“Jeez, sorry. I just think it’s nice that there’s the potential for love in a life that seems so corrupt and cutthroat.”
Vivian was already walking away. I knew she heard me, even if she didn’t want to recognize what I said was true.
“What can you tell me about Aurelia’s sister?” I called after her.
“No amount of knowledge will help keep you alive. Just pray your lucky star does not burn out.”
Great. That was encouraging.
There was a biting chill in the air inside the chateau. The place reeked of death, like an exhumed grave. In the darkness the shadows danced, liberated from the bodies they once stalked. Chattering voices echoed in the halls as I passed, but none seemed to have an owner, nor could I decipher what was being discussed.
The interior remained mostly intact, save for the frequent piles of blood-soaked ash littering the floors. Only the many oil paintings depicting Her Majesty were touched. As if to make a statement, the faces were gouged out and the canvas splattered with blood, possibly from the remains of her followers. Her legacy tarnished, her property seized, she was no longer welcome here.
“Admiring my work?”
It was the woman who had watched from the window the other night, the one who showed me the false vision of my parents.
“It’s … different,” I replied.
This was the first time I had gotten a good look at her. She had snow-white skin and straight jet-black hair down to her knees. Her clothing was more gothic princess than her sister’s lavish royalty ensemble. The only jewelry she had on was a black lace choker adorned with a simple crystal. Her billowing black dress with matching corset flowed along with her hair despite the lack of a breeze. She hovered and glided gracefully through the air, with shadows twisting and swirling around her. Her body seemed corporeal, although her clothing seemed to be made of something far less natural than cloth. The way it moved was almost like it was alive. Ignoring the ghastly atmosphere she projected and her heartless smile at the chaos she had caused, Rozalin was actually quite pretty.
“This one happens to be my favorite,” she said, floating down the corridor a bit to show me another ruined portrait of her sister.
Her amber eyes and pale skin stood out against the darkened hallway. I had never encountered a ghost before, but her presence wasn’t anything I could have prepared myself for. You could feel the power brimming over from her and, like witnessing a bolt of lightning, it gave me both a sense of awe and danger.
“Where are Noah and Vance?” I asked. By this time, I was positive they were either dead or hadn’t made it here yet, in which case I had just foiled their ambush.
“The library downstairs,” she answered. “They think me ignorant of their hiding spot while they plot against me. You can get to them by taking a right up ahead; from there you’ll see the stairs. Proceed with haste! They are constantly on the move to avoid being trapped. How clever.”
“Uh, thanks. I didn’t think you’d really tell me.” I was shocked she was being so forthcoming. She knew they were plotting against her, so why would she help me reunite with them?
“Because I want an audience for their death screams!” Rozalin exploded into a fit of hysterics and dissolved into thin air. Her laughter persisted as I raced through the building. She would manifest ahead of me every few rooms to torment me. “Run, run!” she cackled. “This way!”
I made an attempt to use my powers and knock her out, but she was unaffected. My efforts just provoked more fits of laughter and taunting.
“This calls for a celebration! A tea party! We shall have a tea party to commemorate my triumph!” I was starting to think she had completely lost it when I was blindsided by a table that came flying out from a room. “Now we need guests! You can’t have a tea party without guests!”
My head was spinning. The table collided with me and smashed against the wall so hard it broke. Rozalin was floating in front of me with her hands above two ash piles. Black sparks crackled from her fingertips and ignited the ashes into similarly black flames. The ashes quivered and began reforming into humanoid shapes.
Unlike the parasite-infected humans, these shambling corpses were the very image of reanimated death. Their bodies were rotted, and muscle and bones were exposed, giving off a wafting stench of putrefaction. They lurched over the broken table, snapping their jaws at me where I was trapped underneath.
“You see! I am a better host than my dear sister!” Rozalin took one of them by the chin to peer into its empty eye sockets. “And you! You are simply gorgeous now! Don’t you agree?”
Kicking the second reanimated corpse away, I fled down the hall. Rozalin was giggling behind me, bringing back all the fallen residents as she flew by until there was an entire horde chasing me. I kept running until I tripped over something in the dark. It looked like a piece of wood. I slowed down for just a second to see what it was. It was the broken table again. Somehow I had gone in a circle. It wasn’t hard to believe that Rozalin was screwing with me from the start, so at the turn ahead I went the opposite way.
Two hallways later and I was back at the broken table.
This was impossible. I was wasting time no matter what path I took. I ducked into one of the rooms and blocked the door with a chair from the inside. The enthralled bodies of the former inhabitants banged against the door as I leaned against it to keep them from coming in.
“What happened to wanting me to witness you killing the other two?” I shouted at her from behind the door. The banging stopped instantly. I peeked under the door to check what was going on. The walking corpses were all gone and there was no sign of Rozalin.
“Please come back out.”
I jumped back in fright as a face appeared looking back at me. It was my mother, or her face at least. Her hand reached out to me from under the door.
“That isn’t funny!” I yelled.
Vivi was right. Coming here was a bad idea. I put my hand out, aiming at a window across from me, and shattered the glass. I cleared away the broken pieces around the frame to climb out safely.
I jumped down to the ground below, but when I got up, I was back in a mirror image of the room. This was getting ridiculous. Noah and Vance were probably already dead or going through the same thing. We would never find each other. I walked to the door and pushed the chair out of the way to leave.
“I can bring them back.” Rozalin’s voice came from another chair that faced a fireplace lit with black flames. She was sitting staring into the fire and drinking from a cup of tea.
An image of my parents formed beside me.
“No, you can’t. This isn’t real. None of this is,” I said.
“But it is. I hold power over death itself. What you see is their souls. Trapped in the Underworld they wait for you, refusing to pass on without the chance to say goodbye.”
“I don’t believe you and I don’t want them back if your idea is to turn them into anything except human.”
I probably shouldn’t have said that. The teacup vanished from her hand. She smiled sneakily and looked at me from the corner of her eye.
“Then what we need are fresh bodies to put them in. What luck! We happen to have two right here, scurrying about my halls like vermin just waiting to be exterminated!”
“What? No. I’m turning my parents into Vance and Noah? That’s just … really weird.”
“Oh, but they won’t be! The bodies will take whatever form the soul projects. You can have your lovely family back, and I will strip my sister of her prized pet and the troublesome mage!”
“Why do you even need my help?” I asked. “You seem plenty powerful on your own.”
“Yes, yes I am. But my power wanes the longer I am absent from the Underworld. Killing them would expend all I have left and then I would be sent back, my fun ended. I could use their souls to replenish my power. A fair trade, no?”
“Please, Dorian,” my mom said. “Just give us the chance to be together again. We were waiting for you. To see your face, to share your happiness when we gave you the surprise we had planned.”
There was no way this was just an illusion. How else would she know something that specific if she couldn’t read my mind? Still, it didn’t feel right.
“No,” I turned to Rozalin. “I won’t do it.”
“You will regret ever rejecting me!” she wailed. My parents disappeared and the building quaked as shadows formed a maelstrom around her and hurled me out of the room. “I will make sure to use mommy and daddy’s souls to fuel my vengeance!” she screamed with rage from within the walls.
What did I do? All this to answer some questions about things that didn’t matter up until last night. Nothing I could do now would make up for what I had condemned my parents to. That wound hadn’t even healed yet, and now it was ten times worse. But Vance and Noah were still fine. If I helped them, maybe Rozalin could be stopped before anything happened to my parents.
Walking corpses continued patrolling the house, but there was no sign of Rozalin. I was able to find the stairs going down without her interference, but the walking corpses blocked the path. I carried one of the table legs with me for protection just in case. Either I really was getting stronger or these things were a bit frailer than the parasitic mutants. Hitting them with my powers alone crippled them enough for me to get by. They continued to crawl toward me with their broken bodies. I had to use the table leg as a club to put them out of commission.
“Admiring my work?” It was Rozalin again, but her voice was coming from far away.
“Where are the others?” a man asked.
No! That was Lyle, but what was he doing here? I got off the stairs and headed back, screaming for him to get out of the house.
“This one happens to be my favorite,” she repeated.
“Lyle, you have to get out! Don’t talk to her!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Again, I was lost in an endless maze. Every turn took me farther from their voices, and it didn’t seem like Lyle was able to hear me at all.
“Tell me where they are or I swear to God I’ll shoot!” he demanded.
What was Lyle doing? A bullet wasn’t going to do anything to her. This wasn’t the time to be playing good cop and read her her rights.
“God? God isn’t here.” Rozalin burst into a fit of laughter. “No, He stopped watching this place long ago.”
Their conversation faded out. I doubled back to the stairs, but there was no way of knowing whether Noah and Vance were even there anymore. One of the zombified residents came trudging out from the ballroom where I had met Aurelia. I thought at first to avoid it, but then it might get in Lyle’s way. At least if he saw the body he’d know somebody in here was still okay.
I sent the corpse reeling back. Instead of using my makeshift weapon to bludgeon it to death, I took a few steps closer and kept using my power to smash its head against the wall until its skull cracked like an eggshell and went lifeless again.
I left the table leg on the floor next to it for Lyle and finally went downstairs. “Admiring my work?” I heard Rozalin saying for a third time. There was no response, just the sound of high heels tapping on the marble floor above. “This one happens to be my favorite.”
It had to be Vivian that Rozalin was trying to harass now. I already knew trying to contact her would be in vain, so I continued onward.
The basement was more than a few bookshelves; this was more of a re-creation of the New York Public Library than a typical collection. The floor had two levels and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. If it weren’t for the oil lamps along the sides of the bookcases, the library would be pitch-black.
I called out for Noah and Vance, but got no reply. My voice echoed into the darkness, which seemed to extend for miles. Something slithered and wrapped around my leg, making me jump, but it was gone before I could reach down to swat it away. I stumbled over chairs and piles of books, trying to get to the other side of the library. Every few feet I’d get tangled in something that felt like a spiderweb or long strands of hair, but the next second it would disappear.
Somebody was talking from behind a door off to the left, but stopped when I got close. “Hello?” I banged on the door. “Noah? Vance?”
“Maybe if we’re quiet he’ll go away.” That was Noah, all right.
“Open the damn door!” I shouted.
Noah opened and grabbed me by the jacket, tossing me inside and slamming the door shut. Vance sat on the floor with his tome. The room was just a storage closet lit only by a few candles, with nothing more than some boxes and a spare reading desk like the ones outside.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Noah leaned back against the door, looking disgusted. “What’s it look like? We’re hiding like pussies because this guy didn’t come prepared.”
“Never mind the fact that you staked me and dragged me here against my will. When was it that I should have made preparations?” Vance protested angrily.
“Always come prepared for battle,” Noah said and pointed accusingly at him.
“I am a scholar, not a warrior, and I never claimed to be anything but!”
Noah mumbled something, but I stopped him before they dragged out their argument even longer. “Lyle and Vivi are somewhere in here, too.”
“I surmised others were here,” Vance said. “Rozalin has left us alone for a while, so I knew she had to be busy toying with someone else.”
“She knows you’re down here.”
“It doesn’t matter. I bought us some time by warding this room against ghosts. We’ll be safe until she decides to end the game and figures out how to dispel the ward.”
“So what? We just wait?”
“No one’s stopping you from going back out there,” Noah said.