Chapter 30
KAYE
The masquerade party is somehow even more than I had anticipated. I had been told to expect opulence, a great showing wealth and luxury that rivals what my wildest dreams could conjure. Even with the wild dreams I have been having.
Dreams, or something more?
Like puzzles made up of pieces taken from entirely different puzzle kits. None of them match, their colors and textures as varied as can be. Yet their edges fit together. If I got far enough away from them, could I see the picture? More pieces appear every day.
“The party will be at Mayor Vanall’s home,” Fulton explained, unrolling a blueprint filled with lines and symbols with meanings that I could only guess. They must have made some kind of sense to her though. She traced her finger over the paper with delicate precision.
“This is Main Street,” she said, pointing. “And Vanall’s home is here. According to these, there’s an opening to the underground right underneath here.”
“Underground?” I may have been missing memories, but even I knew that New Malcolm didn’t have a subway system. They tried to build one to make exporting from the factories and transportation of oil fracking easier, but all that infrastructure work had unintended consequences.
A giant mouth opened in the earth below the construction site, swallowing trucks, equipment, materials. A sink hole, they said, but it was so much more. Wider than a city block and almost ten stories deep. It was unlike anything they had ever seen.
What was seen within that boundless maw? Slate rooftops peeking through the debris. And within that, mass graves. Tunnels lined with bones. The remnants of an earthquake that flattened early-industrial New Malcolm. A tale lost to history.
Deliberately forgotten.
“Don’t you see?” Fulton’s dark eyes level with mine, fervor shining within them. “These tunnels cover the majority of downtown, and that’s just what people have managed to plot! No one goes down there because it’s too dangerous, but what if there’s another reason to keep people away?”
What it all has to do with the mayor’s party remains to be seen. Or why this C person—whoever he is—wants me here.
The doorman is dressed to the nines in a matte black tux and starched white undershirt and cummerbund. The top half of his face is covered in a devilish red mask, complete with horns. Masks. More and more in every direction I look.
We made it together, they said. Zane and I.
But the ensemble still feels foreign to me, like slipping on a skin that I haven’t yet grown into.
Wrinkled and roomy on all sides. Not that I don’t look killer in this outfit.
The diamonds up the night-black fabric of my sleeves and trailing from my boots to the tops of my thighs on either side creates this strange illusion.
It makes my reluctant movements appear… graceful.
Strong. Certain. I saw myself in the mirror, and a stranger looked back. A stranger, but…
“Invitation?” The doorman is looking at me expectantly, and I wonder where the line of people in front of me went. If he had asked me that question once before already.
I hand him the paper without a word. I wish Fulton was here, or even Jaspar with all his flirtation and sarcasm.
Adeon with his calming presence. Any of the friends I awoke to find.
They’re only a call or text away, backup just around the corner, camouflaged in the parade of cars parked for the party.
They couldn’t have come. The invitation admitted only one, and even if it hadn’t, I couldn’t ask them to risk their lives because I didn’t want to go alone.
The Hero of New Malcolm is afraid to fight the criminals she hunted days before. If only I didn’t have to rely on others to tell me who I am.
After all the stories, the kind, if not subtle, hints and reminders, I expect Checkmate to be this huge, prolific figure to everyone in the city.
And maybe she was, once upon a time, but the doorman doesn’t recognize her—me—right in front of his face.
He waves me through the door without another glance, already eyeing up the couple in line behind me.
It’s something akin to disappointment, this faint stab in my chest, even if I know it’s better this way.
Still, it would have been nice to have one person validate this person I’m supposed to be.
The world inside is made of sensuous red and debauchery.
Auburn-haired servers clad in nothing more than crimson corsets, fishnets, and heels carry drinks and hors d’oeuvres from room to room.
Music pounds the air, every breath through my lungs thick with vibration.
Red leather couches line the walls in the entryway, and beyond as far as I can tell.
Already, a couple to my right is making use of them—a leggy blonde in a black catsuit straddling a brunette dressed as Red Riding Hood.
A trio of men is seated across the room, ogling the passionate pair.
I shoot them a glare as I pass them by. One of them catches my eye and winces. Good.
The party in the grand room is more my speed.
The DJ’s booth is lit with a soft light that only emphasizes the grotesque expression of his glowing mask.
The ample dance floor is full of revelers, hands raised as they jump in time to the beat.
The whole of the left wall is a bar stocked with top-shelf liquor, and leaning on the bar—
Suit black as night, like ink solidified. The gloves covering those dangerous, elegant fingers. That mask, white as fresh snow on Christmas morning, disturbing in its blank features. My reaction to it is visceral, tattooed in the scars in my skin.
“Charade?”
The face that turns to greet me is too fine to belong to him, the chin and jawbone coming to a delicate point, the grinning lips too rosy and feline.
And as she adjusts in her seat, I notice the differences in posture and stance.
The subtle curve of her bust within the suit, tapering down to a slim waist.
She may not have been Charade, but as I look at her, that eerie sense calls just at the edges of my thoughts and feelings.
She stands, takes my hand, and brings it to those soft, pink lips.
I freeze even as her touch makes heat rise to my cheeks.
There’s something so familiar about all of this.
Like watching a movie of a dream you had once before.
You know the steps, even if they happened to someone else. But… I think the someone was me.
She pulls me close to her until her lips press against my ear, her cheek warm where is presses against my cheek. “Dance with me.”
I let her lead me to the dance floor, seeing another time, another figure with fuller shoulders, a firm, muscled abdomen. Glass raining down, glittering like starlight. Lightning splitting the black.
Look at me.
Her arm wraps around my back, fingers pressing gently into my side.
“Who are you?” My voice falters, barely audible over the thumping of the beat around us. It doesn’t matter as she swings me into a smooth waltz.
Her perfect teeth glimmer in the soft light, a wolf on the prowl like some story book horror. The better to eat you with, my dear.
“You don’t remember? I thought we had at least a little connection, pet.”
Her foot snakes around my ankle like a flash, sending my axis off and spiraling. My stomach lurches as I struggle to catch my balance. Fail. I’m falling.
Soft, strong arms catch me. I have little choice but to lean into them, allow her to pull my body against hers, back to chest, steadying me. With my fingers still entwined in hers, she grasps my neck with one hand, the other anchoring on my hipbone. My heartbeat spikes.
Don’t let me catch you down here again, Checkmate.
“Black Monarch,” I choke out.
“Mmm.” She nuzzles against my cheek, nose pressing against my skin, as she purrs into my ear. “I knew we had something special.”
“Where is he?”
“Business, business, business,” she groans. “Don’t you ever let yourself relax and have some fun? Even with your memories gone, you’re still Miss Responsibility.”
I go still in her grip, a chill racing through my bloodstream. “Does Vanall know you’re on C’s payroll?”
Her chest shakes as laughter spills out behind me. “Vanall doesn’t know half as much as he thinks he does, and he thinks even less.”
“Take me to Charade.”
“After all this, you’re still his?” Her hips press into the curve of my glutes, and I’m left with little choice but to sway along with her movements or let her grind into me for everyone to see.
I struggle to push the hand gripping my throat away, but her fingers only close tighter.
“Shh, Checkmate. We’ve played that game already. You don’t want to be unconscious when you meet your host, do you?”
“Fuck. You.”
She laughs, lips against the shell of my ear. “I think I’d like that.”
Her fingers dip from the curve of my hip to the top of my thigh, her fingers splaying possessively there. I stifle a squeak as the wet, hot muscle of her tongue traces up the arc of my cheek.
“Maybe you would too.”
I do the only thing I can think of and stomp hard on the arch of her foot. She’s fast though, much faster than I’d have expected.
“Naughty pet,” she titters. “Our time’s up anyway. Be a good girl and don’t draw any more attention. Charade will be awfully disappointed if we’re late.”
Her fingers pull tighter around my neck, the pads of her finger pressing tightly into the vulnerable skin over my jugular. It’s enough to halt my struggle.
“Good girl. This way.”