He has fired seven nurses this week, and if your child makes a single sound, you will both be thrown into the snow, Chief Guard Mikhail warned me at the heavy iron gates of the Volkov estate.
The flashing lights and the surge of State Troopers onto the Volkov estate sent a wave of icy panic through Julian Drake. I saw him at the high window, his face a mask of shock and rage.
He disappeared from view, and a terrifying thought struck me: he wouldn’t just surrender.
I snatched Lily from Damian’s bedside, the blue spectral flames still swirling, but now somehow less menacing, contained.
“We need to find the officers,” I signed to Lily, my voice a desperate whisper.
As I rushed down the grand staircase, heading for the main entrance where I could hear the commotion, a blur of velvet darted from a shadowed corridor.
“Not so fast, Nurse Halloway.”
Julian Drake appeared, his eyes glinting with a feral desperation. In his hand, a heavy, ornate handgun, its barrel aimed directly at my chest.
He grabbed my arm with surprising strength, his grip like iron. “You think you’ve won, little nurse? You’ve merely accelerated my timetable.”
He yanked me and Lily, who was clinging to my leg, away from the approaching sirens and towards the dimly lit east wing. We stumbled down a long corridor, lined with ancient tapestries.
“Where are we going?” I gasped, struggling against him.
“To finish what I started,” he snarled, his voice hoarse with fury.
He kicked open a heavy oak door, revealing the manor’s sprawling East Library. Shelves crammed with dusty tomes stretched to the vaulted ceiling. The air was thick with the scent of old paper and dust.
He shoved us inside, then slammed the reinforced doors shut with a resounding thud. The heavy bolts scraped into place, locking us in.
“This is foolish, Drake,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, though my heart was hammering against my ribs. “The police are here. You’re caught.”
He ignored me, his gaze sweeping over the library floor. He began to drag a heavy, ornate rug aside, revealing the polished dark wood beneath.
Then, with a small, silver-tipped knife, he began to carve. Not words, but intricate, angular lines into the polished wood, forming a large, complex ritual circle.
Black candles, previously hidden among the bookshelves, suddenly appeared in his hands. He set them precisely at points around the circle.
“This changes nothing,” Drake spat, his eyes gleaming with a manic fervor. “A minor delay. I merely have to accelerate the final phase.”
He looked at me, a chilling smirk on his face. “I’ll drain Volkov’s remaining life force through a proxy ritual right here, and then, before the police breach this room, you, dear nurse, will sign a full confession. Admitting to everything.”
He gestured to a blank parchment he pulled from his inner coat pocket. “Or your silent daughter will be my next sacrifice.”
Lily, sensing the shift in his demeanor, began to whimper, clutching my hand tighter. Trapped. He intended to finish it all, with us as unwilling witnesses, or worse.
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