The Coveted (The Unearthly) (10 page)

I shook out my hair, and it regained some of its volume. Damp, dark waves of hair cascaded down my back. “That’s what happens when you get greedy Oliver.”

“Easy for you to say. Your hair just naturally looks good.” He muttered something about stupid sirens. “I need a mirror to fix this,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the ballroom.” He wandered away, towards the men’s restrooms.

I walked down the long hallway, in no rush to get to the ballroom. Behind me I heard a growl, and then the clicking of paws.

Not this again.

A warm canine tongue licked my hand. Ever since I’d survived my ordeal a month ago, the castle’s black ghostly dog, the Moddey Dhoo, had started following me when I was alone in the castle.

The dog was supposed to be an omen of death; whoever saw him was destined to die within a day. I had and I lived. I guess surviving that sort of ordeal made us friends.

He whined happily as I scratched him behind his ears. I was just glad that he closed his eyes so I wouldn’t have to see how they glowed red.

My life was officially a freak show.

I began walking again, the dog followed next to me, wagging his tail. The torches flickered in their scones, and a couple skeletons that had been placed on display grinned at me.

Music blared from the door down the hall, which had been propped open. Now that we were near other people, my demonic buddy had to do his vanishing act. He gave my hand a parting lick and disappeared.

I pushed open the door to the ballroom. In the middle of the room, students danced. Off along the edges of the room, seers sat at different booths, offering to read palms, scry the future, cast runes, perform psychometry, deliver messages from the departed
—
I was going to steer clear of that one
—
or give tarot card readings.

Next to the Witches Festival, the Seer Club threw the biggest Samhain party on campus. And by the crowded atmosphere of the room, not many students were willing to miss it.

I wound my way through the ballroom. Only a month ago I’d been in here with Caleb for our last dance. Funny how much could change in such a short period of time.

As soon as I got close to the dance floor, I felt a set of eyes on me. I turned towards the source and met eyes with Caleb.

Speak of the devil. He danced with a pretty blonde, but his gaze was on me. If this was his attempt at making me jealous, or just a way of getting my attention, he shouldn’t have bothered. I was relieved to see Caleb with someone else.

Next to the punch bowl
—
which was spiked from the smell of it
—
Leanne chatted with a group of girls. I waited for the conversation to finish before I pulled Leanne away.

“Hey!” she said when she saw me. “This is awesome, isn’t it?”

“Definitely!” I shouted so I could be heard over the music. To be honest, I would’ve preferred being back in my room, curled up with a book, but I’d never admit that to Leanne, who’d been helping plan this for weeks now.

There was a moment of silence, and then I blurted out, “Why have you kept your premonitions from me?”

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure she’d been having all that many premonitions that concerned me. But after her warning yesterday, the lingering worry that something bad was going to happen to me wouldn’t go away.

Leanne, whose eyes had been wandering over to a cute guy working at one of the booths, now snapped back to me. That answered my question. She had been keeping her premonitions from me. I could smell her guilt.

The skin around her eyes tightened and a line formed between her brows. She took a long swig of her spiked drink and pulled me to the edge of the room, where it was a bit quieter. “The last time I told you your future I misinterpreted it and you almost died.”

Something about her statement made me think that wasn’t why she was withholding her premonitions from me, but I addressed that concern of hers anyway. “Leanne, I didn’t almost die
because
you misinterpreted it. Someone would’ve tried to kill me either way. I think you saved a lot of lives that night.”

She put her thumb and forefinger to her temple. “That’s not my point. I can’t usually make sense of the images I see
—
not until the events have come to pass.” Leanne dropped her hand. “And the things that seem to involve you . . . they seem more like nightmares than reality.”

***

I stayed at the party for a little over an hour. Just long enough to show my support and to get dragged to the dance floor by Oliver, but not long enough to get cornered by Caleb or for my presence to cause widespread panic.

I began to leave when I heard familiar lines murmured.

“…
If you walk the old corpse road where the dead ley, sprites and devils might snatch you away.
” A dark girl with sparkling, unfocused eyes recited the lines.

The poem rested on my desk back in my dorm, but the girl behind the booth spoke as though she’d memorized the lines. “
Go to the Braaid and you’ll lose your soul; for an entrance into hell, such is the toll.
”

Once she finished, her eyes focused on me. “It’s a riddle.”

I nodded, my mouth hanging slightly open. “Uh, thanks.”

I began to stride away. At my back I heard her call. “Solve it and you’ll save some lives.”

Chapter 10

I left the
ballroom and wandered the halls, ready to leave the party but not quite ready to go back to my room. I decided to get to know my school’s layout a little better. Heaven knows I needed some alone time to think. My thoughts were still trying to piece together all the cryptic warnings I’d been given within the last couple hours.

The castle’s demonic dog saddled up next to me, his tongue lolling out. His paws clicked against the stone floor as we walked down two flights of stairs. The air here was damp and it smelled like mildew.

The subterranean section of the castle seemed older and eerier than the warm atmosphere two floors above. It gave me the chills to think that somewhere around here was that hall of skulls.

Torches lit up as I strode down the hall. At the end of it, the hallway split off. Next to me, my furry companion sped up and turned the corner to the right. A few seconds later I rounded the same corner and blinked. The dog was gone.

There was only one door down this hallway, and it stood at the very end of it.

I turned to go back the way I came when I hesitated. I was already down here
—
if I really wanted a tour of the school, then I might as well check out the rooms I’d never visited before.

I began to walk towards the far door. My footsteps echoed along the hall, and I heard a small splash as I stepped into a puddle along the cobblestone floor.

I came up to the wood and wrought iron door, reluctant to go any further. My pulse sped up as I wrapped my hand around the iron handle. I tugged. Locked.

Of course it was. The school wouldn’t just leave their doors unlocked for students like me to come traipsing through.

I dropped my hand and stepped away from the door, not sure why I felt disappointed.

The door made a screeching sound, and I put a hand to my mouth as it swung open of its own accord. Beyond it, the room was cast in darkness.

I’m not going to go into the spooky room. I’m not.

I took a step forward, and then another. Once I crossed the threshold, the room lit up.

What I saw took my breath away. Crystal chandeliers hung over my head. A gilded mural was painted directly onto the ceiling. But that wasn’t even the most fantastical part. A series of mirrors ran down the length of the room. I stood inside a hall of mirrors.

Once I regained my bearings, I wandered further into the room. Behind me the door swung shut. I dearly hoped it didn’t just lock me in.

I walked up to the first mirror. My reflection stared back at me.

Why was a hall of mirrors located on a subterranean floor of Peel Castle? It was beautiful, but it made no sense why the gorgeous room would be relegated to such an unvisited area of the building.

The air above my reflection coalesced into a message:
Welcome to the Hall of Perception
.

I staggered back and the words disappeared.

I moved to the next mirror. Spider-web wrinkles formed around my eyes and lips and along my forehead.

I brought my hand up to my face. The skin beneath my fingers felt smooth and unblemished. Meanwhile my reflection’s wrinkles deepened and the skin along my face sagged. Bags formed under my eyes and the skin became discolored, and my eyes rheumy. Within a minute my reflection was an old woman.

The mirrors in this room were enchanted.

In the next mirror I saw myself as an adult. Behind my reflection the room had vanished. In its place was a suburban house. A child ran up to my reflection and tugged on her leg. My reflection turned away from me and knelt in front of the boy. She reached out and grasped his hands and I caught a glimpse of a wedding ring. Beyond her a man I didn’t recognize came out of the house and appeared to call out to her. Whoever he was, he wasn’t Andre. My reflection smiled and the little boy ran into the man’s arms.

The three of them together looked . . . wrong. I’d never have kids, never just live in suburbia
—
I may never even be as open and content as my reflection looked. Not to mention that I couldn’t imagine myself with someone who wasn’t Andre. He was the only guy who’d managed to get past all of my boundaries.

I broke away from this mirror and moved to the next. Within this mirror, my skin glowed. I took one step and then another towards the radiant girl in the mirror, intoxicated by her appearance. I touched the cool glass, and our hands met. This must be what people saw when the siren came out. Not even I could completely resist it.

Reluctantly I left this reflection. All the mirrors appeared to show alternate perceptions of reality. One showed how I would age
—
though I’d never get the chance thanks to my genes. Another showed a mundane but happy life, which I’d also never get to experience. And the last mirror showed what I looked like as a siren.

In the next mirror Andre stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me. My reflection smiled to herself; she looked mischievous as she turned to face him. The most startling thing about this version of me was how blissful she appeared. Did I look like that when I was around Andre?

My gaze flicked to the vampire holding me in the mirror, and my breath caught in my throat. It wasn’t his beauty that captured my attention, but how he gazed at the girl in his arms. I’d seen him wear that particular expression, but never as an outsider. That was true love.

I watched them for a bit, but as soon as they started making out, I left the mirror
—
watching them at that point felt a little too creepy.

I wondered what a room like this could be used for. Predicting the future? Seeing and understanding all sides of yourself better?

Other than the eerie way my reflections acted independently from me, this hall of perception was kind of neat. At least it was until I stepped up to the next mirror.

My reflection gazed at me, until something over my shoulder caught her eye. The hair at the base of my neck stood on end and I spun around to see what was behind me. Nothing was there.

I turned back to the mirror in time to see my reflection’s eyes widen and her body jerk. Blood bloomed over her heart. It spread along the fabric of her white dress, an outfit I wasn’t currently wearing. Her lips moved, but without sound I couldn’t understand what she said. She staggered, then fell.

I couldn’t stand watching any more. I left the mirror and skipped over the others, moving to the last mirror, the largest of them all. It took up almost the entirety of the wall opposite the door.

The crystal chandeliers above me dimmed lower and lower, until the room was mostly cast in shadow. My breathing sped up as I watched my unchanging reflection.

Only it was changing. The shadows seemed to flicker, playing tricks with my eyes. The darkness gathered and formed behind my reflection. I had to glance over my shoulder to make sure the events were contained within the mirror. They were.

I faced the mirror again. Behind my reflection the darkness had formed into a man.

I took a step back, not realizing that my reflection would also do so. She bumped into the man in the suit.

As soon as she did so, her movements no longer mirrored my own. She glanced up at the devil. I could see the whites of her eyes when she realized just who she’d run into. He smiled down at her, and the sight of it made my skin crawl. My reflection looked as though her fear had paralyzed her. The man in a suit ran the back of his hand along her cheek.

He glanced up and he met my gaze.

This is very, very bad.

“Good evening Gabrielle,” he said to me. Unlike the other reflections, I could hear his voice. Not good.

He let go of my reflection and she stumbled away from him. I took one step back, then another, as he stalked towards the mirror.

“Miss me?” he asked. The shadows around him quivered.

I turned and ran. An infinite number of reflections stretched out in all directions. Only for a moment did they all line up. Once the moment ended, they began to diverge. Some smiled, some screamed, some aged, some fought off invisible assailants.

“You can’t run from me, Gabrielle.” I didn’t bother with the handle of the door. I kicked it open. “Look for me on Samhain because I’m coming for you.”

***

I didn’t stop running until I made it back to the ground level of the castle. Even then, I only walked because people were now loitering in the halls around the ballroom. I glanced over my shoulder frequently. But if the devil was following me, he was doing a great job of remaining invisible.

The devil was coming for me. And Samhain was in less than a week. The thought made me feel unclean.

I mentally kicked myself. I just had to go looking for trouble, didn’t I? And just when I really had enough on my plate.

As soon as I exited the front doors, I ran across the campus, using the rain as a convenient excuse to burn off my adrenaline. My dorm appeared through the hazy rain. Now all I needed was a hot shower and a feel-good movie to make me feel safe once more.

My run slowed to a jog, but my breathing remained ragged and uneven. Only now as I closed in on my dorms, I noticed the sleek black car pulled up next to my building. I’d been so scared back in the castle that I hadn’t noticed the current of energy that had been building, but now it consumed me.

“Gabrielle, are you alright?”

Andre’s velvety voice was full of concern. Suddenly he was in front of me, his hands clasping my upper arms and his eyes roving me over.

I glanced over my shoulder, but there was no one there. Andre followed my line of sight. “What are you looking at?”

“The devil,” I said before I could stop myself.

His hands tightened on my arms and I brushed them away. “What do you mean the devil?”

We stood out in the rain, and it reminded me of the last time Andre had parked outside my dorm and waited for me on a rainy evening.

I rubbed my arms. “I mean, he’s no longer there . . . but I saw him.” I was babbling, and bless Andre’s damned soul, he didn’t look at me like I was a freak.

His mouth thinned and his dark eyes hardened.

He shrugged off his leather jacket. “Here,” he said, throwing it over my shoulders. The fact that I didn’t immediately shrug it off scared me; I was too rattled by the man in the suit and perhaps too comfortable with Andre to tell chivalry to eff off.

“Why are you here?” I asked, distracted. We hadn’t made plans to meet up tonight.

He tried leading me to the car, but I wasn’t budging until I got an explanation. I hadn’t completely lost my edge.

He ran a hand through his soaked hair. “I was going to ask you on a date.” He watched me, the raindrops glistening against his skin. I wished I looked half as good as he did wet. “I tried to get ahold of you, but you weren’t picking up.”

I felt my pockets for my phone before I remembered that I’d only brought my keys along with me to the ballroom.

My eyes dropped to his chest, where the rain had molded his black shirt to his skin. All that is holy, no wonder the guy was damned. Having that nice of a body should be a sin.

“So I came out here to make sure everything was alright.”

I tore my eyes away from his sculpted pecs. “For your information, not answering the phone does not indicate that I’m in mortal danger.”

That muscle in Andre’s jaw jumped. “You’re not serious Gabrielle, are you?” His voice took on that deceptively calm note. “By your own admission you were with the devil just moments ago.”

I folded my arms. “So? I don’t need some man to save me.”

His eyes were intense. “I’m not just
some man
. I’m your soulmate. And I will do whatever I think is necessary if your life is in danger.”

“Will you stop trying to protect me?” I said.

He stalked away from me and leaned his hands against his car, bowing his head. For the next minute the only sound was whatever fancy breathing technique he was using to rein in his emotions.

Finally, I heard him sigh. “I’m not very good at relationships.” Well, that makes two of us. He fisted one of his hands and lightly pounded his car with it. “It kills me to see what I’m doing: I’m so scared of losing you again that I’m sabotaging the situation.”

Andre pushed away from the car. He looked like he’d already lost whatever he held most dear to him.

I exhaled. “I appreciate the explanation,” I said. And I did. The guy had seven hundred years to become the bossy, controlling man he was today, and no one had taken the time to tell him to shove it. Not to mention that I could be a bit prickly at times. “And I’ll forgive you on two conditions.”

He must have been feeling pretty bad because he didn’t even try to argue. He waited.

“One,” I said, “you feed me some dinner. And two, tell me all you know about the devil.”

***

We sat across from each other at an Italian restaurant in Douglas, a city on the opposite end of the Isle of Man. The dim lighting made Andre look the part of mysterious stranger. He sipped on a glass of wine while I enjoyed my fettuccini alfredo.

“Can you really drink that?” I asked, nodding to the glass in his hand.

He set it down, his fingers moving the stem of the glass in small circles. “Yes, but I don’t digest it.”

“Huh.” I twirled pasta around my fork. In the background classical music played quietly.

“You wanted to know about the devil,” he said. “May I ask why the sudden interest?”

I put my fork down and considered my dinner. “The interest isn’t sudden. I told you before, this guy has stalked me my whole life. I just never knew he was the devil until that night at Bishopcourt.”

I gave Andre a long look. “You’ve met him, haven’t you? I read about it right after I arrived here. You were the first vampire created, and he turned you.”

Andre let go of his wine glass to rest his forearms on the table. “Listen Gabrielle. I believe knowledge is power, but when it comes to discussing evil, knowing more makes you more vulnerable.”

I remembered at the séance the medium telling Leanne something similar.

He continued. “I will tell you what you want to know, but I need you to promise me to be careful with this knowledge.”

Being ignorant had gotten me nowhere
—
the man in the suit was still after me. The least I could do was learn and protect myself. “I promise.”