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When the vacuum of power hit me, I barreled through the door until the magic stopped me in my tracks for a minute again. Fuming and frantic, I took in the sight before me in a blink. Hanlen was tied to the tomb, her arms secured at her sides and her feet tied to the bottom. She looked conscious, but barely. I saw blood trickling from wounds at her neck and on her arms, some sort of contraption positioned to capture the blood as it ran free. When I glanced up, I saw someone in the shadows over by another tomb, turning toward me. I caught the glint of metal in lantern and candlelight and allowed my gaze to travel from the hand up the arm to the shoulder, neck, and finally the face.
The look was pure evil. No feeling. No empathy. Just blank entitlement. But outside of that, despite the fact that the look alone gave me shivers, I felt my body lock when my brain finally caught up to what was going on and I was able to process what I was seeing.
Because I knew that face. I didn’t recognize the look on it, but I knew those eyes, that mouth, those cheekbones.
I had seen them nearly every day for the last five years.
“Hello, Dev,” he sneered, before taking a sip from a goblet and looking up at me. He wiped a macabre Kool-Aid stain from his mouth with a finger before sucking the digit and letting it go with a pop, a chilling smile on his face.
I shuddered.
“Remy, what the hell?”
Chapter 26
Hanlen
My head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton, and the taste of metal coated my tongue. I felt every injury like a second painful pulse, both in time with my heartbeat and seemingly separate from it. Remy had manhandled me a bit and then made incisions at my neck and wrists, attaching some sort of device and tubes to drain me, babbling all along about how it was an honor; how he would never choose anybody else for something so special.
Fucking psychopath.
I felt my strength waning with each breath, and figured I must be hallucinating when I swore I saw Dev enter the crypt. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, but I took some deep breaths to try and center myself and bring me back to reality. I was just about to admit to myself that maybe I wasn’t as okay as I wanted to believe when I still saw Dev. Until Remy spoke up.
“Hello, Dev.”
Oh my God, he was actually here. When I took another deep breath and concentrated, I thought I heard voices from outside, too. Dev hadn’t come alone. Maybe we could make it through this. Remy had seriously cracked. Or maybe he’d always been this way and was just really good at pretending to be so-called normal. When I took a moment to think about that harder, I realized that he was likely never quote-unquote normal. If he’d killed Reagan, that was ten years ago. Remy had to be years younger than me. Which would mean that he had only been a teenager back then. I thought back to the club we’d been to that night and realized that it had been an eighteen-and-over venue—the kind that gave wristbands at the door for anyone twenty-one and older. He very well could have been there and still been in high school. All of this was bad enough, but to know that he’d been like this and had made his first kill at that young of an age . . . it was almost more disturbing.
The private investigator in me was fascinated by the psychology of it all. What made a person that way? What had broken in Remy at such a young age that it had warped his mind and turned him into a person who could so callously take another human’s life? And then to take that a step further and feel—legitimatelybelieve—that he was doing it for a good reason. For something that was beneficial to all. Because he really did believe that. I read people for a living, and I could tell that he truly believed what he had been saying when he was spewing his nonsense about honor and privilege and gifts. How did that even happen?
I tried to bring myself back to the present.
“Remy, what the hell?” Dev said, his words and tone full of vitriol.
“I’m sorry you had to see this, Dev. I know that you developed an attachment to Hanlen, but she was never yours. She’s always been mine. Since that night so long ago when I saw her dancing and knew she was my salvation.”
“Listen, man,” Dev said, regulating his tone and assuming a non-threatening posture. “We can get you some help. We can figure this out. Just let her go. Let me go. Let me help her.”
Remy cocked his head and stared at Dev, his expression containing a look I couldn’t decipher. “Let her go?” he asked. “Why would I want to do that? She’s mine. As I said, she’s always been mine. Her life force will revitalize me and let me be reborn. Will soothe the darkness inside me. I will no longer have to walk in the shadows, a slave to my darker side. I will once again be part of the light like I was as a child. Before it took control, whispering in my ear.”
What the ever-loving-hell?
“And she will be free. Free of the hurt and pain and heartache of life. I will send her on her way to Paradise, a coin in hand for the ferryman. She can finally reunite with Reagan. When she told us the story of her loss the night of the cast party, I knew that I needed to help her. I could feel her pain and knew exactly how I could fix things. I could let her see her friend again, and she could help mebecome. I never thought I’d get the chance, despite all my efforts to make it happen, but fate brought her back to me. The minute I saw her, I knew that this was meant to be. Everything fell into place too perfectly for me to have any doubts. She’s the light I’ve searched for.”
“Fucking hell, Remy,” Dev said and scrubbed his hands over his head and face. “What the actual fuck?”
“You just don’t understand. And I don’t expect you to.” He moved forward to lean over me as he talked to Dev.
“The magic. How did you do it?” Dev asked as he waved his hands in complicated patterns. I assumed he was trying to free himself from whatever Remy had done to keep him away.
“Oh, that?” Remy said and laughed. “Well, that’s all thanks to you. I watch you, you know. I learn. And that time we had that cast party at the Vodou temple, and you taught us all a little simple magic to get a rise out of the super twins, Harper, and Sky? I knew I could do it. I just knew that with enough work and practice and some supplies carefully obtained from you and Birdie, I could do whatever I wanted. Especially after I’d fed. It’s such a rush, Dev. Like pure, unfiltered life flowing through your veins. Add in the magic, and I’ve never felt so powerful. I’m becoming a god.”
Jesus, this guy was a mess. I wasn’t sure there was hope for him. Even with professional help.
“Just let her go, man. Let Hanlen go, and we’ll get you the help you need.”
“I don’tneedhelp!” Remy yelled. “I am exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I was meant to do. I think it’s you who doesn’t belong.” He pointed the knife at Dev, and my heart rate picked up, making every wound on my body throb even more. Despite the lethargy overtaking me, I fought to stay awake. To stay alert and figure out a way out of this. What in the hell was everybody outside waiting for? Why weren’t they rushing in to save the day?
I saw Dev raise his hands and fling them out, then walk closer to Remy’s side of the crypt I lay on. He must have been able to get through whatever Remy had done. I wanted to tell him not to go. Wished he’d just save himself. I imagined the worst-case scenarios that may unfold if Dev took Remy on, one-on-one. Remy was much larger than Dev, and while Dev wasn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, hewasolder than Remy. And Remy had adrenaline and a god-complex on his side besides. Not to mention, he an utterly psycopath.
