Page 159 of Sinister

“But you thought about it,” he presses on. He tilts my jaw up so I look into his eyes as he continues. “I would never sell my soul, for anything in the world. Because it is yours and yours alone.”

I blink, my lips parting in surprise. His words should terrify me, but once more, instead of making me fear him, they only serve to make me more drawn to him.

“You alone have a claim on my soul. And I await the day when I will have a claim on yours, too,” he adds in a low voice. “But make no mistake, when that happens, it will be of your own free will. No demon deals, no love potions, nothing but your true, honest feelings.”

Heat burns in my cheeks. My heart, too, cannot seem to stand still, thundering in my chest with such velocity, it feels as though it’s about to break out of my chest and go to him.

I inhale sharply. His eyes glisten—can he read my mind? Can he guess what I’m thinking?

Before he can say more honeyed words that will undoubtedly make me confront my real feelings for him, I choose to change the subject.

“What about Mr. Snowden? What did he want?”

He stares at me intently for a second more, as if wanting to say something else. But then he sighs and allows this shift in topic.

“Something just as impossible. Something money couldn’t buy.”

“Love again?”

He lets out a dry laugh. “Something similar. He wanted his mistress.”

My eyes instinctively widen at the word.

“Don’t look so shocked, my love. Men like him always have mistresses. They might marry for politics, power, or connections, but they always have someone on the side.”

“But,” I whisper, “he claimed to love his wife.”

“Perhaps.” He shrugs. “But love didn’t stop him from keeping another woman.”

“Would you also have a mistress?”

“No.” The answer is immediate. “Never.”

I nod thoughtfully. I might not always believe him and his roundabout ways of speaking, but this? This, I believe. “So he sold his soul for a love potion, too?” I continue.

“No, not quite. As a matter of fact, he didn’t. You see, his mistress died a long time ago, and he never managed to move on from her death. It all began with him seeking out my mentor. He wanted him to perform séances—to contact her, to receive a message from beyond the veil. But once he got that, it wasn’t enough. He wanted . . .” He trails off, his features grave. “He wanted to bring her back from the dead.”

“That’s not possible, is it? That can’t be possible—to bring someone back from the dead.”

“It’s not technically possible,” he replies again, carefully. “But that’s when his plan unraveled. That’s when he got angry at my mentor for not being able to give him what he wanted. After all, Rutherford got his love. Why couldn’t he?”

“So you mean he tried to sell his soul to bring someone back from the dead? And it didn’t work?” I whisper.

“Yes. You could say so.”

“Be more clear. I don’t understand. Then why does he have this vendetta against your university and your group?”

“Because he did make a deal. And he did get what he wanted—but not in the way he wanted it. Afterward, he started to notice the decline of everything around him. The effects of that bargain he made. He’s been searching for a way out all this time. And he thinks that by shutting the university down, by exposing everyone and vilifying them, he’ll finally be free.”

“Wait a moment. You said you cannot bring back the dead. So how is it that he got what he wanted?”

“I only said you cannot bring back the dead in a certain way. You cannot restore someone whose body has already decayed, whose flesh has rotted away. You can only conjure a monstrosity—something that might look like them, but it’s not them. Their soul is gone.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. Didn’t you say he was communicating with her soul?”

He shrugs. “He thought he was. But once a soul crosses over, it no longer resides in this realm.”

Again, his choice of words confuses me. So those séance sessions were a sham?