by Stella Hart
Some nights as a child, I would dream of my own birth: little me, red-faced and howling, entering the world in a sea of blood. My mother, fading away to a pale, motionless husk, giving her life so that I might live and grow and thrive. Or maybe it was more that I took her life rather than had it given to me.
By the time I was old enough to realize what it meant to be raised without a mother, I wasn’t grief-stricken, because I had no memories of the woman. I was curious, however, especially as my father very rarely spoke of her. When I was about ten or eleven, I used to spend hours hunting through our main house, looking for any small pieces of information I could get on her—old photos, clothes, bits of paper with her handwriting on it. Just to see what she was like beyond the posed, somber photos that hung around the place.
One summer, I came across the motherlode, no pun intended. There was a small room on the fourth floor of the house which I’d never gone in before (it was shockingly easy to live in a mansion that size and never enter half the rooms) and I discovered what was essentially a shrine dedicated to her in my father’s no-nonsense, all-business manner. The room was filled with filing cabinets and carefully-organized boxes with her old things, any paperwork she’d ever required or filled out, college, employment and financial records from before she met my father, medical records, and even her birth certificate.
Even though I’d never met her, I felt like I almost did when I came out of that room after an entire day spent in its depths. I knew her history, I knew the sort of grades she got in college, and I knew how well she performed at the fashion house she worked at before her wedding. I even knew her damn blood type and contact lens prescription details.
“She was stubborn. Brash. Argumentative. Overly-curious,” Dad said before shooting another clay target out of the sky. Then he wiped his brow and continued. “She asked a lot of questions about a lot of things, and she never quite knew when to give up a fight. Same as you. The council might not be able to put their full trust in a person with that personality.”
I side-eyed him. “You’ve never described her like that before.”
“Hm?”
“Sylvie. You’ve always said she was meek and mild-mannered. Now you’re suddenly saying she was stubborn and brash.”
He waved a hand. “People can change. She was all of those things over the years.”
“I see.”
“As I was saying, just because you’re a legacy doesn’t mean you’ll automatically make it to the third level. You know it isn’t like other societies where legacies have the upper hand. It’s all down to you as an individual. Whether you are a correct fit or deemed trustworthy is entirely dependent on the behavior you demonstrate during your time in the second level, the answers you give to questions asked of you during the interviews, and the manner in which you conduct yourself in the trials. Only ten percent make it to third.”
“Right.”
“We’ll see how you go with Tatum before we consider you,” he said. “Now, it’s your turn.” He gestured toward the guy working the trap thrower. “Pull!”
The clay target seemed to fly out in slow motion as my mind drifted to Tatum yet again. Just two more weeks until she was mine.
I pictured her on her knees, forcibly submitting to me and sobbing, makeup running down her face in harsh black streaks. She would be exhausted, eyes filled with terror. I would grant her no mercy, breaking her into pieces day after day. I didn’t give a shit if she was scared, didn’t give a shit about what she wanted. Her hopes and dreams didn’t matter to me one iota.
Eventually she would learn her place with me and willingly submit, desperate to please her owner. I couldn’t get the thought of that out of my head. It was stuck in me at all times, a potent cocktail of lust and hate pounding through my veins. Even though I’d barely spoken to her or touched her, I could already feel her soft skin, breathe in her scent, taste her lips, all in my imagination.
Of course, the real thing would be better, and now it was right around the corner.
I narrowed my eyes, aimed my shotgun, and pulled the trigger.
This time I didn’t miss.
7
Tatum
“Nearly done….” Mellie licked her lips as she arranged a golden wreath on my head. “There we go.”
I looked in the mirror and smiled, pleased at what I saw reflected back at me. The flowing white Grecian gown fit perfectly, plunging at the neckline to show off my cleavage, and the gold-braided belt cinched my waist, giving my figure a lovely hourglass shape.
Mellie had also done my hair and makeup. My lips were a deep shade of pink, and my eyes looked dark and inviting with the smoky black and bronze eyeshadows she’d blended over and around my upper and lower lids. My straight brown locks had been curled and teased into thick, luscious waves that hung over my shoulders and down my back.
“It looks perfect,” I murmured. “You’re amazing at this.”
“Thanks,” she said with a beaming smile. “Honestly, though, the most amazing thing is that my plan actually worked.”
Somehow, Mellie had figured out a way onto her father’s private computer, and she’d succeeded in adding me to the list of actors who would perform in tonight’s Crown and Dagger second-level initiation ceremony and celebration. I couldn’t believe it when she first told me. She looked like she couldn’t even believe it herself, and we’d both shrieked and danced in giddy excitement for two straight minutes, scarcely able to believe that I was actually in.
The Grecian-gowned girls had one of the simplest tasks—basically all they did was stand around at certain times during the ceremony and hold up golden goblets. Barely even acting; they were more like human props. That was good for me, though. It meant I didn’t really have to do much in order to get away with being there, and I would have a front-row seat to most of the action.
I had been contacted a few days ago with tonight’s password, and an outfit had been sent to the address Mellie put in the spreadsheet. It was a townhouse in central New Marwick which belonged to a friend of hers, and it was currently empty while he was overseas, which made it the perfect place for us to use in our guileful plan.
Mellie glanced at the clock. “They’ll be here in a few minutes, right? Are you freaking out?”
I nodded. “Hell yeah.” My heart was racing a mile a minute, and my throat felt thick with nerves. I knew I could do this, though. I’d been through far more harrowing things in my life.
“Remember, they won’t hurt you, even if they catch you out,” she said. “They won’t be happy, but it’s not the end of the world.”
I smiled. “I know.” The doorbell rang downstairs, and my pulse doubled. “I guess I better answer it. No one else is supposed to be with me.”
“Good luck!”
I slowly walked down the stairs, the door pulling me toward it like a magnet, as if my subconscious knew that on the other side my life could lift right off the ground and change forever.
A tall man in a dark suit stood on the steps, waiting for me. “State your name and the password,” he said.
I gulped. “Carina Adams,” I said, giving him the fake name Mellie made up. “The password is potentia.”
He nodded and stepped aside, one hand falling to the left in a guiding gesture. “This way.”
There was a black car with dark-tinted windows idling by the sidewalk. The man opened the back door for me, and I haltingly got inside and put my seatbelt on. There was another girl in a white gown sitting on the other side of the back seat. She didn’t look at me. Didn’t even turn her head the slightest bit.
“Hi, I’m Carina,” I whispered. “Are you excited about the job?”
That made her turn her head. She stared at me with wide eyes, then frowned deeply and looked away again.
The man in the suit was in the front passenger seat now, and he looked back at me with suspiciously-narrowed eyes. Then he leaned over to the driver and muttered what sounded like directions out of town.
A
s he did that, the girl leaned over to me for a second. “No names, remember?” she hissed. “Didn’t you read the contract?”
My stomach flipped. No, of course I hadn’t read the contract. I wasn’t really hired for this, so I never even saw one. I should’ve known there were strict rules surrounding the event, though, so I’d probably already messed up by offering my albeit-fake name to her when I got in the car. Shit.
My heart fluttered in my chest like the wings of a trapped bird, and I glanced at the front again, hoping the man hadn’t noticed I didn’t belong as a result of my misstep. If he did, he didn’t say anything.
He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out two black satin blindfolds. “Put these on,” he commanded me and the other girl. “Actors aren’t permitted to know the address of the event.”
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. I was safe.
I put my blindfold on and waited. I heard the car start up, and then we pulled away from the curb and drove for what felt like two or three hours. Jesus, where were we going? Another state?
Long car-rides usually put me to sleep, but I was so nervous and excited about tonight that I couldn’t relax for even a second. My hands kept twitching, and I couldn’t keep my legs still.
Finally, the man in the front instructed us to remove our blindfolds. Then he stepped out of the car and opened the doors for us.
The night sky had no stars, so it was almost pitch black out here. From the glow of the car’s headlights, I could see we were standing on the edge of a forest. The smell of decomposing leaves and loamy earth filled my nostrils, and the darkness of the woods ahead made me feel claustrophobic even though it seemed to stretch for miles.
The man in the suit turned on a flashlight and nodded for us to follow him onto a narrow path. It was hilly and uneven with knotted roots crossing over it, and it branched at regular intervals. Man-made, but old.
I followed the path, shivering with each step. About a hundred yards in, I spotted a warm, flickering glow in a valley below. Voices drifted up to us, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
My nervousness and trepidation increased the closer we got. What if Mellie was wrong? What if these people were actually dangerous and they caught me sneaking in under false pretenses? The thought of what could happen made a chill swirl through me, and my hands turned cold and clammy. All this over a damn paper, just because I was determined to get an A. It was a stupid idea. I should pretend I felt sick and ask to leave right now, before I got in too deep.
And yet, I couldn’t. My feet kept following the suited man’s path through the woods, as if that strange magnetic pull I felt earlier was still drawing me along, dragging me ever-closer to the mysteries of Crown and Dagger. As much as I knew it was probably a bad idea, I couldn’t back out. I wanted to see what they did out here, wanted to see if it was just as silly as Mellie thought, or if there was something more to it that she was unaware of. Something darker, something more sinister.
The path turned downhill, and we drew closer to the valley. A huge portion was delineated with tall burning torches that filled the area with a warm orange glow. In the middle of that area was a semi-circular Roman-style theatre made from ashlar stones with stacked seating around the auditorium and a large raised rectangular slab in the center of that. Along the straight edge of the semi-circle was a wide stage, and behind that was an imposing building with carved stone columns and a pavilion on the other side.
To the left of the outdoor theatre, way off in the distance, I could see an enormous metal statue of a bull. In the shadowy ground in front of it, lit with the flickering flames of only two small torches, were nine deep rectangular holes. They each looked large enough to fit a coffin in.
Creepy.
We were led over to the pavilion and into the building, and a rhythmic drumming started up not long after we stepped into it.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, gazing at the wondrous sights inside. Mellie was right: the event really was like a carnival. Everything moved so quickly with such chaotic visuals, wildly-flashing lights and a cacophony of sounds that I could barely take it all in as we walked through the various rooms.
Upper-level society members in masks and robes milled around, drinking, talking and laughing. Actors who’d already started their shows were getting right into their roles. Some of them were funny, others were downright creepy.
In one room, five hooded figures dangled a man dressed in rags and chains over a pool of dark red fluid while guests watched him beg for his life. In another, a man dressed as the Devil jumped around, letting out deep-throated shrieks and calling out unfamiliar Latin words. The next room had no fire or candles, but was lit with the glow of hundreds of fireflies instead—or at least something that appeared that way—and actors dressed as heavily-bandaged mummies were trudging around and moaning.
Yet another room had men dressed in elaborate golden Aztec-style outfits with shimmering feathers and jewels along with golden beaked masks. They were dragging laughing first-level Crown and Dagger members into stone seats and tying them up before forcing them to drink from skulls. I hoped they were fake…
From everything I was seeing, I assumed this interior carnival was something the first-level members had to go through before being allowed outside to complete the second-level initiation ritual in the theatre. It seemed like they had to experience each one of the rooms, with the final one being the skull-drinking gold room.
The suited man led me and the other girl into a quieter back area of the building.
“About fucking time,” grumbled a short curly-haired woman when she saw us. She hurried over to us and quickly inspected our dresses and makeup. “You’re the last to arrive.”
“Traffic was shit on the way out of the city,” said the man, lighting up a cigarette.
“And yet the others all managed to get here on time,” the woman replied with a sarcastic air. “Anyway, we have to begin soon,” she went on, yanking on my arm and forcing me to follow her. “You girls know the drill, right? When you’re told to go, you head out in single file and line up facing the auditorium, right at the back of the stage. You hold these out in front of you, right hands only.” She picked up two golden goblets and pressed one into my hand. The other went to the girl I arrived with.
A gong sounded from somewhere in the building, and the curly-haired woman’s eyes widened. “Okay, time to go. Come on,” she said, ushering us over to a group of other women in the same flowing white gowns as us.
We walked single file to a curtained area, and then we stepped out onto the concrete stage which overlooked the stone outdoor theatre. The chill of the night sky hit me immediately, but I ignored the shivers and stood with my head held high, holding out the goblet.
My arm began to ache after a few minutes, but I stayed where I was, surreptitiously casting my eyes around. The theatre seats were filling up with society members now. Their dark masks were either beaked or horned, and I could see rings glinting in the firelight on their right hands.
I was too far away to see properly from here, but I knew those rings had eight-pointed stars carved on them. The Star of Ishtar. I’d done some research on what that star meant when I first heard about it. Apparently in ancient Babylonian customs, the goddess Ishtar was associated with the planet of Venus, and she represented lust, fertility and war.
A horn blew, long and loud, three times.
The crowd settled into silence. A tall black-robed man stepped out onto the stage in front of us. He was wearing a golden mask with a cruel, predatory beak, but I knew who it was. Tobias King, the head of the society.
He said a few words in Latin, and then he lifted a hand and clicked his fingers. Heavy drumbeats began to echo around the theatre as several sturdy men in white Grecian robes carried nine coffins out into the auditorium.
“It is time for these men to die and be reborn into the second order,” Tobias called out. “They have passed our tests, and they have been deemed worthy.”
Tobias recited some sort of speech on the glories of the brotherhood as the nine men lay down in their coffins. Then the drums stopped and the lids were shut. The men in white robes picked them up, two to each coffin, and carried them out of the theatre and over to the giant bull statue in the distance.
I squinted so I wouldn’t miss anything, and I saw the coffins being lowered into the holes in the ground I saw earlier.
“Now we wait for the rebirth of our brothers,” Tobias called out in a booming voice. He walked off the stage, and some sort of play starring the Grim Reaper began a few minutes later. Parts of it seemed Shakespearean, but I didn’t recognize it overall.
The white-gowned girls and I were all still standing at the very back of the stage, holding the goblets as the play went on before us. My arm felt like it was about to fall off, but I gritted my teeth and held steady.
My eyes kept wandering to the right as I waited for the play to finish, over to the bull statue and the buried men. The show had been going on for half an hour now. How long until they ran out of air down in those coffins?
The men in the audience seemed to be getting progressively drunker and louder, and when the play ended, they all cheered and bellowed as if it were Hamilton rather than the weird, convoluted show it was.
I cast my eyes to the right again, and I was surprised to see nine shadowy figures heading toward the theatre. It seemed the men had escaped the coffins and climbed out of the pits. I guess that was another test for them.
When every last one of them had reached the stone steps around the outer rim of the theatre, several of the red-robed members in the crowd rushed over to them and greeted them with firm handshakes and cheers. They were given their own red robes to wear, and then they were led into the center of the auditorium.
