The Haunting (30 page)

Of course, my emotions got the better of my logic. With my strength drained to the bare minimum, my attack was slow.

Damien grabbed my wrists before I could even get close. Flipping a leg up, he shoved my body to the side.

Twisting in the air, I landed on my back hard. The cuts on my back stung against the stone floor. Struggling for a breath, I tried to pull out of Damien’s cool grip. He tightened it instead, making me wince.

Rolling on top of me, he sat on my stomach and pinned my wrists above my head.

His sudden weight and my lack of air caused me to gag. I turned my head to the side and coughed before breathing slow and deep again. Even then, it was limited with him on my stomach.

I felt exhausted, worn to something raw. I looked up at him and glowered. “Get off of me.”

Straddling my body, he hovered over me, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. “Stop it, then.”

Feeling rather rebellious, I twisted and squirmed, knowing it was useless, but it also meant I wasn’t listening to him. I could tell immediately that it was starting to trigger his anger.
Good
, I thought bitterly,
let him feel a little mad
.

With a jerk, he threw my wrists to the side and stood up in one fluid motion.

The swing of my arms caused me to roll over onto my side, my left wrist smacking into the stone floor. I bit back the yelp and brought my hands close to my stomach, waiting for the throb to disappear.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, not bothering to look over my shoulder at him.

“What should that matter to me?”

I froze and waited to see if he would continue. He seemed to have decided that he had enough on the subject. “Read found his ring,” he said.

I sat up straight, the motion sending waves of dizziness through my chest and throat. Swallowing hard, I rolled onto my hands and knees. “So they won?” Sitting back on my legs, I forced myself to look at him. “What about Phoebe?”

Damien stood over me, his dark eyes alight with black flames. “She wants to stay.”

“Bullshit.”

“Do you want to ask her yourself?”

“Yes,” I said. The dizziness wore off enough that I noticed the warmth itching inside my stomach.
It’d come back
. A little too late, but it was back.

“Does it mean the rest won?”

Damien held out a hand, and I took it, climbing to my feet. His hand was cool to the touch, just like the rest of him.

“It also means you lost, Nora.”

I stared at him, my knees hugged to my chest. Not only for comfort but for steadiness.

The loss of blood would take at least a few minutes of recovery, possibly longer. The last thing I wanted was to stand up and pass out.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Startled, I tilted my chin up, hair tickling my face.

Neive bent over me, frowning. Her mouth twitched as if she might offer a comforting smile then stopped.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

She didn’t answer. Instead, the room evaporated into darkness.

I could still see Damien and Neive clearly. I had an unnatural sense of falling even though I knew I wasn’t. My hair didn’t move, and my stomach didn’t roll up to my chest. I was stationary, sitting in darkness. Reaching my hands out, I felt a floor; I just couldn’t see it. Steadying myself, I sat cross-legged, hands pressed down on either side of me.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“The darkness between worlds,” Damien replied coldly.

I looked around for a moment, ignoring him. “You mean that this is what it looks like when you don’t have something there? I mean, you had the haunted house and the zoo and it was just this?”

Neive nodded.

“What now?” I asked softly. Despite the fire of anger I had felt before, it began to wane. I tried my best to mask it, but I felt Neive squeeze my shoulder. I suppose I wasn’t able to hide it well enough, considering the social shut-in could tell I was pissed.

Damien took a deep breath, keeping some distance between him and us. I could tell his pride was still punctured, or maybe it was his ego. I didn’t care to analyze it further than that.

“Well? What happens to my friends?” I demanded, louder than I had intended.

Damien and Neive both started to answer at the same time.

Neive silenced immediately, shrinking back. She even let me go to stand directly behind me, like a soldier.

Damien paused before answering, his eyes lingering on the brunette behind me. “They’ll go home, as promised. They have the rings.”

I wanted to argue that it wasn’t fair that I hadn’t been given a chance to get a ring, but I feared he might stop my friends from leaving. “Are they gone yet?” I asked meekly.

Damien rolled his eyes up, tilting his head to the side as if listening to a whisper only he could hear. I glanced over my shoulder to see Neive doing the same. Her head tilted to the side, attentively.

I tried to eavesdrop on the sound but heard only the ringing in my ears.

“Are they gone?” I half twisted, wincing at my unstable equilibrium.

Her eyes flickered away from mine.

I spun. “Damien?”

He didn’t seem very impressed with either of us. Our eyes locked, and I felt the intensity rising off of him. My skin began to prickle in the feverish way it had around Gretchen when I was drained of power. Could it be from Neive or Damien? Or both? Either way, power was building.

I glanced over my shoulder at Neive. If it was her, surely Damien would feel it. Swallowing back the uncertainty, I said, “What about Cody?”

“Cody is lost,” Damien said flatly.

I cleared my throat before attempting a diplomatic tone. “Because of your mistake, Damien. Neive said she hadn’t felt his soul here.” I eyed him.

I heard a noise from behind and twisted so I could see both of them. Neive was to my right and Damien to my left.

Neive had her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide.

Damien growled. “You told her that his soul wasn’t here?” he snarled at Neive.

Her surprise transformed. It was so sudden and unexpected that I took a step back in case she decided to run him through.

“He wasn’t entirely human,” she argued, “as you knew.”

I perked. “He had demon blood too?” I asked.

“Something diluted,” Damien said, still distracted with my sister. “It was why he felt uncomfortable on the third floor that first day.”

I remembered we were the ones who had to sit down upstairs. He’d gotten the last message.

Phasing back into the conversation, Damien accused, “You shouldn’t have been there to fight Gretchen.”

“Why?” Neive shrugged, muscles tensed. “It wasn’t a Rule. I needed to protect her, and she was no match for Gretchen.”

“Neither were you,” Damien retorted.

“We did fine together,” Neive said, raising her head. “Nora weakened her. I just finished her off.”

I glanced between them, feeling invisible. Raising a hand, I shouted, “What about Cooper?”

Neive’s anger faded, her shoulders stiffening.

Damien’s temper flared this time. “Cooper failed. He is not to be negotiated.”

“But…” All of a sudden I felt my voice fade, my throat swelling up as if I had an allergic reaction. I remembered something similar happening when I ate shellfish as a kid. It hadn’t been dangerous, though; in a half hour, it had cleared up, but I avoided shrimp ever since. Experimentally, I reached up to touch my tender throat.

“Enough,” Damien snapped. I realized the heated power had been his. “You’re staying. They’re leaving. I’m not discussing this further.”

“But Phoebe—”

“Enough!”

The sound rocketed through my body, dissolving every thought of rebellion.

I nodded feebly, choking as I realized my air supply was slowly being cut off. At my silent agreement, the swelling began to recede.

Gratefully, I took a deep, rasping breath.
He could have killed me,
I thought.
But would he have gone through with it?

“So I’m stuck here,” I said finally. “Why? You wanted me stuck here, and now you got it.”

Damien shook his head. “I don’t want you in the darkness. Neive will take over the ruling of the grave, and it will be my turn to wander the worlds at will.”

“Then why would you want me?” I asked, hearing the redundancy in the question. How many times had I asked and gotten vague answers before?

“You will be the bait to keep Neive in control. I can just drop you off at one of the demon’s worlds or I can take you with me.”

“I thought…” I glanced back at Neive uncertainly.

“That you were the stronger one?” Damien finished. I could see Neive flinch out of the corner of my eye.

“You’re erratic,” Neive said. “You don’t have the training I do.”

I turned to her. “You want to stay here? After all this, you still want to stay?”

Neive stared at me with an unusual calm. “It is not my decision.”

“I don’t understand,” I squeaked. “Why isn’t it your decision?”

Damien swept his hand toward my sister, as if encouraging her to continue, a smug smile on his face.

Taking a deep breath, she said, “When I escaped, I became Keeper in a world which was lacking one.”

“Like Aidan?”

“Like Aidan should be,” she corrected.

“Why not come to our world? Be a Keeper there! You should have come back home with me,” I protested, feeling the rise of frustration heating my cheeks.

Neive blinked as if I had just told her that puppies have no souls. She was silent for several seconds, her lips quivering. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not like you. Our parents wouldn’t take it well. It’s taken them a very long time to recover from the first kidnapping,” she pointed out, glancing at Damien to change the subject. Flustered, she pleaded, “She should stay here with me.”

I wasn’t too sure I liked either idea.

“No,” Damien answered sternly.

Spend the rest of my life with Damien carting me around or in the Demon’s Grave with Neive. “Do I get a say?”

“No!” both of them said.

“You will grow in powers,” Damien said to Neive. “Only here does a demon reach its potential. The longer you stay, the more your demonic blood will surface. Within a few hundred years, you’d be a full demon.”

“Hundred years?” I cried.

Neive nodded. “Time is different here.”

I felt annoyed with her explanation considering it was something I already knew.

Brushing aside the frustration, I pleaded, “Neive, you don’t want to stay here. Do you?”

Damien answered instead, his haunting voice rising behind me. “She bargained for your safety.”

Stunned, I groped uselessly for the words that could explain my horror. Instead, I blurted, “Bargained? How?”

Neive argued with Damien. Neither seemed interested in my question. “You don’t need her here to keep me in line.”

“Yes, I do,” he said as if it were a repeated conversation.

I watched as they faced off against each other. I could feel the subtle heat of their powers wafting off of them like a scent.

It was strange feeling the vibrations. Gretchen had said Neive noticed right away. Neive had also been around the Grave longer than me.

“Bargain, how?!” I raised my voice over both of theirs, freezing the argument.

“So you wouldn’t have to go into the Pit,” Neive said patiently.

“What is the Pit?” I asked.

Neive looked up at me wide-eyed. “No. You don’t want to know. It’s part of the Rules that those who fail the Challenge are subjected to the Pit.”

“Like Cooper?” I felt the strain in my voice as I asked it.

Damien snapped his fingers. “I’ll show you, Nora.”

Neive shook her head, her long hair folding over her shoulder like a cape. “No.
Don’t.
”

Suddenly, a pair of black doors appeared. They were tall with their top arched together. A brass doorknob caught my attention.

“Go ahead, Nora, open it,” Damien said, his eerie black eyes trained on me.

I hesitated at his willingness to show me this door so readily.

And just like when someone says, “Don’t look,” I have to look. Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself and reached forward, wrapping my hand around it. I wanted to see where Cooper ended up. I wanted to see where I could have been thrown.

With a burst, I ripped the door open and froze, arms stiffening at my sides.

It was a giant cave, the ceiling several feet in the air. Twisted grey trees reached their bare, clawed branches, scraping the stone ceiling. Between the abnormal trees were people. They trudged from one side of the cave to the other aimlessly. No one carried anything; none stepped with purpose. They didn’t talk with one another, hold hands, sit, or lay down. I saw endless walking.

“What is this?” I whispered.

The people were dirty, sick, and skinny. Rags for clothes hung loosely around their shoulders and down their bodies. No one looked up as they passed. It was as if they couldn’t see us or the door at all. Also, not all of them were human shaped. They were alien-like creatures with intelligent eyes, hairy beasts, imposing, demonic creatures. They were all different and strangely fascinating.

In the crowd, I noticed a human face. The hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He had a beer gut, camo clothes, and a distinct scar running across his face.

“
Jordan was real
?”

Neive replied, “Yes. He wouldn’t cross over, and his soul found his way here. The only way out is to beat the Challenge.”

That was when it hit me. At the same time that we were doing our Challenges, he was doing his. I felt a sickness twist in my insides. How many more were like that?

My voice croaked, “I don’t want Cooper in there.” At the same time, I looked for him, seeking out his familiar blonde hair amongst the thickening crowd of lost souls.

“You don’t have to want anything. It is not your decision.” Damien stepped up beside me.

I stared at him until he looked at me. “And you expect me to go along with this?”

He smiled unexpectedly. “I don’t expect you to do anything. As I said, it is not your decision.”

I looked away and caught Neive staring at me. I glanced back at Damien before he could leave my side. I stepped back once to put Damien between the Pit and me.

It hurt to stand. I’d rather be sitting, but I couldn’t show weakness in front of the Pit, or Damien, or Neive for that matter.

Sighing as if reminiscing on the good times, Damien stared out into the gloomy, dimly lit cave and said, “They are the ones who have failed the Challenge. They thought that they could win, but look at them now, Nora.”

“Is it because you envy them?” I asked, surprising myself.

Damien glanced over his shoulder at me, eyebrows furrowing. “What would they have that I could envy?”

I almost flinched at the venom in his eyes. “They
had
freedom. You never did. They’re suffering in there just like you do here.”

Damien bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. “Don’t pretend to know me, Nora.”

I fell silent and waited for him to turn his dark gaze back toward the wandering souls.

An idea emerged, blossoming into something wicked but risky. Squaring my shoulders, I felt my limbs begin to betray me, becoming wobbly with nervous adrenaline. In a squeaky voice, I said, “Damien?”

This was for Neive. I had to put her first.

“Yes?”

“What is considered good and bad?”

Even if I wanted to stay, even if a small part of me knew I could be here with him, it was her I had to think about.

Damien snorted but didn’t look my way.

“What is dark and deeply sad?” I continued. “What is with things of different kinds and different types of different minds?” I had to keep my tongue moving before my mind raced ahead and made me fumble over the words. “This will never leave my world, Earth. And it shan’t have anything to do with birth.”