“Yes. I will save your friend. You’re welcome. There’s only one tiny thing I expect in return.”
“You’ll save her?” My heart raced as I stared at him. He didn’t look altruistic, but whatever I could give the insane man, I would.
“Yes. I will,” he said, moving close to me and cupping my face with his hand as he stared into my eyes. “You have a fascinating soul. I look forward to tasting it.”
I jerked away, but too late.
I felt a chill spread over my skin as he smiled at me, his voice whispered words that I couldn’t understand that came from far away, and he touched my soul, wrapping around me, suffocating me. I gasped as I felt my body slipping away, the horrible pain in my heart the last thing I remembered before I fell into darkness.
“She’s special,” voices hissed, over and under each other, “So special, special, special,” with cackling laughter and angry growls making it impossible to focus on one voice.
“Enough,” I said straightening up and opening my eyes. I saw my body on the ground, feathers around my face, my terrible scar cutting across my cheek. The light from the flames played over my skin making Chloe and I look less dead.
“You bid me come?” someone said behind me. I glanced towards the doorway and saw Lorenzo, the blonde man from the building, the one who liked to protect things rather than destroy them.
“I believe I’ve found a soul-mate,” I said, dropping on my heels to get a closer view of my face.
Lorenzo hissed in something that wasn’t exactly approval. “You killed her?”
I shook my head while the voices inside began to rise in an insane cacophony that made it impossible to think. “I can’t kill her. He already recognizes her. I can’t find him. He’s not inside of me, but he’s still aware. From what I’d heard, I thought he would be a voice at the bottom of the well of souls, self-absorbed to the point of consumption, but still present. Do you know what I speak of, Lorenzo?”
“There should be a presence, but I agree. This Hollow One seems completely devoid of the original soul. It’s as though he had it removed before he turned.”
“I recognize her, this girl who pleads for the lives of others. We danced when she awoke me in Hallow Hall. She played us awake. There was another there, maybe the Hollow One. What do you think she knows?”
“I wouldn’t say that she knows much or she never would have come here,” Lorenzo said, studying my fallen figure thoughtfully. “What will you do with her?”
“She’ll make a fine pet. I always wanted a bird that sings.”
I leaned forward and cupped Chloe’s lost soul in my hands, thinning it back out with my fingers until I brushed Chloe’s head, a gentle caress.
Chloe opened her eyes, staring at me blankly.
“Hello little one,” I said, cocking my head. “You’ve been dead. How did you like it?”
She spoke in a rough voice, “I feel terrible. What happened? Who are you?”
Lorenzo bent and held a thermos to her mouth. She drank while I watched then she wiped her mouth with her arm.
“I’m the master of Lost Souls,” I said smoothly.
She gasped and shrank back, staring at me with ever widening eyes. “The Hollow One,” she whispered. She looked around and for the first time saw her friend, Sand.
“What did you do to her?” she demanded, rounding on me, full of spirit in spite of her size.
“She’s asleep,” I said soothingly. “She’ll wake up in a few days and feel much better. Hunting is exhausting.”
“Let her wake up now,” she said, putting a cajoling lilt in her voice, using her Cool abilities as subtly as she was able.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to give me your goodbyes instead of her. She saved your life.”
Chloe frowned at me then looked down at the fallen body. “What are you going to do to her?”
“I’m going to dress her in silk and satin, hold balls in her honor and feed her cream and honey until she’s a little less starved. She doesn’t take very good care of herself, but with her Hollow blood, she’s a treasure in this world. Someone needs to take care of her.”
“You’re going to keep her for her Hollow blood?”
“It must be preserved. Now,” I said, standing on my feet and pulling her up with my hand in hers. She flinched from my touch and rubbed her hand on her pants when I let go. “You may return to your Hunters and tell them that the Hollow One is merciful and good.”
She scowled at me. “You’re keeping her here as a prisoner. How is that merciful or good?”
I smiled at her in a way that made her back up, bumping into Lorenzo’s unmoving figure. “I suppose we could keep both of you here if you’d like, but you haven’t got any Hollow blood, no. You do have Wild blood. Quite a lot of it. I’m sure I could find a Lost Soul who would enjoy your soft skin.”
She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at my, Dariana’s body then back up at me, the Hollow One.
“You won’t steal her soul?”
“You have my word,” I said smoothly, smiling again. “Lorenzo, show her to the gate where Sand the Hunter left her motorcycle. Take your time. She’s still disoriented and clumsy. It would be a pity for her to fall and break her neck, waste her friend’s noble sacrifice.”
I turned away and walked back to the table, picking up my tweezers and raising the scalpel to cut through flesh. The voices of the Lost Souls rose in my mind, whispers and shouts, singing and moaning that swirled around me, drowning me in darkness.
Chapter 20
I woke up in a bed, white gauze trailing down from the four-poster frame, heavy limbs holding me down. I felt like a stone statue turning human, my body disconnected and numb.
I swallowed, trying to moisten my dry throat. A figure dressed in white moved, her graceful arm pushing back the gauze that surrounded me. I lunged for her, took her in a headlock and almost twisted, but her eyes didn’t have demon in them, just a Lost Soul. I recognized the face, large eyes of the woman who had listened to her child burn with a smile on her lovely face.
I gritted my teeth as my hands trembled on the brink between her life and death. I squeezed until she fell unconscious, but not dead. As I let her slide to the floor I remembered the Hollow One, the one wearing Lewis. He’d touched my soul. I rubbed my chest where it still ached, like my soul hadn’t been hurt enough. He’d touched me. I could still feel him on my cheek, cool fingers in spite of the fire.
They’d said that he wasn’t there, that there was no original soul in that mess of insanity. If he wasn’t here, what could I hope for?
The door opened and I pulled back. Lorenzo, the Lost Soul that seemed the most sane entered carrying a tray. His black suit did not blend in with the all-white, shrouded place.
“Feeling better then,” he said in a low voice as he saw the woman. “Excellent. I have elixirs here designed to improve your health and your soul. The master would like your company for dinner.”
“No thank you. I’m not hungry.”
He studied me, his brows lowering as he looked at me, concerned. “The master’s desires are not negotiable. Your will belongs to him.” He shook his head. “You should not have come here.” He flinched like something hurt him before his face smoothed. “He did save the life of your friend. He’s not all bad.”
“He…” I bit back the words about how he’d burned the child alive. He took souls. How could I go to dinner with someone like that, particularly when he wore the skin of the boy I loved?
“Your dress is there,” Lorenzo said, nodding to the wall where a ridiculously elaborate confection of blue and cream hung on a hook. It looked like it came from another place in time.
I noticed then what I was wearing, a pale blue colored silk slip that barely skimmed my thighs. “Where are my clothes, my real clothes?”
He shook his head. “You won’t need feathers here. We wouldn’t want you to fly away.”
I gritted my fists as he put the tray on the floor
without coming any closer to me then slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind him. I was left with the unconscious Lost Soul, a tray with three glasses filled with different colored liquids, and a dress Smoke’s reenactment friends would wear.
I stepped over the woman, wobbling on my legs over to the tray where I collapsed onto the stone floor. I studied the glasses, amber colored, dark burgundy and pale green.
He’d saved Chloe for a price. I was the price, my life, my will. He wanted to dress me up and make me sing. I lifted the first glass with trembling fingers and downed the contents of the pale green one. It tasted like mint and old envelopes. I dropped the glass from my limp fingers where it fell, spilling the dregs on the stone floor. I took a deep breath then drank the burgundy one tasting over-ripe apples then the amber one like too sweet caramel, caramel apples as the flavors combined.
I blinked as the room began spinning and my stomach cramped. Had Lorenzo poisoned me? I took a deep, steadying breath when I didn’t die. I probably should have drunk them more slowly. When I straightened from my crouch on the floor I saw the woman looking at me blankly. She sat up and carefully patted her hair into place.
“Good day,” she said with a melodious voice as she gave me a gentle smile, as though I hadn’t strangled her, like she hadn’t been the mother of that poor boy, the one they’d burned alive.
I swallowed down nausea. Lewis would never have burned anyone alive. How could he be in the Hollow One? No. The Hollow One had touched me, touched my soul. Lewis’s body was there, but he was still gone. My chest ached so hard as the hopes I’d tried not to have shattered into sharp shards that sliced my heart.
I stumbled to the window, pushing back the gauzy curtains to look out at the gray day and twenty-foot drop down to the overgrown garden.
“Please step away from the window,” the woman said softly. “I’d hate to hurt you.”
I turned slowly to face her.
“That’s better,” she said with a wide smile as she folded her hands together neatly. “The master is willing to entertain you during dinner.”
I swallowed. I couldn’t see him again, feel the invasive touch while Lewis’s hands betrayed me. “He’s not my master. I’d rather starve than see him again.”
She tsked before she smiled slightly. “You aren’t accustomed to having your life cupped in someone else’s hands. The master isn’t just another Voice. In his life we called him Peregrine, a bird of prey as beautiful as it was vicious. Compared to him, you’re just sand in an hourglass, keeping time for him. The name doesn’t suit the Master’s mistress. Maybe he’ll give you a different one that matches your feathers.”
“I don’t have feathers anymore. Your master stole them from me.”
She smiled a sharp smile. “What would be a suitable name for a girl who’s been plucked?”
I clenched and unclenched my fists as I fought down the rising panic. What was I doing there? I’d saved Chloe. I had to find out more about the Hollow One. I had to do my part to save the world. But Lewis was dead! I’d killed him, burned him and inhaled his ashes. How could I feel his touch while caressed by Peregrine’s grasping soul and not tumble off the awful precipice of insanity? My breath came short and shallow until I turned and ran, two steps short of the window when I felt a pressure in my head that made everything cloudy around the edges and I fell into darkness.
When I woke up, I sat at a white table, gauzy layers of linen beneath my hand which had a golden fork propped in it. I blinked my sticky lashes and looked up at the Hollow One where he sat across from me, watching me with an expressionless face.
“Good evening,” he said blandly as he offered me a false smile and took a forkful of quail eggs. As I stared at the food, the eggs benedict on a bed of greens, egg salad and poached eggs with spun egg whites in elaborately spun confections, I sensed a theme.
“Birds don’t usually eat eggs,” I said weakly.
He smiled at me a little bit wider, showing his white teeth, but the smile did not belong to Lewis. “You and I aren’t that kind of bird, are we, dove?” he said in a low voice that made me shiver for an inexplicable reason. “You look magnificent. Miss Elodie doubted she could take you from Hunter to Hollow companion. I knew the moment I saw your soul. There is far more to you than meets the eye.”
I swallowed, gripped my fork tightly and then stabbed the eggs on a bed of greens in front of me. I took a bite that would be impossible to talk around. I couldn’t talk, not when I faced Lewis who was not himself, dressed up like a doll. I felt suffocated from the layers of cakey makeup on my face while my eyes itched from the ghostly mascara I saw every time I blinked.
I chewed, the textures rubbery until I crunched a sliver of eggshell.
“What do you want from me?” I asked when I knew that if I ate another bite it wouldn’t stay down.
He looked at me, his pale eyes making me shift uncomfortably before he shrugged. “It can be so lonely being the Voice of madness. I look forward to our burgeoning friendship. Tell me about the Hollow One. What was he like before he turned?”
I shook my head feeling numb and like I’d eaten feathers that poked me on the inside instead of eggs. “I don’t know. I don’t understand how someone becomes the Hollow One, turns, becomes possessed by Lost Souls and kills all the Wilds.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “The Hollow One holds the Lost Souls. The more Lost Souls, the more capacity required for the Hollow One. The more capacity… You don’t know what that means. Poor bird. You must be so overwhelmed. You never knew that he was a lie. How broken you must have felt. How shattered when you realized that your love was an illusion, a tool that he used to fix his soul away from his body where it could stay safe.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered as my heart pounded. I put a hand on my chest, feeling the fluttering beneath the ribbons and silk flowers.
He leaned forward, stripping my soul bare. “You know my face.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. I saw you when you first manifested. My father told me that he was responsible for the end of the Hollows. You killed him.”
He smiled as though pleased. “How awkward to sit across from your father’s murderer. Of course, it wasn’t I but my predecessor, Aric. Poor Aric. He had a personal vendetta against Woods. Those always end badly.” He shook his head, his smile fading as he lifted a gold goblet and swirled the contents around. “Gill had a soulmate. She died during his transition. He didn’t go insane, no, I don’t believe he did. I believe that he chose his path with eyes wide open. That’s what pain does to a person, pain like losing that precious piece of your heart.” He looked up from the goblet, his gaze narrowing in on me. “What can you do when your heart is filled with so much pain?”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe when my heart filled to overflowing with agony. I blinked rapidly as the room swam. Lewis had betrayed me with his lie. He’d left me in a world with the Hollow One who would enjoy twisting my soul and heart until I was as insane as he was.
I forced myself to sit up straight. “How does the Hollow One become the Hollow One? I thought all the Hollows were gone, except random Hybrids with only a little bit of Hollow in them, like myself.”
He smiled at me. “You’re wondering how a generic Bloodworker could become the Hollow one? If you know anything about Hollows you would know that we adapt. We take on the attributes of whoever we’re raised with. Up until the time we turn, we’re always taking the skills and abilities of others. It helps us survive when we have so few gifts on our own. We are really the weakest suit, except for the Hollow One who has all power. The man who was the Hollow One must have been raised by Hotbloods.”
“Would he have known what he was?”
His smile twisted. “Of course. He would have seen souls from his first breath. With the power of this, the Last Hollow One, I would say that he had one parent Hollow, one parent Nether. So much power, and all for the single purpose of ending Wilds.”
�
��Maybe he didn’t want to destroy all the Wilds. Maybe he wanted to let it go and be happy instead.”
He cocked his head, staring at me as if intrigued. “Perhaps he did. Of course, what he wanted doesn’t make any difference. He’s not here to argue the point. Music,” he said suddenly, rising to his feet while my heart cracked.
Violins filled the air, cellos and oboes, a tune so hauntingly familiar, it sent shivers over my skin.
The Hollow One came to me around the table, white-gloved hand extended. “Shall we continue our dance?” he said, staring at me with pale shifting eyes.
That’s when I recognized the song, the tune I’d played in Hollow Hall so long ago, the song of Lewis, my love for him a beating rhythm that could chase away ghosts and make the sun shine. I swallowed down a lump in my throat as I stood, putting my hand mechanically in his. My heart ached as he led me into the shadowy alcove past the dining table where candles burned dimly, the orchestra echoing from above us where arched windows held the musicians. One man leaned out with his violin, playing the refrain with passion that made my heart twinge.
“My dearest Dove,” the Hollow One murmured into my ear as we moved gracefully together, the swish of my skirts colliding with his white suit. “I do so look forward to us getting to know one another.”
“There’s nothing to know.” I leaned away from him, but his hand became steel at the base of my spine, holding me close.
“How did you become a Hunter? How did you survive runes? They’re beautiful, by the way. Like lace on your skin. A Hollow put those runes on you. Hollows were the best at runing. Why is it that Wilds resent any power they don’t have? They created runes when Hollows discovered how to work with stones. Embedding metal in flesh?” He shook his head. “That’s insane.” He smiled a sharp smile at me that made my heart pound.
House of Slide: Hunter Page 24
