“If we’re not back by morning,” Sebastian said, “go find my dad.”
Crank and Dub nodded.
“And stay out of my room, you big softie,” Henri said, ruffling Dub’s head as he walked out.
“We’ll be back before you know it,” I said casually, and stepped onto the porch and into the darkness of the Garden District.
I had a bad feeling about this.
Twelve
THE THREE OF US APPROACHED THE SAENGER THEATRE FROM Canal Street. Music blared from the entrance, the bass thumping fast and thick and making my heart beat harder.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, looking up as we headed across the street. The giant alcove above the entrance was high, curved, and deep, framed with classical-style columns. Inside the alcove stood a tall statue of a naked woman—one of the muses, or maybe a goddess of some sort.
Someone had slipped a Mardi Gras mask over the statue’s face and draped purple, gold, and green beads around her neck, which somehow exaggerated her nakedness and made her seem more sexual, more shameful and wicked.
That statue seemed to set the mood as we entered, passing through the lobby to the auditorium. The balcony seating over our heads made it dark at first. Several rows of seats under the balcony provided the perfect place to make out or sit and gab with friends, but once we cleared the balcony, the place ballooned in size. It was like stepping into another world and time.
A huge bonfire burned in the middle of the theater, lighting the walls, which rose three stories high.
“Wow,” I whispered, feeling as though I stood in a massive courtyard surrounded by the walls of an emperor’s villa in ancient Rome.
The walls of the theater were made to resemble the exterior of temples and buildings with peaked roofs and columns. But it was all just a brilliant, beautiful illusion. What was left of the ceiling had been painted to look like the night sky, and the rest was open to the elements.
A band played on the stage, wild and extreme, with painted faces and colored hair. The loud music found its way inside me, beating through my body and making me edgy.
All the seats beyond the balcony had been removed—thousands of them, from the size and scope of the place.
Everyone danced, drank, ate, laughed, shouted, fought, kissed. The bass shook the floor. The gowns were skimpy, the masks sleek and mysterious. Everything sparkled and glowed in the firelight. It was a reckless, decadent scene, wild and carnal . . . hypnotizing.
“This way,” Sebastian said, pulling me along.
We edged our way around the fire as a guy yelled to his friends, “Watch this!” He made a motion with his hands, and a flame brightened in the bonfire, elongated, and took the vague shape of a writhing woman. Someone yelled, “Make a stripper’s pole!”
They all burst out laughing.
Henri led us through the crowd and around the fire until we came to the left side of the theater, where a small group stood in a circle.
I noticed Gabriel immediately. He wore a white shirt and dark pants, part of a suit that had no tie or jacket. The collar of his shirt was unbuttoned, and a plain gold mask hid half of his face.
He turned, and his eyes settled on me. Other heads turned, and I realized these were probably the Novem heirs and some of their friends. This little gathering was something for the older ones, the ones who ruled Presby and would one day be in charge of the city.
Gabriel stepped back from the circle, revealing one of Athena’s grotesque creatures.
I stopped. I’d seen this kind before. One had tried to pull my skull from my spine. It looked like a human, but its limbs were gnarled, like its joints had been popped and twisted. It was hunched over and its skin was gray and leathery and hairless. An old scar ran over the corner of its left eye, forcing the eyelid partially closed. Small holes for nostrils, but no real nose to speak of. No lips, nothing to hide the rows of tiny sharp teeth that were currently bared at the onlookers.
This one was thinner and way older than the ones I’d fought at the cemetery. Weaker, which might explain how the heirs had caught it.
“I knew you’d come,” Gabriel said, grinning.
Sebastian stiffened, and Henri snorted, crossing his arms over his chest.
Gabriel’s eyes swept over Sebastian to Henri. From the way he glared, I’d guess that Gabriel and Henri definitely knew each other.
“We’ve been having some fun. Why don’t you join us?”
A girl in a tight black dress and mask lifted her arms wide. A breeze blew down on us and wrapped around the creature. It screamed as some kind of invisible band tightened around it. She held it for several seconds before letting go. A guy ran into the circle with unnatural speed, a blur my eyes could hardly keep up with. Growling and screeching filled the air. Several slashes appeared on the creature’s torso before the “blur” came to rest next to Gabriel.
The thing screamed and fought again as the floor buckled and broke around its feet. Roots came up like sharp stakes and impaled its foot. The music was deafening. Behind me the fire roared and the party went on, like the torture of this being didn’t bother anyone.
They were playing, testing, seeing how their powers compared, what they could do. But it wasn’t a fair fight. It wasn’t fair at all.
I couldn’t stay still. Before I even thought it through, I stepped forward and grabbed Gabriel by the arm, squeezing hard. “Thell them to stop. This isn’t right.”
He glanced down at my hand on his arm. Slowly, he lifted his mask. His eyes were bright and his skin was flushed. He was well on his way to being drunk. He grinned, flashing elongated teeth. His eyes swept over my neck in an obvious threat.
“Try it,” I ground out.
“Oh, it wouldn’t be an attempt, sweetheart. If I went for your neck, it’d be mine, trust me.”
The creature screeched again, this time more desperate.
“Stop hurting it.”
His brows drew together. “Why? Where’s your sense of fun? That thing is the enemy. We are at war with Athena.”
“So, what, you’re going to torture it until it dies? Enemy or not, it’s wrong and you know it.”
Gabriel laughed. “Maybe you’re feeling a little empathetic toward this creature since you’re basically one and the same. Both made by Athena. Both . . . monsters.”
My anger turned white-hot and consuming, so extreme that a weird sense of calm came in its wake. I wanted to reach for my 9mm but wasn’t sure how Bloodborns or anyone here would react to that particular threat, or to being shot (if it came to that). Bloodborns stopped aging in their early twenties, when their regenerative genes took over and made them virtually immortal. Gabriel wasn’t there yet, which meant if things went crazy, a bullet might kill him.
I felt it my duty to take Gabriel down a peg or two, regardless, and show his cronies that even he had weaknesses. I reached up slowly and removed the sticks from my hair.
It fell in a wave of glossy white to my waist. As expected, Gabriel’s pupils dilated, glued to my hair.
And that’s when I spun, grabbed his shoulder, and knocked his feet out from under him. As he fell I slid behind him, wrapping my legs around his middle and my arms around his shoulders. I shoved the sharp tips of both sticks against his jugular.
His ear was pressed against my jaw. “The only monster here is you and your sick friends,” I growled. “Torturing and killing doesn’t make you strong or popular, it makes you an egomaniacal piece of shit just like Athena. You’re going to let that thing go.”
He squirmed. I had no idea what was happening outside my conversation, but I could feel the tension. Every kid here had some kind of power, and we were so ridiculously outnumbered that I was surprised Gabriel didn’t start laughing.
“Mmm,” he breathed. “Christ, your hair smells good.”
The world slowed down. My body went warm and heavy, and my thoughts became unfocused. Gabriel turned in my arms, pulled me into his lap, and leaned me back in a dip. My hair slid away from my face. He smiled down at me and chuckled.
My head fell to the side, exposing my neck to him. I saw everything as if in a dream. Henri and Sebastian fought and pushed against air; Anne Hawthorne and the other girl held their hands up, palms out, somehow preventing Henri and Sebastian from getting close.
Gabriel bent down and brushed his lips against my neck. I gasped, but it came out in slow motion. “I wonder if you taste as good as you look.”
His teeth grazed my skin and I shivered.
My heart pounded. My eyes latched on to the group. The flames from the bonfire flickered slowly over everything: the masks, the gowns, the revelry all around us.
And then I saw a dark shadow rising up behind Anne and the other girl. Athena’s minion. It hit the girl in black. Released, Sebastian and Henri rushed toward us, but the creature got to us first. It tore Gabriel away, grabbed my wrist, and yanked me up like a rag doll. The mesmerizing link between Gabriel and me broke instantly. The sharpness of my thoughts returned with all the ferocity of a sledgehammer at full swing.
I didn’t have time to collect myself before the creature was hauling ass through the crowd, me in tow and barely able to keep up.
Screams erupted as the creature shoved people aside. Henri’s shout sounded from somewhere behind me. Where the hell was Sebastian?
The creature flung students out of its path with its body and free arm. A loud explosion ripped through the theater, and a blast of hot air surged over my head. I chanced a quick glance over my shoulder to see the bonfire bursting upward as though someone had doused it with lighter fluid.
In a fraction of a second I saw Sebastian turn from the fire, eyes zeroing in on me from a ridiculous distance. Then he started after me as the creature pulled me into the lobby.
I was being dragged too fast to do anything but try to keep from falling, totally unable to reach my weapons. Pain shot through my shoulder, which was threatening to dislocate from my arm if the thing didn’t release me soon.
It wasn’t until we were outside and around the corner of the theater that the creature finally stopped and let go.
I stumbled, gasping, lungs on fire as it moved away very slowly. I grabbed the hilt of the blade, and the creature’s eyes followed my gesture. Neither one of us moved. It looked at me again, and this time I saw something different, something aware, intelligent, something . . . grateful?