I wasn’t given a chance to scream before it yanked me into the darkness. The Graveyard Ghoul held me firm against its somewhat mushy flesh.
I heard Damien shout something that I couldn’t hear. The sound chilled my blood. Damien had never raised his voice into a shout before. It shuddered the dark, making it ripple all around me as if we were under water.
I found myself not only frightened of what had me but of the demon we’d left. I preferred the Devil I knew to this Devil I didn’t.
The warmth in my stomach grew outward as I closed my eyes. Not that it mattered in the pitch dark. Eyes opened or closed, I saw the same thing.
“Stop!” I demanded.
Something burst.
It was a popping sound inside my body that echoed into the dark. I dropped so fast I never had the chance to get my feet under me.
Landing hard on my tailbone, I cried out and fell to the side, feeling dirt puff up my nose as my forehead bounced off the dirt floor.
Ignoring the throbbing pain that shot up my spine, I slowly rolled onto my stomach, wincing and willing my head to stop spinning. Or maybe it was the darkness spinning, I couldn’t tell.
The Graveyard Ghoul hadn’t disappeared. I could feel it moving the air and swirling dust against my face and legs as it circled.
I pushed myself up until I sat back onto my legs.
Blind, I commanded, “Go away.”
Every muscle quivered, and my throat closed as I choked back sobs that threatened to take over.
The wind of the Ghoul surprisingly backed away.
I listened as the sound began to fade, not entirely trusting myself to move. Despite the internal warnings, I blindly felt for something to grab onto, something to let me know where I was.
I started crawling on my hands and knees, the only noise being my own panicked breath that grew steadier as I tried to figure out what to do next. I couldn’t stay in this darkness. Anything could attack me here.
But it didn’t, the voice in my head assured. You sent it away.
My stomach felt hollow, but not from hunger, more like something was missing, something as vital as an organ. But I wasn’t in any pain; it was just an ache.
I hesitated before crawling a few inches.
I had manipulated the Challenge once again. I grimaced as I thought that perhaps Neive would suffer for this. I would try to argue on her behalf, but who knew where Damien was now?
He’d tried to save me, I thought. It was an absurd idea, and if I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d be inclined to deny it.
My fingers scraped up against something hard and smooth. Holding my breath, I slowly brushed my hand to the right; it had curves and divots like stone but was so glassy it couldn’t possibly be a rock. Maybe marble?
Patting up the cool surface, I found a doorknob. Using it to stand, I tried to shake the unease from my shuddering legs. You survived, Nora, I tried to tell myself. You made it this far.
Twisting the doorknob, I pushed it in and stepped through the threshold.
The problem was this new room was just as dark, and I brushed my shoulder against the doorframe to be sure I was upright.
I heard something shuffle, feet against a smooth surface.
I raised my free hands, palms out, preparing to feel something in the dark.
Something could see me, but I couldn’t see it.
Fear squeezed my heart at the thought as I adjusted my footing, keeping my back to the stone slab. I considered crawling on top of it, but it would be difficult to run if something were to grab me.
The sound reverberated off of the walls. It sounded like a hollow, large room, but as the sound travelled, I lost track of where it came from.
I tried to think about the warmth in my stomach, how the energy had built. Maybe I could use it again if I had to.
In a blink, the room blasted full of light.
Slapping my hands over my eyes, I squinted through my fingers.
Neive stood in her beautiful dress, hair swept up and shining. She cocked her head to the side and looked me over. She didn’t appear harmed. In fact, there wasn’t a bruise or a tear anywhere on her. After her scream, I’d expected some evidence of her pain.
“Neive?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Neive took a deep breath through her nose but didn’t answer right away.
I decided to take that moment to look around. The room was decadent, something out of a renaissance movie. The gold trim surrounded intricately carved wooden panels. Greek-inspired columns rose to support the ceiling high above our heads, and there was a piano near the window.
The circular room showcased a wooden grand piano in its center. Despite the circular walls, there were windows covered with pale curtains so I couldn’t see outside.
“Where are we?” My voice echoed.
“Wherever I want to be,” Neive replied, looking like a princess accustomed to the lavish room—maybe even a princess bored with it.
“You did all this?” I asked in awe. I clutched my chest. My hollowed-out shell of a body ached from whatever I did in the darkness, but I was determined not to let her know. There was something about the way she held herself, the defensiveness of her narrowed gaze, that made me think something might’ve changed. Neive nodded, sucking in her cheeks and pursing her lips. Her brown eyes lingered on mine, disturbingly still. She had so many of Damien’s mannerisms it was frightening.
“You brought me here?” I asked.
Her eyes darted away, and she turned away from me. “In a way.”
“You sent that thing?” I asked, feeling the itch of betrayal. “Were you even taken by those things in the cemetery?”
“At first,” she said. “They’re hard to control.” She swallowed, delaying. “But once you’ve made a connection, no other demon can interfere with the command you set it out to do.”
“But…”
“I know,” she snapped, turning only her torso to look at me. “Your blood is stronger than mine. I didn’t believe it. I wanted to prove him wrong.”
I stared at her, not knowing what to say.
The beautiful setting felt tainted, and I glanced back at the open door I’d come through.
This was my own sister. My twin sister! Wasn’t she supposed to come running to see me? Didn’t she want to be sent home to see our parents? Though I was sure she knew the truth, they’d raised us when Nell left us.
Trying to get her to look at me, I wanted desperately for her to look at me like a friend instead of the narrow-eyed scrutiny of a stranger. “It was a fluke that the creature-thing let me go. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Well, I do,” Neive said curtly. “I do know, Nora. I’ve been coming back here for years, learning all of this and practicing. Then you waltz in here. My sister, too cowardly to even be alone, and you blow my training out of the water just by being stupid and scared.”
I straightened like a board. The part that stung the most was that she was right. I’d been so afraid to be alone yet I wandered through that cemetery alone. I saved Phoebe alone and wandered around in the Darkness Between Worlds alone to find my sister, the one who kidnapped me from Damien.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked, my voice hard. “Another part of your training?”
She waved a hand for silence, not looking at me, but I was a master at this game. Mona taught me a few tricks. I spoke over the command. “It shouldn’t be like this! I’m trying to keep them all alive while you’re hanging out in some weird palace pouting about how hard you have it. I’m sorry you’re here.”
Neive turned to me, her shoulders up and her stance aggressive, as if she were ready to battle-ram me. “Enough,” she snarled.
“You should be home with me,” I continued. “I heard what you’d said. You lured me here. I remember the initials in the chair at the tower. N.E.F. They were yours. You made me say words that weren’t mine just so we’d open that door.”
“Stop, Nora.”
“Then you try to warn me away with the letter. By scaring me in the library. You could come back to our world, but you never stayed. If you could have come back, why didn’t you? Why did you let us all believe you were dead?” I realized I was shrieking at this point.
Air slammed into my chest so hard and fast that I didn’t realize what had happened until I felt the floor under my hip. I whimpered, pain ricocheting in me for three very long heartbeats.
She did that, I thought as the dull ache returned. I wheezed my first breath. It felt like I was running a marathon I didn’t train for.
“I can’t leave until there is a replacement,” Neive said from a distance.
I stayed rigid and inert, reeling from the fact that my sister hit me like that. What else could she do? She’d been training, knowing exactly what to do and when to do it.
“You don’t get it,” Neive hissed.
“No,” I growled, sitting up slowly, feeling every ache and pain amplified, but I wouldn’t stay down. Crawling to my feet, I said, “You even went out of your way to save me.”
“If you lose, you’re his,” Neive said bitterly. “He won’t let you die.”
“But my friends will. Why do that? It would just make me hate him. Why would I do anything for someone I hate?”
“Why would you want to go back to nothing?” Neive asked. “There’s nothing in that world you left.”
I shook my head. “I have my family.”
“And a lot of publicity. Your family will be fine without you, and you know it.” Neive kept her distance this time, her arms protectively crossed in front of her. “If you have nothing to return to, you’d want to stay.”
“That’s the logic?” I barked a laugh.
“If you sacrifice yourself, you’re his. If someone else does, you’re his at an even easier price.”
“Easier price?” I asked, feeling my anger rise.
“Meaning there’d be less of a risk to your well-being.” Neive’s arms tightened around herself, and she said, “I deserve to be the Neo, not you.”
“Neo?” I smirked, feeling smug. “Is that our cool new slang now? You haven’t seen the Matrix, have you?”
“Neophyte,” Neive said, unamused. “I wanted it. You don’t deserve it.”
“Totes,” I said, feeling vindicated that I’d gotten to her.
She tilted her head. “Totes?”
“A terrible new slang,” I said. If I had to explain it, it made the joke worthless and sucked some of my victory away.
“This isn’t a joke, Nora.”
“I wish it were,” I muttered.
She shrugged her tight shoulders. “Doesn’t matter now. He wants you.” Her voice lowered. “He’s always wanted you.”
“To be the Neophyte,” I said.
She nodded. “He wouldn’t take our mother—”
I interrupted her, saying through gritted teeth, “She’s not our mother.”
“Yes she is, just not in the nurturing sense of the word.” The way Neive said it sent chills down my spine—so detached, so cold. “Eleanor would have plotted against him the moment she crossed the threshold.”
“Because she wanted to be his…his Neophyte,” I said slowly, tasting the words uneasily. “Why would you want this place?”
Neive’s smile was bitter. “I’ve wanted this since Eleanor told me about it.”
“What?” Did I hear her right?
“She warned me one day that I might be the only child. I was scared at first, but…everything had turned out the way it was supposed to. I want this. I was born for this.” She unlatched her rigid arms and motioned to the room. “When I got here, it all became clear.”
“All by yourself?”
“No,” she said and stopped herself.
“It shouldn’t be like this,” I snapped, feeling the heat rising. My stomach was still empty, the warmth abandoning me.
“Oh?”
“You should be coming home with me when I win.” I gnashed my teeth together, the determination grinding in my molars. “Things don’t have to be like this.”
Neive’s eyes drooped, opening one at a time, and I felt air brush my cheeks.
I looked down to see a red dress, not quite as excessive as Neive’s. This one was like something I owned, wrapping at my hip and tied with a clasp at my waist. It was lower cut, and I reached up automatically for the necklace I’d always worn with it.
I could feel the beads around my throat. With careful—and remarkably clean—hands I touched my hair, feeling the bobby-pins already pricking my scalp.
“You did this?” I asked her.
“You’re surprised?” She quirked a brow. When I didn’t say anything, she continued. “Did you know I named him? He lost his name the moment he became the Erebus.”
I nodded. “I guessed.”
“Of course you did,” she snarled. “This is why he wants to share the Grave with you.”
“Sorry, what?”
“You think you’d be able to do this all by yourself one day?” Neive guffawed, making her look mean.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about any of this. It was just a short time ago that I found out our grandfather was a demon.”
“He seduced her.” Neive jumped on the subject, looking far too eager.
I waited for her to continue, letting the silence ring, and Neive took the bait.
“Before she met our grandpa, a demon named Malachi made her fall in love with him. It wasn’t allowed in our world. Did you know that? Somehow this demon wandered straight into our world. Damien said that Malachi confessed to loving her, to having watched her for years, and it couldn’t resist her.”
“What did Damien say to that?” I asked her, enraptured. Could this demon, Malachi, have loved our grandmother?
“Damien killed it,” Neive said simply. “A Challenge that ended its life.”
“What Challenge?” I asked.
Neive’s features darkened, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the story or my question. “In the Challenge, it watched a version of Mary, his beloved, die over and over. It couldn’t save her. It thought it was really her and wouldn’t leave the Challenge. And then one day, it foolishly took the death for her.”
“So he really loved her?”
Neive shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it was simple lust.”
“Not if he died for her,” I said.
This was our grandfather she spoke of, but I noticed she always said it instead of he.
Neive met my gaze. It lingered until I fleetingly saw that five-year-old girl. The curious little girl who always ran ahead of me, fought bullies for me, challenged my fears, like Phoebe. I’d never made the connection until now.
Neive rolled her eyes and smoothed out her dress.
“Then why do it?” I asked. “Why die if it wasn’t for love?”
“If you’d seen what I’d seen,” Neive scoffed, “you wouldn’t be so bold to believe in romanticism.”
I started to argue but decided against it. It would do no good to quarrel with my estranged sibling, let alone about something like love. It could be turned into a philosophical conversation or an argument. We didn’t have time for either. “What about the witchcraft?”
“What about it?” She sniffed.
“That was how Nell discovered the demon’s blood,” I said. “Does that mean we’re part-witches too?”
She laughed, Neive actually laughed, making me flinch as it echoed off the walls. “No, demon-blood and witches of our world don’t get along. It’s a long story. Basically, they hate each other.”
I nodded, pretending to understand, when it hit me. “Wait,” I said. “Witches are real in my world…er, our world?”
Neive made a wavy motion with her hand. “Ish. There’s stipulations to their power. Like I said, long story.”
“Is Damien afraid of them?”
“What you should be afraid of is your friends,” Neive said.
I blinked. “Why?”<
br />
“He’s been turning them against you.”
“Nothing I can’t—”
“He’s winning, Nora,” she said. “I warned you about trusting him.”
“I know,” I argued.
“Well,” she snapped, “you’re trusting him.”
There was a mild point there. Not one I wanted to dwell on, though. “So this all falls on me?”
She waved her hand. “It’s complicated, Nora. There is a half demon,” she gestured to me, “and two possible Keepers in this Demon’s Grave right now.”
“What? Who?” I demanded. “There’s just Aidan.”
“He is, unofficially, but yes.”
“What do you mean by two Keepers?”
Her eyes narrowed at me, and I found myself wracking my memory hard enough to find it. Cody had felt sick in the beginning, before we’d found the Grave. He and I were practically immobile when we reached the third floor that day. He’d received a message the same as me. The one I didn’t get. It had gone straight to Cody. Aidan hinted at having bad dreams but never confessed to what they were.
“I can’t believe you’d know…”
Neive motioned to the piano. “I can play, you know.”
The change was so random that it took me a second to absorb what she’d said. Everything she’d said. My world was changing before me, and she was talking about an instrument.
“No,” I murmured.
“Should I play so the demon can serenade you and tell you you’re more beautiful than you give yourself credit for?”
The intensity in her voice overrode the sarcasm, taking me off guard. Was she even human anymore?
I reached to tug at my shirt, only finding the tight dress. I pressed my hands there instead. “Sure,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “That would be nice, yes.”
Perhaps it was my calm voice or because I wasn’t taking her bait that pissed her off.
Neive took a step toward me again, her body poised the same way it had been when she knocked me on my ass.
I could feel him. He was a chill in the air, a consistent heavy presence that invaded the room.
“Enough.”
Neive stopped and looked back at Damien in surprise. He stood near the piano. His eyes roamed cautiously around the room before focusing solely on his protégé. Something flashed between them, a hostility that I didn’t understand.
The Haunting Page 13