The Dark Fable, page 20
“Eves, let’s go,” Mad called back to her.
Evie, Mad, and Queenie moved into a large room, where a table was scattered with plates containing steak, shrimp, and delicate savories. Little cakes sat beneath glass domes. Ciaran was sprawled in a chair, one booted foot on the table. Dev swung a chair around, and Queenie sat, twirling her crimson rabbit foot with its pewter hare face. Mad strode toward the table and leaned down to whisper in Ciaran’s ear.
As Evie observed them, these glittering predators, Ciaran’s gaze fell upon her. She stood there in her short fur coat, electric blue dress, and Prada loafers. She was one of them now. A radiant joy bloomed within her, and it took her a moment to realize what it was, what she felt whenever she remembered Juliet and Ezra. It was beyond affection.
It was love.
“Evie.” Mad, draped against Ciaran’s chair, beckoned to her. “Come on.”
Evie smiled and moved toward her family, letting the door shut behind her.
Ciaran had meant them to be relaxed. In that suite he and Dev shared, he set the map of the House of One Thousand Nights and its grounds on the table amid the leftover feast and drops of spilled coffee.
“You don’t think they have cameras and listening devices in these suites, do you?” Mad tossed her hair over one shoulder.
“No. Because the guests are crooks or the criminally wealthy—all ultraparanoid.” Dev tapped the blueprint to the House of One Thousand Nights, traced the paths to the outbuildings. “These blueprints are new. There’s nothing on this map about the stone structure Mad saw when she went to the roof.”
“You”—Ciaran looked at Evie—“Dev, and Mad will be investigating this building.”
“You think it’s the vault,” Evie guessed.
“I can hear something outside of these walls.” Ciaran’s eyes hooded. “A hum like an electric current. I felt the same when we were near the Bestiarum Vocabulum. It’s the sound of something containing a whole lot of power.”
“So, how do we do this?” Evie challenged.
Ciaran told her, “Mad’s going to be the Eye. You and Dev, the Strikers. Queenie and I, the Flaunt, as well as Tooth and Claw—because I’ve only seen a Russian security company around and that’s concerning.”
“Will we need to fight?” Queenie looked at Evie. “If you can make us all invisible, there shouldn’t be any violence.”
Evie flashed a look around the table. “I can only invisible one person at a time, and that takes effort. I don’t know if I can . . . cast it . . . over someone without contact.”
“We’re all going to practice. Here, in this room. To make sure everything works.” Mad began to levitate. “To make sure there’s no malachite or anything else that might mess us up.”
“Because the person throwing this party was once LFS?” Evie stepped back from the table.
“Nikki Petrov has a rep for villainy.” Dev sauntered to a cabinet, opened it to reveal a widescreen TV and a stereo. He tilted his head a little.
The TV flicked on to a movie channel. As a sultry song haunted the air, Dev smiled. Evie walked to him, saw that he wasn’t holding a remote, stared at the TV. “You can do that?”
“Any bits of electricity. I can charm a device as easily as a lock.”
“What about you, Queenie?” Evie wondered how the Alchemist was going to practice her ability.
“I’m already doing it.” Queenie put her feet up on the chair Dev had vacated. “I added something to everyone’s coffee.”
“What?” Dev spun. Mad stopped levitating. Evie almost dropped the mug she held.
Ciaran laughed. Queenie smiled. “Relax. I’m joking.” She pushed aside Dev’s chair and stood. She dumped fruit from a crystal bowl, poured water into it from a pitcher. She drew two vials from a pocket and uncapped them. “Turn off the lights.”
Evie flicked the switch. She watched Queenie pour whatever was in the vials into the water. Incandescent bubbles began rising, pink, blue, purple, and emerald, drifting toward the ceiling. Dev reached out and popped one. Neon color burst outward. He flinched back, grinned as the color continued to mist, before fading.
“It’s not radioactive, is it?” Mad poked a bubble. Pink radiance splashed around her, momentarily painting half of her face.
“It’s just like the solution used for smoke bubbles in fancy cocktails. Only filled with a chemical I devised that echoes an extended version of sonoluminescence.” Queenie popped a bubble and resembled a mermaid in the blue light that bathed her. “And a Wish.”
“You would have been wasted at NASA.” Mad rose to pop a purple bubble. The garish light made her look unearthly.
“Your Doors?” Evie turned to Ciaran. He got up, opened a closet door, revealing Times Square at night. He closed the Door.
Evie shrugged and silently called the veil around her. This time, it seemed to flutter like black butterflies, clinging to her, followed by those whispering voices.
“I know you can cover whoever you have contact with,” Ciaran told her, his voice muffled by the veil, “but I need you to make Mad invisible when you separate.”
Evie stood in the veil, staring up at Mad as the other girl rose toward the ceiling. Evie lifted one arm, felt the ribbons of darkness writhe from her. She willed the darkness as if it were a living creature. It swept from her in butterfly bits, toward Mad . . .
. . . and faded. The veil around Evie shredded, vanished. Fatigue pooled through her from just that simple effort.
“Evie. You can do it,” Ciaran said calmly. “Close your eyes and concentrate.”
She did so, keeping her arm raised. The cold darkness she summoned clung to her again, accompanied by a girl’s eerie singing. Evie heard water dripping, saw a dark cavern, a female form rising against a glowing green light—
“Evie!” Ciaran’s urgent voice snapped her eyes open.
The short distance between her and Mad, who still levitated, was scarred by a jagged rip in reality that revealed a violet sky and a landscape of black grass. Mad hovered in a flurry of black butterflies.
The gap vanished. Evie and Mad were wrapped in the veil, the room beyond them leeched of color. Ciaran’s, Queenie’s, and Dev’s voices were muted. Mad spun with a laugh—
Evie let the veil vanish. Her eardrums popped as Mad fell. Ciaran lunged, caught Mad. Queenie and Dev were immediately on either side of Evie as she staggered.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” She shivered, lifted her head to see Mad with one arm looped around Ciaran’s shoulders. She couldn’t believe what she’d done, cast invisibility over someone from afar.
Mad was still laughing. “That was brilliant.”
Ciaran met Evie’s gaze. “There you are, blackbird.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Knight
Evie woke before Queenie and Mad, as the sunlight was fading in their suite. They had been up with Dev and Ciaran until six in the morning, plotting. Evie had slept like a vampire.
She dressed quickly and left the suite to seek out Jason Ra—she had recognized him despite his disguise of blond hair and thick black glasses. It was curiosity that drove her and, also, an urgent desire to swear at him.
She spotted him crossing the foyer below. She made herself invisible and followed him through the House of One Thousand Nights. He moved among the Collectors and thieves in the halls and drawing rooms, avoiding the knife-throwing contests, the slinky girls.
He approached a familiar man speaking with a woman whose hair was spiked with diamond pins. When the man spotted Jason, his face immediately became a mask. He didn’t run. He casually stepped back from the woman, turned, and walked down the hall, his tangerine suit glowing against the black and gold of the corridor. Priest, Evie thought, intrigued.
Jason followed the man who was LFS’s consultant down a flight of stairs, through a pair of crimson doors, and into a bar with murals of Minoan bull dancers on the walls. Watching, Evie kept the shadows veiling her. It was as if the stone and wood, threaded with ancient secrets, nurtured what she was.
Jason leaned against the bar near Priest and ordered a ginger ale. The bartender eyed him with scorn, her silver nose ring glinting. Priest said to the bartender. “Bourbon, please.”
The bourbon appeared. Priest eyed Jason over the rim of his glass as he drank, ice cubes clinking. He set down the glass. “I know who you are. You’re the one who left.”
Jason took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and slid it to Priest. “You’re a Collector. What do you know about this object?” Jason tapped the paper sketched with the image of the amphora jar that was the Anesidora Pithos. “I know this is being offered in the secret auction. What is it?”
“What’s in it for me?” Priest’s voice trailed off when Jason lifted his phone and showed him a picture of an old book with a frayed pink cover scarred with gilt symbols. Priest whispered, “The Cara Dora . . . a book of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Do you have it?”
“I have it. I can get it to you by the usual means.” Jason’s incredible poise made Evie a little less afraid for him.
“Before I answer”—Priest eyed the illustration—“I want to make sure I’m not betraying my darling Mad. Or crossing Ciaran Argent.” It was a warning.
“I just want to know what this object is.”
Priest drew a pair of glasses from his blazer. He examined the sketch. “A vessel.”
“Yes?” Jason prompted.
“Vessels contain. The Anesidora Pithos is from an ancient culture that believed in spirits or demons that take the shapes of animals—dangerous spirits capable of great harm. Silence and Night cannot get ahold of this object.”
The shadows that wrapped around Evie began to stir like sentient creatures. She kept them close to her, urging them to stay twined around her.
“Do you want it?” Jason asked Priest.
“Hell, no.” Priest ordered two more bourbons. His gaze pinned Jason. “Why did you leave LFS?”
“Someone died.” Jason pocketed the paper with the sketch. “And you?”
Priest’s niceness peeled away as if stripped by turpentine. He became all edges. “Same.”
Evie almost let the invisibility unravel from her as shock blindsided her: Priest had been one of Silence and Night’s crew? She should have known.
Priest knocked back his drink, set the glass down. “You’ll be on the run forever, never knowing if they’ve found you.”
“Why are you helping Ciaran Argent?” Desperation tangled in Jason’s voice.
“I trade in knowledge.” Priest shrugged. “They’re La Fable Sombre.”
A group of people in gold jewelry, eyes glittering, entered. They spoke Russian as they crowded the bar. Both Priest and Jason tensed. When no one made any attempts to come at them, Priest asked Jason, “What are you up to, James Bond Junior? Striking out on your own? It isn’t revenge, is it, for something they did? Oh, dear. How boring.”
Jason said idly, “I’m ending Silence and Night.”
“Yes. Revenge.” Priest nodded sagely. “And what did they do to you?”
“They murdered two people I loved.”
The light left Priest’s eyes. “They do that.” He checked his watch. “Time’s almost up. I’m meeting with them soon, two of your former partners in crime.”
“What are we?” Jason whispered the question Evie had never gotten a satisfying answer to. She listened, scarcely breathing. “If you were like us . . .”
“Hell if I know. Silence and Night made up their dark mythos when we were young and first recruited. Silence was raised Catholic. Night was brought up in an orphanage ruled by nuns. They have a macabre sort of piety, that pair. Can you believe they have a family? Conjured at least one human being into the world. I remember Night being round as a moon, years ago. And they’ve two hidden away in European boarding schools.” Priest levered a look on Jason.
Evie almost forgot to keep the darkness of the veil close around her. She flickered into visibility, and a young couple nearby stared at her. She drew back into the shadows. The veil folded around her again. The couple hurried away.
Jason and Priest continued their conversation in a world leeched of color. Priest was saying, “Silence and Night believe our powers come from . . .” He pointed downward, indicating Hades, the Underworld, hell.
“What did your predecessors believe?” Jason demanded.
“The Dolls? Ruby was a Somali Goth goddess, and Annabelle was like David Bowie if he’d been born a girl in Jaipur. God, I was in love with them. They believed our powers were an evolutionary development, that we manifested them.”
“What happened to the Dolls?”
“Oh, you know.” Priest’s look was dark.
“Silence and Night murdered them,” Jason pronounced, and Evie wasn’t shocked by that at all.
“Yes.” Priest’s mask cracked again, revealing the anguish beneath. “Silence and Night killed them. And made it look as if they’d killed one another. That’s Silence and Night’s modus operandi.”
“I’m aware of it.” Jason was grim. “Where are your fellow LFS members? I’m guessing they didn’t retire.”
“They are dead.” Priest downed another bourbon. “Except for the Basilisk, the treacherous bastard. No more questions. Get that item to me.” Priest handed Jason a pink business card with a name and address on it in gilded script.
“How do I find the Basilisk?” Jason asked as Priest winked at one of the bartenders while setting down a hundred-dollar bill.
“You won’t. And you don’t want him to find you. If you desire to end Silence and Night—get ahold of the Pandora jar, the Anesidora Pithos. Do not let La Fable Sombre take that jar back to them.” He hesitated, seeming to debate whether to offer up another bit of information. “Don’t seek me out again.” He slipped away, the shadows submerging him as if he were a bright salamander disappearing into a murky pool.
Evie watched Jason set his elbows on the bar and push his hands through his dyed hair.
What are you doing? she thought imploringly. Here among the serpents?
She touched her maiden death medallion. She tapped it thoughtfully. She raised it before her eyes, squinting. As she strolled away, the ribbons of invisibility unraveling, she lifted the medallion and spoke to it. “I’m going for a walk in the statue garden.”
She used the front entrance, flashing one of the black cards they’d each been given. The winter air made her feel isolated as she moved down the enormous stair. She followed a path into a barren garden, where the statue of a girl stood, arms outstretched. The statue had tiny horns. Evie moved down the path, to the next statue, a boy curved like a crescent moon, his feet talons.
When she heard the step behind her, she slyly said, “You always manage to find me.”
Jason Ra moved to her side. She looked at him. Even wearing a stupid Laplander hat and black-rimmed glasses, he seemed remote and dangerous. Vengeful people were always dangerous, to themselves as well as to everyone around them. Evie had read that somewhere. “That’s not a great look for you, Ra.”
“How did you know?” He jerked his chin at the maiden death medallion.
“Why else would you give it back? It was a ruthless move, planting a bug inside.” She twirled the medallion. “I respect that.” She led him toward a wooded hill. They reached the summit, where a tower, a folly of white stone, rose. They trudged up the stairs to the roofed top. Evie almost tripped on the handle of a trap door set in the floor. As they sat on a bench and gazed out at the wintery landscape, she asked, “Are you going to try and sabotage this? Don’t.”
He hunched forward. “They were my family too, for a while.”
“Ciaran didn’t kill your father, Jason.”
“No. But he works for the man who did.”
She couldn’t argue with that. She hunched up.
“Interpol doesn’t believe they exist, Evie. My father believed. He was killed because of it. That’s what you’ve joined—an ancient guild that protects itself with murder. They all have their secrets, your new family, and bad pasts. Vero and I were accepted, but our inclusion went completely against La Fable Sombre’s code of outcasts only. All our unnatural abilities manifested through a crisis. Every person in your new family, Evie, is damaged. La Fable Sombre is a beast that feeds on broken lives.”
“What do you expect me to do, Ra? Leave them? I have nowhere else to go.” Dealing with Jason Ra was like trying to outwit her own reflection. “I can’t.”
“I thought the same. Until I held a dying girl in my arms.”
Her throat knotted up. She kept her gaze from him, focusing on the ground between her boots. He removed his glasses and watched the sky. “Look,” he said softly.
She looked. A vast rainbow of incandescent colors began to ribbon across the sapphire blue. As the light show flowed behind pine trees on a ridge, simply breathing the air felt magical. They watched the aurora borealis continue to glow in the sky like a city of melting jewels. Turning, she caught its reflection in his eyes.
“Why did you join them?” Her question was a plea. I need to know what you want, Jason Ra.
He watched the sky radiate with neon pinks, greens, and purples. Softly, he said, “I was angry. I was grieving. I blamed my father for something that I shouldn’t have.”
His mother, Evie realized with a surge of concern.
“It’s as if Ciaran sensed it, as if he could follow the scent of anger and loss. Mad and Vero were my calming muses. Ciaran was the tempest that drew us in. Before him, the world ruled us.” Bitterness edged his voice. “He made us feel like we ruled the world. We were careless. Cruel. I did things I’m not proud of. And Mad changed too. And Dev. And Queenie.” He looked at her.
Evie thought of Mad blithely luring the Brute out of the window. Queenie had created a poison because she could. Dev had no problem using his powers of persuasion on people as well as objects. Her mouth tightened. She decided to take control of the direction this conversation was taking. “I know you’re here to sabotage this.”
