Elizabeth screamed, agonizing and drawn-out, and amidst the wretched sound were pops and crackles, noises that would usually remind him of fresh logs on a campfire. Her screams made his own pain intensify, made the flames on his body turn a mysterious blue. Elizabeth, he called out. But she didn’t hear, for her flesh began to bubble and melt away, dripping from her skull. Soon, her screams stopped all together until a charred figure lay lifeless in the arms of the hemlock. Somehow, every strand of her silken hair had been untouched, if only to remind him the blackened, fried body was hers.
The screams inside him were so earsplitting his skull cracked under the pressure, fracture upon fracture. And as though they went hand in hand, the pain in his heart and the burning of his flesh only scorched hotter. He would kill the witch when this was all over, when his spirit was freed from this inferno of a prison.
Water shot from his eyes in a pressurized stream, like a leak in a hose. Tears? They sprayed everything, even Diableron, and through his cries the fire extinguished, the forest turning green again. Even Elizabeth’s skin became supple and alive.
He jerked at the face in his black, foggy consciousness: Arne, frantic and sleep-deprived and telling him everything was all right. Was it? She’s all right, he said through the ocean in Henry’s ears.
His chandelier, his ceiling, his windows draped in the golden silk he hated. Elizabeth’s face, her hand, her faint and distant promises that he would be all right, that she would never leave him. Had she saved him from the fire, or had he saved her? I thought maybe we could save each other, she had once said, though every memory seemed lumped into one and he couldn’t recall when.
All the pain, all the anguish, extinguished by the touch of her hand and her eyes as green as his forest. At last, waves of weightlessness flowed through him, his limbs floating on a choppy, rhythmic sea of slumber. He let it take him, the sea—let it sink him, pull him under. It was then Aglaé haunted his dreams. Red flowing waves, lavender eyes: she was enchanting and alluring, and he followed her.
***
Elizabeth hardly remembered laying her head on the down pillow, because she was out before she could close her eyes, exhaustion pulling her under like the drowsy current of a narcotic. Now, just after sunrise, she awoke with low sunlight behind her eyelids. It didn’t take long to remember where she was, with high windows and golden drapes, and she twisted to her other side, her heart worrying a hundred frantic worries all at once.
But beside her lay a sleeping Henry, in his real form. She sighed a relaxing sigh, sitting up. He lay in the same position, on his right side. The sight of him in morning light took the breath from her chest, and he was even more beautiful than the beast had been under the light of the chandelier. His dark hair fell low on his forehead and his face looked more peaceful than she’d ever seen, and before she could get too swept away in watching him, she lowered the blanket ever so slightly, checking the incision on his side, just over his hip.
Regardless of what she knew about him, she was surprised at how advanced the healing was. It was a healthy, pink scarring color, and even surrounding the injury—where she expected to see puffy redness—was a normal fleshy hue. With caution—and an elated, quickened heart rate, she admitted—she lowered the blanket a little more, trying to keep his private things private, and saw the same thing had happened with the marks on his thigh. They were pink in the same fashion, suggesting healing.
She put the blanket back in place and found her eyes traveling his perfection—his masculine hands and fit, strong arms, and the muscular tone of his abdomen and chest—where they ended on his ominous tattoo. Except it wasn’t ominous, she realized. It was beautiful, just like the nighttime version of him, and it made him that much more attractive as a man, regardless of the reason she was sure he’d gotten it.
Her eyes traveled up his neck to the gentle pulse of a vein beneath his ear, and to his face—to his stern but peaceful brow and the way his short, dark beard, thinly grown and peppered with a silver that revealed the secret of his true age, added so much allure to his already charming features. She gently swept the hair off his forehead and drew her hand down his face, the smooth yet bristly sensation of his facial hair satisfying her fingertips. She wondered how long the poison would hold his consciousness. With a panicked heart, she wondered if he would ever wake at all. What if she had taken the wrong steps to revive him?
She ran her hand into his soft hair. “You have to come back, Henry,” she whispered. “I know you don’t want me here, but…I need you.”
Lying down, closer to him, she decided to let the poison run its course without extra morphine, since that’s what her instincts told her. She took his limp but warm hand and fit hers—hardly more than half the size of his—inside it. Holding it and curling it to her chest, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift back to sleep.
Chapter 22
Something about black satin rubbed Henry the wrong way. Perhaps because the trend had become so common among women of his class.
“I’m glad I caught your eye,” the woman wearing it drawled. Her lips were the color of red wine, and her extra-long lashes were glued on. She put her hands on her hips and Henry smiled, backing her into the corner. At least she wouldn’t be wearing the dress much longer.
They’d just left the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, or the “Schnitz,” as the Portland locals called it. Halfway through the Oregon Symphony’s rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, he’d spotted her in the balcony adjacent to his, eyeing him over her binoculars. She knew who he was, he could tell, but that didn’t surprise him since everyone did. He hadn’t planned on taking anyone back to his hotel tonight, but she was pretty enough. He had given her a single nod, and when it was over she waited outside the lobby. They’d walked up Main Street then turned left onto Park Avenue where Arne would meet them with the car. He never introduced himself since he didn’t think it necessary, and neither did she. He preferred it that way.
It was near midnight and beneath a canopy of trees, he wedged her into a red brick corner, the exterior of a local attorney’s office. He placed his hands on the bricks, cooled by nighttime air. His eyes traveled over her, down her long slender neck to the low, swooping neckline of her dress, revealing cleavage that did nothing special to his pulse.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said.
“And what have you heard?”
“That it would be a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Her thin lips grew mischievous, and he moved his hands to her satin-clad hips, his mouth traveling down her neck. She breathed a satisfied, “Mr. Clayton.”
She smelled of Chanel No. 5. The scent was everywhere.
For some reason, even though he’d smelled it on other women like her, he knew from this moment on, that scent would always remind him of her—the woman he’d just met, the woman who was nameless. Her black hair had been trimmed short, which made tasting her that much easier. As he descended her neck, she said between aroused breaths, “Surely, there’s somewhere else we can take this…”
He moved his hands down the roundness of her behind and gripped it firmly, pushing her into him, and with her diamond-studded earlobe between his teeth, he said, “My driver will be here shortly. Until then, I’ll take it where I want.”
She murmured, wrapping her arms around him. They usually liked when he took charge, but there had been a few who hadn’t, a few whose eyes swam in teary regret and humiliation when it ended. It probably should have been more difficult to forget those eyes and the brief sting of guilt, but he never saw the women again and frankly, when his successes outnumbered the few failed attempts at pleasing his partners, it was easy to forget the way some women felt taken advantage of.
He straightened at the sound of footsteps. The interruption bothered him, but it brought a strange presence. Turning, he squinted at the curvy silhouette, one he at first thought was naked. But she wasn’t truly naked, he saw when she stepped beneath a streetlamp; just clothed
in something so scanty it could pass for lingerie. Heat and arousal flourished in his abdomen, and his eyes widened at her red, flowing hair and supple lips. It was like nothing he’d ever felt: so intense and sudden, it didn’t feel natural.
“Mr. Clayton, why’d you stop?” the unnamed woman in satin said, still holding his neck and not noticing the goddess approaching.
With his eyes on the goddess, he shoved the black-haired woman off of him, and she gasped in offense. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off the red-head’s smile, off the way her lavender eyes nearly hypnotized him. He’d never seen eyes like hers, and a power lay behind them—a power he wanted to get lost in but didn’t want to be controlled by at the same time. He stared, dumbfounded.
She touched his bowtie, and her scent was that of exotic flowers. He closed his eyes, his head spinning in a deadly but euphoric daze. “I see your reputation precedes you,” she said, her voice raspy and slight. He opened his eyes. In his peripheral vision, the black-haired woman who paled in comparison placed her hands on her hips.
“My…reputation?” he asked with a deep swallow. Her index and middle finger walked up his neck.
“You’re a bad boy, Henry. You’ve hurt many women.”
“Excuse me,” the woman in black said.
The mysterious beauty looked at her, then back at Henry. “Which one do you want, Henry?” she asked, her head tilting and eyes narrowing as though she knew him better than he knew himself, knew what he would do before she even asked it. “Her or me?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. His charm had gotten him far in the past. “Both?”
She laughed, continuing to draw her finger up his neck, and the sound was…actually quite unsettling. “That is not an option.” He exhaled at the overpowering surge of heat that overcame him. Why was it he wanted to run from something he wanted so badly to be swallowed in?
“Then you, of course,” he answered. She smiled, and he could have sworn blackness lurked inside her mouth—as though one of the universe’s black holes existed solely behind her lips. From the corner of his eye, he saw the other woman sulk, her heels clicking on the cement as she stormed off. And all he could think was good riddance.
“Not very wise,” the red-haired woman teased, even as the spell she’d put on him led him to grasp her waist. He pulled her against him, roughly, and lowered his lips to hers.
Before he could kiss her, in an oddly cool breath she said, “I’ll give you one more chance, Henry,” and that was when he heard the voice of the man and the cocking of his gun.
He turned, where a man in a dark overcoat held a pistol against the woman in black, her back against the bricks and the tip of the barrel over her heart. Henry panicked inside as the woman in black began to cry, but his feet were glued to the ground, his consciousness elsewhere. He wondered if the sight of him and the temptress had been veiled to the mugger, because the gunman seemed to not notice them. Or perhaps the gunman was a figment of his own imagination.
The woman in black sobbed, begging for her life, convincing the man with the gun that she had no money on her. It was the scene of a film, surely, rather than a reality only feet away.
“Me…” the temptress said, getting Henry’s attention. She smiled crookedly and he knew that’s what she was: a temptress. “…or her?” She tilted her head, studying her psychological experiment, and her arousing power overcame him again, taking his breath. He wanted to save the woman in black—the one from the scene that couldn’t be real—but he wanted the temptress more. He wanted to know what it would be like to be under her power, for it to overtake him. He wanted it, just one time.
The woman pled for her life.
The mugger yelled that he wanted everything she had.
But all Henry could do was breathe into the mouth of the temptress with flowing red hair. “You,” he said again, his every extremity in a weightless tremble. The most carnal desire trapped him, and though he tried to fight it, in the back of his awareness he knew he didn’t try hard enough. Because he didn’t want to fight it.
Her smile stretched, and her breath grew cool and peculiarly moist. “Very well, Henry Clayton.”
A startling shot cracked through the air, jerking him from whatever spell she’d put over him, and his eyes shot to the man with the gun. A faint trace of smoke lifted from the barrel and the woman in black now lay on the ground, blood pooling beneath her on the cement like a hole slowly widening in the earth. And for the first time, he realized it was real—the strange veil that had made it as a film scene, gone.
“No,” he breathed. Every sense of desire that had been forced upon him was gone, leaving the harshest of sicknesses in his gut. The mugger’s eyes found Henry’s then, expanding as he noticed him for the first time.
Before he could run, Henry was on him, fighting him to the ground, and Henry’s knuckles slid over the man’s facial sweat as he slugged him. When a well-dressed group of bystanders laughed their way by—probably leaving the concert—Henry called to them, demanding they get help. They scurried away in a panic, and after he hit the man over the head with the grip of his gun, the man’s eyes closed in unconsciousness and Henry crawled to the black-haired woman.
But she was already dead, her eyes open and mouth hanging as though she’d been frozen. How could you let this happen? her expression said.
This couldn’t be real. Could it?
He shook her, yelling for her to wake up. It was because of him she never would; really, that gun may as well have been in his own hand.
He felt the temptress’s destructive air behind him.
He looked up at her, at the way she smiled, and a breeze cooled the wetness around his eyes. “You…” he said. “What did you do to me? I never would have…”
“I didn’t do anything, Henry. It was all you, all your choices that led to this. Because of you, an innocent soul is dead.”
He shook his head, even though she was right.
“For that reason, you will forever be cursed. From here on out, the nighttime will show everyone what you really are.” She grew angry, her gleaming teeth now bared and her raspy voice a gravelly roar. “A monster, Henry Clayton, that’s what you will become.”
A mass of footsteps made him turn. Two police officers, surrounded by a crowd eager to see the destruction, ran toward them: vultures with mink shawls, silk pocket squares, and suede top hats.
“What happened?” one of the officers barked.
“He…shot her,” Henry said, his voice weak and unstable. He stood, backing up and letting them surround the dead woman in Chanel No. 5 and the unconscious mugger, the silver gun at his side. He watched them, then watched the blood on his hands.
“A monster,” a breath from behind said, and he twisted. She smiled again.
Words escaped him, since he didn’t know what she meant.
“Go home,” she commanded. “It will begin soon.”
“What will begin?”
She closed in on him, staring into his eyes without her neck even slightly craned. She was either very tall—too tall for a normal woman—or her feet hovered above the ground. Neither seemed possible. None of this did. This time he felt no desire for her cool breath—only repulsion. “The pain,” she said in answer to his question. “The excruciating pain that will accompany you the rest of your life. The rest of eternity.” Her laugh made him recoil, and he didn’t understand.
“Every curse can be broken, Monster. But you will not break yours.”
“A curse…?”
She nodded. “The only way is through a woman. A woman who is a true beauty. To get back the life you once had, you must sacrifice the life of one who is beautiful. Just as this started with a death, it must end with a death.”
He didn’t understand, stepping away from her.
“As in you must kill, Monster. Sacrifice a beauty—her life for yours—and you may have all your pathetic life once held.”
“What do you mean? I could never kill…”
She smiled with pity. “That’s why it’s perfect.” Her grin became a scowl as she grew nearer still. “But just know that if life gets too long and miserable, and you do decide to be the killing kind of monster, I will be there. I will stop you.”
Unable to respond, unable to let himself believe her, he turned and walked away, down Park Avenue with his bloody hands in his pockets because he had no choice.
“You’re mine, Henry,” she said from behind. His body began to buzz from deep within, making him sweat, so he walked faster. Perhaps when Arne, his young and dearest friend, found him, reality would ground Henry once again, make him realize this was all just a nightmare.
She laughed from behind again. He wondered if it was just his imagination or if her voice did indeed sound like a snake’s. “You’ll always be mine.”
Chapter 23
Crisp air brushed Henry’s skin—the kind that came from reality, not a dream. He groaned, moving his stiff neck, but couldn’t open his eyes. The edges of grogginess kept him prisoner, but he sensed his home all around him: his walls, old but refurbished years before. The presence of the mansion was blunt as always, containing the lingering sensation of his father that never really left the interior.
Beneath his back, the hardness of the floor, usually cool, was moist and warm, glued to his skin. He had a fever, probably. The heat that left him chilled aroused thoughts of the fire, of the way it had scorched him, of the way it had scorched Elizabeth.
Elizabeth.
His eyelids ripped open. In his hand was another hand not his own, and he filled with such relief that his exhalation felt to be the most cleansing, relaxing thing he had ever experienced. He continued to hold it, delicate and feminine and possessing more love than most people held in their entire bodies. She slept next to him, curled on her side. Her blanket was pulled high, and her hair was swept away from her neck, falling behind her. He never knew anything could be so beautiful—more beautiful than the illusory beauty he had seen in his dreams, the beauty that was no beauty at all.
Hemlock Veils Page 29
