The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) (38 page)

She turned away from the mirror and found Sergio standing in front of her.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“You have been in my mind,” Sergio said. “Have I been in yours?”

It was a strange way to phrase it, ‘
in
my mind,’ but Nicky understood. Her body knew the correct answer even before the rest of her did.

“Yes,” she said.

“Tell me,” said Sergio.

He was so much more beautiful than the version in her dream. Looking at him now, at the depth in his eyes, the subtleties of his skin, she realized that the Sergio of her dreams was only an approximation. She had never seen his true face until now. When she danced with him at Homecoming, a black mask was stretched across his eyes.

But now she saw him in high definition clarity. The mix of shadow and blur that had been Sergio’s face in her dream was fixed, the flow from his chin to his hairline making Nicky feel more complete for having seen it.

“You’ve been in my dreams,” Nicky said.

“Your dreams, or your dream?”

His voice was a cool breeze. It reminded Nicky to be afraid. She was in the room with a vampire, a much more powerful vampire than Melissa Mayhew. His strength commanded her respect.

And her fascination. Yes, she was scared to be near him, but she was also excited.

“My dream,” Nicky corrected. “The same dream. Over and over.”

“Tell me more.”

“It’s a scene from my childhood,” Nicky said.

“A mountain forest,” said Sergio. “A brick building. A silver sculpture.”

“Yes!” said Nicky. “How did you know?”

“I saw it all when we danced,” said Sergio.

“But how? You said my mind was closed to you.”

“I said you were keeping me out. I sought to plant a specific message. I had a task to do. It is my job to dance with the girls wearing black and command them to see the contest through to the end, even if they lose, but with you I wasn’t able to do it. The part of your brain where such suggestions are placed repelled me. I saw your reflection in the silver sculpture instead.”

“Is it real?” said Nicky. “Am I remembering a real place?”

“The scene of your memory is in the Italian Alps. You are standing in front of a building I know quite well. Right now it belongs to the Ventigen Corporation. In years past, it has had other owners.”

“What am I doing there?”

“Exactly what you see,” said Sergio. “You are gazing into your own reflection.”

“But what about my mother?”

“You mean the woman behind the glass?”

“Yes, that woman is my mother, isn’t she?”

“I do not know who she is. That part of the scene isn’t real. You’ve attached it to the memory from elsewhere in your mind.”

“But what does it mean?”

“What does anything mean?” said Sergio. “Meaning is a construct we add to our memories. Only you know what it means. I know what I saw, and what I saw is a memory so painful that your brain has disallowed it. I saw a little girl experiencing trauma the likes of which could destroy her mind, but I also saw a mind strong enough to resist it. The reason you are seeing this memory, and the reason I am associated with it, is because I am the one who shook it loose. I went looking deep in your mind, deeper than your conscious thoughts. That scene was as far as you allowed me to go.”

“So the memory is real. Something happened there.”

“Yes. Something so ugly your mind tried to bury it where you would never find it again.”

“Maybe I should leave it alone. Maybe I should bury the memory again.”

“Ahh…but you can’t do that now, can you? A memory like this—it is a fire set loose in a dry forest. Now that it is out, if you leave it be it will run rampant until it has consumed everything in its path. Your only choice now is to face it. One way or another, this memory will take over your conscious mind. On its present course, it will bring with it all the fear and trauma that caused you to hide it in the first place. You will become a slave to that fear. It will ruin you.”

“So what do I do?”

“You seek out the memory as you are. You discover the truth on your own, and face it. You redefine the memory. You take ownership of it and detach the fear.”

“You’re saying I have to find out the truth about that scene. I need to go to this place in the Italian Alps.”

“It would be a good start for you.”

“Why did you come here, Sergio? Was it just to tell me this?”

Sergio smiled, and Nicky felt a rush of adrenalin. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said. “I wanted to better understand this connection we have made.”

“What’s there to understand?” Nicky asked.

“It is very strange that we’re in each other’s dream, isn’t it?”

“Are you saying I’m in your dreams as well?”

“Not my dreams, Nicky. My dream. Now, I’ve helped you. It’s time for you to help me.”

Sergio was looking deep in her eyes, and she wanted to remind him that her mind was closed. But then she understood his true intent, and she made no effort to fight it. He wasn’t pushing his way into Nicky’s mind. He was inviting her into his.

Chapter 38

She was in a forest. The night air was warm and heavy with moisture. The tops of the trees faded into a cloud of mist that glowed in the light of a blood red moon.

She was still wearing the black gown, the diamond necklace, the heavy make-up. The heels of her shoes struggled with the damp earth beneath her feet so she kicked them off and walked barefoot on the carpet of newly fallen leaves.

A natural path cut through the trees and led to a village of thatch-roofed huts. Tall torches were mounted in the ground, and a raucous crowd gathered in the center of the village. Nicky approached the crowd. They stood in a circle around a wooden platform. They were viewing a fight.

She pushed her way to the front. Nobody tried to stop her. She wasn’t really here—she understood that. She could see and hear and smell all that was going on around her, but she wasn’t actually present.

She reached the front and stood at the edge of the platform. Sergio was one of the fighters. He had blood on his chin. One of his eyes was swollen shut. Both his fists were raised as he danced around the ring, trading punches and kicks with his opponent.

His opponent was a tall, sinewy man of Asian descent.

“We’re in China,” Nicky said. “You’re not immortal yet.”

“Correct,” Sergio said, as he bobbed to the left, avoiding a jab from his opponent, and delivering a quick hook as he righted himself.

Nicky looked around. The crowd was mostly men. They favored Sergio’s opponent, cheering whenever Sergio got hit, catcalling whenever Sergio delivered a blow. The men wore rags that were dirty and torn. Some of them were hardly covered at all. They were a filthy, smelly lot, people who worked hard by day and drank hard by night.

Walking among them was a beautiful young woman who stood out like a rose in a weed patch. Her jet black hair hung perfectly around her face; her black dress was as elegant as these men were crude. Looking at her, Nicky realized they were a match. Two young women, elegantly dressed in black, standing on either side of a platform amidst a crowd of rowdy drunks.

The woman was Daciana Samarin.

“I’ve never seen her in person before,” Nicky said. “She’s beautiful.”

Sergio threw a hard right that connected with his opponent’s nose and sent him reeling and ultimately falling out of the ring. As the crowd pushed the man back onto the platform, Sergio turned to Nicky and said, “She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.”

His opponent stumbled towards Sergio, easy pickings now. Sergio threw a wicked punch that landed square on the face, and his opponent was knocked out cold. The crowd groaned in displeasure. Daciana stepped into the ring. Sergio took her hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed it, and escorted her out of the ring, stepping down on Nicky’s side.

“Walk with us,” Sergio said.

The crowd parted for them and they walked into the forest, Nicky on Sergio’s right, Daciana on Sergio’s left.

“I fell madly in love with her,” Sergio said. “We were meant to bond some thirty days before this night, but she made me wait. She wanted to bond on the night of the harvest moon, and she wanted me to fight for her love before we did it.”

“She made you fight that man?”

“She offered the village elder a bag of gold if his son could defeat me, and she told me I could only have her if I won the fight.”

“This is the memory where you’re seeing me?” Nicky said. “The night you and Daciana bonded?”

Sergio nodded. “The first Festival of the Moon. A night so painful to me I struggled for two hundred years to bury it.”

“Why is it painful? This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You and Daciana were in love?”

They came to a stop. A small stream flowed ahead of them. Sergio and Daciana sat together on a rock at the edge of the stream.

“Yes, we were in love,” Sergio said. He bent his head to one side, exposing his neck. Daciana’s eyes went dark, her mouth opened wide, and two sharp fangs extended beneath her lips. She struck like a snake and Sergio wailed in pain at the bite. Daciana pulled him close and held him in place as she inserted her venom.

As Nicky watched, she understood more about her own dream. The vision of her mother biting her neck—it wasn’t real. It had never been a memory in her mind. It was this. When she and Sergio were dancing, he had seen the silver sphere, and she had seen this. She had brought his memory into her own. She had combined his pain with hers.

When Daciana released him, Sergio fell to the earth, as unconscious as the man he had beaten in the fight. Daciana stood over him for a moment, looking confused. She leaned down and touched his neck with her thumb. She shook her head, slowly at first, then with more vigor. Her eyes turned red with rage. She looked up to the sky, and let out a piercing scream.

Then she disappeared into the night.

Nicky bent down over Sergio’s body.

“What happened?” she whispered.

A bright shining light, a blur of trees and mist and moon falling away, and Nicky was back in her dressing room, looking at Sergio’s face.

“Our bond was broken the moment I turned,” Sergio said. “Daciana felt it even as she held me there, not yet dead, not really alive either. The bond didn’t take. She should have killed me then and there.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“She said the memory of what we felt was still with her. It was still fresh, and she couldn’t betray it. So she left me to live, to wander the earth for eternity.”

There was a single knock at the door before Ms. Perry pushed it open and stepped inside.

“Curtain call in--”

She was unable to finish her sentence. Sergio had caught her with his eyes. She stepped backwards through the door, her face a blank sheet of paper, and closed it behind her.

“You must go upstairs,” Sergio said. “You are a girl wearing black. Your event is about to start. Come.”

He took her hand and pulled her toward the door.

“Wait,” Nicky said. “What happens now?”

Sergio was opening the door. Nicky was hardly aware of herself, of the movements of her own body or the thoughts of her mind as she passed through the door and it closed behind her. She felt the world around her shift and her mind come back to center, like a string vibrating to a stop.

She looked both ways down the hall. It was empty. Sergio was gone.

Chapter 39

Nicky was the last to enter the green room.

“My, don’t we look like a hooker?” Kim said to her.

Nicky smiled and took a seat at an empty table in the corner.

The green room at the Penbrook was set up as a small café with a coffee bar and five tables. A short, scruffy man with blond hair stood behind the coffee bar.

“Care for a beverage, Ms. Bloom?” he asked.

“No thank you.”

All her competitors were there, each sitting at her own table, each wearing a conservative black dress. Mary was sipping from a bottle of water and looking at her phone. Samantha gave Nicky a quick once over, then turned her gaze to the TV on the wall behind the coffee bar. The TV showed a live feed of what was happening onstage. At the moment, the stage was empty, save Byron’s podium.

Kim had a fashion magazine open in front of her. She closed it and shook her head at Nicky.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she said.

Nicky said nothing.

“Seriously, Nicky. You come in from out of town, no one in your family is connected to DC, no one in your family has gone to Thorndike, no one knows you’re wearing black until you show up at Homecoming, and now you come to the Date Auction looking like a five-dollar floozy? Listen up, everyone! I have a prediction. Tonight, Nicky Bloom doesn’t even meet the minimum bid.”

“Please for the love of God would you shut up for once in your life?” said Samantha. “She looks great and you know it. You’re just jealous.”