“And when might that be?”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about.” He hung his head for a moment, the words trickling out slowly as though it might diminish their collective sting. “I don’t know why it’s got to be like this with us, Haven. For some reason our lives are intertwined.” A mix of exhaustion and frustration darkened his face. “My life always comes with the threat of your death.”
He must’ve seen my face go ashen.
“No! I don’t mean now.” He smiled widely, his hands up in surrender. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. And if it helps, I think you’re the one who will ultimately be doing the hurting.” He had lost me. But at least I felt like he hadn’t brought me here to kill me, so that was something.
“Even so, your”—I searched for the right euphemism—“assignment . . . hasn’t changed. You have to capture my soul or kill me whenever the powers that be see fit.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, starting over. “Last time I hesitated, as you know, and I considered making the wrong choice. But I made the right one in the end,” he said. He had helped me then. Rather than plot against me, he had sacrificed himself to let me win in my fight against his fellow demons. That’s why he had paid so dearly. “And you remember . . .” I saw the pain in his eyes and thought of the promise I had made.
“I’ll help you. Of course, I’ll help you,” I said, not making him ask.
His face softened in gratitude and surprise. “You’ll fight them with me?”
“With you, for you, yes, I will,” I said in the sure, clear voice of a business transaction. And for that moment, strengthened by the hope I saw reflected in his eyes, I felt capable of this. “I’ll do all I can.”
“To be honest, at the moment I don’t even have a formal assignment. I suppose it’s still true that if I were to . . . take your soul, your life,” he whispered, disgust washing over him, “my power and authority, my status, would be reinstated.” He paused. “But I’m not going to do that.”
“Good. Thanks,” I said, as lightly as I could muster.
“If they knew I was here, they would be subjecting me to even worse than . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head, not wanting to go down that path. “They wouldn’t like it.”
“So you’re a double agent now.”
“Yeah, I guess I am. I promise I’m on your side, Haven. Even if it’s hard to believe, I’m going to tell you everything I know. The irony is that they don’t fully trust me either, so there may be things going on that I’m not even aware of. They keep a lot from me now, about their intentions, the details of what’s in the works. But together, I think we can figure it out.”
“So, what now?” I wanted to believe everything he told me. I wanted him to break free from them. I had wanted him to do this before and he wasn’t ready. Now that he was, I had to hope that I wouldn’t let him down, that we wouldn’t both be made to suffer if I failed.
“There’s a transformation ritual. Friday night.”
“What do you mean? Like the Outfit?” My mind flashed back to the formal ceremonies I had witnessed in Chicago.
“It’s different. We weren’t saints there, but here the Krewe, they’re savages, the things they do. And they shape-shift—” The thought of that made me shudder, especially the concept of not knowing what I was fighting against. “I’m still trying to learn their other identities. And I—”
Something else occurred to me: “Wait, where do they do the rituals? Here in this house?”
“No, no, no, they don’t come here. I would never let you come here if they did. They have their favorite spots. They do these rituals in the cemetery—”
“Saint Louis? I’m going,” I said. There was too much to be learned. I had to.
“No,” he said, his voice firm, scolding even. “Why would you want . . . No.”
“If you want my help, then you have to let me do things my way,” I countered, surprising even myself.
“I shouldn’t have even told you where it was,” he said almost to himself, angry.
“Friday night,” I said matter-of-factly, as though entering it into my schedule. “I’ll see you there.”
“I don’t want you going because I can’t be there to keep an eye on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“This . . . here . . . is the only place I can see you. Everywhere else I try to go or want to go, it’s as if there are invisible shackles keeping me from getting very close. It’s part of the punishment.” He said the last part as though he were ashamed.
“Well, then I’ll just have to go and report back to you.”
He paused for a good long while, then finally: “I can’t believe I’m dragging you into all of this.” He sighed, quiet for a moment, looking up to the ceiling and then back at me. “I owe you, Haven. I owe you so much.” I could hear in his voice just how much he was beating himself up.
“I don’t know about that. We can call it even,” I said with a soft smile.
“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t really have known that I should be breaking out of all this, I was so far gone.”
“How are you surviving there? I mean, what is it like?”
“There’s really no need to talk about it,” he deflected my question. “It’s what you would expect. The kinds of things you read about, the circles, the dazzling array of unpleasant ways to make the time pass.” He tried to smile, but he must have seen the horror on my face. “But don’t worry. I’m fine and I’ve found my ways to work the system.”
He leaned into my line of vision, lifting my chin to look at him. I hoped I didn’t have tears in my eyes, but I could feel the first seeds of them blooming.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re the one getting me out of this. Don’t say another word, okay? Okay?”
I nodded and looked away from those gray eyes I had missed more than I even realized.
“Honestly, you’ve got plenty to worry about already. Your plate is rather full,” he said, trying to pull me out of my sadness. “Not sure if you’ve been paying attention, but it’s about to get a lot worse around here.” He tried to laugh. “Trust me, you’ll be far too busy to even think of worrying about me.”
I smiled.
“In fact,” he continued, “if you’re planning to worry about someone, start with Sabine. They’re anxious for her to join and she’s weakening. The Prince is hopeful. She’s a powerful one. It would be a huge coup for them to get her.”
“What am I supposed to do? How do I stop that?”
“Keep her on your radar as best you can. There’s usually a little bit of time before they’re officially taken, when you can still win them back, but it’s a small window.” He nodded with finality. “So that’s all I’ve got right now. But it’s a start.” He grabbed my hand to look at my watch. “I should probably let you get back; it’s late. I’m going to have to see you again soon, though, if that’s okay. Yeah?” He stood up and walked a couple steps down. I followed.
“Yeah, sure.”
“How about Saturday, same time and place?”
“It’s a date,” I said solemnly.
“It’s a date,” he repeated. “You know . . .” He shuffled down a couple more steps and stopped, the light filtering in from outside and framing him. “I’m glad you left your boyfriend at home,” he said, just the right mix of flirtation and needling to keep me from getting too offended. “That guy is here all the time.”
I matched his tone. “He works here. He’s making it a pretty place for you to haunt.” The mention of Lance brought back all the wrong memories of the evening. “And, anyway, things with us are . . . complicated.” It was out of my mouth before I had time to stop it.
Lucian looked surprised and a little sorry to have taken this turn. “Well, then, it goes without saying, he must be insane,” he said sincerely, as though apologizing to me on Lance’s behalf. He took a step closer to me now. “It’s the only possible explan-ation.”
But I was lost in thought, running through all that had consumed me in the past couple of weeks: Was it me? What was wrong with me? Now I was feeling defensive. “Well, I mean, I . . . I don’t know,” I stammered, my fingers fidgeting. “I think it happens, right? And, you know, it’s one of those—”
But I didn’t get to finish. My words were snuffed out by Lucian’s lips landing on mine. I stood one step above him, but he was still taller than me. He wound an arm around my waist and pulled me tightly to him, his other hand in my hair. It caught me so off-guard I felt my balance go. A head-in-the-clouds vertigo set in, butterflies and dizziness and a sense that I was floating. My feet didn’t even feel rooted to the stairs anymore. My arms snaked around his neck to steady myself, every bit of me wanting to pull him closer. I backed up a step and ran into the wall but I didn’t care. It all happened so fast that I couldn’t catch my breath. I just let myself drown in him.
I had kissed him before, back at the Lexington, after that one date of ours, but it hadn’t been like this. This was otherworldly, endless. All I knew for sure was that my body felt like it belonged here and had no desire to be anywhere else or doing anything else in the foreseeable future. Every time I feared he might be pulling away, his lips would simply land instead on my neck or at my collarbone, and then return to my mouth once more.
Finally, when it seemed like it had been hours but had probably just been many sweet, slow minutes, he did inch back. He was still so close, his arm looping around my waist. I loosened my grip on his neck, and then let my arms fall to a place behind me, against the wall. We had stumbled into a patch of total darkness between those slim ribbons of light.
“So what was I saying before?” I whispered.
He leaned into my ear. “I have no idea, but I’m sure it was very important.”
“It’ll come back to me,” I said. And he gave me one more lingering kiss.
“I’ve been waiting months to do that,” he said, his fingers still woven into my hair. It seemed unfathomable. I wanted to question his kiss—or, at the very least, make him repeat it—but I knew better. I tried to act like this wasn’t as core-shaking as it was. I searched my mind for some sort of response, but came up short. I was too occupied trying to slow the runaway train that was my heart. Somewhere within, the silenced voice of reason broke through at last, telling me to go now, that the best time to leave had to be when you were feeling like this.
“So Saturday then?” I asked with a smile and then tried to move away. Still, it took a few seconds for him to disengage from me.
“Saturday,” he repeated, punctuated with a kiss on my ear.
Slowly I slipped away, leaving him leaning against the banister. I had secretly hoped that he might watch me leave, a sign that he was still thinking of me even though our evening had come to an end. And as I pivoted to close the door behind me, I saw that he hadn’t moved an inch.
I floated out into the street, but with each step closer to the house next door, I let go of what had just happened. I couldn’t quite make sense of it. The courtyard was empty, thankfully. I felt rattled and turned my gaze up to the night sky, speckled with stars, in search of some calm. Peeking through the window near the entrance, I spied Emma and Brody inside, making their rounds, and decided it would be best to crawl back in what was left of my window. Before I did, I looked back up to the LaLaurie mansion, and it anticipated my thoughts: a light flared, stopping my heart. I contorted myself creeping through that glass jaw, managing to avoid the toothlike spikes still poking up at odd angles.
I had forgotten the state my room was in. The main level was strewn with broken bits of furniture, papers, clothes, and glass, but my loft was another story. My night table had been righted, my spilled belongings gathered up and returned to their drawers, my bed had been made . . . and Dante now lay tucked into it. His eyes opened immediately.
“I know you weren’t in the levitation room all this time, so don’t try to sell me that line,” he said, not missing a beat. “You’d better tell me the truth.” I could see from the way he looked at me he already knew.
There was no use lying. I flopped onto the bed, ashamed. “Lucian.”
“Next door?”
I nodded.
“You can’t do things like that, Hav!” He sat up, truly cross with me. “I’m not covering for you either. You’re going to tell Connor and Lance. You can’t trust that guy and you can’t go running off into abandoned buildings looking for him.”
“Not even if he told me some stuff that can help us all?”
“He probably endangers your life, like, ten times for every one good thing he does. What happened?” He studied me. I had to look away. “Ugh, I knew it. You kissed him, didn’t you?”
“Well, I mean, he kissed me and I kissed him back. I think that’s the order it happened in but I don’t know.” Now I was angry with myself. I felt unmoored. I didn’t do things like this.
“I don’t like this at all. Let the record show”—his tone was as firm as it had ever been with me—“that I’m trying to look out for you.”
I hung my head. I knew he was right. I rubbed my hand over a slash mark on my comforter. “It was just, I don’t know, a Pavlovian-dog response.”
“What?” he spat.
“You know they ring the bell and the dog gets food and then after a while the dog feels hungry just hearing the bell because—”
“Yes!” he barked, annoyed. “I know what the Pavlovian-dog response is, but how could you have this with Lucian?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking. I saw him and we were talking and then it’s like I just needed to be throwing myself at him or having him throw himself at me because that was, like, the state of mind I was used to being in around him.” I sighed. “Look, it had been a pretty bad night.” I thought for a moment. “Wait a sec- ond . . .”
“What?”
“Why did you come looking for me in the first place?”
Now Dante looked sorry. “To tell you Sabine’s in our room. Again.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Hav. She came in earlier in the night and then she dozed off in there. That’s it. She told Lance she feels safe there with him.”
“That’s a good one.” I rolled my eyes. The pain from earlier was rearing up again.
“I know, total soap opera line, right? Playing the safe card. Please. He was asleep and she just sort of curled up on the edge of his bed, like a pet or something. He asked for you—”
“How thoughtful—”
“She told him you were in the levitation room. That’s when I left, to find you. But he was telling her to go, so maybe she did.” He looked at me. Neither of us considered that a possibility.
Dante told me to get some rest, that no good would come of fighting this out tonight, and, since he had a point, I told him he might as well stay. Needing little convincing, he curled up on Sabine’s empty bed and drifted back to sleep. My eyelids, like my heart, felt leaden so I followed his advice. But first, I reached for that smartphone that had been returned to my bedside table. A new message flashed onto the screen:
As you can see from today’s events, more of your powers are setting in. This will require you to graduate from some of the powers you enjoyed before, like the ability to destroy demons by attacking their photos, but only because you are gaining a much greater strength. Continue working and practicing these new abilities, and in time you will learn to control them. Until then, trust that they will rise to the surface when necessary. Grave challenges lie ahead. The days will only grow more difficult.
20. We Need to Focus
Lance and I both emerged from our rooms at precisely the same time the following morning, each of us wearing the same guilt-ridden expression of criminals.
He spoke first. “Hey, so, what happened to you last night? Practicing late?”
“Kind of.” I hadn’t fully committed to lying yet. But trying it out now, I didn’t like the taste. “What about you? What did you end up doing?”
&
nbsp; He danced around it. “Wait, did you get a message today?”
“Last night, but it wasn’t all that groundbreaking.”
“Because mine says that you and I have to go to the cemetery. Friday. Does that make any sense to you? Isn’t that the night we overheard Clio telling that guy about a party?”
Caught. So fast. “Yeah, I do know what that’s about actually.” We started walking together. I focused my attention straight ahead. “It’s the Krewe. They’re doing some kind of ritual; we need to check it out,” I explained.
“Wow, whoever’s writing my messages is really slacking. I didn’t get any of that.” He pulled out his phone, in case he had just missed something.
“No, I heard that somewhere else.”
He held the front door for me as we stepped out onto the balcony.
“I heard from Lucian,” I said, trying my best not to sound like I had done something wrong. He froze, though, staring at me, betrayed. I felt trapped. Brody ran out the door, right between us, munching on a Pop-Tart.
“See you over there, Lancealot!” He leapt over the balcony.
“What?” Lance’s eyes were set on me, not even noticing Brody.
“He wants to help us against the Krewe. So he’s going to tell us stuff—like about this ritual.” It came out in jagged bits. “But in exchange, he wants help breaking free.”
“And you’re the person to do this?” Lance asked, appearing calm but there was an undercurrent of frustration running through his words.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, steeling myself for the inevitable blowup.
He took a deep breath. “Haven.” He said my name with such bite it sent a tremor through me. “We live in a house full of angels.” His volume amped up, control slipping. “Are you telling me there is no one else who could take this on? We’ll tell Connor.”
“No. I can’t outsource it,” I said, angry now. “It has to be me. I’m the one who banished him, remember?”
“Whatever, Haven.” He shook his head. “We’ll talk later.” He climbed onto the banister railing and stood above me.
Infatuate Page 19
