The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Paranormal Romance

Fifty-Two

Veronica dropped the coffin lid and ran out of the tomb. Daylight streaming through the trees dazzled her. She crashed through woods toward the house, coming out under the tower looming darkly against the silver sky.

In a fit to anger, she stopped. "I hate you!" she muttered at the tower.

She hated the tower with its burst open window, hated the image of the black wolf, its eyes, two pinpricks of red light in sockets of endless shadow, staring at her from a realm of violence and evil, hated it because it had taken Rafe. It was an unwanted intruder into his soul.

He'd told her he'd buried Sovay in that tomb, and it was empty.

Veronica shrank from the tower back into the woods as if, once out of its shadow, she could escape its horrifying influence. An overgrown path ran along the edge of the trees. She didn't care where she went, as long as it was far away. Maybe a woodland glade would open along the path, where she could fall into the grass and look at the sky and forget about Rafe and Belden House. She hurried along until she saw the old bell tower and the ruined chapel on the other side of the trees.

There was desolate air about the place, with the cypress trees and the moon and the pale crumbling stones, the tower with its ominous black bell. The gloomy atmosphere seemed a small thing after the horrors of the night before. Everything at Belden House seemed gloomy now. But, there was supposed to be a garden inside, filled with flowers from France. She could already smell the lavender.

Stepping in, she found the chapel was no more than a shell. The walls of chiseled, sun-bleached stone were draped with ivy and wisteria. A flurry of white azaleas, peonies, blue brunnera, and lavender wafted around a circular fishpond that shone still as a mirror and full of clouds. And lying beside the pool, in the pose of a marble effigy, was Sovay.

Her yellow gown was ornate, its design medieval. Her bosom was almost completely exposed in the style of a time and place long past, when kings and queens battled the peasants and sent armies against the infidels. The crown of birch twigs, black against the glowing white fire of her face, seemed utterly pagan. The long blonde hair glistened with the sheen of gold, the long-fingered hands, crossed over her heart, enfolded Jacqueline's yellow-gowned, doll. Yet it was Sovay's face that fascinated Veronica. Finally able to see it up close, she found something repulsive in it. Beautiful, yes, perfectly so, but its aspect suggested carnality, the curve of her mouth, insatiable appetite.

It seemed impossible that this lascivious creature could be the elegant and sophisticated Lady Sovay, yet the face and figure were identical to those in the portrait. As Rafe had explained in his translation of the Bestiary, Sovay must have allowed the Magical Personality of Lupine to overshadow her completely.

Veronica had no doubt that the figure before her was dead, yet she was not dead. Not actually alive, yet she was animated. Even in sleep, she seemed vividly awake.

Sovay was here, would always be here, prowling through the night until someone stopped her.

Veronica glanced about breathlessly. Nothing stirred. She looked again at Sovay lying asleep, yet not breathing. From what she'd read, Veronica knew her to be, in this state, helpless and vulnerable to destruction.

Thinking of the pistol with its silver bullets, Veronica's palms broke out in sweat. If she had it, what would she do? She didn't have the heart to use it. Yet, the Bestiary had taught her that the thing lying here was no longer human, but a werewolf. A vampyre.

It was right to shoot such a creature.

But, Veronica didn't have the gun. Perhaps there was another way to weaken the monster's power.