34. A Decline, Without Regrets
Beckett, I was glad to discover, hadn’t even entertained the possibility that I would have survived his attack. As I neared Aurelia’s office door, not only was there no one guarding it in his place, there wasn’t even anyone manning the front desk. That gave me the slightest thrill—being underestimated could end up working to my advantage. I tried to summon every bit of strength, pushing aside the ache, the fatigue, and all the fear. Think of what you’ve just done. You took them all on, you can do this, I tried to tell myself.
I lifted my fist, knocked—for old times’ sake—and then just pushed open the unlocked door. Aurelia was seated at her desk, her back to the door as she watched the flat screen on the wall, which had apparently been repaired. She looked over her shoulder at me. For a fleeting moment, surprise swept her face but she worked to extinguish it.
“Haven?” She sounded only a touch startled, but recovered. “I had hoped you wouldn’t be dropping by, but here you are. Perhaps you’d like to watch with me.”
I held my face steady but my eyes fell on what she had been watching—instead of running through press clippings and the looped reel that usually played at the front desk, the screen now displayed security footage. The real problem was the top half of the screen devoted to the ballroom. I took a few steps forward, to be sure, but there was no mistake: it was Dante being dragged out of the dance by Etan and another of his cronies, a new recruit. My heart stopped.
“Oh, you’ll like this show. Have a seat and watch with me,” Aurelia said. “This will be fun. Let me get you caught up. They just escorted him out. Caused quite a stir but everyone just assumed it was underage drinking, you know how it goes.”
“What are they doing? What are they going to do to him?” The questions came out involuntarily. I didn’t expect any answers.
She leaned back, still glued to the screen. “He’s about to become one of us. Unfortunately, Dante had some blood taken after his little bout with, shall we say, food poisoning, the other day. I might as well tell you, one of the paramedics was one of ours.” My mind raced linking up all these bits and pieces. “So it will take very little now for him to enlist with us: he gave his consent weeks ago and now that he’s given blood, it appears the coding has gone into effect.” She was looking at me now, with those flinty sapphire eyes. She clicked her mouse and the bottom of the screen flashed to Alcatraz, where Dante kicked and writhed as Etan and his henchman dragged him along the walkway to that cage in the middle.
“He’ll never sign.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Lance trailing them.
“We have methods of coercion, trust me,” she assured. She hit a key and the image blew up to fill the screen: Dante was now locked in that central cell, with Etan seated across from him. “Yes, see.” She pointed, excited. “That’s a vial of your little friend’s blood and we have a lovely antique quill there for him to sign with. I suppose it won’t be so easy with his hands restrained like that—” They were somehow chained to the tabletop. Lance skulked along the periphery, in the shadows, undetected so far, but I didn’t like the equal ratio of devils to angels-in-training. I couldn’t quiet the fear that our side wouldn’t come out on top. “But he’ll make do, and in a timely manner, or else we’ll just call the whole thing off, if you know what I mean.” She clicked again and half of the screen returned to the prom.
I struggled to clear my head: I had to trust that Lance could do this, that he could help Dante; I couldn’t lose sight of what I had to accomplish here. Aurelia would love for me to be distracted, I thought. Focus, Haven, focus. Get this back on track.
“I don’t want to watch TV anymore,” I said, trying to sound strong. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Even with Dante, your numbers are still really falling.”
“Oh, is that right? I hope you realize the only reason I’m letting you live right now is because I fully expect that the others will be here soon. I’m not sure how you got past Beckett but he’s a master in the art of rounding up his troops quickly and silently.” Aurelia must have been so focused on the action in the ballroom that she didn’t bother checking the Vault’s surveillance cameras. She didn’t know. I squared my shoulders.
“That’s true, he is. But I’m afraid he already did that once tonight and now he and a whole mess of them are . . . gone.” I saw a wave of panic set in, softening her features, much as she tried to still it.
“I can’t imagine what you mean.” She inched her chair back.
“You know, gone.”
“Ah, so your precious Lucian fought for your honor. Well, I’m sorry to report that he will be paying for that.”
“No, Lucian”—it stung to say his name—“is gone too.”
Now terror flashed within her. “Oh,” was all she said.
“So it’s pretty much just you and me now.”
I paced slowly in front of her then, steadying my stance, determining how and when to strike. I wandered around toward the other side of her desk, scanning it so she would assume I was looking for that particular key that would let me back into the hidden space with her photo. It was nowhere to be seen, which Lance and I had both feared and anticipated. I hadn’t spotted that key on its usual ring with the one Lucian had just used and now it just seemed to have vanished compltely. So, the contingency plan then.
“Well, you’re still welcome to follow him. You do know, I’m still waiting for your final answer on my very generous offer to join the Outfit in a leadership role.”
As I stepped closer toward the bookcase, she swiveled her chair to keep an eye on me.
“Consider this my decline, without regrets.”
“I thought that I had sent a clear message with our talk and my visit the other night. Tell me, how are you enjoying your new look? I hope the change has been as traumatic as it is dramatic. Do we need to have our talk again about beauty being the most powerful commodity?”
“Funny,” I said, chilling my voice. “I always thought it was brains.” Watching her, I ran my hand along that part of the wall of bookcases, behind which the photo lay. I had gotten too close. She stood up slowly and then in a flash, it came at me: a crystal paperweight. I ducked and it shattered all around me. My heart thumped and shards of crystal flaked onto my sparkling dress, but I popped right back up to see her wild eyes getting closer. This was good. I picked away again. “No wonder Lucian liked me so much. I don’t have such a fiery temper.”
That did it. She waved her arm as though throwing a pitch and launched a flaming ball of fire at me. I lunged fast, like a soccer goalie wanting the other team to score. Sure enough it hit the bookcase and started burning instantly. The heat flew off of it in stinging rays and my skin felt like it was crisping up just being that close to it. And yet, I didn’t move out of the way. I needed her to try to hit me again.
“You didn’t really expect him to kill me, did you?” I asked. “The funny thing is, I don’t need his charity or his attention or any of it. For all your power, you’re the one who really needs him. You need him hanging on you, don’t you? You need to know that you’re everything to him. And I thought you were such a strong woman. I guess I was wrong.”
Her eyes burned now; she threw another blazing comet at me and then another, and I dove and lunged trying to stay in roughly the same spot, even with the flames licking so close to me. The wall burned fast now, a hole forming that I would soon be able to run through. So I kept it up. “Maybe he didn’t like it that secretly you look like that photo I took, that that’s the real you. No matter how you dress it up, that’s still what you are.”
She charged at me, throwing rapid fire. To escape the flames, I had to jump and dive from my spot, hitting the ground hard, my knees and palms sliced from the crystal as I crawled away.
“You know, I have almost envied you these past few months,” she said, shooting at me. “Your wide-eyed innocence, your virtue. But don’t pretend you haven’t learned from me. You do realize that even if you somehow win here, which I h
ighly doubt, you will still lose, don’t you? There will always be more battles for you to fight.” I scrambled on all fours, tripping and slipping to escape the fire raining down around me, so fast, unable to get my footing. And I knew that there was a kernel of truth in there, but I knew what she was doing too. She wanted to tear me down to rubble so I wouldn’t be able to do what I had to do. I yelled back up from the ground.
“Too late with the speech. I’m already a different girl than the one I was when I started here. The damage has been done.”
“Very well then,” she said slowly. She threw one more fiery burst at me; this one sprayed and flared into a wall of fire then she leapt into the air at me. The room began to cloud from the flames crackling and raging. My skin burned from the heat radiating on all sides and a new layer of smoky mist emanated from the fire. I crawled back toward the bookcase that had burned straight through now, offering entrée if I could get over there. But the haze wrapped itself around me, drowning me, slowing me down. Before I could fight back, Aurelia was upon me, choking and engulfing me. I struggled against her, crawling closer to that cell-like room, fighting her off and coughing through the poisonous cloud squeezing the air from my chest. I didn’t know if I could make it there before the smoke overtook me. Her hands on my neck felt like they were sizzling right through my skin. But still, I crawled on my torn elbows and knees, inch by inch, and as I got closer, something else took over: it was in my sights now, if I could just keep going. And I did, faster and faster. Still trying to shake her off me, I crossed through that burning opening, the flames trying to taste my skin. There sat the two photos.
The smoke tightened around me as Aurelia grabbed me again, strangling me, her hold so strong, I couldn’t get out from under her grip no matter what I did. I looked and understood why—she was hovering above me, off the ground. I gasped and refocused, reaching back into my pocket for that knife. But it was gone. My head flung in the direction I had come from. It must’ve fallen out. I couldn’t make it back to get it.
I gathered my strength and rose up from the ground, through her oppressive hold and the intoxicating smoke. I steadied myself and reeled back, then charged. With all my force, I dug my sharp heel into Aurelia’s heart in the picture, shattering the glass and puncturing the photo. The grip around me loosened and newfound passion flooded my veins and infused every muscle, every part of me. I kicked my heel into it again and dragged my foot down, from top to bottom, again and again. Something leaden dropped to the center of the floor, crashing down. My head swiveled to see her, looking first as she might if she were her proper forty-something age, and then morphing into that monstrosity as she had appeared in the picture. She lay on the ground, withering as the whole room burned around her. She pointed a spindly finger at me.
“This isn’t the last time we’ll meet, my lamb. And until then, there are so many like me out there. Someone will rise to fill my role and you will find yourself besieged all over again. This will not end well for you. There will always be someone coming for your soul. You are too powerful not to be destroyed.”
With that, the decrepit, crumpled figure began to spark and burn. I stood paralyzed by the act I had committed, even against someone this vile. But I woke myself up—I had to get out of there. The photo itself, I noticed, was oozing now. I crouched down, and something glinted at me. My necklace was looped on the corner of my own photo. I grabbed it—the chain was intact, somehow, as though it had regenerated itself after being cut—simply holding it in my hand made me feel stronger. I twisted it around my wrist; no time to mess with the clasp. But I was distracted by something even more perplexing. My photo didn’t look at all like it had before. I shrieked when I saw it: it looked like a version of La Jeune Martyre except with me lying on the ground, halo over my head.
A chunk of the wall near the front of the room collapsed in a fiery crash. I ran past the heap that had been Aurelia to her desk, tugging on that flat screen to try to open the passageway door, the safest exit it seemed. As I did, I couldn’t help but watch what was on the screen. The top half still showed Alcatraz. At just that moment in one smooth, lightning-fast motion, Lance crept up from the moat—he must’ve swam to avoid being seen—stealthily unlocked the cell, when Etan and his associate had their backs turned, and rushed in. By the time the Outfit guy knew what hit him, Lance had him in a chokehold and had snatched another set of keys from him. Lance threw him to the ground then ducked, bobbed, and weaved to escape Etan’s pummeling fist, and knocked over the vial of blood, shattering it onto the floor, every last drop spilled. Etan scrambled for the pieces, looking for any remnant.
Meanwhile, Dante jumped in his seat, like he was yelling something. Lance, who seemed to be following his orders, reached into Dante’s jacket pocket and produced a sharp leaf of some sort. In one swift motion, he jammed it into the neck of Etan’s guy. He was just unlocking one of Dante’s chains when Etan connected a punch to Lance’s jaw that knocked him down and left a red burn smoking from his skin. Dante reached into his breast pocket for another leaf and stuck Etan in the heart and he slumped instantly. I had to look away, as a reflex. My eyes fixed instead on the bottom of the screen. Even in the scorching heat of this room, it sent a chill through me: it looked like it was set on an image of Aurelia’s office, until I noticed all the people. Running.
The ballroom was ablaze!
Half of it was already burning, and a chain reaction set off around the rest of it: each flower arrangement and centerpiece exploded one by one into flames. Still, the room remained half full with people who appeared in no rush to leave despite the chaos around them; even the DJ continued spinning. It took only a moment to realize why: he was one of the Outfit. The remaining Outfit members continued serving drinks and canapés and danced as though nothing was wrong, and because they did, at least a few dozen of our classmates stayed behind as the rest ran for the doorways. They clustered in the center of the dance floor, the safest spot, as the flames burned along the periphery. It was as if they thought this pyrotechnics display was just some very elaborate part of the decoration. A new fire ignited, and my eyes darted toward it. No, it couldn’t be—but it looked like Mirabelle. On fire. And then the same thing happened to the Outfit guy who had followed us to Dante’s house. One by one, the Outfit members were bursting into flames. No warning, they just began sizzling up.
A chunk of the ceiling crumbling from flames tumbled down to my feet, making me jump. I gave the TV one last tug—hopeless—as I noticed my more successful counterparts, Lance and Dante, fleeing Alcatraz, leaving Etan and his friend sparking and beginning to ignite back in the cell. The heat and smoke rose, as the entire room crackled and spit around me, the fire spreading so haphazardly now, out of control. My heart sank: I had to give up on this passageway; it wasn’t opening. Maybe Aurelia had discovered it and had it sealed when she replaced the TV. It didn’t matter—I had to get out before I burned to ash. Aurelia, whose own flames were burning brighter, her form creating a blockade at least three feet high and growing near the front door, was slithering toward me, slowly, slowly. The conflagration had nearly reached the front door of the office now too, but it was the only way out. I would be boxed in within minutes. That was it: I’d have to jump over Aurelia to get to the door.
Sweat dripping off of me, I gathered everything I had in me and ran the few steps I had room to run, then launched myself up, springing on legs that had never been asked to take such a leap. I tucked my legs up to clear her as she clawed at me, trying to grab hold and singeing the soles of my shoes to the point it felt like she burned right through them. I landed on the other side and wound up my leg, kicking and kicking at what little of the door hadn’t been burned up. At last it crumbled and I fled the inferno, racing out into the relative safety of the hallway, coughing and panting.
35. Be Strong . . . and Be You
I could hear the screams before I even reached the lobby—the shrieks and clomping of shoes that tend to accompany a mass exodus. A sea of our
classmates fleeing the ballroom, and other hotel guests, who must’ve smelled the rising smoke, vacating their rooms and spilling out of the stairwells.
Looking straight up to the skylight, I could see people scurrying on every floor, knocking on doors, alerting each other since, mysteriously, not a single fire alarm had sounded. But down in the lobby now, it was just too many people, everyone pooled by the front entrance waiting to trickle out into the street. Everyone had a sense of frenzy, yet it didn’t translate into any rapid motion because the crowd was too enormous for the space, so they sifted one by one by one through the front doors, barely moving. The backup was so great that there was virtually no movement on the packed grand staircase either, everyone inching along, anxious to leave.
At the top of the mezzanine, leaning over the railing, I caught sight of a jumping, waving figure. Dante. He placed his hands around his mouth and shouted over and over to be heard above the clamor: “HAVEN! HAVEN! UP HERE!” I waved both arms in the air. I had never been so relieved to see him. I pushed through the crowd to get to that ottoman and once there I climbed up to the top of its raised center, elbowing anyone in the way, anything to be closer to Dante and get a better vantage point above the masses. “You get her?” he shouted down.
“Got her!” I yelled back up, raising my arm in a thumbs-up. My voice, despite a smoky rasp, had never felt stronger or more proud. My heart was still beating so fast from all I’d accomplished against Aurelia, a sense of supreme invincibility washed over me. Even as these frantic bodies surged around me, I allowed myself just a second to savor the stunning truth: I had somehow come through that battle with Aurelia and won. I felt so powerful thinking about it, it almost made me forget my aching muscles, my scraped and scratched and torn flesh. It seemed like that had been accomplished by someone else but, no, I had done that.
Dante put both arms in the air in a victory cheer. “Yeah!” But the celebration had to be brief.
Illuminate: A Gilded Wings Novel, Book One Page 44
