Carnival of Souls

by Melissa Marr

  Adam walked up the staircase, nodding at those who greeted him. The precautions employed inside were less obvious than those he’d had to get through to enter the building, but he knew that there were spells that could be triggered by the receptionist or by whatever security guard watched from the observation room hidden somewhere in every Stoneleigh-Ross building. The biggest threat in the building, however, was the witch whose attention he now sought.

  He made his way to the ninth floor. Only one witch had offices there. Her work space, office, summoning room, and conference rooms were all on this floor. In his prior visits to Franklin, he’d seen a variety of rooms on her floor, but he still had no idea what all secrets she kept hidden here. He was, however, more than a little certain that there was a gateway to The City. He would call her foolish for having such a door on the one level where no one else could go without her explicit consent, but he’d learned decades ago that calling Evelyn foolish was dangerous.

  He knocked at the thick steel door at the top of the stairs and waited for her to lower the barrier. She knew he was there, had known when he crossed the first line of defense at Stoneleigh-Ross, but Evelyn demanded adherence to protocol. She considered it another sort of ritual, and even though they had a unique relationship, it didn’t exempt him from the rules.

  After a few moments, the steel door swung open, and he walked down the wood-and-stone hall. He stopped outside the third door and asked, “May I enter?”

  “You may.” Her voice was as crisp as everything about her. No one had ever accused Evelyn Stoneleigh of being particularly approachable. Like most witches, she looked significantly younger than she was; she also looked far less deadly. Of the hundreds of witches in Stoneleigh-Ross’ divisions, Evelyn had become the second most powerful—and the most feared. When they first fled to this world, the company had been Ross’ creation. He was the only of the truly old witches to have survived the war, and upon their exile to the human world, he’d immediately begun consolidating their power base under his guidance. Evelyn had stayed loyal and steadily climbed the ranks. Her success in the hybridization program not quite two decades ago had been the final step in ascending to a position of power equal only to that of Ross himself. She wasn’t exactly heartless, but she was practical enough, cruel enough, and thorough enough that she did a great mimicry of it. Adam knew better than most how far she’d gone to achieve the status she held and how it had hurt her.

  She stood now within a salt-and-blood circle that enclosed a worktable with herbs steeping in vessels on three separate burners. She held a carved bowl in which she was grinding a fourth substance.

  “I assume you’re settled,” she said without looking away from the bowl in her hand.

  “I am.”

  “You know the truth will be better coming from you than him,” she reminded him. “Tell her what she is. Tell her what she is meant to do. Stop patching her memory.”

  Adam ignored her comment.

  She took two small vials of blood and tapped them into the ground powder in the bowl. Her attention was on the contents of her potion, but Adam knew that she was still acutely aware of where he was, as well as any number of other details that were fed to her silently from various sources in the building.

  The blood circle shimmered as she spoke over the contents in her bowl. The salt crystals absorbed the blood even as the three simmering liquids all began steaming simultaneously. Evelyn didn’t glance his way as she reached into two of the jars. Flames licked up her wrists, and pain flashed on her face.

  Silently she drew her hands out and added the contents to the bowl where she’d already added the blood. The fire peeled from her flesh, leaving her skin unmarked. Then, with both hands, she lifted the bowl and poured the entire mixture into the third, still-steaming, vessel. As she did so, the fire retracted into the mixture, held there by her will and magic.

  “Sacrificial magic, Evelyn?”

  She smiled tightly as she lifted her gaze from the now-mixed potion. “A necessary evil sometimes, Adam, or have you stopped using it?”

  “No, but I didn’t think you were still practicing it. Don’t your lackeys work the spells that require pain?” Adam wouldn’t accuse her of weakness, but he wouldn’t expect her to take pain if she didn’t need to do so. That was the privilege of leadership: there were others who could do the unpleasant things.

  “Some things are too important to trust to anyone else,” she murmured. Absently she tucked her hair behind her ears, even though it was already tightly tied back in a twist. As a boy, he’d fallen asleep clutching that hair like it was a security blanket. Then, he’d been a child plagued by nightmares of the deaths he’d seen, and she’d been the one who sat beside him in the dark while he wept. Until Mallory, Evelyn had been his entire family; until Mallory, he’d loved Evelyn with a devotion that bordered on zealotry. Now that he had a daughter who could be hurt by Evelyn’s desire for vengeance, he and Evelyn had a distance between them that often felt insurmountable. That didn’t mean that he missed her any less.

  As Evelyn crossed the circle, another wash of pain made her hesitate. The salt flashed crimson as new blood was added to it. No mark was visible on her skin, but both the pain and the blood had been drawn from her flesh.

  Adam stepped up to the edge of the circle and wrapped an arm around her waist. Before she could object to his support, he told her, “No one will see.”

  “You forget yourself, little brother,” she chided, but she leaned on him all the same.

  “I do,” he agreed. “I’m sure you can lecture me on it later. It wouldn’t do to admit to needing help for even a moment, not the indefatigable Evelyn Stoneleigh, conqueror of worlds and executive extraordinaire.”

  “You’re a nuisance.”

  Adam laughed, and then he led her to the door. “Shall we catch up a little while that cooks?” he suggested.

  “I already know everything you’ll tell me,” she reminded him, not unkindly.

  “Let’s pretend you don’t spy on me.” Adam reached out to open the door, but she had already opened it with a quietly whispered word. He frowned at her stubbornness, but didn’t bother commenting.

  “She’s seventeen,” Evelyn said, beginning the discussion they both knew he’d come here to have. “It’s time for her to be put to use.”

  “I can’t send her back. I know we agreed, but . . . she’s my daughter now. That world isn’t any place for her.” Adam accompanied Evelyn down the hall and stopped at the double doors that had swung open as they’d approached.

  “Do you think they won’t come in force next year?”

  “I know they will.” Adam had spent the last several years trying to think of a way to keep Mallory safe. Until she was eighteen, she was his child by law, but too soon she’d be an adult by both daimon and witches’ law. He’d been preparing her as best he could, teaching her how to fight and use weapons, knowing that if he found no other solution, those skills would become essential. He hoped that she’d stay with him, continue to run, but once she discovered that he’d adjusted her memory, spelled her to hide her nature, and prevented her from disobeying or questioning him, he suspected she wouldn’t want anything to do with him until her temper cooled.

  And even if she did keep running, she wouldn’t be able to escape the throngs of daimons who would come for her once she was of age. Their greatest defense to date had been that no one had the right to take her from him. If Marchosias stole Mallory away before she was an adult, it would give Evelyn justification to attack him. Unfortunately, dangling Mallory as bait to get that justification was not outside the realm of possibility with Evelyn.

  “So you’re desperate enough now to bring her near me?” Evelyn asked as they settled on the stiff chairs in her meeting room.

  “It’s a calculated risk—she will be vulnerable in a year unless you help me. I have to believe that you won’t alienate me to gain one year’s time.”

  Evelyn smiled, neither confirming nor denying his theo
ry, and Adam wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed that there were no illusions between them. He liked to believe that he could ask her directly if she meant to cause harm to them, but he knew her well enough to know that her answer would be fluid. There was no person or ideal that she’d put before her vendetta.

  “If you want my help, you have only to ask,” Evelyn said.

  “What I want is for my daughter never to know Marchosias exists, never to know what she is, never to go to The City. . . .”

  Evelyn laughed. “I work spells, Adam, not miracles.”

  “I want her to access her daimon side completely without her realizing what she is,” he said. “Let her think it’s witch heritage that she’s just developing. We can pretend her mother was one of us . . . or even that her unknown father is.”

  “That’s not easy,” Evelyn began.

  “I don’t have any other ideas left. She has strengths she can’t use without tearing away the spells that hide her nature, and I know there was a daimon who crossed the barrier of the last house—one she didn’t fight.” He hadn’t mentioned it to Mallory since they were leaving anyhow, but the terror he’d felt that night reaffirmed his belief that going to Evelyn was the right choice—the only choice, really.

  Evelyn Stoneleigh might claim she was unable to work miracles, but aside from Ross himself, Evelyn was the closest thing there was to a miracle worker in the two worlds. Unfortunately, she was also aware of her worth, and his being family didn’t negate that knowledge.

  “I could give her what she needs to face him,” she admitted, “if you meet my terms.”

  “Name your price.”

  “Vow that you’ll obey when I demand it of you,” she said.

  Adam paused. “On the condition that it doesn’t injure, entrap, or kill Mallory, I will.”

  Evelyn withdrew a short silver knife and held it out. He knew his sister loved him, but she’d loved their parents and brother too. She was old enough that she remembered them in a way he couldn’t. Their deaths fueled a hatred of daimons that he’d surrendered years ago.

  Because of Mallory.

  As he accepted the blade, he looked at the only person he loved aside from his daughter. He cut his palm crosswise, and then he held both the blade and his bleeding hand out to her and promised, “You have my vow.”

  CHAPTER 14

  WHEN KALEB SHOWED UP outside the coffee shop in the late afternoon two days after Mallory had arrived in Franklin, she wasn’t sure what to think. He hadn’t called; instead, he was just suddenly there beside her. Just like every other time we ran into each other. He knew her weakness for overpriced, oversweetened coffees, though, so it was a logical place to look for her—which made her realize that all of their other surprise encounters might not have been as much of a surprise to him as they had been to her. But then he kissed her, and she couldn’t think about anything.

  When he pulled away, he whispered, “I thought about this, about you.”

  She couldn’t stop the smile that she was pretty sure made her look like a complete fool.

  “I thought about you too,” she admitted. She didn’t, however, tell him exactly how much she’d thought about him—or that she’d had a dream about him that was, by far, the most detailed dream she’d ever had about a boy. She wasn’t embarrassed by it, but that didn’t mean he needed to know how much he was in her thoughts.

  He put his arm around her shoulders, holding her closely to his side. “I could only get away for a couple hours, but I needed to see you.”

  All she could do was nod. When she’d thought about him, need was a pretty accurate term. It was strange to have an almost physical ache to see someone, but she didn’t feel ready to divulge that detail. She wasn’t sure she was ready to admit anything. For now, she simply enjoyed the feel of his arm around her.

  “If you’re free, we could eat.” Kaleb pointed at a café across the street. “What do you think?”

  Like innumerable little restaurants in the countless towns where she’d lived, it was a perfectly serviceable place. Tables and chairs were crammed into a space slightly smaller than they needed. People were laughing and talking; waitresses slipped through narrow spaces carrying overflowing trays. The tables were taken up by couples and groups of people her age—none of whom she knew—but she was there with Kaleb, and that changed everything for her. Maybe it was silly, but having him by her side made her feel braver.

  Over the next couple hours, he asked her about everything from her ideal home to her favorite memories. She told a mix of truth and omissions as he watched her like she was far prettier than she was.

  Eventually he pulled some cash out of his pocket, counted it painstakingly, and left it and the bill on the table. “I’m glad you weren’t dating someone already.”

  “My father hasn’t been very in favor of my dating. He’s . . . protective.”

  “He should be,” Kaleb said.

  Mallory smiled at him, but didn’t reply. She wasn’t entirely sure how to tell her father about Kaleb, but she knew she had to introduce them. She couldn’t keep secrets from Adam. Could I, if it meant seeing Kaleb? She pushed that thought away. Adam was a perfect father; he’d understand once he met Kaleb. He has to. She was suddenly sure she shouldn’t keep Kaleb a secret a day longer—so much so that she almost called her father.

  Kaleb stood and pulled out her chair. “Are you still with me?”

  “Just thinking.” She smiled at him, and he put his arm around her.

  She was grateful that he didn’t press the matter. He never did when she dodged questions—which meant that she didn’t feel as on edge with him as she did with a lot of people. It wasn’t that she lived some great big exciting life; she was simply aware that there were daimons and witches in the world and that there was another world filled with daimons. Those weren’t exactly truths she could share openly.

  They left the din of the restaurant, and Kaleb directed her toward the side of the building where the shadows were thicker. It was as close to an alley as one could find in Franklin, dark but relatively clean. Kaleb kissed her with the same intensity as he had in her kitchen. For a few minutes, Mallory let herself enjoy it, but when his fingers skimmed her waistband, she forced herself to pull back. Considering the way he was acting, she wasn’t entirely convinced that Kaleb had limits on what was acceptable in public. There weren’t any people around just then, but anyone could step into the alley. More importantly, if his hands wandered much farther, he would discover the guns she wore secreted on her body.

  She put her hand on his chest and pushed gently. “We’re in the middle of the street.”

  “Not really.” He leaned in again.

  “No,” she said firmly. She would’ve said more, but her attention was caught by a woman who stood deeper in the shadows, staring intently at them. At first, Mallory thought she was just nosy, but then the woman opened her mouth, stretching pink-pale lips to reveal something feathered. It leaped from her tongue and took flight, expanding in size as it went.

  She just exhaled a bird.

  The sight of it tickled some niggling memory Mallory couldn’t reach, but the more immediate issue was Kaleb’s safety. Mallory tried to shove him behind her. Simultaneously, she reached for the tiny derringer in her coat pocket.

  Three times the woman opened her mouth as if words were imminent. Three times a raven flew from between her lips.

  Mallory looked away from the woman for a moment and realized that Kaleb was about to see a part of her life that she’d really rather he didn’t.

  “Go on,” she said. With one hand, Mallory shoved him toward the street. Then, she walked into the alley. A derringer isn’t much of a defense. Her other hand went to the holstered gun she had only moments before been hoping to hide from him.

  Kaleb grabbed her shoulder. Mallory froze, her .357 half drawn.

  “I’ll handle this. Go,” he ordered.

  But the bird-breathing woman was in front of them now. She was famil
iar in a way that made Mallory struggle to identify, like a word on the tip of her tongue, an answer just out of reach. Her eyes were ringed with blue and red lines, and the shape of her pupils wasn’t quite right. But aside from the whole birds-flying-from-her-mouth thing, she was beautiful.

  The woman touched Mallory’s arm, and without planning to do so, Mallory slid the .357 back into its holster.

  With her odd eyes and impossible mouth, this woman looked inhuman, but at her touch Mallory felt peaceful.

  Then Kaleb stepped forward, using his body like a shield in front of her, and told her, “Run, now.”

  Mallory frowned. She didn’t know why she felt like she could trust the strange woman, but she did. She also wanted rather desperately to protect Kaleb. The two instincts were both unexpected—and at odds.

  She wasn’t sure what to do until, with a flick of her fingers, the woman flung Kaleb with such force that he landed several storefronts away. He wasn’t moving.

  “Distraction,” the woman said, the word pushed from behind her teeth with deliberation and struggle.

  She stepped closer to Mallory.

  The peaceful feeling evaporated, and Mallory backed away from her. Kaleb was injured; the woman had hurt him. That clarified everything.