Celine was wide-eyed as she peered at the man then scanned the room. She sniffled and choked additional tears out as her eyes darted between her intended victim and the others. “Celeste?” she asked again.
“She cannot help you, Celine, she is in a trance. Now, concentrate, Celine. Finish your task and you shall see her again.”
Celine looked toward Damien and Michael. Michael shook his head slightly showing that he did not agree with what was happening. She glanced back at the man in front of her then back to her friends. Damien mouthed the word “book” to her and darted his eyes toward it. She followed his glance, noting the book. She looked back at him, giving him a slight nod.
“NO!” she shouted, pulling her hand from the Duke’s hand and letting the knife clatter to the floor. She took a few steps back away from him, moving toward the book. “No,” she shouted again, “I will not do it, I will not join you.”
“Celine,” Duke Northcott warned in a loud voice.
“No, Marcus, no. You are evil and I will not join you,” she said, backing up further.
“Celine,” he warned again, “do not do something you will regret.”
She shook her head, “The only thing that I would regret is joining you.” Then she looked toward Michael and Damien and shouted one word to them. “RUN!”
Immediately after issuing her warning, she spun around, grabbing the book from its place on the altar near Celeste and fleeing through one of the nearby tunnels. She hoped her co-conspirators followed her lead and disappeared down the tunnel behind them. While these tunnels were a maze, she was sure she could navigate to them and give them the book.
“CELINE! NO!” Duke Northcott howled behind her. “FIND HER!” he demanded of his loyal subjects. Celine heard footfalls running, they seemed to be coming from every direction. She weaved through the maze of tunnels, having explored enough of the cave while visiting her sister on previous occasions to move through them with ease. She tried to put as much distance between her and the cavern as possible while also making several turns so there was not a straight path to her.
After several minutes of running through the tunnels, she stopped, clutching the book to her chest and breathing in a belabored manner. She closed her eyes, listening, trying to determine the best path to take going forward. After a few moments, she opened her eyes, peering into the blackness. She thought she detected a noise to her right, so she moved left. She went around a corner into a small circular opening. Standing in front of her was the man Duke Northcott had asked her to kill. In his hand, the knife she had dropped earlier.
He smiled at her. “I’ll be taking that, miss,” he said, motioning to the book with the knife, a grin crossing his grizzled face.
“No, I cannot give it to you, I’m sorry,” she said, clutching it to her chest tighter and turning to leave.
“I wasn’t asking, miss,” he said, grabbing her arm and turning her around.
He grasped the book, trying to pull it from her. “I said no!” she shouted. He let go of the book, nearly causing her to fall backwards.
“And I said I wasn’t asking,” he said, plunging the knife into her abdomen. Intense pain surged through her body as the knife pierced into her belly. She dropped the book, grasping at the knife now stuck in her stomach. The man chuckled as he picked up the book. “You screamed less than your daddy. I’ll be seeing ya, miss. And I thank ya, this will get me back into the Duke’s good graces.” He disappeared down a tunnel.
Celine sunk to her knees, pain narrowing her vision to pinpoints. She grasped the knife and pulled it from her body, shrieking as it slid out of her wound. Clutching her belly, she struggled to stand. She looked at her hands, covered in blood. She leaned against the cave wall, feeling its dampness as she labored in pain to move. She heard a noise behind her. “Oh mon Dieu, I must go, he is coming,” she said aloud, motivating herself to move.
She struggled to move forward, staggering a few steps forward before almost collapsing. “Celine, stop,” a voice said behind her. She recognized the Duke’s voice and sobbed as she tried to push forward, realizing that she could not escape him.
“Marcus,” she said, turning toward him, tears again streaming down her face. She began to collapse forward.
He noticed her clutching her stomach, the blood that covered her hands and dress. “Celine, no!” he shouted, rushing toward her and catching her as she collapsed. “No, Celine, my darling,” he said holding her in his arms and surveying the wound, “who did this to you?”
“I did, gov’ner,” the criminal said, entering the cavern again. “But I got the book back for ya, see?” he said, brandishing the book.
Duke Northcott set his jaw, letting Celine slip to the cave floor and rising. He grasped the knife that Celine had discarded, covered in her blood. “You fool, do you know what you have done?”
“Got ya the book, gov’ner. Now I reckon that’s worth a good bit to you, in’it?”
“Yes, it is, give it to me.”
“Then we’re even right?”
“No,” the Duke said, clenching his teeth, “I’d still owe you something.”
“Well, that sounds a bit of all right to me,” he said, handing the book over.
The Duke accepted the book, then plunged the knife into the man’s heart. “There, now we’re even,” he said, pulling it back and allowing the man’s shuddering body to collapse to the floor where he took his last few agonizing breaths before his spirit left his body.
Duke Northcott returned to Celine’s side, setting the knife and book down, he leaned over her. “Celine, I will not lose you,” he said. He sliced his hand open with
