These Vengeful Souls (These Vicious Masks #3)
Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas
For restless souls
Prologue
THE WORST MOMENT of my life was not the one in which one hundred and twenty-two people died due to my selfishness and a monster’s rage.
It was not the moment I nearly lost Sebastian on the bridge, either.
It was this moment.
It was this moment, hours later, when the enormity of what had happened finally sank in. This moment, when I could no longer convince myself it was a dream. This moment, when the moon and the stars were shrouded by the smog, leaving a darkness with only one thing to say: There was nothing left.
Sebastian and I sat in a frigid church, the wind howling against the stone. He lay in my lap, staring straight ahead. He did not cry. He did not curse the heavens. He did not pray. He just stared and stared at the wooden pew in front of us, his eyes empty.
I ran my fingers soothingly through his black hair. I rocked him back and forth, hoping it might put him to sleep and give him a moment free of misery. I whispered the words I’d been repeating for hours.
“It will be all right, Sebastian. It will be all right.”
But they rang hollow and I no longer believed them myself. I was frozen with despair for my friends—the ones I had seen die and the ones I hadn’t.
The fate of anyone besides Sebastian and myself, I did not know. I could repeat words of comfort to Sebastian, but I could not even convince myself that it would ever be all right again.
Mr. Kent, Miss Chen, Emily, and Laura had been shot out into the sky with more power than they could control. Rose and Catherine had been left out on the street with no power to defend themselves. I only clung to the thought of finding them because I couldn’t fathom the alternative—that we might be completely alone.
And it was all the fault of Captain Goode.
I crumpled the skirts of my dress, the fabric stiff with his blood. I couldn’t get Captain Goode’s message out of my head. The message I had seen in the dim light as we’d passed by 43 Belgrave Square. The message he had written in blood on the front of my home, just to tell me he had survived.
We will find you.
He still wasn’t satisfied. Even after he’d made me choose between my sister and everyone else. After he’d taken them all from me. After he’d taken every place I’d ever considered a home. My parents. The Lodges. The Kents. He’d left me with nowhere else to go, no idea what I was fighting for, and nothing more I could do.
A draft whistled into the church, flickering the low candles, bouncing their light off the statues and sculptures. Twisted shadows were painted across the wall, figures in agony.
There was one thing I could do. I could cut Captain Goode open from head to toe, listening to him beg for mercy, for me to spare him. Eventually I would give in and heal his wounds, all so I could serve him arsenic in his food, which was a second thing to do. It would tear apart his insides, but I’d keep him healthy enough so he could scream at me to end his life. But then I could find a collector of medieval torture devices and offer to test whether their rack was in working order. Three things. Three things to do.
My mind swam with visions of blood for minutes or hours, so long I began to doubt what was real and what I was seeing through a sleepless stupor. But the vengeful fantasies got me through the long night. By the time dawn came, I had a list of thirty-six things I could to do to make Captain Goode pay.
And one thing I could do to find my friends.
A door squeaked open, sending my heart racing for a moment. A quiet young man slipped in to extinguish the candles. The morning light had started to leak in through the dusty windows. I looked down to see Sebastian’s breathing had turned easy and slow. His eyes were finally closed. But even now, he did not seem fully asleep, his eyes moving rapidly behind the lids. I reached out to gently touch the crease between his brows, the one that never seemed to go away. How much deeper had it been made tonight? Was there anything I could do to help him rest easier, to find a measure of peace?
That fierce sensation of our clashing powers traveled up my fingertips. I sighed, hoping to draw a little comfort or strength, to make myself move. I’d promised him that I would be with him. I’d told him that we would help people. None of that was going to happen if we stayed here.
“Sebastian,” I whispered.
Immediately, he sat up. His hand clenched around my knee, his muscles bunched, and his eyes flew open, whites showing as he looked around wildly.
“It’s all right; it’s all right.” I tried to soothe him, but my voice cracked repeatedly after our cold, silent night and lack of sleep. “It’s just me.”
Slowly, his eyes found their way back to me, his hand unclenching slightly. His chest heaved rapidly beneath the grubby and torn white shirt.
I swallowed hard and tried to sound confident. “We should go. I have an idea.”
He looked to the door, then back at me, and I felt sure he was pleading for something, but he said nothing.
He had not spoken since the bridge.
I wanted so badly to find the words that would make him understand how it had not been his fault. But I had only the coldest of comforts to offer him. What could I possibly say? At least the two of us had survived? It wasn’t his enhanced power that had killed so many?
Tell him it was actually my own selfish fault?
I took a deep breath and stood only to immediately lurch forward as my numb legs failed to support me. But Sebastian was there, from sitting to standing before I could even register what had happened. His arms went around me, pulling me up against his chest. I clung to him, his breath in my ear all I heard for a moment, and even that sounded full of misery.
There it was again: the despair that wanted to sink me. I stepped back, letting my hand fall into Sebastian’s. His eyes were hooded now and downcast as I pulled him from the pew.
“We have business with a newspaper.” He did not acknowledge me in any way, just let himself be led down the aisle.
Our steps echoed a little in the small space as we headed to the back of the church. Doom was building inside me as we reached the door, panic filling my head, shrieking its protest. I had no idea if this would work. I had no idea if I was going to make everything worse, yet again, but I had to try. I had to claw back into the world, dig in no matter if my nails cracked and bled, hold on with everything I had. I owed it to Sebastian, to Rose, to my parents, and to everyone else we lost last night.
I gave the altar one final glance, then we were outside in the bright light of morning.
Chapter One
“MY MA’S LANDLORD was there! She swears it were a man with glowing red eyes that burnt them alive!”
The city was still full of talk of the ball three days later.
We had already heard two arguments the day prior about who could have committed such crimes. The French were suggested, but, more disturbingly, so were unnatural people with unnatural gifts. The Queen was even planning to make a rare public appearance to quell the panic. Which, of course, only made the rumors grow more outlandish.
“And the only part he didn’t burn were his victims’ eyes. He left ’em behind as a warning. A ballroom full of ashes and eyes!”