Hemlock Veils (38 page)

He turned, where a man in a dark overcoat held a pistol against the woman in black, her back against the bricks and the tip of the barrel over her heart. Henry panicked inside as the woman in black began to cry, but his feet were glued to the ground, his consciousness elsewhere. He wondered if the sight of him and the temptress had been veiled to the mugger, because the gunman seemed to not notice them. Or perhaps the
gunman
was a figment of his own imagination.

The woman in black sobbed, begging for her life, convincing the man with the gun that she had no money on her. It was the scene of a film, surely, rather than a reality only feet away.

“Me…” the temptress said, getting Henry’s attention. She smiled crookedly and he knew that’s what she was: a temptress. “…or her?” She tilted her head, studying her psychological experiment, and her arousing power overcame him again, taking his breath. He wanted to save the woman in black—the one from the scene that couldn’t be real—but he wanted the temptress more. He wanted to know what it would be like to be under her power, for it to overtake him. He wanted it, just one time.

The woman pled for her life.

The mugger yelled that he wanted everything she had.

But all Henry could do was breathe into the mouth of the temptress with flowing red hair. “You,” he said again, his every extremity in a weightless tremble. The most carnal desire trapped him, and though he tried to fight it, in the back of his awareness he knew he didn’t try hard enough. Because he didn’t
want
to fight it.

Her smile stretched, and her breath grew cool and peculiarly moist. “Very well, Henry Clayton.”

A startling shot cracked through the air, jerking him from whatever spell she’d put over him, and his eyes shot to the man with the gun. A faint trace of smoke lifted from the barrel and the woman in black now lay on the ground, blood pooling beneath her on the cement like a hole slowly widening in the earth. And for the first time, he realized it
was
real—the strange veil that had made it as a film scene, gone.

“No,” he breathed. Every sense of desire that had been forced upon him was gone, leaving the harshest of sicknesses in his gut. The mugger’s eyes found Henry’s then, expanding as he noticed him for the first time.

Before he could run, Henry was on him, fighting him to the ground, and Henry’s knuckles slid over the man’s facial sweat as he slugged him. When a well-dressed group of bystanders laughed their way by—probably leaving the concert—Henry called to them, demanding they get help. They scurried away in a panic, and after he hit the man over the head with the grip of his gun, the man’s eyes closed in unconsciousness and Henry crawled to the black-haired woman.

But she was already dead, her eyes open and mouth hanging as though she’d been frozen.
How could you let this happen?
her expression said.

This couldn’t be real. Could it?

He shook her, yelling for her to wake up. It was because of him she never would; really, that gun may as well have been in his own hand.

He felt the temptress’s destructive air behind him.

He looked up at her, at the way she smiled, and a breeze cooled the wetness around his eyes. “You…” he said. “What did you do to me? I never would have…”

“I didn’t do anything, Henry. It was all you, all
your
choices that led to this. Because of you, an innocent soul is dead.”

He shook his head, even though she was right.

“For that reason, you will forever be cursed. From here on out, the nighttime will show everyone what you really are.” She grew angry, her gleaming teeth now bared and her raspy voice a gravelly roar. “A monster, Henry Clayton, that’s what you will become.”

A mass of footsteps made him turn. Two police officers, surrounded by a crowd eager to see the destruction, ran toward them: vultures with mink shawls, silk pocket squares, and suede top hats.

“What happened?” one of the officers barked.

“He…shot her,” Henry said, his voice weak and unstable. He stood, backing up and letting them surround the dead woman in Chanel No. 5 and the unconscious mugger, the silver gun at his side. He watched them, then watched the blood on his hands.

“A monster,” a breath from behind said, and he twisted. She smiled again.

Words escaped him, since he didn’t know what she meant.

“Go home,” she commanded. “It will begin soon.”

“What will begin?”

She closed in on him, staring into his eyes without her neck even slightly craned. She was either very tall—too tall for a normal woman—or her feet hovered above the ground. Neither seemed possible. None of this did. This time he felt no desire for her cool breath—only repulsion. “The pain,” she said in answer to his question. “The excruciating pain that will accompany you the rest of your life. The rest of eternity.” Her laugh made him recoil, and he didn’t understand.

“Every curse can be broken, Monster. But you will not break yours.”

“A curse…?”

She nodded. “The only way is through a woman. A woman who is a
true
beauty. To get back the life you once had, you must sacrifice the life of one who is beautiful. Just as this started with a death, it must end with a death.”

He didn’t understand, stepping away from her.

“As in you must kill, Monster. Sacrifice a beauty—her life for yours—and you may have all your pathetic life once held.”

“What do you mean? I could never kill…”

She smiled with pity. “That’s why it’s perfect.” Her grin became a scowl as she grew nearer still. “But just know that if life gets too long and miserable, and you do decide to be the killing kind of monster, I will be there. I
will
stop you.”

Unable to respond, unable to let himself believe her, he turned and walked away, down Park Avenue with his bloody hands in his pockets because he had no choice.

“You’re mine, Henry,” she said from behind. His body began to buzz from deep within, making him sweat, so he walked faster. Perhaps when Arne, his young and dearest friend, found him, reality would ground Henry once again, make him realize this was all just a nightmare.

She laughed from behind again. He wondered if it was just his imagination or if her voice did indeed sound like a snake’s. “You’ll always be mine.”
 

Chapter 23

Crisp air brushed Henry’s skin—the kind that came from reality, not a dream. He groaned, moving his stiff neck, but couldn’t open his eyes. The edges of grogginess kept him prisoner, but he sensed his home all around him: his walls, old but refurbished years before. The presence of the mansion was blunt as always, containing the lingering sensation of his father that never really left the interior.

Beneath his back, the hardness of the floor, usually cool, was moist and warm, glued to his skin. He had a fever, probably. The heat that left him chilled aroused thoughts of the fire, of the way it had scorched him, of the way it had scorched Elizabeth.

Elizabeth.

His eyelids ripped open. In his hand was another hand not his own, and he filled with such relief that his exhalation felt to be the most cleansing, relaxing thing he had ever experienced. He continued to hold it, delicate and feminine and possessing more love than most people held in their entire bodies. She slept next to him, curled on her side. Her blanket was pulled high, and her hair was swept away from her neck, falling behind her. He never knew anything could be so beautiful—more beautiful than the illusory beauty he had seen in his dreams, the beauty that was no beauty at all.

It didn’t make sense that
Aglaé
had come, or why she’d said what she had. He’d never come close to killing a woman to break his curse. There’d been times he was tempted, and times he had to work harder against his instincts—one time even with Nicole—but he’d taken the women mostly to scare them, to keep up his pretense. And even then, when he hadn’t been close to taking their lives, he’d been far closer than he ever was to taking Elizabeth’s. If he ever
was
to break the curse, it would never be through her death. His brain couldn’t even wrap itself around such a thought.

So why come now? Why try to prevent him from doing something he would never—not in a thousand centuries—do?

As he watched Elizabeth sleep, watched her shoulder lift ever so gently with each breath, he tried gathering the pieces of the night, tried determining what was real and what wasn’t. Obviously, there hadn’t been real fire, on him or her or anything else. And, God, how that made him rejoice. But she
was
with him. Had she really stayed, promising she would never leave? Had she really saved him?

His heart dropped, every piece of reality floating to the surface of his mind. He couldn’t believe he’d been too distracted by her presence to realize she was here in the first place. She was here, in his house, sleeping beside him. Heat swelled through him, emotions he himself couldn’t even decipher: rage, humiliation, exposure, even gratitude.

He peeked beneath the blanket over him, at the stitches on his side and the scratches on his leg. She
had
saved him. And though it moved him—
because
it moved him—he grew angrier than he’d been since the moment he’d met her. Stubborn, curious, unafraid Elizabeth.

He sat upright, but an overwhelming bout of dizziness hit him in a wave, making everything go topsy-turvy and momentarily taking his sight. His limbs were weightless, shaky. Elizabeth stirred beside him, opening her eyes, and she sat just as quickly.

“Henry,” she said, and he wished she wouldn’t call him that. When she called him Henry, he
felt
like Henry. His name in her voice was a beckoning, a call to come home—a home where he wanted desperately to be, but couldn’t believe in.

He tried to stand, again in a hurry, while holding the blanket around his waist, but instead he closed his eyes tightly as the marble felt pulled from beneath him, like the floor of a gyrating plane.

“You might not want to do that,” she warned.

Between nauseating breaths he stood anyway, ignoring her advice. With a croaky throat he managed, “What are you doing here, Ms. Ashton?”

She didn’t answer, rushing to him while keeping her own blanket high, and she steadied him, placing her free hand on his chest. Was the familiarity of her hand just a dreamlike sensation, or had she really done that last night, too—steadied him? And how he loved the way it felt, her touching him. “You need to take it easy,” she said. “Lie down, please. But not on the floor. The couch maybe, or—”

He removed her from him, backing away, and grasped the back of the couch. “Why…why are you here?” The room still spun and he brought his hand to his forehead. He thought maybe he should do as she requested, or at least
sit
down, but he couldn’t.

“She saved your life,” Arne said, entering the room and looking more tired than Henry had seen him in years. “That’s what she’s doing here.”

“You…” Henry started, the betrayal turning his stomach. “You let her in?”

“Henry, you would have died out there,” Elizabeth said.

His eyes shot to her before he scrunched them closed again, trying desperately to remember. But saving her, fighting
Diableron
, and getting stabbed was the last thing he remembered with any clarity. “Don’t call me that.”

He felt her question in the air.

“Henry,” he clarified. “Don’t call me that.”

Her face fell and she swallowed deeply, but held her chin high.

“What happened?” He didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s all right,” she said in the soothing voice he hated, because of just how much he wanted to believe her. Because really, he did believe her—that maybe it
could
be all right.

“What’s all right, Ms. Ashton? That I’m a monster?” He looked to Arne, and heat flushed his face, more than just the warmth of the fever. “How could you betray me like that?”

“She already knew.” Arne looked upset too, since his face appeared darker than usual and he stepped toward him in the passionate way he rarely did. “She came to me last night, came to the gate—desperate to save you. And you’re delusional if you think I would turn her away. If she hadn’t come, you’d be dead.”

Henry ignored Arne’s words, scrunching his eyes. His chest was heavy, and if he let himself, he could have cried. He didn’t know why and it didn’t make sense, but he felt it, building up inside.

She knew who he was.

She knew
what
he was. It wasn’t just Arne who had betrayed him. “How long have you known?” he asked quietly, keeping his eyes closed, still clutching the blanket around his waist while grasping the edge of the sofa.

Her voice was small, even scared. “Weeks.”

His eyelids shot open. One of her hands kept the blanket over herself, not to keep herself shielded like him, since she was clothed—perhaps she was cold?—and her other tucked her hair behind her ear. She looked tired, too.

“It was hard to miss,” she went on after a swallow. “Really, it was obvious. I’m surprised I didn’t know the first time I met you.”

None of it made sense—mostly, why she would know and continue to meet him every night, continue to walk with him every morning as though he was a normal person, instead of running the other direction; how she could even touch him or kiss him, knowing what he was. Even before this, he had wondered those things, wondered how she could meet his mouth with as much passion as he had met hers, after the way he’d treated her. But now, knowing he was
this
…

His head spun and again he closed his eyes. “I…You knew…”

“Hen—” She cut herself off, and the sound was an unpleasant one, his name getting caught in her throat. It seemed as painful to her as it was to him. “Mr. Clayton,” she corrected after a light throat clearing, “you need to lie down. You’re coming off both the poison and the mor—”

“The poison?” he asked, his eyes again shooting to her, then to Arne. How much had his only confidant told her? “How did you know about the poison?”