White Roses, Black Doves

A hunger through time-28

The front door swung open with a definitive thud, and Lucy stepped into the foyer, her eyes narrowed and ready for battle. She had expected to return to a tomb—to a house filled with the smell of rot and a man who looked like a decaying corpse.

Instead, she stopped dead. The air was crisp, the scent of dust replaced by the sharp, clean smell of lemon oil and beeswax. The floors, which she had demanded he fix weeks ago, were polished to a mirror sheen. The molding had been mended, and the grand staircase, once a skeletal hazard, looked restored to its former glory.

She found Perceval in the library. He was standing by the window, a cup of coffee in his hand, a genuine, terrifyingly bright smile on his face. He looked vibrant—his eyes were clear, his posture confident, and he hummed a low, melodic tune that seemed to vibrate with a secret joy.

"What is this?" Lucy snapped, her voice cutting through the stillness like a jagged blade. "I leave for a week to let you wallow in your misery, and I return to find you playing house?"

Percy turned, his smile not faltering. "The house needed to be cared for, Lucy. It’s been waiting a long time to be beautiful again."

Her face flushed with a mixture of confusion and boiling rage. "You’re acting like a lunatic. You were a zombie, and now you’re... you’re thriving? On what? On nothing?" She marched toward him, her eyes darting to his chest. Her gaze snagged on the faint outline of the ruby necklace hidden beneath his shirt. She knew, through the dark, arcane whispers she had picked up in her own studies, that the stone was the anchor—the tether that kept him moored to the spectral echo of her sister.

Before he could react, she lunged. Her fingers hooked into his collar, and with a vicious, strength-fueled jerk, she tore the shirt open. The ruby necklace flew upward, the chain snapping with a sharp ping. She grabbed the stone, her hand closing around it like a vice.

The effect on Percy was instantaneous. He collapsed to his knees, a guttural, wounded sound tearing from his throat. The connection—that beautiful, electric lifeline—snapped. The room grew deathly cold, the vibrant shimmer of Alice’spresence vanishing into a hollow, oppressive silence. He felt as if his soul had been ripped from his chest.

"You think this is a game?" Lucy hissed, holding the ruby high. Her face contorted into the mask of the monster he had begun to recognize. "I know what this is. I know you’ve been whoring yourself out to a ghost, to her. If you don't snap out of this pathetic daze, if you don't become the man I brought you here to be, I will crush this stone into dust. You will never see her again. You will be mine, or you will have absolutely nothing."

Percy didn't rise. He remained on the floor, his head bowed, his hair shielding his eyes. The silence in the room was absolute, save for the frantic, erratic beat of his own heart.

Then, he began to laugh.

It was a low, dangerous sound—a sound that hadn't echoed in these halls for over a hundred years. It was the laugh of the man who had once terrified London, the man who had gambled with death itself.

He stood up. He didn't look like Perceval anymore. His shoulders were squared, his chin tilted at a lethal angle, and his eyes—cold, hard, and devoid of mercy—fixed on Lucy with the intensity of a predator who had finally been backed into a corner.

He crossed the distance between them in two fluid strides. He caught her wrist, his grip so powerful that her fingers reflexively opened. The ruby clattered to the floor, but he didn't pick it up. He kept his eyes locked on hers, his hand wrapping around her throat, pulling her face inches from his.

"You stupid, arrogant creature," he whispered, his voice a lethal, calm tremor. "You think you can take her from me? You think you can stand between a man and his eternity?"

He shoved her back against the bookshelves, the impact rattling the spines of the antique collection. He leaned in, his face inches from her ear, his voice dropping to a jagged, venomous growl.

"If you ever touch that stone again—if you ever attempt to sever what belongs to me—I will not kill you. Death is too simple for you. I will dismantle your entire world. I will turn every person you love against you, I will take every dream you’ve ever dared to hold, and I will burn it all to ash while you watch. I was a monster long before I met you, Lucy, and you have just reminded me exactly how much I enjoy the hunt."

He released her, and she stumbled back, gasping for air, her eyes wide with the sudden, freezing realization that she hadn't resurrected Cornelius Thorne—she had awakened him. And he was very, very hungry.