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The stale scent of blood and antiseptic greeted him as he swung open the door to his private lab. He’d barely finished a dissection weeks before being ushered away so the strength of the smell he loved the most was beginning to linger further away. Everything was just as he had left it: papers messily organized on his desk, the skull he loved so much covered in a slight layer of dust and shards of glass still present in the corners of his room. His robe still hung lazily on the edge of his screen. His linen covers still lie folded nicely on his cot, old blood stains from wounds and experiments showing like a sore thumb. He took in another whiff of the air and smiled. So much better than the stuffy opium residue scent and musk that never left Gladstone’s mansion walls.
His only regret; no one was there to welcome him home. The jars that had held his mother’s heart and lungs had already been shattered and her fleshy remains cleaned up before they rotted on his floor. Rain was falling so the birds he usually fed were far from the loft of his window. And he wasn’t there. But wasn’t that a good thing? He looked down at his hands and fingers, excess blood from the operation staining them a pale pink. Those two hours of euphoria passed over him again. The rich red color of blood as it trickled from the incision on his head. The snapping and crunching noises of his skull being cracked open. Holding the gray matter of that man’s disgusting life in his hands and the sound of it plopping into the trash, just the thought of that sound alone made his frail heart sing. If only he had heard him scream out in agony one last time much like he had caused him to moan in pain. And now, that filthy human shell was now home to someone he … cared about? Cared didn’t seem like the right word. Perhaps it was a sense of duty? Devotion? Perhaps. Cassian’s blood surely was warm but so was Gladstone’s and he knew in his soul that such a man was only using him as a toy.
As he relived those moments, he felt a phantom pair of arms wrap around his body and hold him. “I enjoyed watching your little spectacle” The warmth he remembered now was the kind he always felt frozen in. The rough touch of his cheek on his forehead and the vibrations of his words came to him. “Good boy, Jizabel” Still, aside from the pleasing words and tone of his voice, the faint whisper sounded more like the devil. A devil he’d been chained to since the day he committed an unforgivable sin. Stained nails clutched the cross around his neck. What was he thinking? This was a great victory for him. Cassandra Gladstone was dead. He was free from the Scavanger’s Daughter and the grimy hands of the man who held the lock. He had said so himself; he’d never have to feel his vile touch ever again. Cassian had what he wanted now and was alive. He’d beaten the beast with his own stick. So why did he feel so empty? Why did he still feel like those iron bands were taught around his neck? He sat down on his bed, hugging his arms around his body.
It was cold now.