I grabbed my handheld to query Lux, but I stopped when I remembered the text’s instructions. Tell no one. Did an app on my phone count? It’s not like whoever sent that text would know if I consulted Lux about it. Then again, whoever sent that text had somehow remotely erased it. Maybe they would know. Maybe it was a test.
There was only one way to find out.
“I’m tired,” I announced, pulling back the covers of my bed. The only way I’d get out of the room without having to explain myself to Hershey was if she was asleep.
“You still have your clothes on,” Hershey pointed out.
“Yeah. I do that sometimes.” I slid underneath the covers and reached for the light. “Good night.”
“Night,” Hershey replied. Still watching TV. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited. She had to be tired. She’d hardly slept last night.
It felt like an eternity before I heard the TV go off. Then Hershey was in the bathroom brushing her teeth. I stole a glance at my handheld. It was ten twenty-nine. I had less than thirty minutes to get out of there. When the water turned off, I slid my Gemini under the covers and deepened my breathing. A few seconds later, the whole room went dark. I lay there and listened. Eventually Hershey’s breath steadied. She was asleep.
As quietly as I could, I slid out of bed, grabbed my boots, and slipped out the door.
I reached the cemetery’s wrought-iron gate at ten fifty-eight. I’d been prepared to hop the fence again, but to my surprise, the gate was slightly ajar. Whoever orchestrated this had a key.
The cemetery was deserted and dark. I didn’t even have the moon to guide me; the sky was black except for a few greenish clouds, remnants of the afternoon’s storm. I pulled my handheld from my pocket and switched on its light. The last thing I wanted to do was trip over a headstone and face-plant on some dead guy’s grave.
As I approached the meeting spot, I checked the time. The words NO SERVICE were blinking at the top of my screen. My breath hitched a little. What was I doing? It was an hour after curfew on my first day of classes and I was in the middle of a cemetery, again, responding to a cryptic, anonymous invitation. I looked up at the angel. The first time I saw him, I thought his hand was pointing at the exit, but now I saw that it was pointing at the sky. Why did he look so angry? Weren’t angels supposed to look . . . angelic?
“Aurora Aviana Vaughn,” a voice said out of the darkness, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. It was unnatural, mechanical-sounding, but clearly male. Whoever had spoken was using a voice distortion app.
I turned slowly, forcing myself to stay calm as I prepared to meet the owner of this voice. It had come from at least ten yards away, so I could still make a run for it. But the figure before me was completely shrouded in a hooded black robe. It hung over his face, hiding both it and the handheld he was using as a mic, and the fabric brushed the ground as he approached me. He stopped several feet from me and held out his arm. His hand was covered by a long velvet glove and held a blindfold made of the same fabric. He expected me to let him blindfold me? Was he nuts?
“If you want to accept our invitation, you have to put this on,” he said, his voice buzzing just a little when he spoke. He took a step forward, and the white rubber tip of a sneaker peeked out beneath his robe. He saw it too, and shuffled a little to hide it, stumbling in the process and cursing under his breath. I swallowed a giggle, no longer afraid. This wasn’t the grim reaper. He was just a guy in a costume using a voice distortion app. This whole scenario was probably part of some club’s hazing ritual, just like I’d thought.
“Okay,” I said simply, and turned around so he could tie it on. The velvet was soft on my skin and smelled like patchouli.
“Open your mouth,” he instructed.
“Why?” I asked, or started to, when I felt velvet brush my lips and tasted cherry on my tongue. He’d put something in my mouth. A thin square of plastic, it felt like, but as I tried to push it out with my teeth, it dissolved. “What was that?” I tried to ask, but couldn’t form the words. Within seconds, the world went black.
My body tensed the moment I came to. I was sitting upright, as if I’d been awake the whole time, my butt on something hard. Stone steps, I soon realized, in a massive circular arena. It reminded me of the pictures of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in my history textbook. How long had I been out? There was no arena of this size anywhere near campus that I knew of. I inhaled deeply, trying to get my bearings, and was surprised at how cold the air was in my chest. I felt something heavy on my head and reached for it. It was the hood of a velvet robe like the one my captor had worn. The fabric hung past my fingertips and pooled on the floor beneath me.
Just then there was a flash of light below as a U-shaped ring of torches caught fire around the perimeter of the center stage, casting a flickering glow that barely reached the bottom row of steps. This place really was huge. I looked up at the sky, but there was no sky. Only darkness, like a void.
I looked to my left and could now see several other figures, also in hooded robes, scattered among the steps. I looked to my right and saw five more. They were sitting, motionless, but their heads were moving, like mine, side to side and up and down, scanning the massive room. I jumped as a loud gong reverberated off the stone. It was impossible to tell where the sound had come from, but it filled the arena with its brassy clang. The gong sounded again, and I saw movement below. Figures emerged from the base of the arena onto the center stage. They were robed, but instead of hoods, they were wearing heads of some sort. Elaborate papier-mâché contraptions that sat on their shoulders, exactly how Liam had described the masks for the Masquerade Ball, adorned with bits of real fur and feathers and skin.
I felt my lungs fill with cold air and relief. If these people had the school’s masks, they weren’t crazy killers. They were associated with Theden like I thought, which meant that I was okay. Feeling my pulse slow, I watched the figures move around the stage, as if performing some odd, silent dance. Then I heard a voice. It sounded female, but I couldn’t be sure because it was distorted like the hooded figure’s had been. It was coming through speakers behind and above me, and it reverberated off the walls.
“All these at thy command,” the voice declared. “To come and play before thee.” In choreographed unison, the figures with the animal masks all sunk to their knees as two more figures emerged. Their masks were human—one male, the other female—and resembled ancient Greek sculptures, with sharp features and blank eyes. I leaned forward to get a better look as another voice spoke, this one deeper and more eerie than the last.
“All is not theirs, it seems!” a voice boomed as the gong struck a third time and yet another figure emerged. It had the same black robe as the others, but its mask was twice as large and about five times as ominous. It was the head of a giant serpent, with layers of scales that looked arrestingly real. “Envious commands, invented with design to keep them low.” Were these words from a play? The way the serpent delivered them, I thought they might be.
As the serpent figure made its way to a platform at the center of the stage, the male and female figures bowed their unmoving faces in reverence. When he reached the platform, he spread his arms wide, his robe flaring out like a dragon’s wings. “Welcome,” he said, looking up at us now. “We are glad you have come.” I wondered whether the voice actually belonged to the person in the serpent’s mask or if we were simply meant to believe that it was. As the voice spoke, the serpent revolved slowly, like a ballerina in an old music box. Behind him, his mask rose into a reptilian hood, like a cobra preparing to strike, and stretched down the wearer’s back like the horny tail of a dragon, fanning out behind him at the floor. Even at this distance I could see how intricate the design was, layers and layers of textured papier-mâché with gold leaf outlining each pointy scale.