Carnival of Bones (Carnival of Bones Duet Book 1)

by Penn Cassidy

  Sometimes, the mirrors weren’t even clean enough to see anything at all, covered in a layer of dust revealing only silhouettes.

  Some of them were broken into tiny little pieces that reflected the flickering lights off the other mirrors, tricking my eyes into thinking someone was there.

  There was a reason horror movies loved fun houses. This shit was scary, and I was starting to feel claustrophobia creeping in.

  The air, though cool and smelling of sawdust, was thick. It was getting harder to take in deep breaths, but that also might have been the panic.

  “I swear to god, I’m about to freak the f—”

  “Still believe you’re dreaming?” His voice came from directly behind me.

  Twisting around, there was nothing there but a broken mirror. I turned back, staring into my reflection in a long, oval-shaped antique mirror that for once showed a relatively normal version of myself.

  My heart was in my throat, because behind me stood Bael, his navy blue eyes twinkling with sinister amusement.

  I turned to face him, but again, he wasn’t there. Just empty space. But when I looked into the mirror again, there he was. He looked like he was enjoying my confusion a little too much.

  “I really hope so,” I answered him breathlessly, trying and failing to keep the fear out of my voice. “You're trying to freak me out, aren't you?”

  He said nothing.

  Our eyes were locked in the mirror, his gradually dipping down the length of my body, clad in the purple dress, freshly cleaned and not smelling like the swamp.

  I wanted to fidget under his stare, but I felt like an idiot. Why was he affecting me like this? I had a fiancé—

  Or did I?

  Is that what Austin still was? I wasn’t sure anymore. If someone held a gun to my head and asked for the complete truth, I couldn’t honestly say I loved him anymore.

  In fact, when I pictured his face, all I could feel was revulsion. There was a time when I looked at him with stars in my eyes and other men were practically invisible.

  Bael sure wasn't invisible to me right now. In fact, I was acutely aware of his every breath and movement.

  His hands began sliding down the front of my stomach, and he turned his face into my loose hair, inhaling deeply.

  A flare of heat bloomed inside of me, traveling through every limb, even reaching my toes.

  Shit… I was in so much trouble.

  “You’re thinking too hard, chérie,” he whispered, tickling my ear with his breath. “Do my fingers not make you squirm?”

  In the mirror, he bunched my dress in his hands and lifted the fabric slowly. The silken material rubbed against my thighs pleasantly.

  My heart raced when the dress was nearing my hips. He let his pinky finger caress my skin, and his lips pressed gently against the shell of my ear.

  “Why am I letting you do this to me?” I asked, eyes growing heavy.

  I was rigid, but not pulling away. Not a single part of me was ready to pull out of his arms. I wanted his hands on me, but I wasn’t sure it was for the right reasons.

  But what were the right reasons?

  I’d been subjected to nothing but bland, forced sex with Austin for the last year, and I wasn’t sure how much more of it I could take before I burst. I had needs that weren’t being fulfilled.

  So why not let Bael touch me? If this turned out to be a fever dream, then what did I have to lose?

  “You’re focused on what terrifies you and not what can bring you more pleasure than you’ve ever known,” he said.

  His palm swiped over my center, and my whole body stilled. I held my breath, then a small moan slipped from my lips as he sucked my earlobe between his lips and bit down gently.

  My eyes fell closed. I shouldn’t have been allowing this, but it felt so good. It was a dream, right? It was just a dream…

  I told myself that to feel better, even though I knew it wasn’t true.

  Bael's fingers found my most sensitive spot, and when he pressed down, my legs nearly buckled.

  “You terrify me…” I whispered, trying not to moan again when his lips moved from the shell of my ear to my neck.

  “Good.” His lips stretched into a smile. I could feel his teeth on my skin. “That’s your body’s way of warning you to run as fast as you can in the other direction.”

  His fingers dug into my thighs, pulling me backwards against a growing hardness I could feel against my spine. His fingers began to slow until they stopped altogether.

  “But you’re not going to run from me, are you?”

  Glancing down, I could see only myself standing in the darkened corridor, but in the mirror, Bael still towered over me and touched me as if he were right here.

  It was some kind of magic. It was trickery.

  “What’s your game? Why are you doing all this?” I asked.

  Because there had to be a reason.

  “Why must there always be a game?” he retorted with a chuckle, kissing me lightly on the neck. “Have you always held yourself back from taking the things you crave?”

  I shivered. “I never used to.”

  The bleakness of my answer dawned on me. How repressed I’d been for so long. Austin had taken my spirit and wrung it out for all it was worth, leaving me empty.

  I used to be fun and carefree. I used to enjoy sex. But those things might as well have been a lifetime ago.

  “Don’t you think you deserve pleasure?” He cupped me gently but firmly, and all coherent thought ceased. “Because I do. Men should fall to their knees before you, beautiful Mori. I think you deserve much more than you’ve been given.”

  His fingers twitched again on my center, and my whole body shivered at the waves of pleasure that jolted through me. I fought the urge to thrust into his hand so he could rub me where I needed it most again.

  I almost gave in. I almost begged him for it. But Bael disappeared again.

  I staggered, feeling my dress fall back into place as I caught myself on the wall. My heart was in my throat as I searched for any sign of him. He was gone. Just a dark, dusty corridor.

  “But I suppose I’m a patient man,” said a voice from above.

  Craning my neck, I saw Bael there, lounging casually on one of the wooden beams overhead, swinging his foot back and forth.

  “I wouldn’t want to push you into something you’re not ready for. What kind of gentleman would that make me?”

  I scowled, trying to shake off the feel of his touch and his kiss. I’d wanted him to keep going. To keep making me feel. I wanted it even now, but all I felt was empty again.

  “Gentleman, my ass…” I grumbled.

  “Come again?”

  He appeared in front of me, one hand outstretched for me to take, as if nothing had transpired between us. His face was a carefully blank mask once again.

  I simply blinked at him, knowing he’d heard me just fine.

  “I still have things to show you,” was all he said, wiggling his fingers playfully.

  Reluctantly, I took his hand, mostly because I just wanted to see this through and get the hell out of the damn fun house. It was messing with my mind, and I needed to clear it fast.

  We walked for about five minutes through the labyrinth of empty, mirrored hallways. It wasn’t until the corridors began to widen that I heard a mass shuffling of feet.

  Muscles tightening, my chest grew heavy. We were getting closer to the grey faces. I tried to peek around his shoulders to where shadows moved up ahead, causing the lights to flicker.

  “I could get lost in here so easily,” I mumbled, eyeing a darkened fork in the maze warily.

  “And what's the best thing to do when you find yourself lost?”

  He paused, facing me. The corridor was plenty wide enough to fit three bodies side by side, yet he stood nearly chest to chest with me. His palm cupped my face casually, as if he had every right to touch me whenever he felt like it.

  I gave him the first answer that popped into my head.
“Stay still and wait to be found?”

  It was something my parents had always taught me, especially living in a crowded place like New Orleans.

  He booped me on the tip of my nose with his pointer finger. “You’re a clever one, blue girl.” Narrowing my eyes, I went to chastise him for the nickname, but he gave me a cheeky wink and purred, “Mori…”

  My name on his lips, spoken in his lilting French accent, was a thing of beauty, and I hated him for it. His deep voice was like sex in a sound, and I definetly wasn’t as immune to it as I wanted to be. Bael knew that.

  Turning on his heel, he led me farther into the fun house, closer to those shuffling feet and undulating shadows.

  “So if you ever find yourself lost, simply stay put. Trust me, you’ll be found in no time.”

  “The cryptic tips aren’t as helpful as you think they are,” I remarked dryly. “You could just show me how to get to the road or something and make this a lot easier on all of us.”

  He laughed. “But where would be the fun in that? Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy spending time with me. I’ve been told I’m quite fun to be around.”

  Someone was clearly lying to him.

  Bael was off-putting, to put it in the kindest way possible. Yes, he might’ve been oddly attractive and more than a little bit alluring and funny, but he was…strange. Scary strange. I just had to remember to watch my back around him.

  “Why are they all so still?” I asked after another minute. “The grey faces, I mean.”

  Their stillness was what made my skin itchy all over. It was like they were lying in wait for something that would never come, like stone statues ready to crumble to dust at a moment’s notice. They made me nauseous.

  “You’re familiar with the crossroads, yes?” he asked.

  I only hummed in agreement. Of course I was familiar with it. Well, the idea of it anyway.

  “Good, then this will be easier for you to grasp, and maybe we can avoid another melodramatic incident.”

  Rolling my eyes at that, I let him lead me into an open room. Bael pulled me beside him, linking our arms at the elbows.

  “What do you see?” He gestured in a wide arc.

  We were in a cavernous chamber, the walls made of black particle board with wooden rafters overhead, Edison bulbs swinging on small chains.

  On the far wall were three massive mirrors lined up next to each other, each one over ten feet tall and five feet wide. They stood in a row, gilded in pewter frames carved with symbols that I recognized immediately.

  Veves…

  So many of them, and each one only slightly different than the next.

  I gave Bael a wide-eyed look. “What is this?”

  Veves were used as a vodou alphabet. There were twenty-three in total with different variations and were used by practitioners of vodou.

  The drawn or carved symbols were a gateway—the calling card of a specific priest or priestess. They were used to summon ancestral spirits and should only be used in sacred spaces or during rituals, only by someone pure of heart with discipline and practice.

  These veves were different from the ones I’d seen Grandma Anne use to commune with Yemeya, the ocean spirit she prayed to.

  These were simpler, more straight to the point, but I couldn't seem to pinpoint the ancestral line they belonged to, if any. Veves were a sort of signature, but this was unfamiliar.

  Most of them were simple—two long lines intersecting like a cross, and in each quadrant, were various smaller symbols, some of them I didn’t recognize and others I’d only seen in passing. They were etched into the frames of each mirror as if they'd been burned there.

  I turned to demand answers from Bael, but he was no longer beside me. Instead, he stood across the room next to the mirrors, having moved in the blink of an eye.

  A line of grey-faced people funneled into the room single file. The air seemed to cool down a few degrees. Each one of them stared straight ahead, not a single one looking curious or afraid. They appeared lifeless, dull, and vacant.

  I backed into the wall behind me but decided not to run. More than anything, I needed to see what this was all about and why there were veves all over those mirrors. Something was happening here, and I wasn’t sure I was going to like it.

  Bael was grinning at the grey faces, his dark eyes sparkling with eagerness. Then he snapped his ring-clad fingers, and a slow song began to play.

  There were no speakers in the building that I could see, but still, the song rang out. It was carnival music again—scratchy and slowed down like it was being played on a record player or an old TV.

  The grey face at the front of the line stepped forward. It was a woman with long blonde hair tied back into a braid. Her once blue eyes were milky, and bags hung under them, making her look much older than she probably was. Bael gestured to her, then crooked his finger in a come-hither motion. The woman barely blinked.

  She approached the mirror in the middle and stared into it. I held my breath, my heart racing as she just stood there, unmoving. She had no reflection. Just nothing. In fact, I couldn’t see any of the grey faces in any of the mirrors.

  Bael was staring at me instead of focusing on the woman in front of him. There was expectation and excitement in his eyes.

  Where the woman was once very still and unfazed, she began to breathe heavily, until eventually, she was panting. Her shoulders rose and fell in quick bursts, then she staggered backwards. The urge to go to her never came, oddly enough. I should have helped her.

  She met some kind of invisible resistance and rocked forward again, stumbling towards the mirror, shaking her head. Then she began pleading, her voice broken and gasping.

  “No, no, no…” Over and over, she begged.

  Her heels dug into the wooden floor, but somehow, she began sliding forward, as if there were a tether pulling on her.

  “No, please!” she shouted, desperate and terrified. “Don’t do this! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

  Bael was still only watching me, as if he were waiting for me to do something. All I could do was stand there and watch as the woman finally toppled forward and disappeared right into the mirror, which rippled like a pool of water.

  A scream built up in my throat as my back lurched from the wall. I caught myself. Terror clutched at me as the woman vanished, her screams going silent too. But I didn't let myself scream with her, not with Bael smiling at me the way that he was.

  When he tore his eyes from mine, he motioned for the next grey face to step forward.

  On and on it went. One grey face after the next stepped up to the mirrors. Sometimes they chose the middle mirror like the first lady, screaming, writhing, and begging not to go.

  But others stepped up to the first mirror on the left, a content smile stretching over their suddenly animated faces. Those ones practically sprinted into the mirror, disappearing with the echo of their laughter bouncing off the walls.

  And then there were the ones who went into the third mirror. These grey faces remained vacant. Never once did their face split into a smile or their eyes light up with terror. They simply ambled forward, falling into some invisible abyss. The line began moving quickly, and I could only watch in fascinated silence.

  The carnival music just looped and looped, while Bael stood sentry, ushering them all through the mirrors. There must have been hundreds of them, and not a single one even glanced at me.

  When I couldn't take any more screaming, I left the room for some air, wandering aimlessly back into the hall of mirrors, content to let Bael do whatever it was he did here.

  I wasn’t exactly scared, not like I should have been. Things were finally starting to click into place.

  I’d grown up with stories of the crossroads. Stories of Papa Legba. How he was the one you summoned in order to speak with the other spirits. He was the keeper of the gateways that led you to where you were supposed to go when you passed on.

  This place had his energy written all over it�
�but also something more.

  There was something I was missing. Something was not quite right about what was going on here, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  There was a sinister feel to that center mirror, and it made my skin crawl. Even now, as I paced the corridors, I could hear their screams echoing around me. They were begging not to go into the mirror, terrified of whatever they saw on the other side.

  Legba wasn’t an evil spirit. He didn’t punish, and he didn’t make judgements. In fact, in my experience, he was one of the more benevolent of the ancestral spirits.

  Movies and TV shows liked to depict him as this spooky, gnarled, Grim Reaper type figure who hunted for souls to snatch when they crossed him.

  It was gross, really. In reality, he was a watcher—a guardian and a helping hand to those who respected him.

  So if this truly was the crossroads, again, why had he brought me here?

  I studied the mirrors as I passed them, running my fingers over their surfaces. They were all solid, unlike the three massive ones in the other room. There were no veves burned into the frames here.

  I thought about those symbols, wondering who’d put them there. Whose signature was it? Bael maybe? No, not Bael. Maybe I was wrong. Who really knew?

  He seemed to know what he was doing, ushering those people through. His eyes had been lit from within with excitement, not a shred of remorse or pity for the souls he sent in.

  Turning a corner, I came to an abrupt stop, almost running face-first into a tall mirror. It was over seven feet tall and cut into sections like an octagon that curved around me like a tube.

  Turning back the way I came, I meant to retrace my steps but ran into another identical mirror.

  The lights flickered as I spun in a slow circle. I was surrounded by mirrors with less than three feet of space on every side of me. The corridor I'd come in through was gone, like the mirrors themselves were shifting on their own, luring me into a trap.

  I banged my fist on the surface, calling out for Bael. Meeting my own eyes in the reflection, I saw fear staring back at me, stark and cold.

  “Get me out of here!” I screamed. “Bael, let me out!”