“So…afterthe party would be the ideal time for them to see reason,” he muses.
I’m leaning against the wall, barely listening. I feel as if I’ve awakened from a long sleep that was part blissful dream and part nightmare. The music that twined softly around my soul in the Angel’s lair, the bodies that slid against me,intome…the kisses and heartbeats we shared…those memories have faded, tainted by the terror that followed. Blissful violence, sex, and blood interwoven in a way that my mind can’t reconcile right now.
I’m too exhausted to think clearly, and I need sleep, because tomorrow the New Orpheum is shifting into high gear for Carlotta Vanetti’s birthday masquerade, and I’ll be expected to carry twice my normal workload. That’s what I get for being so fucking dependable.
“I have to go,” I tell the Angel.
He nods absently, lost in his own thoughts. His expression makes me pause.
“You have scheming face,” I accuse him. “You’re plotting something. I can see it, even with the mask.”
“You think you know me so well, so soon?” He gives me a dreary half smile.
“Yes,” I reply, surprised by my own answer, but it’s true. I feel like I’ve known him for years. Like the god of death has been in my life for ages instead of mere weeks. And right now, I can sense the darkness in him surging, braiding itself together in filaments of dreadful intent.
“Leave me to my scheming then,” he says.
“What are you planning to do?”
“The idea is not quite formed. Not ready to be shared. Go, blood queen, songstress, muse of mine, before I forget that you do not wish to be fucked in the miasma of death.”
I leave him there with the corpse. But fear follows me, because if I can walk away so calmly from the scene of a murder, that must mean I’m already more of a monster than I want to believe.
21The Phantom
In the misty recesses of my mind lingers the memory of an ancient revel…Imbolc, perhaps, or Samhain. Crude masks, painted bodies, rustic liquor brewed by farmers. I attended the gathering, my face concealed, my nude form painted scarlet. I was the most exquisite art they had ever seen. They desired me, worshipped me, plied me with drinks and stroked my skin with eager fingers. They did not know that Death walked among them.
That scrap of memory has frayed edges that taste of the grave. I can’t recall if I was there to bear witness to a plague or a poisoning, but I know not a soul at that revel lived to see the red dawn.
The memory surfaces more clearly than ever as I prowl the edges of the party that fills the twin ballrooms of the New Orpheum Theatre. This party has kept Christine from me for a week, occupying her time and her thoughts. I have tried to be understanding, but I crave her skin, her mouth, and her voice every second I’m conscious. My patience can only last so long.
I promised I wouldn’t watch her through the mirror. Instead I left notes on her bed, requesting to see her, and she left notes inreturn…excuses why we could not meet. Reasonable excuses, all of them, and yet I cannot help feeling that she has distanced herself on purpose, just like Raoul has. His texts have been sporadic at best—updates about his progress as he adjusts to his new form. His sister is thrilled that he can shift now. She has things to teach him, responsibilities to lay on his shoulders, and he is understandably preoccupied.
They both have lives beyond my domain. I understand that, I do. And yet it is maddening to be trapped in the darkness below while they move through circles I can never enter.
That is why I decided to attend Carlotta Vanetti’s masquerade party. It provides the perfect opportunity for me to circulate among the humans without raising any suspicions. Both Raoul and Christine are here—one as an honored guest, the other begrudgingly invited as part of theSidewindercast.
Carlotta has been posting prolifically on all platforms about her status as the star of the show, clearly desperate to reclaim the attention the critics gave Christine after the preview performance. Tonight, she’s dressed in a purple costume that screams to be noticed. And it appears to be working. She cannot walk more than a couple of steps without a guest begging to take her picture.
I step aside to avoid being bowled over by three of Carlotta’s worshippers. One of them hesitates and gives me a wide-eyed look of admiration tinged with lust. I cock my masked head at her, and the girl blushes deeply before running after her friends.
I told Christine and Raoul I wouldn’t be here. That I despised such gatherings. That I had ghostly business to which I must attend. Lies, of course. Humans seem to frown upon lying, especially to loved ones, but in this case, it’s a necessity if I am to catch them both off guard.
I have waited long enough. It’s time for my wolf boy and my blood queen to understand where their true destiny lies. I will not allow anything to rob me of the only two people I treasure in this cursed life—my poet and my muse.
If I had to wipe every other living thing off the face of the earth in order to be with them, I would do it gladly, without a shade of regret. I will end a thousand souls if I can claim theirs.
My costume is not flamboyant, but striking. It commands attention, so I stalk the edges of the room at first, lingering behind pillars, watching the guests dance and drink and laugh uproariously. The aroma of goat cheese, delicate herbs, and salmon wafts past me as a server hurries by with a platter. A garishly clad young man drops his drink, but the drinkware is acrylic, not glass, so there is no satisfying crash against the polished floor, only an impotent splatter.
Masked guests photograph themselves endlessly in front of brightly lit arches. Voices mutter and squeak and bellow in the cloying, perfume-scented air. Feet thump and tap and click against the floor. Bodies whirl past, so many bodies—heavy bodies and slender ones, tall forms and tiny figures, voluptuous curves and sensuous angles.
At a masquerade, faces are obscured but also magnified. Every mask demands attention; it steals a piece of its wearer’s soul and holds it out, pulsing and bloody, for the other guests to see.This is who I really am, scream the masks.This is what I wish I was, who I want to be.The masks celebrate beauty, violence, creativity, lust, revulsion, humor. They are a twisted mirror of reality.
And in this fragmented reality, in this whirl of hidden faces and broken souls, the one truth is music. Vicious, panting, tremulous, thunderous music, changing every few minutes yet always the same, speaking the language of humanity, lacerating the soul, stirring the blood. I might have my musical preferences, but I am not immuneto any of it. There’s something in nearly every song that writhes in my veins, thrums along my bones, tries to wrench my heart from my chest. I have to hold myself inside, press that traitorous heart deeper behind my rib cage. I’ve been ripped out of a body before. I won’t let it happen again. This body is mine, this life is mine, and I will have joy. I will have the one thing that music promises yet never delivers—happiness.
The incarnation of my future happiness is the two people standing on the opposite side of the room, so close to each other and so far from me. Raoul wears a sleek, tailored suit and a close-fitting domino mask. Christine’s lacy black gown clings to her subtle curves. Her mask is heart-shaped—blood-red, glossy, and trimmed with pearls.
How do I know them with their faces covered? By their proximity, by the slant of their shoulders and the tilt of their heads, by the slope of their necks and the angle of their hips, by the color of their hair and the way Raoul reaches for Christine’s arm, circling her wrist gently with his long fingers.
