Chapter 11
Another dose of reaper venom from the stolen vial, a larger one this time, nearly brought Elise to her knees.
A day after her first taste of it, she had already felt the effects wearing off.
Instead of tension and adrenaline powering her muscles, all she sensed was a weakness growing within her.
This time, as she sucked a spot of venom from her fingertip, she relished that sweet anticipatory burn before the pain began.
Memories of the last time she had felt that familiar pain resurfaced in her mind.
A time when Layla’s lips had been pressed to her throat, her fangs triggering overwhelming pleasure in her system while agony chased it into oblivion.
The moment the blistering pain faded and Elise dropped her hand to the side, her finger still wet from the venom, she craved its burn again.
A soft knock on the automobile door had her shoving the vial into her pocket and smoothing her hands over her hair once, then twice before exiting.
Sterling gave her a stern look. “Elise, you cannot—”
“Where’s Arendale?” she inquired roughly, shoving past him.
Elise walked right into Harlem reaper territory.
A normal person might have had fear—all Elise had was a rifle with nine Saint bullets and enough rage to start a fire in her chest. She half expected steam to rise from the sidewalk as she walked past the line of Saints and police officers readying their equipment in front of the Clarice.
The Hotel Clarice rose against the setting sun like a looming promise of death.
It stared down at her with black windows, where shadows moved with the dying rays of the evening sun.
The breeze, while cold from the snowflakes it carried, reminded her of the cigar smoke that had burned her eyes just hours earlier in her father’s study.
Despite the copious amounts of rancid burnt tobacco filling the air, Elise still could not escape the scent of blood hanging around that room, where a glass case holding her mother’s remains stood in the corner.
Her father had mercifully covered it with a sheet, but the presence alone and knowledge of what was inside the case had been enough to make Elise’s stomach turn.
Arendale joined her on the walkway, with Tobias and Sterling watching nearby. “Police already swept the premises. The beast is gone. You will find nothing but bodies in there,” the mayor said.
Elise glanced back at her father, who only stared straight into the Clarice with pure resentment. She met Arendale’s gaze. There was no way to mention her sister without potentially endangering her. Elise knew she had to search the Clarice on her own. “I just need to see for myself.”
Even now Elise would not allow dark thoughts about her younger sister to grace her mind. Thinking about Josephine with a craving for blood and fangs for a smile made the possibility too real.
If her father suspected any use of the venom, he said nothing about it. As usual, he had no insight into her true nature. It was the mayor who leaned in to whisper to Elise, “You might be the most valuable human in Harlem, with your connection to the reapers and a vengeful desire to do them harm.”
An acidic taste filled her mouth. Despite having walked the path of conflict between wondering whether reapers could be innocent or only the monstrous beings they had been made out to be, Elise had no more fight left in her for their cause.
Not while her mother’s remains sat locked in a box in her father’s study and her younger sister’s whereabouts were unknown.
All because of her own proximity to reaperhood.
“At the end of the day, I am just a girl who was put in a difficult situation. I know enough to survive.”
Mayor Arendale tilted his head to the side. “But…?”
“Surviving is no longer enough. I want blood for blood,” Elise breathed.
The mayor nodded. A small smile twisted his lips, and satisfaction bloomed in his dark eyes. “Viciousness should be met with viciousness. For your family.”
Pain gripped Elise’s throat as she fought back tears. She had barely given herself a moment to grieve alone, yet this man found it fit to prod the wound that still lay open in her heart. “I would never expect a mayor to rally for vengeance. Rather prosperity and peace, not ruin.”
“I want to propose a level playing field, where we all live separately but equal. But there is something hunting Harlem. So now, as you said, blood for blood.”
All Elise could think about was the darkness encroaching on her now.
Once a lethal enemy, now it served as a welcome guest as she stepped into the Hotel Clarice.
Emptiness met her at the door, just as the police officers had promised.
A few explosives, prepped and ready to detonate at the police chief’s notice, covered the floor.
Snow dusted in across the floor with her boots.
The rifle weighed down her arms more than she had been anticipating; weeks spent aiming on Jamie’s windowsill and roof had not prepared her for this gun’s heft.
Elise passed through the vestibule and into the foyer. Her foot met blood almost instantly.
She froze, her shoulders tensing at the sudden prick of fear instigated by the hotel’s stillness.
Everywhere she looked, Elise found blood.
On the walls, on the dusty furniture, covering the portraits and the melted candles.
The coppery scent overwhelmed her senses, and Elise gripped the rifle hard enough to crack her nails to keep herself steady against the rise of bile in her throat.
Bodies littered the floor and the stairwell.
It was impossible to tell which body part belonged to whom.
Organs spilled from torn torsos whose legs were nowhere to be found.
Police and Saint badges soaked in blood lay scattered across the lobby, their gleaming metals the only brightness in the room of shadows.
Her path of rage had been cut short. It appeared there was no one left to point a gun at.
Elise started to turn around, wondering where the beast had gone overnight, when a gurgle stopped her. She whirled on the sound and aimed the rifle at the mound of what she had thought was no more than rotting flesh.
A shaky hand reached up as a voice rang out, weak and painfully human. “Leave.”
“What?” Elise called out. She approached slowly. A man lay at the bottom of the stairs with one hand pressed to his abdomen, where his organs spilled out of a large perforation. “You’re still alive,” she breathed.
He shook his head. The silver of his Saint badge glinted with each pained movement. “Hardly.”
“I can call for help—”
“No. You need to leave. Before it gets too dark. It will come back, and it will kill you too,” he wheezed.
Elise lowered her gun and leaned closer, struggling to catch his every word. “The reaper?”
Blood trickled from the man’s mouth. A hiss of pain left him, but he coughed and continued anyway. “Not just a reaper. Death itself. A devil worse than anything Harlem has ever seen before. You must leave—”
The building groaned around them. Dust fell from the ceiling and billowed in great black clouds along the floor. Elise tried to reach for the man once more, but he shook his head as the roof seemed to tear open above. “RUN.”
The few other Saints who had followed her inside raced for the door.
A grating pain in Elise’s head slowed her down.
She headed after them, but blood dripped from her nose, splashing onto the cracked wood beneath her.
Elise cursed as her vision doubled, then tripled.
Blood continued to stream from her nose.
It ran over her hands in brilliant red streaks, staining the sleeves of her satin evening gown.
Perhaps the dose of venom had been too much.
The room swayed, and she stumbled, her hand coming out to steady her against the wall.
Elise cursed under her breath. She should’ve been outside by now, away from the suffocating darkness and whatever lurked within.
“Lisey, don’t let them hurt me.” Her sister’s voice echoed in her head, faint and distraught.
Elise began to wonder if side effects of the venom included auditory hallucinations when Josi’s voice came back stronger.
“Please, Lisey. I’m scared,” Josi whimpered. The quiver in her voice made Elise’s heart drop.
The shock of hearing her sister gave Elise focus as she retreated from her crowded thoughts and listened to her surroundings. Sure enough, she could hear a distant crying just a few rooms over. Abandoning her plan to exit the lair, Elise ran toward the voice.
It led her to what appeared to be a music room.
A sleek black grand piano sat in the back of the room by the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Along the walls, where various portraits of composers hung, bodies of Saint members and police officers lay slumped.
At first glance they looked almost normal—like they could have been sleeping off a heavy drug.
But when Elise drew closer, she noticed the pink ribbons twisted so tightly around their necks, blood stained the satin.
“You found me!” Josi cried out.
Elise whirled, expecting to see her sister standing behind her, but all she found was a phonograph positioned in the middle of the room. A bow had been wrapped around the golden horn, the end of its tail trailing over the spinning record on the turntable.
Josi’s voice echoed out from the speaker. “You still love me, right, Lisey?”
Even through the static, Elise heard the pain in her sister’s voice. Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of her sister alone, speaking to herself and begging for a response. “Josi…”
“Promise me you’ll still love me. Even if I’m different—” The record skipped, ending her sister’s speech abruptly.
Elise marched over to the phonograph and snatched the needle from the disc.
A scream rattled through the speaker, startling Elise so badly, she stumbled backward into one of the bodies.
She watched in horror as the man shifted to the side and his head rolled right off his shoulders.
The ribbon unraveled into an unceremonious bloody heap at her feet.
Static filled the air, and the record scratched again.
Then: “Don’t let them hurt me, Lisey.”
Elise backed away and broke into a full sprint.
As she ran, she could feel heavy footsteps behind her, shaking the hotel corridor, shifting the floor.
The pounding steps drew closer and closer, nearing a thunderous peak, until Elise finally turned and raised her gun.
A taloned hand swiped out as she fired, sending her bullet through a stained glass window instead and bright white sunlight spilled into the hallway.
The beast shrieked and shrank away, giving Elise enough time to reach an exit door.
Outside, she doubled over, inhaling the snowflake-heavy and bloodless air of the alley.
Her chest still heaved and her whole body shook with adrenaline.
Elise turned to glance back at the hotel.
Beyond the open doorway, where the sunlight faded into shadows, a massive figure looked back at her.
It stood taller than any human, at least nine feet.
Through the darkness, Elise could only make out its humanoid shape and long talons as it watched.
Red eyes flashed in the shadows before the figure turned and charged out of sight, deeper into the gloom of the lair.
Hot, sticky blood seeped down Elise’s arm from where the talons had sliced her. All Elise could do was press her knuckles against her mouth as her breathing grew heavy. There was no protecting Josi from Harlem—not anymore. Her sister, Elise had found, was the one Harlem needed protection against.
Her veins flared with heat—whether it was from the new reaper’s assault or her abuse of the venom, she did not know. Elise welcomed the darkness that surrounded her as she collapsed on the frozen ground.