“Sorry.”
Paul appeared, bumping Eli out of the way to get to me. Eli glowered at him as Paul grabbed my arms, lifting me to my feet. “You might want to be more careful next time.”
“You think?”
“Here’re the torches,” Selene said, rummaging in her backpack. She lit one with a simple fire spell and handed it to Paul. She did the same for me and finally one for herself.
“You sure you’re okay?” asked Eli. He touched my arm, a concerned look on his face.
I nodded, distracted by the sight of the crypt. We were in some kind of huge storeroom. Dozens of freestanding shelves filled the place, packed with all kinds of stuff. The one nearest to me held crate-sized boxes of candy—Twizzlers, Pixy Stix, Sprees, not to mention all the candy bars Hardwick had gone so bananas for.
“I think it’s safe to say he’s got some kind of side business going on,” said Paul.
“Either that or he’s preparing for nuclear fallout,” said Eli.
“Or,” I said, walking over to another shelf that had caught my eye, “he’s thinking of starting World War Three.” This shelf held crates with ominous labels like “C4” and “TNT.” Beside them were countless rifles and handguns hung from racks set next to other crates full of various types of bullets.
“Yikes,” said Eli, coming over to me. “Didn’t you say this guy was an ex-Marine? ’Cause I’m not seeing the ex part so much. He could kill everybody with all this stuff.”
“Um, guys?” said Selene, a hint of panic in her voice. “I think we’ve got even more to worry about.”
I turned to face her, but she’d disappeared down another aisle. When I found her, I understood her worry at once. This aisle was full of black magic items.
There were individually wrapped boxes of shrunken heads, jars of severed hands floating in liquid, and rows of crudely made dolls with no faces. Other jars contained dead scorpions and spiders, snake fangs, live maggots, rat tails, even one labeled “eye of newt.” I would’ve laughed at the irony, but I was too grossed out. Some of the stuff I didn’t recognize at all, but from the rank, decaying smells lingering in the place, I could tell it was all bad.
“Wow,” said Eli, covering his nose. “What the hell is this guy into?”
“Look, there’s moonwort.” Paul pointed down the row.
I shook my head. “This is creepy, but it’s not what we’re looking for. We should spread out, see if he’s got an office or something.”
Everybody agreed to the plan, and I made a left at the nearest aisle and walked all the way until I reached the edge of the chamber. I made my way around the perimeter and in moments had come across a door. I undid the dead bolt and swung it open, fully expecting to find another storeroom beyond it.
It opened into a tunnel. I looked right and left trying to determine where it went, but the tunnel disappeared into blackness a few feet from the doorway. The air was much cooler and damper out here than in the storeroom and held the distinctive, slimy odor of canal water. The tunnel must connect to the main ones on campus. Well, there was one mystery solved. Culpepper must’ve used this as his exit the night he came up behind me in the cemetery.
I stepped back into the storeroom and moved on. After a while, I came to a desk set in a small nook between two rows of shelves. More evil-looking items cluttered the desk, so much so that I was afraid to touch anything for fear of bumping into what looked like the severed hand of a werewolf being used as a Post-it notes holder or the skull that held an assortment of pens and pencils sticking out from its eye sockets and nose hole.
“Need a hand?” Eli said from behind me. I jumped, knocking over a pile of paper on the edge of the desk.
“Crap.” I stooped and started picking them up.
Eli squatted down to help and said in a low voice, “I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, but I think Selene’s right. Your mom doesn’t give me the impression that she would do something like this.”
I snorted. “You just think she’s hot.”
He grinned. “Yeah, well, so does everybody. But there’s more to it than that.” He paused. “She reminds me a lot of you, actually, like the way you play soccer, so fierce and tough, but honest.”
I blushed, my heart rate increasing. “I never knew you saw me play.”
He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “It’s sort of hard not to notice you. But the point is, I know someone like you would never get caught up in something as bad as this.”
“You don’t know that for sure. I mean, look at what I did to Katarina in that dream.” It was the first time either of us had mentioned it. For whatever reason, Eli had pretended it never happened, and I was grateful for that. But it had happened. There was no denying it, much as I wanted to.
He touched my arm, his hand warm through my jacket. “That was different—you didn’t know what would happen. Besides, we’ve all done things we’re not proud of.”
“Well, I really hope you’re right about my mom,” I said, “but it’s like Paul says, people are capable of anything.”
Eli grimaced, letting go of me. “Doesn’t surprise me Paul was the one to say that to you. Have you noticed how he sort of eggs you on about your mom being guilty? Giving you that e-mail. Doesn’t it bug you that he’s so ready to pin it on her? There’s something not right about it.”
I stood up, suddenly angry. “Don’t start in on him again, okay? I mean, geez, I haven’t said anything bad about Katarina in at least twenty-four hours.”
“It’s not about that, it’s just—” He broke off, and I turned to see Paul coming toward us.
“Find something?” he asked, his gaze shifting between Eli and me.
I motioned toward the desk. “I was just getting ready to check the drawers.”
“Here,” said Eli. “I’ll do it.” With way more bravery than I possessed, he started pulling open drawers. Thankfully, they contained the kind of stuff you expected to find in a desk, like a stapler and tape dispenser. The largest drawer on the left held hanging file folders. The first one was labeled “Ankil.”
“Jackpot,” said Eli, pulling out Mr. Ankil’s file. He pushed aside the junk on the desk and flipped the file open, rummaging through the contents.
“What is it?” I asked, peering around him.
“Looks like he’s keeping tabs on people. Here are vital statistics, family background, and I’m guessing this is a record of purchases.”
I looked at the paper he was indicating and saw a list of dates, items, and prices. The dates were pretty regular, one every couple of days. Beside nearly all of them Culpepper had written the word pot.
“Do you think that means ordinary pot?” I said. “Like marijuana?”
“Well, he always did strike me as a bit of a hippie,” said Eli.
“But why would Culpepper keep all this?”
Eli turned to the next page. “Blackmail maybe?”
Paul squatted in front of the drawer and started shuffling through files. “Everybody’s in here.” He paused. “Even my uncle.”
“What about my mom?” I asked.
Paul pulled out a file labeled Everhart and handed it to me before returning his attention to his uncle’s. His eyes flew across the page.
I opened the file to discover it wasn’t only about my mother. Culpepper had written a note on one of the pages about me taking the ledger and using spells on him. I shuffled to the page where he kept track of purchases. There was only one listed for my mother, dated last Monday with the words moonwort key written beside it.
“Looks like your mom wanted to do a little breaking and entering herself,” said Eli.
I bit my lip. “Yeah, but where?”
He didn’t answer, but stooped, examining more files. A moment later he said, “Check it out, guys. There’s a file on Rosemary.” Eli set it on the desk and began flipping through the pages. I leaned in close to him to see. The first page held vital statistics and the second a list of purchases for Pixy Stix. The contents furth
er in nearly made my heart stop from shock. A photograph of Rosemary’s smiling face stared up at me. Someone had drawn a heart around her in red ink.
Eli picked it up. “I don’t believe it.”
There were more photos beneath the first, covered in more hearts.
“Faustus,” I said, still stunned by disbelief. “Culpepper’s first name is Faustus. Do you think this means he’s the F from Rosemary’s diary?”
“Looks that way,” said Paul.
Before anyone could speculate further, Selene darted around the corner, running toward us with a look of alarm on her face. She slid to a stop, waving her hand and muttering the anti-fire spell. All our torches went out, even Eli’s flashlight.
“Someone’s coming,” she whispered.
I heard a familiar clicking noise in the distance, the sound of claws hitting stone. Culpepper was here, and he’d brought his hellhound with him. By the faint flicker of torchlight shining through the shelves, I could tell he was near the entrance and moving this way.
“Where are they, George?” Culpepper’s voice boomed throughout the chamber.
The hound whined in answer.
He named his hellhound George? Seriously?
“Come on out! I know you’re in here,” said Culpepper. “Got this place bewitched to let me know when people break in. You didn’t really think you’d get away with taking my keys, did you?”
I looked around, trying to figure a way out of this. Then I remembered the door leading into the tunnels. “Follow me,” I whispered, taking hold of Selene’s hand.
The light from Culpepper’s torch was just enough that I managed to navigate the aisle without running into anything. By some miracle, I’d left the door unlatched. But that didn’t keep it from making a loud creak as I pushed it open. George the hellhound started barking in response.
“Get them!” Culpepper screamed, which was followed by the distinctive sound of a leash unsnapping.
The four of us hustled through the door, and Eli managed to slam it closed in time to keep the hound from following us out. The creature struck the door so hard Eli almost fell down. Paul jumped forward, adding his body weight to Eli’s.
“Quick. Somebody seal the door,” said Paul.
Selene performed the barricade spell while I relit our torches.
“We better hurry,” said Selene. “That spell won’t last long.”
“Which way?” I said.
Beside me, Paul glanced left, then right several times, his face tense with worry and indecision. “This way,” he finally said and took off to the left. Selene and I followed after him, but Eli remained in place.
“Hang on, guys,” he said. “I think this is the way we should go.”
Selene and I stopped and looked back at him, but Paul kept walking.
“Why do you think so?” I asked.
“There’s something familiar about it.” He shook his head. “I’m having déjà vu.”
“A tunnel is familiar?” asked Selene, incredulous. “Don’t they all kind of look the same?”
Eli shook his head, his body tense. “There’s a draft this way, too.”
“Hold on, Paul,” I called.
Paul stopped and turned around, his eyes narrowed, but still worried. “Why?”
I didn’t answer, as I walked back to Eli, trying to detect the draft. I didn’t sense anything different, but I was struck by my own sense of déjà vu.
“The dream,” I said, a wave of dizziness washing over me. “It reminds me of your dream Friday night.”
Paul rejoined us. “We don’t have time for this. It’s that way. Trust me.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Eli, his voice hard and his expression dangerous.
The loud rattle of the door behind us shut everybody up for a moment. Culpepper and his hellhound would be breaking through any second.
Eli turned and started walking.
I didn’t know what to do. Paul did seem to know his way around the tunnels, but I couldn’t deny the strong pull I felt to go the opposite way. It wasn’t just déjà vu. It was more like gravity. And I realized I couldn’t walk away.
I glanced at Paul. “I’m sorry, but we’re going this way.”
He looked upset, but there was no time to worry about it. I turned and jogged down the tunnel beside Eli. The sense of being pulled grew stronger the farther we went, almost to the point that I felt as if I was riding one of those moving walkways they have at airports.
We traveled a long time before reaching a midget-sized door on the right side of the tunnel. It was so small and inconspicuously made, I didn’t think we would’ve seen it if it weren’t already open.
We came to a stop. There wasn’t a doorknob, just a tiny keyhole with a small key sticking out from it. A moonwort key.
“Are we going in there?” asked Selene.
“Yes,” said Eli. “We have to.”
He was right. It wasn’t just mere coincidence that had brought us here, but something more. Dream-seer, I thought. Was this what it truly meant to be one, that things happened by fate instead of chance?
Even though a part of me didn’t want to see what was beyond that door, there was no turning back. But nothing in the world could’ve prepared me for what happened on the other side.
23
The Keepers
Just like in Eli’s dream, the other side of the door revealed a cramped tunnel leading steeply downward. It twisted and coiled like a snake as we walked along it, moving slower now than before. Eli had removed the moonwort key and shut the door behind us, giving us another layer of safety from Culpepper and George the hellhound.
Within moments, we heard the sounds of a struggle somewhere ahead. Somebody was fighting, casting combative spells and curses the same you’d hear in gym class or the gladiator games. What wasn’t the same were the loud bangs and vibrations of unrestrained magic crashing into stone. My heart thudded against my rib cage as we picked up the pace. There was a loud boom followed by silence.
At last, the tunnel led us to a chamber, the same chamber from Eli’s dream with the tomb sitting at its center on a raised platform. Not everything was the same as the dream, but close. Everlasting Fire burned in the sconces, bathing the chamber in an eerie purple light, but centuries of dirt covered the tomb, obscuring the crystal and engravings. And also like the dream, Bethany Grey was there.
So was my mother.
I stopped, shocked by the scene before me. Bethany was lying beside the tomb with her belly against the ground and her arms and legs bent backward behind her, wrists and ankles tied together with silvery rope made of magic. It looked as if my mother had used the binding curse on her. Bethany was whimpering as blood flowed from what remained of the ring finger of her right hand.
Above Bethany, my mother had pushed the lid off the tomb and climbed inside. She now sat crouched in a position I knew all too well—a Nightmare feeding. What the—?
Eli sprinted into the chamber toward Bethany, outdistancing the rest of us. He knelt beside her and grabbed at the silver rope.
“Don’t!” I shouted, but it was too late. There was a sizzling sound like water striking hot grease, and Eli jerked his hand away, swearing. Blisters popped up on his skin where he’d touched the rope.
Selene cast the counter-spell, and the ropes fell away. Bethany let out a groan as her limbs returned to normal position. Selene bent down and helped her sit up while Eli ripped off a piece of his shirt and wrapped it around the bleeding stump where her ring finger used to be.
“What happened?” Eli said.
Bethany took a shuddering breath. “Moira found out I’m the third Keeper and attacked me. She took the ring to open the tomb.”
I wondered how Bethany could be the third Keeper and still be alive, but I didn’t get a chance to ask.
“You’ve got to go after her, Dusty,” Bethany said.
“What?”
“Your mother. She’s going for the sword. You need to stop her.”
“Where is it?” I glanced up at the tomb, not understanding. There was no doubt my mother was dream-feeding, but I didn’t see how that was possible. It was a tomb for goodness sake, a place for dead people. And dead people didn’t dream.
I stood and walked to the side of the tomb, taking note of the three Keeper rings that had been placed inside those small round holes that Bethany had said were locks. The one on the left I recognized as Rosemary’s. The one on the right I guessed had been Ankil’s. The one in the middle was smeared with Bethany’s blood.
I peered over the side of the tomb, unsure what to expect as dread pounded inside my skull. It couldn’t be the Red Warlock’s tomb, not if that one was supposed to be in Britain. A woman lay inside it, and from the looks of her she was far from dead. She appeared not much older than my mother, although it was hard to say for sure. There was something ageless about her face. Her body seemed frail like an elderly person’s, but no wrinkles or age spots marred her skin. Yet, she had to be old. Even magickind didn’t wear dresses like that anymore. She looked like a medieval princess, Sleeping Beauty waiting for her prince.
Then it dawned on me how familiar her face was. It was my face, only different, like an intentional variation. I glanced at my mother, perched above the woman. It was Moira’s face, too. The same nose and mouth, same tilt to the eyes.
Then I understood. This woman was my ancestor. “This is—”
“Nimue,” Bethany said from behind me. “She’s the fourth Keeper. The sword is hidden somewhere inside her dream. You’ve got to find it.”
I turned to look at Bethany, shivering with fear. She wanted me to go in there? Face my mother inside a dream? “Why can’t you go after her?”
“I won’t stand a chance against her right now. But you might. You’re her daughter. She won’t hurt you.”
I shook my head.
“You’ve got to go now. If she gets the sword first, there’ll be no stopping her.”
I couldn’t believe it; I didn’t want to believe it—my mother, a villain. Then I remembered the horrible sound of Mr. Ankil’s screams as he burned to death. Only someone truly evil could’ve done something like that.
The Nightmare Affair Page 23