Carnival of Bones (Carnival of Bones Duet Book 1)

by Penn Cassidy

  Who knew what was actually happening to me out in the real world…whatever that even meant anymore.

  “I love you, Grandma,” I whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear me.

  She just kept on sewing the same pattern over and over again, making no real progress, but I wanted to say it out loud anyhow.

  That little voice in my head told me there was trouble ahead of me. I could feel it in my bones like one of Grandma Anne’s knowings.

  She was never wrong about anything, and somehow, I just knew it was going to be bad.

  Sometimes she really did just know things. It could be something as simple as a change in the weather or someone we knew falling mysteriously ill. Somehow, Grandma Anne always knew before anyone else did.

  Breathing out a long sigh, I set my full mug of steaming tea down on the side table and stood up from the couch, dusting off the comfortable leggings and oversized shirt I was somehow wearing. Taking one last long look around her living room, I decided it was time to face the music—that slow, creepy, haunting music. Music that would lead me back to them.

  Having no idea how to realistically get out of the dream, I simply turned and headed for the front door.

  I got halfway there, skirting around the hound dogs, when I heard Grandma Anne’s deep voice say, “You’ll find it, Bluebell.” Her rich southern Louisiana drawl was prominent.

  I faced her, my heart warming at the nickname she’d given me when I was just a toddler. Grandma wasn’t even looking at me, still focused on her stitching, gently rocking in that squeaky chair.

  I waited for a few heartbeats, but still, she didn’t acknowledge me. Her words replayed in my mind though, soft and comforting.

  You’ll find it, Bluebell.

  I headed through the door and out of Grandma’s house, not having a clue what to do. I kind of expected to slip out of my dream and jolt awake, but I supposed it was about damn time for me to realize that nothing in my life made any fucking sense anymore and that I shouldn’t expect anything to be easy.

  Clearly, the universe had decided to take what I knew and twist it and morph it into something else.

  I found myself standing in pitch darkness. Nothing under my feet, nothing over my head. It was just a black void. As chills overtook me, I turned to rush back through the door and back to the safety of Grandma’s house, but the door wasn't there. Just more blackness, as if I were floating in a starless sky.

  I wore another white dress. Still torn at the bottom right where I’d ripped it, but the blood was missing. The fabric was soft and clean, as was my skin and hair. I didn’t itch with dried swamp water or burn from the torn soles of my bare feet. I couldn’t even tell what kind of surface I was standing on, because it felt like nothing.

  I should have been screaming, I supposed. I should have been calling out for help, not that anyone would answer me. I was still dreaming. Somehow, I was aware of it. My body lay somewhere outside of this empty black void, unconscious and vulnerable while I was trapped.

  A scream, shrill and heart-stopping, echoed around me, bouncing off of imaginary walls.

  I turned in place, clutching my hands to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. The scream stopped, only to repeat over and over again like someone was pressing play on a recording.

  I recognized the voice—the scream was mine. I found myself almost wishing for the sound of that strange music again, even the song with my name on the wind would be preferable to this screaming.

  Just as quickly as the screaming began, it stopped, and I was left in silence again. But not for long. Soon, the quiet was filled with a cacophony of chirping crickets. It sounded like there were thousands of them, all singing their songs to one another at once. The echo made it resonate, growing louder and louder by the second.

  One moment, I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face, and then the next, I heard a click and a thump as a bright spotlight shone down on me from overhead.

  I raised my hand in front of my eyes as I looked up at it, squinting. I couldn’t see anything past the blinding light, just more blackness.

  When I looked away and back down to my feet, I realized I was standing in packed dirt. Sensations began to dawn—the feeling of pebbles under my soles, the sift of it through my toes.

  “Hello?” I called out quietly but not weakly. My voice echoed, and the crickets grew even louder, as if in response to my call.

  “There you are.”

  Breath whispered over the hollow between my neck and shoulder, causing me to jolt, stifling a scream. Hands caressed both sides of my torso, like a lover sneaking up from behind. I stiffened as lips grazed my right ear.

  “What took you so long, blue girl?”

  “Bael…” I stiffened, feeling his palms skim over the flat of my stomach, his arms caging me in place.

  “Who else would it be, chérie? Surely not that nosey Theodore.” He clicked his tongue a few times. “Did the boogeyman scare you away already?” His hot breath tickled my ear as he spoke. I couldn’t move.

  What was he blabbering about? Theodore? I didn’t… Wait.

  “The one with the eyes…”

  “He does have eyes.” He chuckled, and I groaned, feeling like an idiot. “But since you love straight answers so much, I’ll make this easier on you. Theodore’s around here someplace, though he tends to show up when it’s the most inconvenient for me. Don’t let him frighten you, his bark is… Well no, his bite is just as bad, I suppose.”

  He seemed to find himself incredibly amusing. I’d only known him for less than a day, and already, I’d caught on to the fact that Bael preferred to speak in riddles. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. In fact, I was pretty sure trusting him would be naïve.

  His palms were flat against my abdomen, and his chin was nestled on my shoulder like we were lovers, like he was comfortable touching me however he wanted. There were no boundaries Bael wouldn’t let himself cross.

  Still, it didn’t stop my body from tingling all over. The warmth of his palms was jarring, and I found myself pressing backwards into his hard chest, feeling the cold of his necklaces against my exposed skin.

  “Stop running from me, and all will be as it should, I promise.”

  “I don’t know you,” I whispered, fighting the heaviness of my eyelids as they fought to flutter closed, “and I don’t trust you.”

  “I never asked you to trust me, did I? In fact, trusting me would be a very, very bad idea. Yet as I said before, I will not hurt you.”

  I knew better than that.

  “Tell me, blue girl—”

  “Mori,” I corrected quickly. I wasn’t sure how I felt about his little nickname. It put me on edge. “Call me Mori.”

  “Mori,” he amended, and it was almost worse.

  My name once again rolled off of his tongue like he’d been saying it all his life. Smooth and seductive. I hated it.

  “Tell me, Mori, where are we right now?”

  I frowned, gaze flitting around the dark void lit with a single spotlight that illuminated only a small white circle around the two of us.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Well, seeing as this is your mind…” He ran his hands farther down my abdomen, slowly. “We could be wherever you like. Please tell me it's not always this gloomy in here.”

  I felt something wet on the shell of my ear. Was he licking me again? I tried to pull away, but he just yanked me back tighter to him.

  “What are you doing?” I gritted out through my teeth. "That's the second time you've put your mouth on me. What the hell is wrong with you?"

  He sighed. “It was a simple question. I don't know why you insist on making this harder for the both of us.”

  Simple, yes, but I still didn’t know how to answer it. I wanted to know the same damn thing. Clearly, I was still dreaming, but he seemed as real as he had been in the fun house.

  His skin felt velvet soft, and his lips were hot against my cheek now. Dreams w
ere supposed to be scattered and ever changing, not sharp and vivid.

  Maybe this wasn’t a normal dream. That man, the one with the skull face and the blackened eyes, he’d done something to me when he touched my forehead.

  “I want to wake up,” I said, twisting in Bael’s arms.

  I moved fast enough that he didn't try to hold me in place, just let his palms skim along my hips as I faced him.

  “Tell me how to wake up so I can go back home. If this is some kind of a trick, it needs to stop right now before I really do lose my damn mind.”

  Bael’s eyes looked darker in this dreamscape—blue like a violent, stormy ocean. His lips were wide and smirking, like he knew so many things that I didn't. I didn’t trust him. Not a single bit.

  “And what’s so great about home, hm?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. “Who are you in such a rush to return to?”

  His palm skimmed my hip, pausing for a moment before taking my left hand in his warm grip.

  "You're so soft…" he purred in my ear, dragging his fingers along my skin. "And warm too. Do you know how long I've gone without tasting—"

  "Stop it…" I begged. His words were muddling my brain.

  I looked down at our entwined hands as he ran his thumb over the engagement ring on my ring finger. It was just a simple white gold band with no stone on it, but it was loose with the weight I’d lost this past year after losing my baby. I stared at his thumb as he twisted the ring a full revolution.

  “He’ll be looking for me,” I said, meeting Bael’s eyes again. Still, I didn’t wrench my hand out of his grip. “He’s probably already out there.”

  His face seemed to harden subtly. There was still humor and playfulness in his expression, but in his eyes, there was something sinister. I could see it, even though he tried to hide it. His lips flattened into a bitter, harsh line.

  “Somehow, I doubt that.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped, this time pulling my hand from his. “We live together. He’ll realize I’ve been gone for too long and he’ll send someone to find me. And my family—”

  I was scrambling now. In reality, Austin wouldn’t look for me. He’d probably be glad to be rid of me. Grandma Annette was all I had left.

  “Where. Are. We?” Bael asked again, this time slower, enunciating his words like I didn’t understand him. “You say he’ll be coming for you, but you don’t even know where you are. You’re more lost than you realize. I can try to help you find your way, but you might want to be nicer to me.”

  “Damnit, Bael!" His head tipped forward as I fought back frustrated tears.

  I was losing some of my confidence, not that I had much to begin with. My sanity was already frayed enough.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with all your nonanswers?”

  Bael grasped my hand and pulled me towards him, bringing our chests flush together. He was so tall that my nose hit just below his collarbone. I tried to move away, but he only gripped me tighter.

  He smelled like peppermint, and with some kind of rich pipe tobacco. Surprisingly, it anchored me, even in the dreamscape.

  He gripped my chin gently, forcing me to look up at him. His fingers pinched, but it wasn’t necessarily painful.

  “Shh…” he cooed softly, fingers loosening as he lazily stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Nobody here will hurt you. I promised you, didn’t I? Contrary to what you might think of me, I’m not the one playing tricks. You're in control of it all, Mori.”

  He bent down, bringing his face close to mine until our lips were almost brushing. I didn’t breathe or even move or think.

  "Pull it together and get yourself out of this," he said.

  Then, so lightly that it was barely anything at all, Bael kissed me. Just a soft peck before he pulled back.

  His eyes darted between mine searchingly, brows pinched into a slight frown for a moment. Then his lips parted, as if on the cusp of saying something, but he paused.

  A look of what I could only describe as annoyance crossed his face. But it was gone in the next moment as he abruptly let me go and stepped back, looking past me, over my head.

  “Ever late to your own party, Theo,” Bael said in a singsong voice that was both mocking and yet amused.

  Then, in the most casual way, he stuck out his arm to the side, palm flat as if he were leaning up against a wall, one ankle crossed over the other. Yet there was nothing there to hold him up. He’d propped himself up on absolutely nothing.

  The presence of another person made itself known in the form of a heaviness behind me and the feeling of eyes on the back of my head. I turned around slowly, putting Bael to my back.

  The man with the depthless black eyes stood no more than five feet away from me. My forehead ached with his phantom touch even now.

  In the radiance of the spotlight, there wasn’t a single hint of the skull I’d seen painted over his beautiful features.

  He looked like a man now, with high cheekbones and a square jaw covered in a thick, well trimmed beard. His skin was the color of coffee beans, and his eyes were now a swirling silver color that seemed too bright for the darkness of his features.

  He was devastatingly handsome in his suit with no shirt underneath and a matching fedora hat that on anyone else but him would have looked comical. Somehow, it worked on this man—Theodore.

  Theodore was staring at only me, not even bothering to acknowledge Bael. He gripped the handle of a long black cane that looked like it was more for show than anything, since he couldn’t be more than thirty years old by the look of him.

  The handle of the cane was pewter, shaped like the head of a cat, with black jewels for eyes. Despite being dressed to the nines, he was still completely barefoot, toenails painted black. There was something utterly unhinged about that.

  “Come with me, Moria,” Theodore said. His voice matched the one that had been calling to me earlier.

  With the hand that wasn’t holding the fancy cane, he beckoned for me to take hold. Every finger was decorated in rings.

  Bael placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, the action just shy of possessive. “I have this under control.”

  Theodore raised a brow at Bael, eyes never leaving my face, as if to say, do you now?

  Bael’s grip tightened. “Make a choice,” he whispered into my ear.

  Why on earth would I do that?

  Neither of these men put me at ease or made me feel like I'd be safe with them. Bael was obviously a trickster with veiled meanings behind every word he spoke, and Theodore… I wasn’t even sure he was human.

  It sounded insane even inside my head. If he weren’t human, then what the hell was he, some kind of demon? Obviously, there was some kind of mystical shit happening here, but I couldn’t figure out why it had anything to do with me.

  “I’m not going with either of you,” I said finally. “Not until someone explains to me what the hell is happening and why I can’t leave this place.”

  “‘Can’t’ is a very strong way of putting it,” said Bael. “There’s nothing you can’t do.”

  “Stop playing with me!” I snapped, stepping out of his hold and twirling around to face him. His expression remained impassive against my glare. “No more riddles and no more games. What the hell are you?”

  His lips stretched into a grin, and his dark eyes sparkled. “Now you’re asking the right questions.”

  “Then answer them.”

  “Moria,” Theodore warned from behind me, and I shuddered, knowing he was closer than he’d been a moment ago.

  I could feel him, caging me in against Bael, who was watching him over my shoulder with an irritated scowl.

  I pivoted to face Theordore, internally screaming that this was a bad fucking idea. But I needed to face him. His silver eyes seemed to swirl with darker, steel grey as if molten, and up close, he was even more beautiful than I’d realized.

  “Are you the granddaughter of Annette Laveau?” he asked, sea
rching my face curiously.

  My grandmother’s name on his lips caught me off guard and shot ice through my veins.

  What did he know about my grandma? Fear skittered through me for a completely new reason. Was Grandma Anne in some kind of trouble? Had they done something to her?

  Somehow, I felt like he already knew the truth and was just waiting for me to say it. It wouldn’t do to lie to these men. I had a feeling it would only make my situation worse.

  “I am,” I said, willing my voice not to wobble. “What does that have to do with anything?” I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “All of this feels like a sick joke, but I’m not laughing. And why the fuck would I go anywhere with you after you used your freaky magic tricks to teleport me into the goddamn void?”

  He didn’t move a muscle, just stared at me, eyes trailing over every plane of my face as if cataloguing me. It made me want to fidget.

  Then, without warning, Theordore placed his finger against my forehead again, right between my eyes. A cold burn rushed over me, and the world seemed to tilt and dissolve.

  “Wake up.”

  Instead of jolting out of the dream in a panic, it was seamless, as if I’d simply dozed off for a moment. I sat up, feeling velvet under my fingers, and realized that I was lying back on a warm crimson chaise lounge.

  I was once again wearing my bloody, torn, and muddy dress, but I was dry at least, and not shivering. It became clear that I was in some kind of tent.

  The top of it peaked high overhead in a cone shape, held up with a wooden frame, the walls striped in red and white. The room smelled like incense and herbs, which tickled my nose pleasantly.

  It was dark but warm with lit candles placed haphazardly around the room by the dozens in various mismatched jars and candlesticks.

  I spied sofas and armchairs, mostly velvet or leather placed into little sitting nooks around the wide space like a parlor of some sort.

  The décor was beautiful, if a little bit chaotic. Skulls sat displayed in glass cases, piles of dusty books were scattered here and there, and there were several racks of bright clothing carelessly shoved in the far corner.

  I spied a writing desk on the other side of the tent and what looked like a large round table that could seat six with an unfinished game of poker atop it. And ashtrays with long snuffed out cigars.