Rating: Not rated
Tags: Epic, Fantasy, Horror, General, Fiction, Lang:en
Summary
MICHAEL SCOTT is an authority on mythology and
folklore, and the author of the
New York Times bestselling series The Secrets of the
Immortal Nicholas Flamel. He lives in Dublin,
Ireland. COLETTE FREEDMAN is an award-winning, internationally
produced playwright.
1
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights
reserved.
A woman died.
She was sixty-six years old, in good health, active, a
nonsmoker who rarely drank. She had simply gone to sleep and
never woken up. Her family and friends mourned, a funeral was
arranged, flowers were ordered, a service organized.
Viola Jillian was thrilled.
She had never met the woman, never even known of her
existence until she had heard of her death. But she was glad
she’d died. Viola was vaguely embarrassed by the
emotion but selfish enough not to be
too embarrassed. After all, the woman’s death
presented her with an amazing opportunity. And opportunity,
as she kept reminding herself, didn’t come calling too
often, and when it did, you had to grasp it with both hands.
This was her opportunity. The buxom brunette with the
Elizabeth Taylor eyes had spent the last few weeks in the
ensemble cast of Drury Lane’s reprisal of
Oliver! The woman who had died was the lead’s
mother, and now the producers had informed Viola that she was
going to play Nancy the following evening.
The young woman had immediately gone to sympathize with
the distraught Nancy, but only after she had shifted her
publicist-almost-boyfriend into high gear to ensure that
there would be sufficient press in the audience for her
debut. This was her chance, and she was determined to make
the most of it.
Viola Jillian had always wanted to be a star.
Usually on Sundays, Viola would grab a few drinks with
some of the other girls in the cast, but she wanted to be
well rested for her proper West End star turn. Viola knew her
theater history: Every great star was discovered by accident.
And she knew, deep in her selfish heart, that she was a great
star. She fantasized that she would be discovered. She had
the talent, the looks, and the drive. And she wanted to move
beyond the stage and start acting in films. She had already
played small parts in the British soap operas
EastEnders and
Coronation Street, but she was tired of always
playing second fiddle, or even fifth or sixth fiddle, and was
afraid that she was becoming typecast. She was nearly
twenty-four; she didn’t have much time left. Let the
others drink all night in the Ku Bar, she was heading home to
bed.
It was a spectacular fall night, cloudless and balmy,
when she left the bar early, and she decided she’d walk
to her nearby Soho flat.
She’d not gone more than two hundred yards when
Viola felt the skin on the back of her neck tingle.
She’d been a dancer all her life, and every dancer had
experienced the same sensation, usually when someone in the
audience was focusing on them.
Viola knew that someone was watching her.
At eleven thirty P.M., the London streets were filled
with Sunday night carousers. Viola pulled her bag closer to
her chest and picked up her pace, walking briskly down
Shaftesbury Avenue. There had been a series of violent
muggings lately, and she did not plan to fall victim to one
of them. Her flat was less than ten minutes away. She kept
glancing behind at every corner, but she could see no one,
although the tingle at the back of her neck remained. Viola
hurried up the less crowded Dean Street and was half running
by the time she reached the almost empty Carlisle Place.
It was only when she reached the safety of her building
and had closed the door behind her that Viola relaxed. She
made a mental note to talk to her shrink about her growing
anxiety attacks. For an actress she led a fairly vanilla
life, and the chance of someone like her ever getting hurt
was practically nil. She laughed at her ridiculous fear as
she hummed one of Nancy’s signature songs. Standing in
the hallway, she checked through the day’s mail,
throwing away a few overdue bills and keeping a coupon for
Anthropologie, which had recently opened on Regent Street.
Her mind shifted to far more practical matters as she
wondered if she could convince the wardrobe mistress to alter
Nancy’s red dress in order to show a bit of extra
cleavage and accentuate her two best features.
It was when she started up the stairs that she heard
the muffled cry in 1C. Mrs. Clay’s flat.
Not usually one to get involved in other people’s
business, especially when the other person was a
septuagenarian who constantly complained that Viola made too
much noise, she began to climb the stairs. Then there was the
faint tinkle of breaking glass. Viola stopped, then turned
back down the stairs: Something was wrong.
Standing outside the old woman’s door, she
pressed her face against the cool wood, closing her eyes and
listening. But the only sound she could make out from within
was a faint rasping, like the sound of labored breathing.
She knocked quietly, conscious that she did not want to
wake the other neighbors. When there was no response, she
pressed her finger to the lighted bell. Tchaikovsky’s
1812 Overture blared on the other side of the door. For a
moment she thought it might be the bell she was hearing
before she realized it was probably the classical radio
station, the only station Mrs. Clay listened to—usually
very early in the morning.
Still no response.
She pressed the bell again and realized that the music
sounded unnaturally loud. She’d never heard any sounds
from the old woman’s flat this late in the evening.
Viola suddenly wondered if Mrs. Clay had suffered a heart
attack. She looked the picture of health and was extremely
spry for her age. “Good country air,” she had
once told Viola as she chastised her for smoking, a habit
she’d picked up at drama school. “When I was a
girl, I lived in the country. That kind of air nourishes you
for life.”
Viola rang the bell again, pressing hard, the tip of
her finger white against the plastic button. Perhaps Mrs.
Clay could not hear the chimes over the now obnoxiously loud
music. When she got no response, Viola fished into her hobo
bag and pulled out her key ring. The old woman had given her
a key to the apartment “in case of an emergency”
months ago.
Sorting through the bundle of keys, she finally found
the right one, then shoved it into the lock and pushed open
the door. The smells hit her as soon as she stepped into the
flat: a sharp metallic odor, harsh and unpleasant, mingling
with the stench of feces. Viola recoiled, bile rising,
pressing her hand to her mouth as she reached for the light
switch. She flicked it up, but nothing happened. Leaving the
door open to shed light into the tiny hallway, she walked
forward … and realized that the carpet beneath her
feet was squelching, sodden and sticky with a liquid that was
too viscous to be water. What was she standing in? She
decided she didn’t want to know; whatever it was, it
would wash off. She hoped.
“Mrs. Clay … Mrs. Clay?” she
said, shouting to be heard over the overture.
“Beatrice? It’s Viola Jillian. Is everything all
right?”
There was no reply.
The old woman had probably gone and had a heart attack
or something, and now Viola was going to have to go and get
an ambulance and probably spend all night in the hospital.
She’d look like shit in the morning.
Viola pushed open the door into the sitting room. And
stopped. The stench was stronger here, acrid urine stinging
her eyes. By the reflected light, she could see that the room
had been destroyed. The beautiful music continued to play, a
mocking counterpoint to the desecration around it. Every item
of furniture lay overturned, the arms of the fireside chairs
had been snapped off, the back of the rose floral sofa was
broken in two, stuffing hanging in long ribbons from the
slashed cushions, drawers pulled from the cabinet, the
contents emptied, pictures torn from the walls, frames warped
as if they had been twisted. An antique Victorian mirror lay
on the floor, radiating spider cracks from a deep indentation
in the middle of the glass as if it had been trodden on. Mrs.
Clay’s extensive collection of glass figurines were now
ground into the carpet.
A burglary.
Viola breathed deeply, trying to remain calm. The flat
had been burgled. But where was Mrs. Clay? Picking her way
through the devastation, glass crunching underfoot, she
prayed that the old woman hadn’t been here when it
happened; yet she knew instinctively that she had. Beatrice
Clay rarely left her apartment at night. “Too
dangerous,” she’d said.
Books scraped as she pushed against the bedroom door,
opening it wide enough to slap at the light switch, but
again, nothing happened. In the faint glow of the light from
the hall, she could see that this room had also been torn
apart and that the bed was piled high with dark clothes and
blankets.
“Beatrice? It’s me, Viola.”
The bundle of clothes on the bed shifted and moved, and
she heard shallow breathing. Viola darted across the room and
saw the top of the old woman’s head. Clutching the
first blanket, she yanked it back, and it came away in her
hand, warm and wet and dripping. The woman in the bed
convulsed. The bastards had probably tied her up. Viola was
reaching for another blanket when the bedroom door creaked
and swung inward, throwing light onto the bed.
Beatrice Clay’s throat had been cut, but not
before her body had been terribly mutilated. But despite her
appalling injuries, she was still alive, mouth and eyes wide
in soundless agony, breathing a harsh rattle.
The young woman’s scream caught at the back of
her throat.
A shadow fell across the bed.
Sick with terror, Viola turned to face the shape that
filled the doorway. Light ran off damp naked flesh. She could
see that it was a tall, muscular man, but with the light
coming from behind him, his features were in shadow. He
lifted his left arm, and the light reflected liquid running
down the length of the spear he clutched. The man stepped
into the room, and she could smell his odor now: the rich
meaty muskiness of sweat and copper blood.
“Please…,” she whispered.
Black light trembl...