“Right.” Mercy said, her tone flatter. “So you think I’m a stereotype—”
“I didn’t—”
“—and bossy?” There was silence between them for a moment before she continued: “Edie, I love you, but I … I don’t know what to say. I have never thought you were inferior to me.”
“No! I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s fine.”
It didn’t sound fine to Edie.
“Now isn’t the time, anyway.” Mercy looked away. “I’m gonna try and find Fisk and make sure he doesn’t undress himself.”
She was already out of Edie’s reach by the time she finished her sentence, and Edie didn’t dare call out to her and risk drawing attention to them. Now she was stuck without her best friend, and with a baked apple she really didn’t care to eat.
Cal came closer, the hem of his jacket hitched up and hands in his pockets. “Women,” he mumbled.
“You know I’m a woman, right?”
“You’re a girl. It’s different.” He was trying to act cool as a cucumber, but Edie noticed how his eyes darted around the ballroom and how he bounced his leg.
She raised a brow. “I’m twenty-three.” When he didn’t reply, she offered him the baked apple. “Hungry?”
“Ugh. Get that out of my face.”
She sighed. “Hm. You look too nervous to eat anyway.”
Cal snorted indignantly. “I am not fucking nervous. What the hell would I have to be nervous about?”
Before Edie could respond, someone cut in to their conversion: “Cal?”
Edie didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. It was a bright, rich voice, with an Eastern European accent; it was the voice of someone who couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. And when Edie turned, she couldn’t either.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Matilda was a petite woman, just over five feet tall, with black eyes and delicate features. Her bone-white hair, the same color as her skin, was done up in two thick buns and adorned with a silver hair chain and teardrop pearls. The champagne-colored dress she wore was long and flowing, with the hint of a tasteful slit up the front, just wide enough to catch brief glimpses of her legs as she walked. The bodice of the dress had a deep V cut and appeared to be made of diamond-encrusted leaves of silver thread, creeping down her hips and onto the skirt like a living thing.
Edie hadn’t really known what to say when Cal had mentioned his ex-girlfriend, but considering the kind of guy he was, she’d envisioned someone ... different. This swan-necked beauty was a far cry from the dishwater-blond cowgirl she’d been expecting.
“Cal? Is that you?”
He was stiff, and turned as if in slow motion to face her. Edie watched him take a deep breath. “Hey, Tilly.”
Matilda glanced at Edie for a moment, but her gaze—the dead gaze of a human-wight—was pulled back to Cal’s face quickly. They both sucked in a breath and held it at the same time. “I had ... heard that you had come back from Vegas, but I didn’t dare believe it,” she said quietly, unable to conceal her wide-eyed astonishment.
The honesty and hurt in her face made Edie feel like an intruder, like she was watching something she shouldn’t. Quickly, she turned away and focused on the banquet instead, though she still listened.
“Yeah,” Cal said. “I had some business to take care of.”
“I hope everything went to plan?”
“I did what I had to do.”
“Ah.” There was a pause. “So you’ll be leaving again…?”
An even longer pause. “I dunno. I might stick around. Weird shit’s been happening.”
Somehow, Edie could feel Matilda’s gaze turn to her, and a shiver went up her spine. Matilda’s words only made the room chillier: “Who is this?”
Well, fuck. In an act of quick thinking that she immediately regretted, Edie took a huge bite of baked apple before she turned to rejoin the conversation.
Cal looked at Matilda, bewildered for a fraction of a second, before he said, “Oh,” and turned. “That’s Edie.”
“Mmph.”
“It is ... a pleasure to meet you, Edie.”
Cal tugged at his bowtie and looked around the ballroom like he might see an emergency exit or somewhere he could just walk into the void, never to return. “Uh, it was nice seein’ you, Tilda. I’ll probably see you around,” he said hurriedly. “I gotta....”
His sentence devolved into unintelligible grumblings, and Matilda bowed her head briefly as he left at a near-trot.
“Mmph!” With bug-eyes, Edie watched him go. What the hell was he doing?! They had agreed they shouldn’t split up, since something seemed to go wrong every time they did. And not only had he left her alone, but he’d left her alone with a stranger.
A stranger who happened to be a blood-sucking wight, and was now gliding across the marble floor toward her.
Her rose-painted nails were sharp like claws, Edie noticed, as she held her hand out and motioned for the apple. Edie handed it to her, and Matilda stared her down, murmuring, “Chew your food, girl.”
Oh, god, what did he get me into? But she did as she was told, then swallowed hard.
“Good. We should talk.”
As Marius ascended the staircase toward the ballroom, the phantom palm of his right hand itched.
When things became too much, it tended to do that; the anxiety of being surrounded by the Gloaming and their allies was getting to him. And the task looming ahead of him—to try and find Edie Holloway among the hundreds of partygoers, and to abduct her without drawing attention to himself—seemed all the more impossible now that he was toe-to-toe with it.
At his side, Ynga seemed just as nervous. Her face was stern, her thick fingers knotted in the fabric of her flared-leg white jumpsuit. Tonight would be her chance to prove herself, to try to secure a place as one of the few vivids in the city. His own proving had been tough enough; between Ynga’s past with the Gloaming, the importance of securing Holloway, and having to prove herself, he almost couldn’t imagine the pressure.
Almost.
Marius shook his right arm a bit, careful to keep it concealed. Losing control was not an option. For both of their sakes, he had to keep a tight grip on his emotions. No matter what horrors he saw.
Just hold fast and don’t draw attention to yourself, the vivid thought, flexing his jaw and closing his eyes briefly as he passed through the enormous gilt doors.
Lively chatter and warmth enveloped him at once. The room was alive with movement as the creatures there milled; the crowd twisted and writhed like a dark beast cooling itself in the mud at midday. Everything seemed golden and joyous, and to an outsider, it might have looked inviting. But it couldn’t fool Marius, and it certainly wasn’t fooling Ynga, tense as a wire next to him. The decadence on display here alone was enough to make him uncomfortable; the fact that it was Gloaming, that it had all happily been bought with blood and slavery and unholy pacts, made him feel ill.
“Where do we start?” Ynga asked under her breath, taking a flute of honey-colored liquid from a servant’s passing tray.
Marius scanned the room further. This place was so deceptively bright, every horrible thing fully on display. It was hard to look at just one thing for too long. Here, the Gloaming didn’t need to hide their shame. They celebrated it.
When he didn’t answer, Ynga drifted closer to him and mumbled, “What does she look like?”
He took a breath, trying to imagine what Edie might wear to an event like this. “Five-foot-five, roughly. Pale white skin, raven hair, stormy eyes. Dark makeup. Probably wearing black.” Black was definitely a given. She favored the color, he’d noticed, and she probably wouldn’t want to stand out.
“You’ve just described a third of the humans here.”
“An expression of horror and confusion might clue you in. She’s not skilled at hiding her emotions.”
Ynga raised a brow, looking him over, but said no more. They eased their way deeper into the part
y, weaving past clustered groups of guests and dodging all manner of creatures walking the ballroom floor.
They were nearing the center of the room when something caught Marius’s eye. A few feet to his left was a large semicircle of guests, clearly watching something, but packed too tightly for Marius to see what it was. He stopped in his tracks, letting Ynga go on, deeper, while he lingered around the crowd and, finally, managed to squeeze into the semicircle himself.
Lying on the floor in front of those gathered, was a human: a young woman dressed in a simple, long-sleeved cotton shift and a worn belt. Probably a servant or thrall. Her dark hair fanned out on the shining tile below her; her skin was unnaturally pale. She was completely still.
Marius’s stomach turned.
Laughter cut through his reverie, and he raised his eyes to the people standing above the human, watching her with either gleeful smiles or a keen, clinical interest. At the forefront was a man with graying brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses, wearing robes of a fine, soft-looking leather. Marius could make out red runes etched into the skin of his throat, not quite covered by the collar of his robes. And the stench coming off of him….
The man thrust an arm out, leaning in, fingers splayed over the girl.
Just as Marius realized what he must be, the prone woman twitched. The gathered partygoers watched in awe—and horror, on Marius’s part—as her back arched, bowing dramatically. Her legs shuddered and shook as they crept under her and somehow found footing, and without even using the floor to push herself up, she rose. Her torso jerked in the cradle of her hips as she did, as though her muscles couldn’t quite accommodate the weight of her head and shoulders.
The leather-clad man smiled smugly and relaxed, lowering his arm.
Blood mage.
Beside him, unable to control its glee, stood a tréfolken—a formidable humanoid figure made completely of winding roots and branches, its body spindly and delicate-looking, almost skeletal. Its wooden, faunlike face was framed with wildflowers, and its scalp extended into a wide stag’s rack covered in moss and small mushrooms. This tréfolken was etched in red runes like the mage, and its eyes and hollow chest glowed with an unnatural pinkish light. Someone was using its antlers to hold their drink; a wine glass was perched between two prongs.
The creature brayed and pointed at the human girl, the eerie light within its ribs expanding with every word. “Now make it dance! Make it dance!”
The blood mage obliged, barely lifting his hand this time. He simply twitched his fingers, his eyes, and his thrall followed unspoken commands. Marius watched in disgust as the human girl’s arms jerked above her head and her hips began to shudder from side to side, like some sort of terrifying, death-pale exotic dancer.
The gathered partygoers tittered at the display—especially the tréfolken, who was laughing like this was the funniest thing it had ever seen. “Brilliant, Master!”
The blood mage, still controlling the human, cut the creature an irritated look and took the wine glass from its rack, taking a deep drink. “Someday, Dense-Elm, you’re going to die laughing like an idiot.”
Dense-Elm fell silent for a moment, its glow dulling to a blackened maroon. But the blood thrall leaned forward and began to throw her head in circles, arms spasming and feet shuddering right to left like some demented version of the Twist, and the tree-man’s laughter soon resumed.
Marius tightened his fist, trying not to shake, trying not to draw attention to himself. He couldn’t possibly sit by and let this happen. The smell, the sight…. It was an abomination.
And yet, if the crowd got even the slightest inkling he wasn’t one of them, he would be dead in an instant, and Edie Holloway would walk free.
A woman in voluminous velvet robes and a male elf with a cascade of silky red hair sidled up to the blood mage. Coyly, the woman said, “Can you make her do anything besides dance?”
“Something more … useful?” The elf next to her carried a handful of red berries, and he popped one in his mouth as he looked the blood thrall over imperiously. Marius was unable to suppress a shudder, thinking of what the elf might mean by that, but no one seemed to notice.
The blood mage hung his wine glass in Dense-Elm’s rack again and chuckled, though his eyes shone with an edge when he glanced at the berry-eater. Some humans could not help but feel inferior around elves, and Marius was sure a man so confident in his power didn’t like it being challenged. “Of course,” the mage said mildly.
With a snap, the thrall stood at attention. Marius was filled with dread. What in Asgard’s name could the mage force her to do, here, in the light, with so many people watching?
The berry-eater—as well as everyone else—watched intently as the thrall jerked closer. Her color-drained hand disappeared within her master’s robes, and Marius’s mind reeled. He was ashamed at the relief that washed over him when she quickly drew her hand back out—but the relief was short-lived: she was gripping a bejeweled dagger.
“As you can see,” the blood mage purred, “she’ll do anything I want. Or, at least, her blood will.”
Marius’s gaze darted to the thrall’s face. She was conscious once more, and she looked utterly terrified. Her circulatory system might have been obeying, but he had no doubt her mind was doing all it could to fight the mage’s influence.
Her eyes met his as her hand jerked up, bringing the glinting blade of the knife to her throat, pressing dangerously into the skin.
This … this was blood magic. This was the reality of the Gloaming, and of everyone who meddled in the ebon magics: power-hungry beasts and evil people vying for power and hurting others. This was what he had been raised all his life to fight against, to stop at all costs. This was the grim history of the helleruna.
And if he didn’t stop her in time, before she came into her powers properly, this was what Edie Holloway would become.
He tried to keep her and all that was at stake in his mind as he watched the blood thrall jerk, about to draw the blade across her throat. This woman might die, but if he outed himself, he’d bring wrath upon everything he held dear. He knew the answer to the terrible choice he had to make in this split second. He knew what he must do.
But it was a little different when you were staring right at it.
He took half a step forward and began to raise his arm. But before he could make a move to save the thrall—
Bong! The enormous, ornate clock on the north wall chimed.
The blood mage’s concentration broke as he and his companions turned their attention to the mezzanine landing, and the thrall toppled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The dagger fell from her hand and clattered across the floor.
Relief flooded Marius, but it was soon replaced with apprehension. He held his breath, hoping no one had seen him falter, and followed their gazes to the figure looming above them.
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. You are like a ghost of your father. I feel like such a fool.”
Matilda held her champagne glass closer to her chest, head bowed. She and Edie had retreated to one of the darker corners of the ballroom and cozied up to a huge grandfather clock, where the vampire had thankfully listened to what Edie had to say before doing anything drastic.
“I get that a lot.” Edie looked into her own champagne glass, wondering if things would be easier if she was buzzed. It probably wasn’t a good idea to test that out at such a crucial moment. She wondered if the others had found Indriði yet. Hopefully, they could leave soon.
“Still.” Matilda sighed and pinched the bridge of her delicate nose. “How silly to think that you two were ... together. And how ridiculous and selfish of me to react that way, even if you had been.”
Edie smiled at the smaller woman. “It’s not selfish.”
“Thank you for saying so,” she replied, looking deflated.
“I had no idea Cal had had a girlfriend. Especially someone ... like you. He makes it sound like my dad had him on a leash twe
nty-four seven.”
Matilda peered at her warily. “Whatever Cal has told you about your father was not a lie. He would never lie. But no, there were times when they were separated. Cal has a gift for working on old cars, and for the past 80 years, always I am looking for someone to take care of my roadster.”
“So you paid my dad for Cal’s time,” Edie said, smiling a little even though the thought of Cal working without compensation made her feel ill. Although ... if they’d grown close enough to be in a relationship, maybe he’d gotten a little more “compensation” than she thought.
The vampire grinned back, flashing viciously curved fangs. “Yes. And, mysteriously, my roadster began to have many problems that only Cal could fix! Thankfully, I have a large disposable income.”
“That must have been a ... relief, for him.”
“He appreciated the time off. Though he didn’t like the idea of me paying to spend time with him.” She shrugged sadly. “I tried to help him any way I could.”
Short of killing my dad, Edie thought. “How long did you date?”
She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know. A few, maybe five years.”
“Five years,” Edie repeated in awe. No relationship she’d ever had (not that she’d had many) had lasted that long. She didn’t think even her parents had known each other for that long before getting married.
“Yes.” Matilda looked away. “And then ... your father died.”
Edie frowned. It sounded like the story was about to take a sour turn.
“I thought that, with him gone, we could finally be happy, but Cal became ... restless. He said he had to go. Just go. Put distance between himself and this place, I suppose.” The vampire shrugged, lips pursed tightly. “So, he went.”
“But why not take you along?”
Matilda’s shoulders hunched, and she looked down into her champagne.
Edie could feel that she was treading into personal territory—maybe a little too personal for their first meeting. “Sorry. Don’t answer that.”
“It’s all right. He didn’t want me to come with him. And I didn’t want to leave. My whole life is here, has been for a hundred years. We parted ways. It was what was best for him, surely ... and it’s been ten years, after all.”
Rune Awakening Page 26
