(Skeleton Key) Princess of the Damned (17 page)

"You're saying that your actions the past few days have been sane? And now you're talking about some girl in a mirror that you haven't seen for fourteen years!"

Absently, Landon wondered if his dad was even watching the road. They were weaving through the lines, and it wouldn't surprise Landon at all if Devons was behind them, about to pull them over.

"Say something, Landon!"

"Fine." Landon's tenuous hold on calm snapped. "I'll say something. That girl in the mirror? I see her every damn time I
look
in the mirror. Yeah, and not only that, but I'm in love with her. I'm so crazy, mindlessly, insanely in love with her that I risked everything to save her, and I
failed
. I failed, and I got the shit beat out of me, and I got sent home. And that thing out there?" He thrust his hand at the windshield. "That thing out there that attacked Mom? I set her free. She's here because of
me.
Mom's unconscious because of
me."

His dad only blinked. Slowly, without taking his eyes off Landon, he pulled the car to the side of the road. "What?" he whispered once the car was stopped.

"She's not imaginary," Landon said, suddenly exhausted. "I broke my hand breaking into a headstone in a grave in West Haven. To get a key. That key—" Landon's voice broke, "—opened a lock that held Eiress chained at the gates of hell. Except it let Bloody Mary out, too, and she came through the mirror and attacked Mom. And while I was failing at everything, Eiress was fighting the demons, and I
died.
She saved us, and I died. How's that, Dad? How's that for saying something?"

For several long minutes, they sat in silence. A car behind them flashed its lights, and, as Landon suspected, Devons got out and came to their window.

"Awesome," Landon growled, crossing his arms and collapsing back against the seat to glare out the opposite window.

"Everything all right?" Devons asked when Landon's dad rolled down the window.

This is where he'll tell them I'm crazy and they'll take me right back to some stupid doctor.

"My wife is lying in a coma in the hospital and my son thinks he's her avenging angel."

Landon's head snapped up, but his dad was still talking.

"That leads to some tense conversations, as you can imagine, and I pulled over in the act of being a responsible driver. Is that a problem?"

Devons' eyes moved from Landon's dad to Landon, his eyebrow furrowing. "No. Have a good night." Nodding once, he left and went back to his car.

"You're not gonna send me—"

"I don't know what the hell is going on, Landon. We'll have to talk to a counselor. Maybe it's long overdue—"

"I'm not crazy!" Landon bellowed. "Why can't you believe that?"

"Because what you're saying and doing is unbelievable!"

"I know how it sounds! But I'm asking you, for once, to trust me. We were okay at the hospital. What changed?"

"What changed? Are you kidding me?" His dad threw his head back and laughed, but it was empty of mirth. "I just picked you up at a police station because you were chasing down a serial killer!"

Landon fell back against the seat again, shaking his head. "Fine. Believe what you want. Can we just go home?"

Without a word, his dad shifted the car into drive and pulled back onto the road. Too much had been said already, so they rode in silence. As soon as they parked in the garage, Landon got out of the car and slammed the door. They both stalked into the house, his dad getting to slam the door this time. Landon dropped his stuff on the counter and went up to his room. Collapsing on his bed, he rolled toward the mirror. "What do I do now?"

Eiress was fighting demons. She didn't even need him anymore. And her mother was silent. There were no images of Mary in the mirror. No whispered words to show him the path.

Several minutes later, his dad's voice rumbled through the vent in the floor. "I don't know. Maybe he's had a psychological break or something. He's always been such a good kid…Doctor said it might be caused by the stress of Laura's attack."

Landon rolled over and pulled a pillow over his head.

He'd failed. At everything.

His cell phone, which had been sitting on his dresser since…he wasn't sure when…started to ring. It was the popular love song by a boy band he didn't even like—meaning it was Cassie. He had no desire whatsoever to talk to her. Where had she been when his mother got attacked? His dad said she was still there when he got up, so where had Cassie gone between then and when Mary had come through the mirror?

The phone stopped ringing, and the one downstairs rang, instead. She must have seen them come home. "Hello?" His dad sounded exhausted. "Yeah, Cassie, he's home, but he's not up to talking right now." Long pause, and then he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell him you called. Bye, sweetie."

Yeah. They'd always loved Cassie. She wasn't
imaginary.

Landon threw his pillow at the door, effectively slamming it shut.

Twenty minutes later, he heard a knock on the back door. "Seriously, Cassie?" he groaned, rolling onto his back and forcing himself to sit up. With the door shut, he couldn't hear as well, but it sounded like Cassie was upset. There was back and forth for several tense seconds, and then the door slammed again.

Frowning, Landon pushed himself to his feet and went to the window. His dad was sprinting across the grass to the road. Cassie was nowhere in sight. "What in the hell…?"

He glanced at Eiress. She stared back at him and then put her hand against the mirror, sending him strength.

"
She comes.
"

"What?" Landon spun in a circle, barely catching a glimpse of Eiress's mother standing near the mirror.

"Cassie—she came to get my dad—did Mary—" He took off, racing out of his room and down the stairs.

He nearly bowled Cassie over as she was coming up the stairs. She toppled backward and he grabbed her by the shoulders to save her. "What are you doing here? Where'd my dad go?"

"Landon, I need to talk to—"

"Cassie, what the hell is going on?" He looked past her to the front door his dad had just left from. His shoes sat empty in the basket.

"I just need to talk to you—"

"
She comes, Landon. Prepare yourself."

Eiress's mother was shimmering at the bottom of the stairs. He could see the fear in her eyes, and the determination.
"Arm yourself."

"Cassie, you have to get out of here. Go home, lock the door. Keep my dad out of here, and call the cops. Ask for Devons, he'll know what you're talking about." He pushed her backward, down the stairs. When she hit the tile, she dug in her heels.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Landon."

He looked down at her, for the first time noticing that her eyes were filled with tears and her cheeks were streaked with mascara. "I told your dad my parents were hurt. To get him out of here."

Horror gripped Landon's chest as he struggled to understand. "What did you do, Cassie?"

She sobbed.

"Cassie!"

She covered her face in her hands. "She came—when you left me here! She came and she saw that I was crying and she knew—she knew it was because of you and she said all this stuff about how evil men are and how she could make me feel better."

Ice poured through Landon's veins. "Cassie, what. Did. You. Do?"

"And then tonight, they called. Her—her friend called and asked where you are and she said they just wanted to talk and I thought how bad could that be, they just want to talk? So I told them I'd find out, and then they told me to make sure you were alone—so—so no one would get hurt—"

"You sold me out?" Landon bellowed. "Do you know what she is?"

"She said—"

"She's one of the most evil women in history, Cassie!" He shoved past her, heading for the kitchen. "You need to get out of here. If she doesn't kill you, I might." Turning to Eiress's mother, he said, "How do I fight her?"

She spoke, which he could tell used precious energy, but Cassie was suddenly yelling behind him. He missed everything the ghost tried to say.

"This isn't my fault! You dumped me, and then rather than face me, you snuck out and left me at your house in the middle of the night! I waited for you! You ran out to see some other girl, and you left me here, Landon! This is your fault."

Slowly, Landon turned. "The woman on her way here is a murderer, Cassie. She attacked my mom, she's killed dozens of people in the last two days, and she's killed thousands more throughout history. She is bringing with her some of the most evil souls of our time. I doubt very much that I'm going to survive, and I doubt even more that you will
unless you get out of here right now."

Cassie sobbed once. "She told me to keep you here until she came."

Landon stumbled backward like he'd been sucker punched. "You're doing all this to keep me here? You—you hate me that much?"

"She said no one would get hurt!"

"She lied!" Landon bellowed.

Behind him, the doorknob rattled and the back door creaked.

Too late to get to the kitchen. He had no weapons. He had no defense. He whirled around, took Cassie by the arm and dragged her to the front door. He couldn't run, but she could. He jerked the door open, shoved her through and slammed it in her face, locking it behind her.

Gathering what courage he had, he turned.

In his kitchen, Mary stood, surrounded by four men—men who, when Landon saw them in the bright kitchen lights, did not look whole. Like they were dead on the inside, and it was slowly rotting them away.

"
Guns and knives cannot kill them,"
his ghost whispered.

Landon blinked. Between him and Mary, between the front door and the back, there arose a mist. "
Guns and knives cannot kill the dead. The dead kill the dead, Landon."

Forming from the mist were figures. Women. Girls. Boys. Men. Their souls were light, like Eiress's mother.

The dead kill the dead.

She had her own army.

S
OMETHING WAS VERY, VERY WRONG.

Eiress had never felt such horror. Landon was in trouble, and her mother, and there was nothing Eiress could do. She could throw fireballs and cause explosions all she wanted, but in the end, she was stuck in the mirror.

Just another girl who needed saving.

She really, really didn't want to be that girl.

Given nothing else to do, she prowled the gates of hell and blew up anything that showed its face. When that got old, she left the castle and went after the nightmares. Kittens, zombies, spiders, monsters. She didn't care. She took her frustrations out on everything she could find, circling farther and farther away from the castle. The moon hung shattered in the air, seeming to share her terror. If it were at all possible, she'd attack that, too. But she couldn't reach the moon. She couldn't reach the moon and she couldn't reach Landon and no matter how strong she was, she was helpless.

She'd been helpless her whole life. It had never felt as awful as it did now.

She was out of sight of the castle when her heart seized and spasmed. Gasping, she clutched at her chest and fell to her knees.

The castle. She had to get back to the castle.

She struggled to her feet, turning in a circle. It was so dark. She had no idea where she was. She'd never been this far away before. Even with Landon, they'd stayed within sight. The cave was just…

She had no idea where the cave was.

Again, her heart clenched and she gasped and stumbled, falling into the undergrowth. The pain intensified and she screamed, trying to claw her heart out through her chest.

Landon.

Landon was in trouble.

Her mother was in trouble.

They were together and they were both hurting, and her heart felt every blow they took.

She didn't know what she would do, or how she could possibly help. She did know, though, that she had to get back on her feet, and she had to make it back to the castle.

Sobbing, she pushed herself up. Her vision blurred, and she couldn't draw a breath, but somehow, she put one foot in front of the other. She fell more times than she could count—felt the thorns tear her skin and dress and hair. But she got up. When she could no longer see, she held her hands in front of her and listened hard for nightmares.

Her heart.

It was breaking.

"Landon."