I needed to remember how I knew her. The woman had done something horrible to me, I could feel it.
As the doctor opened the door to the Victorian and disappeared inside, I pushed deeper into the well of power at my core and forced my feet across the paved road and up the stairs of the old house. Before I stepped inside, I glanced back at the asylum, curious to know what the building looked like from the outside.
It wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I guess I had thought it would look more like a hospital, but it was a beautiful building with dark-red brick and tall windows. The roof was decorated with cross gables that rose into the sky and mimicked the shape of the Victorian home across the street. White stone archways over the windows made it almost look more like a church than an asylum.
A sign across the gate read “Evers Institute for Troubled Girls,” the only indication that it was an asylum. It didn’t look like the kind of place that tortured its patients. Which I guessed was exactly the point. Who would ever think to question it?
I looked away, not wanting to lose the doctor inside the large house. I passed through the front door without a sound and listened for footsteps. Somewhere upstairs, the familiar clack of high heels against the hardwoods echoed through the house.
It sounded just like the heels I’d heard roaming the halls of the asylum late at night.
I made my way up the stairs and followed the light. Most of the house was dark, but a room at the end of the hall glowed brightly, light spilling out across a faded green rug that ran the length of the hallway.
As I got closer, I heard them talking. Two women, maybe three.
“It’s not working,” one woman said. “The demon should have been caught by now and exterminated in the most painful way possible. Instead, he’s gotten to each of my most loyal Primas and locked them away in the dungeon of that demon castle, where I can’t reach them. I want to know why he isn’t dead yet.”
“I’m working on it, Mother,” another, younger, voice said. “I promise. I have the perfect trap set up for him. Jackson won’t even know what hit him. I’ll have him here to you by tomorrow night. Two days at the latest. You can kill him yourself.”
I stopped at the sound of his name. They were talking about Jackson. They’d called him a demon, and yet the word didn’t frighten me. It was as if I’d known all along that he was different. Older and more powerful than a normal human guy could be.
It wasn’t the demon part that had sent my heart racing. It was the trap part. They were going to kill him.
I nearly lost my concentration and had to push harder to stay present so I could hear the rest of their conversation.
“Good,” the first woman said. “I want her to know he’s dead. I want to break her poor little heart and break her spirit for good. Without him, she’ll be nothing.”
Anger pulsed through me as I reached the doorway and turned the corner into the room. If I’d had a voice, I would have screamed.
Three women stood in the center of a large bedroom. All three of them had red hair to match. Dr. Evers, a woman I’d never seen who looked to be no more than twenty-years-old, and her—the woman from the photograph. I recognized her suddenly. She’d tortured me, and as I stared at her, I could see an image in my head of her standing over me and smiling as she cut into my arms with shards of broken glass.
Who was she?
And more importantly, what the hell was going on in this room?
All around the space, there were girls dressed up as dolls. Life-sized dolls, positioned just so with their frilly dresses and bonnets. Four of them were positioned around a small round table, china tea-cups in their hands, as if they were frozen in a perpetual child’s tea party.
Two small children were laid out on the bed with their eyes closed and their hands clasped. They didn’t move at all, and I wondered for a moment if they were dead or alive. I wondered if when they sat up, their eyes popped open like little dolls.
Three more girls sat in a window seat, fake smiles plastered on their faces.
They were all arranged as toys, but they were girls. Real girls.
The horror of it nearly caused me to drop the spell and return to my body. Who would do such a thing?
I forced myself further into the room, studying their faces. Were they still alive?
“What about Harper?” the older woman asked. “How are her sessions coming along?”
“Wonderfully,” Dr. Evers said, beaming. “She’s finally starting to fall in line, parroting back memories we’ve fed to her. I think she’s finally believing them to be true. I can tell her spirit is weakening. She hardly even glances up at me anymore during sessions. She’s close to breaking, Mother. I can feel it.”
Mother. This woman was her mother. What did she have to do with all of this? Why was she torturing me?
Brooke had said Dr. Evers’ mother had everything to do with this place. Did she own the asylum? Bring girls here to torture them and distort their memories?
But why?
“I knew you were the right person for this job,” the mother said, taking Dr. Evers’s chin in her hands. It might have been a loving gesture if she hadn’t been gripping her so hard. “You are by far my favorite daughter. I hope you know how proud I am of you and how much I love you.”
“Thank you, Mother.” Dr. Evers had tears in her eyes, and I wasn’t sure if it was from pain or joy. “You’re my whole world. I’d do anything for you.”
“I know you would, Monica,” the mother said. She released the doctor’s chin and placed her palm against the woman’s chest instead. “After all, you have my heart.”
I struggled to hold onto the magic, but it was too much. I’d been gone too long, and I wasn’t strong enough yet to keep it going. Dizziness washed through me, and I struggled to breathe.
I needed to get back to my body.
I turned and headed for the door, but one last doll caught my eye on the way out.
A rocking chair nestled in the corner by the door held a single girl, and this time I knew her face. It was the girl who had recognized me that first night at dinner. Robin.
In her hand, she held a small red carousel, as if she were a child with her most treasured toy.
I brought a hand to my mouth, stifling a scream that would not come.
Is this what they did to some of the girls who disobeyed them? They turned them into some kind of creepy doll collection in this woman’s home?
I reached out with my ghostly hand, wanting to touch Robin and let her know that she wasn’t alone. I wanted to let her know that I was going to figure a way out of this place, and that I would take as many girls with me as I could.
I knew she couldn’t feel me, and she shouldn’t have been able to see me, but just as my spectral hand touched hers, her eyes flicked to mine.
You Can’t Afford Not To
“Green Monster,” I said, taking a seat at the bar.
Franki grabbed a rocks glass from the shelf. She poured clear liquid from a bottle beneath the bar. It was a busy night and she’d barely looked up at me, but when she slid the glass toward me, her eyes widened.
“Jackson, is that you?” she asked.
I pulled my hood down and nodded, grabbing the shot and downing it in a single gulp. I usually didn’t partake of Rend’s various concoctions here at Venom, but tonight I needed all the courage I could get.
So, Green Monster it was.
She placed her hand on top of mine and squeezed. “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” she asked. “I could have arranged a private room or something. Who all is here with you? Do you want me to find a spot for you?”
I shook my head and waved my hand. “I’m here alone,” I said. I didn’t want any special treatment, and I definitely didn’t want to disappear into some back room. I just wanted to sit at the bar and drink for a while. I wanted to wait for the spider to try to draw me into her web.
Or the beetle. But that didn’t make as good of a metaphor.
A dark look crossed Franki’s clear blue eyes. She reminded me so much of Mary Anne. The two of them were cousins and both had the signature blue eyes and shiny black hair of their crow coven heritage.
“How are you holding up?” she asked. When I didn’t respond, she gave me a sad smile. “I guess that’s a stupid question, huh?”
I shrugged and slid my glass toward her. She refilled it without hesitating.
“We’re slammed tonight, but if you need anything at all, just let me know,” she said.
“I need to talk to Rend,” I said. “Is he around?”
She stood on her toes and glanced around the dark interior of the club. She lifted her chin toward the back corner. “He’s talking to a few demons up there on the balcony that overlooks the dance floor,” she said. “If I can catch his attention, I’ll signal for him to come down here as soon as he can. Do you have a few minutes to stick around?”
“I’ve got time,” I said. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
Time was a funny thing these days. It moved so slowly, stretching out in front of me like a black hole, empty and meaningless. But I also had the constant feeling that I was racing against it, never doing enough to save her. I had no idea how Harper was holding up against the emerald priestess’s spells. Had she already become a part of that witch’s collection?
I shuddered.
“Okay,” Franki said, smart enough not to ask more questions. “I’ll make sure Rend stops by soon.”
She filled my glass a third time, and I thanked her before she walked away to deal with a group of young fairies who appeared to be celebrating an engagement. Their tinkling laughter grated on my last nerve. No one deserved to be that happy when there was such evil and sorrow all around us.
I hunched over my drink, taking a deep breath and letting the potion work its magic. I glanced around the bar, looking for faces I recognized from my years here in the human world. I knew several of the vampires and demons, a few of the witches who had escaped the clutches of the Order. I saw a few others I knew by face, if not by name. Fae, gnomes, werewolves. A few of them met my gaze and raised a glass, but without fail, every smile soon dropped from their faces, and their eyes filled with pity as they whispered something to their companions.
Everyone knew what had happened to Harper. She was famous in this community for having killed one of the five main priestess sisters of the Order of Shadows. Demons and witches alike practically worshiped her, and everyone had believed that together we were invincible. They had foolishly believed that our group, the Demon Liberation Movement, would be the ones to bring down the entire evil organization that kept so many demons enslaved in this world.
But we had failed.
We’d had the emerald priestess right there and we let her slip away. Harper was the only one who’d gone after her, and somehow, the priestess had defeated her. I still didn’t know the details of the fight, but there had been enough blood from both of them in the hallway at Winterhaven to mean they’d both walked away hurting.
Or been dragged away.
I closed my eyes, my jaw tightening. I downed the rest of my drink and waited. Enough people had noticed me. Word was probably spreading from group to group right now, everyone talking about how lonely and dejected I looked. How vulnerable I seemed.
It was only a matter of time before someone was sent to talk to me.
So I waited. Hours passed and Franki never questioned or judged the number of drinks I requested throughout the night. She just kept filling them up. They weren’t the kind of drinks that made you drunk. Not exactly. Green Monster made you feel brave. It helped keep your worst fears at bay. I should ask Rend for a damn case of the stuff.
By the time the crowd started to slim, I worried I’d been wrong about coming here. But just as I stood to excuse myself and head home, a young demon named Riley caught my eye. He was heading straight toward me, a confident smile on his face as he said hello to everyone he passed.
I sat back down.
“Riley,” I said, nodding as he sat down next to me.
“Jackson,” he said. He lifted a hand toward Franki and she came over a few seconds later.
“What can I get you?” she asked.
“The usual,” he said. It wasn’t lost on me that he refused to name his poison in front of me. Since the drinks were clear, there was no way for me to know which concoction he’d chosen. Judging from the confident smile on his face, I’d say he was drinking Lady Luck.
He swallowed it in one gulp and threw a twenty on the counter.
“Thanks,” he said.
“No problem,” she said. She glanced from Riley to me and when I nodded once to let her know I was fine, she nodded back and walked away to give us some privacy.
Riley was well known in some circles for being the messenger dog of a big bad wolf of a demon named Jereth. Everyone knew of Jereth, though not many people lived to tell stories of him. Especially not if they’d gotten on his bad side. He was an old demon, much older than myself, and had been here in the human world since before the Order of Shadows was even created.
He had a following, if that’s what it was called. A devoted group of demons who did his dirty work and cleaned up after his messes.
I hated the guy. He was everything that was wrong with most free demons in this world. He used his powers to take advantage of humans, bleeding them of money and information before he killed them or betrayed them. He had no honor, and I despised him almost as much as I despised the Order.
“What do you want, Riley?” I asked.
He fidgeted and glanced around before he sat down on the barstool next to mine. He faced backward toward the club, as if he meant to keep his eye on everyone just in case someone more important came along.
“I heard about what happened to Harper,” he said.
“You and everyone else in two worlds,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s a tough break,” he said. “I know you’ve been looking for information on where they’re holding her.”
I glanced up. I hadn’t been expecting him to be the one to come to me with this tonight. I thought the news would come from a witch or a vampire, but never from someone like Riley. What exactly did he have up his sleeve?
“Do you know something?” I asked.
“Jereth found something he thinks you might be very interested in,” he said. He licked his lips and ran a hand through his hair. “He wanted to get this information to you sooner, but you haven’t exactly been an easy demon to find these days.”
“I’ve been busy,” I said. “What kind of information?”
“He wouldn’t tell me, but he said it could be the key to finding Harper,” he said. “He wants you to come by the bar. Tomorrow night. Bring payment and come alone.”
“How do I know I can trust him?” I asked, which was a stupid question. No one could trust Jereth.
“You can’t afford not to,” he said. He downed another drink and tossed a ten-dollar tip on the bar. He walked away without saying another word. I stared after him, knowing that this was the message I’d been waiting for.
I wasn’t sure how Jereth had gotten mixed up with the emerald priestess, but I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised. Jereth had a history of not caring which side he was working for as long as he was getting paid. The demon had no loyalties except to his own crew.
Hell, he had fought in the First World War, posing as a soldier from Great Britain. At the same time his crew was providing weapons to the German army. He was definitely not to be trusted, but this was my best chance at finding Harper.
If Jereth was looking for me, he was doing it because the emerald priestess had asked him to. And if he was working for her, he would be in close contact with her or one of her many daughters.
“Jackson,” Rend said, reaching his hand out to me as he crossed the dance floor and approached the bar. He was dressed in an expensive, tailored black
suit with a white button-down shirt that probably cost more than most people’s cars. Business seemed to be booming these days. Everyone needed a safe place to trade information without fear of being killed, and Venom was the only place like it. Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised Jereth hadn’t met me here instead of asking me to join him in his lair.
“I’m sorry I kept you waiting so long,” he said. “I had some political bullshit to deal with, and I couldn’t walk away. How are you doing? Any news?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I need a favor.”
“Anything,” he said. “Want to come to my office?”
I shook my head. “Not the office.”
Rend raised an eyebrow as I downed the last of my drink and stood up.
If Jereth was the one I was going to have to get through, I was going to need all the help I could get. It wasn’t going to be an easy fight, but if he was the last one standing between me and the emerald priestess, I would kill him twice if I had to.
“The lab,” I said. “I’m going to need some new potions.”
The Love That Surrounded Me
The festival began just as the leaves on the winterberry trees had fallen and the spring blooms had finally burst forth to bring their cheery color to the King’s City.
It was normally such a dark place with its black towers and stone streets, but this had always been my favorite time of year. I still wasn’t allowed to leave the castle, but I liked to stand on my balcony and look out over the city. Demons rushed to make preparations, decorating their shops with aster blossoms and strands of fairy lights.
It was late afternoon and the suns were slowly being replaced by the colorful moons of spring when Presha came to stand at my side to watch as the streets filled with families on their way to the castle for the opening feast.
“They seem happy,” I said.
“They’re excited to see their princess,” she said. “It’s been a long time since there was something to celebrate within these walls.”
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