by Cara Wylde
“Where did you come from?” I caught it in midair and looked at it more closely. It could have been a goose feather, I guessed. “Weird.” I tucked it in the pocket of my uniform blazer and walked toward the fake shelf.
I pushed it open all the way, so the light from the room would fall over the dark stone steps and reveal where they led. It didn’t help much. The light only illuminated a few steps down, and from what I could see, it was a spiral staircase, which meant that it was similar to the one the students used to get up and down the tower. I wasn’t great at spatial orientation, but this staircase seemed to be opposite the main one. I wondered if it went farther down than the one we’d all been using. Why would it be hidden, otherwise? My heart started beating faster. This was exciting. If it had been anyone else but Francis, I wouldn’t have followed him here. But Francis was harmless. So harmless that sometimes I thought he should have been in the Neutral Death Cabal.
“Okay, here we go.” I took out my phone and tapped the flashlight. Careful not to slam the shelf closed behind me, I climbed down the first few steps. There wasn’t much I could hold onto, so I followed the closest wall with my hand, noticing how the stone got damper and damper the more I descended.
Soon, the space opened up a bit, and I realized I couldn’t hold onto the wall for support anymore. I squeezed my hand at my side, holding my phone up with the other one. The stone steps seemed to go on forever. I was, practically, descending down the tower, so I knew it would take a while. When I felt like I should have reached the landing on the ground floor, but instead, I was still descending, adrenaline rushed through my veins. Okay, so this wasn’t exactly an alternate exit.
The tiny light coming from my phone didn’t help me much. It was just enough for me to not miss a step or slip on the wet stone. Damp as hell down here! Not that Hell would be literally damp. If I looked up, I couldn’t see the ceiling. It was as if I was in the middle of a tubular cavern that became slightly larger with every step I took. At some point, I thought I could see the end of it. Down at my feet, there was light pouring over from somewhere. The light revealed water. If I continued down the stairs, I would end up ankle-deep in warm water the color of rust. I could tell it was warm because I could feel the humidity rising from its surface.
Maybe I should go back. This doesn’t look like a good idea anymore. Of course, I wasn’t going to go back. What did they say killed the cat? Curiosity. Well, I was one curious cat right now, so all I could realistically do was pray it wouldn’t land me in a shit-ton of trouble. I walked down the last few steps, and my boots sank into the warm, rusty water. From that position, I could finally see that the spiral staircase had taken me to a sort of tunnel with a low ceiling. It was only a few feet long, though, so I hunched down and walked through it, only to find myself in the middle of a wide cavern.
“Wow!” My voice echoed down dark tunnels not yet discovered.
Stalactites hung down from the tall ceiling, uniting here and there with thick, sharp stalagmites. The whole cave was illuminated by candles spread all over the floor and tucked in every available crevice. It might have been a secret cave, but for sure, it wasn’t abandoned. Someone came here every day to tend to the candles. Francis? But why would he? I turned off my flashlight and walked toward the center of the cave, looking up, down, and around, trying to take in as much as I could. The air was impossibly humid, and I could feel the pressure on my chest. I finally stepped out of the low water and onto a sort of platform that was still wet, but at least not completely flooded. In the middle of the platform, there seemed to be a well. It was low and made of white stone, it barely reached my hip, and the same rusty water dripped down through its chipped cracks and crannies.
“Hello?” I was hoping Francis would answer me. He had to be down here. The void between the walls took my voice and carried it deep through the underground. Because it was clear to me now that this whole thing was under the Academy. The void inside the well did the same, and the echoes my voice gave life to drew my attention to the odd structure. I’d thought it was filled with water, but it didn’t seem to be. My simple “hello” turned into “hello-hello-hello-hello”. Ad infinitum.
I placed my hands on the damp edge and leaned over to look inside. Impenetrable darkness. I squinted my eyes to see better, but to no avail. If there was water down there, then it was at such depth that I couldn’t possibly see it with the naked eye. I reached for my phone, hoping that my tiny flashlight would help reveal the mysteries of the fountain, but that was when I heard a faint noise coming from behind me. I turned around, one hand still on the stone edge, and tried to see behind the stalagmites.
“Francis?”
There was another tunnel opposite the one I’d come through, and there seemed to be someone down there. I thought I heard footsteps. I pushed myself away from the well, and just when I was about to take a step toward the sound, something grabbed my arm and pulled me back. I screamed and tried to catch my balance, snapping around to see what had grabbed me.
“Oh my God! What the fuck?!”
A tentacle. A black, slimy tentacle had wrapped itself around my left arm and was pulling me with such force that I suddenly thought this couldn’t be real, and it was just one of my nightmares. A second tentacle sprung out of the well and grabbed my other arm, then a third one wrapped itself around my waist. I was trapped. I was doomed. It was over. The thing was dragging me toward the well, up on the edge, and before I knew it, I was being pulled into its damp, infinite darkness. I screamed and screamed, but soon my voice died a painful, humid death. I couldn’t breathe. The air was heavy, suffocating, and it stank. I didn’t know of what exactly, but it certainly was something that had been alive once, and now was dead and rotting.
I thought I was done for. All I could hope was that a Grim Reaper would hurry up and make his appearance before my body hit the putrefied slush at the bottom of the well. I didn’t want to see the face of the monster the tentacles belonged to. I clenched my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, struggling to breathe.
“No! Not her!” I heard someone yell from above.
And then… instead of being pulled down down down, I was being pushed up up up. As if the tentacled beast had changed its mind.
I found myself being thrown over the edge of the well, onto the warm, wet stone floor. I could finally breathe, and I did just that, my hands coming to cradle my chest, my eyes still shut tightly. I didn’t want to open them. Not ever again. Two trembling hands touched my face, pushing my blue hair out of my eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Francis. I opened my eyes.
“What the hell was that?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He sat on the stone platform, but I refused to sit next to him. I refused to spend a minute longer in this cave, between stalagmites and half-melted candles, near the well that was clearly the home of some monstrous tentacled being.
“How did you even get down here?” he asked.
I was pacing frantically, my arms wrapped around me. I wasn’t going to take my eyes off the well, if that was the last thing I did.
“I followed you! I saw you upstairs! What the hell, Francis? Don’t you remember?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Mila, that wasn’t me. I’ve been down here since lunch.”
I furrowed my brows. “I saw you, dammit! I saw you! Just… I don’t know… half an hour ago. I followed you to this room, you unlocked the door, went inside, and left the door open.”
“Mila, I didn’t. You have to believe me. It wasn’t me.”
“Who was it, then? Because the guy looked just like you. Your height, your hair, your…” I hesitated. “Your eyes. Except… no, your eyes were yellow. Francis, why do you have yellow eyes sometimes?”
I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. It made no sense. I was making no sense but seeing how I’d just escaped the clutches of a tentacled monster, I was allowed to act a little crazy.
“I want t
o get out of here,” I said. “I need to get out. I can’t breathe. What is this place anyway?! What is that… thing?! And how did you…” I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t go away. “How did you convince it to let go of me?”
He stood up and grabbed my arm gently.
“Let’s get some air.”
But instead of taking me back to the tunnel that led to the spiral staircase, he pushed me toward the one he’d come out of right before the monster had taken a hold of me.
“N-no. Not that way. That’s not the right way.”
“Don’t worry, Mila. You’re safe now. I would never do anything to hurt you. This is another way out of the cave. A shorter one. It leads to the beach.”
The promise of the beach with its fresh air and soothing breeze calmed me down. Did I trust him, though? He’d just saved me. But from what exactly? And what did he have to do with my attacker in the first place? This whole thing was shady as fuck.
“You have to start answering my questions,” I said as we emerged out of the dark tunnel and into the chilly evening air. “Like… now. I’m serious, Francis.”
“Okay, I will. I’ll answer all your questions. One by one. Sit down, now. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
“Who wouldn’t?!” My voice came out as a squeal. I took a couple of deep breaths. In and out. In and out. I found a rock that seemed comfortable enough to sit on and lowered myself onto it slowly, not trusting my legs. “Okay, first question. What the fuck was that?!”
He sat next to me, on the sand, and looked far in the distance, at the ocean. He was silent for a minute.
“You want to start with the most difficult one. Fair enough.”
“Francis, for real, now. I don’t want to ask you again.”
“Okay.” He threw me a quick glance, then resumed staring at the ocean. It was as if he couldn’t hold my gaze. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about him.”
“Him?”
“Yes. He’s old. So old. Ancient. He’s one of the… Great Old Ones, actually.”
“You’re saying words… You think they make sense, they don’t.”
“My great-grandfather discovered him. The infamous Comte de Saint-Germain. He was born in Europe, and since he was young, he was interested in magic and alchemy. In the mystery of life, and the inevitability of death. He studied with the most prestigious professors and philosophers, and when he came of age, he refused to get married and start a family, and instead made a promise to himself that he would travel the world and never stop until he found the secret to immortality. Or one of the secrets, at the very least.”
“There are more?”
“Look around you. Most of the students at Grim Reaper Academy are almost immortal, and some are actually immortal.”
“Are you?”
“If you want answers to your questions, maybe you should let me finish this story.”
“Okay, sorry. Your great-grandfather traveled the world in search of immortality.”
“Yes. And he came to America. The new-found land. He was among the first explorers to set foot on the new continent. Here, he immersed himself in the culture and traditions of the native tribes. When the two colonizing powers, Spain and Portugal, wanted these people’s lands and riches, he wanted to understand them. He wanted to live among them, because he knew they had knowledge that went way beyond this realm and this dimension. He learned their language, ate their food, smoked their herbs, and served in their temples. One day, the great priests finally rewarded him for his devotion. They took him deep down, right on this very spot, and showed him this well. Back then, a temple rose here, on the cliff, where the Academy stands. And that temple was dedicated to Yig, the Great Old One, the Great Forgotten One. A god like the world has never seen before. A god that the people of this dimension cannot even comprehend with their small minds. A god unlike the one we all know of and call God, and equally unlike his counterpart, Satan.”
“A false god?”
“No. A god in his own right. A being so powerful that he had to be hidden in the depths and put to sleep, so as to not swallow this world whole. My father says there must be more Great Old Ones in the world, hidden away, sleeping, dreaming, but I wouldn’t know. To tell you the truth, I hope there aren’t.”
I shuddered. I didn’t know what I’d expected when I’d asked him about the tentacled monster, but I certainly hadn’t expected this.
“So, your great-grandfather was let in on the existence of Yig beneath the temple. What then?”
Francis shrugged. “He started serving the Great Old One. Yig gave him what his heart most desired, immortality, and my great-grandfather paid him back in what he asked.”
“And what did it ask?”
“Human sacrifices. Well, not specifically human. He accepted supernaturals just as well.”
“Oh my God!” I jumped to my feet. I threw a quick glance at the entrance to the cave, then up at the abrupt slope. I wondered how far we were from the Academy gates.
“Please sit down, Mila. You’re in no danger. I promise.”
“I don’t know if I trust you.”
“Fair enough. Still, I saved you, didn’t I?”
I considered that for a second. “Was I going to be a sacrifice?”
“Not an intentional one. You should have never come down here. You should have never found the secret passage.”
“But I did. You showed it to me. You made me follow you. You left the door open on purpose.”
He turned to me, his green eyes boring into mine. “That wasn’t me.”
“See? That just sounds like a big fat lie. Because I know what I saw!”
“An illusion.”
“For fuck’s sake!” I’d been keeping my hands in the pockets of my uniform blazer to keep them warm, and now I pulled them out harshly, in frustration. The feather I’d stuffed in there flew out and floated toward the ocean.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know. A feather. I found it in the room, right after you went down the secret stairs.”
Francis jumped to his feet and ran to catch it. He studied it for a moment, then looked back at me, lips pursed and brows furrowed.
“It’s an angel feather.”
“Really? I thought it was a goose feather. Anyway, what does it matter?”
“It matters. Because I think I know who it belongs to.”
A feeling of dread started in my solar plexus and spread simultaneously to my heart and stomach.
“Sariel?”
“Do you know what angels and archangels can do? Besides flying, that is.”
I shrugged. I’d barely managed to learn a thing or two about demons. I hadn’t had time to study the heavenly beings, also.
“They can create illusions. Mirages. Images that look, sound, and feel so real that to an untrained eye, become real the moment they come into contact with them. You didn’t see me upstairs, Mila, because I wasn’t there. I didn’t lead you here. An illusion created by Sariel did.”
“Fucking fuck. That bastard. He really wants me dead. He does.”
Francis nodded.
“And he knows about your… erm… Great Old One?”
“Yes. We’ve been best friends for such a long time. I never thought he’d do something like this.”
“Do Paz and GC know?”
“No. Only Sariel. He and I grew up together.”
“Of course you did,” I muttered. I resumed pacing the beach, running my hands through my tangled hair and pulling harshly at the knots. I needed to feel something, anything, that could convince me I was still alive, that could reassure me that I wasn’t at the bottom of the well, covered in tentacles, poisoned and dreaming.
“I’m sorry, Mila. I truly am. You weren’t supposed to see this. Ever. You weren’t supposed to know.”
“Know that you’re bringing sacrifices to some tentacled monster right under the Academy? For what? To preserve
your immortality? Is that it?” I’d just snapped at him, and given the circumstances, maybe it wasn’t the best idea. He was the crazy cultist, after all, and he seemed powerful and in control enough to turn me into a victim if he so desired. “Oh my God! The girl I saw you with… The tall, blond one. When you came back from vacation earlier than everyone else! Was she? Is she?” I gulped. “Where is she?”
He bit his lower lip, closed his eyes, and bowed his head. I didn’t need him to say the words. I already knew.
“Fuck. Francis, fuck! What the fuck?”
“I’m sorry you had to… see me like this.”
“See you?”
“See the real me. I never meant for this to happen. We don’t get to choose the family we’re born into. You know that. You should know better than anyone.”
“What do you mean?”
He was taken aback for a second. “All these rumors about the prophecy, and you don’t know? Lorna’s little trick at the Yule Ball? And you haven’t put two and two together?”
I shook my head and took a couple of steps back. I was getting ready to sprint up the slope and never look back.
“What Lorna showed everyone… it’s not real. I know who my parents are. She was just trying to… I don’t know. Make me look bad. Convince everyone my mom was a tramp. As if they’re not all calling me bitch, and slut, and whore already.”
“Why do you think Headmaster Colin stopped her?”
“To protect me?”
“No. Because the woman was holding her baby and showing it to someone. And that someone was about to be revealed. He didn’t want you to see his face. He didn’t want more people to know. There are already enough parents and students involved, and if Headmaster Colin isn’t careful, word will eventually get out and all will be ruined.”
“You’re saying words again, and I just don’t…” I sighed. “Speak clearly, okay? Enough with the mystery!”
“Valentine Morningstar is your father, Mila. And the prophecy says a human Reaper will finally retire him. Who else, if not you?”