The Reaper’s Vice (The Dark Triad #3)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

10 years ago…

The bells. The bells of death are tolling.

Sobs echo throughout the gold-hewn hallway, rattling my skull with a violence that compels me to stop. The wall in front of me pitches to the side as gold drips down in thick, messy puddles, coating my bare feet in molten lava as the sounds of grief imbue the hollow halls of my mind. They scratch something deep in my nervous system, something long since forgotten—and they order me to investigate. To see . To remember.

Without thinking, I press my palm to the panel, and the secret door slides open silently. I scurry out on hands and knees, gripping the wall for support as I right myself, trying to ignore how the world twists and shudders around me. I blink away the haze, only to jerk my head over my shoulder as a shrill ringing sounds in the distance.

Ding… dong… ding… dong…

I know the sound isn’t real, but I can’t move away. I stand there, a slave to the violent gong echoing throughout my head. My chest.

Ding… dong… ding… dong…

Sviato nudges my calf with the side of his face, pulling me from my trance. His sister, Savyne, pads carefully behind him, nuzzling her head against my leg in a similar manner to her brother. Both tiger cubs are shrouded in a beautiful rainbow haze, the contrasting colors pulsing and dancing together in a dazzling performance.

Blinking away the mirage, I force my face into a stern expression. “Sviato, Savy… stay, ” I command, raising my voice as much as I dare to bend the cubs to my will. Sviato flicks his left ear, drawing his nose in the air as if to sense impending danger. He lets out a low growl as I move from behind the wall but otherwise stays put, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s short-lived because that wailing echoes in my head in the next moment, dispelling any semblance of peace I had obtained. As soon as I straighten, my eyes connect with those of a beautiful black-haired woman, her face twisted in sorrow as she clutches a bloodied man to her chest.

And it’s not just any man—the gleaming black mask lying on the floor tells me he was the highest-ranking Mask. The Phantom.

I step forward without thinking, my curiosity getting the better of me. I’ve never met a Phantom before—only lower-level Masks like Reapers and Disposers—and I’m overcome with the need to understand why he’s here, now, in this strange woman’s arms.

Yet the bells ring.

Dong… dong… ding… dong…

“He’s dying,” I say, eyes locked onto the Phantom, the pool of blood blossoming along the expensive carpet. The ringing gets louder as the woman and her brutish companion whip their heads up to meet my gaze. It occurs to me then what the bells are for.

“So is she,” I whisper, knowing with some part of me that the Madam is dying, if not already dead. And that can only mean one thing…

“Who the fuck are you?” an impossibly deep voice demands. I pull my gaze to the imposing man standing over the woman’s shoulder, nearly mistaking him for a Mask due to the piece of metal covering the right half of his face. A… half mask?

I don’t get the chance to inquire—the Phantom needs my help.

I reach toward the man, but in the next moment, that half-masked one turns a murderous gaze on me, looking like he’d use the last of his life to protect the fallen Phantom as he screams, “Don’t you fucking touch him! I’ll?—”

The woman holding the Phantom raises a hand, silencing the brutish man to my utter surprise and gratitude.

“Who?” She turns her emerald gaze on me. “Who’s she ?”

It occurs to me she may not know about the Madam or care about her fate. But I don’t have time to explain, so I simply tilt my head over my shoulder toward the devil’s chambers.

“Oh…” The woman’s eyes go wide, seeming to understand.

I give her a nod, finding it hard to concentrate over the ringing in my head. “ Ding dong, the queen is dead. Ding dong, the bell doth toll. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong… ”

“You should help them.”

I jerk my head to the side, my eyes widening as I take in that familiar face. What are you doing here? I want to ask. But that’s not the question that pours from my lips.

“And why should I?” A wave of anger heats my veins at the thought. “This is the design.” We live, and we die. There is nothing else.

The apparition shakes its head, a sad little smile tugging at its lips. “That’s not true though… is it, Seraphina?”

I blink, and it’s gone, the presence replaced with a dense, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Who… who are you talking to?” I jerk my gaze back to the beautiful emerald-eyed woman, watching sadly as she gazes around wildly for a sign of another person.

I open my lips to explain when it occurs to me that I don’t know. Maybe I did at some point, but the fog coating my mind won’t allow me to see it clearly enough.

I shake my head, drawing my eyes to the beautiful woman’s, barely fighting off tears. “They want me to help you.” I don’t know who they are, but I know what they wanted. And I know I will do what I must, will do anything for them.

“Who?” she demands, clutching the fallen Phantom tighter to her chest. “Who wants you to help me? Who are you?”

The room pitches to the side, a kaleidoscope of color spreading, dripping, spiraling in front of my eyes. Different shades of gold swirling, swirling, swirling into the others, converging into a disgusting shade of brown. The walls get closer, and the echoes get louder. And suddenly, I have to let the sound out, or I just know I’ll explode.

“ Ding dong. Ding dong.” I try not to scream from the blossoming pain in my temples. “I must work quickly, ” I breathe, reaching into my pocket. My fingers close around the vial of Vespyr—a powerful clotting agent used by the Sanctum for gunshots and stab wounds—but I find the surface too cold to hold on to for long. Ice spreads through my veins, racing for my heart. But I have to do this. I have to help. “ Where the blood flows, life goes. To stop the stream, we must dam the river.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” she screeches. “What are you talking about?”

I suck my teeth, not realizing I said that last part aloud. Even if I wanted to explain, I don’t have the time, so I simply crouch by the dying Phantom, inching the tip of the syringe to the center of his wound.

Before I make contact, the woman’s hand shoots out, gripping my arm and stopping me from advancing. “ The blood is leaving. I must work quickly,” I murmur, a deep frown settled between my brows as I try to make her see reason. “ He will die ? — ”

“I know that!” she snaps. Looking away, she takes a deep breath before starting again. “I know that… but what are you doing to him? How do I know that stuff won’t kill him?”

Suppose it did? It would be a kindness. Now that he’s shown his face, the Sanctum will never allow him to live.

“Silly woman. ” I sigh, ripping my arm from her and proceeding toward the wound once more. “It will stop the bleeding. For a time.”

I press the handle of the syringe, and a milky-silver substance pours from the tip into the wound. Within seconds, the bleeding stops, and I sit back with a haughty expression.

“I told you.”

The woman shakes her head, unable to take her eyes from the ashen skin on the Phantom’s face. I notice the other man’s attention fixed on the dying Phantom and use their distraction to slip away.

As I’m rounding the corner, I hear her ask another favor. But I’m too far to make out exactly what she said. Just before I slide back into the hidden door, I peek out, catching a glimpse of the woman’s wide-eyed expression. She looks like she just saw a ghost—and maybe that’s true.

Maybe I don’t really exist.

I’m about to close the door when a third set of footsteps races down the hall, the sound overshadowed by a new male voice.

“Brett! Kain!”

My heart thunders in my ears as I take in the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. His eyes are a stunning, piercing blue, peeking out from shocks of long, wavy black hair—hair I would love to run my fingers through.

The handsome stranger crouches by the Phantom’s head, his expression ashen. “Is he…?”

“He… I don’t think so,” the woman—Brett?— whispers. “He… he doesn’t have much time left, though.”

“Fuck!” The boy rakes his hands through his hair, clearly distraught. That is, until he looks toward the wound on the Phantom’s leg, realizing the blood has stopped flowing. “Did you find something to help?”

Brett and the brutish man exchange glances, and I know exactly what they're thinking about. Should they tell him about me? For some reason, the thought causes my heart to stutter.

“I found… I found some kind of syringe thing in his pocket,” Brett lies. “It stopped the bleeding, but it won’t last for long.”

The boy nods, not bothering to question the coincidence. “Let’s get him out of here—come on.” The boy stoops, pulling the Phantom’s arms over his shoulders like a backpack. I take one last glance at his straining muscles before I close the door, retreating into the darkness with Sviato and Savyne.

I slide to the floor of the secret passage, closing my eyes as the walls continue to swirl and drip. I breathe through my nose in an effort to stave off the nausea—but then a burst of color spreads behind my closed lids, and I pitch to the side, the contents of my stomach emptying onto the stone floor.

Something is wrong. Something terrible has happened.

The bells are still ringing in my head, calling me, urging me to move down the passageway. Without thought, I follow, holding on to the wall for support as I stumble toward Madam’s chambers. Each step is more difficult than the last, the throbbing in my head and joints unbearable and causing me to black out several times along the way.

When I finally push open the secret door into Madam’s chambers, my vision swims with bursts of color exploding everywhere I look. I step to the center of the room, trying to make out the fuzzy shapes spread around the floor. Thick swaths of red spread from them like halos. I don’t understand—not until I crouch next to one and swirl my fingers around the warm red liquid—that the forms spread around the room are dead bodies.

And not just any dead bodies—corpses of the Table Members. Their bird masks are still strapped to their faces, but the brilliant gold hue is dimmed greatly by the blood and filth spattered across the impressive beaks.

Who… who could have done something like this?

My mind is brought back to the four strangers in the hall. If the dying man was indeed a Phantom, then there’s no doubt he was the perpetrator of this mass killing.

I gaze around the circular room, my eyes landing on each of the fallen Table Members. Instead of sadness or even regret, the only thing pulsing through my body is raw, blazing hatred. It should have been me . This should be the evidence of my vengeance spread across Madam’s floor. It should have been mine.

A shuddering gasp fills the air, and my eyes drag to a golden heap on the opposite side of the room. A thick trail of blood spreads from where she’s dragged herself away from the carnage, but there’s no doubt about it—the Madam is still alive.

I’m not exactly sure what happens next. One moment, I’m running toward the Madam, a scream of rage bellowing into the gold-hewn chamber. The next, deep fissures are exploding in my vision, and the world falls out from under me.

I blink, and I’m outside.

Confused, I look over my shoulder, shocked to find the Sanctum headquarters engulfed in a terrible fiery blaze. It heats the bare skin along my back and brings tears to my eyes as the smog infects the clear night air.

Where am I? What am I… what am I doing here?

The frozen concrete bites at the bare soles of my feet, though it warms by the second as the heat from the building creeps into the structures surrounding the blaze. I turn in a slow circle, closing my eyes as a sense of calm washes over me, an intense contrast to the shuddering, moaning skyscraper as it succumbs to the blaze.

With a deep breath, I move away from the flames into the night. But even as I move farther and farther away, I swear I can hear the fire whispering to me. Telling me to turn around and remember something—something important.

One day, I’ll realize what it was.

Though I will wish I hadn’t.