by S. L. Stacy
“I’m sure she’ll turn up,” I say, more to make myself feel better. “I’ll tell Victoria. She’ll know what to do.”
“I’ll let you know if she turns up here.” Alec shuts the door before I can get another word in.
As I walk back toward the Gamma Lambda Phi house, I plaster a smile on my face, waving to a few of the girls I talked to last night. Victoria waits for me outside.
“Carly’s not with Alec,” I tell her, keeping my voice low as we go inside. “He doesn’t know where she is.”
“Okay.” Victoria takes a deep breath and motions for me to stay calm. “It’s okay. Just…forget about it, for now, and do your thing. I’ll take care of it.” I get back into line, and Tanya silently conducts us as we launch into a cheer.
Somehow I power through the second night of rush. I block out all of the past week’s unwelcome revelations—Apate’s deception, the prophecy, Carly’s seeming disappearance—and concentrate on getting to know the young women coming through. Our parties seem just as large as they were last year, meaning not many girls have dropped us because of the scandalous formal photos or last night’s debacle. No one has even asked me about them. Hope drives me, as does the determination to make sure Gamma Lambda Phi continues to thrive. Saving my sorority is the only way we can help Carly, if she needs it—the only way to save our campus.
By the time the last party starts, I’ve almost forgotten about Lemonhead—er, Harriet—but then I see her, walking tentatively through the door, last to come in. Steeling myself, I step forward and take her hand firmly. “Hi. I’m Siobhan.”
“Harriet.” She drops my hand quickly. Her brown hair is tugged back into a ponytail, emphasizing a round, pale face and huge, unblinking brown eyes. She’s wearing faded jeans and a red t-shirt that reads “Thurston Engineering” in white block letters.
“Love the shirt,” I tell her. “What type of engineering do you study?”
“I’m undeclared.”
“I see. Well, what type do you think you’ll end up studying?”
“I dunno.”
I sigh inwardly. Carly wasn’t exaggerating. Harriet is about as warm and open as an ice sculpture. At the reminder of Carly, I look back over my shoulder for Victoria, but she’s disappeared.
“I don’t see that girl I talked to yesterday,” Harriet says as if she’s reading my mind. Maybe she’s psychic, like Vanessa. No, wait—she’s supposed to be a legacy.
“Carly’s, um…not feeling well today,” I say.
“That’s too bad. She was really cool.”
Well, you’re stuck with me, I want to say, but I swallow my wounded pride and say instead, “Carly’s great. So you know she’s a math major?” Harriet nods. “I’m a biology major.”
“Biology,” she echoes, raising an eyebrow.
“We have a lot of science and engineering majors in our house. You’ll never be short a study buddy—well, unless it’s for a humanities class or something. Then again, it’s not like the humanities are really that hard.”
“Every major has its challenges. It’s just working a different part of your brain—”
“What made you want to be an engineer?” I wonder, cutting her off. My irritation is rising, and any minute my mouth is going to do that thing where it blurts something without consulting my brain first.
“I dunno. I like math. And I like to build stuff.”
“I originally chose biology because I thought I’d go to medical school one day. But, as it turns out, I can’t stand the sight of blood.” Harriet stares at me blankly. What do you think you’ll do instead? Oh, well, I’m not really sure, but thanks for asking, Harriet. “I guess I could always drop out of school and become some rich guy’s bimbo.”
Harriet frowns. “I hate that word. It’s so degrading.”
From her expression a minute ago, she didn’t seem to think biology was a viable career path for me. Now she’s trying to take gold-digging bimbo away from me, too? “I was just kidding.”
“Oh. I guess I don’t share your sense of humor.”
That’s because she doesn’t have one.
“I’m not cut out for this whole sorority thing,” she suddenly says, looking at all of the smiling, animated faces around us. “I only signed up for rush because my roommate made me. She dropped out after last night, but I don’t like quitting things.”
“I rushed for the same reason,” I admit. “We both ended up joining Gamma Lambda Phi. And I’m really glad I did. This is my home away from home. Just give it a chance. You might find a sorority that feels like home to you.”
“Well, there is another reason why I—” Harriet looks down at her dirt streaked sneakers. “Never mind—it’s stupid.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not stupid,” I press her, relieved that she’s finally opening up.
“I came back here tonight because I feel like…I don’t know. Like I’m supposed to be here or something.”
I grin. “That’s definitely not stupid. We’re sort of a…special sorority.” We’re not supposed to hint at Gamma Lambda Phi’s “specialness” until tomorrow, but it can’t hurt since she brought it up.
“I know. I saw the photos on The Grapevine.”
“That’s…not what I meant. We’re more than just movie nights, and mixers, and parties—even more than scholarship and philanthropy. We have a higher calling, one could say…” I trail off, realizing the entire room has grown silent. There’s a high-pitched whine beyond the walls of the sorority house, slowly swelling in volume. Tanya opens the front door, and everyone rushes over to peer outside.
The night rings with glass-shattering shrieks of terror as sisters and rushees stampede out of the Alpha Rho house, leaving a trail of broken anchor-shaped sugar cookies and upturned cups of red punch behind them. They gape down at themselves, smacking and clawing and tearing at their clothes.
One girl rips her shirt off, flinging it to the ground and stamping it with her foot. “Get them off!” she screams, tears pouring down her face.
Some of the other parties are letting out, people trickling closer to our part of the Quad, watching the spectacle with perplexed amusement.
“They’re biting me! Oh, my God, it burns, it burns, it burns,” Rebecca sobs, unzipping her dress in the back and shaking it off. Underneath, her pale skin stands out against a black, lacey bra and underpants.
“Take it off, Sexy Becks!” A handful of Sigma Iotas have come out onto their patio and hang over the railing, guffawing and clutching their rib cages.
“What’s wrong with them?” Harriet asks, appearing beside me.
I bite back the triumphant smile threatening to break onto my face. “I don’t know. Maybe they have bed bugs.”
The hysteria only lasts for a few minutes, although I’m sure it feels like an eternity to the Alpha Rhos. Abruptly, they collectively stop squirming and scratching, inspecting their skin and clothes in confusion. Face and neck flushing, Rebecca salvages her dress and fumbles it back on.
“Boo!” someone calls out to her. Upper lip curling, Rebecca’s eyes sweep the Quad, coming to rest on us.
“Time to go!” The recruitment counselors swoop in, rounding up the rushees and shepherding them out of the Quad. Harriet’s probing gaze lingers on me as her counselor steers her away.
I wave to her. “It was…nice meeting you!” Her reply is a strange half-smile. Maybe the events of this evening have confirmed her suspicion that sorority women are really just a bunch of freaks.
“You,” Rebecca hisses, stalking up to us once most of the rushees have left. “You did this.”
“Everything—the floor, the furniture, our bodies—was crawling with these…things!” cries Samantha, cringing at the memory.
“Really? I didn’t see anything,” Victoria says, shrugging. “Did you guys?” Tanya and I shake our heads.
“Oh, right. You didn’t see anything. You didn’t do anything. Just like you didn’t—”
“Now, if you would excuse us,” Vict
oria interrupts her, to my relief—I know Samantha was about to bring up the sex tape. “We have…bigger fish to fry.”
Rebecca’s jaw spasms as she and Samantha back away. “This isn’t over!”
“It is, if you know what’s good for you!” Victoria calls out after them, giving their backs a sweet smile reminiscent of Farrah’s. Then she takes out her phone, scrolling through the contacts.
“What are you doing?” I wonder.
She holds the phone up to her ear. “Trying Carly’s cell one last time. If she doesn’t answer, we’re calling campus police.”
Samantha skids to a stop when her back pocket starts playing a tinny-sounding version of Hall and Oates’s “Maneater.”
She reaches back and pats her pockets, taking out a phone with a pink rhinestone studded cover. Cradling it in her palm, she stares at it like one might at an unidentifiable, ancient artifact.
“That’s Carly’s phone.” I march up to her and snatch it from her hand. “Why do you have Carly’s phone?”
“I…I don’t…” Samantha stammers, shaking her head in confusion.
Horror seizes me, knocking the breath from my lungs. “You said we would pay. That’s exactly what they said,” I tell Victoria, looking back at her. A tug-of-war between anger and dismay rages on my big sister’s face.
“We didn’t mean we would hurt anyone!” says Rebecca.
“You blamed us for Genie’s death,” Tanya whispers, brown eyes filling with tears.
“Where is she?” I demand, taking Samantha by the shoulders and shaking her. She lets me, mouth flapping open and closed as I shake her. “What have you done to Carly?”
“We thought you could have done more to save Genie, not that you killed her!” Rebecca cries, prying my hands off of her sister. “We wouldn’t physically hurt anyone to get back at you! I swear!”
“Come on, Victoria,” Samantha croaks, finding her voice. “You know we didn’t do this. Please. Please believe us.”
Victoria’s body trembles, a reddish glow underneath her skin, like a human volcano about to spew lava and ash all over the Greek Quad. I feel a few drops of cool water on my arms and look up at the sky. The stars are blotted out, and I suspect some storm clouds have rolled in as drops of rain splatter the sidewalk. A white flash of lightning zigzags across the night sky.
I expect Victoria to scream at the Alpha Rhos, but when she finally speaks, her voice is low and venomous.
“If you did something to Carly…if I find out you hurt her in any way…you are the ones who will pay. You will pay very, very dearly.”
Part Two
Illusion
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”
–Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter 12
What the fudge?
This is my first thought when I come to.
My eyes open to perpetual darkness. I’m lying on something unforgivingly hard and cold. A floor. I explore its smooth, slick surface with the tips of my fingers. Seriously, where the heck am I?
I thrash my arms and legs like a bug caught under a fly swatter. When I turn my head from side to side, all I see is black. The movement makes something rough rub against my cheek. My face itches. I remember the burlap sack and rip it off my head, tossing it into the abyss.
“Alec?” I shout. “Victoria? Siobhan? Tanya? Anybody? Is anybody there?” My voice bounces back to me, hollow and desperate. The air is dank and tastes metallic on my tongue. I have no idea where I am or how I got here. It’s dark, and I’m alone. My heart thuds. I need to sit up. I need to get out of here.
I try to sit up on my elbows. Pain shoots through my head, and I have to lay back down on the marble floor. Tears spring to my eyes, blurring the hazy yellow light dancing along the domed ceiling. In the distance, I finally hear something: a steady plunk, like a dripping faucet. I begin to count in my head. One drop. Two. Three. Four. Five. My heart rate steadies. Six-seven. My eyes dry up. Eight. I keep counting to myself as I try to remember how I got here—wherever here is.
Slowly, the events at the Sigma Iota party trickle back into my mind. Siobhan leaving to help her friend. Max walking up to me, telling me that Alec was in the basement, sulking. He’d been moody and regretful all night, but was too afraid to talk to me.
“I understand if you don’t want to talk to him,” Max had said. Looking back, there was a note of urgency in his voice I couldn’t place. “But he feels really bad, Carly. He’s really sorry.”
So I followed Max down to the basement, where he whispered, “Please forgive me,” before two people grabbed me, throwing the burlap sack over my head.
“Let her go—” Alec’s voice, angry and horrified, the last word lost in a gasp and what sounded like the thud of a fist in his gut.
“Hold him down.” Sam, close by. I heard grunting and sneakers skidding over the floor. I started to let out a universe imploding scream. A hand clapped over my mouth.
“Don’t…do this…Sam,” Alec panted. “This…isn’t us. They’re controlling us—”
“You’re either with us or against us.” Sam’s tone is patient but icy. “What’s it going to be, brother?”
“Her. Let her go—”
More sounds of a struggle, and then the basement grew silent. I fought feebly against the arms holding me, biting down on the bag in hopes I could nip the hand. “Just cooperate, and we won’t have to hurt you,” Sam said in my ear. I made a noise in my throat somewhere between a sob and a gag. At least with the sack over my head they couldn’t see me crying.
“We should start,” Sam said to the room at large. “On the count of three. One, two, three…” The rest of the brothers joined Sam, the rumble of their voices almost keeping in time with the bass thumping upstairs:
O, Master of darkness, blood and carnage,
Hear our plea
To please return our brother.
Lower the defenses
Barring this world from the other.
We reaffirm our devotion to you,
O Fearless One,
With this precious gift,
Pure of body and mind,
To restore balance and heal this rift.
We lift our voices in praise,
O Powerful One,
And vow to fight and to prevail—
Strateuomai, ischuo—
We shall not fail.
A tearing sound split the air, followed by a sharp, sucking noise, then silence. I had heard this same sequence of sounds before—at the house the evening we opened a portal and banished Jasper. Sure enough, a moment later wind battered my face, and exclamations of awe tinged with fear rippled around the basement.
“Someone grab onto him!” Sam called out. “Help him!” The hands that held onto me so firmly suddenly slackened, pushing me forward.
The next thing I remember is waking up on this floor.
I put a hand to my forehead. The throbbing has stopped. So has the dripping sound. I lost count, anyway. I slowly start to sit up again, and this time I’m able to straighten up completely without getting dizzy.
“Oh, good! You’re not dead!”
The voice prickles my skin like a winter breeze. I stop breathing.
Forgetting to be careful, I look around frantically for the source of the relieved, if slightly mocking, voice. A wave of nausea surges through me. My head spins.
“You had me scared for a minute there. I’d be pretty pissed if my gift had kicked the bucket before I got a chance to play with her. Corpses aren’t really my thing. I prefer my women…alive.”
“Glad I live up to such high standards,” I mutter, swallowing the retort along with the bile rising in the back of my throat.
“My disciples have done well,” he continues. “It has been a long time, but the ritual has finally been honor
ed again. A virgin sacrifice has been sent to me.”
“I’m not a virgin,” I mutter defensively. I’ve been sitting cross-legged in my pink mini-dress and quickly tuck my legs to the side. I can see him now under the dim light from the candelabras lining the wall. The shadows of their flames flicker across his face like black serpent tongues. He lounges on the other side of the room in an enormous, ancient-looking throne with an iron frame and black satin cushions. His head is tilted to the side, supported by one finger as he considers me.
“Where are we?” I ask him. Dang it, my voice is quivering.
He holds his arms above his head as if to embrace the ceiling, spreading hands encased in finger-cut leather gloves. “You are in the realm of the gods.” He jumps down to his feet. Muscles bunch underneath snug, black leather pants as he prowls toward me. Decorative silver chains hang from an open vest, crisscrossing chiseled abs as hard as the marble floor I’m sitting on. His gait is predatory and agile, like a panther patrolling his jungle. Or getting ready to pounce on his lunch. Which is me.
I gulp.
As he comes closer, the shadows leave his face. His skin shimmers a faint gold under the candlelight. He has high cheekbones, a strong, square jaw and brilliant green eyes. His short, white blonde hair sticks up every which way on his head like thousands of needle-thin icicles. He looks about my age, but if he’s an Olympian, he could have been born before humankind even existed.
“You think I’m sexy,” he teases. “And I must say, I am not disappointed, either.” He’s suddenly inches away from me, his mesmerizing green eyes holding mine steady. Those eyes…there’s something familiar about them, even though I know I’ve never seen him before in my life. Stooping, he takes two fingers and traces my cheek. I flinch and shiver. Even his touch is cold. “You are exquisite, Carly.”
I’ve heard cute. Hot, on occasion. But exquisite? Give me a break. “Who are you?”
He drops his hand and straightens up, towering over me. “I am the spawn of darkness, and night’s son; I am anything and anyone.”