From the way he bit his lip I knew he’d taken full advantage of that free pass. Just imagining his hands on Courtney’s body made my skin crawl.
“Sounds fun,” I said dryly. I didn’t want to hear about it anymore.
“Don’t judge – we were teenagers. Technically, we’re still teenagers. Fuck, I don’t know what we are.” Quinn rubbed his head. “Hazy, I’m not… I’m not sure how to deal with this, with what you found out about our families. I can understand my dad doing that, but Mom…”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”
“I hope things go the way you plan tonight. I think everyone has the right to know about this.”
“Me too.”
I moved to embrace Quinn, but it was too much emotion for him right now. He shoved his hands in his pockets and took off along the line of cabins. I followed him to the cabin on the end, which was the largest and most lavish. “The King’s suite,” he sighed as he pulled a key from his pocket and slid open the door. “Trey, Ayaz, and I had this pod every year. No one else was allowed inside unless they…”
“…unless they were a girl who put out,” I finished. “I get it. You were playboys. Whatever. No judgment.”
“Right.” Quinn cleared his throat. “You should be thanking us for our playboy ways. Us hogging the cabin meant we’re the only ones who know about this.”
With a flourish, Quinn shoved aside one of the beds, revealing the bare floorboards beneath. He got down on his knees and started to lift the boards one-by-one. “Ayaz discovered this in the old cabin. When he made the designs he made sure we still had access to it.”
Quinn lifted another board, revealing a large, dark hole. Stone steps led down into the darkness. On the wall of the staircase was carved a large, familiar sigil. Another of Parris’ tunnels, leading down into fuck-knows-where.
I held out my hand. A flame danced on my fingers, ready to light the way. Quinn recoiled from it for a moment, his eyes wide. That old fear still flowed through him.
I descended the steps with Quinn behind me. After a time, the tunnel flattened out. We were walking under the forest, back toward the school. Like the other tunnel, this one appeared to have no other deviations – it only went in one direction. I hoped like hell it was back into the school and not somewhere—
Something pinched my ass. I leaped forward, choking back a scream. Behind me, Quinn sniggered.
“Not funny,” I muttered, rubbing the spot where he’d pinched me.
“Totally funny,” Quinn retorted with that irresistible smile in his voice. That angry, bitter guy from earlier had vanished again, and I was stuck with the old, irresponsible Quinn. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
After what felt like hours, the architecture of the tunnel changed. We went up a short flight of stairs, and instead of bare rock walls, we now walked between dressed stone. We’re inside the school.
The tunnel took a right angle and descended up a sharp staircase. One wall remained cold, worked stone while the other became wood panels. On the other side, I could make out voices, too faint to hear what they were saying.
“Keep going,” Quinn whispered behind me. “We have another floor to go.”
My thighs burned from the circuitous walk. The stairs grew steep and uneven, and I tripped over my feet every few steps. We took another right-angle turn and found ourselves in a low tunnel – dressed stone on both sides, with a small drainage ditch running along the middle of the ground.
At the end of the tunnel, we climbed another set of narrow steps and entered a low passage running at a ninety-degree angle to the last. I placed my hand on the worked stone, steadying myself as we stepped over discarded bricks and construction debris until we came to a slightly-wider space with wood paneling and what looked like a spring mechanism rusted over with age.
I knelt and pressed my ear to the panel, flicking out the light. I might’ve imagined it, but I swear I heard Quinn sigh with relief. Faint murmurs were all I could discern from the other side. Many voices, all talking over each other, but far too low for me to hear through the wall.
Quinn squeezed in beside me. “I can’t hear anything,” I whispered.
“We’ll fix that.” Quinn reached up and with a click that reverberated down the silent passage like a gunshot, he cracked open the panel.
My heart hammered in my chest. Now the panel swung out into the room beyond, gifting us with an inch-wide crack of light. I mouthed “shut the door” to Quinn. He grinned and shook his head, shuffling a foot backward so I could see into the room.
I peered out of the crack. From what I could make out, the panel we sat behind was low in the corner of the room. A potted plant or hanging basket of some description stood in front of it. Through the foliage, I could make out features of a large space paneled in dark wood. A fire roared at the hearth. Men and women sat or stood around the space, talking in small groups while they guzzled booze from long-stemmed crystal wine glasses or whisky tumblers. Gold and diamond jewelry glittered from the necks and ears of the women, and the men wore dark tailored suits that looked like they’d been designed by Courtney’s mother, which of course they probably were.
Leaning against the mantelpiece, sipping from a glass and scrutinizing the room like Mufasa surveying his domain, was Vincent Bloomberg.
He looked even older than last time I saw him, despite the fact he’d tried to hide it by dying his greying hair jet black. Skin puckered around his mouth, and lines crisscrossed the corners of his eyes. His hand clutching the glass was dotted with liver spots.
“We should call this meeting to order,” he said in a bored voice. “We have a lot to discuss and only limited time before the performance.”
“Why do we need to sit through another one of these amateur productions?” Nancy’s father, Donald, said with a yawn. “I think I might stay behind, peruse the liquor cabinet…”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Vincent swiped the glass from Donald’s hand and tossed it into the fire. “You’re going sit in that freezing auditorium with the rest of us and be bored out of your skull for three hours, because we need our offspring to toe the line. If we don’t pretend to take an interest in their pointless activities, they may decide to make friends with the sacrifices instead.”
“Friends, indeed. We all know whose children are responsible for the mess we’re in,” a female voice tsked. It took me a moment to identify Gloria Haynes, for she wore a thick black veil over her face. “Falling in love with a sacrifice. It’s never happened in all the years of Derleth Academy—”
“Hazel Waite was an issue before my idiot son was involved,” Vincent said. “I dealt with her.”
“She set fire to Dunwich and escaped!” Damon Delacorte leaped to his feet. Beside me, Quinn stiffened as his father’s angry voice filled the room. “You call that dealing with her?”
“Calm down, Damon. Don’t give the girl more credit than she’s due – the fire was a freak accident caused by the Dunwich facility’s ancient wiring. She simply took advantage of the opportunity. I’m confident we’ll soon recapture her, and in the meantime, she’s no longer at the school affecting the god and disrupting our plans.”
That’s what you think, Vinnie boy.
Quinn squeezed my arm.
“I’m telling you Hazel Waite has been neutralized,” Vincent was saying. “She’s gone to ground somewhere, which means she won’t bother us. And if you can make it through tonight without fucking things up for us further, I have some news that will cheer you all greatly. Smiles on, and let’s pretend we give a shit.”
“How can I smile and pretend everything’s okay when I look like this?” Gloria wailed. She whipped off her black veil to reveal a face ravaged by aging. The skin around her eyes sagged and her lips pulled back, so when she smiled she looked like a rabid animal baring its teeth. “What’s happening to us, Vincent?”
Murmurs of assent echoed around the room. I noticed there was a significantly higher proportion of silver hair and sag
ging jowls than any previous alumni visit. The god was as good as his word. He’d completely stopped feeding the Eldritch Club his power, and their youthful good looks were reverting to their true form.
“It’s become obvious that the power of the god has waned,” Vincent said. He paused to take a sip from his glass. “We’ve waited patiently for years for Hermia to figure out how to make this arrangement permanent, but I see now she was the wrong choice for headmistress. She’s made preposterous demands for the faculty when she has not delivered what she promised. And now, our chance is slipping away. We’re losing our grip on the world. You’ve all seen it – women demanding entry to our boardrooms, transexuals wanting the right to raise children, children who don’t know what fucking gender they are. These are all attacks on our leadership. If you think the golliwogs and the freaks and the snowflakes aren’t coming for us and everything we have earned by our birthright, then you are mistaken.”
You’re a disgusting human.
I appeared to be the only one who thought so, because everyone in the room sat forward, staring at Vincent with admiring eyes. A few even applauded, like Vincent had said something profound and not the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard.
He wanted to keep the world white, and straight, and male – at any cost. This is why he sacrificed his own son? Because he’s so utterly terrified of what women like me could do to him if we had an ounce of his power? Of how people like Andre and Greg and Loretta might change the world?
Rage boiled inside me, the hot flickers of it burning against my flesh. You think you’re invincible, but I see how small and afraid you are. And I’ve got news for you, Vinnie boy. You were right to be afraid. You’re about to find out just what it feels like to have your power stripped away.
“We need to maintain the righteous order of things,” Vincent said. “And it’s time to take matters into our own hands. The only way to do that is to release the god from its prison.”
That caused a stir. People gasped or yelled out. A glass dropped, shattering glittering shards across the floor.
“You sure about that, Bloomberg?” Senator Hyde-Jones demanded.
“I’m deadly certain,” Vincent said.
“The whole reason Parris imprisoned it in the first place is that it could… and correct me if I’m wrong here… destroy the world?” Donald kept his eyes fixed on Vincent, phrasing what was a reasonable statement as a question.
“Parris didn’t have the power we have. He was a second-rate magician haunted by the ghosts of his father’s deeds. Look around this room – we are congressmen, lawyers, senators. We are the most powerful business owners in the world. We have the political elite, the Wall Street investors, and the entertainment industry wrapped around our collective little finger. We have already built the perfect system – all it needs is the god to complete it.”
“But how do we know the god will listen to us?” asked a woman I didn’t recognize.
“Of course it will listen to us. It wants the same thing we want. Otherwise, why would it have been feeding us power for twenty years? Why would it have kept us young and given us the influence to put all this in place?” Vincent turned to Gloria Haynes. “Do you want to continue to look like that?”
Gloria shuddered as she regarded her reflection. She swiped a strand of lank silver hair from her face. “I can’t go out in public like this. I didn’t attend London Fashion Week, and it’s been months since I even snapped a selfie. People in the industry are starting to talk.”
“Exactly. The god is fading because after twenty years of fighting against its prison, it’s tired. It’s sick of being tugged in two directions and being starved of souls thanks to the meddling faculty. If we give it what it’s craved all along – freedom – then all of the world will be forced to bow to it, to us. All the detractors, the critics, the snowflakes will be cowed and crushed underfoot. And the god will feast upon all the broken souls he could ever desire.”
Vincent’s entire speech was so completely ridiculous, so utterly maniacal, that I expected the room to burst into laughter and congratulate him on a great practical joke. And yet, not a single Eldritch Club member opposed him. I could even see Gloria Haynes nodding her head.
World domination, for fuck’s sake. What a fucking cartoon supervillain cliche.
“Are we agreed this is the right course of action?” Senator Hyde-Jones poured himself another drink and raised it to his lips. “I call a vote.”
He thrust his free hand in the air, not stopping to take a breath as he finished his glass in one swig. All around the room, hands shot in the air. I couldn’t see if anyone’s remained down, but it didn’t matter.
The Eldritch Club agreed. Of course they did. World domination was in their blood.
“Very well.” Senator Hyde-Jones started on his next drink. “Vincent, we agree with this plan. How can we free the god without losing control of it? Parris tried for years and never succeeded, and he was a skilled magician.”
“Skilled, yes, but not powerful. For twenty years the god has been giving over power to us. Our power may be waning now, but the god has waned more. Even without occult knowledge, we’re still more powerful than Parris’ coven. And we have a secret weapon. Allow me to introduce my son.”
Trey? My heart lurched. Beside me, Quinn squirmed.
What’s Trey doing here?
Is Vincent going to hurt him to prove a point in front of the club?
Fire pressed against my palms, ready to escape and wreak havoc if I needed. My eyes glued to the door.
Vincent rapped on the wall a couple of times. After a moment, the door opened, and a figure strode across the floor to stand beside Vincent. The flames wreathed his body, outlining a familiar silhouette.
Not Trey.
Ayaz.
Chapter Thirty-Two
What? He’s not Vincent’s son.
He can’t be here for any good reason.
Ayaz glided into the room like a figure-skater, his dark hair picking out shadows from the flickering fire. In his hands, he held Parris’ book. His eyes flicked nervously from face to face, distress etching into his features as he took in their aging bodies.
The club members leaned forward hungrily, desperate to lap up whatever Vincent laid down.
Are they going to hurt Ayaz? My fingers itched, longing to draw out the flames. One flick of my wrist and I could devour them all in fire.
One inferno and this would all be over.
But Ayaz was in the room. There was no way I could burn them all and save him. I didn’t know what happened to an edimmu if their body was burned, but I wasn’t about to find out.
Besides, I rationalized to myself, trying to force down the rage, these people had answers. If Vincent knew how to raise the power needed to free the god, then he might have what we needed to bring the students back.
Ayaz set the book on the table. So this is why he needed it back so badly.
Elena Delacorte whimpered with disgust as she spied the leather cover. “That thing is disgusting.”
“Shut your mouth, you ungrateful whore,” Damon spat. “Vincent has given you everything, thanks to that book. Show a little reverence.”
The answers are in that book.
Quinn’s whole body tensed. I glanced over at him. In the gloom, all I could make out was the outline of his face, his jaw tight, his usually sparkling eyes narrowed and cold. Even knowing what his mother had done to him, that old protective streak in him still ran strong.
Elena sat back, her mouth pressed shut against Damon’s attack.
“I’d like to start by thanking Vincent for the opportunity to speak to you. It’s an honor to be in your presence today. As you know, Vincent placed this book in my care. He had me keep it safe here at Derleth Academy, so that it could never fall into the hands of one of his political enemies. Twenty years ago, much of the book was untranslated.” Ayaz cracked the spine and opened the book. Everyone in the room leaned forward to see. “I’m proud to say
I have not wasted my fine education. I have taught myself many ancient languages and have nearly finished a complete decoding of Parris’ book.”
“Spit it out, rag-head,” Damon snapped.
My body stiffened at the insult, but Ayaz showed no signs that it registered. He thumbed through the pages, stopping on a particular illustration to smooth out the edges and spread out his pages of notes. I longed to see what page they stared at. I sat up on my knees to get a higher vantage, but Quinn’s hand on my shoulder shoved me back down again.
He was right. If we made any noise, we’d be dead.
“As the new student leader of the Eldritch Club, I take my role seriously.” Ayaz flashed his intact tattoo to the elders, and they nodded. “At the start of the third quarter, Vincent charged me with a task – to figure out how Parris made the god’s prison so that we could continue to strengthen it.”
No, Ayaz, you beautiful idiot. Of course Vincent lied to you. How could you not see that?
“We always believed Parris accidentally unleashed the god from slumber when he dug his tunnels into the bedrock, and that he hurriedly created the prison while he tried to figure out how to harness the god’s powers for himself. I’ve recently cracked one of the most difficult translations in the book – he wrote it in a cuneiform cipher – and discovered that according to his very words, this isn’t true.
“Smugglers have long used the natural caves in the cliffs to hide their contraband. Of course, when Parris was in Salem with his father the Reverend, he heard stories about something that attacked the smugglers. Sailors called it the ‘soul eater’ and told tales of how evil things lived in the darkness of the caves, of how men would go missing only to be found later – not dead exactly but their bodies numb, their minds and spirits utterly broken. Parris came to Arkham specifically to seek out what was inside the caves.”
Possessed: A reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 3) Page 21