TW: violence and disturbing themes

The cellar was damp and cold. Well, perhaps cold was the wrong descriptor. A bit cool would be more accurate, but in that moment, under the watchful, frosty eyes of the Veil family, Iris found it to be the coldest place that she had ever known. Fear and anxiety gripped her, constricting her veins. Tiny goose pimples had broken out across her arms, and she shivered. The thin skin at her wrists chafed where her hands had been bound, and if she had not been seated at this little round table, perhaps her knees would have buckled.

Erold sat to her right, and her father was to her left. Both were bound as she was and seated at this same little round table, and her father's face was very pale. Iris couldn't see his hands. Adrian Colt sat opposite of Iris, and not only were his hands tied, but he'd been blindfolded and drugged as well. Precautions against his magic, most likely. His head lolled to the side, and he made not a single peep. Talan was still nowhere to be seen.

A single candle sat on the table to light the cellar, but the room was much brighter than it had any right to be.

Behind her, Iris could hear the muffled sighs and quiet clinks of witchcraft tools as Eliana prepared Igor Veil's body for the necromancy spell that would wake him once more. She knew it was Eliana, because when she and Erold had first been led down here, the other woman had crept up to her and whispered dark threats in her ear while trailing sharpened fingernails up her throat. It had been an excessively uncomfortable experience. Apparently, the body of Eliana's late husband had been cremated after her arrest, and that was a fate which no amount of necromancy could reverse. And Eliana was greatly looking forward to making Iris pay for her loss.

Iris shuddered. She had no doubt of Eliana's intentions, and all routes of escape eluded her.

The soft click of boots against the stone floor alerted Iris to a newcomer, and she turned her head. Tilda had entered the cellar, still wearing her midnight black garb. Her red curls pooled over her shoulders like wildfire, and her smile was bitter and cruel. There was pain in that smile. And satisfaction.

"Sebastian Carroll," she said upon seeing the frail old man who had caught Erold. He had parked himself in a dim corner, refusing to look at Iris or anyone else seated at the table. "I must thank you. You have been such a loyal friend to my family. Now, the revolver, if you please." She held out her hand, and slowly, reluctantly, Sebastian produced Erold's revolver and handed it over.

"Surely, you don't still need Colt now, do you?" he wheezed while Tilda hefted the revolver and checked the chamber. She removed five of its six rounds and then snapped it back into place, spinning it.

"Mr. Colt has thrown his lot in with these people," she said. "And now, he can face the consequences."

Sebastian looked away unhappily. Iris thought that she heard him whisper, "But he's one of our own."

Tilda scoffed and prowled about the table's perimeter, stopping at Iris's upraised brows.

"Ah," she said, in response to Iris's unasked question. "Mr. Carroll here owed me a life-debt after I saved his grandson from drowning a few years ago, and he is nothing if not loyal and true to his word. It's a quality that I value greatly among my friends and family." She set the revolver in the middle of the table. "And nothing is more important to me than my family," she added, glaring daggers at Erold.

Iris did not like where this was going, nor did she quite understand what Tilda planned to do with all of them. She seemed to be planning her vengeance by the seat of her pants. First, the woman simply wanted to take Iris's life in retribution - fair enough, that was understandable. Then, when this appeared infeasible, she wanted to force Erold to watch her melt their father in witch's acid - also as a form of retribution. Again, this was understandable, if deeply upsetting. The addition of Eliana's necromancy and Adrian Colt as another captive appeared to be the icing on the cake for bringing Igor back. But now, Tilda had Erold's entire family, plus his revolver, plus Adrian Colt. How was she going to change her plans now?

A bit of motion caught the corner of Iris's eye. She snapped out of her thoughts and looked down to see Tilda undoing Erold's bonds. Tilda stood up and grasped Erold's shoulder.

"Spin your gun," she told him with that bitter smile. "You have one bullet. I'll give you and your family the same chance that you gave my brother."

Iris chanced another quick look behind them. Eliana was still hard at work on her spell, now focusing on a particularly thick pair of needles connected by a lengthy bit of twine. There was a bucket of lightly smoking liquid next to Erold's seat. Witch's acid, most likely. Erold saw it too.

She's lying, Iris thought. They weren't about to be given any sort of chance. Tilda simply wanted to torture them.

She looked up again just in time to see Erold reach out with a shaking hand and spin the revolver. When it stilled once more, its muzzle pointed towards their father. Slowly, and with a glance at the bucket of acid, Erold lifted his revolver by the grip. Iris squeezed her eyes closed. She heard a click, and then a ragged sigh. Iris opened her eyes once more and glanced about the table. Nothing had happened.

"I need some air," muttered Sebastian from his corner. Tilda gave him an assenting nod and leaned over Erold once more when Sebastian left the room.

"Again," she hissed in Erold's ear, and again, Erold reached out and spun his revolver. It felt like an age passed before the gun stopped spinning, and when it did, its muzzle pointed at Iris.

Time seemed to slow. Iris met her brother's eyes, and she saw that he was shaking uncontrollably. His hand hovered over the revolver, but he could not pick it up.

A commotion at the stairs broke the moment, and Tilda let out a seething curse.

"What now?" she snapped, and Iris finally wrenched her gaze from her brother to look towards the stairs.

It took a moment for Iris to register what she was looking at, and then she blinked. Two men were stumbling into the room, and the taller of the two was being dragged in by a small, frail looking one. She caught sight of one and a half pairs of glowing eyes before they stepped into the light, and Iris realized that Sebastian had brought Talan down into the cellar.

Oh dear.

Iris fought back a gasp. Yes, yes it was definitely Talan. The shoulder of his shirt was torn, and his wrists were bound, and his face was bloodied by a great big gash that ran across his forehead, and his spectacles were missing, and the gauze covering his missing eye had gone red, but it was definitely Talan.

"What the fuck are you doing?" yelled Tilda. "You didn't bind his eye!"

For a moment, Iris was confused. Bind his eye? Why should Tilda be so concerned about replacing the gauze over Talan's missing eye?

And then Iris realized that it was to keep his magic at bay.

There was a bright flash, and the light was sucked out of the room, leaving behind a pitch dark void. There was yelling, lots of it, and several guttering sparks, as if Tilda's uncles were trying to fight back against whatever darkness Talan had shrouded them in, but the light didn't take.

Iris felt someone tugging at her bonds and a touch of cold metal as a knife sawed through the ropes at her wrists.

"Are you ok?" whispered Talan.

"Yes, I -"

"Damn you!" yelled Tilda through the darkness. But it wasn't dark anymore. In fact, it was suddenly quite bright. Iris squinted, and Talan dragged her to the ground. She blinked, just in time to see Tilda wielding Erold's revolver at close range.

Talan smacked her arm to the side. The gun discharged. The noise pounded the inside of Iris's head like she'd just been clubbed, and her ears rung. Someone gasped with a pained whine, and Iris caught sight of Sebastian as he doubled over and fell to his knees.

Both Talan and Tilda stared at the fallen man. Tilda recovered first, cursing and retreating to where Eliana had been preparing the body of Igor Veil.

That was when Iris noticed that Erold was no longer in his chair. Instead, he sat on the floor at Eliana's feet, clutching his head and blinking slowly as if in a daze. Someone must have clubbed him over the head and dragged him there in the dark.

Before Iris could make another move - before she could clamber to her feet or call to her brother - Tilda snatched one of the thick needles that was still in Eliana's grasp and stabbed it into Erold's neck. He stiffened, and his eyes glazed over. Talan swore.

"Finish the spell," barked Tilda, and Eliana nodded vigorously.

"Erold!" cried Iris, now scrambling to get her legs under her. She couldn't see what Eliana was doing, but the other woman had turned towards Igor Veil's body, and the thread from the needle in Erold's neck ran taut between the two.

Talan grasped her shoulder. He swayed, but recovered quickly. "Iris, you need to get out of here. Help my dad. Please," he said.

Oh, like hell she would. Even as Talan strode towards Tilda and Eliana to confront them, Iris kept her gaze locked on her brother.

She knew nothing of necromancy apart from what Talan had already told her. A living death. Worse than death. But the spell was yet unfinished, and Erold was only tethered by that single needle. How quickly could Iris get to him? Could she reach him without hindrance?

Mere yards away, Tilda sneered at Talan. She snapped open the now-empty revolver chamber and fed it the bullets she'd stolen away earlier. Where was his gun? Had he been fool enough not to bring it? Or worse yet, had it been taken from him? Iris did not linger on that thought. She couldn't.

Instead, while Tilda's attention was pinned on Talan, and Eliana's was on the corpse of Igor Veil, she dashed forward and grasped the needle in her brother's neck and yanked it free. It burned, and there were screams from her own throat and others'.

Iris found herself lying on the ground next to Erold. He was all loose limbs and shallow breath. Then, she saw Talan crumpled on the floor a short distance away, groaning. And Tilda was on her knees with a horrified howl ripping from her throat.

"No!" cried Tilda, and Iris was confused. Why would - ?

Oh.

Oh dear.

For when Iris pushed herself up on her elbows, she finally got a better look at the room. A tall, lumbering shape was shuffling across the cellar. He didn't seem to know how to hold his limbs, and they flailed and jerked to an odd rhythm. No sound came from his throat besides hoarse gasps, and although he had been well preserved over the past few days, his skin had an odd hue and puffiness to it.

Igor Veil had woken up.

Iris grasped Erold's arm and looked at him. His eyes still had that glassy sort of quality, but he blinked and tried to focus on her. His lips moved, but he couldn't speak.

The spell had taken root, even with her interrupting it. Iris felt her throat tighten.

"Erold, I'm so sorry," she choked out, and then a new commotion caught her attention. Someone was shouting at Igor's reanimated corpse, telling him to stop.

When Iris looked up again, she caught sight of him latching onto Arlen Veil, the grinning man. Except, Arlen was no longer grinning. He had a wild, panicked look in his glowing eyes, and he struggled to extract himself from the fleshy fingers that dug into his skin. He let out a strangled sob, and Iris looked away again. She scrambled to her knees and tried hooking her arms under Erold's shoulders, but his body was deadweight, and she could not move him.

In front of her, Eliana crawled out of the shadows to crouch by Tilda.

"We must leave," she hissed. "There is nothing of your brother in there, and that thing is going to go on a rampage."

Slowly, Tilda turned to the other woman, white fury etched in her face. Her grip tightened around Erold's revolver, and Iris redoubled her efforts to move her brother. She for one, would very much like to take Eliana's advice.

"That thing is my brother. My family," growled Tilda. "You promised that you could do the spell."

"I was interrup - " Eliana never had the chance to finish her sentence. Tilda whipped the revolver up and shot her. The sound was deafening, and yet it took Iris a moment to register it. Her arms had gone very cold and then numb as the now-dead woman fell away and Tilda locked eyes with her. 

Chapter word count: 2239

Cumulative word count: 28071