Serafina and the Black Cloak (24 page)

She’d come up against the Man in the Black Cloak before, but she was determined to make this time different. Tonight, she was going to fight—fight on her own terms and in her own
way, with tooth and claw.

She lingered near the Winter Garden, with its high glass ceiling, just outside the door into the Billiard Room, where she knew from what she’d learned at Mrs. Vanderbilt’s gathering
earlier that evening she had the best chance of setting her trap.

Suddenly, the door to the Billiard Room opened. Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Bendel, Mr. Thorne, and several other gentlemen were sitting together in the leather chairs and drinking out of odd-shaped
glasses. The smell of cigar smoke wafted into the corridor. Mr. Pratt came out of the room with a large silver tray balanced on his hand and hurried down the hall.

Serafina stepped into a shadow behind a column to avoid being seen, and there she waited, lingering on the edge of darkness. She was a china doll, and she was a wraith, in and out of the
shadows, a girl in between.

Finally, the fireside chat began to break up. Mr. Vanderbilt stood and said good night to each of his guests. Mr. Bendel shook everyone’s hand, and then retired as well. In the end, only
Mr. Thorne remained.

Serafina watched him through the open door, her heart pounding slow and heavy. He sat in the candlelit Billiard Room alone, sipping from his glass and smoking his cigar.
Come on out,
she
thought.
We have business to attend to.
But he seemed to be enjoying a moment of personal triumph. She couldn’t read his mind, but she tried to piece together what she knew about him
and imagine what he was thinking at that moment.

After losing his plantation in the war and falling to the depths of ruin, here he was now, finally back to his rightful place again, a distinguished gentleman of the highest order, a personal
friend of one of the richest men in America. All he had to do to get here was steal the souls and talents of a hundred lousy children, with their small, frail bodies and their pliable spirits.

But she wondered. Why didn’t he absorb adults as well? Were they more difficult? And now that he had achieved his position in society, why did he continue with the attacks and risk
discovery? If he’d been doing this for a long time, then why the sudden greed for young souls? What was driving him to absorb a child night after night? It had to be more than just the
pursuit of talents. It had to be a need greater than anything that had come before.

She watched Mr. Thorne as he sat on the sofa, puffing on his cigar and sipping his cognac. There was something different about him tonight. His face looked gray. The skin under his eyes was
wrinkled and flaking. His hair seemed less shiny and perfect than it did the morning in the Tapestry Gallery when she saw him for the first time, or when he arrived with the rescue party to take
Braeden back to Biltmore.

Mr. Thorne set his empty glass on the end table and stood.

Serafina’s muscles tensed. The time had come.

Like the other gentlemen, he wore a formal black jacket and tie, and she could hear the movement of his patent-leather shoes on the Billiard Room’s hardwood floor. But when she saw what he
was carrying draped over his arm, her breath caught in her throat. It was the Black Cloak. Satin and shimmering and clean—the cloak was as much in disguise as she was. To any one else, it was
but a fashionable covering. To anyone else, it might have appeared that the handsomely attired gentleman intended to take a quiet stroll on the grounds before he retired for the evening, but she
knew the truth: it wasn’t just a cloak, it was the Black Cloak, which meant he was bent on malevolent purpose. Here was her enemy. Here was the fight she’d come for. But she could feel
her whole body quaking in her gown. She was scared to death.
At least I’m going to die in a pretty dress,
she thought.

He walked out of the room and into the corridor where Serafina was hidden in the shadows. She stayed perfectly still, but then he stopped just outside the Billiard Room door. He could not see
her, but he could sense her there. He stood just a few feet away from her. Her heartbeat pounded. She had trouble controlling her breathing. He was right in front of her. All her well-laid plans
seemed foolish now. She wanted to cower away, to flee, to slink, to hide, to scream.

But she steadied herself. She forced herself quiet. And she did what for her was the most terrifying thing to do in the world: she stepped out into the open.

S
erafina stood in her dress in the candlelight of the corridor, where Mr. Thorne could see her.

His hair wasn’t as dark as she recalled, but far more silvery now, and his eyes were a striking ice-blue. He looked much older than she remembered, but he was a startlingly handsome man, a
gentleman of distinguished character, and for a moment, she was taken aback by it.

Her plan had been to pass herself off as a helpless little rich girl, a child guest of the Vanderbilts for him to prey on. Appearing to be easy prey was going to be part of her trick, the rat
bait.

It was a perfect plan. But she realized now that it wasn’t going to work.

As they looked at each other face-to-face, she could tell by his expression that, despite the beautiful gown she wore and her unusually well-combed hair, he knew exactly who she was. And it
filled her with a wave of terrible dread.

She was the girl who had escaped his clutches the night he absorbed Clara Brahms. She was the girl who attacked him in the forest the night he took the stable boy. She was the girl who skulked
through the darkness without need of a lantern, the one who could run and hide and jump and seemed to have impossibly fast reflexes. She was a girl with many talents.…

And now here she was, standing right in front of him. A prize for the taking.

It was too late to run.

When Mr. Thorne smiled, she flinched. But she stood her ground.

She was so scared that it hurt to breathe. Her corset felt like Satan’s bony hand gripping her around her chest and squeezing her tight. Her limbs were hot with the burning drive to
flee.

But she didn’t. She mustn’t. She had to stay.

She took in a long, slow, deep breath. Then she turned her back to him and slowly walked away.

She walked at what felt like a snail’s pace down the corridor, pretending as though she had no idea who he was or that her life was in danger.

Her back was to him now, so she could not see him anymore, but she could hear Mr. Thorne’s footsteps following her, getting closer and closer behind her, so close that the hairs on the
back of her neck stood on end. Unable to control her fear, her arms and hands began to tremble. His footsteps behind her pounded in her temples.

There was no doubt in her mind that they were not the footsteps of a mortal man, but of the Man in the Black Cloak. This was the Soul Stealer. This was the fiend who had taken Anastasia
Rostonova, Clara Brahms, Nolan, the pastor’s son, and countless others.

And he was right behind her.

She looked down the corridor at the small side door ahead of her.

Just a few more steps,
she thought, and she kept walking.

Three more steps…

Slowly walking.

Two more steps…

Finally, she slipped out the door in one quick movement and went out into the cold darkness of the night.

Mr. Thorne followed her outside, pulling his billowing black cloak and hood up around his head and shoulders as he entered the night.

As the snow fell gently down from the moonlit sky, she ran across the grass and ducked into the Rambles. The maze of twisting paths was a bewildering convolution of bushes and hedges with dark
shadows, blind corners, and dead ends—a place where the Man in the Black Cloak had killed before. But she knew this place, too. She knew it better than anyone.

She moved swiftly through the maze. She imagined she’d see the ghost of Anastasia Rostonova searching the paths for her little white dog.

The Man in the Black Cloak followed her down one pathway after another.

“Why are you running away from me, child?” he asked in a hideous, raspy voice.

Too frightened to answer, she just kept moving. When she looked over her shoulder to see how much of a lead she’d gained, she saw him coming up behind her. In the long, flowing black
cloak, he flew a foot off the ground, standing erect, his arms stretched out like a wraith, his huge bloodstained hands reaching to grab her.

Her breath caught in her throat so severely that she couldn’t even scream. Terrified, she sprinted forward with a burst of speed.

To stop was to die, and it was far too early to die.

Seeing a hole in the bushes, she dove through it. She left the manicured paths of the Rambles behind her and ran into the wild forest.

Tearing through the underbrush, she made quick time. She ducked behind trees. She scurried into and through thickets. She delved into the deepest shadows of the forest. She ran, and ran, and
ran, deep into the darkest night, her nemesis close on her tail.

The thickness of the forest made it difficult for her pursuer. The trees grew so close together that an adult could barely squeeze between them. The spiny thickets were so bristling with thorns
that they were nearly impenetrable. But with her smaller size and her agility, she could move easily, darting betwixt and between, scrambling below and leaping above. She moved as swift as a weasel
through the brush. The forest was her ally.

She was terrified that he’d catch her and kill her, but she didn’t want to lose him completely, either. When he fell behind or lost her trail in the snow, she slowed down to let him
catch up. Deep into the woods she led him. She had studied the way and formed a map in her mind. But even with the shortcut she planned to take, they still had miles to go.

As she ran, she kept thinking about Braeden, her pa, and the Vanderbilts. She kept thinking about what had happened to Clara, Anastasia, and Nolan. She had to defeat Mr. Thorne. She had to
kill
him. Her only chance lay ahead of her.

She was out of breath and desperately tired. Her legs ached, and her lungs felt like she was breathing through steel wool. She wasn’t sure how much farther she could run. But then she
finally saw what she’d been running for.

Gravestones.

There were hundreds of them standing in the silver light of the moon beneath the bare branches of the gnarled old winter trees.

This
was the place that terrified her, but she knew she must come.

She ran through the old cemetery. An eerie fog was rising among the twisted branches of the ancient trees and the decaying monuments of the dead.

She looked behind her. The Man in the Black Cloak flew toward her out of the mist, his bloody hands reaching for her.

Serafina ran with all her heart.

She dashed past Cloven Smith, the murdered man.

She leapt over the two sisters lying side by side.

She raced through the sixty-six Confederate soldiers.

She arrived, finally, panting and exhausted, at the small glade with the statue of the winged angel.

Serafina could hear the Man in the Black Cloak crashing through the brush behind her. She had only seconds before he arrived.

Fear flooded through her veins. She became sickeningly aware that she was bringing two great forces together and she was between them. From one direction or another, there was a good chance that
death would soon be upon her.

She ran to the edge of the moonlit glade where the old willow lay with its upturned roots. The thick trunk and heavy branches of the fallen master of the forest swirled with ghostly mist. Its
delicate leaves, somehow still growing bright green in the winter, glistened with the starlight.

Praying that the great yellow-eyed prowler of the night was out hunting, Serafina found the hole in the ground beneath the roots. She dropped down onto her hands and knees and crawled into the
mountain lion’s den.

She came face-to-face with the two spotted cubs, who stared at her with large, frightened eyes as she moved toward them.

“Where’s your momma?” she asked them.

When the cubs saw that it was her, they jumped up in relief. They moved toward her, smelling her and rubbing themselves on her body.

She crawled past the two cubs and curled into a little ball in the earthen den.

Now the trap was laid.

Just as she had done when she crawled inside the machine in Biltmore’s basement, she made herself very still and very quiet.

She steadied her lungs and her heart. She shut her eyes and concentrated, extending her senses outward into the forest.

I know you’re out there someplace, hunting your domain. Where are you? Your cubs are in danger
.…

Serafina could feel it. Out there in the darkness of the woods beyond the graveyard, the mother lion paused in her hunting. She tilted her head at the sound of two intruders in the forest.
Her
forest. Her cubs were in danger. She turned and charged back toward her den with all her speed.

The Man in the Black Cloak came into the angel’s glade and looked around him. “Where have you led me, dear child?” he said, trying to figure out which direction Serafina had
gone. He circled the stone pedestal of the moss-covered angel. “Do you think you can hide from me, little rabbit?” he asked.