As he unbuckles my seat belt, he turns to look at me, something in his expression that I can’t read. For a moment I think he’s going to say something.
But he doesn’t.
Grabbing my arm, he pulls me up out of the car as the other agents’ cars veer into the garage. The air smells like petrol and exhaust fumes. The Commander and Claire are both watching us.
“Come on,” says Cal.
I wrestle my arm out of his grip. “Don’t touch me.”
A thin smile crosses the Commander’s face, and he shrugs. “She can walk on her own. This way please.” He gestures toward a plain door in the corner of the garage, then walks ahead.
Neither Cal nor I move. I stare at him, breathing hard, and his pale eyebrows furrow.
“Lila. Don’t.” His voice is weary.
I turn and run. I sprint past the cars still flooding into the garage; the sound of their horns and the skidding of their brakes as they swerve to avoid me creates an unpleasant chaotic symphony. I leap away from a white suit who tries to stop my escape, eyes fixed on the ramp leading to the street, before two hands grab my arms and pull me back into a hard chest.
I spin around, almost nose to nose with Cal.
“I thought you were my friend,” I say.
“And I thought you weren’t stupid enough to fall for Cupid and bring back Venus.”
Anger burns through my veins. I think about the dance, and the pain behind his eyes when he saw me out on the terrace.
“Is that what this is all about?” I say. “Is that why you’re doing this? Because I kissed Cupid? This is what I deserve? I kissed your brother and so you want to hand me over to an ancient goddess who wants to kill me? Way to overreact, Cal.”
His features harden and he looks like he’s about to retort, but I don’t give him chance. I spin on my heel—feeling the eyes of the other agents getting out of their cars—and storm after the Commander. He is watching us curiously as we reach the door.
We enter a nondescript stairwell and Claire leads us into an elevator. Inside, the mirrored walls reflect my messy hair and clothes, still slightly damp from the rain. My face is paler than usual, and I note the dark smudges underneath my eyes.
“Which floor?” asks Claire.
“Her floor,” says the Commander. “She’ll want to see the Match right away.”
My knees feel a little weak at that, so I lean against the elevator wall for support as we begin to ascend. My three captors ignore me, all staring directly ahead at the sliding doors. When they open, I’m marched into a clinical-looking waiting room whose glass coffee table is surrounded by the same neon-colored armchairs that sit in the reception.
“Take a seat,” says Cal.
As I do so, Claire and the Commander speak to a slender, red-haired young man at the reception booth.
“Venus’s PA,” Cal murmurs from across the table.
I shoot him a withering look. “I didn’t ask.”
After a few moments the Commander and Claire come back. “Charles will let you know when the boss is ready,” says the Commander, then gives a gruff nod to Cal before he and Claire head back into the elevator, leaving us alone.
Cal sits in the luminous green armchair beside me. We wait in silence for what seems like forever. Then there is a beep and Charles the PA moves from behind his white booth. His gaze brushes over Cal then focuses on me.
“She is ready,” he says. “Venus will see you now.”
49
“So this is it, is it?” I say quietly. “Venus will see me now?”
This is where following a boy out onto the terrace at his party has led—to a reception with the goddess of love. I feel a pang and wonder if I will ever see Cupid again.
“Will she kill me?” I ask Cal as he rises to stand stiffly beside me.
Cal averts his eyes. “Get up.”
I look at Venus’s PA, who is tapping his fingers against the reception booth impatiently. “She hasn’t got all day,” he says testily.
I turn my eyes to Cal again. I wish I could read his expression. I wish I could understand why he betrayed us. As I stand, an unusual calm washes over me. Whatever happens, I will face it; there is no other choice.
Cal grabs my arm and marches me forward, his fingers digging into my skin. Despite his cool demeanor, I can tell he is nervous. I cast my gaze to the quiver still on his back. The Finis is still there.
“Let go of me,” I say, my voice steady. Maybe if I can get hold of the Finis I could . . .
Cal follows my gaze and gives a subtle shake of his head. Then he pushes me ahead of him toward Charles.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Lila,” he whispers in my ear through gritted teeth.
“This way, please,” says Charles.
Side by side, we follow him down a long, arched corridor whose walls are a blinding white. Our footsteps echo off the black and white checkered floor. While the décor is similar to the rest of the Cupids Matchmaking Service, the air smells strange and sickly sweet.
As we move on, I wonder if Cal is going to deliver the Finis directly to Venus. If he does, then she can use it to kill Cupid.
I glare at Cal again. “How could you do this?”
He says nothing, only gestures to the black door at the end of the corridor, where two armed cupids stand guard—one male and one female. As we get closer, I notice a white plaque with Venus, CEO in elegant pink calligraphy, nailed to the dark wood.
Charles stops in front of the two agents guarding the door and spins around to face us. His eyes are a dull green.
“Leave your weapons outside the door, please,” he says. “You can collect them once She is finished with you.”
My eyes flicker to Cal’s face. If he’s going to give the Finis to the Matchmaking Service then surely this is the moment to reveal its presence. But he makes no movement to give in his bow or arrows.
“No weapon can harm Venus,” he says.
Charles shrugs disinterestedly. “I didn’t make the rules. Leave your weapons with one of the agents, please.”
When Cal only stares at Charles coldly, the agents by the door reach for their own weapons, suddenly alert. Then Cal gives a thin smile.
“Of course,” he says. “As She wishes.”
He passes the bow to the male then shrugs the bundle of arrows off his shoulder. The female agent takes it and balances it against the wall.
Charles nods, then raps lightly against the black door.
“Come iii-nnn,” sings a high-pitched voice on the other side.
This is it.
Without thinking, I look to Cal for some form of comfort, but of course, he doesn’t give it. He stares straight ahead as Charles pushes open the door and walks through.
The first thing that hits me is the smell. It’s even stronger than in the hallway; sweet, yes, with an undercurrent of something else—something nasty. Bile makes its way up my throat, but I swallow it down as Cal pulls me inside.
We’ve entered a narrow room with a black wood floor and dark-pink walls. Where we stand is lit by a cold, artificial light, but the end of the room is shrouded in darkness. I can’t see Venus, but there are bouquets of flowers everywhere—blood-red roses and white myrtle burst out of vases and wrap up the walls to twine around ceiling beams. I can hear the trickling of water but I can’t work out where it is coming from.
“Here they are, ma’am,” says Charles. “Cal. And Cupid’s Match.”
After a low bow, he dismisses himself, closing the door behind him. There is silence for a moment. Then a shuffle from the dark end of the room.
“Come forward, plee-aaassee.”
The voice is the embodiment of the smell—sickly sweet with something nasty roiling beneath the surface. Cal lets go of my arm and slowly walks toward the darkness. I look longingly at the door we’ve just come
through. But what’s the point in running? They’ll only bring me back again.
Filled with dread, I inch forward, my breathing quickening with each step that I take.
“That’s right,” says the voice. “Come here.”
As we get closer, I see the shape of a large desk and the silhouette of a figure sitting behind it.
Venus.
The sound of water is stronger here, and for a moment I think I hear the sound of something thudding against glass.
“That’s quii-tte close enough,” sings the voice. “Now—let me have a look at you,”
Slowly and fluidly, the shadowed figure rises from the chair and stands to her full height. She is bigger than a human woman, in both height and breadth. Her body is exaggeratedly curved but, through the darkness, I can’t determine whether it is due to clothing or her actual shape.
And then suddenly she is just inches in front of us.
At first glimpse, she is beautiful. Her hair, a fiery red, is braided around her head and entwined with white flowers. Her pale skin accentuates her clear blue eyes, and she’s wearing a ball gown that looks to be made entirely of crimson roses. Strapless and cinched at the waist, it boasts a billowing skirt that seems to sway in a breeze that isn’t there.
No one speaks. Venus continues to look at me, and as I stare back, my skin starts to crawl. There’s something behind the beauty; something not quite right.
Her skin is too pale—almost translucent—and completely without pores or blemishes or marks of any kind. It looks slippery, like an imitation of skin. The pupils in her eyes are too small, and she doesn’t blink often enough. They make me think of the eyes of a doll. And although she is smiling at me with full, red lips, there’s a menacing twist to it.
Suddenly, in a movement too fast for me to follow, her fingers caress the side of my face. They are long and cold—corpse-like—and my skin crawls.
“So this is her, Cupid’s Match,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “The reason I’ve been called back in to work.”
Her voice is like a little girl’s, but she prods me in the chest with each word—the last push so forceful that I lose my footing, landing hard on my back. I blink and she is towering over me. Fear fills my body. I inhale sharply, taking in a sickeningly large gulp of the overpowering scent.
“You know—that’s not very nice, being called into work on your millennium off,” she says as she stoops down, picks me up like a rag doll, and plants me back on my feet. “There are a lot of things I could do to you if I wanted to. And you must be punished, of course. You have been a very naughty little Match.”
“Mother,” Cal warns.
She turns her head to focus on Cal. “I’ve heard you’ve been a naughty little boy too,” she says, picking up her skirts and running with tiny steps over to her son. “Again.”
There’d be something comical about her movements if she weren’t so terrifying.
“Do you like my new hair?” she asks, beaming. “It’s red. Like Charles’s. We’re matching.”
Cal ignores her words and looks her straight in the eye. “If you don’t hurt Lila now—if you give her a trial—you can make an example out of her,” he says slowly.
She sticks out her bottom lip. “But I want to hurt her now.”
Cal just looks at her sternly.
Venus sighs. “But of course you’re right. We’ll keep her for the trial. She’ll be our little human pet.” She looks back at me with those unblinking eyes and smiles a smile that makes my skin crawl. Then she claps her hands together. “Anyway—I’ve got you both presents! Come! Come!”
Dread fills me. What present could the goddess of love possibly have for me?
Suddenly, she’s at the other end of the room, back in the darkness. She claps her hands again and the lights spring on. This time bile forces its way to the top of my throat. She stands between two glass doors, behind which two figures float in water.
Inside one—unconscious and ethereal—floats Crystal.
Inside the other—thumping the glass wildly with his fists—is Cupid.
Venus looks at us and smiles sweetly, but there is malice in her eyes. “Do you want to open them?”
50
Venus places her hand on tank where Crystal floats, ghostlike, in the water. Wisps of the cupid’s blond hair twist and twirl in slow motion around her pale face.
My heart sinks. She looks like she is dead.
Venus looks at Cal. “This one is for you!” Then she runs over to the second door and brings her doll-like gaze to my face. “And this one . . . this one is for you!”
Cupid’s thumps against the glass are becoming weaker. I can see his mouth moving, but the words are lost behind the window. Every inch of me starts to tremble. I’m dangerously close to throwing up.
I need to get him out of there.
She claps her hands together impatiently. “Well? Come on then. Are you going to open your presents or not?”
For a moment I stay rooted to the spot. Is this a trick?
Then I don’t care anymore—I don’t care if it’s a trick, or if Venus is going to kill me, or that I’m going to be put on trial. I don’t care that Cal has betrayed me, or that I’m terrified, or that I may never get to see my dad again.
All I care about is Cupid—his life slowly trickling away into that container of water.
I bolt forward, past the desk, and past Venus, until my body slams into the glass of Cupid’s prison. I place my palms all over it, trying to find out how to get it open. There’s no handle.
How can I get him out?
Cupid taps against the glass to get my attention then gestures behind him. I follow his gaze. Venus still stands between the two doors. She dangles two keys delicately from her fingers.
“Silly little Match,” she says. “You’ll need a key to open that door.”
I snatch the one for Cupid’s door from her, not looking at her face for a reaction; I just race back, my eyes searching for a keyhole.
I can’t find it.
Cupid taps against the glass again and points to my left. There’s a small hole in the glass. I jam in the key, turn, and pull backward. The door bursts open, ice-cold water knocking me to my back before Cupid crashes down on top of me. His skin is cold and wet and he burrows his head down by my shoulder as he splutters and gulps in the room’s scented air.
I lay there in cold relief before I remember the other container.
Crystal.
I roll Cupid off me, frantically looking to see if Venus’s other victim is all right. Cal is striding toward the second door, his expression unreadable. He snatches the other key off Venus and glares at her. Then he slips the key into the lock and turns it, standing to the side as Crystal’s fragile body comes crashing out onto the floor.
“Crystal,” I whisper urgently, “is she . . .?”
Cupid is now on his hands and knees—retching water. He coughs a few more times and then looks at me. “Our kind can’t drown. Not fully,” he says, his voice wheezy and tired. “She’ll be all right, lovebug, eventually.”
With that he collapses back to the ground and rolls onto his back, stretching out wearily in the shallow puddle of water.
I look up at Venus. There’s a thunderous expression on her face and the air around her suddenly feels static and charged. The hairs on my arms prickle and stand on end.
“Look at the mess you’ve made on my floor. Water. EVERYWHERE.”
Although I flinch, Cal merely stares at her.
“Mother, what is the meaning of this? I understand Cupid—but why is Crystal here?” he asks, looking down at Crystal’s collapsed body with distaste.
She finally moves—a weak gasp escapes from her lips. I feel a small moment of relief.
“I mean, I couldn’t care less whether she lives or dies,” Cal continues.
Suddenly Venus is standing in front of Cal.
“You couldn’t care less?” Her lips are twisted into a smile but there is no kindness in her unblinking eyes.
“Of course not,” he snaps. “She’s one of your agents. She’s nothing to me.”
Venus steps away, her skirt of roses rustling as she moves. “Yes,” she says thoughtfully as Crystal begins to retch on the floor. “She is mine, isn’t she?”
She picks Crystal up by the neck of her drenched white jacket and throws her into the wall as though she weighs nothing. Crystal bounces off and thuds hard onto the ground.
“Mine to do whatever I please with.” Venus smiles that twisted smile again and advances slowly toward Crystal’s crumpled form. “She has been a very naughty agent, gallivanting around with Cupid and his Match. I think I will kill her.”
“Mother, if you hurt her now, you can’t make an example of her—like Lila, remember?” he says slowly. “You can put her on trial, too, so everyone will see what you do to people who betray you.”
Venus blinks then gives a disjointed kind of nod. Her movements make me think of a character in a creepy stop-motion film. “Yes. I’ll put her on trial with the others.” She looks at Cal and smiles sweetly. “At least I have one good son.”
She moves beside him and strokes his face with her white, slippery-looking fingers. Then she sighs.
“I’m bored of you all now. GUUAARRDDSS!”
The two agents from outside burst back inside.
“Help Cal transport these three downstairs. Put them with my other pets,” she says. “Come on. Hurry.”
The male agent scoops Crystal up over his shoulder while the woman pulls Cupid to his feet. Cal strides over to me and offers me his hand.
“Get up.”
I glare at him but allow him to pull me to my feet. I don’t know where we’re being taken, but it has to be better than being in here with Her.
Cupid's Match Page 23