The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  “Yep.” And question Owen. And find out why a Librarian would want to cover up deaths that are decades upon decades old. All without letting the Archive know.

  “You brought the book just to throw your folks off the trail? How very thorough of you.”

  I take a bite of the cinnamon roll. “I am, in fact, a master of deceit.”

  “I believe it,” Wes says, taking another bite. “So, about your list…”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I took care of the History in your territory.”

  I stiffen. Owen. Is that why I couldn’t find him this morning? Did Wesley already send him back? I force my voice level. “What do you mean?”

  “A History? You know? One of those things we’re supposed to be hunting?”

  I fight to keep my shock from showing. “I told you. I didn’t. Need. Help.”

  “A simple thanks will suffice, Mac. Besides, it’s not like I went looking for her. She kind of ran into me.”

  Her? I dig the list from my pocket. is gone. A sigh of relief escapes, and I sag back against the bench.

  “Luckily, I was able to use my charm,” he’s saying. “That, and she thought I was her boyfriend. Which, I’ll admit, facilitated things a bit.” He runs his hand through his hair. It doesn’t move.

  “Thanks,” I say softly.

  “It’s a hard word to say, I know. It takes practice.”

  I throw the last bite of my roll at him.

  “Hey,” he warns, “watch the hair.”

  “How long does it take to make it stick up like that?” I ask.

  “Ages,” he says, standing. “But it’s worth it.”

  “Is it really?”

  “I’ll have you know, Miss Bishop, that this”—he gestures from his spiked black hair all the way down to his boots—“is absolutely vital.”

  I raise an eyebrow and stretch out across the weather-pocked stone. “Let me guess,” I say with a pout. “You just want to be seen.” I give the line a dramatic flair so that he knows I’m teasing. “You feel invisible in your skin, and so you dress yourself up to get a reaction.”

  Wes gasps. “How did you know?” But he can’t keep the smile off his face. “Actually, much as I love seeing my father’s tortured expression, or his trophy soon-to-be wife’s disdain, this does serve a purpose.”

  “And what purpose would that be?”

  “Intimidation,” he says with a flourish. “It scares the Histories. First impressions are very important, especially in potentially combative situations. An immediate advantage helps me control the situation. Many of the Histories don’t come from the here and now. And this”—again he gestures to the length of himself—“believe it or not, can be intimidating.”

  He straightens and steps toward me, into a square of sunlight. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing leather bracelets that cut through some scars and cover others. His brown eyes are alive and warm, and the contrast between his tawny irises and his black hair is stark but pleasant. Beneath it all, Wesley Ayers is actually quite handsome. My eyes pan down over his clothes, and he catches me before I can look away.

  “What’s the matter, Mac?” he says. “Are you finally falling victim to my devilish good looks? I knew it was only a matter of time.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s it….” I say, laughing.

  He leans down, rests his hand on the bench beside my shoulder.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  “You okay?”

  The truth sits on my tongue. I want to tell him. But Roland warned me not to trust anyone; and though it sometimes feels like I’ve known Wes for months instead of days, I haven’t. Besides, even if I could tell Wesley parts but not the whole, partial truths are so much messier than whole lies.

  “Of course,” I say, smiling.

  “Of course,” he parrots, and pulls away. He collapses onto his own bench and tosses an arm over his eyes to block the sun.

  I look back at the study doors and think of the directories. I’ve been so focused on the early years, I haven’t taken a close look at the current roster. I’ve been focused on the dead, but I can’t forget about the living.

  “Who else lives here?” I ask.

  “Hm?”

  “Here in the Coronado,” I press. I might not be able to tell Wes what’s going on, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help. “I’ve only met you and Jill and Ms. Angelli. Who lives here?”

  “Well, there’s this new girl who just moved in on floor three. Her family’s re-opening the café. I hear she likes to lie, and hit people.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, there’s that strange goth guy, the one who’s always lurking around Five C.”

  “Strangely hot in a mysterious way, though, right?”

  I roll my eyes. “Who’s the oldest person here?”

  “Ah, that distinction goes to Lucian Nix up on the seventh floor.”

  “How old is he?”

  Wes shrugs. “Ancient.”

  Just then, the study door flies open and Jill appears on the threshold.

  “I thought I heard you,” she says.

  “How goes it, strawberry?” asks Wes.

  “Your dad has been calling us nonstop for half an hour.”

  “Oh?” he says. “I must have forgotten.” The way he says it suggests he knows exactly what time it is.

  “That’s funny,” Jill says as Wes drags himself to his feet, “because your dad seems to think you snuck out.”

  “Wow,” I chime in, “you weren’t kidding when you said you escaped Chez Ayers.”

  “Yeah, well. Fix it.” Jill turns and closes the study door on both of us.

  “She’s charming,” I say.

  “She’s like my aunt Joan, but in miniature. It’s spooky. All she needs is a cane and a bottle of brandy.”

  I follow him into the study, but stop, eyes drifting to the directories.

  “Wish me luck,” he says.

  “Good luck,” I say. And then, as he vanishes into the hall, “Hey, Wes?”

  He reappears. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  He smiles. “See? It’s getting easier to say.”

  And with that he’s gone, and I’m left with a lead. Lucian Nix. How long has he lived in the building? I tug down the most recent directory, flipping through until I reach the seventh floor.

  7E. Lucian Nix.

  I pull down the next directory.

  7E. Lucian Nix.

  And the next.

  7E. Lucian Nix.

  All the way back, past the missing files, to the very first year of the first blue book. 1950.

  He’s been here all along.

  I press my ear against the door of 7E.

  Nothing. I knock. Nothing. I knock again, and I’m about to tug my ring off and listen for the sounds of any living thing when, finally, someone knocks back. There is a kind of scuffle on the other side of the door, joined by muttered cursing, and moments later the door swings open and collides with the metal side of a wheelchair. More cursing, and then the chair retreats enough so that the door can fully open. The man in the chair is, as Wesley put it, ancient. His hair is shockingly white, his milky eyes resting somewhere to my left. A thin stream of smoke drifts up from his mouth, where a narrow cigarette hangs, mostly spent. A scarf coils around his neck, and his clawlike fingers pluck at the fringe on the end.

  “What are you staring at?” he asks. The question catches me off guard, since he’s clearly blind. “You aren’t saying anything,” he adds, “so you must be staring.”

  “Mr. Nix?” I ask. “My name is Mackenzie Bishop.”

  “Are you a kiss-a-gram? Because I told Betty I didn’t need girls being paid to come see me. Rather have no girls at all than that—”

  I’m not entirely sure what a kiss-a-gram is. “I’m not a kiss—”

  “There was a time when all I had to do was smile….” He smiles now, flashing a pair of fake teeth that don’t fit quite right
.

  “Sir, I’m not here to kiss you.”

  He adjusts his direction at the sound of my voice, pivoting in his chair until he’s nearly facing me, and lifts his chin. “Then what are you knocking on my door for, little lady?”

  “My family is renovating the coffee shop downstairs, and I wanted to introduce myself.”

  He gestures to his wheelchair. “I can’t exactly go downstairs,” he says. “Have everything brought up.”

  “There’s…an elevator.”

  He has a sandpaper laugh. “I’ve survived this long. I’ve no plans to perish in one of those metal death traps.” I decide I like him. His hand drifts shakily up to his mouth, removes the stub of his cigarette. “Bishop. Bishop. Betty brought in a muffin that was sitting in the hall. Suppose you’re to blame for that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “More of a cookie person, myself. No offense to the other baked goods. I just like cookies. Well, suppose you want to come in.”

  He slides the wheelchair back several feet into the room, and it catches the edge of the carpet. “Blasted device,” he growls.

  “Would you like a hand?”

  He throws both of his up. “I’ve got two of those. Need some new eyes, though. Betty’s my eyes, and she’s not here.”

  I wonder when Betty will be back.

  “Here,” I say, crossing the threshold. “Let me.”

  I guide the chair through the apartment to a table. “Mr. Nix,” I say, sitting down beside him. I set the copy of the Inferno on the worn table.

  “No Mr. Just Nix.”

  “Okay…Nix, I’m hoping you can help me. I’m trying to find out more about a series of”—I try to think of how to put this politely, but can’t—“a series of deaths that happened here a very long time ago.”

  “What would you want to know about that for?” he asks. But the question lacks Angelli’s defensiveness, and he doesn’t feign ignorance.

  “Curiosity, mostly,” I say. “And the fact that no one seems to want to talk about it.”

  “That’s because most people don’t know about it. Not these days. Strange things, those deaths.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, that many deaths so close together. No foul play, they said, but it makes you wonder. Weren’t even in the paper. It was news around here, of course. For a while it looked like the Coronado wouldn’t make it. No one would move in.” I remember the string of vacancy listings in the directories. “Everyone thought it was cursed.”

  “You didn’t, obviously,” I say.

  “Says who?”

  “Well, you’re still here.”

  “I may be stubborn. Doesn’t mean I have the faintest idea what happened that year. String of bad luck, or something worse. Still, it’s strange, how badly people wanted to forget about it.”

  Or how badly the Archive wanted them to.

  “All started with that poor girl,” says Nix. “Regina. Pretty thing. So cheerful. And then someone went and killed her. So sad, when people die so young.”

  Someone? Doesn’t he know it was Robert?

  “Did they catch the killer?” I ask.

  Nix shakes his head sadly. “Never did. People thought it was her boyfriend, but they never found him.”

  Anger coils inside me at the image of Robert trying to wipe the blood off his hands, pulling on one of Regina’s coats, and running.

  “She had a brother, didn’t she? What happened to him?”

  “Strange boy.” Nix reaches out to the table, fingers dancing until they find a pack of cigarettes. I take up a box of matches and light one for him. “The parents moved out right after Regina’s death, but the boy stayed. Couldn’t let go. Blamed himself, I think.”

  “Poor Owen,” I whisper.

  Nix frowns, blind eyes narrowing on me. “How did you know his name?”

  “You told me,” I say steadily, shaking out the match.

  Nix blinks a few times, then taps the space between his eyes. “Sorry. I swear it must be going. Slowly, thanks be to God, but going all the same.”

  I set the spent match on the table. “The brother, Owen. How did he die?”

  “I’m getting there,” says Nix, taking a drag. “After Regina, well, things started to settle at the Coronado. We held our breaths. April passed. May passed. June passed. July passed. And then, just when we were starting to let out our air…” He claps his hands together, showering his lap with ash. “Marcus died. Hung himself, they said, but his knuckles were cut up and his wrists were bruised. I know because I helped cut the body down. Not a week later, Eileen goes down the south stairs. Broke her neck. Then, oh, what was his name, Lionel? Anyway, young man.” His hand falls back into his lap.

  “How did he die?”

  “He was stabbed. Repeatedly. Found his body in the elevator. Not much use calling that one an accident. No motive, though, no weapon, no killer. No one knew what to make of it. And then Owen…”

  “What happened?” I ask, gripping my chair.

  Nix shrugs. “No one knows—well, I’m all that’s left, so I guess I should say no one knew—but he’d been having a hard time.” His milky eyes find my face and he points a bony finger up at the ceiling. “He went off the roof.”

  I look up and feel sick. “He jumped?”

  Nix lets out a long breath of smoke. “Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on how you want to spin things. Did he jump or was he pushed? Did Marcus hang himself? Did Eileen trip? Did Lionel…well, there ain’t much doubt about what happened to Lionel, but you see my point. Things stopped after that summer, though, and never started up again. No one could make sense of it, and it don’t do any good to be thinking morbid thoughts, so the people here did the one thing they could do. They forgot. They let the past rest. You probably should too.”

  “You’re right,” I say softly, but I’m still looking up, thinking about the roof, about Owen.

  I used to go up on the roof and imagine I was back on the cliffs, looking out. It was a sea of brick below me….

  My stomach twists as I picture his body going over the edge, blue eyes widening the instant before the pavement hits.

  “I’d better be going.” I push myself to my feet. “Thank you for talking to me about this.”

  Nix nods absently. I head for the door, but stop, turn back to see him still hunched over his cigarette, dangerously close to setting his scarf on fire.

  “What kind of cookies?” I ask.

  His head lifts, and he smiles. “Oatmeal raisin. The chewy kind.”

  I smile even though he can’t see. “I’ll see what I can do,” I say, closing the door behind me. And then I head for the stairs.

  Owen was the last to die, and one way or another, he went off the roof.

  So maybe the roof has answers.

  NINETEEN

  I TAKE THE STAIRWELL up to the roof access door, which looks rusted shut, but it’s not. The metal grinds against the concrete frame, and I step through a doorway of dust and cobwebs, past a crumbling overhang, and out into a sea of stone bodies. I had seen the statues from the street, gargoyles perched around the perimeter of the roof. What I couldn’t see from there is that they cover the entire surface. Hunching, winged, sharp-toothed, they huddle here and there like crows, and glare at me with broken faces. Half of their limbs are missing, the rock eaten away by time and rain and ice and sun.

  So this is Owen’s roof.

  I try to picture him leaning against a gargoyle, head tipped back against a stone mouth. And I can see it. I can see him in this place.

  But I can’t see him jumping.

  There is something undeniably sad about Owen, something lost, but it wouldn’t take this shape. Sadness can sometimes sap the fight from a person’s features, but his are sharp. Daring. Almost defiant.

  I trail my hand along a demon’s wing, then make my way to the edge of the roof.

  It was a sea of brick below me. But if I looked up instead of down, I could have been anywhere.

  If he didn�
�t jump, what happened?

  A death is traumatic. Vivid enough to mark any surface, to burn in like light on photo paper.

  I slide the ring from my finger, kneel, and press my hands flat to the weathered roof. My eyes slide shut, and I reach and reach. The thread is so thin and faint, I can barely grab hold. A distant tone tickles my skin, and finally I catch what little is left of the memory. My fingers go numb. I spin time back, past years and years of quiet. Decades and decades of nothing but an empty roof.

  And then the rooftop plunges into black.

  A flat, matte black I recognize immediately. Someone has reached into the roof itself and altered the memories, leaving behind the same dead space I saw in Marcus Elling’s History.

  And yet it doesn’t feel the same. It’s just like Roland said. Black is black, but it doesn’t feel like the same hand, the same signature. And that makes sense. Elling was altered by a Librarian in the Archive. This roof was altered by someone in the Outer.

  But the fact that multiple people tried to erase this piece of past is hardly comforting. What could have possibly happened to merit this?

  …there are things that even Keepers and Crew should not see….

  I rewind past the black until the roof appears again, faded and unchanging, like a photo. And then finally, with a lurch, the photo flutters into life and lights and muddled laughter. This is the memory that hummed. I let it roll forward and see a night gala, with fairy lights and men in coattails and women in dresses with tight waists and A-line skirts, glasses of champagne and trays balanced on gargoyles’ wings. I scan the crowd in search of Owen or Regina or Robert, but find none of them. A banner strung between two statues announces the conversion of the Coronado from hotel to apartments. The Clarkes don’t live here yet. It will be a year until they move in. Three years until the string of deaths. I frown and guide the memory backward, watching the party dissolve into a faded, empty space.

  Before that night there is nothing loud enough to hum, and I let go of the thread and blink, wincing in the sunlight on the abandoned roof. A stretch of black amidst the faded past. Someone erased Owen’s death, carved it right out of this place, buried the past from both sides. What could have possibly happened that year to make the Archive—or someone in it—do this?