The Dolls (26 page)

Pascal and Peregrine begin to kiss now, sloppily and aggressively. Pascal’s hands tangle through Peregrine’s black curls and I feel weaker and weaker as their movement grows more frantic. It’s almost like my own energy is being sucked out of me and funneled into the center of the circle. I look at Caleb again, and when I see that his eyes are open now, I feel a surge of momentary hope. But my heart sinks when I realize he, too, is possessed by whatever spirit is filling this room. I look around and see that everyone else appears as blank and wide-eyed as he does. I seem to be the only one who hasn’t succumbed to the magic.

I don’t have time to think about it, though, because in that instant, Pascal lets go of Peregrine and swings in my direction. I’m frozen in place as his eyes rake me over. Then he grins, a big, sloppy grin that doesn’t look a thing like the carefully controlled Pascal.
It’s not him anymore
, I realize.
It’s the spirit who’s in him.

In his eyes, I can read evil and foreboding. His grin melts into a sneer. “Eveny Cheval,” he slurs in a deep Louisiana accent that doesn’t sound a thing like Pascal’s aristocratic drawl. Then he begins to laugh. Suddenly, the sneer vanishes from his face, and I feel a chill run through me.

“Bang bang,” he says in a flat voice, staring directly into my eyes. “You’re dead.”

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T
errified, I use the last of my strength to rip my hand out of Caleb’s grip. My arms and legs feel like they’re made of sand, but I manage to stumble away from the circle and toward the door. I land in a heap in the living room while behind me, Pascal is still cackling maniacally. I can hear him saying again and again in a singsong voice, “Eveny’s going to die! Eveny’s going to die!”

The moment I’m outside of the ceremonial room, my body feels more normal. My limbs aren’t as heavy, and I can move again. I lurch toward the front door of Peregrine’s mansion, pull it open, and land facedown on her front porch. The air outside is cool and crisp, and I drink it in hungrily as I try to gather the strength to run.

I struggle to my feet and head for the cemetery. It creeps me out to think about cutting across it in the dark of night, but it’s the quickest way home. I’m still woozy and unsteady, but Peregrine’s house doesn’t have a wall separating it from the cemetery like mine does, so I only have to climb over a waist-high picket fence. I land on my feet and plunge into the darkness between the clusters of tombs. Far away, I can see my back porch light glowing like a beacon.

As I move down Peregrine’s hill, deeper into the cemetery, the tree cover grows heavier overhead, and I begin to lose the moonlight. The farther I go, the heavier my feet feel. My brain is foggy, and I stumble over exposed roots that I can’t see in the darkness. I wince in pain as I come down hard on my left knee, slicing it open. I smell blood in the air as I struggle to my feet, and I can no longer see the light from my house. The graveyard is swallowing me whole.

I pause to catch my breath, and when I do, I hear footsteps somewhere behind me, moving fast. I stifle a scream. I can’t get Pascal’s words out of my head:
Bang bang, you’re dead
.
Eveny’s going to die.

But maybe it’s Caleb. My heart soars for a second in relief. I begin to turn toward the sound, but my heel catches on another root, and my knees buckle beneath me, betraying me. I go down hard. The last thing I’m aware of is the sharp pain of hitting the back of my head on a grainy tombstone as the world goes black.

When I wake up, my head is pounding, and I’m not sure how much time has passed. I blink into the darkness, and the first thing I realize is that I’m still in the cemetery, lying in a patch of grass.

“Hello, Eveny,” says a smooth voice just to my right, and I jump, startled. My neck aches and my head throbs anew as I turn. I scream and struggle to sit up when I realize there’s a man in a dark jacket bent over me, peering at me like I’m a specimen in a jar.

It takes me a moment to recognize him.

“Blake Montoire,” I whisper. His pale face seems to glow in the dappled moonlight, and his eyes, which had appeared to be a normal shade of brown at the party, are now a chilling shade of almost translucent ice blue. He must have been wearing contacts so that he didn’t look so freakish.

“That was just the name I used at that silly little party of yours,” he says. “Very frat-boy chic, if I do say so myself.” His accent, I realize, is vaguely French.

“I wouldn’t know,” I mutter. “So I’m guessing you’re the Main de Lumière soldier who killed the real Blake Montoire outside our gates.” My pulse is pounding, but I’m trying to appear calm.

“Main de Lumière
soldier
?” he repeats. “Heavens, no. I’m a Main de Lumière
général
. In other words, I’m in charge of the Louisiana division of our little organization. And you, Eveny Cheval, are our biggest problem.”

I begin to inch away, but he puts an ice-cold hand on my arm, and I find myself pinned to the spot.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demand, trying to sound brave.

He chuckles, and it reminds me for a moment of Pascal’s evil laughter. “So impolite,” he says. “That’s no way to greet an old friend, Eveny.”

“You’re not my friend, you murderous asshole,” I tell him. “Besides, I don’t even know your real name.”

His mirthless laughter chills me to the bone. I struggle again, but his viselike grip becomes tighter. “Of course. How terribly rude of me. I’m Aloysius Vauclain.”

“No wonder you decided on an alias,” I say under my breath.

He ignores me. “Now, before you waste any energy trying to get away or calling for help, understand this: I will not hesitate to strike down anyone who comes to your aid. Is that clear?”

I swallow hard, thinking of Caleb. I glare at Vauclain and say, “You’re powerless now anyhow. We’ve restored the protection of the gate.”

Concern flashes across his face for a split second but vanishes just as quickly, replaced by a smirk. “Oh, but you don’t know that for sure, do you?” he asks. “You fled before the ceremony was over.”

He’s right. For all I know, I disrupted the power of our circle by breaking away from it. I curse myself for being so stupid.

“Now, Eveny,” he says smoothly, releasing my arm. “I was hoping we could speak for a moment like rational adults. Do you think you can handle that?”

Instinctively, I reach for my Stone of Carrefour, but Vauclain’s hand shoots out again at lightning speed, his cold fingers wrapping around my wrist.

“Ah ah ah,” he chides. “Don’t even think about it. Using magic right now would be a very, very bad idea. I’ll have no choice but to end your life.”

“Get it over with, then,” I say. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”

He smiles. “But what’s the rush, Eveny? The small talk is my very favorite part.”

“Well, gee, don’t let me stop you.”

Vauclain laughs again, and the sound makes my blood run cold. “A sense of humor, I see. I like that. But then, I already knew you had wit. We’ve been watching you for years, and I must say, we’ve been very impressed with your aunt’s resolve not to introduce you to zandara.”

“I don’t see how that’s your concern.”

“She’s a wise woman, Eveny. She’s kept you from magic because she finds it detestable. Yet you seem not to have inherited her intelligence, for here we sit in a cemetery, just after you’ve performed a serious zandara ceremony.”

“It wasn’t some magic joyride,” I say. “It was a ceremony to fix what we screwed up last week when we opened the gates for that party. We were trying to get rid of
you
.”

He chuckles again. “How very foolish and small-minded of you to assume that taking care of me would remove the threat to your town. You must know by now that there’s someone on the inside who wishes you dead. After all, an attempt has already been made on your life.”

“Drew’s truck,” I say softly. “That wasn’t you?”

He looks offended. “I would never end your life in such an unimaginative way. Plus, of course, there are the far-too-obvious parallels with your mother’s staged suicide. But this, conversing with you in the very cemetery where your ancestors lie just before I end your life, well, it’s much more poetic. When I recall your death later, these are the moments I’ll savor.”

A chill runs through me. “So I suppose you’ve spent a lot of time savoring the details of Glory Jones’s death too.”

He laughs coldly. “I didn’t do that myself, of course. I would never get my hands dirty with someone with no real power of her own. And to be honest, it wasn’t part of the plan, but she was, how do I put it,
uncooperative
. Although I admit, the soldier who killed her has gone a bit rogue. It’s rather amusing to watch the unraveling.”

“Did one of your soldiers kill my mother too?” I ask. The words are thick and sour in my throat.

He looks surprised. “Of course not. It would be pointless to kill a queen without stabbing her through the heart,” he says, as if it’s the most logical thing in the world. “Her murder wasn’t our style at all, although we’re certainly grateful that someone else chose to do it.”

He begins to explain that stabbing a queen through the heart prevents her from taking power on to the afterlife and seeking revenge, but I tune him out, realizing that as he’s talking, his grip on my wrist is relaxing. I scan my brain for an herb I can channel if I’m able to touch my Stone of Carrefour.

The only thing that comes to mind is an image of wishing on dandelions with my mother when I was a little girl.

It’s not perfect, but it will have to do.

I silently ask Eloi Oke to open the gate, and then, just as Vauclain is concluding his explanation of how a queen’s heart is her greatest source of magic but also her greatest vulnerability, I twist my left hand away from him and punch him across the face with my right.

In the seconds it takes him to recover, I grab my Stone of Carrefour and say, “Dandelion, I draw your power. Spirits, please grant my wish and render Aloysius Vauclain incapable of following me.
Mesi, zanset
.”

He’s already grabbing for me, and I have no idea if the charm worked, but I don’t wait to find out. I begin to run back in the direction of Peregrine’s house, my head throbbing and my mouth dry with fear. I trip over a root and scramble to my feet again.

Once I’m out of the clearing, I run for my life, branches scraping my face. Their gnarled fingers reach for me in the darkness as I stumble into the tombs that rise from the soft, decaying earth. The ground rolls beneath my feet, and I can’t trust my own steps.

The only thing I do know is that Vauclain is somewhere behind me, his long jacket making him one with the black shadows of the cemetery. I can hear his footsteps in the darkness. The jagged edge of a broken tombstone appears just ahead, and I stumble, landing flat on my face. A buried rock slices into my cheek, and I feel blood as I scramble to my feet.

“Help!” I cry, hoarse with terror as the mansion on the edge of the cemetery comes into view. It glows in the blackness, but I fear I won’t make it that far.

I just have to get out of the cemetery
, I tell myself.

I struggle to my feet once again. I want to live. I have to live. I hold so many lives in my hands.

It feels like an eternity passes before I can see Peregrine’s back fence. I turn to glance behind me and as I do, I collide hard with someone warm and solid who lets out a startled “Oof!”

I scream, sure that it’s Vauclain, that he’s somehow materialized in front of me to kill me within sight of salvation.

“Please don’t!” I cry.

“Eveny?” says a deep voice, and that’s when I realize it’s not the Main de Lumière general. Relief floods through me as I look up to see Caleb’s face creased with worry.

“Caleb,” I breathe, collapsing into him.

He holds me for a moment, then pulls away, steadying me by putting his hands on my forearms. “Eveny, what is it?”

“The frat guy,” I begin, but I’m barely able to get the rest of the words out. The exhaustion I’ve been fighting for the last hour is overtaking me. “It was the Main de Lumière guy,” I finally manage. “The one from the party.”

He’s already scooping me into his arms and carrying me toward Peregrine’s house. “I thought he was going to kill me,” I say weakly, my voice muffled against the soft nub of his shirt.

“Eveny, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” Caleb’s voice is rough with emotion, and it looks like he’s about to cry. “I tried to follow you, but possession ceremonies take all the life out of you. By the time I got to the door, you were gone, and . . .”

“Caleb, if you’d been there, he could have killed you.”

We’ve reached Peregrine’s back door now, and Caleb gently sets me back on my feet. “Are you okay? Can you stand?”

I nod, but before I can say anything, he pulls me toward him, and I melt into his strong chest, already feeling safer. “How can I ever ask you to forgive me, Eveny?” he whispers into my hair.

“It’s not your fault,” I say softly, and Caleb makes a deep guttural sound in the back of his throat.

“Eveny—” he begins, but then he stops.

“What?” I whisper.

“It
is
my fault.” He looks away from me and puts his hand on Peregrine’s back door. “It’s just like I said. I didn’t know you were in trouble until it was too late.”

“But it wasn’t too late,” I say, and I pull him back toward me. “I’m here. I’m okay.” I never want him to let me go.

But then the door flies open, and the moment is over as Peregrine and Chloe stumble out. Their eyes focus unsteadily on Caleb and me, and Peregrine’s mouth opens into a little
o
.

“Eveny,” she begins, her eyes flicking uncertainly between Caleb and me. “I didn’t mean for you . . .” Her voice is slurred and she trails off.

“We’re sorry, Eveny.” Chloe’s voice is stronger and clearer, but she doesn’t sound normal either; it’s more like she’s just run a marathon and is weak and out of breath. “We didn’t expect the spirit to say what he did through Pascal,” she says. “But whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together.”