by Lani Lenore
“What’s wrong, Celia?” he asked, noticing her hesitation. His voice was flat and there was not a hint of true concern. “Come to me.”
Celia was smarter than this, or at least counted herself to be. She shook her head, took a step back.
“You’re not Adam,” she said to him, backing away another step to put more space between them.
“Of course it’s me,” he assured her, that amused smile on his lips.
Celia was not willing to believe it. Adam was dead. She had seen him run through by the hooded man’s blade, and then he had fallen over the cliff. She had seen his body on the rocks. There was no way that anyone could survive that. She had seen the corpse—seen the blood—and he had not been moving.
Yes, he’s dead. As much as she would like to believe that he wasn’t gone, she had to trust her own eyes. Therefore, this man before her was nothing but an imitation, just like Baltus had promised her.
“Adam is dead. You’re a fraud,” she accused.
The false Adam shook his head, sighing into the cool air.
“What would they gain? If I am a fraud, as you say, why would they have Luci bring you to me like this? They already had you as their captive. Why would they risk letting you go this way?”
“I—” Celia did not know the answer, only that she was sure of what she believed. This could not be Adam. She could not let herself be fooled.
“Celia…” The man tried to approach her, but she was determined not to let him. He would not touch her!
“Stay away!” she screamed, and despite the fact that Luci was standing nearby, Celia turned to run.
She dashed toward the corridor that would lead her back into the house, as if that was where she wished to go. She did not hear footsteps behind her, and wondered why they did not give chase. She was gaining ground, but she did not let her fear pass long enough to feel hopeful.
Why had they brought her out of the house? What would the family gain by having Luci untie her and bring her here to present the false Adam? Then, the answer came to her.
They must have determined that she was not pregnant after all, and so they had sent this new Adam to her in the hopes that she would accept him. If not, Luci would make sure she did not get away while he forced himself on her. If her theory was true, and she was not yet with child, she had to get away if there was any hope of saving herself. Human or not, she wanted to live.
As she thought on this, so many things that Maynard had said to her came flooding back. He had tried to warn her against Adam, told her that Adam was not good for her. He knew of their plans, and while he no doubt had his own flaws, he’d had some good intentions toward her. He had tried to take her out of the house—to save her from all this that was happening now. He’d told her: “If you let him touch you, you will never leave this place.”
Why didn’t I listen? I was a fool.
Celia moved through the dark on weakened legs. She would not stop running until she reached the doors of the house, and if she could not get out there, she would find another way. She would break a window if she had to, but it was now or never. She had to deliver herself!
She passed the corridor that Luci had brought her down and rushed toward the kitchens where she and Adam had entered before. She mentally constructed a map that would take her from the kitchens to the front door, and she was able to ignore the ache in her muscles when she realized that it wasn’t far. She would make it!
Celia burst out through the dining room and leapt into the hallway, grasping desperately for freedom. The front door was in her sights, and yet seemed so far away. She could see the gleam of daylight through the glass, and with several steps to go, she was already reaching for the handle.
There’s no way it will be unlocked, she knew, but her heart was pounding with the rhythm of her feet, and she could not stop.
Celia gripped the handle and burst out of the mansion.
She nearly fell down the front steps, thoughts of excited disbelief running through her. Celia avoided the road and rushed down the slope.
She had only been in the forest once, and she did not know the way. She wasn’t sure if she’d seen any of this terrain when she’d tried to run away with Adam, but knew she had to keep going. She was an easy target in her pale dress, but she forced herself to focus on what was in front of her.
She escaped as well as she could, stepping over rocks and trying to avoid getting caught by roots. The road was visible through the trees, and though she could have moved faster on it, she did not want to go there; however,there would be nothing wrong with keeping it in sight. She could keep up with where she was going by following the road.
Celia looked behind her once again. No one was chasing her, it seemed. Had they not even begun? But she could not stop running. She turned back around in just enough time to see the cliff.
At the sight of the drop-off, Celia tried to dig her heels into the earth to stop herself, but it was a vain attempt. Before she could halt her body’s propulsion, she was already going over the edge.
The jagged rocks of the hillside caught her attention, and she realized where she was. She could see the wreckage of the carriage that had come off the road—and she could see the bloodstain on the rocks below where Adam had died.
The body was not there.
Though Celia was preparing for the impact against the rocks, she did not fall. Something had caught her around the waist, and she had only threatened to go over before she was being pulled back from certain doom.
Arms were wrapped around her, and Celia knew that she had been caught. She screamed, her voice echoing through the trees—and the man with Adam’s face clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Why are you screaming?’ he asked into her ear. “Who do you think is going to come help you? All you could do is call the family to you, and I don’t think you want that.”
He released her mouth and turned her to face him, and there were no more screams in her throat. It was mere instinct that had led her to cry out, but she only whimpered sorrowfully now as she looked into his eyes. They observed her own but she could not decipher the expression in them. How was he here? He had been nowhere near. It was impossible!
“Allow me the chance to explain myself, and I think you will believe me,” he said, and seeing that she had no choice—since he was gripping her arms and Luci had come up to stand behind her—she said nothing as he began to speak.
“I don’t blame you for thinking that I was killed. I know you must have seen it all, so of course you would think that I could not possibly be Adam—but I am. I was stabbed by that hooded man and I did fall from the cliff onto the rocks. I remember the pain and the feeling as the blood left my body. They left me there, for a day or two I suspect. I’m not sure why they didn’t try to move me. But after a while, I simply woke up. And, Celia, I felt different.”
Different? Yes, she could tell by looking at him. If what he was saying was true, and he was her Adam, then something had changed him. She did not feel that he was the same person.
“I felt no fear and no pain, and I feel this new strength coursing through me. I was focused on you, but not because I was afraid and not because you are my lover—it feels much stronger than that. I didn’t understand it at first, but now I do. Now I will show you, and you will believe me.”
At that, he raised his fingers toward her throat, and she flinched. He would strangle her to prove his point? But instead of snaring her skin, he gripped the locket at her chest, ripping it from her neck. Celia felt the need to protest—to try to take it back from him—but bit back on her words. She could see no reason why the locket was important to her. It was planted and meant nothing, after all.
“It was the pocket watch,” he said. Celia did not understand. “I had kept it with me since waking up—I felt I needed it—because I thought that you had given it to me, but that was what they intended. During my fight with the hooded man, I threw the watch at him because it was all I had to defend myself. When I fell,
it was separated from me.”
Within his fist, he crushed her locket until she heard a cracking sound, and when he opened his hand, the metal shell had broken apart, and resting between the pieces was a small black crystal. Celia stared down at it, her attention caught by the sight. She was in a trance as she looked at it, as if seeing all that she was in the shine of that stone, and something emerged from the back of her mind. She recalled what Baltus had told her—about how she and Adam had been automated by an alchemic stone that had absorbed the memories of another. Was this it? She had been carrying it around with her all this time, and had not even known it.
“They were using these stones to control us—to keep us at bay. We are so much more than they are, Celia. They made us with only the hope that we would be a fraction of what they are, but we are greater than they expected. We are faster and stronger. We are not human, and so we cannot die. With this stone, they were keeping you crippled, but no more.”
Adam drew his hand back, aiming to toss the locket into the distance, and fear rose up in Celia’s heart. If what he said was true, then she would lose who she was—everything she knew herself to be—if he tossed the stone away. She would be empty then. A puppet like Luci and Margot and the rest.
“Don’t!” she tried to protest, reaching for his arm, but it did no good. Adam threw the broken locket and the black stone off the ledge. It arced in the air, plummeting toward the trees below. Celia stared at it as it fell away from her, saw it twinkle in the sunlight, and then it was gone.
Her chest had been heaving with panicked breath and pending sobs, but once the locket was cast away from her, she began to calm down immediately. Her heart slowed its pace, her tears stopped, and she felt at ease. She no longer understood why she had just been so afraid. Everything that had happened to her seemed so trivial. All the betrayal and violence and horror seemed pointless from her perspective—so easy to tackle. She did not know what fear was, for she felt a new confidence within herself, and knew that nothing could be a threat to her. Everything that he had just told her was true. She was strong. She could not be destroyed.
What a strange feeling… But it felt right.
She looked back toward Adam then, into his dark eyes and at the smile that was directed toward her, and she recognized him. She knew him as her partner—her other half. What she felt toward him was more than love, as he’d said. It was primal—the most basic of things—uncomplicated by feeble human emotions or desires, but there was more passion in it than any mortal could hope to understand.
“It is you,” she said, reaching up to touch the side of his face. Her voice was steady, no longer tinged with fear or emotion.
“Yes,” he said, looking pleased. She understood: he knew that she was on the same level with him now. She had realized her true self. She felt free for the first time since waking up.
“Celia, my love,” he said, kissing her hand that was against his face. “We are not human, so we cannot be expected to behave as such.”
“No,” she agreed, shaking her head.
“We could leave here, without opposition, but where would we go? We will not age. We cannot die. Our children,” he said, touching her waist as if he could already sense something stirring there, “will not be human either. There is only one place for us.”
Adam turned his attention in the direction of the house, and Celia knew what he meant. This was the house of Hugh LaCroix and his family line. This was where they had been born, and this house should have been theirs. All that they had to do was get rid of the current inhabitants—the two that were left, who rightly deserved death simply for creating them, if not for terrorizing them for days within the house.
Celia felt herself smile, and the idea became the only certainty in her mind—aside from the truth that she would be with the one she belonged with forever. As an acceptance to his proposal, she kissed his lips. Desire flared up inside her, but there was no time to realize it. There was work to be done. There was revenge to be had.
She broke away from his kiss and looked into his eyes, which curved mischievously toward her.
“I love you,” she said to the monster in her arms. Adam threw back his head and laughed, and the sound made the forest tremble.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Baltus sat alone in his bedroom on the third floor, staring out the windows at the fog beyond. A fire roared in the hearth, splashing light across his face, but he gave it no mind. He was deep in thought about the future.
He was not considering the future of the world because the Hallowed would soon be born, but the immediate fate of his research. By creating Celia, he had achieved his greatest feat, and now what was left? For him, it had always been about the science and the challenge, and to be very honest, he had expected the task to be his life’s work. He expected that he would not even realize it before he died, but the information he had left behind would be passed on to someone else, and perhaps they would find the answer. But he had done it all himself, and there was still time left. He was old, but he was not near to dying yet. Now that he was so accomplished, what was left to do?
He supposed that his first effort should be toward putting the pieces of the family back together. They did not have many visitors here in the mountains, but it would be more presentable when the Brethren arrived if they were still a complete family, united beneath the Hallowed. For this reason, Baltus would recreate Maynard and Anjessica, for the sake of appearances. Their bodies were on his tables downstairs, and perhaps he could even use some of their original parts to make them new again. There was no guarantee that they would be like they had been—in fact, he was certain that they would not, but it would be a decent façade.
Though he had decided on his next acts, aside from caring for Celia, Baltus felt somehow unfulfilled. He sighed, looking down toward the journal in his lap where he had been recording his progress.
September 12—Celia still grieves for Adam, but she is becoming much more compliant. I would not go so far as to say that she accepts her purpose, but I will continue to work with her, and I’m sure that she will eventually come to rely on me and accept what I tell her as truth. Still, I prefer not to think that I am brainwashing her in any way, for to say that she is lifeless is to say that I created her in vain. She poses no threat, I believe, as long as she wears the locket, which I am certain that she will never take off. She relates it to Adam, and since he is no longer with her, she will keep it in his honor. After the child is born, I will continue to work with her, and though she may not be worshipped by the others as the child will, I believe that she will still be held high, and I, as her creator, will be renowned.
In the midst of all this, I have not tried to imagine how the Birth will change the face of the world, or how it will change the name “LaCroix”…
He paused in his writing, reflecting on that. It could be said that Hugh was responsible—or to blame—for having this religion brought into his house. He’d let Irving wander the world in his youth, and he’d been the one to bring it home. Hugh had not approved of his son’s new religion, but Baltus had been intrigued by the ideas involved, and though he didn’t care much for the cult itself, it was the tasks that had roped him in. There were so many manuscripts from those who had tried to fulfill the Sacraments in the past. He’d been immersed in all that knowledge, though much of it dark, gruesome and otherwise inhumane—but he had been so intrigued and couldn’t wait to try it himself. For years, he had spent every waking hour toward this task, and now that he had done it…
It had almost been too easy to figure out.
A sound at the door caught his attention and he looked up to see a woman coming in from the hallway, holding a tea tray. This was Eleanor, another of his creations. Since Margot had been thoroughly murdered for the time being, Baltus had been forced to wake Eleanor up prematurely, and therefore she had no face. Maynard had not finished constructing it before his death, so Baltus had affixed a featureless white mask and a black bobbed wig to hide
her head, and gloves to cover her black-veined hands. A sight like that might put him off his tea.
Eleanor was as efficient as the other maids he’d created. She came into the room with accurate steps and poured him a cup, offering it to him on a saucer.
“Thank you, Eleanor. I needed this,” Baltus said, taking a sip of the hot liquid.
Without a mouth, Eleanor had no words. She nodded in understanding of his praise and left the room, each step evenly spaced. After that, Baltus sat alone in the silence. The tea was a bit bitter; she’d made it too strong. Perhaps he’d not improved on his design after all. He sat quietly with the brew, staring into the fireplace and wondering what the Hallowed would look like. Would it look like a man or woman? Would it look like a human at all? They had used Hugh’s image so that the Hallowed would be born with the LaCroix family resemblance, but perhaps that was a pointless effort. He could only speculate. He was merely responsible for the Birth, after all. Whatever was to be done after that was in Irving’s hands.
Irving sat at his desk, an unfinished letter before him, but he did not have the concentration to complete it. His thoughts kept returning to Celia, and how he could not tolerate the idea that she might be a failure. The Brethren already doubted him, and if they were to travel here merely to see that they had been right in their assumption, then it would mean terrible things for the LaCroix name. Irving could hardly stand the thought of it, and he gripped the arms of his chair in frustration as he stared at the wall of books before him.
I have to see her for myself, he thought, but didn’t move from the chair. He knew that Baltus had told him not to go see her, and he was also aware that to simply lay eyes on her would tell him nothing about what he wanted to know, but he could not stand the waiting. The greatest accomplishment of his life was about to be realized, and the anticipation was killing him. He would rest easier if he could just see her.