Thirdly, silver mirrors were outlawed in the United States—all household mirrors were backed with aluminum or mercury—so storing the mirrors in vaults allowed Helsing to control access to them.
We wandered the warehouse, sweeping the floors and walls with our flashlights. There were no directional signs to the vault—I wished I’d taken Mom up on her offer to tour the place. I’d been stupid to take her for granted, to take my family for granted, to take happiness for granted. Back then, I don’t think I could’ve defined happy if I’d tried, because I’d never been anything but. Looking back through the lens of this new life, I knew happiness was made up of three things: physical security, social and academic acceptance, and the love of one’s family and friends.
Right now, I had zero-point-five of those things, lucky at least to have my friends. If I couldn’t beat this monster, I wouldn’t have them for much longer.
After searching for almost ten minutes, Ryder and I found doors marked ANTISTATIC STORAGE in blocky letters. A large compliance sign glowered, ELECTRICALLY CLASSIFIED AREA, CLASS I, DIVISION I—NO ELECTRONIC DEVICES PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT.
“That include our flashlights?” Ryder asked.
“And phones, too.” I turned off my flashlight and set it beside the door, along with my cell phone. “We’ll just grab and go. We can turn on the safety lights downstairs for a few minutes without attracting Helsing’s attention.”
“And your camera?”
“I don’t know about you”—I opened the door to the basement—“but I’m not walking into a room full of silver mirrors unarmed. Besides, its power output’s minimal without the flash.”
“Fair enough.” Ryder held the door as I slipped inside and flicked on the lights. Two sets of sliding glass doors lay before us, both etched with the Helsing insignia. The first set of doors opened as I approached, allowing me into some sort of anteroom with a sleek desk, thin computer, and a two-year-old blotter calendar with notes written in a feminine hand. Mom’s name was logged among the visitors on the night she died, which made my next heartbeat feel like a spike to the chest. I ripped the page off the calendar, folded it, and stuck it in my back pocket.
When I turned around, Ryder snapped an antistatic bootie at me, hitting me in the chest. “Think fast, Helsing,” he said with a grin.
I snatched it before it fell to the floor. The booties stuck out from wall dispensers like blue Kleenexes behind him.
I smirked at him and threw it back at his head, but the light, airy fabric opened like a parachute and wafted to the floor. “Don’t think you have to make up for Jude’s absence.”
“That bastard wouldn’t have fired just one.” He grinned and tugged me into his arms, our noses bumping. But before his lips touched mine, the lights buckled and went out. Ryder’s arms tensed. My other senses kicked up a notch, my hearing especially. No sound eked toward us and the room’s temperature held fast. The blackness sealed us in, airtight for two seconds.
When the lights fluttered on again, they were weak as a dying man’s pulse.
“Let’s hurry,” I whispered, stepping out of Ryder’s embrace. We tugged antistatic booties around the soles of our shoes. “We grab two panes and get out.”
He nodded. I uncapped my camera’s lens as we stepped through the second threshold, coming face-to-face with a vault door coated in black rubber.
“Do you know the combo?” Ryder asked.
“No, but I can guess it,” I said, looking at the ten-digit keypad beside the door. “Mom only used a few different codes, and she liked using Mina Harker’s birthday for anything related to the tetro corps.” I entered a flash of numbers in and the door thunked unlocked, its massive handle listing to one side.
“Good on ya.” He opened the vault door, which protested after many months of silence and immobility. The vault’s air crackled in my lungs, dry from dehumidifiers. Hundreds of panes marched like wafer-thin dominoes into the murk, wrapped in antistatic envelopes and hung from wooden racks. The racks themselves looked like those double-barred clothing racks on movie sets; however, half of them stood empty, their occupants moved to the island compound in a process involving antistatic transport and too many steps for Dad’s limited patience.
Something creaked in the darkness. I fumbled for the safety light switch, my palm raking the knob and knocking dim light loose in the room. One mirror rocked on its hanger, two, three times, then held still.
“Thought these things are secure,” Ryder said.
“Those bags are just safeties,” I murmured, daring the panes to move again. “Just because they’re on doesn’t mean the guns aren’t loaded. Wait here and keep an eye out, I’ll get the panes.”
He took a few steps into the vault.
“Seriously,” I said. “They aren’t heavy.”
He frowned but didn’t argue again, unconsciously toying with the rosary around his neck. Ryder? Nervous? Not that I blamed him; even I didn’t like being in this place under the circumstances. My shoulder ached when I thought of the Ouija planchette and the map, and a multitude of small, suckered hands pulling my arm into its silver frame.…
No, not now—focus.
I ducked through the skeletal, empty racks, stepping over their keels, headed for the vault’s far side. Whispers and giggles snuck from the panes. As I got closer, I noticed odd, inky stains blotting the envelopes and fading away again, as if the ghost’s miasma searched the envelopes for some tear or break, some way into this world. The sight sent a tremor through my jaw, and I bit it back. The entity’s trying to break through.
“Hey, Micheline,” Ryder said. I glanced back at him, and he gestured left with his head. The panes hanging at the end of one rack swung back and forth, wild as a kid on a swing set.
I plucked one pane from a hanger, the envelope crackling. Bluish light and black ink bruised the fabric. I clutched it tight, unwilling to drop the pane and so much as nick the antistatic envelope. Unclipping another pane, I stowed them under my arm. They might’ve been light, but they were also wide, and my fingers barely curled around their edges.
When I turned back, one pane swung so wide it struck a wall. An orange spark danced across the concrete and the wet, fleshy rip of tearing fabric resounded in the room. Miasma tumbled from the torn seam, spreading across the ceiling like some unholy thunderhead. In seconds, the last light in the room was the stuff falling through the open vault door.
Clutching the panes in both hands, I ran for safety, ducking past racks and half hurdling their keels.
A tentacle of miasma snaked down from the ceiling, grabbing hold of the rack closest to the door. With a whipcrack of shadow, it smashed the rack into the others, firing a wave of half-broken poles at me. I feinted left, diving out of range.
A second tendril shot down to block my path. I jammed my heels into the ground, sliding a bit in the booties, barely stopping before I ran into the stuff.
“Duck!” Ryder shouted. I dropped into a crouch, just as a third tentacle swiped at the place my head had been. When it stabbed at me again, I held up the mirrors like a shield. The murk spilled over them, unharmed, but it bit like frost wherever it touched my skin. With a shriek, I scrambled back, dropping the panes to put distance between the miasma and me. I grabbed my camera off my belt and hit the flash. The entire cloud of miasma recoiled, then rushed back in the wake of the light. I blew the flash again, getting to my feet.
“C’mon,” Ryder said, grabbing the panes off the ground. We dove past the ruined racks, even as the miasma fell down upon us like a curtain. I cut a swath through it, creating a tunnel of blinding white light.
We broke free of the wreckage and ran for the door.
Bursting into the anteroom, Ryder dropped the panes flat on the floor. Together, we slammed the vault door closed, severing short tails of miasma. They dissipated, weak as cigarette smoke. Ryder spun the handle around, engaging the lock.
I gathered up the panes and clutched them to my chest. The voices inside them grew fi
erce, and fingers strained against the fabric, groping my arms, my chest, and my stomach. Turning, I ran back to our stash of antistatic Gore-Tex and wrapped both panes up tight, muting the voices.
They whispered to me the whole way home.
SATURDAY, 9:07 P.M.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS that?” Ryder asked as we pulled up to the house. I swung my leg off his bike, grabbed the Gore-Tex-wrapped panes, and headed for the stairs. “Micheline?”
“I don’t know.” I stuck my keys in the front door, hands shaking.
The stairs squeaked behind me. “How’d the ghost know where we were?” Ryder asked. “Can it track us with the chains?”
“I don’t know, Ry.” I shouldered the door open and set the panes against the foyer wall.
“Does this mean the ghost can show up any bloody place it wants?” he asked, closing the door behind us.
I stalked into the family room and started to pace. Ryder’s questions streaked through my head in a pack, chasing answers made of shadow and fog. I followed a worn-in path I’d seen my father and my grandfather take while deep in thought—the rhythm should’ve soothed me, but not tonight. Not now.
“Are we even safe in this house?” Ryder asked.
I chewed on my thumbnail, staring at any space not occupied by Ryder whenever my path forced me to face him. What if Oliver and Jude were attacked? We were vulnerable, separated, and it would be my fault if anything happened to them. I should’ve kept the group together, I should’ve gone with them—
“Micheline, talk to me.”
I spun on him. “I told you: I. Don’t. Know.”
He stood in the room’s archway, his expression overcast by the house’s dimness, his soulchains standing out in bright relief.
“I don’t know what happened back there,” I said, pointing in the vague direction of the warehouses. “I don’t know why, or if it will happen again, or if I can even stop this monster from killing you all, and God, Ry, I’m just so—”
Tears welled up, fast enough to cut my words off before I said it aloud, the one thing no self-respecting Helsing would admit to feeling—fear.
I’d almost said I’m just so afraid of losing you.
Turning away, I wiped at my eyes with the backs of my hands and fingers. Picked up my pacing again. On my third pass, I pivoted right into the warmth and comfort of his arms. My first thought was to resist, to push him away, but I gave into my second instinct and rested my forehead on his breastbone. The embrace quieted the wildness in me, shutting down all the noise in my head. For several breaths I just existed, not fighting or shooting or even overthinking our problems. Still and calm, except for the ache that stood between us: Of all the rules you live by, why break this one?
I wanted to understand his frustration, but didn’t dare push the issue further. He’d lock himself down, and sometimes, a girl won more ground with a boy by dropping the issue. Especially with a boy with a heart like a vault and a poker face blank as a clean slate; a boy I couldn’t lose, not to these soulchains nor to my own stupidity.
The knot in my chest pulled tighter. How could I separate my fierce desire to protect him from how much I loved him, when I couldn’t figure out if I loved him like a best friend, a brother-in-arms, or something else? Was loving someone different from being in love with them? My heart said yes, but my mind couldn’t tell me why or how.
Ryder turned my face to his, taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger. Despite the composure on his face—the relaxed brows, soft mouth—anxiety stole the warmth in his eyes and darkened them to black. The gradients in his irises changed with his mood sometimes, and I wondered if anyone noticed but me. I’d seen his eyes go so dark only once, on the night Mom died and we curled up with Dad’s gun and waited to see if my heart would beat until dawn … and beyond.
I startled when he spoke: “That thing tried to kill you.”
“Well, the entity does want us dead.”
“It ignored me and went after you. Just you.”
“Of course it came after me; I’m the threat.”
“Micheline, I—”
But my phone rang, stealing the moment and whatever words he’d meant to say to me.
“It’s Oliver,” I said, checking my screen.
“Answer it,” Ryder said, turning away. I watched him disappear into the foyer’s shadows, my phone wailing in my hand. Half of me wanted to ignore Oliver’s call and go after Ryder; the other half knew that if Oliver surfaced long enough from his work to place a phone call, he’d found something worth talking about.
Practicality won out—I picked up and said hello.
“Micheline,” Oliver said. “Sure took you long enough, I almost thought you wouldn’t answer.”
So did I. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “We’re sifting through Reynold Fielding’s dossier now. Morley hired him personally, though Fielding isn’t a new tech like I’d thought. Hand me the other file, Gem?” he said, shuffling papers in the background.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Fielding has worked for the corps for more than a decade,” Oliver said. “He suffered a nervous breakdown eighteen months ago and was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Which, of course, is why you didn’t recognize him—Fielding didn’t assist with the forensic work for your mother’s case.”
Ryder passed me on his way to the family room, and bolts of Gore-Tex tucked under one arm. “How long was Fielding committed for?”
Papers shuffling. “Looks like almost a year. They thought he suffered from schizophrenia—he had visual and auditory hallucinations, severe social dysfunction, and night terrors. Oddly, Fielding also developed a taste for flies, which he would trap with scraps of food, then pull their wings and legs off before eating them. Spiders, too.”
Lovely. “And Morley allowed Fielding to come back to work?” I asked. “Why?”
“Fielding’s symptoms disappeared,” Oliver said. “He’s still on antipsychotics, but apparently his cognitive functions returned to normal.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Normal? He released a starveling ghost in a maternity ward.” The words sounded sharper than I intended them to, but if Fielding was responsible for the attack on St. Mary’s, if he was responsible for the chains beneath our skins, he would pay. Dearly.
“He’s innocent until proven guilty.” Oliver sighed, and I imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose, just like his father did when my dad got brash. “Now that the hospital’s security tapes have been compromised, proving Fielding’s involvement will be difficult. I’m going to forward this information to my father, along with my suspicions Morley concealed evidence from the investigation. He’ll find a way to detain them both for questioning, but our methodology for obtaining this information hasn’t been exactly … legal.”
I started to pace, sick of having so many unanswered questions. Our pool of concerns seemed to grow as fast as our soulchains, multiplying by the breath, tightening like a noose with every step forward. Who had the power to organize both the dead and the living against me? If someone wanted the corps’s heirs dead—and believe me, Helsing had a lot of enemies—shooting us would’ve been cleaner. Assured, even. No Helsing could dodge a bullet point-blank.
“We’ll be hitting the tetro practicum grounds around midnight, think you can meet us there?” I asked. Once Ryder finished upgrading the reaping cases, we’d need to train with them, figure out our tactics, and ensure we’d fight as a unit.
“Sure, what do you need to do?”
“The boys need to learn how to exorcise a ghost; I’ll explain later.”
“Speaking of boys, your numero uno was texting a girl as he dropped me off,” Oliver said. “You might want to check on him.”
Oliver and I said our good-byes. I dialed Jude’s number, knowing it’d take a miracle for him to answer his phone. It rang ten times before I gave up, and Jude didn’t have voice mail because he “wouldn’t freaking check it anyway.”
/> I almost texted him a Where are you? But I erased the text before sending it, choosing to tell him to meet us at the tetro arena at midnight instead.
My phone buzzed thirty seconds later: OK.
Typical Jude. But I’d already played my Helsing card once tonight, and I didn’t dare pull it out a second time. Besides, Ryder and I could jury-rig the cases on our own.
I stalked into the family room, counting backward to check my temper. Ryder unrolled a bolt of fabric across the hardwood floor, a fabric measuring tape draped over his neck. Rocking back on his heels, he rested his forearms on his thighs and looked up at me. He seemed chill, maybe exorcising our foyer argument in some subconscious creative space. If any tension remained, it didn’t show on him.
“What’d Ollie say?” Ryder asked.
“Fielding isn’t a new hire.” I repeated what I’d learned from Oliver, and the news made Ryder’s brows lift. He muttered bloody hell under his breath, surveying his work on the ground.
“Can’t catch a break, can we?” he asked.
I nudged the reaping cases with my boot. “You’ve always said we make our own luck.”
“Fortune favors the bold,” he said. “But she’ll only fall for a bloke who’s got an ace up his sleeve.”
We spent the next hour measuring and cutting fabric. My grandmother’s antique sewing machine sat on the coffee table—the thing looked like a medieval torture device with its wheels, pedals, and pointy bits. After a few false starts, we worked together to sew the wooden boards inside the Gore-Tex panels, giving the cases more strength and shape. I found the machine less torturous than I’d guessed—maybe it was the needle’s hum or the regular pump of the pedal. Maybe it was the feel of a weapon forming beneath my fingertips, or the knowledge that every stitch brought us closer to freedom.
Or maybe it was Ryder sitting beside me, hip to hip, helping me guide the fabric through the machine. Every so often my hand brushed his, or he’d move and I’d catch the blunted edge of his scent: a mix of masculine sweat and the eucalyptus soap he liked. He still had rust-colored crescents under his fingernails, and mottled bruises and scrapes on his arms from our crash landing last night.
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