twelve
I FOUGHT the urge to wake back up. I didn’t want to see what I would see. Was that thing real?
“Your fiancée is very rude, Sage.” The voice was gravelly, and thick with the grave. “Get her up and make a proper introduction.”
It was real. And it was talking. I so did not want to open my eyes.
“Clea?”
It was Sage, and he was close. I opened my eyes and saw him leaning over me, his face filled with concern. I almost smiled. If nothing else, the horror show seemed to have brought him back to me, at least for the moment.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Okay? I wanted to laugh, but I had a horrible feeling that if I started, it would turn into a screeching cackle of insanity I could never stop.
It was better not to trust my voice just yet. I nodded and let Sage help me to my feet. I kept my eyes glued to his face.
A dry cluck of disapproval came from the talking corpse. “Not even looking at your hostess. What Sage saw in you, Olivia, I’ll never know.”
The name shocked me so much that I snapped my head around to look at the thing.
A choking wheeze hacked from its chest, and it took me several moments before I realized it was laughing.
“You’re surprised I know your real name,” it said. “You shouldn’t be. We go way back. Not as far back as your fiancé and I, of course.”
The creature’s eyes leered in Sage’s direction. He winced.
“I also know your friend, Giovanni,” it said, and rolled its eyes to Ben. He was pale and trembling. Sweat beaded down his face. He was coming completely unglued.
“Giovanni?” Sage asked. “No …”
“Oh, it’s him,” the corpse said. “You just don’t see it, not the way you do with her. But it’s him.” It toyed with Ben, wiggling an impossibly bony finger toward him. It gave a wet laugh as he shied away.
“Leave them alone, Magda,” Sage said.
Magda? This was Magda?
“But Sage, you came to me!” she said.
“You’re Magda … Alessandri?” I asked, piecing together the impossible. “You’re Shakespeare’s Dark Lady?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “What—you can’t see me as a raven-haired vixen? I was beautiful five hundred years ago. Your fiancé thought I was. He couldn’t keep his hands off me.”
I felt nauseous. I wasn’t jealous, even though Magda clearly wanted me to be. I just kept thinking of Sage touching this woman as she was now. The image made me sick.
“F-five h-hundred years ago?” Ben stammered. “But I thought the Elixir—” He stopped cold as Magda fixed him with a glare.
“Kept one young,” she finished icily. “Obviously, I didn’t drink the Elixir of Life. My longevity comes from an enchantment made by my mother, a powerful mystic, the day I was born. She died in childbirth, just after sealing my life force in the glass charm I wear around my neck. As long as it remains intact, I survive.”
I looked down at her sunken chest. Sure enough, a delicate glass ball dangled there from a thin chain.
Magda gave a phlegmy bark. “Had my mother survived, I’d have asked her to change the spell. Eternal life is useless without eternal youth. I can’t even show my face in public anymore. I hide away here with all my belongings.”
“In … the mall?” I asked.
“Why not? I have everything I need. A caretaker brings me anything else. And I can hear the roar of life just beyond my walls. When I close my eyes, I can almost pretend I’m still a part of it.”
“But after the attack … I saw you dead,” Sage objected.
“You saw me playing dead,“ Magda clarified. “I was stabbed seven times, you know. One dagger went clean through my stomach and out my back, pinning me to the floor. I had to lie there like a writhing, stuck bug—”
“You don’t have to describe it,” Sage said tightly.
“No, I do,” Magda said, her eyes strong and piercing, “because it was all your fault. You knew the rules. You ignored them. And all of us paid the price.”
Her words seemed to slice into Sage, and it was a moment before he could speak. “I know,” he said. “Your faces have haunted me every single night. But you’re not the only one who paid for it. If you’ve stayed alive to make sure I’ve suffered, I assure you, I have.”
“I have stayed alive to see you suffer,” Magda said. “I was able to do it. As head of the Society, I was closest to the Elixir. It tied you and I together. I’ve seen everything.”
“Then you know,” Sage said through gritted teeth, “I’ve spent centuries in a more bitter hell than anyone who died that day. I would gladly trade places with any of them.”
“It’s not enough. While the rest of the Society lost their lives and I turned into this withered shell, you’ve had happiness beyond anything we can know.” She glared at me, and her papery lips managed to curl into a sneer. “You’re having it still. I want more from you, but I had to wait until you came to me to get it.”
Sage flinched, his eyes darting to Ben and me before he looked back at Magda. “I’m ready. We should speak alone.”
“What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“I think you and Ben should go,” Sage said.
“No! I’m not going anywhere. Are you insane? After we came all the way here, you really think we’re going to leave? We still don’t know anything!”
“The girl is right,” Magda agreed. “She doesn’t know anything. And I think it’s time she knew everything.” Her eyes lolled toward Ben. “I think it’s time you both did.”
“Magda … ,” Sage warned.
She ignored him. “Pull up chairs. You’ll want to be comfortable for this.”
“No,” Sage demanded, then fixed his eyes on Ben and me. “You don’t have to listen to her.”
“They do if they want to know about the girl’s father,” Magda countered. “And you won’t get what you need unless you do what I say.”
Sage’s nostrils flared, and he pursed his lips. Then he grabbed three cushioned stools and thrust them down in front of Magda, who smiled. We sat, and she held out her hands. “Circle of hands,” she said.
My stool sat between Ben’s and Magda’s. I couldn’t believe I had to touch her, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing how much it bothered me. Her hand felt like crepe paper wrapped over toothpicks. I was sure the least bit of pressure would crush it to dust.
My other hand squeezed Ben’s, and he and Sage completed the circle back to Magda. Magda leaned back, and her eyes closed. Suddenly her whole body convulsed. My own eyelids slammed closed like shutters. I tried to open them, but it was impossible. I was sealed inside with whatever Magda wanted to show us.
I saw Sage. He was dressed the way he was in my dreams about Olivia. He jingled gold coins in a money pouch as he walked. It was surreal. I didn’t actually hear his thoughts, but I understood them. I could feel the pride he took in both his impeccable dress and his staggering family wealth. He was twenty-one years old and felt like the entire world was his for the taking.
As he climbed a set of stairs and knocked on an ornately decorated door, he sighed, and I understood that this was where he visited the Society, the group he’d complained to me about in my dream. The one he attended only to please his father.
Suddenly that image disappeared, replaced by Sage standing hand in hand with nine other men and women. They stood in a circle, and everything about their surroundings—their clothing, the furnishings in the room—pointed to incredible wealth and luxury. In the middle of the circle stood a small bejeweled curio cabinet.
I recognized Magda in the group—or rather, I knew it was her somehow, as she looked nothing like the emaciated skeleton she was now. She was the picture of vibrant youth and beauty. She gave Sage a suggestive wink, and I actually did feel a tinge of jealousy run through me. Magda’s voice rang out loud and clear as she began a ceremony with the Society’s vow of secrecy, then continued,
“We come together to praise and protect the Elixir of Life.…”
But as she spoke, the scene faded away, replaced by Sage and a friend in a tavern, laughing over drinks.
I gasped out loud.
The friend was Ben.
He wasn’t Ben, of course. He was Giovanni, whom I knew from my dreams, but suddenly, seeing him in Magda’s vision, I didn’t have a single doubt that this was him. And from the way Ben’s hand suddenly went clammy as it gripped mine tightly, I was sure he knew it too.
Again, I automatically understood things I had no way of knowing. Giovanni was a shopkeeper’s son, from a much lower class than Sage, though the two had known each other since childhood. Giovanni’s class and financial status didn’t matter to Sage at all. Giovanni was his best friend, simple as that. He loved Sage just as much, but he was acutely aware of the social gulf between them. It ate him up inside. In his worst moments, he believed their friendship was nothing more than an act of charity on Sage’s part—something Sage could brag about with his rich “real” friends so he felt like a bigger man.
Sage never suspected Giovanni’s darker thoughts and insecurities, so Sage had no idea what he was doing when he scoffed and laughed about the Society.
“Honestly, Gi, it’s absurd. The money is dripping off the walls of this place, but none of it is anything compared to the cabinet for the great ‘Elixir of Life’! Solid gold, encrusted with rubies, diamonds, emeralds … any gem you can imagine, it’s on this cabinet. But inside the cabinet … oh, that’s even better.”
“What is it?” Giovanni asked, secretly salivating over the idea of the bejeweled cabinet. He imagined prying off just one or two of its perfect gems. He could feed and clothe his three little sisters for weeks. Or better, he could buy himself something fancy—a nice outfit like the kind Sage wore. Something that would make him look like a real nobleman.
“Inside the cabinet,” Sage went on, “are three vials, each as tall as the length of my forearm, and each of which puts the cabinet to shame. More jewels, more gold, crystal stoppers … and all for what?”
“The Elixir of Life,” Giovanni marveled. “Does it really give eternal life?”
“Come on, Gi, of course not! It can’t! There’s no such thing! It’s just an excuse for these people to make themselves feel special—the ‘Keepers of the Elixir.’ It kills me that I have to spend time with those puffed-up fools.”
Sage leaned back in his seat and called for the bartender to bring them another round. He had vented about the Society and was finished with it, but I could see that Giovanni’s mind still chewed over everything he’d just heard.
Again the scene changed. Now Giovanni stood in an unpaved street in a seamier part of town. With him was a gang of three boys, none of them older than nineteen. I knew—though again I had no way of knowing—that these boys had grown up in the same neighborhood as Giovanni. I also knew they were mean. Seeing them in my mind’s eye, I felt a rush of evil so palpable, I wanted to open my eyes and get away. I tried, and shivered as I realized I couldn’t. As long as I was in Magda’s circle of hands, I didn’t have control anymore—she did.
Giovanni didn’t see the evil in his friends. These were his neighborhood’s “cool kids,” and he ached to prove he was as tough as they were. He told them Sage’s story about the Society and all its riches, then puffed out his chest and added, “I’m thinking I’ll bust in there sometime and nip a few things for myself.” It wasn’t true, but he figured it would impress them. “Maybe I’ll steal the Elixir of Life vials. I bet I’d be set for good with just one of those.”
“‘Elixir of Life?’” the toughest of the three boys asked. “What’s that?”
Giovanni explained, his attitude as scoffing as Sage’s had been, but he had no idea of the spark he was lighting. Unfathomable riches and eternal life? Giovanni had inspired the guys to achieve their greatest haul ever. They pumped him for as many details as possible, and Giovanni blossomed under the attention, never guessing their real motives. He walked off feeling proud that the guys now saw him as somebody; the guys walked off determined that tomorrow would be the day they attacked the Society.
Immediately the scene changed again, and I saw myself.
Olivia and Sage walked arm in arm down the street in the moonlight. Ben gasped, and I knew he understood that Olivia was me. She didn’t look exactly like me. This wasn’t like the dreams where I saw myself as each of the other women. She looked like herself—the way Sage had drawn her on the cave floor. The way she looked in his paintings.
“Is this a big deal, presenting your bride-to-be to the Society members tonight?” Olivia teased.
“It’s a big deal to be with you.” Sage grinned. “You know how I feel about the Society. Their blessing is a necessary evil for my share of the family fortune.”
“What makes you think we’ll get their blessing? Your ex-girlfriend hates me, and she’s the one who runs it.”
“Magda doesn’t hate you.”
“Are you kidding? Have you seen the way she looks at me?”
“She might be a little jealous,” Sage admitted.
“Of course! She’s gorgeous! A woman like her can’t possibly lose men very often. I’m sure she’s just waiting for you to realize your mistake and go back to her.”
“Promise me you don’t really think that’ll happen.”
“I don’t know. …” Olivia hedged, not meeting his eye. “She’s rich and beautiful and in the Society. … I’m sure your father would love it if you married her.”
“Are you jealous?” Sage teased.
“I don’t know about jealous. I’m just saying—”
Sage laughed out loud and swept Olivia into his arms. “Olivia, the minute we met, other women ceased to exist. You are my soulmate. I’m not going back to anyone else. You’re stuck with me forever. Deal with it.”
Olivia smiled. “Okay … if I have to.”
Sage kissed her, then held her close as they continued walking along the street.
“You have nothing to worry about from Magda,” he assured her. “She can’t come between us, and no matter how she feels, she’d never let it get in the way of Society business. We’ll get their blessing.”
“Okay, good. I have to admit, I’m so curious to see how everything works.”
“Oh, I think you’ll be highly amused.”
The couple couldn’t be more casual as they walked off, but I suddenly felt cold with terror. The truth hit me like a head-on crash.
Sage was bringing Olivia to the Society tonight.
Tonight was the night Giovanni’s friends were going to strike.
No one but Sage and Magda was going to survive the attack.
I was about to watch the attack I’d envisioned in my dreams, and seen on Sage’s canvases.
My heart started thumping so hard it hurt. I was about to witness my own death.
I saw the Society again circling the bejeweled cabinet, this time with Olivia standing among them. Magda led the opening chant, sneering as her eyes met Olivia’s.
Suddenly the door burst open and Giovanni’s pack of “friends” poured in … but they weren’t alone. Their ranks had swelled to eight members, all armed with makeshift clubs and shivs. The luxury of the room reflected in their eyes, making them salivate with bloodthirsty greed.
“No screaming!” roared the leader, grabbing Magda and holding a roughly serrated knife to her throat. “Not a sound or she dies!”
The Society members immediately froze, and quieted into fearful whimpering. Even Sage stood still, but he wasn’t giving in. He cast a sidelong glance at Olivia and nodded slightly, letting her know he had this under control. He was biding his time and waiting for the right moment.
The leader grinned at the curio cabinet. “There it is, boys,” he said. “The Elixir of Life is in there. Just like Gi said.”
“Gi?” Sage asked, shocked. He looked at Olivia and she shook her head in disbelief—Giovanni couldn’t be responsible for this.
“Yeah, Gi, your charity case,” the leader spat at Sage. “You thought he was too poor and daft to be a threat, right? But he laughs at you—comes to us and tells us everything. And now what’s yours is going to be ours. Everything that’s yours.”
The leader grinned and ran his dirty fingers down Olivia’s cheek. With an animal roar, Sage lunged … but the leader urged on two of his men. They fell on Sage, stabbing him mercilessly in his chest, in his arms, in his legs.
Olivia’s sanity snapped, and she started screaming, loud and shrill. The leader warned her to stop, to close her mouth or else, but she couldn’t hear. She could only scream and scream and scream.…
An attacker smashed a club into the back of her skull, shutting her up. It was the last thing Sage saw before he lost consciousness.
The group of attackers gathered up all the gold and jewels they could find. They wanted to move quickly and get out. They didn’t even notice when Sage came to. He was on his side, barely able to pry his eyes open. Just the effort ripped his insides apart.
In the vision, I saw the room as he did. It was a slaughterhouse.
All around him lay the ripped, gashed, and blood-soaked bodies of the Society members. Magda was among them. I understood why Sage couldn’t believe she had survived. She looked just the way she had described, struggling weakly against her gaping wounds and the bloody dagger pinning her to the floor.
Sage looked away. Agonized, he struggled to scan the rest of the room. Where was Olivia?
Finally he saw her. She lay sprawled on the ground, her unseeing eyes still reflecting the shock and terror of her final moments.
I couldn’t breathe. This was impossibly awful, worse than Sage’s painting. This was real. And it was me. I had lived that life, and I had died that death. I was staring at the very end of me. It was too much. I began to hyperventilate. The images behind my closed eyes began to blur, and I was sure I would pass out.
Magda’s weightless, skeletal hand squeezed my own—hard—forcing me back to my senses.
The vision went on.
Sage cried out in agony when he saw Olivia, but his lungs were punctured. No sound emerged. Everything inside him was broken; he knew he was about to die. He took small solace in that.