Illuminate (42 page)

Haven, you will breathe your last mortal breath on May 27.

The book slipped out of my hand for a moment and I bolted up in bed. I had lost the page, but my fast fingers found it again so that I could read that line over and over. I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t, and I looked at it until the words and the curves of those letters didn’t even look like a language I understood. I forced down the swirling nausea in my stomach, the beating of my heart against the cage of my ribs, and my mind racing to calculate the time between now and then: just three months.
Three months.
No.

I was sick of being told in the vaguest of terms that something was going to happen to me—and now
this,
this of all things—and not being told how to prevent it. I was sick of trusting in my supposed strength and I was sick of following these orders as though they would somehow amount to my becoming someone special enough to stave off all that was expected to come barreling my way. Why was this happening to me? When would this awful book give me actual answers? And again, as I read on, it anticipated my anger and arguments, which made me more angry and argumentative.

You are no doubt wondering more than ever who I am and why I am telling you this yet not giving you any tangible help. I won‘t hide myself forever but I will tell you this much now: I am not present in body there with you. I am not someone you pass in the hallways or spend your days with. I am with you only in spirit and through these words. But you and I will meet at some point, and in many ways, we already have. I will offer you the guidance you need to battle these demons, though I cannot take up arms beside you. But take heart, I know you better than anyone does. And I know you are acquiring the skills you need.

In many ways, we’ve already met?
I thought.

But for the time being, keep your head down, blend in, and give them no reason to question you. Many lives are at stake, with you as their hope. Be strong, winged one.

That was it, the last of this heinous, haunting missive. Involuntarily, my hand pushed the book off the bed, sending it crashing to the floor. That date would not leave my head though. It danced and taunted me. Above my heart, that scar flared to a fiery beast and the two on my back, usually so benign, enflamed like dry kindling.

I curled up in a ball, closing my eyes, trying to make it all disappear, burying my head in my arms. My eyes squeezed so tight I saw bursts of light. My breathing echoed in my head and ricocheted around my body. If my eyes had not been pinched shut so strongly for so long, minutes and hours marching by, I wouldn’t possibly have dozed for even a moment. But finally at some point, I felt myself drifting. My body had no choice. My aching bones and muscles and speeding mind had never cried out for rest so desperately.

But there was no peace: as soon as I slept, I dreamt. That same nightmare came to me, the members of the Outfit decaying as they grew nearer to me, trudging down that hallway. But this time, they were led by Lucian, who flickered between the withering subject of the photo and the beautiful creature I had once fallen so instantly in love with.

The next morning, I would have been comforted to have found that Neil Marlinson’s death was all over the news, that no one was buying the official statement that it had been a heart attack. But the poor man hardly got a footnote in most of the stories. Everyone was too busy writing volumes on the success of Capone and the celebration over its three-star status. One blog did manage to make greater mention of Neil than the party, and that one—by a writer whose name I recognized from our delivery yesterday—I printed along with the others and placed in the stack for Aurelia, putting it third from the top. I thought little actions like that were a fair way to quench my newfound thirst for acting on what infuriated me while still appearing to be simply doing my job.

It didn’t concern any of the hotel’s guests either, or at least, not for long. There had been some interest, but Aurelia had been so skilled at expressing regret while diffusing the whole thing in a “these things happen” and “our staff rushed to his aid and did everything right” sort of way that her spin soon made it seem not the least bit newsworthy. Instead, it crossed over into the realm of folklore, entertainment. As I walked through the lobby that morning to Aurelia’s office for our usual meeting, I was even stopped by a trio of guests queued up near Capone waiting to get in for breakfast.

“Excuse me, miss?” the woman had called over to me.

“Good morning,” I said to the group. “Can I help you?”

“Is it true?” one of her male companions piped up.

“Was it the ghost of Al Capone who killed that guy?” the other man asked, eyes wild with excitement.

“Is this place really haunted?”

It took me a moment to formulate an answer—and stifle the shudder that came as a reflex—but then I smiled. “We should be so lucky,” I said, permitting myself that bit of boldness. She just gave me a nervous grin, not understanding in the least. “Have a good day.”

As I walked away, I heard the woman say, with glee: “I knew it!”

But I had woken up determined to somehow not look shaken and fragile today, despite what I had read last night. My mind went in directions that made no sense to me now—it had been overloaded with images and information that were all so much out of its realm of understanding that it was short-circuiting and processing things in a way I couldn’t have imagined. I found myself thinking again of that painting at the Art Institute. The one that felt so familiar that it was like unlocking a memory of my own. When I had looked at it, I could feel myself as a child lying at the bottom of that hill on the side of the road. It gave me chills thinking that I could end up the same way now, my body and soul discarded, left for dead after facing down the forces at work against me here. But there was something strong, powerful in the girl in that painting. An underlying sense that she hadn’t gone gently. Nor would I. This would be a fight.

In Aurelia’s office that morning, I didn’t have the same dread. As I sat before her, handing her those printed press clippings, she didn’t impress me. I had a secret now, a deep one, and at least I knew she couldn’t really hurt me today.

As she paged through the printouts, I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Quite a lot of excitement yesterday. Both good and bad.”

“Yes, the party was quite a success, though it’s a shame about our sweet art enthusiast. These things happen, regrettably,” she said coolly and then went about her business dictating what needed to be done. My attention waned a bit as she droned on about the chocolates and notes to be sent out, some new artwork that one of the Outfit members was working on to replace the empty wall so the gallery could eventually reopen, and then the prom planning, which would now be our primary project. I had been preoccupied with all of these other swirling thoughts when something she said jerked me back into the present.

“ . . . so yours, Evanston High School, will be held on May 27. It will be the first of the five proms.”

I gasped. Hearing that date out loud, knowing its new importance to me, I felt it chiseled into my head, shattering me.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Terra, do you have a previous engagement? Does that date not work for you?” Aurelia said with pure condescension.

“No, of course not, I just mean . . . that will be here in no time.”

“Indeed. So you and the other one—”

“Lance?”

“Lance, yes, will want to get started today, speaking with your classmates who have anointed themselves in charge, getting the planning begun. Decisions need to be made relatively soon to have everything ordered and prepared.”

I just nodded, regaining my composure. Before leaving, I tested my nerve once more. There was a question that, if I didn’t know all the secrets I did, I would have had to ask. “One last thing,” I said, on my way out the door. “Just wanted to let you know I’ll continue taking photos of the Vault tonight, since you wanted to keep those current at the front—”

“NO!” she blurted out, before her usual stoicism could take over. It was the reaction I had expected and I got a thrill out of watching the blood rise to her skin. She looked like she wanted to yell and scream but, of course, she couldn’t. “I don’t think we need you to do that. It was getting too busy on that screen, so we’ve condensed the slide show.”

“Oh, okay, great,” I said, so innocently. It would be little skewerings like this that would provide light moments to what were sure to be dark days from now on.

When Lance and I reconvened in our gallery office, I filled him in on my new strategy to try to keep up appearances and he agreed. I didn’t breathe a word about that awful date though—my expiration date. Instead, I just hoped he wouldn’t notice me cringe or tremble as we began planning the prom festivities. He probably wouldn’t since we both had plenty to cringe about on that front. We agreed to each take two of the five schools, and to share the burden of our beloved Evanston High together. Lucian had given him the full packet of all the names and numbers we needed to plan these magical nights. Lance flipped through quickly and groaned.

I looked up from my writing. “What?”

“Guess who’s prom chair.”

“Please don’t make me guess when the payoff is just going to be someone who makes me want to throw up.”

“The insipid Courtney Samuels.”

“Ugh. It’s a good thing we’re both handling that one. I couldn’t take it alone.”

We both shook our heads.

We spent the rest of the day quietly studying those school files and familiarizing ourselves with the vast array of options available for prom night, from mocktails to main courses.

Before packing it in, I went to the cabinet that housed the camera—it was, indeed, gone, and all the uploaded photos had been removed from my desktop too. But most terrifying of all: back in my room, I discovered that my own camera, that old one I had brought from home, had gone missing from my backpack. I hadn’t taken it out since I’d arrived here. Someone had to have swiped it.

Lance and I, being people who appreciated finding order even amid life-threatening chaos, quickly settled into a solid, unassuming routine. Each morning we ate a breakfast of Power Bars and dry cereal stashed in our rooms (along with bottled water and Gatorade). We took our respective meetings with Aurelia and Lucian and then delivered our notes and chocolates, always replacing them with store-bought substitutes first. Before returning to the confines of the hotel, we would treat ourselves to a mammoth lunch fit for a carbo-loading marathoner while we were still out among civilization. We took turns choosing the location, though Lance seemed content to pick Giordano’s for stuffed pizza nearly every time. In the afternoon, we made our calls and sent our e-mails to our peers at the five schools whose proms we were planning, presenting them with all the necessary options for DJ’s, menus, colors, flowers, favors, and then making note of their decisions.

At night, though, our real work began. Each evening we would go running together through the tunnels below. Back and forth, racing each other and building our speed. Sometimes we would even climb up and down those wooden planks under my closet a couple of times just because we knew it was good for us. It helped that we were so relentlessly competitive with each other, just as we had been with our duels over who knew the most Chicago trivia when we first started at the hotel.

As the weeks went by, I could feel myself getting stronger, my arms and legs firming up; it would take longer for me to feel wiped out. I saw myself improving at a more rapid clip than when I had been doing this alone. Besides, it was nice to hear footsteps other than mine in those quiet corridors. The sound of our breathing and the squeak of our sneakers as we ran side by side became a most peaceful brand of white noise. And then there were the small rewards—we always ended these sessions with a snack pilfered from the pantry of our favorite bar, never taking so much that anyone would notice. We brought backpacks down to carry our savory treats back up above and we would eat quietly, madly, sitting on the floor of my room, exhausted but proud of ourselves.

When Lance and I weren’t racing through the hotel’s underbelly, we were off climbing through the winding passageways within its walls. Each night, following our tunnel-sprinting workouts, we would find our way up the ladder in search of secrets. Sometimes, there was nothing to see in Aurelia’s office. But other times, we would hit it just right, eavesdropping on another tête-à-tête with the Prince or the planning of another induction. Lance crouched on that ledge overlooking the ring of fire, transfixed as he watched one of those rituals for the first time. Afterward, we stayed up until dawn talking about what had gone on—or rather,
he
stayed up talking and I stayed up listening. I got the feeling he just needed to rehash every detail because it had been such a sensory overload: the pomp and circumstance of it all, the slicing of the fingers, the signing of those contracts and the sacrifice of one of their own, escorted back down to the underworld. It was, to be sure, an awful lot to take in. I took solace in knowing that this had all rattled him as much as it had me.

But there was even more to fear as time went on. The Outfit was expanding like mold. There were so many new souls joining the ranks that we couldn’t begin to keep them all straight. One new Outfit member in particular seemed to be recruited as a replacement for Calliope. Her name was Mirabelle and within the first two weeks of being inducted, she produced no fewer than a dozen paintings, Chicago landmarks deserted and cloaked in darkness, gardens in moonlight haunted by shadowy figures, eerily lit boats along the river. The paintings all shared an unsettling air of mystery that fit seamlessly in among the other gallery works. They went up along that wall that had once held my photos and the gallery reopened to plenty of foot traffic and local acclaim. Mirabelle was quickly trumpeted with write-ups in the
Tribune
and the local society magazines and on some well-known art blogs too. As soon as a painting would sell, she would have a new one to replace it the next day. Her productivity was both staggering and, of course, humanly impossible.