CHAPTER 23 AILEEN
CHAPTER 23
AILEEN
Fire was all I could see.
Smoke was all I could smell.
Ashes were all I could taste.
Heat was all I could feel.
Screams were all I could hear. Horrible screams that made me feel both hot and cold at the same time.
I found it hard to think, being engulfed by this terrible inferno. I didn’t know who or what I was. I didn’t even know my own name.
The fire and I were one.
Nothing corporeal existed in this infernal hell. Not a soul could enter without being scorched to oblivion. But the fire somehow became me, or I became the fire, and that protected me from the promised demise.
A wisp of a voice echoed in this fiery chamber, but I couldn’t hear it beyond the screams and cruel cackling of flames. The voice flitted through the burning air again, louder but no less unintelligible.
When the voice came a third time, it was loud, strong, and clear.
WAKE.
Within one breath and the next, I was back. The infernal hell was sucked away, replaced by the Atalonian ballroom. I was back to myself, my body, and my name, my short amnesia gone now that I was separated from that fire.
I sucked in a deep breath, then another one and another one, until my rapid heartbeat quieted down and the perspiration sticking to my skin slowly dissipated. I pressed my hands down on my knees and saw red spots marring the hem of my dress. My nose was bleeding.
Embarrassed by the whole thing, I took one last deep breath and straightened to apologize to the guests, but the words died in my mouth.
Because what I saw was an entirely different scene than the one before the fire had taken me hostage.
In a span of what felt like a split second, the ballroom had transformed into a battlefield.
Creatures that looked like humans but could not possibly be humans raged around the hall. All of them were tall, far taller than six-five, with a pair of curved, pointed horns coming out of their temples and with hooves instead of feet. All of them were naked from head to toe, exposing skin in varying unnatural shades, from light blue and green to navy and emerald, and revealing their sex.
The creatures were actively attacking the vampires as the humans screamed and scrambled for the exit.
To my left, Stefan was facing a female horned creature with indigo skin who was attempting to grab Stefan’s blond hair, but with his lean, nimble body, Stefan evaded her attempts, causing her large, humanlike eyes to bulge with rage.
What was especially odd was the fact Stefan had a deck of cards in his hands and was doing some sort of card trick while murmuring something I couldn’t quite hear—but it seemed the creature heard, because she gave a chilling inhuman growl that made me freeze in place.
Then, using sleight of hand, Stefan made some cards disappear, pointed at the creature’s face, and said loud enough for me to hear, “Let me show you where the cards are!”
The seven of hearts broke through the creature’s eyeball from within, causing some sort of gold liquid to explode in the wound.
But I had no time to be shocked, because just then, another creature, this one seaweed green skinned, appeared from behind Stefan, about to catch him off guard. I was going to scream at him to look out when something white and fast crashed into the monster, pushing it against the wall, which cracked and began to crumble.
It took me a second to realize I’d just seen Lord Bowman in action.
Something flashed to my right, and suddenly Ragnor was in front of me, the sleeves of his shirt torn, the tie gone, and his hair freed from its ponytail. “Stop gawking,” he barked at me and pulled me to my feet. Only then I realized I’d fallen down at one point. “Get the hell out of here—”
There was a sound so loud, it reverberated through the chaotic noises around the hall. As if he knew what was coming, Ragnor yelled, “Cover your ears!”
Automatically, I did, and so did Ragnor, but what came after was the eeriest thing I’d ever heard, accompanied by the scariest thing I’d ever seen.
Dust, debris, and shattered glass from the broken-in ceiling and the busted windows clouded the air as vampires and the monsters fought all over. Then a loud, almost deafening voice spread across the room, not singing any lyrics but humming a melody that made me shiver.
I also recognized that voice. I would recognize it anywhere.
Cassidy.
As Cassidy hummed in an unnaturally loud voice from somewhere in the hall, the vampires and the creatures slowly came to a stop, their eyes becoming empty and strange until they ceased to move.
It almost looked like time had stopped, I thought, and the moment I finished the thought, the song paused. The debris froze in the air. Ragnor was no longer breathing steadily before me.
I’d made time stop.
And it . . . doesn’t hurt?
Slowly, hesitantly, I rose to my feet, letting my hands fall, and when I moved my head, a few strands of my hair fell over my shoulder.
Shaking, I raised the strands to my eyes. They were wavy and gold, not a trace of black remaining.
Then I lifted my eyes toward the Bird of the Nile , but when I saw the canvas, it felt like, along with time itself, my heart had stopped too.
The canvas was white.
Empty.
But the painting was just there, so how ...
“My magic certainly works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?”
I whirled around to see Atalon walking toward me, the only one besides me moving in this scene frozen in time. My heart was suddenly beating again, and this time it was like a war drum, as if trying to warn me of something.
Because how could he move about when I had just stopped time for everyone and everything?
“How . . . ?” I blurted out.
But the question got lodged in my throat when I saw his face, and the expression there was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.
Atalon was smiling triumphantly. His eyes, a pair of black pits, were now glowing, but instead of a faint glow like most vampires’, their glow was more like shadows cast on his face, giving him a fearsome, insane look I never wanted to see again.
It was the first time since I met him that I saw Atalon look absolutely elated, and the scary elation on his face was mirrored in his eyes.
He stopped a few inches away from me, his smile impossibly wide. “Aileen, Aileen, Aileen ... I knew buying you would be worth my while.”
Before I could react, or think, or do something, he backhanded me across the face so strongly, I couldn’t even feel pain before darkness swallowed me whole.