He turns to me and grins. “Ready?”
“Stop!” Shayne’s voice shouts out, and he starts running.
“Ares, catch.”
My head spins toward my mother’s voice. She picks up the Helm of Darkness and tosses it through the air toward Reese. He catches it, and the last thing I see before I disappear is Shayne coming for me, his hands only inches away, and then the world shifts around me.
Chapter 44
Fire
I wake up on a sofa inside a room with walls made of rock. When I sit up, all around me I smell something sweet and thick. Like wine.
Reese.
I look around, and even though the scent of Reese is so strong I want to gag and breathe deeply at the same time, the room is empty. I’m alone, and I have no idea where I am.
The room has no doors and no windows. Only grotesque tapestries cover the walls, giving the otherwise dismal room a hint of color. I stand and move to the first tapestry, a bloody scene with bodies impaled on poles, pull it aside, and look behind it. There must be a way out of this place. Behind the tapestry, mortar holds together stones the size of Cerberus. If there is an exit, it’s not here.
I move to the next tapestry, a scene depicting an ocean of blood with body parts floating on the surface, but find the same thing—solid construction sealing in my doom. And so I keep moving, circling the room, trying not to breathe in too deeply. Reese may not be in here with me, but his scent—his drug—lingers everywhere.
The next few tapestries turn up nothing better, but when I get halfway around the room, my search is rewarded. I find a loose stone.
I push on it, attempting to shove it through the wall. It wobbles a bit but won’t budge; the cracking pieces of mortar wedge it in place. And so I shove harder, fighting to keep the fear building inside me under control. What if there is no way out? What if I never see Shayne again?
“Shayne,” I whisper, hoping that Reese can’t hear me. Shayne can find me here and help me. But he doesn’t come. I whisper his name again and turn to look around the room. It’s still empty. Wherever Shayne is, he hasn’t heard me.
I try to steady my breathing, but I’m shaking too hard. I shove on the block with renewed effort, but the results are the same. Nothing. I bite my lip, letting my teeth pierce the skin, trying to focus on the pain and not the panic. And then I think to look up.
Overhead, a chandelier hangs, fashioned of wrought iron and human skulls. Their mouths gape open, frozen in screaming terror, and chains wrap through their eye sockets, holding them in place. My eyes follow the chains from the skulls upward where they twist around, knot together, and then continue on to the ceiling. At the point where they meet the ceiling, there is a hole through which the chandelier is raised and lowered. I think I can fit through it if only I can find a way up there.
I run back to the center of the room, to the sofa. It’s some kind of antique piece, with a black moiré cushion and a solid wood frame. A frame that should hold my weight. I move to one end of the sofa and rock it forward until it’s propped up on its side, perpendicular to the cold slab of the floor. And then I walk behind it where my weight is least likely to tip it, and I climb to the top.
I’m standing on top of the sofa, inches from the wrought iron of the chandelier, when I hear Reese.
Going somewhere?
His voice is low, a sound that echoes through the room but doesn’t seem to come from within it. I’m being watched. I don’t hesitate but jump upward, catching the iron with my fingers. I swing my legs up over a couple of skulls and pull myself up. If I can get inside the ceiling, I can get away from the watchful eye of Reese. And into the skeleton of the fortress.
I climb the knot of chains, crunching skulls under my feet. I don’t look back. I’m at the hole in the ceiling, and though it’s a tight fit, I manage to squeeze my way through and get inside. I reach back down through the hole and grab an unlit candle, but there are no matches around. But I remember the match at church and the fire in the Underworld. I have power. Light bursts around me as the candle ignites, illuminating steel tresses that span a distance tall enough to crawl but nowhere near tall enough to walk. And so, with the candle in one hand, I crawl forward.
I stick with one direction at first, but when a low chuckle rumbles through the walls, I realize this makes me easy to follow. Does he know where I am? I turn left and continue on, looking for some new way out. Some way to get out of this place and get back to Shayne.
I come to a wall blocking my path. A light glows between the place where the wall and the ceiling should intersect. I blow out the candle and lower myself down until stone meets my feet. I walk between the walls, and with each step, the light brightens. It’s drawing me closer, and I imagine it’s coming from the outside. My escape from this place.
My path ends with a screen which slides when I push it, and I move through. I’m behind a tapestry, but when I peek out, there’s a long hallway stretching to either side. On the wall, sconces are lit with blazing candles, and I realize this, and not the outside world, is the source of illumination.
Piper.
My name is an echo coming from the hallway to my left. A whisper which hangs in my mind.
I ignore it and walk to the right, quickening my pace when I hear my name again. There’s not a door or window in sight. I’m in a fortress of stone, and my feet slap on the floor so loudly each step sounds like the beat of a drum.
Don’t be afraid.
Reese’s voice is soothing, but I’m not finding an ounce of comfort in his words. They’re filled with deception.
I want you, Piper.
His voice persists, echoing behind me, never far away. I start running, but the hallway seems endless. It curves around, and the sound of my feet softens. There’s now a shadowy carpet under my toes. And at the end of the carpet is an obsidian door. Open and waiting for me.
I have to go through.
Through the door, I see a window ahead. And a window means escape from Reese’s domain. And escape means leaving Reese far behind forever.
I move in and shut the door behind me. Immediately, Reese’s scent pumps into the room. I scan my surroundings; what I thought was a window is a set of glass doors that open on to a balcony, and I run to them. With a single click, I unlock the doors, hoping to dilute the room with some fresh air. To get rid of the smell of Reese before it overtakes me. And to escape. But as I stand there, I feel eyes on me, and before I open the doors, I turn.
“Where are you?”
Nothing. The eyes are still watching. My skin crawls under their weight, and I glance around, hoping to find him.
Fresh flowers are placed everywhere. On every table and every shelf. And on a bed off to the side. All of them are severed at the stem.
“I hate cut flowers.” I say it to the eyes I know are watching. To Reese who’s here as sure as I am.
He chuckles softly—to my right. I whip my head around, but only two wingback chairs and a long sofa table greet me. Above the table hangs a picture—a blood strewn battle, people drawn and quartered, decapitated heads decorating posts. And high on a mountain, a figure of a man watching it all. A man who looks just like Reese.
“I thought you enjoyed breaking the rules,” Reese says. And then he appears on the bed, holding Shayne’s Helm of Darkness in his hands. “Or was all that just an act?”
With the helmet off, his smell flows around the room, and within seconds, it moves high in my nostrils and begin it’s descent to my lungs.
“Take me back right now, Reese. I do not want to be here.” I fight the air entering me, trying to will it to go away.