Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 02 - Dark Carnival (21 page)

Not long after our visit
on the swing, I said goodnight to Lucas, but, much to my surprise, instead of
leaving, he went to his truck and brought back two overnight bags.  He informed
me that he and Jonathan were spending the night because we were all going to
the Courier de Mardi Gras early the next morning.  Clothilde had invited him
and, apparently had spoken for me by saying I’d drag myself out of bed at five
o’clock on a Saturday morning to tailgate a bunch of drunk men on horseback
chasing chickens.

Later that night, when the house
was quiet and the kids were in bed, I crawled into my own bed and went to turn
off the lamp, but I reached for my phone instead.  Before I realized what I was
doing, I had pulled up Noah’s number.  My thumb lingered over the call button
for a few seconds.  I thought about that kiss again.  Truthfully, I had thought
about it all night.

There was a knock on my door.  I
put the phone down on the nightstand.  “Come in,” I said.

Lucas entered, smiling.  “You
excited for tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I said, faking a smile,
which he saw right through.  He laughed.

“You don’t have to come if you
don’t want to.  I can meet up with you and Lyla later for a parade or
something.”

“That would be nice,” I said,
relieved.

He took a seat down next to me on
the edge of my bed.  He looked like he wanted to ask me something but didn’t
know how to go about doing it.  Finally he said, “You seemed distant tonight.  Everything
okay?”

What could I tell him?  I couldn’t
tell him about Noah’s impromptu actions in the outdoor kitchen.  And I still
wasn’t ready to talk about Miles.  I smiled at him like I did on the swing and
said, “I’m fine.  Thanks for being a good friend, though.”

He frowned slightly at that, but then
nodded with a defeated smile.  “Friend,” he murmured.

I patted his hand, and then he held
my hand in his, our eyes locking on each other.  He wanted to kiss me.  Lucas,
always the gentleman, would not take any liberties with me unless he knew good
and well I wanted him to.  He kissed me once before, last summer when I needed
someone to help me deal with the terrifying strangeness going on in my life
when we were facing Savoy.  We had slept in my bed, him holding me and nothing
else, but nothing else needed.  And I loved that about him.

“You have to get up really early,”
I reminded him sweetly.

He smiled at me for a moment
longer, not taking his eyes away from me.  For a painful moment, I wanted him.  I
felt my hand squeeze his a little, and he picked up on that.  He started to
lean in to me and I almost let him.  For a moment I wanted him to go for it,
just as Noah had, but I had to remind myself that they were not the same person
at all.

Before I got carried away, I took a
deep breath and took my hand away.  He looked hurt for a second, but nodded his
understanding.  He got up, smiling sadly and said, “Night, Leigh-Leigh.”

“Night.”

After I had turned off
the little lamp by my bed and long drifted off to sleep, I was jolted awake by
the sound of my phone vibrating on the nightstand.  I opened my eyes to see
half my room bathed in the soft, blue glow from the phone’s screen.  I reached
out for it and held it up, squinting from the glare.  When my eyes adjusted, I
saw the caller ID showed an unknown number.  It was almost three o’clock.  I
hesitated for a few moments before answering it, thinking it was a wrong number
and how I didn’t want to get into an argument with some drunken moron at this
hour.

“Hello?” I said, putting
the phone up to my ear.

There was no answer.

“Hello?” I repeated.  I
waited a moment longer before hanging up.  I put my phone back on the
nightstand and turned over on my side, shutting my eyes.

A few seconds later the
phone went off again.  I pulled the covers over my head to block the light and
the noise of the vibration.  It worked against the light, but I could still
hear it rattling.  I waited for it to go to voice mail, but it must have rung
about fifteen times.

Aggravated, I threw the
covers off my head and grabbed the phone.  Again, no number showed up on the
caller ID.

I pressed the receive
button.  “Hello?!” I snapped.  I waited for a response.  I was about to go off
on the person on the other end of the line when I heard the faintest voice
coming from very far away.

“Leigh?  Leigh Benoit?”
it said.  It was so distant and slight, almost child-like.  I couldn’t tell if
it was male or female.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“You have to go back.”  There
was a sense of urgency, almost desperation, in its voice.

“Go back where?  Who is this?”

“To New Orleans.  Please
go back!”

“Who the hell is this?!”
I said, trying not to shout so I wouldn’t wake up Lyla in the next room.

“You need to get back
both masks.  Please, Leigh! Help us!  We need you …”  The voice floated farther
and farther away.

“Hello?” I said,
straining to hear, but the ethereal voice was no more.  I shut off the phone
and closed my eyes, trying to make sense of what I just heard.  I didn’t get
very far before sleep overtook me again.

About an hour later, I
woke up to use the bathroom.  Still half asleep, I stumbled to the bathroom
that was in between Lyla’s room and mine, turned on the light, wincing from the
sudden brightness, and closed the door.  As I was washing my hands a moment
later, I remembered the strange call.  I went back to my bedroom, sat on the
bed, leaned against the headboard and grabbed my phone.  I brought up the
recent call list.  It was empty.  Not one call made to my phone since yesterday
afternoon since those calls from Noah I had avoided.

I frowned, trying to
remember the conversation with the mysterious voice but couldn’t.  All I
remembered was trying to hear someone tell me something and how desperate they
sounded.  
Was it a dream?  Probably my conscience trying to make me feel bad
about leaving them high and dry in New Orleans.

I stopped myself.  I
would
not
be made to feel guilty for leaving, not after the way I was
treated.

After all that Cee
Cee’s done for you, that’s how you repay her.  
But that voice wasn’t mine,
it was Clothilde’s.  Even though she hadn’t spoken those words to me, I could
tell that’s what she was thinking.

But that voice in my
dream …

I tried again to remember
what was said, but to no avail.  Frowning again, I shut my phone and put it
back on the nightstand, and crawled back under the covers, resolving to spend
another wonderful day with Lyla.  It was Saturday and there would be Mardi Gras
parades in Lafayette.

As I turned over, I
realized I had left on the bathroom light.  I groaned, too comfortable to move,
but Clothilde’s voice once again popped into my head.  
Quit wasting
electricity!  
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered to the ornery maternal voice in my
head.

I got out of bed once
more and went back to the bathroom.  As I reached my hand across the threshold
to flick the switch on the wall, a cold hand grabbed me.  I screamed, but my
voice was drowned out as I was pulled into the bathroom, and the door shut
behind me.

Everything happened so
quickly, but my mind registered Sam in front of me, his blonde hair hanging
around his face, his chest bare, indigo wings folded at his sides.  He squeezed
my throat so I couldn’t scream again.  I thrashed around, trying to kick him,
but he was too strong for me.  In one quick swoop, he raised his hand to my
face, and I felt his finger marking something on my forehead.  In the corner of
my eye, I saw our reflections in the mirror; he had just put an upside down
cross on my forehead.

Just as I was remembering
Cee Cee’s words about belladonna dust, I started to feel myself weaken from the
lack of oxygen.  Then I started to feel the effects of the poison once more;
the shivering, the feeling of falling.

Sam took his hand off my
throat as I started to fall to the floor.  He cradled me with one arm and, just
as I vaguely heard rushing footsteps and Lucas’ and, somehow Noah’s, voices
from very far away, I saw a now blurred image of Sam with a handful of dust
which he blew into my face.

The rest was darkness for a
very, very long time.

A whirl of color and light, the deafening roar
of music and laughter, cold air bathing my skin.  I was high off the ground,
standing on something that was propelling me forward over a sea of people who
cheered me on, yelling at me to throw beads to them.  I looked down at myself,
swathed in a regal golden dress.  I smiled at the cheering crowd, elated with
the wind in my hair and dazzled by the light catching the colorful beads.  There
were masked men in front of me, tossing Mardi Gras beads as well as small
sheets of paper.  One of the sheets flew out into the air, caught in a gust of
wind, and floated down to my feet.  I looked down and saw strange symbols:

They looked very familiar, but I couldn’t place
them right away.  Beneath the symbols were the words:

Power,
love, wealth, lust…

Everything
you’ve ever dreamed.

Join
us

I craned my neck around to see a pair of
thrones, upon which sat a king and a queen.  The masked queen sat, staring
straight ahead.  Behind her was a nobleman with a black eye mask.  Beside the
queen, in his matching throne, was a king.  The royal pair wore
medieval-inspired attire that was mostly black with gold trim and long, black
capes.  The queen’s skin was covered in shimmering gold dust, and they each
wore a matching half-faced mask, gold with black accents.

I saw the queen’s long,
black hair that cascaded around her long, golden neck.  Around it, a Tiger’s
Eye pendant hanging from a silver chain.
 
I then noticed the nobleman
standing behind her.  Around his neck hung an alligator tooth attached to a
black silk cord.  I studied the king and could barely make out ringlets of
blonde hair curling around the collar of his cape.

Ruby, Papa Mulogo, and
Sam, who was supposed to be dead.  What did this all mean?  What was my
subconscious trying to tell me?

I felt myself starting
to wake up, to come back to reality, but the scene before me was not
disappearing.  I felt dizzy, unable to focus, wanting to see through the
illusion, but unable to.  The noise of the crowd and the chill in the air were
too much.  I sat down on the Mardi Gras float and put my head between my knees.

I felt a tap on my
shoulder.  I turned around to see Papa Mulogo, peering at me through his mask.  He
laughed and then reached into a small bag at his side, pulled out a handful of belladonna
dust and blew it into my face, just as Sam had done so very long ago, it
seemed, in my bathroom at Clothilde’s.  I coughed once and passed out, the
darkness once again finding me.

When I opened my eyes
again, I was no longer on a Mardi Gras float, though I wished I had been.  Instead
of a crowded New Orleans street, I saw the charred remains of the inside of a
ball room.  It faintly smelled of burnt flesh, and it sickened me.  I found
myself lying on an antique chaise that was singed in several places.  I was
still wearing the gold dress I wore on the float, and that’s when I realized it
wasn’t a dream.

I looked around the room
and saw a heavily tarnished golden angel fountain in the middle.  I was on the
main floor of what was left of the Grigori House.  The beautiful golden columns
that stood in the corners of the ballroom were now in partial ruins.  The
intricate stained glass ceiling with the gold lattice was now stained black
from smoke.  The Italian marble floor was broken where one of the columns had
fallen.

I heard footsteps
approaching from behind.  I turned to see Sam coming toward me, but he was no
longer wearing the mask.  His chest was bare, his indigo wings folded at his
sides.  I started to get up, a wave of dizziness rushing over me.  I collapsed
back onto the chaise.

Sam softly laughed as he
came up to me.  He dropped to one knee so that he was level with me, his icy
blue eyes penetrating mine.  “Are you afraid?

I closed my eyes and
tried to steady myself.  “Yes,” I breathed.

“Good girl.”

I felt him place his arms
under me and lift me off the chaise.  I opened my eyes and struggled, but he
was too strong as he carried me out the ballroom and toward the kitchen.

“Let me go!” I screamed.

He set me down in the
hallway and threw me up against the wall, squeezing my jaw with one hand.  “Do
you see what you and your kind did to my home?” he growled.  He jerked my head
left and right.  “That part turned out better than I could have imagined.  BUT
NOT WHAT YOU DID TO MY DAUGHTER!” he roared, throwing me against the wall again
and extending his indigo wings.

“What do mean?”

“I knew you were coming.  I
knew you’d try to get that mask back.  How do you think it was so easy for you
to kill them?”

I stared at him, my jaw
throbbing, my shoulders sore, but I couldn’t understand what he meant when he
said he wanted his people killed.  And how did he know we were coming?  But
then I remembered Ruby on the float with Mulogo.

“Ruby told you?” I said,
angry.

“She trusted her friend
Mulogo.  That was her mistake.  But we still have use for her.  She will make
an excellent queen to rule beside me.”

“Why did Mulogo want to
help you?”

“Power is a very
attractive thing, isn’t it?  I guaranteed him a high place in my army.”

It was beginning to make
sense.  The strange symbols I saw near Papa Mulogo’s, the belladonna dust, the
zombie …

“Why would you want your
kind dead?” I asked, uselessly trying to struggle out from his strong grasp.

“I was going to make a
better ruler, but they couldn’t see it.  I did all the work, bringing us back,
practically resurrecting us from the dead.  We were scattered all over the
world.  Many more are still out there, alone, waiting for the day when we would
unite again and take what’s ours.  I found the few I could, knowing that we
could start anew and find the others together.  But my hard work wasn’t good
enough for them.  They wanted a bigger, stronger leader.”

“So you killed them?” I
said, gritting my teeth against the pain in my jaw.

“
You
killed them.  But
in doing so, you also took the one thing that meant the most to me, more than
the power I craved.”  One angry, hate-filled tear slowly fell from his eye.  “And
for that, you will all come to know the pain and agony of what awaits you.”

“And what’s that?”

He smiled at me and then
released his grip from my jaw.  He dragged me into the kitchen, pulling me by
the arm.  The dark kitchen was bathed in an orange glow shining through the
windows.  I could see a large fire in the distance with a dozen or so
silhouettes around it, huddled together under the night sky.

Sam pushed me to the
window, holding my head in between his strong hands.  “Do you know what’s out
there?”  He didn’t wait for me to answer.  “The children of my fallen comrades.
 They are awaiting their revenge on the ones who killed their fathers.  Once I
deliver you, they will want me as their ruler.  Then we will build up our
legion.”

“Why would they want you?
 You’re responsible for the deaths of their fathers.”

“Who will they believe?  I’ve
already told them the murderers are here.”

“Who else is here besides
Ruby and me?”

“Your friend who owns the
Voodoo store.”

“Cee Cee doesn’t have
anything to do with this!  She wasn’t even there!”

“She’s one of you!  That’s
all they care about.  And soon, if I’m right, the one who tried to kill me when
we fell into the lake together will be here.  He’s one of us.”

“How do you know he’s one
of you?”

“Because I can smell him.
 He has the blood of the Grigori running through his veins.”

“He’s nothing like you—”

“He’s
exactly
like
me!”  He turned me around to face him.  “He tries to suppress it.  It’s a shame
that they’re going to kill him tonight if he shows up, and I’m sure he will.  I
didn’t make it too difficult for him to see me leaving with you.”

“How could he see?  He
wasn’t there?”

“Oh, he was.  Very
concerned about you, so he stayed in his car outside your home.  Too bad he
made the foolish choice to join your kind.  With his gift, he could have been
very powerful in helping us.”

He paused for a
thoughtful moment.  “I remember when you and I discussed
your
gift.  You
refer to us as The Dark Ones, is that right?  A pity you see it that way.  You
have no idea how much light we can shed on this planet.”

“You mean how much blood
you can shed.”

He nodded toward the fire
and the surrounding silhouettes.  “They want revenge.  They crave bloodlust.  I
could spare you, make them see how your gift would help us.”  He leaned in
closer to me and caressed my cheek, his wings enveloping me, almost crushing
me.  “You understood when I spoke to you in the store.  I could feel you wanting
to be one of us, to have ultimate power.  I could trade you for Ruby.  You
would make a far better queen.”  He smiled darkly at me, his mouth inches from
mine.  “You could help me make a new child, a glorious specimen of your talents
and mine.”

“No!” I yelled at him.

He backed off, his smile
disappearing.  “Have it your way.”  He seized my shoulders and forced me out
the kitchen door and into the back yard.  He then scooped me up and flew me to
the large fire where the Nephilim awaited.  He set me down, and one Nephyl with
silver wings grabbed hold of me, preventing me from moving.

Sam hovered a few feet
above me.  I looked around the fire and saw Cee Cee passed out on the grass
beside a couple of Nephyls.  Her hands were tied.  Ruby was to my left, no longer
wearing the second mask.  She was staring blankly at the fire, lost in a
trance.  No doubt she was still consumed with Bella Donna dust and whatever
other dark magic Papa Mulogo had her under.  I looked to my right and saw him
there, no longer wearing his mask, either.  He smiled at me and nodded.  I spat
at him, but he just laughed.

“Children!” bellowed Sam.
 “I thank you for heeding my request to meet me here tonight, beside this fire
which marks the very spot where my daughter was so brutally killed!”  He
gestured toward Cee Cee and me.  “Behold these criminals!  They are the ones
who took the life of my beautiful Arcelia!  They are the ones who murdered your
fathers!”

The Nephilim roared with
anger and shouts of hatred.  Sam was right; they had bloodlust, and they had
their dark eyes set upon me.

“No!” I shouted.  “It was
him!  He set them up to die!  He wanted to be in power!”

“She
lies
!”
snarled Sam.

“It’s the truth!  He
wanted them all dead!”

I could sense confusion
from the Nephilim.  Sam could too.  He swooped down and smacked me hard.  My
head lolled to the side.  I would have gone down if the silver-winged Nephyl
hadn’t been holding me.

Mulogo was wearing some
kind of ceremonial robe.  He reached into the folds and produced a mask; black,
full-faced with gold accents, antique-looking …
Masque de L’âme Noire–Mask
of the Black Soul.
 He handed it to Sam and then he pulled another similar
mask from his robe.  He held it in position over Ruby’s face.  The voice from
last night came back to me.  It had told me I had to help get back both masks.

“Tonight, we punish those
who have punished us!” cried Sam to the seething Nephilim.  He looked at the
silver-winged Nephyl and nodded to him.  He hoisted me up into the air, and I
screamed.

Sam placed the mask on
his face.  It seemed all was too quiet for a moment; the great crackling of the
fire and the breathing of the Nephyl below me were all I heard.  Slowly, a sort
of transparent mist began to seep from behind the mask and then swirled out to
the fire, causing the flames to lick higher.  Sam’s body tensed and his wings
fanned out.  He seemed to be in pain for a moment, his chest heaving rapidly. 
He let out a guttural groan that turned into a menacing laugh.  The Nephilim
watched him intently, and some passed their eyes over me briefly before
returning their gaze to Sam.

The mist evaporated.  Sam
looked around the fire, resting his eyes on Mulogo who still held the mask
before Ruby.  She continued to stare into the fire, unflinching.

“And now … my queen.”

Mulogo started to put the
mask on Ruby and, at the same time, Sam nodded to the Nephyl who was holding
me.  Just as he was about to throw me into the fire, I saw something in the
corner of my eye.  It was very fast and running toward us.  In a matter of a
second, Noah jumped into the air, grabbed me and brought me down with him.  The
Nephyls didn’t know what was going on, but I saw Sam smiling.

Noah ripped the mask from
Sam’s face and snatched the other one from Mulogo’s hand.  He picked me up and
dashed to the abandoned stables about thirty yards away.  All at once, the Nephyls
started for Noah and me.  Sam remained hovering near the fire with Ruby and
Mulogo at his side.