Chapter 9
Nine
Ihad spent a great deal of my life resenting my parents for locking me up in our home… now they were both gone.
And it was my fault.
Never in my life had I experienced pain like this before. The tears, the shaking, the utter lack of control of my limbs, of my breathing. I tried keeping my voice down because I didn’t want anyone in the car to be able to hear me, but there, in my silent little corner of the world, I wept, and I mourned, and I grieved.
I had failed them.
I had gotten them killed.
What I had done was unforgivable, irredeemable. I didn’t know what to do with myself, what to think, or how to feel. One minute, I was crying my eyes out. The next, I was numb. At one point, I tried to convince myself that what had happened, hadn’t actually happened. That it had all been an act, some kind of phantom show put together by demonic puppets.
Maybe my parents were still alive, somewhere. Maybe Mason Diaboli had already captured me, and I was in some kind of mental prison, playing this whole thing out purely so he could figure out how to get into my family’s vault.
That lie was full of holes, though, and it didn’t protect my feelings for long. The image of my dead mother’s face haunted me. The sound of my father’s desperate voice, begging Max and I to run. The look on Max’s face as I cut him loose and sent him hurtling into the Ether.
No.
They were dead, but I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart over that fact. That was the truth of it. I had to pick myself up, shield myself from the pain, and go forward. Max was out there, somewhere, and he needed my help now, more than ever.
The car ride away from my mansion gave me time to think, because there was no way I could get out. There were magic suppression runes etched into the trunk, each one of them potent enough to stop me from summoning my power. I had tried to force my way out of the trunk, but it was sealed shut, and there were no tools around me I could use.
They had planned to take a prisoner tonight.
Probably as a plan B.
If Max had any sense, he would stay as far away from the house as possible. Sure, the house was protected by magic, and it probably seemed like a good place to be, but Diaboli had very likely left some of his men behind.
If he went back to the house, they would be waiting, ready to ambush him and capture him just like they had captured me. If that happened, Mason would have Max and the amulet, and I would have to use it to get in to the vault.
If I didn’t, my brother would also be killed, because what use did the Diaboli have for him? He didn’t know how to use the amulet—I did. They would use him to get me to do what they wanted me to do, and it would work. I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to resist them if they had Max and threatened to kill him in front of me.
Besides me, he was the last living Ethera.
When the car did eventually stop, my entire body tightened and stiffened. I took in a deep breath of air and held it in my lungs. It was impossible to see anything in the darkness of the trunk, save maybe for the red glow of the brake lights. Still, I tried to look for something I could use as a weapon; a tire iron, a fire extinguisher, even a road-side kit.
Nothing.
When the trunk opened, it wasn’t Mason who greeted me, but one of his hooded and masked men. He reached inside, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me out. I kicked and screamed, hoping my voice would carry. I punched, and squirmed, and tried to get out of the man’s grip, but he was stronger than I was.
In one quick move, he yanked me out of the trunk and shoved me to the ground. I hit the gravel with my cheek, then my shoulder. After coming to a sliding stop, I fought to get to my feet. With the magic suppression runes far enough away, I found myself able to summon my power, channeling it into a bolt of crackling energy that wrapped around my hand.
I went to lash out at him with it, but was grabbed from behind, and the streak of lightning that shot out of my fingers turned upwards and went harmlessly into the night sky with a whipcrack. Whoever was behind me was strong enough to pick me up and carry me to the door of the house I had been brought to.
It was a mansion, similar to mine, only darker. All of its lights were out, except for a single square of soft, flickering, orange light emanating from the open front door. There were trees all around the estate, each of them tall enough to reach high into the night and blot out the stars. I was alone. I could scream all I wanted, but they had me, and I wasn’t getting out of here on my own strength.
“Let me go!” I yelled, deciding still that it would be better to go down fighting.
The man who was carrying me didn’t speak. Instead, he led me toward the front door of the mansion, where he set me down, and shoved me so that I would stagger into the house. I fell on my hands and knees on the hardwood floor beyond the door. By the time I got up, turned around, and raced for the door, it slammed shut behind me.
On its own.
The single candle next to me snuffed out at the exact same moment, leaving me alone in the pitch dark, in a house that wasn’t mine. I tried to look around, but it was just as dark in here as it had been in the trunk, if not darker.
“Beatrice,” I heard someone whisper against my right ear.
My entire body tightened again.
“Who said that?” I asked.
“She smells afraid,” said another voice, this one racing past my left ear.
“Who’s there!” I yelled.
“She should be afraid.”
It sounded as if there were people all around me, circling me in the dark, whispering against my ear. At one point, I felt something caress my shoulder. I spun around to see who it was but ended up losing my orientation entirely. I couldn’t tell which way led to the front door of the house anymore.
In an instant I was lost in the dark, alone with the voices. I turned my hand up and called on my power again, bringing a trickle of it into my palm and birthing a small orb of golden light. The shadows receded, and for a moment I saw my light touch some of the surfaces around me.
A black table, etched with silver, a priceless looking vase on which stood a number of white flowers, something like a small glass pocket watch, a snuffed-out candle, and a silver letter opener. As soon as I went to grab it, the shadows shrieked. The racket was so loud I had to cover my ears for fear that they might explode.
I fell to my knees, brought low by the disjointed screaming going on all around me. It sounded like the voices were trying to get into my head, to claw their way past my hands and burrow into my mind. I couldn’t help but scream myself, trying to fight their noise with my own.
It was then that someone touched my shoulder.
I spun around and scrambled away from whoever was standing behind me. As quickly as it had begun, the noise stopped, leaving a sharp ringing in my ears. Carla Diaboli lit the candle, the orange light silently dancing across her sinister face. Mason Diaboli stood behind her, the dim light serving only to frame his even more sinister red eyes.
“Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?” asked Carla Diaboli. “It’s rude to scream in someone else’s home.”
I felt like my ears were bleeding. “What was that?!” I shrieked.
“Nothing too dangerous,” Mason said, “I can assure you. They were merely curious.”
“Demons?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” He paused. “Get up,” he barked, his demeanor changing like the flick of a switch.
“What are you going to do with me now?” I asked, “Throw me in a dungeon?”
“Dungeon?” Carla chuckled. “We aren’t savages, dear.”
“Well, you had me fooled.”
The smirk was quickly wiped off her face “Turn around, walk up the stairs, and we’ll show you to your bedroom.”
“Bedroom?”
“Unless you would prefer a cold, stony corner in the basement?”
“I don’t want to be anywhere in this house.”
“We can arrange that, too. There’s probably a little room in the kennels with the dogs… only I should warn you, we keep them somewhat underfed. It makes them sharp.”
“You are monsters.”
Carla picked up the strange glass pocket watch on the nearby table and tossed it toward me. I scrambled to catch it.
“There are worse monsters in these halls, of that I can assure you. Now, walk.”
Mason Diaboli gave his wife a soft kiss on the back of her neck. She shut her eyes, leaned into the kiss, and smiled. He then melted away into the darkness, leaving me alone with his psychotic wife. I found it incredibly unsettling that I couldn’t see anything in this place, but I realized quickly that was by design.
They didn’t want me to know where I was or where I was going. They wanted me to feel like I was in a maze, that way, if I wanted to try escaping, I would have no idea where to go. I also knew I was powerless, here.
Sure, I could summon my magic, but I doubted if it would be any good against the Diaboli. I was on their turf, in the dark, surrounded by strange, demonic whispers, and directly in the sights of a woman who wouldn’t hesitate to kill me.
If I wanted to survive, I was going to have to do what she said… so, I walked. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. The bedroom I was brought to was an upgrade from the trunk, for sure, but I couldn’t help but feel like the deeper I went with these people, the harder it would be for me to get out.
Carla stood by the bedroom door and watched me as I entered the room and had a look around. The bed in here looked big, and comfortable, with four posters and a mountain of pillows. There was a desk, with a chair, even some writing tools. The window, strangely enough, didn’t have bars on it or a fancy looking locking mechanism.
That was also probably by design. It would create the temptation for me to try to escape, even though I probably wasn’t going to make it more than a few feet out of the house before I was spotted and stopped.
“This is where I’m supposed to stay?” I asked.
“What’s the matter?” Carla asked, “Is it not up to your standards?”
“I just thought if you were trying to lock me up, a couple of bars and magic suppression runes would’ve gone a long way.”
“Why deface our décor with ugly runes when I know you won’t try to use magic to escape?”
“And what makes you say that.”
“Because if you do, they will stop you,” she paused on that ominous note. “And in any case, you wouldn’t get very far if you tried. I suggest you make yourself comfortable and not make any trouble. You’ll need all the points you can get for after.”
“After what?”
“Once we find your brother and take back what belongs to us… and we decide your fate.”
Carla took a step back, blew the candle out, and disappeared into the stark darkness of the corridor beyond the bedroom door. A moment later, the door slammed shut, causing me to nearly jump out of my own skin.
Once again, I was alone, only this time I wasn’t in the trunk of a car, my magical hands tied by powerful runes. I rushed up to the window and tried to open it. The window opened without a fuss, a soft breeze rolled in, bringing with it the scent of night flowers and fresh cut grass.
The drop was easily fifteen feet into some shrubs, and even though I felt like I could manage that—especially with magic—just looking down made my stomach turn itself inside out. I also couldn’t see the edge of the property from here. No walls, no fence, and no gate; just deep, dark trees.
How long would I be able to run in the dark before they found me? And what about those dogs Carla talked about? Would they set them on me if they knew I had escaped?
No.
Now wasn’t the time for hasty escapes. I needed to be smart about this, and that meant I needed a plan. The sun had to rise sometime, and when it did, I would be able to see my way out and plan my escape. Until then, all I could do was sit down by the window, try to stay awake, and try not to fall apart.