Chapter 31
Theater is drenched in superstition. Don’t say Macbeth when you’re in a performance space. Avoid wearing blue onstage. Never tell an actor Good luck.
And always keep the ghost light on when you leave.
That final one brings a smile to Mallory’s face, because it makes her think of Saskia.
She clings to it as she turns off the faucet and tries not to dwell on how she might’ve just taken the last shower of her life.
How tonight could be the last time she walks across campus. The last time she sees her friends.
The last time she sees the girl she’s just beginning to love.
Opening night is in five hours. They have no solutions, and they’re out of time.
Mallory peers into the steamed mirror at her pale skin, soaked bangs clinging to her forehead.
The fang marks in her throat glow a garish purple in the fluorescent lights, and her eyes are clouded and dark.
She wraps her towel tighter around herself and sinks to the floor, so she doesn’t have to see her reflection anymore.
She looks like someone who won’t be alive much longer.
After they exited the hedge maze last night, Saskia made Mallory promise to leave campus immediately following their final bows.
Her scheme was flimsy and rushed, patched together in a fit of panic.
I have some money from my mom’s will, Saskia said as they hurried to her dorm.
We can find an apartment. We’ll get jobs.
Fuck this school. Fuck everything. We’ll keep each other safe.
And Mallory had agreed, because it was easier than admitting that they wouldn’t be safe anywhere.
Easier than telling Saskia she won’t be leaving campus with her at all.
Because after final bows, Mallory is going to the chapel.
She doesn’t have a choice. Not when she knows the only other path leads to Saskia dying in her place.
Mallory had craved answers, but there aren’t any more to be found. There’s nothing left. No clues, no breadcrumbs, no secrets to tell. Just this terrible dread in her belly and an emerging truth that no matter what, they all lose. Her. Ezra. Saskia.
So, she’ll enter the chapel, right when she’s due. She’ll go straight to the altar, where the candles will be burning just for her. But there won’t be any last kisses, no whispered, grief-laced goodbyes.
Because once she’s there, Mallory Webb will attempt to destroy the demon that’s already laid claim on her heart. A task that, she knows, will very likely lead to her death.
She’ll do it afraid.
But this time, she’ll do it alone.
Mallory didn’t mean to fall asleep on the tiled bathroom floor in a towel, but exhaustion tugs at her subconscious like an anchor, pulling her into a dream.
A new dream, this time.
She’s standing in the narthex of a small, dark church, enveloped in a bitter stench.
As she creeps into the nave, shadows cling to the stained-glass windows, rising toward the peaked ceilings.
A biting cold fills the tenebrous space and clusters of red candles line the black-painted pews, where figures in dark cloaks are swaying in tandem. Hunched over, as if in prayer.
It takes Mallory a moment to notice the masked trio standing near the pulpit, robes draped over black suits and red ties. Just like the photograph in Ezra’s room.
The figures remove their masks. And Mallory’s breath thins as she stares at Ezra’s father, grandfather—
And a younger Ezra. Flushed cheeks and dark hair, green eyes darting in the reddened candlelight. Mallory peers at him from a distance, seeing the fear in his expression. Like he’s trapped.
“One hundred years ago,” Jacob says to the cloaked crowd, “after studying The Book of Angels, I awoke Our Lord with the required gift of a perfect heart: dead, but alive with blood.” He smiles, teeth glowing.
“I was told it couldn’t be done, that the evocation would result in my death.
But my interpretation of the book’s language was correct: The ritual created an eternal bond between Our Lord and the bloodline of that first sacrifice, returning him to this realm.
Every woman in that bloodline hereafter has offered her own carved-out heart for Him to drink, sustaining His presence, and Our Lord has blessed this congregation with wondrous health and prosperity in return—but the best is yet to come. ”
He pauses, as if to survey the anticipation on everyone’s faces.
“I have lived to see six sacrifices. The next offering,” Jacob adds, “will be the most special. The Book of Angels tells us that the gift of the seventh perfect heart will allow Our Lord to remain permanently in our world, bestowing our community with something no human has ever achieved: Unending life. Immortality. Lasting power, for all of time.”
The crowd releases a murmur that ripples through the shadows.
“When this miracle occurs, I will be gone,” Jacob says.
“And my son, Victor, will be old. The future—your future—belongs with my grandson.” His ring-covered fingers close over Ezra’s tensed shoulders.
“I have seen it in my visions. Our Lord will reclaim what the witches tried to take from us, and as a result, the seventh gift will not be a self-sacrifice. Instead, that bleeding heart will be cut out and delivered by Ezra’s own hand.
He may merely be a child now. But upon obtaining this ultimate gift, he will be made a god.
One that can perform miracles for all who dare to follow him into the dark. ”
Mallory sinks into an empty pew as she watches the other men rise to gather around a boyish Ezra, pressing kisses to his knuckles. Unexpected empathy overtakes her, along with an inexplicable desire to rush to him. To put her arms around him and save him from this fate.
She wonders if she’s witnessing the night he became less of a boy and more of a weapon.
Just then, a cold hand clasps hers. She turns, finding Kiki next to her. Kiki, at five years old, always in that nightgown, always with that blue teddy bear under her arm.
“Don’t be afraid,” she whispers, skin translucent in the red lights. “I’ll protect you.”
A buzzing sound thrashes in Mallory’s ear. She swats at it—an invisible fly, a raven’s wing—but the buzzing continues, vibrating in her teeth.
Her phone. Her phone is buzzing.
She sits up with a gasp.
Bathroom. Towel. Steam.
Opening night.
Fuck—
Mallory snatches her phone from the floor and leaps to her feet.
“Saskia, I’m so sorry,” she says. “I fell asleep. I’m on my w—”
“Mal.”
“Are you okay? Are you safe?” She rushes into her dorm, discarding the towel and grabbing clothes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you alone that long, I—”
“Mal, stop talking!” Saskia’s breath rushes out. “It’s now! The show is now!”
Static cracks in her ear.
“What? No, that’s not possible, we have a few hours! It’s light outside, it’s…”
Mallory’s words disappear as she looks out the window.
To the blackened, starlit sky.
“No, no, no.” Mallory stumbles, grasping the side of her bureau. “What the fuck?”
She glances at the clock: 9:29 p.m. The show started over an hour ago.
“I’ve been calling and calling.” Saskia’s muffled words overlap with other voices in the background. “Was your phone on silent? Where were you? Where are you?”
“I’m—oh god.” Panic and despair collide as she absorbs the weight of what’s happening. Of what she’s just lost. “Did Hendrix—?”
“Hendrix flipped out,” Saskia says. “And I didn’t want to do it, Mal. I don’t feel so good. I’m hot, and the lights—I have a bad feeling. But I didn’t have a choice.” Her gasp is ragged, like it’s hard for her to breathe. “Hendrix told me to go on. As Juliet.”