Deep Dark Secret (24 page)

“You’re sure?”

“You want to second-guess me, or do you want to use your lock-picking skills for some good?”

I sidled up next to him and assessed the door, then took a step back and delivered a hard side kick to the wooden barrier, knocking it inwards off its hinges. The sound of crunching wood was all I could hear for a moment.

“You were saying?” I asked.

Holden tapped the broken door with one finger. It shifted and collapsed onto the ground with a thud. “Faster than picking the lock,” he admitted.

“I lost the bobby pin.”

I stepped over the door onto a concrete platform with no safety railing and followed the narrow steps down into darkness. Holden remained at the top until I’d made it safely down. Only then did he follow.

“All right, Hound of the Baskervilles. Point the way.”

His indignant look spoke volumes. “That doesn’t even make sense. If anything, the hound in Doyle’s story was a ghost. At best a were—” His lecture on the fundamentals of English literature was cut short by another piercing scream.

I didn’t need to follow his nose to pinpoint the direction the cry had come from. Holden and I bolted down the hall with superhuman speed. His quick reflexes put him well ahead of me, while I narrowly avoided running face first into several walls. Holden stopped so abruptly I collided with him, and only a strong arm around my waist kept me from falling flat on my ass.

Real smooth.

Holden helped right my balance. The scent of fresh blood was unmistakable from the open door where we stopped, but it took no time at all to recognize there was nothing alive in the room, or anything that had
once
been living. A small cot was pushed up against one wall and there was a basin on the floor I wasn’t keen to look in once I got a whiff of it. On the back of the door were deeply embedded claw marks and a thin coating of fresh blood.

Was it possible someone could have been kept captive in the basement of one of the most prominent universities in the country? Surely someone must have noticed this room before now. Right? The bowl on the floor and the rumpled sheets told me the unpleasant truth.

Grabbing my elbow, Holden guided me out of the room. We still needed to find the person who’d been screaming, and while they might have once been in this room, they obviously weren’t anymore. He took off at a run again, and I followed like a faithful puppy until he stopped. We both stood staring at yet another door as if it might be the actual source of the screams. We’d run so far I didn’t think we were under the English building anymore. The air down here was colder and smelled of chemicals that had nothing to do with cleaning.

Sulfur. The whole hall stank of sulfur.

I got a chill remembering my night at the museum, because I doubted anyone had left an egg-salad sandwich down here, meaning something else was responsible for the stench.

The door was basic particleboard and would have easily yielded to a kick, but it proved unnecessary when Holden twisted the knob and found it unlocked.

Inside, the rotten-egg reek was so overpowering my eyes watered. We were in a large storage room with aged brown and clear bottles cluttering the shelves and a fine coating of sawdust on the floor.

“There.” He pointed to a cupboard in the corner. I was about to question his judgment when I noticed the smear of blood on the door. How he’d been able to smell it over the stink of chemicals was beyond me.

I crouched in front of the cupboard and yanked the small door open. Wedged within was Lucy Renard, who had managed to fold herself into a tiny ball and was sobbing quietly, her tremors broken by an occasional hiccough.

“Lucy?” Reaching in, I touched her shoulder. She was dressed in pajama pants and a tank top. Her feet were bare.

When my skin grazed hers, she jerked and lifted her head. Once she got a good look at my face, she recoiled. Recognition turned to terror, and she began to scream.

The force of Lucy’s wailing knocked me backwards into Holden’s legs. I’d never met her before, yet she looked at me as if she already knew me. And had a reason to be afraid of me. Holden edged around me and hauled the girl out of the cupboard with one hand. She writhed and fought against him with more strength than I’d expected her to have, but Holden didn’t look too put off by her efforts.

Lucy continued to shriek and lashed out several kicks that nearly connected with my chest.

“
Stop
,” I hollered. “We’re here to help you.”

“Don’t kill me,” she cried, oblivious to what I’d said. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Lucy.” Holden caught her chin and cupped it in his large palm, turning her face so she was forced to look at him. “We were sent by your aunt. We’re here to protect you.” Usually the thrall was used to make victims believe a lie, or admit to something they otherwise wouldn’t. In this case Holden was using the vampire gift to make the girl believe what her fear wouldn’t let her accept. The truth.

She passed out, sagging in his arms like a rag doll, and he held her as if she weighed as much as one.

“What now?” he asked me.

I stared at Lucy’s inert body. Her feet were cut, and the open wounds were crammed full of filthy sawdust. She was going to scar badly and likely face serious infection if we didn’t get her to a hospital. The bottles on the shelves might contain something that would have once been helpful, like peroxide or iodine, but I didn’t trust any of the long-expired chemicals on her.

“We need to get her to a doctor. See what else is wrong that we can’t see.”

“She’s got a bad bite on her shoulder.” He lifted his fingers, exposing a patch of skin that looked to have been gnawed on by a wild animal. Not a vampire, they were too neat, and a were wouldn’t stop at one bite. Holden’s fingers were coated with blood, and his nostrils flared when he showed me the wound.

“When was the last time you fed?”

“I’m fine.”

“Holden.”

“Secret, I’m fine.” His eyes were still brown, none of the jet-black of vampire frenzy leaking into his irises. For the time being he was still more man than monster.

“Don’t push it,” I warned. “If it gets bad,
tell
me. Rebecca will make me issue your warrant personally if you kill this girl.”

He snorted. “Then you’ll have killed all her children.”

A familiar female voice said, “But isn’t that what children are for? Lambs for the slaughter.”

Holden stared at me. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

The voice had unmistakably been mine, though. In the disconnected way I could recognize my voice on an answering machine or video, I knew what I sounded like, and the voice was mine even if the words weren’t.

The door we’d come in through shut with a click, and suddenly we weren’t alone in the room. My back was to the entrance, so Holden saw the new arrival first. His eyes grew wide, and he hugged Lucy close to his chest, stepping away from me. I looked over my shoulder to see what had him so spooked, and my blood ran cold.

I used to joke that Brigit and I could have been twins, but I’d never again be able to make the same statement without a terror flashback to this moment.

Less than four feet from where I stood was a young woman who looked exactly like me, from the leather pants and jacket to Desmond’s Yankees shirt. Her hair was the same curly blonde, her eyes the same shade of brown, only hers were edged with a fine red ring. The woman didn’t just look like me.

She
was
me.

“Hello,” my doppelganger said with a smile.

“What the fuck?” I replied.

Lucy chose that inopportune moment to regain consciousness. She took one look at the two of me, and her renewed screaming reached an ear-splitting volume. Holden held her close, tucking her head into his shoulder, and whispered something I couldn’t hear. After a moment the screaming stopped, and she went limp again. The whole time Holden didn’t take his eyes off me.

Both of me.

“That’s mine.” Alterna-me pointed to Lucy.

“Like hell.” Holden stepped back until he hit the cupboard. His eyes were getting darker, and I saw a flash of fang when he curled his lip at Bad Secret. It was hard to see someone I cared for look at me like that, even if I knew it wasn’t really me.

“What. The. Fuck,” I said again.

If ever there was a question of which was the real Secret, it would only be a matter of time before my blue-streak sailor’s mouth would give me away as the real deal.

“What’s the matter, Secret? Don’t you like it?” Bad Secret gave a small curtsy and arched her brow at me. “I thought the leather-on-leather look was a little Terminatrix for my taste, but that was your call, not mine.” She certainly had my sass mouth down pat. That was disconcerting. When I didn’t rise to her bait she snarled at me, the ring of red growing until there was no white left in her eyes at all.

“Creepy,” I whispered. It was as if I was staring into a mirror after a
really
bad night out. Like one where the devil himself kicked me in the face and tried to slip me a roofie. That’s how bad a night would have to be for me to look like Bad Secret.

“Give me the girl,” she snarled.

“No,” Holden and I said simultaneously.

“Give her to me or I will destroy everything you love.” This was no idle threat. Something in the way Bad Secret spoke gave me such a chill I wanted to crawl into the open cupboard we’d retrieved Lucy from. “Yes,” she said, seeming to sense my apprehension. “Look at me. I can walk into your house. I can walk right up to that handsome boyfriend of yours… Desmond, was it? He will look at me and smile, and I will rip his heart out through his mouth.” She smiled. “I will turn your little white cat inside out.” When I shuddered visibly, she looked at Holden. “And don’t think I’ll forget about him.”

Holden snarled.

“It’s okay, vampire, I might make it fun for you first. You could play with the body like she won’t let you.” Bad Secret ran her hands provocatively over the front of her body, fingernails dragging over her nipples as she licked her lips at Holden. It might have been titillating if not for the glowing red eyes and the fact she was Scary. As. Fuck.

How did she know
everything
about me?

Bad Secret turned her attention back to me. “Or maybe I’ll just kill you and take over your life. Play your role for a while. Wouldn’t that be fun? The vampire Tribunal? The wolf king’s pack.” I trembled. She knew it all. All my secrets. My whole life. “Like a fun supernatural soap opera. Just
think
of what I could do.”

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Oh, love, I thought you’d figured that out by now.”

Love.
My eyes bulged. “Mayhew.”

Bad Secret dipped her head and winked. “In your flesh. But if this look bothers you…” Mayhew’s skin bubbled like a bad sunburn, turning purple-red and peeling back to reveal a whole new face. My curls sloughed off and vanished when they hit the floor. My clothes burned away and were replaced by a gray Columbia sweatshirt and dumpy jeans. A mousy brunette with hunched posture and mild acne batted sheepish lashes at me.

The girl from the museum.

“It was
you
that night,” I blurted.

“Of course.” My voice was replaced with a meek, squeaky tone.

“Who is this?” I pointed an accusatory finger at the chubby girl who stood before me. “Whose life did you steal for this?”

“Ellory Marx from Lincoln, Nebraska.” The new form Mayhew had taken over blushed almost apologetically. “Wonder if anyone misses her.” Ellory’s skin bubbled like before, and this time the shift occurred faster. I didn’t need help to recognize the new incarnation. Trish Keller snapped gum at me and thrust a defiant hip out, her short skirt riding up a little too high. If I waited long enough, I was willing to bet Mayhew might show me the faces of every missing and dead girl from the Columbia campus.

Going back God knows how long.

“Why?” I asked, not sure what I meant specifically.

Mayhew-as-Trish shrugged and popped her gum again, rolling her eyes. “The young, pretty ones are best.” She spit her gum into the corner of the room and gave Holden a cheeky smile. The vampire bared his fangs at her. “They taste fresher, don’t they?”

Trish’s legs took on the texture of lizard skin, turned black and leathery, and Mayhew became me again. The effect was no less disturbing the second time around. He stepped closer, and I moved until my back was against Holden.

“You tasted different though, didn’t you?” Mayhew asked, though it wasn’t really a question. “You’re a special one, Secret McQueen. I liked the flavor of your mouth.” Mayhew licked his lips—my lips—and I suppressed another shudder. It wasn’t doing me any good to let him know how badly he was scaring me.

“What are you?” I managed to make my mouth form words instead of a scream. Point for me.

“Who or what I am doesn’t concern you, halfling. Give me the girl. I’ve barely tasted her yet, and I want more.” Mayhew reached out a hand for Lucy, but Holden didn’t budge an inch behind me.

“You took my memories,” I said stupidly.

“Of course.”

“Did you force Gabriel to seduce the girls? Why doesn’t he know anything about their deaths?”

“You ask too many questions.” Mayhew rolled his eyes, and it was eerie to see one of my own expressions mirrored back to me. “I’m not here for an interview; I’m here for what’s mine.” He paused. “Why do you care what I did to Gabriel? I know what he did to you. You should want him to suffer. That is the way human women think.”

Holden snorted.

“You’ve seen inside my head. You should know well enough by now I’m not exactly human,” I replied.

“Yet loyalty for betrayers isn’t a trait of weres or vampires, either.” Mayhew stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “You truly are an odd one.”

Normally I might have a glib reply for him, but it was hard to make basic conversation—let alone be a smartass—when you’re talking to yourself.

“You did something to him. That’s why he couldn’t tell me about you earlier. You
destroyed
him. Gabriel was a decent person once.”