by Kelly Creagh
At the front of this cluster stood a man with a beard and glasses; stern-faced, but not unkind-looking. While the others behind him continued to chat among themselves, this man seemed restless. He kept taking his hands in and out of his pockets, checking his wristwatch, and occasionally glancing toward the Greene Street gates.
What was he so worried about? Did he think the Poe Toaster wasn’t coming? If nothing else, his anxiety assured her that, as of yet, Reynolds had not shown. Then she remembered what Mr. Swanson had said about people climbing the gates in years past, attempting to intercept the rite.
How fast could security get there if they were called into action? Probably within seconds.
A low scraping sound called Isobel’s attention away from her thoughts and back to Poe’s marker. Silence spread over the cemetery as the crowd of onlookers watching from the gates settled into hushed tones, shushing the man who had been reading aloud.
When the scraping noise came again, Isobel’s gaze narrowed on the crypt that stood catty-corner to Poe’s old grave.
She stared in disbelief as the slab door, which faced Poe’s marker, began to wobble in its frame. Then, gradually, an inch at a time, it started to shift inward, with the heavy, thunderlike rumble of stone sliding against stone.
A gust of wind rushed out of the open tomb, sending forth a burst of white substance, something heavier than the snow, denser. The ash flowed out to mingle with the frozen flakes in a flurry just before one black boot appeared at the threshold, imprinting itself into the virgin snow.
Isobel’s heart jarred in her chest. She rose to her feet, the rush of blood in her ears blocking out all other sounds. She kept her eyes on the figure that emerged from the black mouth of the tomb. Like caressing hands, the inky darkness within clung to his form, as though reluctant to let him go.
Isobel stood in shock within the recess of her hiding place, her body tingling from head to foot, a vibration starting inside of her and growing so intense, so electrifying that she wasn’t certain she would be able to bring herself to move at all when the time came.
She watched as the masked man strode forward toward the grave marker. As he came out into the open, she forced herself to take a step back, allowing the shadows to envelop her fully.
Flurries began to light on his black hat, filling the wide brim, their whiteness matching the scarf that concealed the lower half of his face. Tall and straight, his shrouded form cut a sinister figure amid the scattering of tombstones. His cloak swirled around his feet as he walked, the fabric nearly brushing the ground.
He moved slowly, his chin down, the brim of his hat pulled low over his eyes so that no part of his face showed.
Midway to the grave, he paused, causing Isobel to stiffen. He stood motionless for a moment, his head remaining bowed. In one gloved hand, she saw the three long-stemmed roses she had read about in the article. In the other, Reynolds carried a bottle, and a brandy glass was tucked between his fingers.
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Isobel slid farther backward into her hiding place, afraid that he had somehow become alerted to her presence. Her eyes remained on him, the adrenaline within her building, telling her to move, to do something.
He turned his head in her direction, and she stilled her breathing.
Could he see her? Even through the veil of darkness cast between the tombs, had he been able to perceive someone watching?
She saw him give a slow nod, a deep and purposeful inclination of his head. Heart pounding, she tried to think of how to react as he raised one gloved hand—the same hand that held the roses—to meet the brim of his hat. That was when Isobel realized that he hadn’t been looking at her at all, that the gesture must have been meant for the group watching from inside the church. This was a signal, she thought. Reynolds’s own salute to the Poe scholars, a sign that told them he was the one. And one of them.
Isobel glanced back at the glass doors at the top of the iron grate stairs, just in time to see the man in the glasses return the gesture of acknowledgment with one of his own—an open palm.
She wondered if they’d seen Reynolds come through the tomb door. She didn’t think so. The crypt stood only a few feet in front of and below the door from where they watched. To them, it must have looked like Reynolds had simply stepped out from between the tomb and the side of the church.
She saw the other scholars smiling as they scrunched closer together in the doorway, their faces nearly pressed to the glass.
They looked excited, even giddy, their expressions lit with the glow of eager anticipation, like they were watching the dramatic opening act of a play.
But what would they do, Isobel wondered, if they had seen what she had? If they knew the things she did about what this man, this . . . being, whatever he was, had done? That it was his hand, the same hand that now clutched the roses of supposed remembrance, that had severed the line of Poe’s short life?
They didn’t know the truth behind what they were seeing. Like Varen, they were interacting with something they didn’t understand. And like him, they did not comprehend the danger.
Isobel forced herself to look away from the scholars, back to Reynolds. But her eyes skirted past him to the open tomb door. And somehow, it clicked with her that that doorway was the opportunity she’d come for, her one hope of reaching the dreamworld. Of finding Varen.
Suddenly she knew she couldn’t wait for Reynolds to finish his one-man show so she could follow after him. There would be no time for that and no way she would be able to cover the distance without being seen by everyone, including him. If she hesitated, if she didn’t go right now, right this very second while Reynolds’s back was turned, then it would be too late.
She crept forward on trembling legs, coming to stand just at the edge of the two tombs that concealed her.
She hunkered down, preparing to bolt.
But then she made the fatal mistake of taking one last look at Reynolds just as he lowered himself reverently onto one knee before the stone, about to play out his moment of mock tribute. One look at him there, bowing his head before Poe’s grave, paying homage to the very man he had slain, doing so in full sight of people who believed he was something he wasn’t, Poe’s own patron saint—it caused something within her, all the weight she had been carrying up to this moment, to shift. And implode.
The memory of his lie reignited within her.
Her muscles acted without her consent, her legs carrying her out of her hiding place and into the open. The wind bit at her skin. She could hear it whistling in her ears along with the surprised cries of those who watched from the street.
Possessed by everything she had tried to repress, by the rage and frustration she hadn’t been allowed to feel, Isobel surrendered control.
The snowy world around her melted away until all she saw was the dark figure who called himself Reynolds.
So absorbed in the part he’d been playing, he looked only at the last moment. By that time, it was too late for him to move away or draw one of the twin swords she knew he carried.
Isobel plowed straight into him with a shriek of fury.
The bottle and glass he held flew out of his grasp and smashed to bits against Poe’s gravestone.
She heard him grunt as they fell back together, landing in the middle of one of the evergreen shrubs.
Isobel gripped his collar, the scent of fermented roses filling her nostrils. Her grip tightened around his cloak, and rolling one over the other, they tumbled from the bush and out onto the hard and frozen turf.
Using all her strength to throw the last whip-snap revolution, Isobel pulled herself on top of him, straightening her arms to slam his shoulders to the ground. His head hit with a dull thud, causing his hat to tumble away.
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She bared her teeth at him as his eyes focused on her in utter shock.
“Isobel!” he hissed
.
That’s right, she thought as she reared back one fist, ready to smash her knuckles straight through his face, it’s me.
The blood in her veins seemed to reach its boiling point as she brought her fist down hard toward his scarf-swathed nose.
In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to hear the crunch of bones. But the sound did not come. He stopped her, his large hand wrapping almost entirely around her own. Growling, Isobel yanked back on her arm, but his clutch tightened, causing her shoulder to jam in its socket.
Isobel bit back the urge to cry out. Still, tears stung at the corners of her eyes, less from the pain than from frustration. She wanted him to know what he’d done. She wanted him to feel everything he had caused her to feel. She wanted revenge.
Before he could stop her, she grabbed his white scarf with her other hand and yanked the fabric free.
It unraveled, revealing the face of the man who had taken so much from her.
29
Entombed
Almost as though she had struck him, Reynolds released her at once.
Startled by her own gall, Isobel fumbled back. She scrambled in a crab crawl over the frozen ground, doing her best to put distance between them before pulling herself to her feet. She dragged his long white scarf with her, tightening her grip on the fabric when the wind attempted to tug it free.
He, too, rose, his cloak snapping in the breeze.
Before her stood a man with hollow cheeks, his lips thin and pale, his nose sharp and hawkish.
No monster. No demon or angel. Only a man.
Reynolds glared at her, his dark hair, disheveled from their tussle, hanging in loosed strands around his unmasked face.
Younger than Isobel had imagined him, he had a haunted and weathered gauntness to his features. Aside from the blackened centers of his eyes, it was the one thing that suggested his true age. And yet his youth surprised her less than the fact that as far as secrets went, his face seemed to reveal none.
Could this really be the face of Reynolds?
If so, then why the mask? What had he been trying to hide?
“Who are you really?” she heard herself ask.
He did not answer, his jaw set in stiff defiance as they stood opposite each other.
Even with the sounds of people shouting from the gates, Isobel dared not look away.
His gaze penetrating and accusing, he held one gloved hand out to her, palm up. It was a gesture that seemed to ask for the return of his scarf.
But Isobel knew better than to come any closer.
She stepped back instead, her boots sinking into the snow.
“Give it to me,” he rasped, his voice urgent. His outstretched hand balled into a fist. She saw it quiver and knew she had been right in guessing that anger simmered just beneath the surface of that austere veneer.
It was so strange to hear his familiar voice, so full of age and grim authority, coming out of someone who looked so young. Deceptively young, she thought. But deceptiveness was Reynolds’s game. It was the hand he had always played, right from the beginning, and Isobel knew better than to gamble with him again. The stakes were too high.
“You there!” someone shouted from the church.
It was the man with the beard and glasses. He now stood outside the church on the top landing of the stairs leading out from the glass doors, a flashlight in his hand. Its beam winked toward them.
When Reynolds threw up his arm to shield his face, Isobel took another step away from him. Behind her, she felt a slight rush of air wash over her. But it wasn’t like the crisp winter wind that whipped the snow about them.
This breeze felt different, cool but not frigid, the air tinged with the acrid scent of earthy decay, of ash and dust and moldering trees. Of roses. And ink.
She risked a quick glance behind her.
The tomb door stood at a distance of mere yards, still open—waiting, it seemed, for her to make the decision to enter. And Isobel knew that this doorway was really what she had come for. Not for retribution. Not to punish Reynolds or even to try to understand who he was or all that he had done. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that had ever mattered, she knew, was getting to Varen.
“Out of the way,” she heard someone shout from the gates. “Security! Everybody, move!”
Isobel released her hold on Reynolds’s scarf. It puddled at her feet, blending into the white snow. If she ran now, she thought, she could make it. She was close enough that he wouldn’t be able to stop her.
“You cannot reach him,” he said as though he’d somehow been able to read her thoughts. “Not that way. ”
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In the distance, the gates rattled, followed by the sound of chains being pulled free.
“Do you seriously expect me to believe anything you say?” Isobel asked him.
“I told you what I had to,” he said. “To protect this world. Your world. ”
“Did you?” Isobel took a step back and then another. The speed of her heart, already racing, tripled when she saw him match her movements. “Is that what happened with Edgar, too?” she continued, her eyes darting to the hilt of one of his swords as it flashed silver within the shadowy folds of his cloak. “Did you do what you had to when he was calling out for you, begging for your help?”
He stopped midstep, though his expression remained unchanged.
“You said he was your friend,” she went on. “And I guess now you’re going to try to tell me that wasn’t a lie either? I saw what happened in the hospital. I know what you did. ” She continued to move as she spoke, putting more and more distance between them. She kept her eyes level on him. “Whatever you are . . . whatever monster it is you’ve become . . . you should know that it is everything you deserve to be. ”
With that, Isobel turned, rushing headlong for the open tomb.
Somewhere far off, getting closer, she heard the wail of sirens. People yelling. Iron hinges groaning.
“Stop!” Reynolds shouted.
She ran toward the tomb, the ground racing beneath her feet. She felt as if she was rushing straight into her own grave, about to catapult herself into the yawning jaws of death itself.
“Isobel!”
She could sense him just behind her—inches away.
On the ground, she saw his shadow gaining on hers, then falling away the moment before something fast and strong—a hand—caught her around the ankle. She tripped forward and fell flat onto her stomach, the air bursting out of her lungs as the frozen snow soaked through her clothes.
Isobel groped for the archway, for anything to grab hold of. Her fingernails scraped over the stone threshold as she felt herself being drawn backward.
“No!” she shouted.
Twisting onto her side, Isobel saw him behind her, on his knees in the snow, one hand fixed like a manacle around her ankle. She pulled up the knee of her free leg, preparing to kick him, but missed when he yanked her toward him. Cringing, she cried out, gritting her teeth as the hardened, gravel-coated earth grated against her side. Then, as though she were nothing more than a rag doll, Reynolds drew her to her knees before him, bringing her to face him.
He held her by her shoulders and, shaking her once, forced her eyes to meet with his.
“Listen to me,” he said. “If you cross that barrier, you will die! And if you die while bodily within that realm, you will become like the rest of us. The same soulless class of monster you have so ardently accused me of being!”
She only half heard these words, her attention drawn to the sudden movement that came from behind Poe’s old grave marker. A familiar figure, visible over one of Reynolds’s black-clad shoulders, rose up from behind the monument, her face luminous as a ghost’s.
Gwen.
“Heed my words, Isobel—”
Isobel looked quickly back to Reynolds as Gwen made her approach, hurrying tow
ard them. Stooping, she gathered the hem of his cloak and then, just as he turned to look, Gwen pulled the fabric taut, tossing it over his head as though bagging a live rabbit.
“Heed this!” she growled as she locked her twiggy arms around Reynolds’s neck in a choke hold, clamping the cloak into place over his head.
Reynolds released Isobel at once and his hands rushed to grip Gwen’s arms. Gwen did her best to hold fast, clutching him tighter. Her eyes met with Isobel’s, glasses knocked askew.
“Go!” she yelled.
Isobel scrambled to her feet. She hurried toward the tomb door even as Reynolds’s cries for her to stop continued. At first they came muffled, distorted by the fabric of the cloak. Then, after a high-pitched shriek from Gwen, his shouting became suddenly clear again.
Isobel reached the darkness of the doorway, not bothering to slow down as she shot through to the other side. She gasped as her body passed beyond what felt like an invisible screen of static electricity. Her limbs became numbed as the sound of her footsteps echoed on the stone floor.
Whirling, she grabbed hold of the slab that lay partially shifted aside from the open archway. She shoved at it, and to her amazement, the door began to move, the thick stone grinding its way shut, following the command of her slightest push.
Through the shrinking wedge of dim light, she could see the cemetery filling with people. The man who had watched from the church. Police officers, hands poised on their holstered guns. And Gwen sitting nearby, huddled against one of the gravestones, cradling an arm against her chest. Tears streaked her face, but her figure soon became eclipsed by another.
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Reynolds ran toward her. Throwing his cloak back, he pulled free one of his swords with a harsh scrape of metal.
Isobel shoved harder against the stone door, willing it to close faster.
The gap shrunk to a mere slit.
She let go, and the stone continued to slide on its own.
Isobel stood back as Reynolds slammed to a halt before the thinning crevice.
She saw his eyes just before the door slid all the way shut, black coin-size holes fixed on her with murderous intent.
Then, with a low boom, the door snapped into its frame, blocking him out completely, sending a puff of ash and grime into Isobel’s face.
