“What happens now?” It comes out with far more child-like innocence than warranted.
The light from above shines off Logan’s shoulders and dusts his skin with an otherworldly illumination.
“I think we should expect someone soon.” He leans in. “I’m pretty sure they’re listening—watching. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were an entire army of invisible Fems in the room right now.”
His last sentence provokes me to draw up the covers tight around my neck.
The tiny worm trapped in the water globe stops abruptly—it leers at the two of us as if observing from afar.
Logan reaches up and brushes my cheek, my mouth with his warm fingertips.
“I love you, Skyla Messenger.” It escapes from him like a prayer. He seals a kiss over my lips as one final act of worship. “I’m sorry you’re down here with me, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I’m glad to see your beautiful face. I could conquer anything with you by my side—even death.”
“I love you, too.” I pull him in by the back of his neck. “And I hope I have a face by the time they’re through with me.” Logan and the ways he loves me are a thing of beauty all their own. He could conquer anything with me by his side and I sure hope the tunnels are on the short list.
Gage impresses himself in my thoughts uninvited. His invisible skin electrifies over mine. I fall back against the pillow and take a quick breath as a pang of fire rips through my skull.
I let out a groan that sounds more mating call than it does apocalyptic headache.
“It’s OK,” Logan whispers as if trying to soothe an infant.
“Brielle had her baby,” I lament.
“I know.” He pulls back the blanket and nestles into me, warm and inviting.
My eyes widen at the sheer acreage of flesh pressed against mine.
“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” I ask slightly alarmed by where this might not so accidentally lead us.
“They were bloody.” The beginning of a naughty smile curves on his lips. “I promise I have on boxers.”
“Nice.” I close my eyes and try to decipher whether or not the idea of Logan in nothing but his boxers is a sexual disaster in the making. “Logan?”
He groans in lieu of a reply, burrowing his face into my neck.
Logan and I are like injured children trying to comfort one another while pinned in the wreckage. Two trapped rabbits waiting for the hunter to break our necks—shoot us if he’s merciful.
“Why do you think Gage did it?” A moan rattles deep in my chest at the thought of Gage being the well-placed boyfriend—that Chloe Bishop could have orchestrated our love seems every bit wrong, an entire black ocean of poison—an unfathomable deceit.
Logan brushes the side of my neck with his lips before twisting onto his back. He picks up my hand and bounces it on the bed between us three times before letting out a breath.
“It’s Gage, Skyla.” He says it flat as though I should give into the idea that Gage would never hurt me. Even if deep down inside I want that to be true, it’s not at this very moment. The revelation is still fresh with its offense.
“I know it’s Gage,” I whisper. “That’s why it hurts so damn much.”
***
At regular intervals, the lights go out for what feels like a solid span of hours. They come on slowly, glowing like embers as if to rouse us naturally from our slumber. We’ve had no food for weeks, save for the water in the bathroom, and oddly, we don’t crave fluids either.
The useless board games provided by Demetri’s incompetent staff are rife with missing pieces. Box after box of well-worn boards, marbles, plastic houses, and paper money as worthless as our powers within these foreign walls. Then there are the books. Each of them written in some foreign script with fonts that run in dizzying patterns, the characters round and shapely like the figure of a robust woman—it’s almost obscene to try to make them out—calligraphy bordering on pornographic.
The tiny serpent in the water globe amuses us. It quickly becomes our demented little pet. Logan and I track our fingers over the hollowed out glass, and it follows dutifully wherever we lead. It holds a menacing appeal, but there’s a desperation it emits when we try to pull away that says, “play—stay a little longer, don’t leave.” Now and again it bears its silver, pointed teeth. It dares us to think we have power—that we are anything but impotent. It lets us know that it would kill us and eat us if given half a chance.
I drape the velvet blanket over myself like an evening gown, while Logan remains shirtless with the black pants he was wearing at prom.
The bathroom comes complete with a gold toilet. It erects itself from the stone floor like a monument to stupidity, as crass and egotistical as the Counts themselves.
“You think my mom and Tad are looking for us?” I peer over my cards at Logan. We’re embroiled in a heated game with no stakes and loose rules. Really we’re just going through the motions, so we don’t succumb to insanity like they want us to.
“I think everyone’s looking for us.” He lays out a pair of cards with twin symbols printed on them, birds with talons three times the size of their bodies—probably some kind of flying Fem we’ve yet to encounter.
“OK, you win.” I go over and lie on my stomach, pointing at my shoulders. “That means you get to massage me.”
“Very funny.” He moves in next to me, depressing the mattress as he takes a seat. Logan kneads his hands into my back, gently moving in a circular motion. He leans in and brushes his lips over the rim of my ear. “If you’re the prize, I always plan on winning.” He seals the sentiment with a searing kiss, high over my cheek.
Fighting off Logan’s advances has been the real challenge, not that he hasn’t tried to be a perfect gentlemen. Thankfully, he’s no Holden Kragger. Logan wouldn’t breathe in my direction if I asked him not to.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you.” He scratches my back in a series of lethargic circles.
“You know everything about me.” I purr as his assault over my shoulder blades picks up pace. If Chloe the Frankenstiened cheer-bot didn’t snap my back in half, Logan just might. “Slow down, please.”
He reduces the tension by half. “What do you love?”
“You for doing this—you in general. Chocolate, sushi, malt shakes. All things I’m highly deficient in at the moment. Well, other than you.”
“What do you hate?”
“Chloe and clowns. Come to think of it, Chloe is a clown.”
“Other than Chloe. What do you dislike? I want to know you—know everything about you.”
I twist around and study him from this angle. There’s a sweet innocence about him, and Gage wanted me to believe Logan was nothing but a womanizing panty snatcher before I came to town. Gage spoon fed me lies right from the beginning.
I land my cheek back on the pillow. Just thinking about Gage sends me reeling with resentment and sorrow as wide as the sea.
“I hate caramel,” I announce.
“Nobody hates caramel, Skyla,” Logan teases, dropping his hands down my back.
“I do. I also can’t stand humming or whistling. It’s annoying as hell. It grates on me like nails on a chalkboard. In fact, I’d rather listen to a chalkboard being clawed than someone’s oral cavity spinning a tune.”
A sharp knock erupts at the door and startles us to attention.
I bounce into Logan’s arms and cover myself in his protective shelter.
It’s happening. They’re here, and now everything is going to change.
Soon we’ll wish we were on fire—dead—anything but alive and in the Counts incapable hands.
The door creaks open. The shadowed figure of a man fills the interim of light. He takes a step inside and brims with a wicked smile.
It’s him.
Knew it.
Chapter 3
Elysian
Demetri Edinger is not a handsome man by modern day standards, nor ancient standards for that matter.
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His smile diminishes as he glowers at the two of us before shutting the door.
A thick wave of hair swoops neatly to the side, his large hooked nose lies prominent over his face, and yet he still manages to hold a debonair charm reserved for vampires and super villains alike. I can see how my mother might be swayed by his illicit advances, especially since her husband, Tad the moron seems incapable of giving her the attention she yearns for, like fire craves oxygen.
“I see you’re comfortable,” he says through a false smile. Demetri hasn’t quite honed the fine art of acting human. He walks over to the bookshelf and taps the globe that houses the tiny worm behind a buffer of glass.
“You’ve met Isis,” he says, running his finger over the sphere in one smooth stroke.
I decide to ignore his amphibious introduction. “How is my mother faring without me?” I say the word mother extra slow, trying to needle him with the guilt of my captivity. “I bet she hired you to scour the island clean, looking for the two of us.”
“You flatter yourself.” It comes out a tranquil hiss. “She’s done nothing of the sort. In fact, I’ve yet to bump into her. I’ve been busy here myself.” He reaches behind his hip and produces a thin silver blade in the shape of an elongated diamond, at least a foot in length. “Logan,” he says, bowing slightly. “I have an offer for you.” The sword ignites electric blue.
“More cutlery from the spirit sword collection?” I don’t know why I bother to fear Demetri. Gage once said both Logan and I would live a nice long life. Not that he’s batting a thousand with those visions, but still, you’ve got to believe in something, especially with a spirit sword staring you in the face.
“That’s what I like best about you, Skyla.” He extends the S in my name like the hiss from a cobra. “Your wonderful sense of humor. That, and the fact your perfect Celestra being is gracing my tower. Countenance is so pleased with my latest capture. They’ve initiated a festival in the honor of your blood. Does that make you feel like a celebrity? It should.”
“No. Oddly, it makes me feel like choking the life out of you, which I’m certain will happen sooner than later.”
Don’t go there. Logan’s chastisement comes out more of a lament.
“Nevertheless,” he says, shifting his gaze to Logan, “you’ve sworn allegiance as a brother to Countenance. This is your opportunity to be promoted to council should you accept the challenge.”
You get a promotion, and I get the blood siphoned from my body? Nice, I say.
“Skyla is in need of an Elysian.” Demetri wands a hand over the sword, and it returns to its alloy luster. “A guardian, if you will—someone to watch over her mortal body and escort her to the tunnels whenever her blood is needed.”
“You’re letting me go?” I hang onto the one thread of mercy I can find in his words.
“Yes, but there are spiritual strings attached—a spiritual leash if you will—or noose.” His eyes widen with malevolence. “I’ve no intention to cause emotional stress to the mother you speak so glib of.” He gives a long blink. “Ordinarily, I would have you reside here. People disappear from the planet every day, Skyla. You would be missed, but you would most certainly be mine. These four walls would be your new home.” His fingers strum through the air trying to entice me to the mythical surroundings. “In your case, you wouldn’t be alone. You would have the companionship of the one you love by your side. So many here in the tower are isolated—dare I say all.” He points to the wall just past the bed and it becomes transparent. A window bleeds into the next room, then the next, and the next until the rectangles compact in on themselves. Each room houses but one person, and each one looks bored to tears, grievously alone—one at the desk, another on the bed, a third flat on the floor in utter despair. Their pale, gaunt faces are lost in a hollow gaze. They have been stolen by the Counts in every capacity, baptized with cruelty in both body and soul.
Demetri snaps his finger and the wall restores itself like switching off a remote. “We house the children with their mothers.” He nods as though it were perfectly sane. “And, of course, the final destination—the Tenebrous Woods—that, my friends, is—how would you say it? Where the action takes place.” He gives a curt nod and the wall ignites into a big screen again. An overwhelming darkness appears, then a sea of tree limbs form before our eyes, gnarled and twisted. The hint of a dark navy sky glimmers between the branches. Squared-off units—cages, emerge with a sickly glow and in each one are people pinned to the walls, held hostage within these cells, strapped with their arms spread wide, their legs secured in a harness. It looks satanic, something just this side of sexual, illegal and corrupt on every level. In another cell, people are roaming about then pause to look up at us. They move their arms toward us and in true 3-D fashion they extend into the room.
I touch my fingers to one, and a jolt of fear so viral lurches through me, it sends me deeper into Logan’s arms. I reach out and touch another.
Help, he cries. Kill us. The only way out is death. I pull my hand back like snatching it out of a fire.
“Logan.” I bury my head in his chest.
“Yes, it can be quite disturbing.” Demetri straightens as if my fright invigorates him. “The Countenance view the treatment chambers as nothing more than a factory with unruly employees. But how those Celestra souls cry out for people—how they hunger for the touch of another. It’s the constant ignorant thread of hope that gives them something to look forward to all those long dreaded weeks while replenishing their vital fluids. Of course, they don’t last long.” He shakes his head in mock pity.
Dear God. I let out a breath in lieu of words. He’s got this entire dungeon filled with Celestra blood dispensers. That’s so sick.
I wouldn’t go off just yet. Maybe wait until he’s out of the room, Logan gives a slight squeeze as he says it.
As if.
“They’re not as interested in companionship as you think,” I say. “You know what they want more than an ice cream social?” I bark into Demetri’s crooked nose. “To get the hell out.”
Logan steps in front of me and clears his throat. “So, I’ll be Skyla’s Elysian?”
I can tell he’s trying to defuse Demetri’s temper, but in doing so, he’s riled up mine. I’m not so hot on discussing spiritual leashes either.
“You will—should you choose to accept the offer.” His dark eyes bear into Logan with the challenge. “You must do all that is asked. You, yourself, will be the purveyor of her torment. It’s you who’s to secure her body once the treble is initiated, if need be, to choose the celebrant who will be blessed to partake in the nectar of her marrow.”
“No. I won’t do it.” Logan doesn’t wait for him to finish.
Demetri tilts his head thoughtfully to the side.
A flash of lightning ignites through the window and fills the room with a dull rainbow of color. Rain pelts the stained glass, first slow and methodical then hard and biting. It’s as though Demetri’s anger has successfully channeled the weather phenomenon brewing outside.
“Then you die.” Demetri nods into his revelation. “You’ll be inflicted with a choice new body piercing.” He briefly holds up the knife. “If you’re still living by nightfall, I’ll have you siphoned by a brood of thirsty Counts—an especially rabid group—they have an all-out carnal desire for the taste of human blood. They seem partial to the cry of a Celestra.” He drills his eyes into me, burning through to the deepest part of who I am—the part where I stow my father and all of our best memories while we were still able to build them. He reverts back to Logan. “Robbing you of your lifeblood would bring them a profound sense of joy and accomplishment.”
Tell him you changed your mind, I say.
I won’t let them gain pleasure from watching me torture you. I would never hurt you.
But they would, and they will. Even if you die, you won’t stop what’s coming. Logan, please. They’re going to do this to me anyway. I beg of you don’t leave me.
“Are negotiations underway?” Demetri lowers his chin.
“They’re done,” I say, straightening. “He’ll do it.”
“Logan?” He looks over my shoulder at him.
Logan tightens his grip around my waist, touches his temple to mine. Forgive me, Skyla.
“Your answer?” Demetri broadens his shoulders with a sense of false accomplishment.
“Consider it done. I’ll be her Elysian.”
Chapter 4
Tenebrous Woods
“Come.” Demetri offers me his hand, but I refuse.
Demetri is complicated, like a puzzle with too many pieces—none of them interlocking. He wants every part of my mother, while he aspires to kill her daughter. There is no rhyme or reason to the things he does. Love and hate are one and the same to a monster like him.
Logan and I rise to follow him out of the room, but Demetri pauses, touches the water globe with a swift stroke of his finger, igniting the creature inside into a spasm of fear.
Figures. Not even an attention-deprived worm welcomes his affection.
“Isis,” he whispers, the soft sound of the S reverberates unnaturally.
Demetri leads us out into an ornate hall, black-and-white checkered floors stretch for miles in either direction. Long mahogany doors line the corridor. Probably a Celestra soul locked in each one. If there wasn’t a binding spirit dousing this place with its ironclad vice, Logan and I could do something—we could help.
“You’ve traveled two years into the past.” Demetri says it causal as if it were common for small talk to center around time travel. “Or, what is it you kids are calling it these days? Light driving?”
I make a face.
Chloe originally called it light driving. Chloe is the one who should be down here. Her wickedness should be repaid in full measure by becoming the sole resident of these haunted halls. God knows she’s got enough Celestra in her to qualify.
“What’s with the time delay?” Logan squeezes my hand as he asks. I shoot him a look for fraternizing with the enemy, even though I was sort of curious myself.