Carnival of Bones (Carnival of Bones Duet Book 1)

by Penn Cassidy

  “Says the terrifying Met Kalfou.” I ran my eyes up and down his body, from his bare feet to the top of his head. He was so achingly handsome, yet terrifying was still the right word for him.

  Surprisingly, he chuckled. “I’m nothing but fair, Moria. You should know that if you plan to stay.”

  “And who says I’m staying?” My stomach dipped at the thought. Stay at the crossroads? Was he insane? “I thought the whole point of this was for you to help me get home.”

  Another drink appeared in his hand, poofing into existence, and I tried not to flinch. He pushed it my way.

  “That was the agreement.”

  “Okay?” I asked, confused.

  He nodded his head with a grin. “But you’ll make the right decision in the end.”

  My blood ran cold.

  “I’d never choose to stay here. I don’t belong with the rest of you.”

  “And you think you belong out there in the real world with a man who makes you miserable? With a mother who rejects you, and friends you chose to ignore for the sake of the man you despise?”

  He shook his head, settling back in his seat comfortably, and smiled bitterly.

  That was enough. I didn't come here to be insulted.

  I stood from my chair, scooting it back with a screech. “You have no right—”

  “Don’t I?” he interrupted, unfazed.

  “No,” I snapped. “You have no right to judge me. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

  “Oh, but I do. I very much know that you’ve lost your family, your heritage, your child, and your lover. You’ve lost everything that ever made you happy, and yet you crave to run back to it. Tell me why that is?”

  “Fuck you,” I gritted out through my clenched teeth. I didn’t care if this was Met Kalfou. I didn’t care if he could probably smite me where I stood or toss me through a mirror. “Just… Fuck you, Theodore.”

  I stumbled as I turned to leave, stumbled right into a hard chest and waiting arms that wrapped around me. Bael ran his fingers through my hair as he glared at Theodore over my head. I tried to pull away, but he clutched me tighter.

  “Dance with me?” he asked, lips pressing onto the crown of my head.

  I wanted to flat-out say no. Theodore had pissed me off, and I could still feel the rage rolling through me. But the music lingered in my bones, and I realized…maybe dancing didn’t sound so bad right now.

  “Just distract me,” I said, refusing to look over at Theodore, not that he cared.

  Bael took my arm and led me towards the stage and the other dancers. The music wasn’t quite as full and rich as it had been while he was playing the piano, but it was still beautiful. The woman’s voice was deep and sultry, and a trumpet had joined in. The song was still slow enough that we could sway, so that was exactly what we did.

  I let Bael cage me between his arms, placing his right hand on my hip. The Sazerac had my limbs loose. I’d always loved dancing, and I’d used to do a lot of it before Austin sucked the soul out of me.

  Bael moved fluidly, his body swaying in time with mine. His hands roamed my torso gently, and I shivered at the press of his lips on my neck. Closing my eyes, I allowed the music to take me away. To make me forget that I was lost. To make me forget the confusion and the danger. To make me forget that Theodore was right.

  I was trying so hard to get back to an empty shell of a life, to a man I hated, I realized. A man who, after what he’d put me through, I could never bring myself to love again.

  Maybe a part of me did belong in this place, stuck somewhere between worlds. After all, that was exactly how I’d been living for the last year—not exactly living, but not completely dead.

  As we danced, I could feel Theodore’s stare burning a hole through my skin. I refused to look at him though. He’d been way out of line, and I was pretty sure he knew it. It wasn’t like what he’d said was wrong. In fact, I thought that was my problem—he was completely right, and I hated it. I hated that he knew that I was aware of it. It made me feel weak.

  Maybe I was weak. Maybe I’d been weak for a long time.

  I should have listened to my friends while I still had them and left Austin when things started getting bad. I should have taken the lifeline they’d tossed me when they tried to get me out of there. Instead, I shoved them all out of my life and disappeared from the world, like a fucking coward.

  “Let’s get some air,” Bael whispered in my ear.

  We came to a standstill, sweat coating our skin. I looked up into his eyes, and for once, his face appeared serious, no sign of that signature smirk anywhere.

  He nodded towards the back of the tent. “Come on.”

  My eyes betrayed me as we passed Theodore. His magnetic gaze caught mine, and my breath hitched sharply. His eyes were black, and his jaw was set like stone as Bael looped an arm around my shoulders. Lafayette was perched on Theodore’s shoulder watching me just as shrewdly. I narrowed my eyes at the little beast and chose to ignore Theodore.

  Elly cast me a wink as I passed her and gave me a tiny wave. She was playing poker with Tony and a couple other women around a small card table. She had a glazed look in her light pink eyes that told me she was also more than a few drinks in. I smiled as Bael led me out the back of the tent.

  Finally, we were hit with crisp air, free and clear of smoke, and immediately, my head felt less fuzzy. The Sazerac still burned through my veins, but it was more of a pleasant tingle now.

  Bael’s hair looked pale in the moonlight, and without a hat on, it was loose and ethereal. I had the sudden urge to run my fingers through it.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we circled the tent.

  “You’ll see,” he said with a chuckle, pulling me along faster. “Don’t worry, blue girl. You’ll like it.”

  We wove around booths, stages, and rides, and I tried to avoid staring at the lines of grey faces. They were perpetually present, so there was just no avoiding them.

  I supposed I was being kind of harsh, thinking of them like zombies. They weren’t the undead, but rather the…unjudged. They were lost souls, and I should probably have more pity towards them. That could easily be me some day.

  I shuddered, trying not to think about it.

  Up ahead, lights danced against the night sky that was starting to fill with ominous-looking clouds, making me wonder if it was going to rain. Was that even possible at the crossroads? Elly said time ran differently here, and I still wasn't sure what that entailed exactly.

  The Ferris wheel loomed overhead, spinning at a slow, steady pace. We stopped at the base of it.

  “Care for a spin?” Bael asked with a grin.

  “Really?” I blinked at him, tamping down my excitement.

  I loved Ferris wheels and roller coasters. Something about being high enough to see over treetops and cities was fascinating and exhilarating.

  He pulled me towards it, and slowly, the wheel came to a stop, the bench seat swaying. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a ride operator anywhere, but I wasn’t going to bother asking questions.

  Bael helped me into the seat before settling down next to me, much closer than he needed to be. Then he pulled down the safety bar with a wide, satisfied smile. The ride began to move immediately, as if Bael were actually the one in control. For all I knew, he might’ve been.

  Eventually, we rose up high enough that I could see over the tops of the trees and out over the dark horizon. The moon and stars were barely visible, and it looked like there was a summer storm about to roll in. Louisiana was notorious for its storms and downpours, but I’d always loved the rain.

  At the very top of the wheel, the ride paused. We swayed in place, and I took my time scanning the surrounding area. The carnival grounds were a lot more spread out than I’d thought, and there were little covered wagons just like Elly’s scattered along the outer rim, creating a circle around the carnival.

  The massive tent in the center stood out, and I found myself staring at it,
wondering if Theodore was still inside, listening to music alone.

  Forgetting the tent, I realized I could see the interconnecting series of wooden bridges that wove between the rides and booths. The winding river ran to the south, and if I squinted a little, I could just barely make out tiny white shapes that seemed to be moving through the trees, but there were so many more of them than I’d been able to see from the skiff. They were everywhere for miles and miles. I’d never get used to watching the spirits dance through the trees. They were beautiful though, even from afar.

  “Can I ask you something?” I looked at Bael, finally tearing my eyes away from the bayou. He was already watching me. “And will you give me straight answers? No riddles this time?”

  “You can ask me anything, blue girl,” he said.

  Anything? I wondered if he really meant that. I doubted it. But there was a question burning on the tip of my tongue that I knew I couldn’t hold in much longer before it consumed me.

  “What are you?” I asked. I wasn’t going to mince my words.

  Bael blinked at me, unsurprised, as if he’d been expecting me to ask it.

  “I want the truth, Bael. Theodore told me his truth, so I’m asking the same from you. Who are you? What exactly is your role in all this? With the crossing, with my grandmother? And what’s going on with you and Theo?”

  Bael threw his head back and laughed deeply, cutting off my frantic stream of questions. His white teeth gleamed, and his long hair swept off of his shoulder. He looked so handsome when he smiled. That was dangerous for me.

  “So many questions, cher. But I shall do my best to give you answers.” Pivoting, he faced me fully, causing the swing to rock. I gripped the bar tighter. “You want to know what I really am? It’s not a pretty story.”

  I nodded. I didn’t just want to know. I needed to know. More than anything at this moment.

  He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, his dark blue eyes going distant, and the smile fell from his face.

  “I was just a man once,” he said. “A long time ago. New Orleans was a much different place back then. Crueler…” His jaw tightened.

  “I was a practitioner of the occult—some people might have said ‘witch.’ My family traveled here from France, seeking a better life, and we settled in Louisiana. We were happy for a long time. Not rich, not poor, just squarely getting by, but we were happy. My mother and father ran an apothecary in town, and I planned to follow their footsteps one day.”

  An apothecary? I couldn’t picture Bael doing anything like that. He was too theatrical for such a quiet kind of life. My mind was left reeling. The way he spoke was as if hundreds of years had passed. I wanted to ask just how many hundreds, but a part of me already got the gist.

  “When I became a man, I left New Orleans and moved north with my uncle. We planned on settling in Massachusetts for a while before moving on and exploring a little, then eventually planting roots. We hopped from town to town—just two bachelors and the open road.”

  His distant eyes gleamed in the starlight. “My uncle was something of a magician, I guess you could say. He swindled and entertained the masses along the way and earned a nice little savings during the two years I was with him. Kept us fed and clothed. I never wanted or needed for anything like we had back in France.”

  Something dark passed over his expression, his whole demeanor shifting.

  “To make a long, sad story short, the good people of Massachusetts didn’t exactly take kindly to men like us. They called us the ‘devil’s handymen.’ I think they feared their wives’ wandering eyes more than anything.” Shaking his head in disgust, Bael met my stare. “My uncle and I were sentenced to hang in sixteen ninety-two without trial, on accusations of witchcraft and devil worship.”

  My stomach was in knots as my eyes flew to his throat. I didn’t know what I was searching for exactly, but all I could make out were tattoos. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but what he’d just told me was not it.

  “I don’t even know what to say,” I whispered, tearing my eyes from his neck. “How did you end up here at the crossroads?”

  Bael took my hand from the safety bar, slowly peeling my fingers from their viselike grip, and held it between his warm palms. The gesture was surprisingly gentle and caring.

  “That’s something they never talk about in the history books. You see, death by hanging wasn’t always a clean death. Some people hung for hours before they suffocated. Sometimes, the rope wasn’t quite tight enough or the neck failed to snap.”

  I had to swallow past the bile that threatened to rise in my throat.

  “Unfortunately for me, whoever tied my noose didn’t do a very good job. I hung from a tree just outside of the city for twenty minutes before a man from town finally took pity on me and shot me in the heart.”

  “Oh my god, I’m so—”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry,” he interrupted, waving me off. “Because I’m not.”

  “How can you say that?”

  He shrugged, squeezing my hand tighter and settling back into his seat. We hovered above the carnival in peaceful silence.

  “In those short moments between life and death, I was presented with a choice. Theodore offered me a home, a way to cheat death, and I took it gladly.”

  “And you’ve been here ever since,” I finished for him. He nodded.

  Over three hundred years. That was how long Bael had been here at the crossroads, ushering souls into their next life, or whatever came after. It was an endless limbo that never, ever changed. He was essentially trapped here just like everyone else, with Theodore pulling the strings.

  “Sounds lonely,” I said.

  He met my eyes, and for once, he wasn’t laughing or joking. “It was…”

  My heart lurched, and his eyes roamed my face. Was that why he wanted me to stay so badly? There was no way that I was the answer he was looking for.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” Bael chided. “I don’t need your pity. I found my place in the afterlife, and I’m content. I’m one of the lucky ones. Had I rejected Theodore’s offer, I’d have been sent straight through the crossing, and who knows what would have become of me.”

  But it wasn’t pity in my eyes. It was just sadness. I could picture it. Bael on his knees, begging not to be sent through the mirror. The terror in his eyes at whatever he saw through the glass.

  “Tell me how it all works,” I said. “The mirrors—how do they determine who goes where and why?”

  I wondered if it was just some sort of magic, or if there really was some kind of reasoning behind it. Who called the shots and made that final decision? Who looked into the eyes of each soul and determined where they should have to spend the rest of eternity? They were questions I never anticipated having the answer to.

  “Even I don't know what lies on the other side of the crossing, blue girl. I only know that it’s my job to get them there. I am what’s known as an usher.”

  “And the mirrors?” I asked.

  “Mirrors have always been gateways,” he said. “A space that transcends physics, reality, and time itself. When harnessed, the mirrors will make judgments. The grey faces, as you like to call them, will peer into one of three mirrors, and it eventually reveals the true shape of their soul. Where they end up is a mystery even I am not privy to, believe it or not.”

  “And you’re okay with not knowing where you’re sending them?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not my place to know. I rejected the crossing, and so all I can do now is serve it and the one who commands it.”

  “Theodore,” I guessed.

  He smiled. “He’s not so bad once you get to know him. Not as charming as I am, of course, but—”

  I snorted, surprising myself after such a heavy topic of conversation.

  “You think incredibly highly of yourself,” I said, shaking my head in exasperation.

  Bael’s grin only widened. “And why wouldn’t I?” Straightening his shoulders, he bro
ught my hand up and placed a sensual kiss across my knuckles. “Do I not make you smile?”

  “You’re ridiculous.” I rolled my eyes, but I did, in fact, smile. “What’s going on between you two anyway?” I asked. “I can’t tell if you despise each other or not.”

  The dark look on Theodore’s face as I’d left with Bael tonight replayed in my head.

  Bael laughed but waved me off. “Theodore loves me. He just doesn’t like to admit it is all. The grumpy bastard sets his eyes on a tasty little morsel for the first time in a few hundred years, and suddenly it’s my fault for seeing her first.”

  I choked, pulling my hand from Bael’s grasp, and leaned away. “Excuse me?”

  Did he really just refer to me as ‘a tasty morsel?’

  “Surely you’re not blind, blue girl,” he said dubiously. “Theodore just needs time to accept the fact that I’m willing to share if he is.” Scooting closer, he brought his face near mine, his eyes dipping to my lips. “In fact, I mean to.”

  I was almost speechless, unable to fully process what he was saying to me.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Oh dear, you are completely unaware, aren’t you?” He tsked. Reaching out, Bael sifted his fingers through my long hair. “Let me make this perfectly clear, so we can avoid any further confusion. I fully intend on using this month to convince you to stay.”

  Our faces were inches apart, and his breath played over my lips. I didn’t pull away. Even though his words terrified me to my core.

  Convince me to stay? As if it were some kind of easy choice to make? He was insane.

  “You’re insane,” I whispered.

  Bael’s eyes sparked with excitement, and his smile stretched wide enough to appear sinister. “All the best people are, don’t you know that?”

  Before I could think of something clever to say, he leaned in, pressing his lips to mine. I opened for him immediately, letting his tongue swipe my bottom lip, coaxing a soft moan from my throat. The kiss was sensual and slow, but it filled my entire body with a blazing heat.

  In the back of my head, I knew this kiss would only lead to trouble. Bael obviously had motives behind keeping me here. What those motives were had yet to be revealed, but I couldn’t deny the way I responded to his touch or the way I wanted to be near him. The way I couldn’t seem to get close enough.