666 Park Avenue

by Gabriella Pierce

  Jane ran forward, casting around for something to distract the giant about to kill her friend, but there was no way she could get to him in time.

  Your body is too far away, her mind shouted at her. Just your body. Her head snapped up sharply. The tire iron was descending. There was no time for doubt.

  “Stop,” she hissed through her teeth, sending a surge of raw power at the driver. Her voice was a low, animalistic growl, like no sound she had ever uttered. The iron stopped in midair as if it had just struck bulletproof glass. Sweat beaded on Jane’s forehead, and the effort of resisting Yuri’s considerable muscles threatened to make her knees buckle.

  While Dee struggled under his grip, Yuri twisted slowly to face Jane, teeth bared in a snarl. “Bitch,” he snarled. There was nothing human left in his face, and Jane knew immediately that she and Dee would both die in this dank alley unless she could get the tire iron out of Yuri’s hand.

  Electricity crackled behind her eyes, and she twisted up hard with her mind. The iron shot toward the sky as if dangling from an invisible fishing rod. Yuri’s beady eyes began to follow it, but Dee chose that moment to kick him clumsily in the groin. With a growl of rage, he turned his full attention back to her, wrapping both hands around her throat. Dee gurgled and her eyes bulged. Barely aware of making the decision, Jane swung the iron back down as hard as she possibly could. It connected with Yuri’s temple with a sickening thud. The huge man collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He didn’t move again.

  Jane collapsed several feet away from him, chunks of gravel scratching her cheek. Her heart pounded against the unyielding pavement, and her breath came in loud rasps. Inhale, and then exhale. Inhale . . . When she had counted five breaths, she pushed herself to sitting, ignoring the pain that radiated throughout her entire body. She dragged herself over to the large hulk of a man. His eyes had rolled back in his head. They were milky and unseeing, and a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His chest was still beneath his black jacket.

  Dee’s amber eyes were huge. “I think he’s dead,” she rasped.

  “I know,” Jane whispered. And then she stumbled to the end of the alley and vomited.

  Chapter Forty

  “Oh my God, I killed him,” Jane gasped when she could speak again, a sob rising in her throat.

  “Stop that. Stop that now!” Dee hissed, rubbing her injured arm. “He was going to kill us. You had no other choice.”

  “I could have hurt him—just knocked him out, maybe,” Jane whispered wildly, the moment when she had swung the tire iron downward playing over and over in her head. She had been afraid—terrified, actually. But was that really all, or had there been anger, too? Had she just been defending herself and her friend, or had she also wanted Yuri dead? She had been absolutely disgusted by what she had seen in his mind: his perverted cravings for fear and pain. Had she made a decision without even realizing it? Had she judged that Yuri deserved to die?

  “You did the only thing you could. This is the only way to be sure,” Dee remarked, startling Jane out of her thoughts. Dee was rubbing at her collarbone; angry finger-shaped welts were forming on her neck. “I was running out of time.”

  “He followed me from the house,” Jane said numbly. “Lynne sent him after me. I knew he wasn’t just a driver. I can’t believe . . . God. This is all my— Are you okay?”

  Dee waved away her concern. “Why was the Dorans’ driver trying to kill us?”

  “I don’t think that was the plan.” Jane shook her head miserably. “But it’s not like we can ask him.” She felt herself sliding into a cold, foggy daze. First Maeve, now Dee . . .

  “Focus, Jane!” Dee begged. “Come on. I need you. You saved my life, so no wallowing!”

  “It was to save you,” Jane repeated slowly, the words sinking in. That was important somehow. “So we can just tell the police—”

  “Okay, I’ll do the thinking,” Dee said gently, “because I don’t think you’re quite there yet. You don’t have time to sit around some police station! Lynne sent this freak after you; you have to go now. I know you wanted to wait for Malcolm to get back, but you’re going to have to run tonight.”

  There was something wrong with Dee’s logic, and Jane fumbled through the fog that was descending on her mind to try to figure out what was wrong. “I don’t think that’s why he was here,” she managed finally. Once it had been said out loud, she became more sure that she was on the right track. “I read him when he touched me,” she mumbled, hearing an unfamiliar hoarseness in her own voice. “It was horrible. He was horrible. But I don’t think he was planning on hurting us—”

  “—until I took a couple of chunks out of the side of his neck,” Dee finished grimly, holding up three bloody fingernails. She twisted a handful of her coarse black hair in her left hand. “I thought he was hurting you.”

  “Well, he was,” Jane admitted, “but he wasn’t trying to.” She glanced toward the huge, still body. Just beyond it, out on the sidewalk that butted up against the alley, was a very pregnant woman pushing a stroller. She didn’t turn to look toward the gory scene in the alley, but Jane watched her pass anyway. The woman had curly black hair and dusky skin stretched tautly over high, fine cheekbones. She reminded Jane of her friend Elodie. The resemblance was so strong, in fact, that Jane only barely stopped herself from calling out to the unknown woman. Then she remembered.

  Oh my God. We’re standing around chatting over a dead body in plain sight. The sun had moved down below the roofs of the buildings behind them, but there was still sufficient light that anyone who actually looked their way would see enough to be alarmed.

  “We need to get inside,” Jane blurted. “We need to get Yuri . . . I don’t know, somewhere. Not here.”

  Dee nodded briskly and strode to a rusted blue door just below the fire escape. “Back door,” she explained tersely. “For the trash.” She produced a brass key, and they slipped inside. Jane felt a brief moment of disorientation seeing the familiar foyer from an unfamiliar perspective, but it resolved as they approached the creaky wooden staircase. Jane knew that walking would look less conspicuous if anyone happened to see them, but she couldn’t help herself: on the third stair, she began to run, and by the time Dee’s door slammed shut behind them, they were both out of breath.

  Dee ducked into her narrow galley kitchen and reappeared with the plate of cookies from what felt like hours ago. “You said something about Yuri not trying to hurt us,” she prompted skeptically, folding her long legs under her on a large blue cushion. The finger marks on her neck had become so vivid they nearly glowed. Jane broke the cookie over and over into smaller pieces, until it was nothing but a pile of sugary dust on her lap. She couldn’t imagine eating right now. Couldn’t imagine eating ever again. She had taken someone’s life.

  Jane’s tongue felt thick and heavy, and her limbs craved a bed to crawl into. But her mind refused to stop whirling. She had to make sense of it all.

  “Jane, you have to leave tonight. You know that, right?” Dee said again.

  Jane shook her head. The effort hurt and the room spun around her. “No. He tried to get me to go along willingly. He did not want us to make a scene. Which means Lynne still cares about making everything look good.”

  “You said Lynne was onto you,” Dee reminded her stubbornly, pushing her tangled black hair out of her face. Her hands were twisting over and over each other anxiously. “He tried to kill us, Jane. The rest of it is just details. We need a plan. Do you have your passport? Any cash? Misty, my friend from Book & Bell, can—”

  “Lynne told him to make everything look normal,” Jane repeated stubbornly. “Dee. She can’t know anything for sure because she’s still planning on going ahead with the wedding.”

  A low whine began in the kitchen, and Dee jumped off her cushion. Jane froze for a panicked moment, but the whine climbed steadily until it was recognizable as the shrill of a boiling teakettle, and Jane relaxed back against th
e red wall. She heard the cozy, comfortable sounds of the kettle being removed from the burner and water pouring into mugs, and she sighed: how could her world have gotten so dangerous in such a short period of time?

  Dee’s dark blue jeans scissored back across Jane’s field of vision, and a steaming mug found its way into her hands. The surface of the liquid rippled; Jane realized that she must be trembling. “You mean . . . you are going to go back?” Dee said quietly, her husky voice so low it was almost inaudible.

  “I have to,” Jane whispered. The heat of the mug emanated up her arms and made her feel more present in her body. The horror of the afternoon was still there, but the emptiness had been replaced with a plan—and a sense of certainty about how the next twenty-four hours of her life would play out. “If she had been sure that I knew about her, Yuri would have just attacked. Instead he was nice—or he tried to be—because Lynne still thinks she can get away with her plan. She wasn’t ready to blow her cover; she just wanted me to come back to the house where she could keep an eye on me. And if I don’t go back, she will know.”

  And I’ll be nothing more than an ill-prepared moving target. She would have to run with the clothes on her back, just like she had meant to do the night of the disastrous cocktail party at the MoMA. True, she had her credit cards this time, but the end result would be the same: she’d be caught before she made it out of the state. Malcolm would come home and find . . . what? A forged note saying that Jane had gotten cold feet and flown back to France? A call from the coroner, saying Jane had passed away in a freak car accident that was no one’s fault? He wouldn’t believe either story, but he wouldn’t be able to save her then. And if Lynne caught wind of what he had been up to over the past month . . . “I have to go back,” Jane repeated more firmly, “and you need to run.”

  Dee shook her head dismissively. “I’ll be fi—”

  “You won’t,” Jane cut her off impatiently. The police might believe that Yuri had attacked Dee at random and that she had killed him in self-defense—the police had probably heard a thing or two about Yuri before. But Lynne would figure it out immediately. She didn’t know Jane and Dee were friends, but when she discovered that Yuri’s body was found in an alley next to the home of someone connected to Jane—even as remotely as an assistant wedding-cake baker was—Dee’s days would be numbered.

  Jane cleared her throat. “You can’t be involved in this. We got lucky today, but I need to know you’ll be safe when I’m gone. You need an alibi so good no one will even think to talk to you, and you need to stay out of sight until the whole thing blows over.”

  Dee looked as though she was going to argue, but Jane stared her down. Finally, Dee sighed and nodded. “It won’t be as hard as you think. This is Misty’s place. It’s an illegal sublet, and my name’s not on anything. She wanted to be closer to the store, and I had just moved to New York and didn’t know anybody . . .” She trailed off, apparently momentarily distracted by the memory. “Misty will help,” she concluded confidently. “Strays and runaways are like her second job. She can handle this, no problem. And you’ll know how to reach me when—if—” Dee frowned.

  “I know,” Jane told her gently. “I’ll miss you. Just stay safe.”

  Dee’s wide mouth curved up into a smile that held faint traces of her usual cockiness. “I’ll land on my feet, Jane. And you better do the same.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Jane had the taxi driver let her out at the corner. She stayed close to the tall limestone buildings lining Park Avenue, wanting to avoid the sight of the gaping black windows at the top of the Dorans’ mansion. In the months she had lived there, she had never been able to shake the feeling that someone was watching her from those windows. Of course, now that she thought about it, it was probably Charles.

  I can’t believe I’m coming back here willingly. Again.

  Jane shivered and tapped her code into the panel beside the carved wooden door. Gunther was awake enough to approximate a wave, but she was reasonably sure she heard him snoring by the time she reached the narrow back staircase. At least there would be a record of her using her code to come home, even if he didn’t remember. She had been sorely tempted to use the service entrance instead of the ostentatious front door, but had changed her mind after imagining Lynne in a black fury, demolishing half of Brooklyn because she didn’t realize that Jane was back.

  When she slid open the door into the kitchen, her heart zoomed down to the tips of her toes. Lynne was exactly where she had been when Jane had run out earlier: sitting at the kitchen table, sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup. Jane opened her mouth to speak, but found herself frozen indecisively, her mouth wide, and still holding the door handle.

  “Nice try,” Lynne purred. Every instinct of Jane’s screamed at her to run, but whether it was fear or some kind of spell, she felt completely unable to move. “But you’ll still have to go through with the fitting,” Lynne went on, standing to her considerable full height. “The couturier was simply beside himself, of course, but he’s a professional, and I did eventually feel compelled to remind him of that fact. So he’ll just have to come a bit early tomorrow if he really can’t manage with the measurements that he has already.” She glided majestically across the tiled floor and tipped the remains of her tea into the sink. “Do let me see your nails, dear.”

  Jane felt a faint prickling in her fingers and toes, as if they had been numb and now the feeling was returning. The wooden door clicked shut behind Jane and she realized that she must have let it go. She held her hands in front of her uncertainly. Her nails didn’t have blood under them like Dee’s had, but the shell-pink polish didn’t look new, either. “Jin Soon had a wait,” she heard herself saying, “but the hairdresser said she could change out the polish tomorrow as long as it’s something simple. Which is fine.”

  Lynne nodded slowly, her odd, dark eyes riveted on Jane’s. “Dorans go to the front of the line, Jane,” she said finally. “Especially on such a special occasion.”

  Jane forced herself to breathe; it would be harder to sound natural if her face was turning blue. She had been convinced that Lynne knew about Yuri somehow—honestly, she had believed it on some level since she had left Dee’s apartment. But if Lynne did know that something was wrong, she was playing it impossibly cool. So I just have to keep up the act until tomorrow, Jane reminded herself desperately. “Of course,” she said out loud. “I’m just a little emotional, I guess. About the big day. So I’ve been kind of out of it. I’ve never been married before. It’s kind of a new experience for me.” Jane let out an inane giggle.

  Lynne’s eyes narrowed, but her peach lips pursed together thoughtfully. After a long moment, she seemed to accept that excuse, and stepped away from the sink. “Perhaps you should lie down, dear,” she suggested, and Jane gratefully hurried forward, toward the hall that led to her room. “Do let me know if you plan to go out again tonight,” Lynne added from somewhere behind her, in a voice that could have frozen fire. A fierce chill ran down Jane’s spine and, not trusting herself to speak, she nodded once before she fled down the hallway.

  It wasn’t until she shut the door of her bedroom that she began to sob. Her chest heaved as her anguish poured out in salty waves, and she wondered for what felt like the millionth time exactly how she’d gotten here. When she’d met Malcolm, she felt like she’d been rescued from years of heartbreaking loneliness. But their relationship had plunged her straight into hell, and she’d gone from French Orphan Swept Off Her Feet to Kill-or-Be-Killed Girl.

  She kicked off her shoes and padded into her spacious closet. The discreetly hidden lighting glowed to life, making each sleeve, skirt, strap, and heel look like a work of art. She stretched onto her tiptoes to reach the Louis Vuitton hatbox that sat on the back of a high shelf (“Every New York woman who’s anyone needs a hatbox!” Lena from Barneys had sworn) and pulled it down, narrowly missing her own head.

  She brusquely tossed the lovely Lanvin hat inside out of the way.
It settled on the closet floor, glossy black feathers quivering. Four layers of tissue paper followed it quickly, and finally Jane felt the dusty-soft paper of the manuscript that Dee had given her to read—discreetly—at home. The curious and eventually institutionalized Rosalie Goddard had not been especially inclined to share the source material for her controversial book. But in her diaries, she had mentioned the names of a couple of books and their authors. Misty Travers had located one of them in her extensive back room. Hope she has enough room back there to hide Dee, Jane thought, and then she shut those thoughts out. There was nothing she could do now, and fretting wouldn’t help.

  Instead, she carried the manuscript gently back to the carved and canopied bed, pulled the silk duvet over her aching body, and began to read. Because she was tired and tense, the words mostly ran together, but after a few minutes she began to get the sense of what she was reading, and another minute after that, a familiar name jumped out.

  The first woman to discover this amazing reserve of natural magic and bend it to her will was a queen in her own land. Before Ambika died, she divided her massive wealth among her seven sons, and bequeathed her magic among her seven daughters.

  The sons have disappeared from history, but for centuries the descendants of those seven daughters passed their magic through the female line, just as Ambika did, and seven distinct families emerged. Gradually, perceived inequalities between the families’ powers caused jealousy and strife. In the Middle Ages, plain fighting broke out when witches realized that a fallen witch’s powers could be stolen at the moment of her death. These battles eventually attracted attention even from the non-magical community, inciting fear and hysteria.