I frowned, shaking my head fiercely. “The … the netherworld? I don’t even know how to enter it, and I’ve been trying for months. Besides, I think you have to be dead to do that.”
Alex had been staring absently at the swaying, disoriented Seers. But when he heard my last statement, his head whipped back toward me. The scant moonlight fell across his face and made it look bleached and gaunt, like a skull.
“That’s a small price to pay,” he whispered, “for what I want.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. “You want to die?”
He merely flashed me a wide smile in response.
It was a ghastly, freakish expression, devoid of humor and warmth. Smiling like that, he really did resemble a skeleton.
A strangled noise wormed its way out of my lips. “You’re insane,” I hissed.
He let out a slithery sort of laugh. “I’m also a descendant of Delphine LaLaurie, and those two traits have gone hand in hand for over a century.”
“Who did you just say you were?”
Something about his ancestor’s name bothered me. Something familiar …
Alex wandered casually back to the other Seers, who still swayed drunkenly on their feet. As he walked, he pressed his hand on their shoulders, pushing them downward. One by one, they dropped messily into seated positions on the concrete, which I could see had been lined with Voodoo dust. Part of their summoning ritual, probably.
While I watched him, Alex began to speak blandly, as if he were recounting a dull piece of history.
“In the eighteen hundreds,” he said, “a wealthy Quarter woman named Delphine LaLaurie tortured and murdered many of her slaves. But before that happened, she had several daughters. I’m descended from one of them.”
“And?” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. The more calmly he spoke, the edgier I felt.
“And,” he emphasized, “there are certain things that she passed on to her heirs. Most historians don’t know this, but Delphine heard voices. Voices that told her terrible things and drove her mad. Doctors would label it schizophrenia today; but I know better, especially since I hear them myself. Have, ever since I was a child. That’s why it’s been so easy to teach these little Seers to hear them, too.”
“The voices of the dead,” I stated flatly. “Delphine heard them, and so do you.”
Alex snapped his fingers, grinning. “You’re a smart cookie, Amelia. Couple that with your special talents, and it’s no wonder they want you.”
“‘They’?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“The ones I want to serve. The ones who talk to me, sometimes, when the ghosts are quiet.”
“Demons?” I breathed. “They … speak to you? And you want to serve them?”
“Of course I do. They’re the only family I have.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I did,” he snapped, his smile gone. “I did have a family. And the minute I showed my genetic inheritance, they had me diagnosed as a schizophrenic and shipped off to a ‘home.’ Just like my grandfather, great-grandmother, and on and on for generations in one long line of heartwarming family betrayal.”
When he finished, he laughed almost giddily, as if he’d just told a joke.
If I didn’t previously grasp the danger of this situation, I certainly did now. Not only had Alex tricked and drugged the other Seers—not only did he want to work for the most evil things I’d ever met—but he was also certifiable. I had to keep him distracted while I tried to think of some way to help the drugged Seers.
“That must have pissed you off,” I murmured, moving a centimeter closer to him on the footbridge. “When your family betrayed you like that.”
His smile returned in the form of a smirk.
“That description doesn’t do it justice, Amelia. The only reason I stayed focused, and determined, was because of the encouragement I got from the voices. The voices were my only comfort—my only family—for years. They promised things would be better one day; they told me stories about what I was destined to do. Because of them I’m the first LaLaurie to trick the doctors into thinking I took my meds and got better. I even got the home to release me in time to go to college. At the voices’ command, I moved back to New Orleans and enrolled at Tulane. I used a fake name for a while, trying to get back to my roots, while I made a few sacrifices to the darkness. I even tried to kill myself for them, but they just weren’t ready for me yet. That changed, though, when I met Ms. Comeaux here.”
Alex paused to jerk Annabel’s head back roughly by her hair and then let it flop forward. Although she didn’t react, the movement looked like it hurt, and I winced for her.
“And what about Annabel is so special?” I asked.
“Her? Nothing.” He laughed. “Aside from possessing a gift that I thought could help me open the dark world without killing myself.”
I sneered. “What, your ‘family’ didn’t teach you the secret handshake to get inside?”
Alex shrugged, obviously not bothered by my tone. “Those I want to serve require sacrifice. Effort. That’s why I swallowed my pride and tried to break into the Seers’ coven here. But of course, every Seer freaked out the second I started hinting at what I wanted. So I had to try a different route. I introduced myself to the newest member—Ruth Mayhew—and worked her connections to a group of young, untrained Seers so that I could put my own coven together.”
“And you told them you were helping ghosts,” I said. “So that they would accidentally open the netherworld for you.”
Alex made a slight clicking noise with his tongue and winked at me. “You got it. Nothing like telling a group of inactive, malcontent Seers that their boring elders are the bad guys and that they can be the good guys. It worked like magic. Except for one small part: these useless idiots couldn’t open a barn door much less the netherworld.”
“So why torture them like this?” I gestured to the line of Seers at his feet. “Why keep them around at all?”
Alex smiled darkly and pointed a long, thin finger at me. He didn’t say anything, but I caught his meaning well enough.
“Me,” I concluded. “You wanted them to help you get me.”
“Exactly. When Jillian told Annabel about what you did the night you saved her, Annabel told me. Then I told the voices. I guess it goes without saying that they were very excited by that news. It seems as though you’d avoided them once before; it seems as though they want you even more, now.”
I felt a very real wave of nausea roll over me, but I fought it. I swallowed hard, shoving all of my internal shrieks of warning and fear to a back corner of my brain so that I could keep Alex talking.
But as I tried to come up with a distracting topic, my mind kept blanking. Like I was taking some kind of test for which I’d studied so hard that I’d started to forget the answers. Finally, I settled on something inane to ask him.
“So you … so you said you changed your name for a while. Alexander Etienne is, what? A real name? A fake one?”
“That’s the name I was born with—the name I’ve been using with all of you. But in college I starting going by my middle name, and the last name of my ancestors. In college, I went by—”
“Kade LaLaurie.”
The groaned name startled me, and I spun around to see whoever had spoken. To my surprise, I saw Gaby standing behind me. I had no idea how she’d found me, but I felt a huge surge of relief that she had.
But Gaby didn’t look relieved to see me. She didn’t look at me at all. Instead, she stared past me to Alex. Her eyes were wide, her mouth rigidly set, her fists balled at her sides.
“Gaby?” I whispered. “You know him?”
Still without looking at me, she nodded. “Oh, I know him. He’s my ex-boyfriend. The one who killed me and my parents. The one who should be dead.”
Chapter
TWENTY-EIGHT
When Alex—Kade?—laughed loudly, my gaze whipped back up to his.
But Alex wasn’t looki
ng at me, either. Instead, he’d locked his eyes on Gaby’s. As he stared at her, his grin became even crueler, if that was possible.
“Missed you too, babe,” he taunted. From the corner of my eye, I saw her shiver.
“How the hell are you alive,” she growled. “And why the hell are you here?”
Alex laughed again and started to pace behind the young Seers, who still sat dazed on the concrete. As he strolled, he patted each of them roughly on the head like he was playing some bizarre game of duck, duck, goose.
“I’m alive,” he explained, “the same way Felix is still alive; despite my best attempt to die and take all of you with me, I survived. That’s the ‘how.’ And the ‘why’ is because you and your parents just weren’t a good enough sacrifice to satisfy the darkness.”
Suddenly, Gaby’s frozen exterior melted. Before I had time to stop her, she’d lunged forward, racing across the footbridge toward Alex as if she intended to tackle him and claw his eyes out.
Alex’s amused expression didn’t change. When Gaby had only a few feet left to cross, he reached calmly inside his jacket, pulled something out, and pointed it at her.
The second I saw moonlight glinting off the silvery object, I screamed.
“Stop! Gaby, stop!”
Thankfully, Gaby obeyed. She skidded to a stop a mere foot from Alex, her eyes now trained on the gun in his hand.
I raised both of my hands in a gesture of surrender and hurried to Gaby’s side. I’d just grabbed her arm to restrain her from doing anything reckless when she shook her head and smiled, looking as though she’d just come out of a trance.
“Can’t kill me twice, Kade,” she purred at Alex. “So who’s the gun for?”
Despite the fact that Gaby had just blown a major hole in his defense plan, Alex flashed her a serene, close-lipped smile.
“It’s for her,” he whispered.
Then, holding his arm straight, he swung the gun toward me, just for a second, before pointing it downward.
At Jillian.
My entire body went cold. Before I’d even formed the words in my mind, I heard them snarling their way out of my mouth.
“Point that gun somewhere else or I swear I’ll find a way to grant your wish and kill you myself.”
Alex locked his cold eyes onto mine. With his free hand, he reached across and cocked the gun. Then he used it to gesture significantly at Jillian.
“Correct me if I wrong,” he said, “but I think I’ve got the upper hand here. I guess you could try to wrestle the gun out of my hands and shoot me yourself. But you can’t even touch living people now, so that might be a little difficult.”
I gritted my teeth. “How do you know that?”
Keeping the gun trained on Jillian, he broke eye contact with me and gazed over at Gaby. “Oh,” he murmured, “I’ve kept pretty close tabs on my sweet ex-girlfriend. I mean, can you blame me? Just look at her.”
“You bastard,” Gaby swore. “You never loved me at all, did you?”
Alex faked a sad face. “No, babe. I didn’t. But I did love your history: granddaughter of one of the most powerful Voodoo Raisers in history. Too good to be true, really. I bet you didn’t know your gifts were as inheritable as mine.”
“My what?” Gaby whispered, looking simultaneously confused and horrified.
Seeing her expression, Alex laughed. “God, Gabrielle, really? You didn’t honestly think you came up with that resurrection spell all on your own, did you? Voodoo is in your blood—the spells you found at the Conjure weren’t Marie’s; they were created by your own grandfather. It’s your birthright to raise the dead. Why do you think I choose you to sacrifice to the darkness? The dark spirits wanted your gifts, even if those powers were still latent when you died.”
“So you … you really were trying to kill me.”
For the first time since I’d met her, Gaby’s lip quivered. Alex, however, remained unaffected by her show of emotion.
“Of course I was trying to kill you—and I succeeded. But Felix woke you from the death-fog before I could finish what I’d started. I changed back to my old name to protect myself and reenrolled at school. But I still spent two years stalking you, trying to get you alone so that when I either killed myself or got the Seers to reopen the netherworld, I could take you into the darkness with me. I even sent the Quarter ghosts after you once; but, unsurprisingly, they failed. Still, I’ve got to give it to you—you really helped me out by Raising yourself. Without the ability to dematerialize at will, you’re a much easier target.”
“So why didn’t you just do it then?” Gaby spat. “Why not capture me yourself and get it over with?”
Alex sighed, sounding as though Gaby had brought up a sore subject.
“Like I said, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. The spirits were getting restless. Then, right around the time you transformed, Jillian began to call Annabel to talk about Amelia. After that, the voices demanded that I get them both of you. Which was just so much work. First, I tried to get Amelia to join the Quarter ghosts so that they could hand her over to the darkness themselves. Then I tried to get her to trust me, which obviously wasn’t going to happen. So I just went ahead and set you two up with each other. I knew you couldn’t resist making yourself a buddy, Gabrielle, after that failed encounter you had with the Quarter ghosts. And now, here you both are—two birds with one stone!”
As he finished, I gave Gaby a sidelong glance. Right now she looked too stricken to speak. So I sniffed imperiously and addressed Alex for the both of us.
“Well, thanks for confirming what your parents already knew: you’re a demonic nutbag.”
Finally, my words struck a raw chord. Glaring at me, Alex reached down and jerked Jillian up into his arms. Holding her against him with his gun-toting arm, he used his free hand to pull something out of his coat pocket.
I saw the glistening liquid inside the syringe, right before he plunged the needle into her arm.
“No!” I shrieked, but it was clearly too late.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Alex sang, tossing the emptied syringe aside. “I’m not hurting her—I’m just raising the stakes.”
Jillian’s upper body flopped limply forward. As Alex hefted her up and across his gun-free arm, her head lolled backward upon his shoulder. She moaned softly, and her eyelids fluttered.
“What did you do to her?”
“I woke her up,” he stated simply.
“She doesn’t look very awake to me.”
Alex’s nasty grin returned. “Give her time.”
As if to illustrate, he slid his arm aside and let Jillian go. But just as she started to slump to the ground, he wrapped his fingers in her hair and yanked her to her feet. The pain must have sped up her awakening, because her eyes—now much clearer—darted around frantically. As she steadied herself, her gaze landed on Alex’s crazed smile.
And the glint of his gun.
The second she saw that, Jillian grew very still—motionless except for the panicked rise and fall of her chest. I wanted to run to her, to jerk her away from him, but the gun hung in the air like an impassable barrier.
Alex gave her a quick appraisal. “Welcome to the party, Jillian. I was just telling the girls here about how you overheard them discussing how to open the netherworld by slowing their fake heartbeats. So … Amelia, Gabrielle, get to it.”
“We don’t even know if that will work,” I said. “It was just something we were going to try to do to help our parents.”
Gaby must have recovered, because she finally stirred beside me. “You remember my parents, don’t you, Kade?” she snarled. “Those two really great people you killed?”
When Alex smirked, I snarled, too.
“Now that I think about it,” I growled, “I don’t care if it does work. Because we’re not helping you.”
Alex laughed and pulled Jillian closer. Without taking his eyes from mine, he pressed the barrel of the gun into her sternum. “One or both of you needs to
slow your heartbeat now. Otherwise I’ll just have to slow Jillian’s.”
For the briefest moment I thought about calling his bluff. Telling him to shoot at me and prove that the gun was loaded. But when a tiny squeak escaped Jillian’s lips, I couldn’t believe I’d even considered the idea.
Of course that gun was loaded. This boy had been plotting this moment for years; he wouldn’t forget a tiny detail like that.
“Don’t,” I whispered, defeated. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll … I’ll do it.”
Gaby shot me a stunned look. “Amelia, we can’t give him what he wants.”
“We have to, Gaby. I have to. I can’t let him hurt her.”
Still pressing the gun to Jillian’s chest, Alex seemed to swell with triumph. I kept my eyes locked on his and reached out one hand to Gaby.
“The zombie juice,” I said softly. “I know you have it.”
For a long second she didn’t move. Then, with painful slowness, she reached into the pocket of her cape and removed a tiny bottle. I waited for her to press it into my palm. When she didn’t, I turned to face her.
I found her eyes darting alternately between me and Alex. Her gaze lingered on him the longest, and I automatically knew why. After all, she’d loved him once. It must have hurt on a number of levels to see who he really was. To see the horrible thing he’d become.
And now he stood in front of her again, threatening not only our afterlives, but also the life of another young girl.
Gaby’s eyes met mine again, and inexplicably, she nodded.
Then, in a flash, she uncorked the bottle with one thumb and slung back its entire contents.
I shrieked again, diving forward so that I could shake the liquid out of her, but she had already swallowed all of the zombie juice. She flung the empty bottle to the ground, and it shattered against the concrete.
“Why did you do that?” I cried, still shaking her shoulders violently despite the fact that the damage was already done.