Tuck read the mistrust in my face and tried to be clearer.
“There’s things here you won’t have read about in books. Drinking from the Lake of Dreams creates a trancelike state that allows your spirit to detach from your physical body. It takes skill, but someone like you should pick it up easy. Once you learn how to do it, you can go anywhere you like.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
Tucker looked dispirited at my lack of trust. “Why would I lie? Jake’ll have me thrown into the pit if he finds out.”
“Why help me then? Why risk your safety?”
“Let’s just say I’m fixin’ to settle a score,” he said. “Plus, you look like you could really use a home visit.” His lame attempt at humor made me smile.
“Have you managed to? Go home, I mean?”
A forlorn look came into his eyes. “By the time I worked out how there wasn’t much point, everyone I ever knew had gone. But you could check on the people you care about ’cuz they’re still alive.”
The lake’s potential filled me with hope.
“Take me there now,” I begged.
“Not so fast,” he cautioned. “It can be dangerous.”
“How dangerous?”
“Take too much and you might not wake up.”
“And how is that bad?” The words slipped out before I had a chance to think about them.
“It ain’t if y’don’t mind being in a coma for the rest of your life, watching your family day in and day out like they’re characters on a movie screen but never bein’ able to talk to them or reach them. Is that what you want?”
I shook my head although admittedly it sounded a darn sight better than what I had now.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re in charge of the dosage. But you’ve gotta take me there right now!”
10
Devil’s Feast
WE were almost at the door when it opened with a muted clack and Jake unexpectedly let himself into the room. Tuck and I both started and tried to cover our confusion by moving in entirely opposite directions. Jake arched an eyebrow and looked at us quizzically. He was dressed in a charcoal dinner jacket and a red silk cravat.
“Good to see you’re still up, darling,” he said in that irritating formal manner of his, as if he were something out of a 1950s movie. “I hope you’re hungry. I’ve come to take you to dinner. It’s just what we need to lighten the mood around here.”
“I’m actually pretty tired,” I hedged. “I was planning on going to bed.”
“Really? Because you look wide awake to me,” he said, scrutinizing my face closely. “More than awake — I’d say you look excited about something. Your cheeks are all flushed.”
“That’s because it’s always so overheated in here,” I said. “Seriously, Jake, I was hoping to have an early night ….” I tried to speak in what I hoped was an assertive tone, but Jake cut me off by waving his hand irritably.
“Enough excuses. I’m not taking no for an answer, so hurry up and get ready.” It struck me that he could be capable of such erratic mood swings. One moment he could be dark and threatening and the next as excited as a schoolboy. Suddenly his tone became more upbeat and he smiled. “Besides, I want to show you off!”
I threw Tucker an imploring look, but his face had returned to its previous expressionless mask. There was nothing he could say or do that wouldn’t get us both into hot water.
“I just want to be left alone,” I said to Jake.
“Bethany, you must understand that there are certain duties attached to your new position. There are important people who are anxiously waiting to meet you. So … I’ll be back in twenty minutes and you’ll be ready.” It was not a request. He was almost out the door when he paused as if a new idea had just occurred to him. “By the way,” he said over his shoulder. “Wear pink tonight. They’ll get a kick out of that.”
Dinner was held in a lavish underground dining room lit by a screen of fire at one end. In place of wall hangings the room had an array of weaponry, including Roman shields, spiked maces, and long blunt stakes — the kind Vlad the Impaler might’ve had in his fourteenth-century Romanian castle.
As Jake and I were the first to arrive, we stood in the flagged foyer as waiters served up finger food on silver platters and French champagne from tall flutes. Peals of frivolous laughter heralded the arrival of the other guests. Looking around I saw they were mostly made up of elite members of Jake’s court. Everyone who approached Jake to pay his or her respects eyed me with unconcealed fascination. Most were dressed elaborately in leather and fur. In my powder pink dress with its scalloped neckline and full knee-length skirt, I felt distinctly out of place. I was relieved to find that I couldn’t see Asia anywhere. I wondered whether her exclusion was intentional. I was sure it would only fuel her resentment toward me.
After a brief lapse of time a gong signaled the commencement of dinner and we were all ushered to our places at the long oak table in the dining room. As host, Jake was seated at the center. Grim-faced, I slunk into my designated seat beside him. Sitting directly in front of us were Diego, Nash, and Yates, whom I’d first encountered in the pit. With them were three strikingly dressed women. In fact, all the assembled guests were beautiful, both male and female alike, but in a strange and frightening way. Their features were perfectly crafted as if from glass and yet they looked so different from Ivy and Gabriel. I felt a pang thinking of my brother and sister, immediately followed by the sting of tears. I bit down hard on my lower lip to hold them back. I might be naïve, but I knew how unwise it would be to show vulnerability in front of company like this.
I studied the faces around me. They were rapacious, conceited, and sharp eyed. Their senses seemed accentuated, as if they could hone in on scents and sounds like wild animals programmed to hunt. I knew they could make themselves appear as seductive and tempting as ever when luring human prey. Although their beauty was striking, there were times when I caught fleeting glimpses as subtle as a passing shadow of their real features that lay beneath the masks of perfection. What I saw made me recoil. I could not suppress my shock when I realized that they merely assumed the guise of humans for outward appearances.
In their true form the demons were anything but perfect. Their actual faces were beyond horrifying. I found myself staring at a statuesque female with coils of chocolate brown hair. Her skin was milky pale; her almond eyes an electric blue. Her delicately hooked nose and round shoulders made her look like a Grecian goddess. But beneath the glamorous exterior she was an image of putrefaction. Her skull was misshapen, with a bulging forehead and a chin as pointed as a dagger. Her skin was mottled and bruised, as if someone had beaten her, and her face was covered in weeping sores and welts. Her nose was pushed up into her head so that it resembled a snout. She was bald apart from patches of thin, matted hair that hung around her face. Her real eyes were cloudy and red rimmed and her mouth was little more than a slot through which you could glimpse stumps of teeth and rotting gums when she threw back her head and laughed. I saw similar flashes all around the table and felt my stomach begin to churn.
“Try not to stare,” Jake admonished in my ear. “Just relax and don’t focus on it.” I complied and found that once I took his advice, the flashes stopped and faces of the party returned to their cruel but beautiful masks. My lack of enthusiasm eventually drew their attention and was misconstrued as rudeness.