Chapter 30 #2
“My true master gave me freedom and a choice to serve,” Hoffman said, trying hard to explain. “Lavina gave me no such choice. Please, if my companionship has meant anything to you, I beg that you will free me.”
I snorted. “Our companionship has been a lie. Give me one good reason to free you.”
His eyes pinned mine. “Free me, Schwester Molly, and I will drop the aegis so that you and the demigod can leave.”
What?
He could drop the aegis? All this time, he could do it?
I shook my head. “Don’t believe you. I saw how you suffered when you were outside the aegis, bringing me here.”
“That was a temporary day pass, shall we say, and one made just for me. What I can do is take the aegis down permanently, so that everyone can leave. The tool I need to do that is contained in a secret panel inside that cabinet. I cannot touch the cabinet without permission—there is a warding spell upon it.”
“I was able to touch the cabinet.”
“Had I known you could, I would’ve tried to lead you here sooner.” He shook his head, anguishing over this detail. “At least it’s not too late yet. But we must do it quickly, before she wakes, or she will punish us both.”
He was practically vibrating with desperation and fury. I’d never seen him so passionate, and that made me want to believe that what he was saying might be true.
Could he really drop the aegis?
Nin and I could walk away from this horrible place, just like that?
“Free me and I’ll help you,” he said, sounding serious and confident. “Please…” He held up both hands to signal his subservience.
Bethany whimpered when I glanced back at the built-in cabinet, eyes grazing over all the strange boxes and jars that sat upon the shelves. At the goat skulls…
Oh.
Right between the skulls, I spotted a crack in the back wall. Something was there. A secret door inside a secret cabinet.
Keeping my eye on Hoffmann, I pushed the skulls apart and felt around on the wall behind them until one of the panels clicked and swung open.
A metal hourglass sat alone inside the hidden compartment.
The same one I’d seen the master holding the night we met in the hospital.
It holds a grain of sand dug out from beneath each obelisk.
This is what Nin’s brother wanted me to find—right here! A little hope sprang up in my heart. “This is what controls the aegis?” I asked Hoffmann, pulling the hourglass out of the cabinet.
“Be careful, Molly,” he warned. “There is more than one spell contained in that.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like a…” He struggled to explain. “Like a lockbox. Can you please just hand it to me?”
I wrinkled my nose. “What do mean? What kinds of spells does it hold?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said dismissively. “But you have my word that I will free you if you hand it to me.”
“Don’t do it!” Bethany said suddenly from behind me.
It startled me so badly, I jerked my arm…
And accidentally dropped the hourglass. It hit the wooden floorboards and rolled toward the bed as Hoffmann shouted something I couldn’t understand.
Uh-oh.
A dark cloud emerged from the hourglass, pouring out of it like smoke. The smoke coalesced into the shape of a human being. And as it did, Bethany shouted, “Hide!” and completely disappeared.
I backed away from the figure of smoke, but as its details came into relief—arms, legs, and a broad male torso—there was one part of the figure that stayed hazy. Blurred.
Mr. No-Face.
“Master!” Hoffmann cried, dropping to his knees.
Holy shite. It was the male witch.
Vincent Vermeer, the original master.
Something clicked inside my brain, and I darted away from the smoky man, who was neither flesh nor the illusion of flesh worn by ghosts. No wonder Bethany was terrified. His face was still a blur and he wasn’t solid—did that mean he could get inside me? Force my own soul out of my body?
Everything inside me shriveled as terror trickled down my spine.
Still clutching the bottled finger, I raced to the other side of the bed, kicking the hourglass beneath it as I ran past. If I could come back later and retrieve it, maybe it would help.
But right now, I just wanted to get out of these rooms, out of this wing of the house with all its terrible secrets.
But when I lurched around Hoffmann to race into the sitting room next door, I almost ran smack into someone and had to jerk backward.
“Master,” I mumbled in surprise. At least, the one I knew. The one I’d been taking care of since my arrival. The one who truly terrified me.
Lavina. The Witch of Amsterdam.
Wearing Charles Voss’s body.
She stumbled through the doorway with a bloodied mouth, coughing. Blood stained the front of Charles Voss’s silk dressing gown. In his hand, she clutched a crude dagger, unsteady and furious as her red-rimmed eyes scanned the room.
“What have you done?” she shrieked in Charles Voss’s voice.
I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or Hoffmann, because she didn’t spare a look for either of us.
Her eyes were on the smoky figure of her former husband, who uttered rough words in another language—likely Dutch, but I didn’t know.
His words were wrapped in venom and wrath, and she answered in kind as she stumbled toward him, slashing the air with her dagger and coughing up blood.
I didn’t want any part of this.
My instincts told me to run, so I guess Bethany had had the right idea when she’d disappeared.
But Hoffmann was still bowing to the floor, weeping softly.
I started to run, then stopped and turned back long enough to fish under the bed and pull out the hourglass while the occultist battled the soul of her dead husband.
“Drop the aegis!” I told Hoffmann, forcing the hourglass into his hands.
He was distracted by the fight across the room, indecisive.
“Do it now, and I’ll free you,” I said, holding up his finger.
Our eyes connected for a moment, and he nodded almost imperceptibly.
Then he grasped the bulbous top and bottom of the metal hourglass and twisted them in opposite directions.
It came unscrewed in the center, and as the two pieces fell away from each other, sand that had been hidden inside the sculpture poured onto the floor.
The body of Charles Voss whipped around and glared at us. Every cell in my body went cold.
“Free me!” Hoffmann said. “Please, Molly!”
I didn’t want to deal with him—not when danger was a few feet away.
But a promise was a promise.
As quick as a whip, I threw the bottled finger at the wall.
Glass exploded and foul liquid sprayed, causing me to lurch away to avoid being hit. But smashing it must’ve had some effect, because almost instantly Hoffmann cried out in joy.
No one else shared his glee.
Across the room, an angry scream flew from the mouth of the body I knew as Charles Voss. But it wasn’t his voice. It was Lavina’s, and that chilled my blood. As terror gripped my chest, Lavina suddenly rushed toward me, dagger held high.
So fast!
I realized instantly that I had no time to run from her.
All my muscles went rigid. I braced for her attack, holding up my arms to protect my face.
In a blink, Nin appeared behind Lavina.
His face was a mask of controlled rage. Right as the master attempted to bring the dagger down on me, Nin grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head backward.
“Arghhhhhh!” she screamed.
The master’s arms flailed wildly. Her dagger slashed through the air—
And slashed Nin’s neck.
No!
“Nin!” I cried out. Had it nicked the artery?
He blinked rapidly, seemingly shocked as crimson blossomed on his shirt collar. Silver eyes narrowed with quiet fury.
In an impossibly swift movement, he grabbed her arm and slammed her wrist against the bedpost, and the dagger fell to the floor, landing in front on me. It looked evil and rusty, and I wasn’t going to touch it. I quickly kicked it under the bed, out of reach.
Nin grappled with the master and threw her against the wall.
Plaster cracked and exploded.
Lavina cried out in pain, crumpling to the floor. Her arm was hurt.
Well, Charles Voss’s arm, technically.
“I see you now, Lavina Vermeer, Witch of Amsterdam,” Nin said in a low, dangerous voice. “I see your corrupted soul inside that borrowed body.”
“How?” Her voice was thin and rough. “How did all this happen? How are you out of your chains? Who dropped the aegis?”
“Your control was a mirage,” Nin said.
A string of Dutch curses followed, roughened by pain and disbelief. “If this is all that imp’s doing, I will cut off his head and mount it on the wall!”
“Give me back what you took from me,” Nin said, “and I will not remove your head.”
Dark chills ran down my arms. He meant it. I’d never seen him so serious, and that was saying a lot.
“Bargain,” the witch said, coughing up blood. “I request a bargain! By the old laws, you must hear my request.”
“Your laws don’t bind me, witch. Give me back what you stole, and I won’t tell my father to rip your soul to pieces.”
Lavina hacked up more blood from Voss’s body, trying to answer Nin. But something was happening across the room. As Nin towered over the master like a dark lord, hell-bent on retribution, the smoky figure of the No-Face Man rushed toward him.
“Nin! Behind you!” I cried out.
Nin whipped around and began reciting something in another language. His mother’s tongue. The very same he’d spoken to me when we’d hid inside the carriage.
The dark smoke figure screamed something indecipherable at Nin—who lifted his arms and made a strange gesture with his hands, cutting through the air as if he were severing invisible strings.
I didn’t understand what he was doing, but it had a dramatic effect. No-Face’s body swirled and dissipated, breaking apart, until it was nothing but smoke, floating toward the ceiling.
When he turned back around, I followed his eyes toward the wall where he’d thrown Charles Voss’s occupied body.
The space was empty.
Lavina had escaped.