House of Slide: Hunter

by Juliann Whicker

  It wasn’t Lewis’s smile, but it was his mouth. No. I couldn’t think like that. This creature was not my Lewis. Nothing like my Lewis however right his body felt when my arm brushed his chest.

  I swung beneath his arm as he spun me, dizzying movement that made everything seem far away and fuzzy. When we came back together, I stopped short against his chest, the feel of his heart, sluggishly pumping blood beneath my hand.

  “How long do you intend to keep me like this, playing dolls with me?”

  He smiled at me, leaning down to search my eyes for something I didn’t want him to see. “There are those who see a world where Hollow blood flows through the veins of children running free, unafraid of the monsters, the Wilds. Some hope that there is enough Hollow blood hidden in Hybrids, warm-blooded humans, and even Wilds like yourself. The future is a dream but not in conflict with the first most important rule of the day, of course, vengeance.”

  I knew that he would kill all Wilds without compunction no matter how old or innocent they were. I’d seen him destroy families. Who knew how long it would take for him to take my mother and her House. Maybe enough Hollow blood ran through their veins to give him pause.

  “Why keep me here if you’re considering not killing those with Hollow blood? You could let me go back to Hunting. We perform a very worthy service to the world. Tainted Hollow blood isn’t going to do anyone any good.”

  “You want to go?” he frowned at me, tightening his grip on my waist. “Why would you wish to leave? Your heart pounds like beating wings in your ribcage with each touch of my hand. You came here with a corpse instead of your knives. You never even tried to kill me. I don’t think you can.” He smiled a strangely satisfied smile considering the fact that the body I could not kill had nothing to do with the soul that occupied it.

  “My knives?”

  He smiled again, an extremely uncomfortable smile. “You electrocuted Elodie when she tried to divest you of them while you were unconscious, to make you more comfortable, of course.”

  “Did I? How shocking.”

  He looked at me then shook his head slightly as he pressed me closer to him. “You are safe here, my dove.”

  “Maybe you won’t kill me, but some things are worse than death. Let me go. Please.”

  He smiled and brushed my cheek with his fingers. “I do like you pleading with me. You don’t understand. There isn’t anywhere else in the world. You will never be alone again. If you wish, you will never feel the pain,” he said in a low voice as his fingers trailed down my throat to rest on my rapidly beating heart.

  I twisted away from him, but his forehead brushed mine and I couldn’t think, couldn’t see anything other than Lewis who wasn’t dead but dancing with me.

  “You died,” I whispered. “You died. I drank your ashes.” My body flared to life as I recognized the feel of Lewis.

  He sighed, sliding his forehead against mine. “Such sweet words. You’re so tired. You’ve been alone for too long. Rest.”

  “I…” I looked saw his eyes flicker gold a moment before he touched my soul, brushing mine, sending a shock through my system that had me gasping and pulling him closer to me, breathing in the scent of his skin. He smelled wrong. Like chemicals and acids instead of sunshine. Where was Lewis? For a moment he’d been here, right in my arms. I blinked at him, seeing the pale eyes instead of golden.

  “What do you want me for?”

  “You must be protected so that the Original, if he’s ever found, doesn’t fall into despair over the loss of his love.” He smiled as the music swelled to a rising crescendo. “The bird should learn to enjoy her cage,” he said as we circled around and around the room, endless circles that showed no escape, no reprieve from a beating heart too close to my lost love who would never find me again.

  I felt skewered, like I had a javelin through my heart. He raised his hand and the musicians fell silent.

  “If he does return, the Hollow One will want you enough to destroy the world to get to you. Not that there will be much of the world left by then,” he said as he brushed my bare shoulder with his gloved hand.

  I felt Lewis. I saw Lewis except for his eyes. The pain came from further and further away as he spoke, as his soul brushed mine, soothing the pain. “Then why are you talking about it?” I asked, leaning against him. I traced his face with my fingers, smoothing the lines down to his soft mouth. “Shhh,” I murmured, swaying in time to music I couldn’t hear.

  His jaw tightened as his mouth trembled, his eyes lowering as he gazed at me. “I believe you may be right.”

  He exhaled before he drew me closer to him. Fire coursed through my veins as my heart drummed in my chest. He leaned forward, his pale eyes full of mocking and curiosity before he pressed his lips to mine.

  I gasped, the world disappeared, and I felt myself pulled into him, not the same as when he’d ripped my soul, trying to tear me out of my body, but like his soul swallowed mine whole. Surrounded by this pulsing awareness, warmth, power that crackled like a million thunderbolts that filled me with energy like I’d been plugged into a power outlet, I slumped against him.

  When he pulled away, he raised his chin, looking down his nose at me, his perfectly unbroken nose that was nothing like Lewis’s, the rippling lightness of his eyes showing a spark before he turned, dropping my hand and left me standing alone.

  Chapter 21

  I awoke in the gauze-draped bed. Lewis. I had to find him. I threw back the blankets and dressed in the pink confection Elodie pulled over my head. Lewis was there. I would find him. I waited impatiently as she brushed my hair and twisted it up with pearl pins. She hummed as she worked, the song, my song, Lewis’s song.

  Finally I left the room, Elodie at my side. I ran down the stairs, holding the billowing skirts high until I reached the main hall.

  “He is occupied,” Lorenzo said, his low voice stopping me in my haphazard flight.

  “Occupied? With what?”

  He shook his golden head. “The master has many duties that must not be interrupted. Perhaps you would like to amuse yourself playing the piano.”

  I hesitated before I nodded, allowing him to place my arm in his before he led me into a room with a beautiful glossy piano in the center.

  I sat at the bench, raised my fingers over the keys then hesitated. Something was wrong. The pain shifted in my chest, waking up with a crackling fury that made me gasp. I played a chord, hard until the notes echoed around the room. Lewis. I played another and saw Matthew’s face, his world-weary eyes showing pain, so much pain that nothing else could touch. Another chord showed Snowy, her pale face looking furious as she pulled a gun out of her bag and shot Jason. I closed my eyes and heard Osmond.

  “We can’t destroy him. We need to find a way to live our own lives, to find our own happiness before everything ends.” I felt him press a kiss to my hair, smelled his clean, sweet scent while I played another chord. I played Osmond’s song from the other realities. The music had never been real before. It filled the room like magic, the possibility of hope and love broke the threads of madness he Hollow One had been wrapping around me.

  I opened my eyes. I was in the Hollow One’s house and he would toy with my sanity, my heart, until another Voice came or Lewis… I shook my head and stood. I walked back to my room, ripping flowers and ribbons as I went. Pain was my world. I was Lewis’s prisoner, not his love. I had to think of him as the enemy, or I’d never survive what Peregrine could do to me.

  That evening, I went to dinner, stunned by the stuffed quail centerpiece.

  “My dove,” he said, standing as I entered the room. I said nothing as Lorenzo drew out my chair.

  I ate the bird, cutting everything in bites as Peregrine talked.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, gesturing towards the quail.

  I nodded and continued chewing.

  “The process of taxidermy is fascinating. Once I stuffed a Head of House. I beg your pardon. I forgot for a moment your parentage,” he mu
rmured, fixing his pale eyes on me. I didn’t meet his gaze.

  When he leaned forward to take my hand, I ran a current over my skin, just enough to make him pull back.

  “Perhaps you are not feeling well,” he said, standing.

  I rose and left the room, looking neither right nor left.

  I slept with nightmares, but none worse than the reality when I opened my eyes on another day. I ran my nails over the scar on my arm, his scar, and ran for the window. I woke up at dinner with Peregrine smiling at me, amused.

  “You are struggling with your place here,” he murmured sympathetically.

  “You are as bad as a Head of a House. No, worse. You not only get inside my head, but my soul.” I stood up, leaning heavily against the table from dizziness. “You provide me with ballgowns and dance slippers but only shreds of sanity. I sleep and I see Lewis. He tells me he loves me before he dies, blood and taint coming out of his eyes. I can’t wake up from another one of those, not when his body walks around with another soul inside of it. I won’t stay here a prisoner, a bird in a cage. I can’t do this. It’s killing me. Maybe that’s what you want. Maybe you want me to find a way to end it, to stop being who I am and fade away.”

  “You threaten me with suicide?” he asked, frowning. “You can’t die. I’m the Hollow One.”

  I shook my head, feeling my soul tangled in knots. “Please. Lewis.” I looked into his eyes, looking past the pale blue to the soul within. He had to have something in there, a spark. Devlin had promised me. “Let me go.”

  “Enough,” Peregrine said, standing tall, looming over me. “You wish to feel the pain? If that is your desire, I welcome you to it. If you cannot bear my touch, my soul, I will leave you with only memories and pain.”

  He came around the table, brushing my shoulder with his arm as he leaned close to me. “Until you change your song, little bird. I will be here, wearing the skin of your love, willing to sedate you from the agony.” He turned and left me alone, well, alone with a dozen Lost Souls.

  Days fell into a pattern of pain. My nightmares were only interrupted by visions through Peregrine’s eyes, visions that showed me nothing useful. Elodie would sit with embroidery on her lap with her back ramrod straight in some ridiculous dress, green silk with a bustle or layers and layers of petticoats. Talking with her wasn’t possible. She possessed the bizarre and irritating ability to take pride in her position as the Hollow One’s lady’s maid. I’d taken to cutting the roses and bows off my dresses with my knife along with slashing the hem to more manageable lengths, where I could actually get to my knife harness on my thighs. I passed the time juggling or leaning. I’d founds a few loose stones that I’d slowly embedded the alternate reality on until I could juggle those as well. The time it took to catch a stone, making skin contact, to releasing it back into the air, I could have an entire month of that life, the one that didn’t exist but kept me sane.

  Her, the girl I would have been if I’d never lost a soul, scowled and growled, stomped around and mocked Elodie like a real Hunter would have done. She juggled knives, but quoted poetry at the same time. Sanity slipped away between stones, embroidery and dinners with the Hollow One’s voice, Peregrine. He imported birds, filling the house with the feathered friends, stuffed and alive who nodded to me as I passed on my daily journey to the dining room. He ate silently across from me while candles flickered and the birds flapped around in the periphery.

  One evening I went to dinner in a dress I’d only slit up the sides, leaving the pale blue flounces and bows. It took too much energy to destroy things sometimes. My hair came down to my chin, so I smoothed it behind my ears to keep it out of my eyes.

  “Good evening,” the master said as I entered the dining room.

  I hesitated before I slid into the seat one of the Lost Souls held out for me. “Perhaps it is good for some.”

  “You dislike the weather?”

  “The weather is as inspiring as the company.”

  He met my gaze, his dark eyes unsettling in that face I knew so well, his lean cheeks and dark circles beneath his eyes something I’d gotten almost accustomed to.

  It was during the main course, when the servers brought out a peacock, tail feathers reattached to the golden bird post mortem, that something interesting happened.

  A line of Lost Souls stood in the shadows, lining the dining room, more Lost Souls than usual, but I tried not to notice them, not when I couldn’t help but try and figure out what their host bodies had been before they’d been possessed. So many stolen souls and taken bodies made my skin crawl.

  A server placed a scoop of ruby sauce on my plate when a hand lifted a gun and pointed at me. The sound, the flash of fire from the gun, the bullet that should have penetrated my skull never reached me.

  The Hollow One lunged, grabbing the bullet in his hand as it passed over his shoulder, catching it in his fist. I saw the impact, smelled the blood and heard the squishy, crunchy impact as bones and flesh impacted with the metal. The Hollow One faced me, his back to the assailant, his hand frozen outstretched with the bullet in it, blood dripping down to the white lace tablecloth and the gold leaf platters.

  In that instant everything seemed frozen, the Hollow One’s eyes burned brightly as he stared at me, the gold in them making my stomach ache and my breath come short as I felt Lewis there, so strongly in that room, in that intense gaze, not only Lewis, but my Lewis, my love.

  The Hollow One blinked and the moment ended while heat faded from his eyes. The Hollow One opened his hand and dropped the bullet. It plinked as it struck ceramic and fowl. He flexed his hand a few times, open and closed while he stared down, not at anything I could see. Behind him, the line of Lost Souls moved, leaving the room on silent feet.

  “Nethermetal,” The Hollow One said as he wrapped his hand in a formerly white handkerchief. He finally raised his eyes to look at me. “The bullet may have killed you beyond what even I can do.”

  I swallowed then shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “There are worse things than being dead.”

  He stood and leaned against the table, a flash of pain crossing his face for a moment before he pushed it aside. “We are agreed on that point. I’ve been dead for a very long time and I find it quite pleasant in this case.” He straightened up. “I’ll be away for some time. I will leave Lorenzo to protect you. Try not to get killed.”

  “You’re leaving?” I felt panic I didn’t understand.

  “I’ll return after I complete some business.”

  “What about the man who shot me? Are you leaving him as well?”

  He frowned at me and cocked his head to the side. “He’s been dead from the moment he pulled the trigger. His soul has passed on. I know it’s difficult to see me go. I myself have grown accustomed to your charming presence, but I will return, hopefully with more information about a matter of curious perplexity.”

  He crumpled the napkin in his hand and dropped it to the table, his hand completely healed as he turned and followed the Lost Souls into the shadows.

  I tried to follow, but once I tried to step out of the front door, I had a moment’s warning, and then darkness swirled around me.

  I walked through the darkness of a hall sporadically lit by glowing stained glass windows.

  “No!” I heard before a scream echoed off the stone walls, undampened by the ancient tapestries.

  “He has good lungs,” a man said to my right that I’d never seen before, not that you could see very much in the shadows other than dark hair and eyes.

  “Thank you for your help on such short notice,” I replied sounding almost respectful.

  “I’ve never been attached to Wilds,” the man said with a flash of white teeth. “Will you burn it all?” he asked as we walked closer to the scream. “I’ve heard that you leave nothing but ashes.” He sounded approving.

  Ashes. Lewis. For a moment the Lost Souls welled up around me as I sank inside the Hollow One’s awareness. He wasn’t there. Lost. Like the Lost So
uls who spun me around, screams and insane laughter that had no sound, only soul. I felt ripped apart before I blinked and took in a man chained to a wall. He had tears running down his ageless cheeks, pale hair hanging limp on his forehead.

  “Tell me about the painter,” I said, leaning against the edge of the desk. The other man must have stayed in the hall for I was alone with the prisoner.

  “Axel will destroy you,” he said with his last shred of resistance.

  I sighed heavily as I crossed my ankles and leaned back. “You taught him his art. I find myself intrigued by the power of the painting we’ve seen. Paintings don’t usually kill people, do they?” I smiled.

  The pale haired man took a shuddering breath. “You survived the deMorta? That’s not possible. That painting has been my protection for the past twenty years.”

  “It did take a few souls to get past it. Such a painting. So much darkness. So much power. But in the end, it’s just a piece of canvas covered in paint.”

  “If you call the skins of demon men canvas and blood paint,” the pale man said, his brown eyes defiant.

  “Demon skins and blood? Whose blood?”

  The man inhaled and gritted his teeth, hating himself for letting something slip out of anger that he would never confess under torture.

  “I suppose we’ll have to analyze it, compare it to your blood, old man,” I said standing up and taking two steps towards him. He paled, closing his eyes and shrinking into his skin as I closed in on him. My fingers were inches from his face when he erupted into flames, spontaneously combusting with an inferno that surrounded me, blinding me to everything.

  I woke up in my bed. I blinked at the gauze around me then swung my legs out, ignoring the short silk slip Elodie must have dressed me in while I’d been unconscious. I went to the window at once, stopping a few feet from it so that I could look out at the gray drizzly day. We’d had more than the usual amount of dreary weather there. I leaned forward and felt the beginnings of lightheadness and pulled back quickly, having to blink a few times to bring the room back into focus.