Damaged Gods (Monsters of Saint Mark's #1)

by K. C. Cross

  “Indeed! I will meet you inside, young lady.”

  Young lady. I kinda swoon at that. He’s not that much older than me. Definitely not thirty yet. But I like his manners. Oh, my God. What if all the boys out here in the woodsy part of PA are like this? All hot and cut, but with manners. “Perfect,” I call out just as he disappears from view.

  I pull my pocket open and throw Pia a thumbs up. “We’re in.”

  “We should go back.”

  “Fuck that, Pia. We’re here. There’s a hot dude with no shirt acting all polite and shit. I like this place already.” I bite my lip. “I hope he’s not the caretaker who’s leaving. Because that would suck. But…” I brighten. “Generally speaking, hot men hang out together. There’s bound to be more of them, right?”

  Pia doesn’t answer me. But it’s better that way so I let her silence go. I’m just talking to myself anyway. Pia is, and always will be, just a hallucination.

  I walk up the long, red cobblestone walkway and then up a set of seven wide brick steps until I’m standing inside an elaborate portico and in front of the biggest set of wooden double doors I’ve ever seen.

  Everything about this place feels massive and, standing there, waiting for the hot guy to let me in, I feel suddenly small.

  Several minutes go by and no one comes to the door.

  I look up. And again, there is that poem. A horn, a hoof… blah, blah, blah. There is also a very large, round, iron doorknocker with a Green Man face on it, but it’s like seven feet from the ground and there is no way in hell I can reach it. So I knock with my knuckles, and call, “Helloooo? I’m the girl outside. Here for the caretaker job.” And then pause, wait, and listen for footsteps with my ear pressed against the door.

  Nothing.

  Just silence.

  Did they come to their senses and decide that a girl like me doesn’t deserve this amazing fresh start? Doesn’t even deserve to interview for it?

  I let out a long breath, suddenly depressed again. Then I look over my shoulder at the Jeep, thinking maybe I should just be on my way to Toledo after all. But I can’t even see it. The fog has rolled in thick.

  “Don’t lose your nerve now, Pie,” I chastise myself quietly. “You’re here. You showed up. That’s half the battle. And people who quit when they’re halfway there are just… dumb.”

  So I square my shoulders, tip my head up, ignore my stale costume and the fact that I can still taste Jell-O shots in my mouth, and try the door handles—which are a pair of brass plates with intricate carvings of vines and creatures, and are not a proper doorknob that locks or turns. Just the kind you pull and the door opens.

  So I pull and the door opens.

  It creaks like no one has opened this door for a thousand years and I suddenly feel like I’m in some dark fairy tale and this is the moment when it all goes wrong.

  “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. This is the moment when it all goes right, Pie.” I suck in a breath, mutter, “Get a hold of yourself now. Your future is waiting.” And then I step through.

  It’s dark inside. But there’s a bit of sun shining through a large stained-glass window on the far side of the gigantic entrance hall.

  For a moment I just stand there thinking, This is kinda creepy, when the sunlight flashes against the stained glass and illuminates a little bird in the design. A little tree sparrow with a red-topped head that looks so much like my Pia, I take another step forward. Then another. Trying to understand what I’m seeing.

  Because what are the chances that this place has a bird like my bird in their glass window?

  It’s weird. I take a few more steps, and then the heavy wooden door slams closed behind me.

  Immediately, the entire interior goes dark. Like the sun just… disappeared. And I’m about to turn around and leave when I hear footsteps echoing through some distant hallway.

  “I’m coming! I’m coming!”

  It’s a young man’s voice. Not the same voice from outside, but deeper and out of breath.

  “OK!” I call back, then feel dumb for doing that.

  His footsteps get closer and his breathing is labored when he bursts into the room. In fact, he’s breathing so hard he needs to hold up a finger—the universal sign for ‘give me a moment’—as he doubles over, huffing and puffing, trying to recover from his apparent sprint.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally manages. “I was all the way across the campus.” He has to stop there and just breathe again. “When the”—he breathes—“bell”—breathe—“rang.”

  He seems pretty out of shape. Though he’s not overweight. Very tall, very skinny, and very young. Maybe even younger than me. I’d peg him at maybe twenty-one? Twenty-two?

  I’m not sure what to do or say, so I fall back on manners. “If this is a bad time, I can just… come back tomorrow?”

  At this he stops breathing. Literally holds his breath as he straightens up and stares into my eyes like he’s… what? I don’t know. A deer in headlights?

  “Noooooo.” It comes out as one long, low tone. Almost a moan. “No,” he says again.

  Then he smiles. Super big. And I’ve been around enough people who didn’t like me, or want me around, to recognize a fake smile. Which is like weird thing number seventy-five since I pulled that flyer off the gas-station bulletin board, but I continue to pretend it’s all good because I might want this job. It’s got perks.

  “Don’t be silly.” He has recovered now, his breathing under control and the fake smile just a tiny bit more authentic than it was a few seconds ago. “Don’t be sil-ly,” he repeats. “You’re here. I’m here. We’re here. So…” His smile falters. “Why are you here?”

  “Uh.” Yeah. I don’t know. This guy is acting bizarre. And he’s definitely not as hot as the hot dude. He’s skinny and he’s got a nerd vibe to him. “The job?” I finally say.

  “Right! Right! Right! The job. You’re here for the job. The caretaker job.” He whispers that last part like he just remembered that there was a job.

  “Yep. Caretaker. But…” I look over my shoulder. “Maybe I should just come back tomorrow.” Or never. “It’s late and—”

  “Let me give you the tour real quick. Then you can decide if this is for you and if not, you don’t need to bother coming back tomorrow.”

  This is the first reasonable thing he’s said, so I don’t have a polite way to get out of it. “OK. Sure. Show me around.” I pretend to look at a watch that I am not wearing and add, “But I’ve only got ten minutes. My friend is expecting me and it’s a long drive, so—”

  He looks up at the faint glimmer of leftover sunset still shining through the stained-glass window and then nods. “Ten minutes is plenty of time. Follow me. I’ll show you the grounds first. Then the caretaker cottage.”

  “Cottage?” I was picturing a room. A bland, institutional room that could double as a patient bedroom in one of the many psychiatric hospitals I’ve been in over the years. Not a cottage.

  Just the word ‘cottage’ conjures up images of roaring fires and… I don’t know. Wooden cupboards. Maybe a tea pot on an old stove. And shutters. Lots of windows with shutters.

  “Yes.” He beams at me. “The cottage comes with the job. And it’s completely private. And secure,” he adds, holding up a finger. “Inside the walls.”

  “Oh. Nice. What did you say your name was again?”

  “We’re going to go down this way. Watch your step, now. These stairs are old. Not up to code. People tend to trip on them because they are shallow and you can take three or four in one stride, but it’s best to be careful and only take them one at a time.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I follow him down the stairs, which truly are baby steps. And there are like a thousand and one of them. There are no lights on in the open room at the bottom, but there are lots of them outside in the… what do I call it? Sanctuary backyard? The windows go from floor to ceiling and that is at least thirty feet, so there is lots of glass for that light to leak through.
>
  I don’t exactly know what a sanctuary is supposed to look like, but the first word that comes to mind as I gaze around, taking it all in, is… cathedral.

  “Oh, yes,” the boy-man says. “It’s impressive, isn’t it? I remember the first time I saw this place too. I was so stunned, I couldn’t think straight.”

  “Yeah,” I absently agree as I try to see it all at once. There is so much stained glass in front of me, there might be an entire story up on the windows. There is also a second grand staircase, much like the one we just came down, but off to the left. Then a third one, off to the right.

  “This place must be huge,” I say. Then I start to worry about the job. Taking care of a cathedral feels like a very big thing. “How many caretakers do you have?”

  “Just you.” He beams. “It’s all yours.”

  “Well, not yet.” I laugh.

  He plays with a silver ring on his finger as he pauses in front of a large door that leads outside. “Right. First things first.” He opens the door for me and waves me forward. I pass through and find myself in front of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen. And the lights? They are lampposts, but they are gas. Like… the olden-days kind of shit you see in Williamsburg.

  I’m just about to comment on the gas—I do not know how to take care of gas lights—when I notice this isn’t actually a garden. “Is this a… cemetery?”

  “We prefer to call it a sanctuary. Come. The cottage is this way. Let’s pick up the pace.”

  He hurries up a pea-pebble pathway that leads to a top of a hill, and then we go down, towards the back wall of the grounds. I look around as I try to keep up, because he’s practically running again. Huffing and puffing his breaths. Very, very focused on his mission to show me the cottage.

  This means I can’t really study the sanctuary. But I can tell this place is not like any cemetery I’ve ever seen before. All the graves are huge. They are all like little houses. Like… tombs.

  Right. Like tombs, you idiot.

  Soon enough, we reach a small building. It’s not exactly the cottage I pictured up in the cathedral. There is no thatched roof, no shutters, and no window boxes with bright-red geraniums poking up. But it’s quaint. A small brick building—maybe a carriage house back in the day—that has four very tall, very skinny windows facing the front, two on each side of the entrance.

  “Here we are.” My guide stops and nods his head at the door as he once again fidgets with the silver ring on his pinky finger.

  The door is obviously made of the same old, heavy wood the front doors were. And there is that poem again. A horn, a hoof, an eye, a bone. A man, a girl, a place of stone. A tick of time, a last mistake, keep them safe behind the gate.

  “Why don’t you go inside? Take a look around while I take care of something just on the other side of the wall before it gets too dark.”

  I look at the door. Then back at him. Then all the way back to the main building, which feels very far away at the moment.

  This guy is up to something. I’m not sure what, but he’s gotten me out here, with no one around. No one even knows I’m here except Pia, and… Oh, wait. That hot guy who greeted me out front. “Hey, where’s that guy I saw out front? Is he the current caretaker?”

  “Uh… guy?”

  “The shirtless hot guy on the second-floor balcony?”

  “Oh. That’s Tomas.”

  “Tomas.” I whisper his name before I can stop myself. “Nice name.”

  “Yeah. Uh, no. He’s not the caretaker. I’m the current caretaker.”

  “So he’s not leaving?”

  “Oh, no.” Caretaker guy laughs. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  I nod, smile—try not to smile too big, actually—then say, “OK. I’ll take a look around.”

  He lets out a breath, then smiles, turns on his heel, and walk-runs his way around a towering green hedge.

  Yeah. He’s weird. But he’s leaving. So who cares, right?

  Plus, now that he’s gone, I feel better. About everything.

  Life is gonna get better.

  I can just feel it.

  CHAPTER TWO - PIE

  When I turn back to the door, I feel drawn to it. Like a moth to a flame.

  And like the doors out front, the design is intricate. Vines engraved into the antique brass wind their way around the knob and down the plate. This motif even continues onto the aged, dark wood of the door.

  When I open the door, I step into a dark room that smells faintly of cinnamon.

  “Hmm. Lights. Where would the lights be?”

  I feel along the wall, find a switch, and two dim sconces flicker on, filling the small space with a warm, amber glow. But it’s literally a flicker.

  Gas lamps inside? That’s weird, right? I mean, I can see the whole ambiance thing for outdoor lighting. But in your house? Isn’t that a fire hazard?

  I’d like to consider this more, but then I actually see the room. “Wow.” I pause in the tiny foyer and let my eyes wander across the space and then I say it again. “Wow.” Only this time it comes out as a whisper.

  Because this room is everything I imagined. Like almost in every detail. Two overstuffed loveseats with a quaint French-country floral pattern face each other. An oval, wooden coffee table stands between them with a full tea service set up on a vintage silver tray. Beyond the seating area is a small dining nook with a distressed white table and chair set, and just off to the side is a galley kitchen with a vintage stove and farm sink in white enamel.

  I turn and look at the tall, skinny windows lining the front and actually gasp when I see real distressed wooden shutters—mounted on the inside—that will close off the outside world.

  Pia pokes her head up from my pocket. “This is weird.”

  “Weird? There’s nothing weird about this. It’s adorable. It’s everything. I freaking love it.”

  “That’s my point.” She squirms her way out of my pocket, then flies off and lands on the kitchen counter. “If this is the caretaker’s cottage, and the current caretaker is a man your age, then why does it look like this?”

  I shrug. “He’s got good taste?”

  Pia’s response is the bird equivalent of a snort. Then she morphs into a moth, but just as quickly, she flickers back into a sparrow. She doesn’t flicker much anymore, but when I was young, she spent more time as a moth than she did as a sparrow. Usually when I was up to no good and she was trying to make herself as small as possible so as not to be noticed. Which is dumb. No one can see her. But whatever. The point is, this flickering feels judge-y.

  Everything about this room is perfect so I decide to ignore Pia and just enjoy my moment. The kitchen cupboards are all painted white and have glass fronts, so I have a clear view of the most adorable painted dishes I’ve ever seen. There are decorative tiles on the wall behind the stove. Whimsical Pennsylvania Dutch designs in bright colors. And the rug and hand towels even match. It’s all very comfy. And so far, the life I’ve been living hasn’t had much comfy in it. Who in their right mind says no to comfy?

  I walk over to the spiral staircase, place one hand on the wrought iron, and climb, trying to get a peek at what’s above me. But it’s dark up here, and I have to slide my hand along the plaster walls for almost a minute before I find the switch.

  Again, the light is a warm glowing amber coming from two small sconces on either side of the bed. And the bed…

  “Holy shit, Pia. You gotta come up and see this bed!” It’s not overly large, maybe a double. But it has weight. It has presence. There is a canopy with lavender velvet curtains pulled back, making the bed look almost like a tent. The bedding is white. And when I drag my fingertips over the duvet, it’s soft, well-worn cotton. The pillow cases are detailed in white eyelet lace and have a delicate lavender flower pattern on them.

  Pia flies up and lands on my shoulder.

  “It is perfect,” Pia admits. “For you, anyway. But don’t you think it’s a little too perfect? That other caretaker
is obviously not living in this den of feminine frills. So why is it here? And why isn’t it covered in dust if he’s the only caretaker?”

  They are good questions. I will admit that. But I don’t have an answer. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking this place is not what it seems.”

  I’m just about to open my mouth and ask what she means by that when we hear someone cussing outside. “What the hell?”

  Pia flies over to the window and slips through the closed curtains. “You better come look at this.”

  I cross the room, throw the curtain aside, and stare down at a small walkway paved with red brick. The caretaker is down below, carrying a wooden crate that seems to be filled with clothes and books. “He never did tell me his name,” I whisper absently, watching him balance the crate on his hip as he messes with that ring on his finger. He throws the ring down and it rolls along the bricks, the silver catching a glint of light as it stops near the edge of the path.

  He laughs. No. That was a cackle. Then reaches for the door of the wooden gate and slips through, disappearing from view.

  “Over here.” Pia flies over to another window on the other wall.

  I pull the curtains aside and look down. “What…? Who is that?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Him who?” The man down below is old. Like hunchback old. He’s wearing a tattered-brown coat that drags on the damp gravel of a parking lot.

  “The caretaker,” Pia says.

  I snort. “That’s not the caretaker. He’s my age and this man is… ancient.”

  “He was your age. And then he passed through that gate and turned into this old man.”

  I scoff and crane my head to the side, trying to see around the corner where the young man must surely be.

  “It’s him,” Pia insists. “I watched him turn into that old geezer right before my eyes.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” My attention is back on the old man. He’s shoving his crate of clothes and books into the front seat of an old yellow-green El Camino.

  He looks up at the window and laughs, then slips inside to the driver’s seat, starts the engine, backs out of the parking lot with a spray of stones, and takes off down a dirt lane that winds around a lake.