The Nightmare Charade

by Mindee Arnett

  “Might as well,” said Paul.

  I pulled the key from my pocket and slid it into the lock. It went in awkwardly, its moonwort consistency making it flexible. Once it was in as far as it would go, I turned it to the right only to be met with resistance.

  “Damn,” I said, pulling the key out again. “No good.” I glanced at Paul, my pulse quickening.

  “You’ve got the lockpick kit, right?” he said, his expression pinched.

  I nodded. I knew how to use the tension wrench and the rake, but I wasn’t nearly as good at it as Eli, who could jimmy a door in seconds. Still, there was nothing for it. I reached into my opposite pocket, pulled out the kit, and set to work.

  Several minutes later I was still at it, the tools slick in my sweaty hands and my frustration building. I was keenly aware of the next-door neighbor. We were out of his line of sight, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other prying eyes watching us. And it had to be obvious what we were up to now. The sound of the lock rattling while I jiggled the tools back and forth was like an alarm bell.

  “This is not working,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Here, let me try.” Paul’s hand descended on my arm and he moved me aside. I barely had time to protest before he’d conquered the lock and was pushing the door open.

  “Wow,” I said, letting off a low whistle. “Where’d you learn to do that so quickly?”

  “I didn’t.” Stepping into the house, he flashed a grin at me over his shoulder. “I’m just good with my hands.”

  “If you say so.” I couldn’t help but be impressed. I’d spent hours practicing with the lockpick and still failed at it.

  I stepped in behind him and pulled the door shut, locking it again just in case. Then I turned my attention to the room in front of me. Once more Corvus’s house failed to meet my expectations. The living room was perfectly normal, the kind you would see in just about any ordinary house. There was a green sofa, a matching love seat, and a plush leather armchair set around a massive flat-screen TV. The fireplace off to one side looked more like a decoration than anything useful.

  “Are you sure this is the right address?” I said, glancing at Paul who was already making his way to the door into the next area.

  “I’m as sure as you are. You saw the police files, too.”

  I sighed, knowing he was right. “Let’s check out the rest.” But before doing anything else, I reached up and pulled off the shape-change necklace, stuffing it into my pocket.

  “What are you doing?” asked Paul.

  “I’ll have an easier time being my own size. I don’t want to break anything.” I stretched my arms over my head, shaking off the lingering feel of the shape-change.

  “Good point,” Paul said, reaching up to remove his own necklace. It was a strange relief to see him in his natural form. Stuffing the necklace into his pocket, he stepped into the doorway to the next room and looked back at me. “I’ll go this way. You go that way.” He pointed first left then right.

  I nodded and followed after him through the door, feeling much more at ease in my own skin. To the left the hallway led to the kitchen. To the right were most likely the bedrooms, although I couldn’t tell with all the doors closed. I stopped at the first one and pushed it open.

  “Whoa,” I said, stepping inside. Now this was more like it. In an ordinary house this would have indeed been a bedroom, but right now it looked like an alchemist’s study. A large table occupied most of the room, its surface cluttered with bowls, jars, and various utensils used for making potions. Three of the four walls were filled with books, herbs, and other ingredients. There was no denying a magickind lived in here.

  I snooped around, pulling some of the books off the shelves to check the titles and contents. Most of them were printed in languages I didn’t even recognize, let alone possess the ability to read. No two volumes appeared to be written in the same language either. How any one person could be knowledgeable enough to read all these books was beyond me.

  A few minutes later I decided the room had divulged all the secrets it was going to and moved on to the next. It turned out to be the bathroom, full of the kinds of things you would expect from an old bachelor—aftershave, deodorant, a couple of razors. The next room was another bedroom, currently stocked full of unopened moving boxes. I checked the labels on a couple and saw they’d been shipped here from Scotland. It made sense, given Mr. Corvus’s last teaching job.

  The final room down the hallway was another bedroom—this one occupied by an actual bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. As with the living room, it appeared to be a perfectly normal room for an ordinary. There wasn’t a single magical item anywhere that I could see.

  Frowning, I pulled the door shut. There had to be an office of some kind around here, a place where he sat down to grade papers over the weekend or to perform other scholarly duties.

  I headed down the hall to the kitchen where I could hear Paul banging around. I stepped in to see him swinging a cabinet door shut.

  “Did you find anything?” I said.

  He gave a slight jump of surprise then shook his head. “Nothing.”

  I grimaced. “Did you go through the knife drawer?” I doubted Mr. Corvus would keep the bone-bladed knife in a kitchen drawer but you never knew.

  “Yeah, but there are just steak knives in there. Did you find anything?”

  I shook my head then ran my fingers over my hair, beginning to fret. “Is this it?” I glanced around the room, looking for another hallway.

  “I think so,” Paul said. Then he pointed at a door in the far corner. “Unless that isn’t a pantry.” He walked over to it and turned the handle, only to find it was locked.

  “Bingo,” I said. I pulled the moonwort key out of my pocket, pushed him aside, and tried the lock. But as with the front door, the moonwort only bended in my hand, the lock holding against the key’s magic.

  “Try the lockpick,” Paul said.

  I fetched the tension wrench and rake out of my other pocket and slid them into place. Then I stepped to the left and motioned for Paul to take over. He did so, jimmying the lock in a matter of seconds.

  “You’re going to have to show me how you do it like that,” I said. “Not even Eli is that quick.”

  Paul shrugged. “It’s nice to know I’m better than him at something.”

  I didn’t reply but pulled the door open all the way. A cool draft of air seeped over my face, and I spotted a set of stairs leading down to the basement. There was a light switch just inside the doorway, and I flipped it on. The bright, unfiltered glow of a bare bulb shone up at us.

  This is it, I thought, and strangely my heart seemed to slow instead of quicken. It became a hard, steady thump in my chest. I pulled out my cell phone and checked the time. We’d been here for not quite a half hour. I returned the phone to my pocket. Then taking a deep breath, I raised my right hand in front of me, magic at the ready. In my left hand I felt Bellanax pulsating with anticipation. It was ready to help the moment I needed it.

  Paul followed after me, his hand at the ready as well.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I reached the bottom, but when I got there, I knew it was anything at all besides what was waiting for us.

  The basement, a cool, quiet room with concrete walls, was mostly empty except for a single chair set beneath the bulb.

  Mr. Corvus was sitting on it, his one eye fixed on us both. “Hello, Dusty,” he said. “So glad you finally made it.” Then he raised his hand and uttered a spell. A jet of yellow light shot out from his fingertips and struck Paul in the chest. He fell with a muffled cry of surprise. Then from up above I heard the loud bang of the door shutting.

  I was trapped and facing Mr. Corvus all alone.

  25

  Traps

  Except, I wasn’t alone. I reached for the silver band on my wrist. Bellanax was with me. But all my sessions with Deverell had taught me that my connection to the sword was stronger with it unglamoured. Thinking onl
y about the danger and not the consequences, I freed it from the disguise.

  “Don’t you dare try anything,” I said, pointing the sword at him. “It won’t work while I’m holding this.”

  Mr. Corvus’s narrowed-eyed gaze told me just how impressed he was by this assertion. “I’m quite familiar with The Will sword, young lady.” Then as if to prove it, he gave a flick of his hand, and Bellanax was wrenched out of my grip. It went sailing across the room toward him. He caught the sword one-handed.

  Terror came over me, squeezing me so hard I couldn’t even scream. I couldn’t do anything but stare at this man, my body in total paralysis.

  “But for the record,” Mr. Corvus said, “I won’t be trying anything.” He lowered the sword and then applied the glamour, transforming it back into a silver band. He tossed it at me.

  I barely caught it, clapping my hands around it at the last second. Disbelief pulsed in my temples. Was he toying with me? Or did he really mean it? I glanced down at Bellanax, probing the sword with my mind, worried that he’d messed with it somehow. But the sword felt perfectly normal.

  “You can put it back on,” Corvus said, a touch of impatience in his voice. “There’s nothing wrong with it. No harm can come to that sword from anyone but you.”

  I frowned, but slid the bracelet back onto my wrist. “What do you mean but me?”

  “It is a sword of power, imbued with soul magic from its first victim,” said Corvus. “It is indestructible except from within. As its master, you control all the power inside it.”

  I started to ask him what he meant exactly, but he cut me off.

  “Don’t get me wrong, of course. I’m well within my rights to punish you both for trespassing into my home like this.”

  Overcoming some of my shock, I said, “What did you do to Paul?”

  Corvus glanced at the boy slumped on the floor beside me. “Nothing he won’t recover from shortly. No offense to him, but you and I are well past due for a private chat.” His gaze flicked back to me. “But I promise that your boyfriend will be fine and you two will leave here without so much as a hair out of place.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, hands clenching into fists. “My boyfriend has been abducted.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. But as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, it wasn’t by me.” Corvus motioned around the room. “You’ve been all through my house and haven’t found anything amiss, correct?”

  I frowned. “Like that means anything. How did you know we were coming?”

  Mr. Corvus made a sound like a growl. “I didn’t. As a matter of fact, I was just getting ready to make myself a cup of tea and read for a few hours when I heard you at the door.”

  “You were supposed to be at yoga.” Too late I realized this probably wasn’t information I should’ve divulged.

  Corvus didn’t miss a beat. “Decided to skip it, after spending half the night looking for your other boyfriend.”

  “What do you mean other—” I paused, scowling. “Like looking for Eli matters if you’re the one who took him.”

  Corvus shook his head. “So suspicious. And so very much like your mother.”

  Resisting the urge to pull out Bellanax once more, I said, “What do you know about my mother?”

  “A good deal more than you.” Mr. Corvus waved his hand again, and from the farthest, darkest corner of the room, another wooden chair floated over to me. “Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll talk things through.”

  I considered my options for a couple of seconds. But in the end, there weren’t any. Not unless I went for a preemptive strike. Considering how easily he’d disarmed me already that seemed a bad idea. Finally, I exhaled and sat down. But I didn’t make myself comfortable. I perched on the edge of the seat, ready to leap into action if this crazy one-eyed man decided to try anything funny.

  “Thank you.” Corvus tented his hands in front of him. “Now, before I go into details, let me start by reassuring you that I had nothing at all to do with your mother’s disappearance or Eli’s or even the Death’s Heart.”

  I flinched at his knowledge. “How do you know about the Death’s Heart?” It was weird being able to say it aloud to someone new.

  “Lady Elaine has kept me informed. And yes, she told me your suspicions about me as well.”

  I folded my arms over my chest, a feeling of betrayal coming over me. Why did she have to tell him? If he had turned out to be the bad guy—and I hadn’t yet decided he wasn’t—then she tipped him off to be ready for me. “So you really are working for her?”

  “With her would be more accurate. And with your mother.” Corvus inclined his head. “I’m here to help Lady Elaine root out Marrow’s supporters, and also, most importantly, to discover the man who freed Marrow from his tomb.”

  I inhaled sharply.

  Corvus ran a hand over his goatee. “Yes, that’s right. Your mother and I have been after the same thing for a while now. We crossed paths some eight months ago and have since combined our efforts.”

  I examined his expression, trying to decide if I could believe him, but he was impossible to read, immutable as stone. “If that’s true, why didn’t she tell me about you?”

  “She swore to keep me a secret, same as Lady Elaine. The fewer people who know the truth the better. How else am I supposed to uncover such a man as the one we’re hunting?” Corvus pointed his finger. “He’s always a step ahead.”

  “Okay,” I said, seeing his point. “But what does that have to do with me?”

  “Because we are hunting the same man, Destiny Everhart.”

  I went very still, even though my heart was now galloping inside my chest. “Are you saying the man who freed Marrow is the same one who stole the Death’s Heart?”

  “Yes. And I believe he kidnapped Bethany Grey, your mother, and Eli as well.”

  I slumped against the chair, overwhelmed by this news. It was one thing for me to have suspected it, but quite another to have it confirmed. How were we ever going to capture such a person? “Do you know who it is?” I said, sounding more hopeful than I intended.

  Corvus grimaced. “No. But take heart. We are closing in on him, I’ve never been more certain.”

  “How?” Despair made my voice breathy.

  “First, you must understand how hard this has been,” said Corvus. “It’s taken me a very long time to learn it, but the person who freed Marrow from his prison is a shape-changer.”

  For a second the word struck my brain without registering any meaning. When it did I was glad I was sitting down. “Selene was right.”

  “Excuse me?” Corvus raised his single eyebrow.

  I shook my head. “I thought shape-changers were extinct.”

  Corvus sighed and leaned back in the chair. “That’s an impossibility, given their nature.”

  I stared at him, trying to decide if he was disappointed or relieved to know that an entire group of magickind was incapable of being annihilated. Given that he was a Nightmare, I chose to go with the latter.

  “With their ability to steal shapes,” Corvus continued, “the man could be anyone at Arkwell. No matter how long that person has been here. The shape-changer could be Dr. Hendershaw and no one would ever have known it.”

  “But … but how?” My mind began to reel. “There’s more to being a person than what they look like. Wouldn’t somebody have caught him in a goof by now?”

  Corvus shook his head. “It all depends on how the shape-changer stole the shape in the first place.”

  “Don’t they just need their teeth?”

  Corvus looked surprised by my knowledge, but he only nodded. “Teeth is one way for a shape-changer to shift. But a single touch is all they need to borrow your shape for a limited period of time. In both cases, they only steal the body as you said. But if a shape-changer wants to completely assume another person’s life, they can do so by first killing the person and then consuming their heart.”

  I inhaled and felt my gag reflex ki
ck in. “Do you mean eating them? Like cannibals?”

  “Yes, it’s both a physical and magical act for them,” Corvus said, seemingly oblivious to the way my face was turning green. “It allows them to assume the victim’s shape permanently, and it gives the shape-changer access to every memory, mannerism, and emotion that the person possessed. They can quite literally become that person.”

  I ran my hand over my mouth, willing my stomach to settle. The idea that someone at Arkwell, one of my teachers perhaps, or maybe even someone like Mr. Culpepper was actually a shape-changer in disguise, one dining on hearts like some magickind version of Hannibal Lecter, made my skin crawl.

  With an effort, I managed to keep my cool long enough to ask, “Aren’t there any distinguishing signs of a shape-changer? Like the way our eyes glow in the dark?”

  “There is a sign, but it’s very hard to detect.” Corvus shifted his weight in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. “They have a strange ridge on the roof of their mouth.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well that’s helpful.”

  “Indeed. Short of physically assaulting every faculty and staff member at Arkwell long enough for me to probe their mouths, I never stood a chance of simply recognizing the shape-changer. Any time I get close, all he has to do is steal another form.”

  Frustration began to build inside me. I wasn’t sure when I’d decided to believe his story, but I definitely did now. Too much of it made sense, and I’d been alone with him for quite a while; he’d had ample time to do me harm.

  “This is impossible,” I said. “You’ve been searching for this guy for months with no luck. How am I ever going to find him in time to rescue my mother and Eli?”

  To my surprise Corvus’s face brightened. “It just so happens that these recent developments might have given us a way to succeed. And it’s why I’m so glad you sought me out today.”