Gathering Deep (26 page)

I stiffened.

“You've felt it sometimes, haven't you?” she said, her voice so low it was practically a purr. “True, you're flesh and blood, but only because
I
deemed that you should be.
I
picked your father so your body would be strong, powerful—traveled the world wide to find someone worthy for the job. On the day you were born,
I
pulled you from my own body and stopped your first breath before your soul could breathe deep and fill you up. I gave you my breath instead. I put part of who I was inside of you.”

“No—” I said, not wanting to believe it.

“Yes,” she said. “That's how it's always been. True enough, you had some free will. I had to give you the charms in your hair so you wouldn't suspect the hold I had on you, the connection we shared. After all, you needed to have a life if I was going to take it.”

I stepped back, horrified by what she was telling me. “That's impossible,” I said, swallowing hard. But I wasn't so sure she was lying. I'd tapped into her past so easily. And without the charms in my hair anymore, the connection between us was undeniable.

“Is it now?” She smiled.

“But why? You had Alex already. Why did you need me?”

“Every soul needs a body, baby girl, but about thirty years back that Frenchman's energy started to wane. He was a powerful one, an old soul, but nothing lasts forever.” She laughed. “Nothing but me, I suppose. When I started going back to him more often to refresh my youth, I decided my soul needed
two
bodies. So I created you. Just in case.”

“In case of what?” I was shaking, but had to focus. I had to ignore the devastating truth in her words, ignore the voice I could still hear calling me in my mind, and draw her away from Piers. I had to keep her focused on me, but the more focused on me she became, the more her voice called to me, and the more I wanted to answer it.

“For when
he
came back to me,” she said, her voice soft and fluttery like a girl's.

“But Augustine never came back to you, did he?” I asked, ignoring the pull toward my mother as well as I could.

Thisbe grimaced but didn't respond.

“You waited and waited. You were faithful, weren't you?” I asked, sliding a little farther away from her, praying she followed.

“I
was
faithful,” she hissed, stepping toward me like I hoped she would. “I've always been faithful,” she said, like she had something to prove.

“Not always,” I told her, poking at her weaknesses, trying to figure out how much she knew. Trying to distract her. “You had me, didn't you? Unless you conjured me out of the air, you were with a man.”

Her face twisted into a snarl. “I was
faithful
,” she growled. “I did everything for
him
, to be with him. Only him.”

I shook my head. “You did all of that—you gave up your very soul and all your possible futures—for a man who didn't come back.”

“He couldn't!” she shrieked, and then slumped over with a sob like she'd been punched in the stomach.

I glanced at Odane. S
he knows
.

Not good
, his eyes seemed to say.

I didn't disagree. She'd be more unstable because she knew. More desperate. Less predictable.

Be ready
, I tried to tell him.

He nodded, just slightly, to let me know he understood.

“He couldn't come back because of what you did to him,” I said, stepping toward her. “You didn't want him to go.”

Her head snapped up.

“Yes, Thisbe, I know all about that.”

Thisbe's eyes shifted, like she was nervous suddenly. “You don't know anything at all.”

“I know you drugged Augustine—”

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't deny it.

“You tried to keep him,” I said, more confident now in my words, “and that's how Roman killed him. But you didn't know that, did you? Not until recently, at least.”

She glared at me, her eyes aglow with something not quite human. “I didn't, no. Not until that boy of yours brought me that evil book.”

I froze. “What do you mean?”

Thisbe smiled. “I needed the charm that Aimes took from my cabin. I went to Le Ciel that day to kill him for it, but when I saw Aimes give Piers the package, I decided to change my plans. It was easy enough to get the boy's attention. He was so eager to put an end to me, so eager to be your shining knight. As though a bit of brute strength could overpower me. He did everything I needed—retrieved the aloe from the old hag's shop, helped me kill Byron—”

I couldn't stop my mouth from dropping open. “Piers wouldn't,” I denied, thinking of his gentle, scholar's hands.

“Amazing what a little magic will do, isn't it? Easy as playing with a marionette on a string,” Thisbe said, her mouth pulling up into a wicked curve. “True, he fought me the whole time, but you didn't seem to notice how much he was fighting when you talked to him on the phone.”

My stomach turned. She'd had Piers then, and I hadn't even known he was gone. I hadn't trusted him—or us—enough to know he wouldn't have treated me so short, no matter how mad at me he was.

“But why?” I cried as my guilt clawed at me.

“Because I could. It was easier to use the boy than to take the chance of anyone seeing me.”

“What did Byron ever do to you?”

“Nothing at all until he opened himself up to Roman,” Thisbe snarled.

“What?” I glanced over at Odane, but he shook his head to warn me against calling attention to him. So I forced myself to focus on Thisbe.

Thisbe chuckled, a dark, hissing sort of laugh. “You didn't read all of Roman's book, did you?” she said, stepping toward me.

I swallowed down my fear and held my ground. But she was right. We hadn't read everything—there was still plenty that hadn't even been translated.

“Roman thought he could control this world, but he wasn't even enough of a man to make himself a son.” Thisbe sneered. “You think he was willing to let go of his precious land just because his life was at an end? No,” she snapped. “Roman found a way to leave a part of himself behind so he could come back, again and again, to watch over his precious house. He had a portrait done of him and his bride, a daguerreotype.”

“He used the picture?” I asked, remembering Roman's cold-eyed stare looking up from beneath the glass of the picture Byron had brought that day.

Thisbe smiled. “People used to be afraid of photographs stealing their souls. It gave Roman an idea, and he found a way to leave some of himself behind in a bit of glass, so when another body found it, he could walk in this world again. Thanks to your boy bringing me the book, I finally knew what to look for. I didn't just kill Roman this time. I destroyed his way of recreating himself. I made sure he'll
never
come back again.”

I remembered what Lucy had told me about the strange way Byron had died—with the glass of the daguerreotype shattered and used to stab him.

“I trapped his soul—with Piers's help, of course. Roman is through forever, and now that he's dead, I can free Augustine from the evil he did to him.”

“The police will pin Byron's death on Piers,” I said, horrified. They already thought he'd stolen the university's artifacts.

“I was careful,” she said. “There isn't any evidence they could link to him. If there were, then all this would be for nothing. Aren't they already looking at that professor?” She smiled at me. “By the time they realize there isn't a case, we'll both be far, far away from here, anyway.”

“Piers would never go anywhere with you.”

“Of course he will. You think I didn't have a plan all along?” She took a step toward me, and I found I couldn't move. Not because I was scared—which I was—but because my muscles weren't under my control any longer.

“I've been watching you your whole life, baby girl. Watching you and then watching him. I always thought he might have something more to him, but after that night
where that girl nearly destroyed me, I knew for certain.
When I realized your Piers could see that French boy's soul, I knew I'd been right about him all along. About his worthiness.” She smiled, a sickening sneer.

“You can't kill him,” I said, desperate.

“Kill him?” She looked genuinely surprised. “Why would I kill such a fine, fine specimen? No, I'll use him once I free Augustine. No one will be the wiser—me in your strong little body, Augustine in his. You two have always been so head over heels, it's the perfect cover. Who would suspect?”

I glanced at Odane out of the corner of my eye, but it was enough to remind Thisbe of his presence.

“Oh, don't you worry. You're not going to last long enough to tell anyone,” she said to Odane, reaching out her hand and drawing it into a fist.

Odane collapsed to his knees, his hands around his neck like he was trying to pull something away from it.

“Leave him alone,” I said, trying to lunge toward her but unable to move. “You can do whatever you want with me, but leave him go.”

She scoffed. “I can do whatever I want with you anyway, baby girl.”

At a flick of her wrist, I stiffened. Something came over me and bubbled up from inside of me all at once. Suddenly, I couldn't make myself do anything. It was like being trapped inside of my body, paralyzed, but my limbs kept on moving without my say-so. I spun on my heels, my arms and legs all akimbo like a marionette. Then all at once it stopped.

“See?” Thisbe drawled. “You feel it, don't you? Like something deep inside you finally got set free. That something is
me
. It always has been.”

It was powerful, the thing she was talking about—that something deep inside me that felt like it could fly. Part of me wanted to let it have all the freedom it craved, but I struggled against it. I fought against Thisbe's power with every bit of energy I had left.

Thisbe's mouth curved into a cold smile. “Go ahead and struggle all you want,” she said. “It'll only make the whole process faster. To think, my Augustine has never been gone. He's always been here, just as I suspected, and I'm going to free him now. I'm going to free us both.”

I felt weak, so weak. Not in my body, no—it was as strong and young as always, but deep inside myself, I felt different. Suddenly, I felt so far away from the skin I'd always lived in, like the power I was drowning in would overtake me at any moment.

But that other part of me pushed it away again with my last bit of strength. “Won't. Work,” I choked out, remembering Lucy and all she'd been through. If Thisbe freed Augustine's soul from the house, she would lose him, just as Lucy had lost Alex.

She me pinned with those devilish eyes of hers, and I couldn't make my voice work. “I won't lose him if I have a body for him to live in,” she said, smiling like she knew she'd won. “I have Piers all ready to receive him. There's just the small matter of calling on the one spirit who can finish this once and for all.”

Thisbe looked me over, and then she dismissed me and went to stand near where Piers was lying on the velvet settee. On the side table was a bulbous glass bottle. Thisbe picked it up and unstoppered it. Then, chanting the same weird syllables in the voice that sounded so much like my mother, she poured the contents in a circle around them both.

In the corner, Odane was still struggling against the invisible hands that were strangling him, but his movements were getting slower and less forceful. I couldn't move at all, but I knew something was going to happen—something bad.

In my mind, I screamed for her to stop.

Thisbe glanced up at me, surprise in her eyes.

Had she heard me? I tried again:
I know what you're about to do. It's a bad idea, Momma,
I thought, pushing the words in her direction, willing her to understand.

Something flickered in the depths of her eyes when
she heard me call her that, and the hand holding the bottle faltered.

You can't trust Baron Samedi
, I thought, pushing the words toward her again.

But it was the wrong thing to tell her. As quickly as she'd hesitated, Thisbe was back.

“You think I haven't learned everything there is to learn by now?” she asked as she finished pouring out the circle and then anointed herself—her head, her heart, her lips. “I'm not afraid of a spirit.”

“You should be,” Ikenna said from the doorway. He looked at me and then saw his son struggling for breath. “Odeana called me and sent me over here,” he said, stepping into the room. He placed his hands on his son's head, and Odane collapsed to his knees, his breath coming in huge, heaving gasps.

Ikenna looked straight at me again and asked, “This the witch?”

I couldn't answer. I couldn't move at all.

Thisbe, clearly surprised by this turn of events, growled. “You're too late, whoever you are,” she said, touching her finger to the circle of wetness around her feet. In a flash, blue flames sprang up around her, their eerie glow throwing grotesque shadows across her face.

We have to get out of here
, I wanted so badly to scream. The whole place was soaked with gas. It would go up like a bomb the second those flames hit it. But my lips were frozen, my voice stoppered tight.

But when the blue flames started to lick at my legs, I realized they weren't hot. They weren't real flames, or rather, they weren't burning. They traveled across the floor until the entire room was ablaze in their icy glow—the entire room except the circle in which Thisbe stood.