Midnight Kiss

by Sarra Cannon

  I was placing all my trust in Madame Kalisa, and as I made my way to the large, etched-glass front door, I started to doubt whether that was such a good idea.

  With less than two hours left until midnight, I was out of options.

  I rang the doorbell and waited.

  It didn’t take long before a shadow darkened the door. I held my breath as it swung open.

  I blinked in disbelief at the tall figure of a man standing before me. He was dressed in black jeans and no shirt, muscled abs glistening with sweat. Dark crimson ropes stretched across his chest and he wore a matching red mask over his eyes. Dark eyes I had stared into many times over the past couple of months, wondering what secrets lay behind their closed doors.

  For a split second, I wondered if, by some horrible trick of fate, I'd come to the wrong house. Then I noticed the red gemstone he wore on a black silk thread around his neck. It matched the one still clutched tightly in my palm.

  My heart thundered in my chest.

  I was standing face to face with the guy I’d been crushing on all semester.

  Jean-Pierre was John Pierce.

  Not Exactly

  My mouth hung open and I shook my head, unable to believe that John Pierce—the guy who had practically gone out of his way to make me feel like an idiot—was now the only thing standing between me and a fate worse than death. I had no idea what to say.

  “Are you going to stand out there all night waiting for whoever’s looking for you? Or are you going to come inside where it’s safe?”

  “Is it?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  “What? Safe?” His eyes twinkled in the dim lighting. “You’re the one who came to me for help, remember?”

  I forced my mouth closed and nodded. John stepped aside and let me pass.

  The foyer was all high ceilings and polished wood floors. A crystal chandelier hung down from the top and a large sweeping staircase rose toward the second floor. Huge mirrors framed in gold adorned the walls, along with massive paintings that probably each cost more than a year's tuition at Tulane.

  People in long, flowing gowns and capes and masks floated through the hallway like ghosts. None of the overhead lights were on, but candlelight flickered everywhere I looked.

  The house was warm and dark, and the moment I crossed the threshold a strange heat blossomed in my belly.

  I didn't know if it was the atmosphere of the party or the fact that I was standing uncomfortably close to a half-naked god, but I found it difficult to breathe. I couldn't take my eyes off him. He looked different in this setting. Better, if that was even possible. And, finally, to get a glimpse of the chiseled abs I'd known were hiding beneath his shirt? I couldn't decide if I'd just walked into heaven or hell.

  “Is this your house?” I asked, barely finding my voice.

  “For now.” John's eyes scanned the street before he closed the door, locking three separate deadbolts. “Come on, let's get this over with.”

  Madame Kalisa had been right. He didn’t seem too happy about me interrupting his evening. Of course, she’d also said he was very old and very powerful. The guy I knew as John Pierce couldn’t have been more than twenty-two years old at most. What was I missing? Was he really Jean-Pierre? Or was he taking me to meet someone else?

  He led me down the hall, and I glanced inside the rooms as we passed. Each room was more opulent than the last. Stiff, antique furniture and silk curtains in rich reds and golds. Chandeliers in every room. Fireplaces with mirrors hanging above them. One room had a full-size grand piano.

  But it was the party guests that held my attention.

  Some were dressed in beautiful dark gowns, while others were hardly dressed at all. Music pulsed through the house and bodies moved together in the shadows.

  I felt like a child in my twenty-dollar bright blue and white costume.

  He opened the last door to the left and motioned for me to step inside. I walked past him and inhaled sharply as my arm brushed against his.

  This room was even darker than the others. No chandeliers, mirrors, or pianos. Just a large mahogany desk and wall-to-wall bookcases. The windows were blacked out with heavy curtains, and I could barely make out the rest of the furniture. There was no one else in the room.

  John waved a hand in the air and five candles simultaneously caught fire and illuminated the room in a dark amber glow.

  I gasped and turned toward him. I had never in my life seen a man cast magic.

  “Are you a witch?” I whispered, knowing it was stupid before the words even left my lips.

  He smiled. “Not exactly,” he said. “Take a seat.”

  A set of deep leather chairs were arranged opposite his desk. I chose the one closest to the door and sank into it, rubbing my hands across the softness of it. In the dim light, I was able to see the carvings that decorated the edges of his desk. Gruesome depictions of angels and demons locked in an eternal war.

  John moved behind the desk but didn't sit. I let my eyes drink in the curve of his muscles, the strong angle of his shoulders. There was a certain confidence about him that now, mixed with the darkness of this place, sent a shiver of fear down my spine.

  Who was he?

  “I'm sorry to interrupt your party,” I said, forcing my eyes to his. He was studying me just as hard as I'd been studying him. I shifted in my chair. “I wasn't expecting to see you here.”

  “When Kalisa told me a young witch needed my help, I definitely wasn't expecting to see you on my doorstep, either,” he said, giving no indication of whether seeing me was a good thing or a bad one.

  He turned and reached for a book, ropes of shadowed muscle twisting and lengthening across his back. My heartbeat quickened.

  So, he really was Jean-Pierre. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions about who he was—what he was—but I knew we didn't have time for questions now. I needed him, and no matter what he was, I would have to trust him.

  He chose a thick black tome from the shelf and slid it from its place among dozens of other look-alike books. With quick fingers, he searched through the pages, finally landing somewhere in the middle and running a fingertip across the words.

  I had no idea what he was looking for or what he knew about my situation, but I could feel the clock ticking like a bomb set to go off any minute.

  “Can you help me?” I asked. “I don't have much time.”

  John looked up. “Kalisa mentioned something about the Order of Shadows,” he said. “A tattoo? You were in training?”

  I nodded. “I was a cheerleader, training for the Order when the blue demon gates were destroyed,” I said. “My mom was brought into the coven against her will and didn't know how to get out without risking both our lives. When the gates fell, we ran.”

  His eyebrow twitched and he gave me a funny look. “You were never inducted?”

  “No. Thank God.”

  He clenched his jaw and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “That's why you use a glamour,” he said softly, as if to himself.

  “I have to hide the way I really look,” I said. I explained to him how Mom had gotten us new identities and set out rules for how I was to behave while I was here at school. “As long as I took the potion on the night of every full moon, I am fine. The tattoo is completely hidden. But Kalisa doesn't have more, and I'm running out of time.”

  He cleared his throat and set the book on the desk. “You shouldn't have left something so important to the last minute.”

  I bristled. “I didn't,” I said. “I bought the potion a week ago. I have it on me at all times just in case I can't get back to my dorm for some reason. I'm careful.”

  “Then why don't you have the potion?”

  I couldn't believe we were arguing about this. “A friend decided to go through my purse when I wasn't looking. She found it and thought it was some kind of drugs. She was teasing me about it and then she dropped it. I tried to get another one, but it was too late.”

  “You shouldn't have l
eft it lying around like that.”

  I swallowed back the hurt his judgment caused. Why did he always have to be so rude? I obviously realized I had made a mistake. Why throw it in my face now?

  I stood. “Are you going to help me or not? Because, if you're just going to stand here and tell me all the things I've done wrong up to this point, I'd rather not hear it. If you can't help me, I need to be on the road, looking for a place to hide.”

  “Sit down,” he said through clenched teeth.

  For the second time today, he'd made me feel like crying. Things were bad enough as they were without him pointing out every single mistake I'd made in the past few hours.

  “I'd rather not,” I said.

  He sighed and his shoulders relaxed. “I'm sorry. I'm not angry with you,” he said. “It's the Order I hate. I hate what they do to young witches and how they manipulate you all into believing they are doing good things in this world. Then, when you don't do exactly what they want, they find the most horrible ways to punish you.”

  Knots tightened in my stomach. “What do you mean? Do you know what they're doing to them?”

  “Who?”

  “The girls they've already taken,” I said.

  His eyes closed and he sat down. “So, it's started? Is that why you're so afraid? They've started taking the trainees who ran from them?”

  Tears bubbled uncomfortably close to the surface. “Yes. Mom called today. She knows of at least four who have been abducted. They just disappeared without a trace,” I said, my words catching on a sob. “I don't want to be punished.”

  John looked up and for the first time, there was real sympathy shining in his eyes. He stood and walked over to me, placed a hand on my arm. “We're not going to let that happen, Becca.”

  I swiped at a tear that had gone rogue, escaping down my cheek against my will. “Allison,” I said. “My real name is Allison.”

  He lifted my chin and rubbed the tip of his thumb across my cheek. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I completely misjudged you.”

  My skin tingled at his touch. “You did?”

  “If I had known what you were going through, I would never have treated you the way I did back at school,” he said. “I thought you were one of them.”

  I stared into his dark eyes. “The Order? You thought I was part of the Order? Why?”

  He stepped away, and I brought a hand to where his thumb had so gently caressed my face.

  “I wasn't completely convinced of it, but I could tell you were using a glamour to hide your looks,” he said. “That's very common with witches in the Order. And the girls you sometimes hang out with use glamours, too.”

  My eyes widened and my lips parted. I shook my head. “What? Who?”

  “Robin and Phoebe,” he said. “And another one. Charity or Chassidy or something.”

  “Charity,” I said in a whisper, my heart skipping a beat. Dread spread like a cancer across the bottom of my stomach. An entire campus of girls at Tulane and I just happened to be rooming with another witch. With two witches living across from us. This couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Had it all been a lie? Did they already know who I was?

  “Yes, Charity,” he said. He paced in front of the desk. “I thought the four of you had maybe been in training together in high school or something. Or were all placed here together by the Order.”

  I shook my head. This couldn't be happening.

  “I never knew them until I came here,” I said. “I had no idea they were using magic. Are you certain?”

  “Positive,” he said. “The only reason I enrolled in college in the first place was to try to study the Order's plans for their witches once they leave high school. They send a lot of them to private, upscale universities like Tulane where they will make connections that will become important later in life. These connections and relationships are rarely coincidental. It's all planned. When a young initiate graduates from high school, I believe she's given a series of tasks and targets. Often, she's given a specific man to court, so to speak. Someone of influence the Order wants her to marry or manipulate.”

  I needed to sit down. I walked with heavy footsteps to the leather chair and slumped down into it, my heart heavy with sadness and the realization of deceit.

  I thought of my friend, Brooke, the pretty senior captain who had broken up with her new boyfriend, a guy she'd been chasing for years, in order to cozy up with the governor's son. That happened right after she'd been initiated into the Order on her eighteenth birthday. The entire future plan for her life had changed in an instant. How had I not realized the Order had forced her into it? Given her a task to complete?

  “I like to sit down and people watch when I'm on campus,” he said. “I watch behaviors and mannerisms, trying to pinpoint who belongs to the Order and what their mission or assignment really is. When I saw you hanging out with those girls, I assumed the four of you were in it together.”

  I shook my head. “What if I'm their mission?” I asked, barely able to put sound to my question. The idea terrified me. If it was true, that meant the Order not only knew who I was, but they knew about my plans to go to Tulane early enough that they were able to rig the room assignments. “If they know who I am, it's already too late.”

  John rested against the front of the desk, facing me. “If they knew for sure, you'd already be gone.”

  “What should I do? If I run, as soon as this tattoo becomes active they'll come for me. I won't be able to hide from them.”

  He turned and picked up the book he'd left open on the desk. “What would you say if we could get rid of that tattoo forever?”

  “Can you do that?” I asked, a hint of hope stirring inside me.

  “I don’t have everything I need to perform the ritual, but I think I know where we can get the item we need,” he said. “Are you up for an adventure?”

  What exactly constituted an adventure to a guy like John Pierce? Chills broke out along my arms.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” I said. “If I could finally be free of the constant fear that the Order will come after me, I’d owe you everything.”

  My phone rang inside my bag, and I jumped. What if it was Phoebe? What would I say to her now that I suspected she was one of them?

  I reached inside my bag and dug out my phone. My mother’s name pulsed across the screen, and I relaxed. “It’s my mom,” I said. “She’s going to freak out if I tell her what’s happening.”

  “Answer and tell her everything’s fine,” he said. “No reason to worry her until we know whether or not we can pull this off.”

  My hands trembled as I picked up the call. “Hi, mom.”

  I stood and walked toward the corner of the room.

  “I hadn’t heard from you about how things were going,” she said. “I told you to check in.”

  “I know. I'm sorry.” I wanted to confide in her about the lost potion, but I knew it would only make her worry more. She was already stressed to her limit. “I told you I’m out with friends tonight. Everything is fine. I’ll check in after midnight, okay?”

  She sighed into the phone. “I’m just worried about you.”

  “Any word about the other girls?” I asked the question, but already knew the answer. Those girls were long gone.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m expecting more news of abductions before this is all over.”

  “I’m okay, Mom.”

  “Please be careful,” she said. “I love you, Allison.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I hung up and turned back as John closed the spell book and stuffed it into the worn leather bookbag I’d seen him carrying on campus.

  “You ready?”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Ever been to a New Orleans cemetery at night?” he asked with a twisted smile.

  Alice In Wonderland

  “Wait here,” John said. “I need to change quickly. Ropes and masks aren’t exactly practical cemetery attire.”

&n
bsp; “Neither is this.” I motioned toward my black Mary Janes and short skirt. “But I'm kinda stuck with it for now.”

  He flashed a smile before leaving me alone in the office. He left the door cracked slightly, and I watched as strange, beautiful people walked the halls of his home.

  I tiptoed to the doorway and peeked out at them. The costumes here were nothing like the store-bought, over-sexed costumes of the girls from my dorm. These were custom tailored, opulent costumes made of silk, lace, and leather. Everyone was dressed in black and dark shades of red. Everyone wore a mask. The women showed off their toned, tanned bodies in corsets and bustiers with long flowing skirts that skimmed the floor as they walked. Men went shirtless, a buffet of chiseled abs and lean muscles.

  Who were these people?

  Not students, that’s for sure.

  A woman stood in the hallway, her body draped across the arm of a tall man with a black mask that covered most of his face. She met my gaze, and I backed away from the door, embarrassed for watching them so blatantly. She held a Venetian mask on a long stick covered with dark silk ribbons. When I looked again, she had pulled the mask away from her face and started walking toward the door to John’s office.

  My heart raced at the way she stared me down, her eyes filled with hunger and lust.

  She was beautiful—porcelain-skinned with dark red lips—but there was something dangerous about her that twisted my insides. I took another step back.

  The woman pushed the door of the study open. “Well, well, well. What have we here? Alice in Wonderland?” Her voice was deep and sultry with the hint of an accent I couldn't quite place. “I’m afraid you’ve fallen very far down the rabbit hole, my dear. Come closer and let me get a better look at you.”

  My butt hit the back of the leather chair and I stumbled clumsily in my heels. I moved around the chair quickly, wanting something between us.