The mysterious beauty looked at her, then back at Henry. “Which one do you want, Henry?” she asked, her head tilting and eyes narrowing as though she knew him better than he knew himself, knew what he would do before she even asked it. “Her or me?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. His charm had gotten him far in the past. “Both?”
She laughed, continuing to draw her finger up his neck, and the sound was…actually quite unsettling. “That is not an option.” He exhaled at the overpowering surge of heat that overcame him. Why was it he wanted to run from something he wanted so badly to be swallowed in?
“Then you, of course,” he answered. She smiled, and he could have sworn blackness lurked inside her mouth—as though one of the universe’s black holes existed solely behind her lips. From the corner of his eye, he saw the other woman sulk, her heels clicking on the cement as she stormed off. And all he could think was good riddance.
“Not very wise,” the red-haired woman teased, even as the spell she’d put on him led him to grasp her waist. He pulled her against him, roughly, and lowered his lips to hers.
Before he could kiss her, in an oddly cool breath she said, “I’ll give you one more chance, Henry,” and that was when he heard the voice of the man and the cocking of his gun.
He turned, where a man in a dark overcoat held a pistol against the woman in black, her back against the bricks and the tip of the barrel over her heart. Henry panicked inside as the woman in black began to cry, but his feet were glued to the ground, his consciousness elsewhere. He wondered if the sight of him and the temptress had been veiled to the mugger, because the gunman seemed to not notice them. Or perhaps the gunman was a figment of his own imagination.
The woman in black sobbed, begging for her life, convincing the man with the gun that she had no money on her. It was the scene of a film, surely, rather than a reality only feet away.
“Me…” the temptress said, getting Henry’s attention. She smiled crookedly and he knew that’s what she was: a temptress. “…or her?” She tilted her head, studying her psychological experiment, and her arousing power overcame him again, taking his breath. He wanted to save the woman in black—the one from the scene that couldn’t be real—but he wanted the temptress more. He wanted to know what it would be like to be under her power, for it to overtake him. He wanted it, just one time.
The woman pled for her life.
The mugger yelled that he wanted everything she had.
But all Henry could do was breathe into the mouth of the temptress with flowing red hair. “You,” he said again, his every extremity in a weightless tremble. The most carnal desire trapped him, and though he tried to fight it, in the back of his awareness he knew he didn’t try hard enough. Because he didn’t want to fight it.
Her smile stretched, and her breath grew cool and peculiarly moist. “Very well, Henry Clayton.”
A startling shot cracked through the air, jerking him from whatever spell she’d put over him, and his eyes shot to the man with the gun. A faint trace of smoke lifted from the barrel and the woman in black now lay on the ground, blood pooling beneath her on the cement like a hole slowly widening in the earth. And for the first time, he realized it was real—the strange veil that had made it as a film scene, gone.
“No,” he breathed. Every sense of desire that had been forced upon him was gone, leaving the harshest of sicknesses in his gut. The mugger’s eyes found Henry’s then, expanding as he noticed him for the first time.
Before he could run, Henry was on him, fighting him to the ground, and Henry’s knuckles slid over the man’s facial sweat as he slugged him. When a well-dressed group of bystanders laughed their way by—probably leaving the concert—Henry called to them, demanding they get help. They scurried away in a panic, and after he hit the man over the head with the grip of his gun, the man’s eyes closed in unconsciousness and Henry crawled to the black-haired woman.
But she was already dead, her eyes open and mouth hanging as though she’d been frozen. How could you let this happen? her expression said.
This couldn’t be real. Could it?
He shook her, yelling for her to wake up. It was because of him she never would; really, that gun may as well have been in his own hand.
He felt the temptress’s destructive air behind him.
He looked up at her, at the way she smiled, and a breeze cooled the wetness around his eyes. “You…” he said. “What did you do to me? I never would have…”
“I didn’t do anything, Henry. It was all you, all your choices that led to this. Because of you, an innocent soul is dead.”
He shook his head, even though she was right.
“For that reason, you will forever be cursed. From here on out, the nighttime will show everyone what you really are.” She grew angry, her gleaming teeth now bared and her raspy voice a gravelly roar. “A monster, Henry Clayton, that’s what you will become.”
A mass of footsteps made him turn. Two police officers, surrounded by a crowd eager to see the destruction, ran toward them: vultures with mink shawls, silk pocket squares, and suede top hats.
“What happened?” one of the officers barked.
“He…shot her,” Henry said, his voice weak and unstable. He stood, backing up and letting them surround the dead woman in Chanel No. 5 and the unconscious mugger, the silver gun at his side. He watched them, then watched the blood on his hands.
“A monster,” a breath from behind said, and he twisted. She smiled again.
Words escaped him, since he didn’t know what she meant.
“Go home,” she commanded. “It will begin soon.”
“What will begin?”
She closed in on him, staring into his eyes without her neck even slightly craned. She was either very tall—too tall for a normal woman—or her feet hovered above the ground. Neither seemed possible. None of this did. This time he felt no desire for her cool breath—only repulsion. “The pain,” she said in answer to his question. “The excruciating pain that will accompany you the rest of your life. The rest of eternity.” Her laugh made him recoil, and he didn’t understand.
“Every curse can be broken, Monster. But you will not break yours.”
“A curse…?”
She nodded. “The only way is through a woman. A woman who is a true beauty. To get back the life you once had, you must sacrifice the life of one who is beautiful. Just as this started with a death, it must end with a death.”
He didn’t understand, stepping away from her.
“As in you must kill, Monster. Sacrifice a beauty—her life for yours—and you may have all your pathetic life once held.”
“What do you mean? I could never kill…”
She smiled with pity. “That’s why it’s perfect.” Her grin became a scowl as she grew nearer still. “But just know that if life gets too long and miserable, and you do decide to be the killing kind of monster, I will be there. I will stop you.”
Unable to respond, unable to let himself believe her, he turned and walked away, down Park Avenue with his bloody hands in his pockets because he had no choice.
“You’re mine, Henry,” she said from behind. His body began to buzz from deep within, making him sweat, so he walked faster. Perhaps when Arne, his young and dearest friend, found him, reality would ground Henry once again, make him realize this was all just a nightmare.
She laughed from behind again. He wondered if it was just his imagination or if her voice did indeed sound like a snake’s. “You’ll always be mine.”
Chapter 23
Crisp air brushed Henry’s skin—the kind that came from reality, not a dream. He groaned, moving his stiff neck, but couldn’t open his eyes. The edges of grogginess kept him prisoner, but he sensed his home all around him: his walls, old but refurbished years before. The presence of the mansion was blunt as always, containing the lingering sensation of his father that never really left the interior.