Eternal Ever After (31 page)

“Oh, but you will. I’m not paying you for that. What I’m paying you for is far more valuable. I expect when I need to make use of your more lucrative skills you’ll earn every penny of it,” Tessa said. “And you modeled today. Plastering your face on a twenty by sixty foot billboard should get Katarina’s attention. At the very least it might just piss her off enough that she’ll do something stupid.”

I sighed. “I think we can safely say she’s already pissed at me. She summed it up in two words she left on the wall of my apartment—‘die bitch.’”

Tessa flicked one of her polished fingernails. “She never was very creative.”

Victoria snickered. Tessa’s heels clicked across the marble as she left. Victoria turned toward me. “Arie called me while you were getting changed.”

“Oh?”

“He sensed a trace of her aura close to where the homeless woman was found near Lake Ida on the edge of the woods. It’s not very far from where Margaret Johnson was attacked in her home on the south side of La Grange.”

“So do you think we can track her?”

“I do. He wants to meet up with us and try scanning the area for her presence.”

I gulped. “Yeah, let’s go. We can take my car.”

If sanity was boring then my life pressed against an edge where reason and logic fell into a crazy void, and while scary as hell, it was the first time I’d really felt alive. Arie, Victoria, Tessa…all of them had lived and loved in a way that was reckless because they could. I swallowed their dark secret, knowing about the people they had killed, the people they had loved. But they were just like me, only amplified in every way. The intensity of their emotions—love, hate, and passion—could only be felt with such depth by those who have dived over the edge of sanity. They weren’t perfect, but I’d never had a family and I would never be sorry for choosing to stand on the edge as I tried to join them.

***

I drove with Victoria on South La Grange Road and pulled onto a road that had parking spots lining both sides. Arie’s Venom was parked up ahead and I pulled the BMW into an empty spot next to it. He stood leaning against his car with his mouth set into a grim line. Despite his stern expression and our purpose for being there, I couldn’t help but feel attracted to him. Victoria got out of the car and gave him a nod. I grabbed my army satchel and threw my keys into it before getting out. Arie smiled to lighten the somber mood.

“Follow me.”

Without waiting for us to acknowledge him, Arie led the way through the grass to the edge of a wooded area. A small path led through the forest where trees stood erect on either side of me like silent sentient warriors guarding some ancient secret. My imagination danced with ghosts. It wouldn’t have felt sinister if I didn’t know that someone had been killed here recently. I shivered. My feet crunched on the frost-covered ground as we came to a clearing encircled by trees. I wondered how her body had been discovered in such a secluded spot at this time of year. It would have been the perfect place to picnic, but not in the dead of winter.

Arie stopped. Bile rose in my throat at the sight of blood, dead just like the season and Katarina’s latest victim. Even though I didn’t want to look at it, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the bloodshed. I tried to hold back and swallowed my fear. It was the same sensation you felt when you witnessed a car crash. In my heart, I always hoped the driver survived, but I couldn’t help scanning the scene surrounded by flashing lights. Except this time I knew the outcome. This was no accident, and there would be no survival. She was dead. I wondered now if the homeless woman had family and if they would ever know she had died. Victoria crouched by the dried blood pooled on the frost-covered ground.

Then she turned to me and placed a hand on my arm. I think she sensed how difficult it was for me to be here. “Holly, you can help me find her.”

“But how?”

“Close your eyes and focus.”

“Usually, I have to touch someone or something. It’s not something I can control.”

“I have an idea that might help you. Do you trust me?” Victoria asked.

I looked to Arie, but his face remained an impassive glacier imprinted with centuries of wisdom. I swallowed. “Yes.”

“Give me your hand,” she said.

Before I could protest Victoria grabbed my hand and pulled me to the ground beside her. She placed my hand on a patch of the dried blood and held my hand in place with her own. I tried in vain to recoil as I gagged.

Arie stepped toward us. “Just breathe.”

“Try to relax. Close your eyes and focus. Let the visions in,” Victoria said.

I looked at her incredulously, but her eyes were already closed as she focused on some unseen force. I sighed. Following her lead, I closed my eyes. At first all I could see was a lightshow of colored dots, an entoptic phenomenon dancing behind my eyelids. Then the chimerical colors formed into shapes. The shapes darkened and I could see the homeless woman. She cried out, begging for someone to stop, but a maniacal laughter filled the clearing. I knew I had crossed over to somewhere I didn’t belong and it frightened me beyond words. Somehow, I had entered Katarina’s mind and it was overrun by frenzied thoughts that were devoid of meaning.

My fangs lengthened but they were not mine, they were hers, and I felt an exquisite pleasure, her bloodlust. I couldn’t tell which thoughts were mine and which were hers. Katarina pierced the homeless woman’s neck and I drank her blood. The confusing mesh of thoughts and feelings left me with an uncanny impression. I felt free. Free from guilt, remorse, love, or hate; and then it hit me. Katarina’s mind was a barren wasteland lacking humanity. She released the woman and blood spilled onto the ground. I looked down into her eyes as her life drained away. I felt pleased. I felt sickened.

Time bent, almost like pushing fast-forward, and then a castle loomed in front of me. No, it was not a castle. I knew this place. I knew it well. The familiar sign on the black chain link fence showed me everything I needed to know.

I opened my eyes. “I know where she is. I know exactly where she is, or at least I know where she went after killing her. We have to go.”

Arie looked down at me. “You’re certain?”

“Yes. I’ve been there a hundred times.”

Victoria looked skeptical. “The only aura I could sense was the muted energy of the homeless woman.”

“I couldn’t feel her at all. I felt…” I didn’t want to tell them what it felt like inside Katarina’s warped, demented mind. It made my skin crawl. Nausea washed over me as I remembered her crazed energy. “We have to go now. I know where to go. It’s not that far from here.”

Arie shrugged. “Why not?”

The three of us made our way across the clearing and down the path through the forest. It took us to the open grass and the parking lot beyond it. I stumbled in the grass. Arie caught my arm.

“You’re scared,” Arie said. “Don’t be. I won’t let her hurt you.”

I tried to manage a smile. “I’ll try. It’s hard to keep trying to be brave and think there’s nothing left to lose.”

Arie gave a cruel laugh. “There is always…always something left to lose.”

CHAPTER 24

Archer Avenue had been an infamous haunted highway on Chicago’s Southwest Side and a source of fascination for those who wanted to meet the dead for decades. I’d never met the dead or undead until finding out Arie was a vampire, and it didn’t fascinate me or draw me like the ghost hunters who flocked to this area. But everyone knew the story of Resurrection Mary, who’d haunted the stretch between the Oh Henry Ballroom and Resurrection Cemetery since the 1930s.

Legend claimed that she was dancing in the ballroom with her boyfriend when they got into a terrible fight. Mary stormed out, deciding to walk home on a cold winter’s night rather than spend another minute with her beau. On her walk home she was struck by a drunk driver who left her for dead. Her distraught parents buried her in the cemetery in a white ball gown and the clutch purse she had carried that night. I suppose there’s some truth to the story. Anna Marija Norkus died in 1927 in car accident on her way home from the very same ballroom.

I shivered when I saw the gates to Resurrection Cemetery. At least we weren’t going there. “Wait…you passed it. You have to turn around,” I said to Arie.

We’d taken his car and Victoria followed us in my BMW.

“And you’re sure she’s at Bethania?” Arie pulled in front of the gates to Resurrection Cemetery and turned the car around.

“I can’t promise she’s there now, but she was here. I saw her.”

It wasn’t just the story about Mary. I didn’t like this area—it felt like we were intruding. Archer Avenue hosted several very old cemeteries, and Archer Woods was used as the town’s potter’s field for many years. It’s where they buried people who were unknown or just too poor to pay for burial. St. James of the Sag Cemetery sat on top of a bluff and was consecrated in 1837. Stories of phantom monks wandering the headstones by the Red Gate Woods chanting in Latin had circulated for years.

I knew better than to question if it were true. I’d come out here for years hoping that the dead liked to remind the living when they were unwilling to let go. There was one very specific dead person I wanted to talk to, but in all these years I’d never seen a ghost. It’s funny that the only person I ever wanted to contact on the other side had never made an appearance, no matter how many times I visited her grave at Bethania Cemetery.

My caseworker wouldn’t tell me anything about my family other than saying my mother was dead. When I’d asked where she was buried she evaded my question, but when she put her arm around my shoulder ushering me out, the Sight gave me a vision that led me here. Since Rue told me my grandmother still lived around Lake Springfield, I wondered why she had buried my mother here. Unless transporting her was too much of a burden. Knowing my family’s background it did make sense, at least in part, because Bethania Cemetery wasn’t affiliated with a particular church and various religious traditions were represented amongst the dead. I imagined that if my grandmother really was a witch like Rue had told me, that their respect for various traditions might be why she’d chosen to have her buried here. But now that it was starting to get dark out, driving to where we were headed put me on edge.

Arie pulled off the road a little ways down from the cemetery and I could see the headlights of the BMW in the side mirror as Victoria parked behind us. I took a deep breath before getting out of the car. I walked over to Arie and we stood near the road as Victoria walked toward us. Victoria and Arie made eye contact over the top of my head. I hated that they could communicate telepathically with one another. They could of course communicate that way to me. I just couldn’t say a damn thing back without opening my mouth.

“Come on,” Arie said, as he walked across the street.

Victoria and I followed him even when he climbed the fence surrounding the well-kept grounds of the cemetery. We slowly walked the paths before coming to a stop beneath the canopy of a tree, but the cemetery appeared to be deserted. It was frustrating coming out here only for it to be a bust.

“There’s something I have to do while we’re here,” I said, turning toward Arie.

“What?” he asked.

“I’d like to visit my mother.” I’d been thinking about her the whole way here.

Arie reached for my hand but I pulled away. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, this is something I have to do by myself.”

Victoria arched a pale eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s prudent. We are here for Katarina.”

“I’ll be fine. Really.” I didn’t really know that with any definite certainty that I could explain but climbing the fence and walking through the cemetery, it didn’t seem like Katarina would stick around. But I didn’t know how to explain what I felt in my gut. So why even try?

“We won’t be far. We can hear you even across the cemetery if you need help,” Arie said.

It seemed like Arie understood that I needed some privacy in visiting my mother’s grave. I nodded and adjusted my army satchel before heading down the path toward the part of the cemetery where her grave was located. This path I knew far too well as I’d stumbled it in the dark more times than I could count.

I reached the heart-shaped headstone that marked her grave which read:
‘Here lies our Sara who died too soon. I wish you were here. I’d give you the stars and the moon. Loving daughter, lovely girl, where have you gone?’
It always made me tremendously sad to see the polished surface of her headstone. The first time I read the inscription on her grave I cried. There were never flowers or memorial crosses, except once a year when I left them on my birthday. It also happened to be the day she died.

I looked in both directions, knelt in front of her grave, and closed my eyes. When I opened them I placed a hand on her headstone.

“Hi, Mom.”

In the distance a crow let out a caw that echoed through the empty cemetery. I opened my locket and looked down at the picture of my mother, which I had placed on top of my baby picture once Rue had told me it was hidden behind it. Tears stung my eyes but I refused to cry. I didn’t want to feel sorry for myself.

“I wish you were here. There are a million things I want to tell you and even more that I want to ask you.”

The evening air felt brisk and I pulled my jacket around me a little tighter. I placed my hand on the cool surface of her headstone.

“What good is magic? What good is having the Sight if all the times I come here you never hear me?”

Leaves rustled as a wind blew through the branches of a nearby tree. I let my hand drop to my knee. I didn’t expect this time to be any different. Sometimes I’d come here just to talk to her. I’d never get an answer but there was still something comforting about sharing the trivial details of my day. Sometimes I could almost picture her or hear her voice. Maybe I wanted to see her so badly that I had made it up or imagined it. Unbidden tears flowed down my cheeks. Footsteps crunched across the frozen grass and I turned toward the direction of the sound. When I saw Arie and Victoria I wiped the tears off my face with my hands, rising from my crouched position on the ground. Victoria didn’t meet my eyes but gave my shoulder a squeeze before turning toward the entrance.