The Haunting (14 page)

Neive took a deep breath through her nose but didn’t answer right away.

I decided to take that moment to look around. The room was decadent, something out of a renaissance movie. The gold trim surrounded intricately carved wooden panels. Greek-inspired columns rose to support the ceiling high above our heads, and there was a piano near the window.

The circular room showcased a wooden grand piano in its center. Despite the circular walls, there were windows covered with pale curtains so I couldn’t see outside.

“Where are we?” My voice echoed.

“Wherever I want to be,” Neive replied, looking like a princess accustomed to the lavish room—maybe even a princess bored with it.

“You did all this?” I asked in awe. I clutched my chest. My hollowed-out shell of a body ached from whatever I did in the darkness, but I was determined not to let her know. There was something about the way she held herself, the defensiveness of her narrowed gaze, that made me think something might’ve changed. Neive nodded, sucking in her cheeks and pursing her lips. Her brown eyes lingered on mine, disturbingly still. She had so many of Damien’s mannerisms it was frightening.

“You brought me here?” I asked.

Her eyes darted away, and she turned away from me. “In a way.”

“You sent that thing?” I asked, feeling the itch of betrayal. “Were you even taken by those things in the cemetery?”

“At first,” she said. “They’re hard to control.” She swallowed, delaying. “But once you’ve made a connection, no other demon can interfere with the command you set it out to do.”

“But…”

“I know,” she snapped, turning only her torso to look at me. “Your blood is stronger than mine. I didn’t believe it. I wanted to prove him wrong.”

I stared at her, not knowing what to say.

The beautiful setting felt tainted, and I glanced back at the open door I’d come through.

This was my own sister. My twin sister! Wasn’t she supposed to come running to see me? Didn’t she want to be sent home to see our parents? Though I was sure she knew the truth, they’d raised us when Nell left us.

Trying to get her to look at me, I wanted desperately for her to look at me like a friend instead of the narrow-eyed scrutiny of a stranger. “It was a fluke that the creature-thing let me go. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Well, I do,” Neive said curtly. “I
do know
, Nora. I’ve been coming back here for years, learning all of this and practicing. Then you waltz in here. My sister, too cowardly to even be alone, and you blow my training out of the water just by being stupid and scared.”

I straightened like a board. The part that stung the most was that she was right. I’d been so afraid to be alone yet I wandered through that cemetery alone. I saved Phoebe alone and wandered around in the Darkness Between Worlds alone to find my sister, the one who kidnapped me from Damien.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked, my voice hard. “Another part of your training?”

She waved a hand for silence, not looking at me, but I was a master at this game. Mona taught me a few tricks. I spoke over the command. “It shouldn’t be like this! I’m trying to keep them all alive while you’re hanging out in some weird palace pouting about how hard you have it. I’m sorry you’re here.”

Neive turned to me, her shoulders up and her stance aggressive, as if she were ready to battle-ram me. “Enough,” she snarled.

“You should be home with me,” I continued. “I heard what you’d said. You lured me here. I remember the initials in the chair at the tower. N.E.F. They were
yours
. You made me say words that weren’t mine just so we’d open that door.”

“Stop, Nora.”

“Then you try to warn me away with the letter. By scaring me in the library. You could come back to our world, but you never stayed. If you could have come back, why didn’t you? Why did you let us all believe you were dead?” I realized I was shrieking at this point.

Air slammed into my chest so hard and fast that I didn’t realize what had happened until I felt the floor under my hip. I whimpered, pain ricocheting in me for three very long heartbeats.

She did that
, I thought as the dull ache returned. I wheezed my first breath. It felt like I was running a marathon I didn’t train for.

“I can’t leave until there is a replacement,” Neive said from a distance.

I stayed rigid and inert, reeling from the fact that my sister hit me like that. What else could she do? She’d been training, knowing exactly what to do and when to do it.

“You don’t get it,” Neive hissed.

“No,” I growled, sitting up slowly, feeling every ache and pain amplified, but I wouldn’t stay down. Crawling to my feet, I said, “You even went out of your way to save me.”

“If you lose, you’re his,” Neive said bitterly. “He won’t let you die.”

“But my friends will. Why do that? It would just make me hate him. Why would I do anything for someone I hate?”

“Why would you want to go back to nothing?” Neive asked. “There’s nothing in that world you left.”

I shook my head. “I have my family.”

“And a lot of publicity. Your family will be fine without you, and you know it.” Neive kept her distance this time, her arms protectively crossed in front of her. “If you have nothing to return to, you’d want to stay.”

“
That’s
the logic?” I barked a laugh.

“If you sacrifice yourself, you’re his. If someone else does, you’re his at an even easier price.”

“Easier price?” I asked, feeling my anger rise.

“Meaning there’d be less of a risk to your well-being.” Neive’s arms tightened around herself, and she said, “I deserve to be the Neo, not you.”

“Neo?” I smirked, feeling smug. “Is that our cool new slang now? You haven’t seen the Matrix, have you?”

“Neophyte,” Neive said, unamused. “I wanted it. You don’t deserve it.”

“Totes,” I said, feeling vindicated that I’d gotten to her.

She tilted her head. “Totes?”

“A terrible new slang,” I said. If I had to explain it, it made the joke worthless and sucked some of my victory away.

“This isn’t a joke, Nora.”

“I wish it were,” I muttered.

She shrugged her tight shoulders. “Doesn’t matter now. He wants you.” Her voice lowered. “He’s always wanted you.”

“To be the Neophyte,” I said.

She nodded. “He wouldn’t take our mother—”

I interrupted her, saying through gritted teeth, “She’s not our mother.”

“Yes she is, just not in the nurturing sense of the word.” The way Neive said it sent chills down my spine—so detached, so cold. “Eleanor would have plotted against him the moment she crossed the threshold.”

“Because she wanted to be his…his Neophyte,” I said slowly, tasting the words uneasily. “Why would you want this place?”

Neive’s smile was bitter. “I’ve wanted this since Eleanor told me about it.”

“What?” Did I hear her right?

“She warned me one day that I might be the only child. I was scared at first, but…everything had turned out the way it was supposed to. I want this. I was born for this.” She unlatched her rigid arms and motioned to the room. “When I got here, it all became clear.”

“All by yourself?”

“No,” she said and stopped herself.

“It shouldn’t be like this,” I snapped, feeling the heat rising. My stomach was still empty, the warmth abandoning me.

“Oh?”

“You should be coming home with me when I win.” I gnashed my teeth together, the determination grinding in my molars. “Things don’t have to be like this.”

Neive’s eyes drooped, opening one at a time, and I felt air brush my cheeks.

I looked down to see a red dress, not quite as excessive as Neive’s. This one was like something I owned, wrapping at my hip and tied with a clasp at my waist. It was lower cut, and I reached up automatically for the necklace I’d always worn with it.

I could feel the beads around my throat. With careful—and remarkably clean—hands I touched my hair, feeling the bobby-pins already pricking my scalp.

“You did this?” I asked her.

“You’re surprised?” She quirked a brow. When I didn’t say anything, she continued. “Did you know I named him? He lost his name the moment he became the Erebus.”

I nodded. “I guessed.”

“Of course you did,” she snarled. “This is why he wants to share the Grave with you.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You think you’d be able to do this all by yourself one day?” Neive guffawed, making her look mean.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about any of this. It was just a short time ago that I found out our grandfather was a demon.”

“He seduced her.” Neive jumped on the subject, looking far too eager.

I waited for her to continue, letting the silence ring, and Neive took the bait.

“Before she met our grandpa, a demon named Malachi made her fall in love with him. It wasn’t allowed in our world. Did you know that? Somehow this demon wandered straight into our world. Damien said that Malachi confessed to loving her, to having watched her for years, and it couldn’t resist her.”

“What did Damien say to that?” I asked her, enraptured. Could this demon, Malachi, have loved our grandmother?

“Damien killed it,” Neive said simply. “A Challenge that ended its life.”

“What Challenge?” I asked.

Neive’s features darkened, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the story or my question. “In the Challenge, it watched a version of Mary, his beloved, die over and over. It couldn’t save her. It thought it was really her and wouldn’t leave the Challenge. And then one day, it foolishly took the death for her.”

“So he really loved her?”

Neive shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it was simple lust.”

“Not if he died for her,” I said.

This was our grandfather she spoke of, but I noticed she always said
it
instead of
he
.

Neive met my gaze. It lingered until I fleetingly saw that five-year-old girl. The curious little girl who always ran ahead of me, fought bullies for me, challenged my fears, like Phoebe. I’d never made the connection until now.

Neive rolled her eyes and smoothed out her dress.

“Then why do it?” I asked. “Why die if it wasn’t for love?”

“If you’d seen what I’d seen,” Neive scoffed, “you wouldn’t be so bold to believe in romanticism.”

I started to argue but decided against it. It would do no good to quarrel with my estranged sibling, let alone about something like
love
. It could be turned into a philosophical conversation or an argument. We didn’t have time for either. “What about the witchcraft?”

“What about it?” She sniffed.

“That was how Nell discovered the demon’s blood,” I said. “Does that mean we’re part-witches too?”

She laughed, Neive actually laughed, making me flinch as it echoed off the walls. “No, demon-blood and witches of our world don’t get along. It’s a long story. Basically, they hate each other.”

I nodded, pretending to understand, when it hit me. “Wait,” I said. “Witches are real in my world…er, our world?”

Neive made a wavy motion with her hand. “Ish. There’s stipulations to their power. Like I said, long story.”

“Is Damien afraid of them?”

“What you should be afraid of is your friends,” Neive said.

I blinked. “Why?”

“He’s been turning them against you.”

“Nothing I can’t—”

“He’s winning, Nora,” she said. “I warned you about trusting him.”

“I know,” I argued.

“Well,” she snapped, “you’re
trusting
him.”

There was a mild point there. Not one I wanted to dwell on, though. “So this all falls on me?”

She waved her hand. “It’s complicated, Nora. There is a half demon,” she gestured to me, “and two possible Keepers in this Demon’s Grave right now.”

“What? Who?” I demanded. “There’s just Aidan.”

“He is, unofficially, but yes.”

“What do you mean by two Keepers?”

Her eyes narrowed at me, and I found myself wracking my memory hard enough to find it. Cody had felt sick in the beginning, before we’d found the Grave. He and I were practically immobile when we reached the third floor that day. He’d received a message the same as me. The one I didn’t get. It had gone straight to Cody. Aidan hinted at having bad dreams but never confessed to what they were.

“I can’t believe you’d know…”

Neive motioned to the piano. “I can play, you know.”

The change was so random that it took me a second to absorb what she’d said.
Everything
she’d said. My world was changing before me, and she was talking about an instrument.

“No,” I murmured.

“Should I play so the demon can serenade you and tell you you’re more beautiful than you give yourself credit for?”

The intensity in her voice overrode the sarcasm, taking me off guard. Was she even human anymore?