Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy (5 page)

Getting into the lair was fairly simple.
All I had to do was sneak into the janitor’s closet at school, kick my way
through mops, buckets, and other gross cleaning stuff, and then press my palms
against the back wall and push. The wall would slide open, revealing the lair.
What a way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I knew going back would be no picnic,
but I didn’t have much choice.

 I stepped into the empty hallway and
listened. Soft voices and random noises drifted from different rooms. Music,
televisions, quiet conversations—not what most would expect from a monster’s
lair, but I’d learned aside from physical differences, these kids weren’t much
different from me. If I didn’t know any better, with its white-gray walls and
tiled floors, I’d think the lair was some kind of boarding school. Everyone who
lived in the lair was a kid, except for Mr. Mason, who ran the place. The kids
answered to him, and thought of him like a father. It had been designed for
orphaned Taker children whose parents had been murdered during a massacre,
years before. A savory aroma lingered in the air. They had probably just
finished having lunch—something with beef and onions.

My knees wobbled as I moved quietly down
the hallway. I was wrapped in the same nervousness I’d felt on my first day of
high school when I knew I would have no friends and everyone already hated me.

Since there was always someone manning the
control room, I headed there first. The control room had a set of monitors
where the Takers kept watch of my school as well as various places around
Everson Woods. They claimed to do it so they could keep tabs on people, but I
thought they watched mostly for entertainment purposes—they loved to make fun
of Humans.

I pushed the door in and it budged
slightly. That was better than last time when I tried and it hadn’t moved at
all. I was getting stronger, but still I couldn’t manage the heavy door the
others could open and close as if it were nothing. I knocked, taking a deep
breath, and bracing myself for who I would find on the other side. The last
person I wanted to see appeared before me.

A creature with a Human body, but the head
of a bird peered at me. Cadence, the Harpy. She wore dark blue skinny jeans, a
simple black tank, and silver flip-flops covered with sequins. “OMG. What the
hell are you doing here, Dust?” She had always hated me, but little did she
know that the name Dust didn’t bother me anymore.

My plan was to kill her with kindness.
“Hi, Cadence. I missed you, too. I’m here because I need to talk to someone.
Preferably Hollis.” Hollis was Mr. Mason’s son, so I guessed he could be
considered the second in charge. His father was grooming him to take over and
all the kids in the lair looked up to him.

Cadence rolled her large brown bird eyes
and grazed the white blond feathers on top of her head with her fingers. “Of
course you need to speak to Hollis, but he’s busy. What do you want?” She stood
planted in the doorway, apparently not thinking about letting me in. She always
seemed to get jealous whenever I mentioned Hollis. There was no need for her to
be. I wasn’t interested in him, at least not in the way she was.

I took a deep breath, summoning all the
patience I had to deal with her. “It’s about the curse. I need some advice
concerning my Gemini.”

She laughed or whatever birds do when they
mock someone. “Oh,
now
you need our help. Just a couple of months ago
you threatened to kill us. You’d send the ceiling crashing down on our heads,
you said. Remember that? Now you want us to help you?”

I shouldn’t have come, but I had no other option.
“Obviously, you’re not going to help me. I’ll wait for Hollis. I’ll even take
Wes at this point.” Wes was another creature who didn’t like me, but he was
better than Cadence. At least he could be reasoned with.

“Fine, they’re in a meeting. Wait for
them,” she said testily before slamming the door in my face.

After staring at the closed door for a few
moments, trying not to murder Cadence with my thoughts, I wandered to the game
room to kill some time until Hollis or Wes showed up. The game room was covered
in posters that looked like they were from the eighties. One advertised a show
called
Saved by the Bell,
that my sisters and I liked to watch repeats
of sometimes. There was also a television, an outdated stereo, several video game
consoles, and stacks and stacks of board games which I suspected mostly went
unused.

 Five figures clothed in black
hoodies sat around the table, engaged in a rousing game of cards. I tapped on
the doorframe. Their heads snapped toward the doorway in unison. “Cousin,” they
hissed. Weird.

I had met the Grims once before. Our first
meeting was when they informed me that we were cousins since Banshees and Grims
were both announcers and messengers of death. Cousins or not, they creeped me
out. “Hey, guys.”

I had no idea what Grims looked like
underneath their hoods. They seemed to be only a hood and long black robe with
nothing underneath. When I looked under their hoods all I saw was blackness and
wide white eyes. They bobbed and floated when they walked, making me wonder if
they had solid bodies at all. I wondered if it would be rude to ask them if I
could see underneath their robes.

If I couldn’t get help from the others,
maybe the Grims would help. We were family after all.

I pulled out an empty chair and parked
myself at the head of the table. “Maybe you guys can help me with something.”

They put their cards down and stared at
me. “Anything, Cousin.”

I couldn’t possibly tell one Grim from the
others. They even had identical voices, raspy and dragging. I could however
tell the female voices from the male ones. “I need to find my Gemini. I know
who she is, but I need to find her and . . . well, you know, get rid of her.
It’s not that I want to kill her. If I don’t, I’ll become full Wendigo.”

“We found Geminis,” said the Grim sitting
at the other end of the table.

“You did? What happened? Did you kill
them?”

One Grim shook his head. “We do not kill.
We introduce to death.”

They picked up their cards as if it were
nothing to “introduce someone to death,” but maybe that was the way I needed to
think.

A Grim placed a seven-of-diamonds face-up
in the middle of the table. “We can help you find Gemini. . . but only you can
introduce death or it will not count.”

Another Grim nodded. “We can show you
how.”

Oh, I knew how to introduce death.

A voice boomed from the doorway. “What are
you doing here?”

A massive boy with golden-tanned skin and
large black bat-like wings sprouting out of his back stood there, scowling.
Hollis Mason.

I swallowed my fear. Angry Hollis could be
very intimidating. He could probably snap me in two like a twig if he wanted.
“Hey, Hollis.”

He ignored me and looked around the table.
“In case you’ve forgotten, Grims, Arden here swore us all off. You shouldn’t be
helping her do anything.”

“Arden is cousin,” said one of the Grims
defiantly. They went back to their game.

Hollis rolled his eyes. He seemed even
bigger than he had just a couple of months ago. “Cadence told me why you were
here.” Of course she had. “If you’ve come here for help, you might as well
leave now. You’ve severed your ties with us.”

“Hollis, please, just hear me out. I’m
sorry about what happened before, but just listen to me.”

He turned on his heels and left the room.
I followed him as he stormed toward the control room, trying to think of
something to say to get him to listen.

Hollis pushed the door open easily, as if
it were a piece of paper. “You shouldn’t take advantage of the Grims because
you’re their cousin.” He used air quotes when he said the word cousin.

“I’m not taking advantage of them,” I
argued as I hurried into the room behind Hollis before the door shut.

Hollis was an Aswang and Aswangs weren’t
anything to play around with. On paper, they sounded absolutely horrible.
Aswangs were flying creatures who ate children and dead bodies. Hollis swore
he’d never eaten a child, although he did eat dead bodies when he had to.
Still, beautiful chiseled face, rippling muscles, and sun-kissed skin aside,
Hollis was a frightful looking creature. He was the one who had kidnapped me
and brought me to the lair months ago before I found out what I really was.

With the body of a grown man who worked
out consistently, Hollis towering over me was scary.

In the control room, Wes was hunched over a
monitor with Cadence staring at something. Wes was the most frightening
creature I’d seen in the lair. A Vetala. He was covered in gray reptilian skin
with red veins running all over his body, giving him the appearance of a road
map. He had black stringy hair that came down to his shoulders, fangs too big
for his mouth, and a long, pointed tail protruding from his back side. Vetalas
had the ability to read and control minds, drive people insane, and to bring
people back from the dead. Wes was young and still learning, so he hadn’t
mastered all those things yet. In my opinion, their skills were more
frightening than their looks.

He and Hollis were best friends, and from
where I stood, Wes almost idolized Hollis.

“Well, look what the Manticore dragged
in,” Wes said when he saw me.

I rolled my eyes. “I know you guys are
determined to give me a hard time, and I get it, but we have important things
to talk about.”

Hollis slapped Wes on his shoulder. “You
hear that, Wes?
We
have important things to talk about.”

Wes laughed mockingly then glared at me.
“What are you doing in our home, traitor?” Then he said to Hollis, “Really, she
should be banned.”

They were going to make this harder than
it needed to be and I was going to have to do some serious groveling. “I need
help finding my Gemini.”

It was Cadence’s turn to laugh. “That’s
kind of a big ask, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Wes replied. “Please tell
me. Why on earth would we help you?”

I took a deep breath and prepared to
swallow my pride. “I need my strength to squash the Wendigo part of me. Don’t
you want the Banshee part of me to be stronger? I thought that would benefit
all of us.”

Hollis narrowed his eyes at me. “What
benefit is a Banshee to us if she doesn’t want to learn how to be a Banshee or
if she won’t do what we say?”

Because you only want to use me.
But
I pushed that thought aside, remembering that Wes might be able to read it. “I
want to learn. Listen, I’m not sorry about what happened the last time. It
wouldn’t have been right to kill Lacey. I won’t kill any innocent person just
because, but I’m willing to do what I have to do if the need arises.”

Wes looked at Cadence and smirked. “Yeah,
we know.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means,” Cadence said, “we saw what you
did to that girl. The one who was supposed to be your friend.”

The mention of Bailey made my stomach
twist in knots. “That—that was self-defense. If you were watching, you would
know that she was trying to kill me. Like I said, I’ll do what I have to do.”

Cadence clucked her tongue and looked me
up and down. “You think you’re so much better than us, but you’re no different.
You’ve taken a life. A Taker, is a Taker, is a Taker.”

I swallowed the guilt that rose in me. Who
was she to judge? She wasn’t there. I had saved a lot of people by killing
Bailey. “I did what I had to do,” I repeated, but it was barely a whisper.

Hollis’ phone chirped. He removed it from
his pocket and glanced at the screen. “My father needs me for something. I’ll see
you guys later.” It was painfully obvious that he was only addressing Wes and
Cadence because he wouldn’t even look at me.

I followed him from the room since Cadence
and Wes were lost causes. If I could reason with anyone, it would be Hollis.
When he wasn’t angry, he could be understanding.

“Hollis, please,” I said once we were in
the hallway. He wouldn’t turn to face me, but at least he stopped walking. “I
know you guys are angry with me, but this is life or death here. I want to be
beneficial to the Takers and I don’t want to be thrown into the sixth tunnel.
What good would I be to anyone there? I get that you’re pissed, but put that
aside. Think about the bigger picture.”

Hollis turned to me and his face softened.
“Let me think about it. But if I do help you, you’re going to have to be all
in. No backing out.”

All in. No backing out.
I nodded. “Of course.”

He turned to head to his father’s office
but I stopped him again. “Hey, do you happen to know where Violet is?”

Hollis arched his eyebrows as if trying to
place the name. “Violet?”

“You know. The one you guys call Cuddle
Bug.” I rolled my eyes because Violet hated that name.

“Oh. If she’s not in the game room, then
she’s either outside or in the school. Somewhere where she’s not supposed to
be.”