Jackson’s eyes never left her. “That’s not the case. Check out my reflection.”
Claremont hesitated, then spared a split second to look. In the window’s reflection was Claremont and her ruined desk, but Jackson and I were noticeably absent.
“How can you be one of them and not be hurt by anything holy?” She sounded voice genuinely curious.
“I’m complicated,” Jackson said, lowering his gun. “Even if I get hosed down in holy water or shot, I’ll still be able to kill you. I’d rather it not go that way if it doesn’t have to.”
“You won’t let me live no matter what,” Claremont said, her fingers tensing on the black alarm as she looked at me. “But if I send at least one of you things screaming into Hell? That seems fair. You’ve already taken so much from me.”
I hadn’t any idea what she was talking about, but I could guess. Clearly someone she loved had been killed by a Nightfallen, and instinctively I looked at the broken picture frames on the floor.
I recognized the person in them.
“Jackson, look,” I said, gesturing to the photo by my feet. When last we’d seen him, the man in the photos had looked sickly and been wearing a frock coat.
“Caleb?” Jackson asked.
“You know my Cale?” Claremont asked.
“We saw him just a few nights ago,” Jackson said.
“‘Nights’?” Claremont said, the word bitter in her mouth. “So my son is one of you now.”
“Actually, no. He’s a slave for the one that hired us—guess that’s how she knew the glass was in here. He’s sick and weak, but he’s still alive. Still human.”
Claremont’s face remained stoic, but her eyes welled slightly.
“Tell you what,” Jackson said, holstering his gun. “You give us the glass, I’ll get your son back.”
“How?” she asked.
“We got paid a little up front. We are going to get more when the job is complete. I’ll say, instead of more gold, we’ll take your kid.”
Time to register my complaint. “I just had a new leather jacket ruined! There’s no way we’re not going to get paid after all the trouble we went through.”
I didn’t bother asking how we’d broach the subject with Verena. Vampires were supposed to be all about self-interest, and I wasn’t seeing how sparing Caleb would believably qualify.
“You can’t expect me to believe you,” Claremont said.
“Believe what you want. Maybe I’m making it all up. Or maybe this is really your only chance to both live and get your son back. You’ve got to pay to find out which is right, and the cost is the glass. What do you say?”
She hesitated, but finally lowered both the .357 and her hand she’d had on the black alarm. “Will you be good enough to hand me what’s left of my purse? There actually is a key in it that we’ll need.”
5
A Museum of Dark Wonders
I loved the idea of secret passages as a kid. I had thought after I had gone Nightfallen that it would be all gothic mansions with hidden doorways and secret rooms.
Not so much. Mostly I had lived—well, resided—in homes abandoned after the housing market crash. For the most part, I walked the same streets as my prey.
So it was exciting when Claremont took us into a back closet and moved aside a false wall, then slipped her electronic key into a lock. A titanium door slid open, revealing what looked like a large late-1800s elevator, ornate, with a gate that had to be manually closed.
Claremont led us into it, and it slowly wheezed its way down.
“Taking a while,” I said.
“We have a long way to go. We’re below the steam tunnels by now,” Claremont said.
Finally the elevator came to a stop, and she opened the gate. As she stepped out, she flipped a switch. “Don’t worry, that’s not a trap,” she said to Jackson when she saw the look in his eyes. “It’s a light switch—though they’re old, and it takes them a while to warm up. Walk carefully until they do. There are no guardrails here.”
We stepped onto a bare rock surface. All around us was the sound of rushing water, echoes amplifying the sound. Slowly, light poles that looked like they belonged in Edwardian London came to life. They began to buzz, their filaments warming from dull orange to sickly yellow to a wonderful, incandescent white.
We were standing on a large, flat-headed boulder, maybe half a football field in size. Twenty feet below us was the water.
Surrounding us was the swift, black current of an underwater river. I could see phosphorescent fish swimming in the water’s darkness. Arching high overhead was the cavern’s ceiling. Stalagmites stabbed from the cave’s roof like my fangs. The walls glistened with water and small bits of quartz.
“It’s amazing,” I said, forgetting my injuries for a moment as I limped farther out onto the boulder.
“The real jewels are still ahead,” Claremont said.
On the boulder’s far side, the light poles formed a circle, ringing an open-air gallery. There were suits of armor made of bone and a grand piano made of jade.
An Egyptian sarcophagus stood in the pool of light. It looked like Tutankhamen’s, except instead of the kindly face of a boy there was the obsidian muzzle and ruby eyes of a bat.
There was a portrait of a beautiful European countess, the style similar to pre-modern art in its lifelike perfection. What made it unique was its subject matter. In the noblewoman’s lap rested five severed human heads.
So many bizarre wonders, each encased in a steel-edged glass box much more modern than the museum’s elevator and lamps.
On the far side was a mirror in a blue marble stand. Claremont walked to it and typed a code on the keypad, and the box opened. “The Ferravus Glass,” she said.
Knowing I’d see nothing in the mirror, I was more impressed with the blue, stone stand holding it. My mother had been enough of a snob about kitchen counters that I knew something about marble, and how rare that blue was—the stuff had to be imported all the way from Steam Pointe.
“Well … that is something,” Jackson said.
“Amazing,” Claremont whispered.
“What’s so impressive, it’s just—” My words died in my mouth as I jumped back from the mirror.
My reflection. I hadn’t expected to see it, and catching it out of the corner of my eye had terrified me.
“Wow.” I sighed and drew closer, seeing my reflection for the first time in three years. Normally, Nightfallen can only see themselves in puddles of fresh blood.
I studied my reflection, transfixed. My skin was smoother than the day I died, not a blemish on it. There was also a healthy bronze tinge, which one wouldn’t expect for one of the undead. My hair had more volume and body, something belonging more to a model than the teenage wallflower I’d been.
I knew that this was an adaptation, something to make me look more alluring for potential victims. It didn’t matter at this moment. All I could do was stare at myself and envy Verena because of this treasure we were about to bring her.
“What is this place?” Jackson asked.
“A museum of the rarest, sometimes most dangerous antiquities,” Claremont said, with pride.
“Been here a long time, judging by that elevator,” he said.
“In the century before the elevator, it was a ladder that led down here.”
“Crosses, built on an island in an underground river—why is it fortified against vampires?” he asked.
“The better question is, Why isn’t every store, office, and home?” Claremont said. “The answer, of course, is because the broader public cannot accept the truth. On the other hand, an institution such as Ramsgate does not sit for nearly two centuries in Echo Valley and not develop at least some organizational memory of the things that find their way here too often. But they only are remembered by the less reputable, more eccentric faculty and students.”
“Why is there so much undead activity here?” Jackson asked.
“I would have thought yo
u’d be in a better position to know than me,” she said.
“I’m new.”
“As a Ramsgate undergrad, I once theorized that something terrible happened in this valley before the white man set foot on the continent, and that the undead, sensing this, naturally gravitate toward such evil,” Claremont said.
“And now?”
“Now I think this place gets so much Nosferatu attention for the same reason certain stores thrive. A combination of location, blind luck, and a product that consumers are interested in.”
“Which is?” Jackson asked.
“Young blood.”
While they talked, I continued studying my face. It was fascinating, and made me want more. If I didn’t have two gaping bullet holes in me, I’d have stripped naked and checked out the rest of my body.
“Come on, we haven’t all night,” Jackson said to me.
Together, we took the glass from its container and began walking it back to the elevator. As we were about to load it, Jackson looked behind it. His brow furrowed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“This mirror on the other side, there’s something wrong with it. Or maybe with me. I look different in it.”
I came around the mirror, and immediately saw what he meant. His reflection looked sickly, his eyes with heavy bags under them, gashes on his cheek and across his forehead, deep enough to see bone. All things that, when you looked at him, clearly weren’t there.
It was my own reflection, though, that made me cover my mouth in horror.
My reflection … it was me as a corpse. My hair hung in strands, and my mouth was a bloody wreckage of crooked teeth. My eyes were bulbous red tumors framed by bluing, almost fungal flesh.
Claremont walked to us, obviously curious by our reaction. She fared better than us, but there was still scarring in her reflection, a terrible gash on her face, though not nearly as bad as Jackson’s.
“Maybe it shows us what we looked like if we were never risen,” I said, trying to calm myself.
“If that were true, it wouldn’t have an effect on the professor, since she’s still alive,” Jackson said.
“The glass has been in our collection for over fifty years,” Claremont said. “Earlier curators noticed a similar effect with the mirror’s reverse side, though they didn’t have the benefit of testing it on a vampire. They theorized it was something similar to The Picture of Dorian Gray. The worse you are, the worse your reflection.”
“I look this bad in just three years?” I asked.
“You must have worked at it,” Claremont said. Then she turned to Jackson. “And you appear to be well on your way.”
6
Red Snow
The next night, we drove back to the Pike Crest Foundry. We’d taken the top off Jackson’s jeep so that the glass, now covered with a tarp, would fit into the back. Flurries swept over us as we made our way up the mountain.
Seeing myself on the glass’s Dorian Gray side had bothered me at first. No woman wants to think of herself as ugly. Then I reminded myself that it wasn’t real, but a visualization of all the awful things I had done. I didn’t feel bad about the buildings I’d burned, the things I’d stolen, the rapes I’d abetted, the people I’d killed. Why should I feel bad about symbols of those things?
The issue wasn’t why I looked so awful in the glass, but how I could bring Jackson down to my level. Like Claremont had said, he was on his way. The glass had revealed that.
Best to quietly help him along, because if misery loved company, the damned love it even more. Make those gashes in his soul deeper. Turn his conscience’s bruises to fully rotting flesh, dead to maladaptive emotions like empathy, pity, and regret. Because if there was one thing that had become obvious to me in the years since my death, it’s that those feelings were simply anchors weighing you down, keeping you from being all that you can be.
True, I hadn’t gone especially far in the time since my own conscience had ceased to function, but I’d been another vampire’s plaything for the bulk of that time. Now, I was free. What could I achieve at Jackson’s side if he was similarly free? Free of his old life, his sense of duty, any hints of morality. I couldn’t wait to see.
“You’re awfully quiet,” I said over the wind. He hadn’t said much since seeing his Dorian Gray self.
“A lot on my mind,” he said. “Thinking about how to deal with the Kings once we settle up with Verena. Also, how I’m going to get Caleb away from her.”
“Why bother trying to save him? It’s dangerous for us. Verena will wonder why you’re so worried about reuniting mother and son. Good way to blow one’s cover.”
“I gave Claremont my word. Plus, I’d rather not have my soul looking like yours,” Jackson said.
“Those gashes on you were pretty deep,” I said. “They could be from your Army days. Maybe the damage is already done, and has been for a while now.”
“That’s like a girl that gets banged by some asshole deciding that, since she messed up once, she may as well keep riding that cock carousel,” Jackson said.
“You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what she decides. The fact is that once she messed up, there’s no undoing it. Even if she became a nun, it wouldn’t undo that mistake. So yeah, she may as well just keep going with it. Why not? She already paid for the ticket. May as well take the ride.” Jackson’s hand was on the gearshift. I put mine hand on his. “Anyway, the ride—the fall—is fun.”
We pulled up to the old foundry. As he shifted into park, he withdrew his hand from under mine.
“This isn’t fun. This is a job,” he said.
We carried the glass inside. Caleb stood on the factory floor, with his lantern casting pale orange light across the emptiness. “Put it there,” he said, with an edge of contempt that made me hope Jackson would reconsider his promise to Claremont.
“Caleb, be gracious to our guests,” Verena said, coming down the walkway stairs in her wedding gown. “They come bearing gifts.”
We made way for her as she approached the glass. Verena pulled off the tarp—lucky girl, she happened to be facing the non–Dorian Gray side.
“Unglaublich,” Verena whispered, as she leaned toward the mirror, touching her face.
The light from Caleb’s lantern played beautifully across her features. Her eyes softened as she studied herself. I wondered if it was similar to when she’d asked Jackson if he’d killed my sire for love of me. This was more intense for her, not merely being reminded of feelings long dead and barely remembered but actually experiencing them.
She didn’t turn from her reflection as she spoke. “Pay them, Caleb. Double what we had agreed. For such a treasure, they have earned it.”
From his frock-coat pocket, Caleb pulled out two burlap satchels. They jingled as he threw them to us. I caught them, and even with inhuman strength, I was impressed by the weight of the gold inside.
“You may go now,” Verena said.
“Thank you. But before we leave, I was hoping to discuss another matter,” Jackson began. “My partner and I are very grateful for your generosity, but the truth is, more gold will do us little good. On the other hand, a trained servant like Caleb here would be much more useful. Let us return to you the extra payment, and give us Caleb instead.”
Embarrassed, I put my palm over my face.
Caleb looked at us with a smoldering anger, probably less so because Jackson had just tried to buy him than because we’d broken royal protocol by not immediately leaving when dismissed.
Verena finally turned from her reflection. Her face remained as regal and detached as ever. I couldn’t tell if she was wondering why Jackson would make such a proposal to her, or if she was already deciding which of his limbs to pull off first for daring to do so.
Before we could find out, headlights played over the foundry’s broken windows.
“Another car,” Caleb said, shuttering his lantern. “It’s a trap—they’ve brought others here.”
“Hardly,” Verena
said. “Look at their faces. Miss Weston and Sergeant Wheel are just as mystified as to our visitors as we. It seems more likely that, unbeknownst to them, they were followed. Come, let us see who is calling. It will be a costly mistake for them, arriving uninvited.”
Verena walked out the entrance, with Caleb following in her wake. We kept our distance from her, hovering by the door.
A white Volvo purred where, in better days, men in trucks and domestic cars had parked before clocking in. Its high beams lit the front of the foundry like a prison’s searchlights.
“Wait, I recognize it,” Caleb said, for the first time not sounding like a Renfield. “It’s my mother’s car.”
The car door opened, and out stepped Claremont. She moved drunkenly, like the coed that had delivered the Kings’ message in the coffee shop.
“What’s she doing here?” Caleb asked, but none of us knew or cared enough to answer. He sounded like a schoolboy who had been caught smoking.
“She’s wearing the same thing she wore yesterday,” Jackson said.
Sometimes that’s a sign of becoming Nightfallen—it’s not always easy to find a change of clothes when you’ve just waken from the dead. But every vampire I’d ever encountered usually took at least three days to rise, and we’d seen Claremont the night before. I could still see life radiating off her, although it was dimmer than yesterday.
Then I saw the total, black absence of life that was swirling in her car.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
In the visible spectrum, I watched as mist poured from the open car door, coiling thickly around Claremont like a boa constrictor, then dispersing and cloaking the entire parking lot with fog. Then I saw the glint of deep red eyes and three forms that first took shape as shadow, then solidified: two males and one female—the same Kings that had approached us outside of Trios.
Jackson had taken Claremont’s cross. She would have been defenseless against the Kings whenever she left Dey Hall. They wouldn’t have kept her in thrall just to catch a ride up here, though. No, they would have enslaved her so that they could ask her questions about the glass, and also about Jackson and me. She would have told them what she’d seen.
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