The Nymph's Curse: The Collection (86 page)

This time you must do what you know is right or another person you love will be lost.
As the apparition became clearer, Asclepius’s voice strengthened, moving from a spectral whisper to the realm of reality, just as Gracie’s had. “It’s so nice to be with you,” he said with a slight bow of his head. His beard was longer than the last time she’d seen him, or maybe it was just her memory playing tricks on her. Yet, the fine lines around his eyes and his godlike face remained the same.

“Will you go in with me? I could use your help in finding the books. I don’t have a clue where to start looking, and Bethany’s men are coming any minute.”

“Starling, Gracie and I can’t go into that terrible place. If the Catharterians catch us, they will be able to entrap our souls just as they did with Edward.” Asclepius stepped closer and rested his milky hand on her shoulder, his icy touch making her shiver. “You have to go alone, but I’ll be here ready to protect you.”

“I don’t want Gracie to get hurt.”

Asclepius smiled, giving him a fatherly look. “Don’t worry about little Gracie. I’ll help her. I think you’d be surprised; she is far tougher than she looks.” He glanced over at the cherubic-faced girl. “Just because she was young when she passed doesn’t mean that she hasn’t learned a few tricks of the ghostly trade.”

“Gracie, if I get the books, I’ll help you cross to the other side.” Starling tried to say it with a reassuring smile, but it was hard to reassure the girl when so many things could go wrong. Gracie gave her a small nod as she patted the dog’s head.

“Run along,” Asclepius continued, “we’ll be here waiting.”

A tight knot formed in her stomach. “And if something happens to me, promise me that you will save Jasper. Okay?” She tried to tell herself that she was overreacting, but the souls’ sudden appearance made her realize exactly how much danger surrounded her.

“You will save him yourself. You must.” Asclepius pointed at the archangel’s hand. “Now push the button and hurry. They are coming.”

Starling slipped her fingers over the angel’s palm, feeling around the night-chilled stone. She pressed the button and repeated the words she had said only hours before. “Avi Mortem, find comfort in the arms of the wicked and solace where no other dares. Mortem. Genus. Honor.”

The angel’s wings parted.

The scent of wet earth swirled up from the darkness as she descended into the cavernous maw of the mausoleum. If she never spent another moment in a graveyard, it would be a moment too soon. Everything about this place reminded her of her mother and the impermanence of everything in her life—even demigods like she and her mother. Even with their near immortality, death lingered over them like a dark cloud, threatening not only them, but the men that they loved—all thanks to Zeus and his curse.

Her footsteps echoed around her. At least she would be able to hear someone coming—that was, if they were alive.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, she turned on her cell phone light and pointed it around the rectangular room. A thin layer of dust covered the seats of two chairs by the door, but the dust in a wash basin had been disturbed; fingerprints smudged the concrete surface, but it was hard to tell if the fingerprints were Jasper’s or someone else’s—one of the “bad ones.”

The door to the back room opened with a shrill squeak. If there was anyone down here, the sound would have surely warned them of her presence. But she was met with only the thundering of her own heartbeat and the loudness of her breath.

There had been many times she’d been afraid in her life: when her mother had died, when she found out she was a nymph, and when she learned she would have to live with Chance and Harper. It surprised her that now, when so much depended on a high-stake game of hide-and-go-seek that she was no longer troubled; instead, she was determined.

Opening the door wide, she made her way into the next room. The light of her phone was swallowed by the heavy darkness, and instead of fighting it, she turned to her left. The dust crumbled under her fingertips as she felt her way along the wall. She moved ten steps before she came to the end.

You have no business being here.
A woman’s voice sounded from the abyss.

Starling pressed her body against the wall. Reaching in her purse, she pulled out the only weapon-like thing she possessed—a ballpoint pen.

What are you going to do with that—color me to death?
The woman’s laugh bounced off the walls like a rubber ball coming to rest at Starling’s feet.

“Who are you?” She shined her phone’s light out into the room, but she could see no one. If the woman was alone, Starling would have a chance, but she would be hard pressed to defend herself against any more.

I’m guessing you are Starling. I’ve been hearing about you.

Starling gripped the pen tighter in her hand as she tried to turn her body in the direction of the voice. “Are you a Catharterian?”

Far from it. I’m one of their captured souls.

“You’re a ghost?” Did that mean that she was going to be invaded and possessed as Jasper had been? “Step into the light.”

A woman with blonde bouffant hair stepped into the faint light of Starling’s phone. She wore a pink poodle skirt and bobby socks straight out of the 1950s. The only thing that made it clear the woman wasn’t alive were the muted hues of her clothes and the near transparency of her skin.

The woman curtsied. “Molly B. at your service.”

Starling wasn’t sure whether to run or to face the ghost. From the curtsy, she had to believe that the woman wasn’t here to hurt her. Heck, if she’d wanted to, she could have already attacked when Starling was making her way into the room. But if Devon and Edward had taught her anything, it was not to trust.

“How do you know who I am?” Starling asked.

“My masters, the vultures, have been having meetings about you. The last one was just a few weeks ago, in this very room.”

The darkened room seemed like the last place Starling would ever want to have a meeting, but somehow it seemed to fit the scavengers of death.

Molly drifted toward her, stopping just a few feet in front of her, and reaching out, she flicked on a light switch. The sudden brightness made Starling shield her eyes, allowing them a moment to adjust. In the center of the massive room was a large, solid rectangle of onyx with a vulture carved into its ink-black surface and surrounded by chairs. If it hadn’t been her enemy’s, it would have been easy to call it beautiful, but as it stood, the long meeting table only made bile rise in her throat.

“Are you going to tell them I’m here?”

Molly drifted toward the table, her back to Starling and her two-toned shoes hovering just above the cement floor. “Do you like being a nymph?” Molly asked, avoiding Starling’s question.

“I don’t really know. I haven’t been a nymph for very long.”

“You are the youngest of your kind, yes?”

She nodded, unsure of where the woman was leading with her questions.

“Do you think you will be able to have children?” the spirit asked, trailing her fingers down the black table.

“I dunno. I haven’t really given that much thought.”

“But you want children someday?”

“Yeah, maybe after I graduate from college.”

Molly nodded appreciatively. “I wanted kids, too. Before I died.”

Starling wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“When I was alive, that was what was expected of women like me. Get done with school, marry off, have a few kids. It was the bee’s knees.”

Starling stood in silence, just watching as the woman made her way to the head of the table.

“You know that’s what the vultures are after, don’t you?” Molly stopped at the farthest end. “They want to be able to have children.”

“I know. They told me all about it when they tried to kill my friend, Harper.”

Molly studied her for a moment. “Why don’t you want them to be able to have more of their kind?”

Starling struggled to find the right answer. Was Molly on their side? Or was this woman measuring her response for another reason? The ghost didn’t seem like a threat, but Gracie had warned her that those who roamed here were the “bad ones.”

Molly had yet to earn her trust.

“The vultures are responsible for my mother’s death, and they tried to kill my friend. Do you think I should just give them what they need so they always kill to get what they want?”

“But once they get what they need, they won’t have to kill. They won’t need spirits like me anymore. Maybe they will let me take the next step in the afterlife. They will go back to being peaceful.”

“Scavengers of death are never peaceful. They may go back to leaving us alone, but what happens to the nymphs when they decide they need something again? We can’t be bullied by their group.” Starling gripped her pen tighter, letting it strengthen her resolve to say what needed to be said. “These creatures are the worst kind of bullies, and the only way to stop a bully is to put your foot down. They’re lucky I’m not the kind to go after payback—that I’m satisfied that my mother’s killer has found justice. I have every right to take down their entire group for what they’ve done to me and my kind.”

“You know they won’t stop until they get what they need,” Molly said, flattening her skirt. “They’re desperate. And desperation drives people to extreme lengths. I mean, just look at you. Here you are, coming back to the one place you should be running away from. Either you have a death wish or you are desperate. The only question is, which is it?”

“Is that some kind of threat?” Starling glanced around the room to see if there was another way to escape besides the door she’d entered through, but found none.

Molly laughed. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to know why you came back. If anything, I look up to you. I saw what happened to your friend. It had to take a whole lot of gumption to come down here after that.”

Gumption. That was one thing she had, but gumption didn’t get her the books. It always seemed to dig her deeper into trouble.

“But why did you do it when the Catharterians could be here any second?” Molly continued.

“Because I need answers. And I think that there’s a set of books down here that could carry exactly that.”

“You talkin’ about the
Libros
?”

Starling dropped her pen into her purse. “You know them? Where are they?”

“Whoa. Don’t get excited. I only know about those books because they used the enchantments from it to trap me down here a few months back.”

“They used it to trap you? What else can they do with the books?”

“Anything they want. Even erase a soul.” Molly pulled out the chair and sat down, carefully crossing her ankles. “And that’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Do you think they are going to erase my soul? Will they erase yours? Will they erase Jasper’s?”

Molly answered with a slow nod. “If they find Edward, they will get Jasper, and then they will come after me. Any time anything goes wrong, they always threaten us. And this thing with Edward, this running off, may push them over the edge. I just have to hope that they will show mercy.”

“Look, Molly. I would love to help you—I would give anything to stop you from being hurt—but I can’t do anything without the books. If they used spells from them, maybe I can, too. If you want me to help you, you need to tell me anything you know about them.”

“The books are near. I know that, but I couldn’t tell you where. I’m not usually allowed in this room; this is Edward’s place. The spells confined us to these two rooms, but I normally stayed in the antechamber.”

“If the books are down here, there’s not that many places they could hide. There are only two rooms. We can chisel the entire thing apart to get those books.”

“Not everything is as it looks,” Molly said, pushing away the chairs that surrounded the table. She knocked on the surface of the onyx table. “I’ve seen this a few times, but I have no idea how it works.”

“What are you doing?”

Molly bent down, inspecting the side of the table. “There’s a button somewhere around here. I’ve seen them push it.”

“Stop. What happens if you push the button?”

Molly barely looked up from her search. “It’s fine. It’s an elevator. The table goes down and then they come up.”

“From where?”

“Down there. They always enter through the elevator.”

“What’s
down there
?” Starling asked. She shuddered as she envisioned a labyrinth full of death-fed vultures, the walls filled with the bones of their victims—a catacomb visage of their carnage.

“How am I supposed to know? Now stop asking me questions and help me find the button.”

Starling crossed the room and as she approached Molly, the table began to shift and a low whirring sound filled the room. “You found it?”

Molly looked up at her, her eyes wide. “No. They’re coming.”

No
.
Sprinting, Starling made her way out the door and into the antechamber. There was a loud thump as the elevator must have come to a stop.

A woman’s voice escaped the conference room. “We should’ve never trusted that idiot, Edward. At least we won’t have to worry about him anymore. But it will be a trick to find Starling. You have men posted outside of her hotel, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” a man with a familiar southern drawl answered. “We’ll find her. She won’t leave the city without her lover. As long as we have Jasper in custody—or what’s left of him—she’ll have reason to stay. In fact, she’ll come to us.”

She froze. They had Jasper in custody.

“What did you do with the Voodoo Queen?” the woman asked.

“Let’s just say she will have to learn to do her charms and whatnot with one hand. We needed to send a message—no one goes against the council.”

“Good … And you took the man to headquarters?”

Starling held her breath as she listened.

“Yes, Ms. Virginia.”

There was a squeak of a chair and a groan as someone must have sat down.

There was no possible way she would just give herself over to them. Starling tiptoed up the stairs.

“Molly, why are the lights on in here?” the woman asked the ghost.