  She seemed incapable of speaking without exclamation.

The rooms were ordinary enough.  Generous beds, a few bookshelves, a pitcher of water and a bowl.  Some daisies in a vase.

“Dinner will be served in an hour!” The innkeeper said. “Please do join us!”

Cian frowned at the vase of flowers, and realized that all the petals were brown and the stems gray and limp.  Dead flies floated in the water pitcher, and a thin layer of dust coated the bedspread.  No one had actually slept in these rooms for months, possibly years.

Cian sat down at the table in the corner of the room. “Am I the only one who feels something off about this place?  I mean, look at it.”

“So it doesn’t get much business,” Ingomar said. “It’s a wee bit out ‘o the way, ya know.”

“I think it is cute,” Eulalia said.  She sniffed the dead daisies. “These need some sun.”

“They need to be mulched is what they need,” Cian said. “I don’t even think I’ve been dead as long as those flowers.”

“Look, we’re nae stayin’ long,” Ingomar said. “Just the night.  If ye don’t like it, sleep outside.”

“No,” Cian said.  He swallowed and then mumbled, “I’m not leaving you two.”

“Wot’s ‘at?”

He gritted his teeth. “Since neither of you seem to understand our present situation, I have no intention of leaving you alone.”

Eulalia kissed the top of his head. “You’re the sweetest zombie I know.”

He blushed, but replied gruffly, “I prefer to be called living impaired.”

Cheerfully ignoring the storm of dust that rose over the comforter, Ingomar climbed into bed, after shedding her armor into a pile on the floor.

“Dunno about you lot, but I’m spent,” she announced.  “Save me a bit ‘o dinner for the mornin’, eh?”

“I’ll steal you a femur,” Cian said darkly.

“Thanks, yer a peach.”

Eulalia sat down across from him, drumming her nails on the book open in front of her.  Because she was illiterate, it wasn’t long before trying to make sense of the pages lulled her to sleep.

Carefully, Cian extracted the book from beneath her chin.  Printed on the spine in gold embossed letters was the title, Being a Brief History of Pyrewood and Its Surrounding Lands.  Cian thought reading might help pass the time and calm him down, but when he turned back to the book’s pages he realized that someone had literally clawed out the text.

Deep gouges scored all of the pages, as though the writing had so offended a particular reader that he saw no other recourse but to savage the book.

More annoyed than disturbed, Cian put the book aside and jabbed Eulalia on the center of her head, digging his forefinger into her scalp.  She twitched. “Bring me all the lozenges … shear the fuzz off first—but bring them!”

Cian drew blood.  She opened her eyes.

“Cian, I know I might look it, but really I am not a pincushion,” she said, massaging her scalp.  He sucked his finger, tasted her blood.  It had a pleasant copper tang.

“What’s the matter then?  I was having a fun dream.  I was Queen of the Galaxy, you see.”

Cian wasn’t sure if a world ruled by Eulalia would be a utopia or a dystopia, but he knew it would have to occupy one extreme or the other.  He said, “I think we should leave.”

“But I want to stay for dinner,” Eulalia protested.

“Eulie,” Cian said. “I think we’re dinner.”

“Don’t be silly.  Who would eat you?”

“Dogs love chewing on old bones,” Cian muttered.

“Ach!  Would you two keep it down?  Ah’m tryin’ to sleep,” Ingomar shouted from the bed.

“It truly baffles me as to how either of you have survived this long,” Cian said.

“We’ve managed better than you, haven’t we? Ha ha!” Ingomar chortled.

“Your wit sparkles and blinds,” Cian replied.  “Can you not see the danger we’re in?  It’s dark and I haven’t heard a sound anywhere.  Not people in the street, not food cooking, nothing.”

“Oi, maybe they had a hard day and went to sleep.”

“Okay, explain this book then,” Cian tossed it at Ingomar, who caught it nimbly.

“Some critics are harsher than others,” she said.

Cian groaned. “Listen.  This place is not—”

A loud, somewhat frantic knocking on their door interrupted him. “Hello in there?!  Won’t you come down to dinner?!  Won’t you please!”

“… right,” Cian said.  The voice had only a passing resemblance to the innkeeper’s chipper trill—it was now guttural, scratchy, and desperate.  Any sense of cheer was forced and artificial.

“Maybe I see your point,” Ingomar said slowly.

“Dinner!  Dinner!  Dinner!” the voice yelped.  Claws broke through the door, and the innkeeper snarled as she tore through the wood. “Dinner!”

Cian smashed the window with his fist. “Run.”

The innkeeper, now transformed into a loping, wolvish beast, broke the door into splinters.  Ingomar leapt off the bed, grabbing her armor.  Cian waited by the shattered window for her and Eulalia, not jumping until the two of them had safely hit the grass below.

He barely escaped the desperate reach of the innkeeper, and in fact she managed to take a chunk out of his shoulderpads, which she ripped apart lustily as she bound after them.  Mournful, starved howls rose up from every house in the village, and the town square filled with the blue-furred lupine monsters.

“Worgen,” Cian spat.

“Elune bless you,” Eulalia said cheerfully.

“No—Worgen—that’s what they are.  These ones are werewolves … but most of them are just beasts.”

“Keep running!” Cian shouted as the town mobilized, and droves of Worgen chased them from the village.  They ran on four legs, in a fiercely fast gallop, howling as they pursued with their jaws unclenched and dripping spittle and their long tongues lapping the air in anticipation.

The innkeeper led the pack, still screeching about dinner.  The butcher was beside her, his bloody machete in one paw.

Ingomar clutched her armor to her chest, panting. “So much for a nap!”

“I told you there was something weird about them,” Cian said.

Eulalia gasped, “Their fur looks soft, though!  I want to pet it.”

“Just keep running, Eulie,” Cian said.

“Aye, but where are we running to?” Ingomar said.

Cian recalled the gloomy house just outside the village.  He veered off in that direction, with Ingomar, Eulalia, and their ravenous hosts close behind.  Surprisingly, the worgen began to taper off as Cian approached the house.

He reached the front door and paused for breath, feeling steeped in irony as he gulped air.  Contrary to popular belief, his body did require minimum amounts of oxygen to keep functioning.  Not much.  But some.  Although he was still in better shape than Ingomar or even Eulalia.  Ingomar gripped her knees, her face red and shining with sweat.  Eulalia leaned against the door, sighing deeply.

The worgen cowered.  They hissed and spat, but would not close the distance between themselves and their prey.  It took a moment, but then Cian understood—the house.  They were afraid of the house.

Its door swung open, revealing only shadows.

“Phew, thank goodness,” Eulalia said. “I could do with a sit.” She walked in, merrily.

Putting aside the slavering horde of hungry wolf creatures for the moment, Cian ran in after her.

“Light preserve us,” Ingomar muttered, before following.

The door shut behind them and the worgen, for the most part, left them to their fate.

Inside the house there was, at first, darkness.  Cian groped the wall in consternation, worried that he could not see the light which spilled from Eulalia’s eyes.

He stumbled into a brick mantelpiece, and then crouched beneath, feeling old logs.  Ingomar bent beside him.  He heard flint against tinder, and the fireplace was lit.

“If I ‘ad some spices I could cook us a bit ‘o fish,” she joked.

“Where’s Eulalia?” Cian said urgently. “Did you see her?”

“No lad,” Ingomar said. “But she canna have got far.  Let’s ‘ave a look ‘round.”

The fire provided some insight into their surroundings.  A table and two chairs were in front of the hearth, and next to that were two hooks, from which two tattered traveling capes, one blue and one green, hung.  Straw and leaves had accumulated on the floorboards, so that their steps crackled.  Cian did not like this.  The noise announced their presence, and he wasn’t sure he wanted the house to know they were there.  Not that it could be helped anymore.

In the corner a set of stairs led to the second floor.  Overturned chairs blocked the way, and Cian noticed several poorly used, open books lying around them.  While Ingomar put her armor back on, Cian retrieved one of the books, recognizing its shape and color.  It was another copy of Pyrewood’s history, except this one seemed unmolested except for the wear of age and moisture.  Cian wondered how long it had been there, gathering motes of mold, its pages curling and yellowing.

It was turned to a specific page.  Cian read:
 

THIS BEING A HISTORY ON SOME SURROUNDINGS AND INCIDENTS RELATING TO OUR TOWN—
SPECIFICALLY A NOTE ON THE TRAGEDY OF ROLAND—
ANGELICA, LOVED BY ROLAND AND VINCERO BOTH, WAS WON BY HER FIRST SUITOR.
HOWEVER, SHE WAS NOT PERMITTED TO LIVE PEACEFULLY WITH HER LOVE,
FOR VINCERO WAS MUCH DISMAYED BY THEIR UNION.

The remainder of the last paragraph was smeared beyond recognition, by what Cian assumed to be moisture collected after years of lying on a damp floor.  He dropped the book into his packs.  Eulalia wasn’t anywhere on the first floor, that much was certain.  He made for the stairs.

Ingomar called for her. “Eulie! Euls!  E!”

“Shh,” Cian hissed. “Stop your yelling.”

“Why?” Ingomar said. “Are ye scared?”

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” Cian replied, in a whisper. “This house has a presence.”

“Aye, it radiates unholiness,” Ingomar agreed. “But then, so do you.”

“Har,” Cian said.  He eyed the steps.  Was she up there, or had the house somehow consumed her?  The possibility unsettled him deeply, even angered him, but whether it was out of concern for her, or a sense of possession regarding her demise, he couldn’t say.  Part of him, he assured himself, was genuinely concerned with her well-being.  But another part was thinking, how dare this manifestation seek to determine her life, the control of which should so obviously be his exclusive privilege?  This was arrogance, perhaps, and a little bit of sadism, something dark and sinister, formed from the black roots in his heart.  Desire, control, desire for control—it was difficult for him to separate the two.

But what it came down to, what you got when you boiled away the trappings of intention, was that he had to find her.

He walked up the steps.  The second floor had only two rooms—one with a long dinner table that took up most of the space, and connecting to it, a bedroom.  Ingomar hovered behind him, peering over his shoulder.

“Don’t see’er,” Ingomar whispered.

Cian stepped forward.  The candles on the table lit, and Cian though he could discern a human form sitting at the head chair.  He squinted, and the outlines faded slowly, like a dirty glass doused with water.

From the bedroom, there was a rustle, as of skirts.  Beside him, Ingomar shuddered.

“If not for Eulie I’d be makin’ a run for it,” she said.

The windows were so dark with grime and dead leaves that it was impossible to see out of them.  The candles provided all the light, but as Cian and Ingomar moved past them, they went out, leaving behind swirling trails of smoke.

Inside the bedroom, there was an open wardrobe, a bureau, and a large bed.  Eulalia sat on the edge of the bed, fingering a small carving knife.  Her armor was gone, replaced by a white dress with a skirt that fanned around her lower body, like a blanket.  The dress’s sleeves dangled off her wrists, and her hands were gloved.  The dress’s silver embroidery glowed with an otherworldly aura, which bathed Eulalia’s lavender skin in a sickly sheen.

She looked up at Cian and Ingomar.  To Cian, she said, “Roland?  Is that you?”

Cian blinked.  He held out his arm, checked his body.  The human disguise remained.  He had almost forgotten about it.

“Eulie, it’s me, Cian,” he said. “Who’s Roland?”

This was disingenuous.  Cian knew, he recalled the book immediately.

Eulalia shook her head.  She spoke to the knife. “I carved the trees with this.  I carved the trees, and I ruined everything.  But I had to.  You understand, Roland?  You understand that I had to.”

Eulalia’s voice was tense and articulate.  She was obviously possessed.

“No … I don’t understand,” Cian said truthfully.

Eulalia rose from the bed, still carrying the knife.  She glided over to Cian, slipped her arms around his waist.

“I had to,” she repeated.  “Everyone shunned you, I know.  We were all shunned, you see.  All three of us.  But I had to do it.”

Eulalia leaned in close, her lips brushing against his throat.  Cian shivered uncomfortably.

“My dear, we weren’t meant to be.”

Eulalia gripped his wrist, pinned him back against the wall.

Ingomar stood aside, adrift in confusion.

Eulalia drove the knife into wall and took Cian’s other wrist.  He struggled against her, but her already considerable strength had multiplied tenfold.

She kissed him then, and it wasn’t unlike when he had kissed her—Cian tasted anger, resentment, need—and the bite of her fangs.  She bit into his lower lip, smiling against his mouth as he winced in pain.

But these emotions didn’t belong to Eulalia.  They belonged to the spirit which possessed her.  They were ancient feelings, revived by a host to inhabit, but they were from the ground, they were buried in dirt and existing in pieces.  Cian’s feelings were present and persistent, and they belonged to him.

Eulalia’s nails cut his wrists, and Cian was surprised by the trickle of red blood.  His costume was masterful in its deception.  He wondered if he really did look like the Roland mentioned in the book.

“He loved me,” she said. “But you forced me.”

Eulalia pulled out the knife, and Cian, being a veteran of stabs to the chest, recognized Eulalia’s expression and wrenched free in the half second that he wasn’t fully pinned.  Eulalia lunged and missed.

“Get hold of yourself, lass!” Ingomar cried finally.  Her grasp of the situation was tenuous, but one thing was clear—an evil had taken residence in her friend, and it was her duty to drive it out.

Eulalia stared at Ingomar without feeling.  Here was a stranger, said the twist of her mouth.  “Stay out of this.” She advanced on Cian.

“You pretend ignorance … but you knew—it was I, I who carved the trees,” Eulalia said. “Not Vincero.  Me.”

There was a noise from the dinner table, of plates breaking.  Eulalia looked around wildly, her carving knife raised to strike.

Cian darted towards the table, unsure if it meant safety, but at least it meant a distraction.  He stumbled through a ghost that could have been his twin.  Or at least, twin to the costume he wore.

Eulalia looked from Cian to the ghost in confusion, and Ingomar took the opportunity to stun the night elf with her mace.

“Sorry, lass,” Ingomar said, as Eulalia wilted, her body swaying uselessly.  Ingomar plucked the knife from her fingers and stepped back. “I canna cleanse the spirit unless it is willin’ ta go.”

The ghost spoke. “No, Angelica, I didn’t know that you had carved the trees.  How could you betray me …?”

“Wait a mo’,” Ingomar said. “What’s all this carvin’ tree madness.  This better not be a lumber dispute.”

Roland’s ghost turned to Ingomar. “You have no stake in this.”

“The hell I don’!” Ingomar said. “That’s my friend your lassie is controlling, ghost!  I’d damn well better be hearing some explanations right quick, or you’re about to find your arse exorcised into next week.”

Now that the threat was visible and named, Ingomar’s fear had evaporated.  Nameless forces were one thing, but ghosts?  Ghosts were easy.

Roland scowled at her, but seemed to take her threat as genuine.  “Many years ago, before the plague touched these lands, I loved Angelica.  And she loved me.”

Eulalia’s fists clenched.

“But Vincero loved her also, and though Angelica and I were to be married, he would not keep his peace!” Roland slammed his ethereal palm on the table.  “He devised a plot.  He carved his and Angelica’s names into every tree surrounding the village, along the most frequented walking paths.”

“No!” Eulalia shouted, the stun having worn off. “It was I who did that, Roland!  Loved me?  Loved me?” Eulalia’s face contorted with fury.  She hissed in a low voice, “You forced me to your bed and from that a child began to grow inside of me.  I had no choice.”

Roland stared her down. “I forced you into nothing.  You said you loved me.”

“Yes—because if I didn’t, you would have killed me!”

Roland swept the candles off the table.  They crashed to the floor in a waxy, melting heap, and the house sighed, as though it had seen this all before.

“You deserved it,” he spat. “Traitorous wench.”

Eulalia lunged again, but passed through the ghost and landed on her stomach across the table. “Damn you!”

Ingomar and Cian watched this scene helplessly.  There seemed no way to free Eulalia of the angry spirit.

“What do you hope to do, Angelica?” Roland sneered. “Damn me?  In case you’ve forgotten, we’re already damned.”

“And you should be,” Eulalia said. “But why I?  Why I?” and she began to sob.

He smiled nastily. “Perhaps the gods felt an eternity with me to be a fitting punishment for your betrayal.  Trapped in your wedding dress too, I see.  Irony and fate are on my side, my love.”

Enraged, Eulalia threw a plate at his head.  He laughed as it hit the wall behind him and shattered.

The dress, Cian thought.  It was the garment which had the power.  He tackled her from behind, startling her so much that before she could react she was pinned to the floor.  “Ingomar!” he shouted. “A little help!”

“What is this!  Take your hands off of me!” Eulalia said, struggling.  He strained against her ferocity, but he and Ingomar were able to subdue her.

“Got to get that dress off her,” he grunted.

“Now’s not the time for ‘at,” Ingomar said.

“It’s what controlling her!” he snapped.

“Oh, righ’,” Ingomar said. “Well then, let me unzip you, lass.”

Eulalia thrashed mightily, but in vain—she could not handle both Cian pinioning her arms and Ingomar’s vice grip on her shoulders.  Ingomar peeled the dress down and kicked it aside.  It shimmered on the floor.

Disturbingly, the light in Eulalia’s eyes blacked out for a moment.  Cian squeezed her hand, and she exhaled, then said, “Thanks!”

“Thank Uther,” Ingomar said.

Eulalia cracked her neck. “That lady was soo angry.”

A woman’s spirit rose from the dress. “Curse you.  Curse all of you.”

From downstairs, they heard a door open.  Everyone paused as heavy footsteps moved around the lower story, and then began to ascend the staircase.

“So you’re still here,” said the newcomer, a thin, elderly man with gray hair and sallow skin.  He was holding the traveling cloaks. “I thought it might be so.”

“Vincero,” the female spirit breathed.

“You’re alive,” Roland said. “And untouched by the plague, it appears.”

“Touched by something else,” Vincero said. “You know, it’s dawn outside.”

“What’s that matter to us?” Roland said. “We have been trapped together in this darkness for almost thirty years.”

“Would that I had died in our confrontation along with you, Roland,” Vincero said. “Would that our destructions had been mutual, so you could be rotting in hell and I could at last find peace with Angelica.”

“You never visit,” Angelica said mournfully. “I hide in my dress every day and night.”

“I cannot, usually,” he said. “The villagers believe this house curses anyone who enters it, because of what happened here.  If I called here without good reason, they would tear me apart upon my return.”

“What exactly did happen here?” Cian said.

“Aye,” Ingomar said. “After all this trouble, I want to know.”

Eulalia, who had been rummaging through the wardrobe for her armor, called to them, “Yay, storytime!”

“In this house, Roland took the dignity of someone I loved,” Vincero said steadily. “In this house, that person killed herself after being forced to return to him, and in my rage, I took revenge.”

“If you’re the survivor, why is the history so off?” Cian took out his copy of the Pyrewood history and opened it to the proper page.

“It’s true that history is written by the victors,” Vincero said. “But Roland was the son of the magistrate.  I was exiled for my act, until the plague came.  That book was written in the interim.”

“Why were you spared an undeath?” Roland said.

“Because I, like the other villagers, am now Worgen.” He grinned ferally at Ingomar, Cian, and Eulalia.  “We made a pact with Arugal and his … children.  Now we, too, are part of the family.”

“Will you suffer for this?” Angelica said.

“No, my love,” Vincero said. “I volunteered to find out what happened to our dinner.  Knowing the history of this house, the magistrate agreed to let me go … likely hoping I would not return, either.  But it seems the mystery was not so mysterious after all.”

Cian stiffened.

“And really, I came here for you … to free you,” Vincero went on.  He held up the traveling cloaks. “I have learned much since we last knew each other.  These possessions are the artifacts which help bind your souls to this world.  However, you are too close to them to be able to destroy them yourselves—but if someone who still lives does so, you will be free to walk down your intended path.”

He smiled at Angelica as he tore the green cloak. “Find peace, my love.”

He picked up the dress and pulled it apart as well.  Angelica’s spirit began to fade as the embroidery unraveled.  “Thank you for coming to see me ...” she said, as her image melted into the air.

“You think yourself clever, then?” Roland said. “You think you can simply return here and control everything, just as you tried to do when we were all alive?  You are mistaken.  You are thirty years too late.  Perhaps Angelica has moved on, but I’ve no intention of leaving.  And now that she’s left, I will make certain this house is feared.”

The table and chairs shook, the windows rattled, the house groaned.

“None of you are leaving this house ali—”

Vincero tore the blue cloak, and Roland disappeared midsentence. “Save it for hell, Roland.”

“Um …” Cian said. “Thank you?”

“Oh, don’t thank me,” Vincero said. “As I told you, I was sent to find what became of you.  Now that I know, I must tell the others.” He gave them another feral grin. “But since you allowed me to resolve this ancient conflict without fear of punishment, I’ll let you have a head start.”

At that moment, Cian’s human guise expired.  He grinned back at Vincero, a toothy, too wide smile that distorted his bloodless face.  As he slipped behind Vincero and drove his daggers into the man’s back, he said, “Oh, but, I’m not exactly alive.”

Vincero fell to the floor, his blood pooling around him.

Ingomar rubbed her temples. “Let’s jes go.”

“I’m not really sure what happened there, but it is pretty smelly in this place,” Eulalia said.  She stepped over Vincero’s body. “Did you have to kill him, Cian?  He seemed like a nice old man.”

“You have an odd definition of nice,” Cian said. “Anyway, now he can be with his true love or whatever.”

Cian left the history book on Vincero’s back.

True love, pfah.  More like true obsession, true rage, true wreckage.  That was true love, he thought, nothing but a trail of wreckage.  And yet ...

He looked at Eulalia, smiling and chatting with Ingomar as if they had just picnicked on a bed of roses.  Her eyes were so full, so bright.

He would give anything.