Lucifer became acutely aware that she was holding his hand. It was only a short stretch of imagination to picture herself sitting across from David in a quiet restaurant. The bright cacophony of the diner dissolved into the distant murmurs of a hundred pleasant dinner conversations. She could picture a single candle between them, lighting David’s face with a perfect glow. She would say something benign and unimportant, and he would laugh. Soft shadows would play across his face, his perfect mouth curled in a smile. And he would whisper her name. There would be no witches. There would be no deadly dimensions and no magic save for the spell of his presence. Most of all, there would be no Gina. Only Lucifer and David, the two of them doing what Lucifer imagined two people falling in love would do.
David pulled his hand away and pressed his fingers to his temples, shattering the illusion. The diner came back in a rush. The brusque and offensive clatter returned, the golden candlelight replaced with the cold fluorescents buzzing overhead. The specter of Gina rose between them like smoke from the extinguished flame of her imaginary candle.
“Let me get this straight,” David said. “Gina is alive. But she’s in Witchdown. Witchdown is in the Shade. And only the dead can travel to the Shade.”
“That’s right.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If Gina’s alive, how can she be in Witchdown?”
“Because . . .” Lucifer paused, unsure of what to say. If Gina was still alive, which Lucifer firmly believed she was, the denizens of the Shade would be relentless in trying to kill her. A living soul would be a beacon. Every dark thing in the Shade would seek it out like moths drawn to a flame. Which meant the Sister who took Gina would have to be protecting her. Lucifer knew the Sisters of Witchdown were powerful, but were they strong enough to keep the entire Shade at bay? That was more power than Lucifer wanted to contemplate.
But David was right. If Gina was alive and in Witchdown, then there was a way the living could survive in the Shade. And to some extent, the Sisters themselves were even proof of that, though they weren’t exactly what one would call living. They had to sacrifice their own flesh to escape into the Shade. But apparently they had finally figured out how a living body could survive there. It had only taken a couple of centuries to do it.
“Lucifer?”
“You’re right, David. Gina’s alive and in Witchdown. Which means there has to be a way to get to her. I just have no idea what it is.”
“But there has to be someone who does, right? You know this world, Lucifer. Is there anyone out there who would know how a living person can go to the Shade?”
The answer to his question coiled around her chest like a black tentacle and squeezed the air from her lungs. “There is.” The words came out in a whisper.
Lucifer drank the rest of her tea in a single swallow. “I’ll be back. I have to use the restroom.” Ignoring David’s protests, Lucifer got up from the booth and made her way to ladies’ room on the far side of the diner.
Inside, she locked the door and slumped to the floor. Rings of toilet paper lay curled on the floor like the ancient skins of some beast who shed them in a mad dash to flee the stench that had invaded its lair. Lucifer clasped her hands together to stop them from shaking. Gorge rose in her throat when she saw the dirt still caked under nails.
She stood, went to the sink and emptied the small dispenser of soap into her hands. Lucifer scrubbed until her fingers were as raw and pink as the acrid soap she was using. She hated disturbing Helen Peltier’s eternal rest. But as much as she hated doing it, she hated what she was about to do even more.
The mark on her shoulder seemed to pull at her, weighing her down. Part of her wanted to smash the mirror above the sink and use the broken glass to flay the mark from her body. But there was no point. She’d known this day would come sooner or later.
Lucifer stared at her reflection through the mildew-stained glass. More than anything she wished she saw someone else looking back at her. That her only concern was brushing her disheveled hair or fixing her makeup.
But most of all, she wished she could look at a mirror and see only painted glass.
By the time Lucifer got back to David, the waitress had already cleared the table. “Let’s go,” Lucifer said.
“You going to tell me where we’re going next?” David asked.
Lucifer wasn’t ready to have this conversation. She knew he would insist on going with her, and there was absolutely no way she would ever allow that to happen. No matter how much she wanted to be near him.
“You’re taking me home.”
“You said you know someone who can tell us how to get to Witchdown. So let’s go talk to him and go get Gina back.”
Lucifer put her hand on David’s arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “David, I know you’re scared for her. I am, too. But in the past forty-eight hours I’ve eaten a can of pepper spray, dug up some poor woman’s grave, pulled a filcher demon out of a girl who wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire, and had to go to a shopping mall. I’m exhausted. Take me home so I can get some rest and then we can talk in the morning. Please.”
David nodded. “Sorry, I just . . .”
“I know. It’s okay. C’mon. It’s getting late.”
They hardly spoke during the drive back to Lucifer’s apartment. Instead, they listened to the constant pattering of rain against the windshield. When they finally arrived, Lucifer hesitated a moment, though she wasn’t sure why. Was it because she was afraid of what she was about to do? Or did she want to enjoy the illicit thrill of being alone with a boy in a car for just a little longer?
David reached into the backseat for something before getting out of the car. Confused, Lucifer sat still until David came around and opened the door for her. He held an umbrella above his head with one hand and extended the other toward her. Lucifer took his hand and let him escort her to the front door of her apartment complex.
“Thank you,” she said, watching steam rise from David’s damp shirt in thin, white wisps. His body heat blazed next to her like a furnace.
“You’ll call me tomorrow?” David asked.
“As soon as I wake up. Promise.”
“You better.” David smiled. He waited until she was inside the building before he gave her one final wave and returned to his car.
Lucifer rubbed her hands together as she made her way upstairs. Once inside her apartment, she removed her dirty, wet clothes and tossed them into a pile against her bedroom wall. She stepped into the shower, hoping there was still some hot water left. There wasn’t much, but there was enough to take away the constant chill Lucifer had been fighting since the cemetery.
She rested her head against the wall and watched the filthy water drain away at her feet. Exhaustion overwhelmed her. She hadn’t lied to David. She really did need sleep, but she needed an answer more. And there was only one person who could give it to her.
When Lucifer had finished soaking up about as much heat as the shower could give her, she dressed in dry clothes and combed the tangles from her hair. She ignored the siren call of her bed and turned to the sheet-covered object on the far side of the room.
She grabbed the sheet and yanked it away, revealing the ancient mirror hidden underneath. It was full-length and quite large enough for Lucifer to see her entire reflection from just a few feet away. She ran her hand over the various symbols and glyphs etched deep into the edges of the ancient wooden frame, feeling their familiar shapes beneath her fingertips. She stopped when she found the one that matched the mark on her shoulder. Lucifer took a deep breath before tracing the symbol with her index finger.
Lucifer heard a sound like the faint spasm of breaking ice at the upper limits of human perception. The glass vibrated, and the reflection rippled like waves in a pond. The waves rolled back on themselves and multiplied, growing smaller and finer until the entire surface was a kaleidoscope of color.
Lucifer stared at her reflection, broken into a thousand pieces. She reached out toward the glass and watched h
er hand disappear beneath its shimmering surface. Impossible cold bit into her skin, causing the breath to catch in her throat. She wanted nothing more than to turn around and crawl into her warm, inviting bed, but there was no point in delaying any further. The longer she put this off, the less likely she would be able to help Gina.
Lucifer gritted her teeth as she stepped through the mirror and into the Aether.
CHAPTER 13
Lucifer felt a slight shift in gravity. It pulled at her from off-center, as if the world she had stepped into was somehow crooked, off-balance. The effect was subtle, almost imperceptible. Up was still up and down was still down, but her inner ear struggled to compensate for the tilt, no matter how small it might be.
A wave of a nausea rolled through her. Lucifer grabbed the edge of the mirror to balance herself and waited for it to pass. Her lack of sleep wasn’t helping with the queasiness either, but after several deep breaths, her stomach settled.
Lucifer took a moment to get her bearings. She was in a vast room filled with a variety of standing mirrors. There were dozens of them, perhaps hundreds. Most were ancient. Their glass was filmed by age and neglect while only a handful appeared freshly polished. The strange shadow sun of the Aether broke through the vaulted windows high above, its light reflecting off the mirrors in harsh, bright spikes. A grand chandelier of twisted iron and heavy chains hovered directly overhead, its candles melted into useless stalactites long ago.
Below her, a faded burgundy carpet stretched all the way to the bare marble walls. The smell of cedar hung in the air, its sweet scent masking the heavy stench of ash and scorched decay hiding underneath: a lingering remnant of the war that was waged outside these walls.
It was impossible to know just how large the structure was. How many rooms did it have? How many floors? Each time Lucifer came here it seemed different than the time before. Sometimes larger, sometimes smaller, but always reflecting the particular mood of its sole occupant.
Lucifer stepped through a small archway on the far side of the room and into a well-lit sitting room. The walls were covered with dozens of picture frames, all varying sizes and each one completely empty. Their arrangement was haphazard, as if the person who hung them had no sense of right angles. She reached out and straightened one. The paint of the frame was faded beyond any recognizable color, and it flaked away at her touch. When she stood back to admire her handiwork, she noticed that it only served to bring more attention to how crooked the other frames were. It was as if straightening one frame only made the others more skewed.
“There you are!”
Lucifer turned. A well-dressed man with a perfectly manicured three-day beard stood behind her, his hands on his hips. He made a show of looking her up and down, clearly unimpressed by what he saw. He said, “I’ve been wandering around here for hours looking for you. What kind of a place is this?”
Lucifer didn’t move. She only stared at the man.
“You’ve heard the expression ‘Time is money’?,” he asked. “Well, mine is worth more than anyone else’s. It’s bad enough it took six months to figure out how to even get here, the least you could do is make yourself available when a client arrives. Now, let me tell you what I need and what I’m prepared to offer. First . . .”
Lucifer started to protest, but the man talked right over her. He droned on about portfolios and board meetings and hidden accounts. He stopped occasionally to ask if Lucifer followed what he was saying. She didn’t, but it didn’t matter because the man didn’t bother to wait for her to answer. He just continued on, oblivious to Lucifer’s disinterested scowls . . .
And to the creature that was emerging from the shadows behind him.
It was the Keeper of Secrets. She drifted out of the corner of the room, every stride as silent as a ghost’s breath. The shadows parted around her like black water breaking before the bow of an impossible ship until she came to rest directly behind the man.
The Keeper of Secrets was easily seven feet tall, though the wild waves of ebony hair that swirled around her head made her closer to eight. Lucifer might almost say she was beautiful. Even hauntingly so. She was somehow disheveled yet tidy at the same time. Like Chaos made presentable. The gray, slightly greenish hue to her ageless skin and the violet flecks that swirled in her eyes hinted at the otherworldly power she possessed. But there was one thing even beyond her wicked beauty that was unmistakably clear: the Keeper of Secrets was utterly, completely, and categorically insane.
The man was unaware of the figure towering over him. “So, what I want,” he said, “is the name of his top three investors and access to their shell company. And I’ll cut you in for three percent after the merger. You’d be stupid not to take this deal.” When Lucifer didn’t respond, he continued. “You’re the Keeper of Secrets. You know everything, right? So you know three percent is too good to pass up. But the longer you make me wait, the lower that number is going to go.”
Lucifer was going to say that his particular brand of confidence was about to get him tossed into a well, but before she could speak, the Keeper of Secrets held up a slender finger to her lips, bidding silence. Lucifer felt gravity shift again when she saw the malevolent joy dancing in the woman’s eyes.
“Hey,” the man said, snapping his fingers in Lucifer’s face. “I asked you a question. Are you going to say something or just scowl at me all day?”
The Keeper of Secrets placed her elegant hand on his shoulder then bent down and whispered in his ear. “She isn’t scowling at you, darling,” Her voice was soft, but a tremendous weight coiled beneath it, ready to strike.
When the man turned and saw her, all the color drained from his face. “I . . . I thought she was the Keeper of Secrets,” he said, pointing at Lucifer with a shaky finger.
“Oh, no, darling. At least, not yet.”
“Uh, not ever.”
“Wait your turn, Lucifer.” She straightened herself and smiled down at the man. “Hello, Karl. I am the Keeper of Secrets, but most people simply call me the Harlot. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. Follow me. I’ve prepared some tea.” Without another word, the Harlot turned and walked away, the deep folds of her black dress billowing in a breeze only it could feel.
The man, Karl, stood unmoving as Lucifer stepped past him. She followed the Harlot to the far side of the sitting room where a tea set waited on a warped mahogany coffee table. The Harlot motioned to a faded red couch as she took her place in a high-backed velvet chair.
“He might be a while. You take some time getting used to,” Lucifer said.
“He’ll find his courage soon enough.” The Harlot smiled as she picked up the teapot and began to pour. “And I’m sorry about your shoes.”
“My shoes?”
At that moment, Karl came in. He stood next to Lucifer but didn’t sit. “I don’t like being made to wait.” He looked down and scowled at Lucifer. “Or being made a fool of.”
“You also don’t like deep water, snails, or people with differing opinions,” the Harlot said. “And no one likes being made a fool of, darling. You aren’t special in that regard.” She blew across her cup, cooling her tea. “Or in any other, if I must be honest.”
“Excuse me? I cut million-dollar deals before this one even gets out of bed in the morning,” he said, thumbing toward Lucifer.
“I doubt that,” said Lucifer. “I don’t sleep much.”
“If I wanted comments from the slacker generation, I’d start a YouTube channel. Who the hell are you, anyway?”
The Harlot put the cup down and waved toward Lucifer. “How rude of me. Karl, may I introduce Lucifer. My heir.”
“Lucifer? You’re the devil?”
Lucifer leveled her best sneer at the Harlot. “You just love doing that, don’t you?”
“Lucifer is a thief, not a devil. And she is rather proud of her name. It’s a celebration of the two women who gave their lives to save hers.” Then the Harlot leveled a sneer of her own. “What a shame she doesn’t exte
nd that courtesy to all the women who have saved her life.”
Lucifer scratched at the mark on her shoulder and frowned.
“I don’t care about her,” Karl said. “I want to know if we’re in business. My offer is three percent.”
“Three percent!” The Harlot put her hand to her chest in a show of feigned delight. “Oh, Karl. You are confused about the nature of the services I provide. I sell secrets, but you do not dictate the price of those secrets. I do.”
“Now hold on just a minute, harlot, whore, whatever you are—”
The Harlot was out of the chair faster than Lucifer’s eyes could follow. She had knocked the coffee table aside and had Karl by the throat so quickly that the teapot had already shattered on the floor before Lucifer could put her arms up to protect herself.
“Lucifer is not the only one who is sensitive about her name,” she said as Karl ineffectually clawed at her wrist, trying to free himself. “I am not a harlot. I am the Harlot. And if you refer to me as a whore again, I will sew your face into a coin purse.” She leaned in, her nose almost touching his. “While you watch.”
The Harlot tossed Karl to the ground like a discarded tissue. He landed with a heavy splat, right in the middle of the spreading puddle of water soaking into the carpet. Steam rose around him as he rubbed his throat and gasped for air.
Lucifer herself had been on the business end of the Harlot’s wrath before and couldn’t help but feel an odd twinge of sympathy for Karl. But she also knew that if the Harlot followed through on her threat, Karl was getting off easy. The Keeper of Secrets was quite capable of doing worse than creative haberdashery. Much, much worse.
“Your overbearing machismo has grown tiresome, Karl. So let us conduct our business and be done.”
Karl stood, his clothes dripping. When he spoke, his fragile voice was barely more than a whisper. “How much?”
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