Alchemy of Secrets, page 26
The dress was a little otherworldly, a little speakeasy-romantic, with a pale blue-violet fur that draped around her shoulders and long strings of pearls that went around her neck. The fitted bodice was covered in a sheer overlay that flowed out at her hips and turned into a short skirt covered in iridescent blue and violet beads that shimmered as she walked.
Adam was dressed like Cross from Knife and Cross, in dark leather breeches, tall boots, a loose brown shirt with sleeves rolled up, and two belts of weapons slung low on his hips. He was twirling another weapon around his fingers—a knife with an intricate hilt. The blade fell from his hands as soon as he saw Holland.
She tried not to smile.
* * *
It was late when they arrived at the Hollywood Roosevelt. Holland didn’t want to look at the time, because she already knew it wouldn’t be enough.
She could feel the feverish Halloween energy as soon as she and Adam stepped out of the car and approached the double glass doors. On the other side, a new row of red velvet curtains obscured the view into the hotel, but Holland could hear music playing. Jazzy, big band music that made her picture swinging skirts and strong drinks in fancy glassware.
A man dressed like a butler from the 1940s stood in front of the curtains. His pants were pinstripe, his suit coat had tails, and he was holding a silver tray in his gloved hands. On one side of the tray stood an old-fashioned liquor bottle with a large glass stopper, and on the other was a stack of cream-colored cards with embossed gold writing.
“Take one if you wish to play,” said the butler.
Holland didn’t have time for games. But Adam picked one up with a cheerful “Thanks.” Then he took another and handed it to Holland. She started to brush it aside, but the words on the front stopped her:
__________ did it in the __________ with the __________.
“It’s from the game Clue.” She flipped over the card. The murder happens in a room with a secret passage. Below the clue was a grid, like the ones that came with the actual board game.
“I would have loved this on any other night,” Holland told Adam. But tonight, the clue hit a nerve. “I don’t know if I should feel as if this clue is trolling me or if it’s trying to warn me.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Adam grinned, but it was one of those smiles that didn’t touch his eyes.
Animated chatter mingled with the music, growing louder as Holland and Adam ventured up the stairs and down the hall to the lobby, which had been transformed into Clue’s conservatory.
Holland once again thought about her ominous Clue card, since the conservatory in the game was one of the rooms with a secret passage.
A dizzying array of flowering plants had been brought in, filling the room with even more color. Not that it needed it. The hotel was packed with people in costume, taking pictures and flirting, drinking and kissing, spilling drinks, and trading clues. It was the time of night when the entire party was tipsy. Holland felt like the only sober person. Even Adam had somehow managed to grab a cocktail within minutes.
“Do you see your brother?” she asked.
“No. But he’s here somewhere.” Adam took a long drink as both of them surveyed the room.
From the corner of her eye, Holland thought she saw the Professor. Quickly, she grabbed Adam’s arm.
“What’s wrong?” His drink sloshed as Holland dragged him to the staircase leading up toward the mezzanine, although tonight there were signs for the library, the billiard room, and the ballroom.
“I think I saw the Professor,” Holland whispered. “She’s in the lobby, dressed like Mary Poppins.”
“Mary Poppins, really?”
“It’s actually kind of fitting. She’s magical and not very nice.”
This earned Holland a laugh from Adam as he finished off his drink. She wondered if he was drinking because he was just that confident they’d find the Alchemical Heart, or if he was nervous about seeing his brother.
The stairs were full of more people. Holland and Adam passed a couple dressed as Knife and Cross; another partygoer dressed as a French maid was lying on the ground, posing for a photo as that evening’s dead body. Carefully, Adam and Holland stepped around her.
The mezzanine was somehow teeming with even more people. The band must have been playing in the ballroom, because up here the sound was deafening. Holland could barely hear anything else as she and Adam moved through the crush toward the bowling alley.
She stilled at the sight of a man in a white dinner jacket. Thankfully it wasn’t Mason. But then she saw another man who made all her anxiety bubble back to the surface. “Adam—it’s Gabe.”
He was the only person not in costume. Instead, Gabe was dressed in the same exact clothes he’d worn at JME, and he was moving swiftly toward the bowling alley.
The carelessness left Adam’s expression in a flash. “I’ll take care of him. Just stay here, out of sight.”
“I thought you didn’t want to split up.”
“I don’t. But I also don’t want you to have to go near him again.”
A second later, Adam was gone. Holland watched him move through the crowd until he was lost. And then she started moving, too. According to her watch, she had less than two hours to find the Alchemical Heart. She wasn’t just going to stay—
A strong hand grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.
Holland yelped and drew back her fist. But it was only Chance.
He was dressed like a pirate from the cover of a romance novel, wearing a wig with long golden hair, golden hoops in both his ears, and a very frilly shirt he’d left almost entirely unbuttoned. A long curving sword was tied to his waist. It was a fantastic costume. But all Holland’s nerves were on edge. Not even seeing Chance in this costume could calm them.
“You just scared the hell out of me,” she breathed.
“Sorry,” Chance said. “I need to talk to you.” His eyes darted around the crowded mezzanine. “There’s something I need to show you. Can we go somewhere more private?”
“Chance, this really isn’t the best time.” Holland started to push past him, but he blocked her way, smile vanishing.
“You owe me. And you need to see this.” He took her hand before she could protest and started toward the elevators.
“Hey! Are you Chance Garcia?” someone called.
Chance ignored him, pulling Holland into the open elevator and then shutting the doors before anyone else could step inside. She’d never seen him act like this. “Chance, you’re making me nervous.”
“Good.” He pressed a button to an upper floor. Then, just as the elevator started to ascend, he pushed the emergency stop. The elevator jolted to a sudden halt. Holland reached for the wall to steady herself, but Chance just stood there, eerily calm. “You should be nervous. There’s something very wrong with that guy you were with.”
“Adam?”
Chance nodded. “There’s a reason I took the job on that new Vic VanVleet film, and it’s not because I wanted to return to acting. I’ve never stopped being haunted by that last day on The Magic Attic. I wanted to go back to JME to look into what happened. For months, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve tried to make friends with people all over the studio, so I could look through old pictures and hear old stories and try to make sense of things. Today, when I saw you with Adam, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen him.” Chance held out his phone and showed her a picture of a framed photograph. “This was the first day of The Magic Attic filming. See anyone familiar?”
Holland, of course, recognized the cast, including a younger Chance.
“You look so happy,” she said.
“I’m not talking about me. Keep looking.”
Holland studied the photograph, and this time it only took her a few seconds to see a face she knew all too well.
Adam Bishop.
“He was the one person in this photo who I couldn’t remember,” said Chance. “I asked around and no one at the studio remembers him, either. But I found him in dozens of other pictures.”
Chance showed her several more photos of Adam. In every one, he hadn’t aged a day. But the part that most unnerved Holland was that every picture of Adam also showed someone she had included in her thesis—a different person in each photo, but every one was a person who had died under tragic or mysterious circumstances.
“There’s one more photo you should see,” Chance said a little reluctantly. “After I left you at the studio today, I found this one from the set of Mirrorland.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I think your friend might be the devil,” said Chance. But there was no excitement or playfulness in his voice. No victory that they had finally found him.
Holland’s head spun as she stared at the picture. Her parents were in the middle, standing next to each other, and right behind them was Adam Bishop.
She reminded herself that Adam had told her he’d once been the devil. But he’d also promised he’d never made a deal with her parents.
She searched the photo for Mason. She looked for him in all Chance’s photos, but there was only Adam.
This didn’t prove that Adam had been lying about Mason, but what if he had been? What if Holland had it all backward and Adam really was the villain?
Holland reminded herself that January trusted him. She could trust him, too. But what evidence did Holland actually have for this? Now that she thought about it, only one person at the Bank had mentioned Adam’s name: Padme. That should have been enough, except that Holland had seen Adam not only erase memories but change them. If he really was the acting devil instead of his brother, it would have been easy for Adam to figure out whose memories at the Bank he’d need to change in order to convince Holland he was January’s partner.
Suddenly, Holland was desperate to find the Professor—to ask if she knew Adam Bishop. But there wasn’t time for that. As soon as Holland exited this elevator, she had to decide whether to go find Adam or look for the Alchemical Heart on her own.
Holland restarted the elevator. Chance now looked as if he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get out of this without hurting him yet again.
Thankfully for Holland, Chance Garcia was easily recognizable, even in a pirate costume. Just minutes after she and Chance exited the elevator, partygoers were asking for selfies, and Holland was slipping away from her friend.
The night had gone from tipsy to drunk. The floor beneath her shoes felt sticky, everything smelled like liquor and sugar, and what had been jazzy music now just sounded like noise.
Holland heard a familiar laugh and spun around to find Cat near the entrance of the ballroom, talking to Eileen. Holland felt a pang of guilt for how she’d parted with Cat earlier, but she couldn’t risk talking to either of her friends now. After she found the Heart. If she found the Heart, she would make all this up to them.
Holland was almost inside the Roosevelt’s Spare Room—the gaming parlor and cocktail lounge where the bowling alley lived—when she realized she had no idea where to search. But then she remembered the words in her father’s note. You already have everything you need. You just have to see it.
Holland could do this. She might not have solved the mystery of exactly why her parents had died, but she’d confirmed what kind of person her father was. Everyone she’d met on this treasure hunt had painted a picture of Ben Tierney that not only made her feel proud of him but also made her feel closer to him.
Ben was a good person.
He had a heart, and he was one of those rare people who only became better at using it throughout his life.
Ben was the real deal. Smart. The kind of visionary storyteller that comes around once in a lifetime.
If her father believed she could do this, then she could do it. Holland had faith in her father, and he had faith in her.
The music faded as soon as she stepped into the gaming parlor, and suddenly she felt as if she could have been walking into her father’s unfinished movie. Balls were rolling and pins were falling and people in outlandish Halloween costumes were sipping cocktails like they were sodas. The double lanes had been painted green for the night, and single-digit numbers had been stuck on all the balls, making every lane look like a giant billiard table.
You just have to see it, her father had written.
Then she saw him. Mason Bishop.
Every single hair on her arms stood up.
Mason was reclining in the cocktail lounge, dressed exactly as he’d been last night: dark pants, white dinner jacket, undone tie around his neck.
She still thought he looked like the looking-glass version of Adam: harder, colder. His hair was darker, but his skin was fairer. He probably had an inch of height on his brother, and he looked as if he hadn’t smiled in a century.
Holland watched him taking in the bowling alley scene and looking bored as hell. Then his eyes were on her. Holland felt it again—the same electric charge as last night crackled through the air.
Suddenly, Mason no longer looked bored. Then he was there, right in front of her. “You’re running a little late tonight.”
Holland took an involuntary step back. “How—how did you do that?” Her eyes went to the far side of the cocktail lounge, where Mason had just been reclining, then back to the man in front of her. Adam had said his brother couldn’t use his abilities. But clearly, Adam was a liar.
Mason’s expression darkened. “Yes, my younger brother is a liar and a number of other unfortunate words.”
“How did you know what I—”
“I can’t read your mind,” Mason interrupted. “And I didn’t need to. We’ve had this conversation before.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
All the bowling pins crashed at once. A collective roar of drunken cheers took over the gaming parlor. Everyone was high-fiving, saying words like Halloween magic and looking around in wonder—everyone except for Holland and Mason.
Mason looked at Holland as if he didn’t want to have this conversation again. And Holland felt dizzy and sick and more than a little angry as she considered his words. That somehow she’d had this conversation before and she’d forgotten. Although if she really had forgotten, she doubted it was a lapse of memory. It was Adam.
“When did we have this conversation?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you. But we need to leave before my brother comes in.”
“I can’t—”
“You’re not going to find the Alchemical Heart in here,” Mason cut in sharply.
Holland bristled at his tone. There was something about Mason that made her feel as if he was the kind of guy who should come with a warning sign: Likes shiny toys. Bored easily.
“I’m impressed with your little magic tricks,” said Holland, “but—”
“I can tell you why you keep having nosebleeds and visions,” he interrupted.
“Already heard that one.”
“From your Professor? Did she also mention the Watch Man, poor Tom, and that depressed bastard Gabe?”
Holland tried to stop herself from asking how Mason knew all this. She hadn’t even told anyone about Gabe bleeding.
We’ve had this conversation before, Mason had said.
But when could she have told him about Gabe?
“What do you know about my bleeding?” Holland asked.
“This never goes well unless you follow me. We only have about ninety seconds before my brother walks in here. He’ll come straight for you. As soon as he touches you, you’ll forget this conversation. You won’t find the Alchemical Heart, and an hour from now you’ll be dead.” He sounded annoyed, as if her death would be a colossal inconvenience to him.
But it was the words never goes well that finally caught her full attention. “What happens if I go with you?”
“You get a chance.” Mason started toward the bar in the cocktail lounge. In the game Clue, there was not a secret passage in the billiard room, but in the Hollywood Roosevelt, there was a hidden door right by the bar. Mason pointed toward a handle that blended in with the wood paneling. Holland turned it, just as she caught a glimpse of Adam in the bar’s mirror. Then she was slipping through to the other side.
Mason leaned one shoulder against a wall of books, somehow having entered the tiny library before Holland. She wondered again exactly what his magic was, but that wasn’t her most pressing question. “Tell me about my nosebleeds.”
“You’re feisty tonight.” Mason regarded her with a subtle cock of his head. “I like this for you.”
“Why do you keep talking as if we know each other?”
“Because we do. Or—” His mouth twisted as if he’d just bitten into something unpleasant. “I know you. You never remember me.”
“Because of your brother?”
“Sometimes. Not always.” Mason sighed and leaned a second shoulder against the bookcase. “It’s mostly because of you.”
“Why would it be because of me?”
“Because you die. You never find the Alchemical Heart, because it’s not hidden in this hotel. You die at one minute to midnight. Then at exactly a quarter after midnight, time turns back to Halloween Eve, and we do this dance all over again.”
“No.” Holland staggered back. “I don’t believe you.”
“You say that every time. Then you tell me that your father wouldn’t steer you wrong.”
“He wouldn’t!” Holland said. She believed in a lot of impossible things. She believed in time loops and magical objects and the dead coming back to life, but Holland could not believe that her father would fail her.
Mason shrugged as if to say sorry, but Holland didn’t think he meant it. She didn’t think Mason felt much of anything except bored and annoyed that he was forced to relive the same forty-eight hours over and over again. Although she still wasn’t sure if she believed him.
“You think I’m a dick,” said Mason.
“I didn’t say that.”
“We’ve had this conversation before,” he reminded her. “I don’t know how or why the time loop happens. But I know the nosebleeds didn’t start right away. We think they’re a side effect of the time loop. Time wants to move forward, and since it hasn’t, it’s started to break.”
