Kissing Midnight (25 page)

And Delia is going to be next. The knot tightens in my chest. Delia, who has been so loyal to me through so much shit. But how can I ever trust her again after this? I want to believe it’s all Dev’s fault, but I know the truth: Delia never believed I was good enough for Dev. She wanted him for herself from the day we met him. She never really thought he was into me.

It hurts to know she was right.

She was right, and so was Jesse— okay, maybe not totally right; how can Dev have anything to do with the disappearance of a girl a hundred years ago?—but her instincts were right that Dev wasn’t to be trusted. She tried to warn me, and how did I thank her? I cover my face with my hands, but there’s no blocking out the look on Jesse’s face when the sky opened above her. What have I done? I don’t even know where I sent her. I did it because Dev told me to, because I promised him, but what does that matter now?

And what if she was totally right?
a little voice inside me asks.
What if there is something sinister about Dev? Something supernatural?
An hour ago, it was unthinkable—crazy—but the idea of him kissing Delia would have seemed crazy, too, and I’m starting to see that just because something is crazy, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I feel like I’ve peeled back a corner of Dev’s mask and caught a glimpse of the ugliness underneath. Now I want to rip off the whole thing.

I need to know the truth.

I need to talk to Jesse.

I let myself slide down the wall, deflating onto the floor. How weird that a ghost should turn out to be the most solid thing in my life! Jesse was trying to be there for me, but I didn’t return the favor. I was the only one who could see her—the closest thing she had to a friend—and I turned on her. Well, now I know exactly how that feels. If I could speak to her again, I would tell her how sorry I am.

But of course I can’t. She’s gone, and it’s my fault.

The very least I can do is honor her final warning. I drag myself up off the floor.

The least I can do is find the box.

A few minutes later I’m outside Dev’s door, listening for any sign of life. My stomach is churning nervously. What if Dev and Delia are in there? What if they just moved their make-out session to Dev’s room to avoid me? The thought of walking in on them twice in one day makes me ill.

But I have to go inside.

I try the knob as quietly as I can. Locked. I feel around in the pocket of my jacket until I come up with the little metal lock pick Dev gave me the night of our first date. It feels like a century ago now.
Oh, Dev
, I think,
I hope you taught me well.
I slip the little piece of metal into the keyhole, prodding the lock gently, rotating the hairpin slowly until I feel it catch and something inside turns over.

My stomach flips, too, my hand shaking so hard the lock pick rattles in the lock, but there’s no going back now. I turn the knob and the door swings open.

I step into Dev’s room for the first time.

It’s extremely neat for a guy’s room. It seems big, too, because he doesn’t have a roommate. (I can just imagine him charming some admissions person into letting him live alone.) The furnishings are sparse and luxurious at the same time: There’s a black bedspread on the neatly made bed and a sleek new laptop on the desk. One corner is dominated by a high-end stereo system, but other than that there isn’t much here that’s personal: no posters on the wall, no pictures on the desk. It has the look of someplace temporary, like he doesn’t intend to stay. Everything is new.

Everything but the small wooden box on the table beside his bed. It looks much older than the furniture around it—maybe even older than the room itself. Now I understand what Jesse meant when she said there was a feeling about the box. It makes me step toward it cautiously, almost reverently.

I rub my sweaty palms over the thighs of my jeans. I don’t want to go any closer, but it’s like the box is pulling me and as soon as I reach it, I see why.

It’s exactly like Jesse described it, exactly like the door in my nightmare. The top is carved with intricate designs. There’s a brass handle in the shape of a human face, its mouth stretched in a perpetual scream, and across the top are the words “Bold, be bold, but not too bold or your heart’s blood shall soon run cold.”

I feel like it already has. I’m shaking so hard, I feel like my knees may just fold under me. But I don’t have much time. Dev could be back any minute, and I have to know the truth.
Be bold
, I think. Daring myself to do it, I grab hold of the brass ring and tug.

Instantly the box begins to shake. Shuddering like a living thing, it throws itself off the bedside table and falls. It hits the floor upright on one end and the box begins to grow, warping and stretching until it towers above me.

It isn’t the cover of a box anymore.

It’s an ancient wooden door, surrounded by a stone arch. The door from my dream.

I stare up at it. This can’t be happening. But the door certainly looks real, every knot and crack in its weathered wood exactly as it is in my nightmares.

And it feels real, too. I reach out and touch the carvings again, abstract swirls now as big as my hand, turning and twisting like a maze you could never escape. And all I want to do is escape. The feeling of dread presses on my chest until it’s hard to breathe. I would give anything to wake up now in a cold sweat, the sheets twisted around my ankles, safe and sound in my bed.

But this isn’t a dream, and there’s no backing out. I need to see what’s behind that door.

I reach out and grasp the ring of the door handle, heavy and cold in my hand.

Part of me hopes it won’t open. Part of me prays it will be locked. But the door swings open like it’s expecting me, hinges giving with a loud creak, like the sound of a monster yawning.

The room beyond is dark and unnaturally cold, so cold I can see my breath. I feel the hairs rise on my arms, a combination of cold and fear.

I force myself over the threshold.

The massive door shuts behind me with a bang that makes me jump.

Then there is nothing but the steady sound of dripping, like the ticking of a clock. A putrid smell curdles the air. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark and, once they do, I wish they never had.

The room is full of girls. Dead girls. Hanging from hooks suspended from the ceiling, too many of them to count. Girls of every race and color and description, but each of them young and beautiful once, and each one dressed for a party: beaded flapper dresses, long Victorian gowns, modern miniskirts. They hang with their heads bent, their feet dangling, revolving slowly on their hooks.

A strangled choking noise rises in my throat. I feel like I might be sick. “Oh my God,” I breathe. “What is this place?”

A sudden light flares from the other side of the room.

“This,” Dev says, “is my home.”

“Dev!” I stumble backward a step as he takes a step forward, into the light of a torch set into the stone wall. It is Dev, but he doesn’t look like himself. The firelight casts his face in a strange glow, his high cheekbones underscored with darkness, his eyes ringed in shadow. He is standing on the landing of a wide stone staircase, dressed in a suit from a different era, dark and formal. It makes me think of my dream of the little girls playing in the meadow. There’s no question who Mr. Fox is now.

He starts down the stairs, his polished shoes echoing on the hard stone floor. At the sound, something bizarre happens: All around me, the girls begin to squirm on their hooks, their silk dresses rustling like dry leaves. They let out a collective sigh, like the castle itself is breathing.

I recoil, pressing my back against the closed door behind me, but Dev doesn’t seem to notice the girls at all. All his attention is on me.

“You weren’t supposed to see it like this.” He sounds mildly apologetic, like I’ve walked into a messy room. “I wanted to tell you myself, first. But I should have figured you would find your way in.” His voice is quiet, almost gentle. “You really are smart, you know?” He tilts his head, studying me. “But it’s your gift, the fact that you can see the ghosts. That’s your big advantage.”

If I weren’t so afraid, I would laugh. Advantage? Being able to see ghosts has never been anything but torture for me, and I would give anything to be able to unsee the horror all around me now.

But at the same time, I know what he means. Jesse was my advantage. Without her, I could never have found my way to the truth, horrible as it may be. I’d give anything to have her help right now.

But there’s only me. I have Dev’s full attention. His blue eyes study me almost admiringly, and I can’t help studying him back. He’s the same beautiful Dev he has always been—maybe even more beautiful, in some strange and sinister way, against the backdrop of all this carnage. His breath rises in front of him like he’s an ordinary person, but I know now that he isn’t.

My voice comes out as a whisper. “What are you?”

Dev chuckles. “I feel like I should be asking you that, Saintly. What are you? What has heartbreak made you? But…” He smiles. “Since you asked me first…” He strides toward me, his confident steps making the dead girls sway in his wake, and stops just a few feet in front of me. Backlit by the firelight, Dev looks sculpted, the dark lines of his shoulders elegant and strong, his smile white in the darkness. “You know me, Saint. I’m just an ordinary guy.” He shrugs. “Or I was four hundred years ago.”

“Four
hundred
…” The thought makes me dizzy. I sway like the girls on their hooks, the room going liquid around me.

Dev laughs at the shock on my face. “Are you trying to tell me I don’t look my age? Well, it’s pretty easy to stay youthful when you’re permanently frozen at twenty, and I pride myself on being flexible, fitting in, changing with the times. But four centuries ago, I was just an ordinary guy. That is, until I met an extraordinary girl. A demon girl.”

Immediately, my mind goes to his old family friend. “Antoinette?”

Dev shakes his head. “An is a demon—you’re right about that—and she’s pretty old. Pentaforms are shape shifters, and they can’t die until all five of their forms have been killed, so they tend to stick around for a while. But I’m talking about a demon with a lot more power than An. An ancient power.”

The thought makes me cold. “But demons aren’t real.”

Dev nods understandingly. “Sure. Fake. Like ghosts, right?” He grins. “Exactly what they want you to think, I’m sure. Well, a few centuries ago we were more…open-minded about the existence of things beyond our world. But even so, it took me a while to see my demon for what she was. I was in denial, I think.” His smile widens. “Maybe you can identify?”

I don’t say anything, but I’m sure the blush burning on my cheeks answers for me. I should have seen through Dev somehow. I should have known something wasn’t right.

Dev shakes his head sadly, like he can read my thoughts. “Don’t blame yourself, Saint. I know you girls always do. But the truth is,” he spreads his arms wide to indicate the girls spinning slowly around us, “I’ve had some time to perfect my game. And, to be fair, no one prepped you for this, right? They were too busy calling you crazy, making you doubt every instinct you had. When you think of it that way, it’s pretty amazing you figured it out at all. But you did. You saw through me, the way I saw through my demon lover once I realized some things are really too good to be true.”

My only chance is to keep Dev talking until I can figure out an escape. “What did you do?”

Dev shrugs. “What could I do? By then I was in too deep, infatuated completely. I begged her to make me immortal so I could be with her forever.” He looks away, momentarily lost in the memory.

Cautiously, I reach for the doorknob. My motion sets the nearest girl swaying. The golden beads on her dress whisper like a warning, and I draw my hand back quickly as Dev turns back to me. “So,” I say, “you’re… immortal?”

“No. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?” He gives the girl closest to him a little shove, and she rocks back and forth like a pendulum. “There had to be a catch, right? I’m
conditionally
immortal. I never age. Nothing can kill me. But every year I have to make a new girl fall in love with me and, at exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve, I have to get her to kiss me. When she does, she dies, and my lease on life is renewed for another year. Her soul is trapped here, and I go on with my life.”

He says it simply, almost casually, but the horror of it hits me so hard that I want to sink to my knees right there on the bloodstained stone. “Every year? For four
hundred
years?”

He nods. “That’s right. This—” he sweeps his arm to indicate the swaying forest of bodies “ —is only part of my collection.”

Collection. I force myself to look, really
look
, at the girls around me. It isn’t easy. Their skin is gray. Their open eyes stare, unblinking, at the floor. They hang like lifeless corpses, except that, every once in a while, one will twitch—flex a hand, shrug a shoulder, quirk the slightest smile. A tiny girl a few feet away from me seems to wink at me and I shudder, but I refuse to look away. I force myself to look for things that make them unique, things that make them human—one girl’s cat-eye glasses; the confetti still sprinkled in another girl’s hair; the locket that hangs open around another girl’s neck, tiny pictures smiling out. Pictures of people who miss her and mourn for her. Details of a life that ended too soon. A life very much like mine. “They aren’t a collection,” I say quietly. “They’re people.”

Dev takes hold of the nearest girl and spins her slowly around to face him. He looks thoughtfully into her face, as if he’s trying to remember her name. “They were once. Maybe still are, in a sense. I’ll be honest, I don’t let myself think about it much. Oh,” he adds quickly, “I did at first. The first decade or so was torture. I would cry for weeks afterward. There were times when I almost didn’t go through with it.”

“But you did.” I don’t want to piss him off—there’s no telling what he’ll do—but I can’t keep the contempt out of my voice.