House of Slide Hybrid (28 page)

I shook my head tightly as I turned to the window, refusing to speak until I was sure my voice could come out strong.

“I could be wrong, but I don’t think running away is really my thing.” I made myself look at him with a smile, the same light happy smile Snowy might use. Thinking of Snowy was good. It made me almost not notice the way he looked at me, like he was absorbing every detail, as if there were something to see about me as I was, untrained, unable to drive or heal instantaneously. He glanced away from me, back towards the road. I fiddled with my seatbelt, accidentally unclicking it without realizing what I was doing.

He reached over and clicked it back into place, his hand brushing my side, a touch that sent heat and awareness through me that had nothing to do with his Hotblooded nature.

Red darkness exploded into my vision erasing the rest of the world, the world that had seemed almost normal a moment before. His soul ached for me, reaching even as it twisted in upon itself, an imploding energy that was impossible to control, and yet, he did.

I gasped, jerked back and hit my head against the window. Either the distance or the pain as it spread through the back of my skull brought me to my senses, because there was Lewis with a frown, his eyes worried and kind, not that other thing, the consuming monster thing that had startled me so completely.

He said, “Are you…”

“Your soul is incredible,” I said, rubbing my head. “And my head hurts. I can’t run off with you until I have more control. I can’t be a danger to you and everyone around me. Your soul is so incredibly…” I searched for the right word for a moment. “Big. And your eyes are glowing again, and your mouth is so…”

“Big?” he asked, his lips curving into a smile that was a teeny bit teasing, only how could he tease when his soul was that maelstrom?

“Beautiful. I mean, nice, normal and nice. Nicely normal, something like that. I need to kiss you again. Probably not while you’re driving.”

He laughed, a nice laugh that made me feel a little more solid in the car, warm and safe instead of on the brink of a precipice.

“We’re here.”

We were downtown, turning into an underground parking lot to a familiar building, the building I’d gotten my first and last facial at not so long before.

“The day spa?” We circled down, down, rows of lights flickering until I took a deep breath. I concentrated on staying calm even as a headache started behind my eyes.

“That’s one of its faces. It’s also used as a hospital and tattoo parlor.” He finally stopped circling, coming to a stop in front of a wooden door set in the cement of the underground lot, dark, carved wood a definite contrast to the smooth, pale gray concrete. “Are you ready?”

He looked at me, his eyes warm, gentle, and sad.

I leaned over with a sudden lurch, sliding my hands around his shoulders and pressing my mouth against his, breathing in the sunshine, the sweetness and warmth, tasting the heat grow before I pulled away and threw the door open, stumbling out into the underground parking lot. If I stayed in the car I’d be clinging to his arms, begging him to take me somewhere far away.

I walked towards the door, heart thumping.

Lewis slid his arm around my waist, pulling me against him as we walked a few steps until we reached the door.

He looked down at me, questioningly, and I nodded, smiling at him with trembling lips. My mouth still burned from my stolen kiss.

He punched a code into the numbers in the box on the side of the door that blended with the cement while I tried to make out the images carved into the wood door. It looked like people and monsters caught in a tangle of vines, but were they laughing or screaming?

With a beep, the door opened and Lewis gestured me into the cool, bright hall. I took a deep breath and walked into the metal hall, my footsteps echoing into the distance with every step. I jumped when the door clanged shut behind us. The sound echoed down the hall. I stopped and looked back noticing that from this side the doors were metal, burnished steel or something that matched the rest of the hall.

“It’s like being in a giant freezer,” I muttered and shivered although it wasn’t really very cold.

“Or a safe,” he said taking my hand in his as we walked down the hall.

My footsteps echoed down the corridor however quietly I tried to walk. Lewis moved silently, like one of the uncles.

My hand tightened on his as we walked forever until we finally turned a corner and saw two guys in nondescript gray who sat in matching chairs reading newspapers. They didn’t look up until we were past them. I only saw a glint of glowing blue eyes because I’d turned my head. I faced front in time to not run into Lewis who’d stopped at a door in the hall, another wooden door that looked out of place in all that metal.

“This is the tattoo parlor,” he said nodding at the door. “If you’re ready, go right in.”

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked, wanting him to say that yes, of course he was coming, he wasn’t about to leave me alone with some strangers.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Why not? I think if I could hold your hand it wouldn’t be so bad.”

He lifted up my hand and studied it, turning it until he pressed a warm kiss to my wrist. “This is something that you must do alone. I’m sorry.”

I closed my eyes and fought down the panic that should have had the lights flickering. Biting my lip I let go of Lewis then walked through the door.

***

The artist was not Wild, but I liked the slithering vines and bright flowers of the tattoos on her bare arms. The dark haired girl who looked mid-twenties didn’t do chit chat, didn’t do anything but gesture to the white screen at the end of the room behind which was a tall wooden stool with a gray sheet folded on top. When I lifted the sheet it unfolded and I saw that it was more like a hospital gown with sleeves and a back slit from the waist to my shoulders. It was gray, soft linen that felt cold against my skin after I’d changed into it, leaving my jeans and sweater on the bench. Cold like the white tile under my feet, each tile set apart by strips of wood, metal molding around the edge of the room. It should have felt weird, but instead it was balanced, each material different, complementary and beautiful.

“On the table,” she said, her sweet voice breaking me out of my intentional focus of the flooring. Her voice was beautiful, like my dad’s in some ways. She smiled as she lifted a whirring drill, the sound making me shudder, or maybe it was the fact that she held the drill with a smile.

The small sample Lewis had described didn’t feel very little as she drilled into my skin. I closed my eyes as I lay face first on the table, my face cushioned on a pillow and my wrists secured. I could feel the blood trickle over my skin before she wiped it away. It didn’t hurt much worse than my still healing arm. I held the memory of Lewis’s last kiss close to me, remembering over and over again the feel of his hands against the back of my head, his taste, his softness and hardness and perfection, but when she did the first sample of metal, everything became white hot pain. I jerked on the table, less than if she hadn’t had her weight on me, like she’d expected my reaction. I tried to force myself to stay still even as I shuddered and took shaky breaths, ignoring the tears that soaked into the pillow.

For a moment the pain disappeared as the metal sank into my skin. I could feel it worming its way down like a live thing. When it hit bone I screamed. The pressure built as the runes pushed into me and I rejected the metal. I thrashed around on the table as the pressure grew until any movement became too hard to bear. I had a clear moment as I wondered if Devlin had seen this, me lying against the hard table while hot liquid metal was poured into the ravaged skin at the top of my spine until I felt my bones crack from the pressure.

It felt, I thought hazily as the sound of the drill became a distant buzz and the pressure crushed my lungs, my heart, my brain, that since we had gone so far underground it was the weight of the earth that crushed me, the weight of the building on top of it, the sky, universe, all coming down on me.

I’d screamed at some point, but I couldn’t tell when I’d stopped, when screaming hadn’t meant anything anymore. Then everything stopped.

I slid out of the shell lying on the metal slab, seeing the soul of the tattoo artist as she hovered over my body, her soul bright green and pink sparks that reminded me of runes, like the runes that filled the whole place, woven into every substance that made up the chamber, energy I could see even as it lay sleeping, energy that contained, strengthened, rejuvenated the subject.

Beyond the room I could see the souls of the Hotblood guards, their bright orange and gold similar, but each separate, distinctly beautiful. There were other souls, darker, more intense and compact, souls I recognized as Satan, Grim and my mother then there was Lewis. His soul was familiar to me now, but still awesome, completely mesmerizing as it called to me, pulling me through the tangle of runes built into the walls, past the Wild souls I knew so well until I could hear his soul, the sound both a full orchestra and the sighing of leaves brushing one another.

I touched him, the soul that was everything alive and dark; the feel of his soul jarred me enough that my shell, the body wherever it was opened its eyes and there was a split moment when I saw the worried face of the tattoo artist and Lewis’ soul before his soul slid against mine, wrapping me in tendrils of darkness, the heat of him a barrier, pushing me back, heat that throbbed and pulsed, a dance, a fight that took every ounce of energy for him to contain. The feel of his soul wrapped around me eclipsed every other impression until with a start, I realized that I’d been dragged back to my body.

With a jerk I was back in my shell, the pain and pressure erasing the soul sight, pressure that had me arching my back, trying to claw at my spine, to get it out, to take out the bone and skin that would crush me.

My ragged scream tore through my throat, while I pounded my knees and elbows against the table, until his hands, Lewis’s hands held me down, said things that didn’t make sense but made me feel an infinitesimally small bit better.

“She went cold,” the tattoo artist’s voice said calmly while Lewis’ hands brushed my skin, the roar of his soul filling my senses even as the feel of his fingers on the back of my neck, smoothing down my spine was a sensation that crackled through the pressure, easing it slightly.

I took a breath, the pain of the breath so intense as it filled my lungs, lungs that creaked with effort until I lost contact again with everything but the soul-sight and the hands that never left my body.

I heard my mother’s voice, slightly hysterical, Satan’s rough growl and felt Grim’s cool and calm fingers against my wrist, but my body was drifting farther away, everything but Lewis a quickly vanishing dream, then even Lewis, was gone.

I heard the sound of distant wind chimes, vague, like a conversation caught in passing that I would understand if I paid closer attention. My mind struggled to catch the meaning, and then I was awake—wishing I weren’t. The pressure was mostly gone inside my bones, but there was a new throbbing, a headache like daggers in my skull while the rest of my body felt battered, broken, flung apart then hastily gathered up and patched back together. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my feet were on backwards.

I opened my eyes, carefully squinting as my head pounded, but I saw nothing but blurry dark shapes and mysterious light patches. I closed my eyes tightly then tried again, pushing up against the soft mattress, catching my wrist against the loose sleeves of the gray tattooing gown in the process.

I gasped as the pain on my wrist pushed all the other misery into the background, bringing with it a memory that made me hold very still, wondering if it was a dream or a memory.

I hadn’t entirely woken up after I passed out at the tattoo place, but there were bits and pieces; I remembered Lewis’ hands on my arms, pulling me out of a car into darkness, shifting me so that my head was on his shoulder, my hands bound behind me as he carried me through snow that drifted down on my bare back. I’d looked up at his face as he climbed stairs as snow fell. The streetlights made him beautiful, soft looking and young. Other than the feeling of Lewis’ chest as he carried me against the beating of his heart I remembered blind pain as my voice whimpered, the sound of glass breaking and the feel of metal on my wrists before the burning turned icy cold. The bright pain had sliced through darkness, shadows and unconsciousness as it broke the barriers that kept the tattoos from sinking.

Lewis had brought me somewhere, done something to me that hurt my wrists but saved my life. He would have hated that; hurting me so I could survive tattoos.

I exhaled as I sat up, my eyes adjusting to the brightness of morning in the round room. Stained glass windows let in a cacophony of red, gold, and blue light. The elaborately carved marble bedposts looked strange with my slippery black sleeping bag. I pulled it up around my shoulders, smelling Lewis in the fabric.

I looked down at my wrists, at the vertical white lines that could have been old burns. Unless I’d been there for weeks, sleeping in this mysterious tower somewhere, Lewis had gotten me to heal very quickly.

I needed to find him. I pushed down the sleeping bag and put my legs over the side of the old mattress, catching the bedpost when my legs wobbled, but at least when I checked, my feet were pointing the right way.

Beneath my feet the pebble-like flooring, a motley of blue and green shades, didn’t seem to form a pattern. I winced as I stepped, coming down on the poky floor. I could have used some boots.

I took my time as I staggered to the curved stone door, relieved when the crystal handle turned in my hand. When I looked back, the bed centered in the room seemed surrounded by water, the tile shifting in the light so it seemed like it moved.

I had a strange sensation of sinking until I stepped into the hall, closing the surprisingly light door behind me. The hall where I found myself had cold tile floors, this time the size of my palm of green and gold which was a relief on my feet and my eyes. I walked towards the stone balustrade and looked down, four stories to the floor below. I stared at the pattern of colors on the distant floor, saw something that looked like a woman in a blue dress surrounded by red and gold wolves, but then it seemed to be dragons dancing or fighting.

“Lewis?” My voice came out a croak, and I swallowed hard. How long had it been since I’d used my voice for anything besides screaming?

I blinked when the dragons shifted into a face staring up at me in the floor, eyes with golden specks taking shape: Lewis. With a shudder I turned back to the normal tile and walked around the hall to the top of the stone spiral staircase. I didn’t know very much about engineering, but it seemed like so much stone should collapse under its own weight.

“Lewis?” I called as I stepped carefully down the long spiraling staircase. The stone steps looked patchy and strange from the light of the stained glass windows, dizzying and disorienting. I stumbled then clung to the banister, wrenching my arm in the process.

It took a very long time for me to make it to the next landing. Different colored doors surrounded the circular hall that surrounded the spiral stairs. The stairs were in the center, like the spine in my body where I now had metal imbedded. I shuddered and shook my head, clenching my fists so that my fingers wouldn’t touch what had been my neck.

I focused on the house, the lights from the stained glass above that reminded me of the gothic high school in Sanders. The skylights seemed similar only in Sanders the light wasn’t quite so bright and chaotic.

I took one step at a time as quickly as I dared until I stopped abruptly at the sculpture embedded in the wall. The bust of the creature seemed half man, half beast, part of its face human while the other seemed alien, twisting horns, flaring nostrils, a grotesque combination that seemed melted together. What was this place that Lewis had brought me?

It wasn’t the last sculpture nor the most disturbing. Some depicted monsters, others angels, but most were a mess that twisted my stomach as I looked at them. Pain. Those sculptures were of pain, different kinds of pain and all of them too much to bear.

I closed my eyes for a moment before I gripped the railing and focused right in front of me, one steady step at a time.

The steps seemed to go on forever. I practiced my breathing, but the place didn’t feel wired for electricity at all. Maybe that’s why Lewis brought me here. What had happened to my wrists?

I didn’t pause on the next landing but continued down as the stairs became slightly wider until they ended in a circular hall. I couldn’t see down three dark halls. Other than that, dozens of doors stood in all directions.

My heart beat rapidly in my chest as I stood on the bottom step, not wanting to put my cold feet on the changing mosaic.

“Lewis?” I called, as loudly as I could. My voice seemed to echo down the hall, coming back to me distantly. I thought I heard laughter, but I couldn’t be sure. I turned my head when I heard chords on a piano, the first few notes of a song I knew by heart. Moonlit Sonata shouldn’t be played in the morning, not like that.

I walked to the door where I’d heard the song, waiting for a moment with my own raspy breathing for company before I pushed open the door.

It didn’t creak and the room seemed free of dust and clutter. The floor had mosaic tile with an intricate pattern that I had to drag my eyes away. A grand piano sat in the shadows of the far end, black, monstrous, beckoning to me like the Nether’s monster.

I stared at the piano, at the intricate bench with curved legs where I could rest. I crossed the floor slowly, walking over what seemed to be a pair of claws that reached for me. I looked away from the floor. My cold bare feet made no sound on the stone.

Once I reached the piano I slid onto the padded bench, the gray velvet seat worn on the corners. I ran my fingers over the dust free piano, feeling a tremor chase up my arm.

A golden key stuck out of the keyhole, waiting for me to turn it. I frowned at the glistening gold handle. It seemed to whisper to me the sad tune of an unplayed instrument. I had to find Lewis, but maybe if I played he would find me instead. I didn’t want to explore the house, not when I was cold, tired, and aching to rip out the weight against my neck.

I turned the key and lifted the cover. The ivory and ebony looked well-worn and loved.

I ran my hands over the keys, searching for a song in the notes, but the song I found had nothing to do with Moonlight and everything to do with sunshine.

I tried a few chords, exploring the keyboard with my well-trained fingers. I closed my eyes and let the music rise from the majestic instrument. The notes filled the space as the beast responded to my slightest pressure. I played of Lewis, of innocence, of beauty and light, filling the room with swelling chords and trills that flowed through me effortlessly. A tune took shape, a song of Lewis, golden and rich, full of mystery and life.

I played until my arms and hands grew heavy, feeling full and empty at the same time until my fingers played the last chord and let the sound rise and fall into nothing.

When I heard chimes, I turned my head and seemed to step into a dream.

I must have been asleep.

The room that had been so utterly empty now nearly exploded from holding too many brightly dressed dancers who moved in time to the music. Laughter, shouts and music beat at my ears. I still sat on the bench but now beside me a large band played loud, frantic music in time to twirling, bright dresses where dancers spun across the floor. Even the men wore colors, the mixing hues more dizzying than the flashes of bright tile beneath their shoes.

They danced with wild abandon that was nothing like Wilds. They spun and shrieked their delight as they moved, somehow not crashing into each other. Their beauty came in their movement, in their energy. They were unutterably beautiful.

I smelled sandalwood before a handsome brown-haired man bowed over my hand. I could almost feel his cool breath on my skin before he pressed a kiss above my knuckles. I didn’t resist when he pulled me to my feet, so smoothly that I didn’t notice moving. My blue silk dress slid around my ankles, reminding me of cool water.

I followed the stranger into the dance, mesmerized by something in the way he looked when he moved. I couldn’t resist that energy, the vitality and life of the dance.

He pulled me into the throng, blending with the stream of chaotic dancers effortlessly. I stumbled over his feet as I moved into the wrong pattern then closed my eyes and leaned against his arms, letting the music, the strings and the brass lead me.

The sound of laughter, clinking glasses and swirling notes held me as captivated as the arms of my partner. He smiled at me and leaned forward to whisper something in my ear. I frowned as I concentrated on the words. I almost understood him but then someone spoke behind me.

“May I cut in?” The voice slashed through the music as everyone turned to stare at me and the person behind me. I saw expressions varying from fascination to hatred before I turned my head and looked up into Lewis’ eyes.

“Lewis, you aren’t dressed for a ball,” I said as I frowned at his wrinkled shirt. His unbrushed hair fell over his face in a messy tangle while his eyes burned into mine with an intensity that made me forget about everything else. For a moment the stranger, my dancing partner’s hands tightened around me, the grip on my wrist painful until Lewis caught my hand in his and pulled me against him.

I leaned against his chest, soaking in his warmth and light, until the coolness inside of me melted. I swayed in his arms, closing my eyes as the drums beat through me. I waited for him to dance, to take me across the floor with the effortless precision I’d waited for my whole life, but other than his hands tightening around my waist, he didn’t move.

I opened my eyes and saw Lewis. Everyone else had vanished.

I looked around, bewildered by the emptiness of the room, the only thing still there, the big, black piano with its open keyboard.

“I heard you play,” Lewis said, a half smile on his mouth. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. No, I do know. That song was you. I’ve never played like that. I mean, before I had a soul I played lots of music, but not like that. It’s a beautiful instrument. Where are we?” I looked down at my gray backless gown and began to shiver.

“It’s called Hallow Hall. I won it in a bad bet I made one time.”

I swallowed. “The ball I just hallucinated, what was that?” I clung to his arms as my legs wobbled.

“Lost Souls. You played them into being. I am very happy that you chose a song like that instead of something more tormented.”

“Are you?” I asked as I started to tremble, barely able to stay on my feet as he walked me towards the piano, taking his time. I didn’t want to go back to the piano, not when it gave substance to song.

“I didn’t expect you to wake up so soon. I wanted to be there when you awoke. You must be very disoriented.”

My teeth chattered in spite of his warm arm around my waist as he took me closer and closer to the piano. It didn’t want me to come. The black beast glowered and hunched deeper in the shadows as I moved closer.

“What is this place?”

“Hallow Hall used to be a place of healing. Now it’s swarming with Lost Souls awaiting their master to summon them. You should close the keyboard,” he said, eyebrows narrowing in concern as we neared the waiting beast.

“I need to touch it?”

“You opened it. For anyone else to close it would be very difficult, and we’re running low as it is.”

“Running low, on what?” I asked, squirming as I neared the piano, feeling wave after wave of discomfort.

“Jackson is still passed out, your mother and Grim left to recuperate at Slide, and me, well, I could use a long walk in the woods before I start crying.”

He smiled slightly, but I began noticing other things about him than that he wasn’t wearing a suit. His bloodshot eyes above dark circles looked haunted, his face pale and sweating. His jaw clenched and unclenched as he tried to smile, to not upset me more than I already was.