Chapter 28: Secrets and Sibyls

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Is it the sunlight streaming through the window that wakes me up? No, that would be far too pleasant. It’s not the sound of someone running down the hallway either - even that would be par for the course at a hotel. No, what eventually wakes me is the clawing pain in my stomach. It reminds me that I haven’t had a full meal in days by sending out steady pulses of agony.

I barely manage to get dressed before I flail about looking for a key card. Thankfully, William had the foresight to stick it right beside the bed on the nightstand. When I reach for it, I notice the pan flute beside it. I hesitate for a moment - the woman I dreamed about hardly seemed malicious. Assuming she was even real, didn’t she mention something about being out and about? Seeing the sights?

I grab both the flute and the key, shoving the former awkwardly under my arm, then head out in the hopes of finding a vending machine.

The second I’m in the hallway, the scent of bacon and maple syrup punches me in the face. I’m pretty sure I drool a little. God, I’m so hungry.

I do my best to avoid breaking into a run as I follow the smell. I didn’t even look at the time when I woke up, but by some miracle it must be early enough that they’re still serving breakfast. I hope so. It would be just my luck if they’re on the cusp of closing the second I get down to the lobby.

The carpeting beneath my feet gives way to tile, and it’s the click of my shoes that snaps me out of my bacon-induced haze enough to really take in my surroundings.

The lobby is…incredible. William didn’t just drop us off at Motel 8. Hell, I’m pretty sure this isn’t even a jazzed-up Holiday Inn. The floor is a spiral of intricate designs, and the walls arch up high, boasting fancy Corinthian columns. Everything is made of this sort of off-gold marble, giving it a glossy richness that says I have money to spend on stupid shit.

I stand at the entrance to the lobby in my Walmart brand T-shirt and jeans, blinking like an idiot.

People are sitting about, lounging on fancy sofas — no, chaises — most of them dressed to the absolute nines. Like, three-piece suits and silk ties. Some of the women are wearing dresses just shy of evening gowns.

Where the hell am I?

My shock doesn’t last too long. It’s quickly overcome by the continued smell of bacon, which is in and of itself a force of nature. Swallowing my shame (and hoping my outfit makes me invisible rather than a sore thumb,) I edge around the lobby in search of the dining room.

It doesn’t take me long to find it. There are still a good number of people inside, seated around pretty tables that boast fancy metalwork. The chairs even have plush red cushions on them. I’m used to seeing people shuffle around buffets like this in pajamas and bunny slippers — but there’s not a slipper in sight here. I’m so glad I decided to bother getting dressed at least, but now I’m wishing I’d taken the time to brush out my hair better.

I shuffle into the line. There isn’t much of one — most people are either done with breakfast or already seated. I grab a muffin, a plateful of bacon, slather a bagel with cream cheese, and snatch some orange juice. My mouth is already watering by the time I turn around to find a seat. I have to fight the urge to stuff my face before I’m even seated.

I’m halfway through the muffin - it’s blueberry, and it’s still warm - when someone wanders up and takes a seat beside me.

I’m not surprised by this. I mean, I don’t have a sense of normal anymore. Everything’s just sort of a stop along the highway of general fuckery at this point. But I’m hungry, goddamnit, and the fuckery is going to wait a second.

“Hello.” At least it’s a woman’s voice. I don’t look at her. I hold up my hand and keep on eating. Not this time, lady. Not today.

I hear her laugh. “My my. We’re rather voracious, aren’t we?”

I don’t bother answering. There’s a high chance I’m being rude right now. Hell, maybe she came over here to flirt with me, who knows? But if I try engaging before I have a chance to get some calories I know I’m going to bite her head off anyway. It’s better for both of us this way.

Still. I do bother to look at her and give her a dip of my head in greeting before shoving some of the bacon in my mouth.

I almost choke on it.

The woman beside me is gorgeous. Seriously, I’m starting to feel like a Plain Jane. Am I never going to bump into anybody normal ever again? She has dark, almond-shaped eyes set in a lovely, heart-shaped face. Her black hair has the kind of glossy sheen that lets me know her shampoo did not come from a grocery store aisle. She’s wearing a red dress with a deep V in the neckline, the kind that would have most men drooling. And probably a good number of women, honestly.

“…Hi?” I say, once I’ve swallowed my mouthful. “Can I help you?”

“No, actually. I came here to help you.”

Oh boy. Here we go.

I frown at her. Picking up the bagel, I take a bite of it as an excuse not to say anything. I’m not really good with intrigue, so I figure if I just sit here and let her talk, she’ll get around to spitting out what she wants.

She doesn’t speak as she watches me eat. She exudes an aura of perfect, timeless patience.

Wonderful.

“Whatever you’ve got, I’m not buying it,” I tell her. I add dryly: “Of all the people in this room, surely you can tell I’m not the one to waste your entrepreneurial skills on.” I gesture at my T-shirt. It has The Great Outdoors written on it with a decal of a teardrop camper that’s already peeling at the edges.

She gives me a thin smile. Her lips are painted perfectly red, outlined with stencil precision. “I wanted to warn you about William.”

I stare at her. Coldness settles in my gut. I guess I was hoping this encounter would be run-of-the-mill weird. Unrelated weird. Like, maybe she’s just a Jehovah’s witness that realized she could bring people to Jesus better through the holy magic of low-cut necklines.

No such luck, apparently.

“What about him?” I ask, remaining guarded. I can’t tell if I like this woman or not. Honestly, I can’t really get a read on her.

“He’s not what you think he is, Lydia Grace,” she murmurs. She leans towards me, lowering her voice so that it’s almost drowned out in the soft chatter circulating through the dining room. “You need to be more careful with him. You hold his leash. You should use it.”

I’m immediately pissed off. I take a very threatening bite out of another piece of bacon.

“Listen, lady,” I say. “I don’t know who you are, or how you know William, but…”

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“I’ve known him for eons, dear girl,” she says. “I’ve known him so well and so long that you could not possibly fathom it. It would break your mind to try.”

I swallow. Both reflexively, and because my mouth is full. My stomach is no longer trying to claw its way up my throat, so I begrudgingly pause in my eating to give the woman my full attention.

“First of all, that’s presumptuous. I’ve found out recently my mind can take quite a lot,” I reply. “Secondly, listen. If you’ve got a history with him, that’s your business, not mine. Take it up when he comes back. I’m not taking messages at the moment.”

She smiles at me. The expression is not a kind one. It’s pointed — wolfish, even. “I wonder if he’s told you that he murdered the last woman who was bound to him.”

I stare at her. Then I throw back my head and laugh.

“Is that all you got? I know what that bitch did to him. You’re going to have to spit out something better than that.”

She blinks once, and I get the impression she’s studying me more closely now. “Interesting,” she murmurs. Her lips quirk upwards. “She wasn’t the only one, of course. There have been others that he killed over the years. Did he tell you about them? Did he mention any of the rest? I assure you they weren’t all as guilty as she.”

That gives me pause. My mind starts churning over all of my interactions with William. I think about the times he’s tried to warn me. Tried to tell me he’s a goddamn demon. That I should be afraid of him. That I…

I stop myself from spiraling and lean back in my chair. No, wait. That can’t be right, can it? William has saved me. Repeatedly. If he wanted to kill me, he’d have done it by now. Hell, he wouldn’t have had to put up the effort, all he had to do was let me die. Why would he go to all this trouble just to murder me down the road?

“Why?” I ask.

The woman stares at me, a hint of confusion entering her features. “Why?”

“Why did he kill them?” I clarify. Then, remembering what I saw in his mind in my apartment, I add with a hint of agitation, “There’ve been some pretty shit people in his past. A number of them no doubt deserved it.”

I’ve taken her by surprise, I can tell. She straightens in her seat, her shoulders coming back. Her eyes narrow at me like she’s taking me in more carefully now. Given the way she approached it, I figure she thought that revelation was going to be some kind of trump card. I’ve got more questions about her now though than him. Why is she trying to put a wedge between us? How does she even know about him?

She’s clearly another demon. Or at least a creature similar to William. How do they know each other?

“Interesting response,” she murmurs. “Tell me: do you think there would ever be a reason for one such as he to kill the mortal he is bound to?”

I laugh, and her eyes widen almost imperceptibly.

“Are…are you kidding?”

She doesn’t answer. She just watches, waiting.

“Listen. If you really know him like you claim to, you damn well know the answer to that. I’m not going to sit here and blather about his past to you. That’s his business. And like I said, if you’ve got beef, take it up with…”

Pain.

Pain explodes down my spine. It rips the breath out of my lungs. My first thought is that she’s doing this. That I’ve pissed her off, and why didn’t I think of that? If she’s a demon, she could twist me into a pretzel and tie off the ends. Don’t I remember what William did to that nightmare thing in Ambleton? When am I going to learn not to run my fucking mouth?

But as I start to fall out of my chair, my vision blackening at the edges, she reaches out and grabs my shoulder to hold me steady. In the next moment the pain shuts off, leaving the taste of blood in my mouth. I’ve bitten my own tongue.

It clicks when my mind clears. I know where that pain came from. I know what happened.

William. I got that feeling from William. Someone is hurting him.

I jerk to my feet and out of her grasp. My heart leaps into my throat, and I try to reach out, try to get a feel for which direction to go. I’ve done it before, haven’t I? I can do it again. I can find him. I can…

“You actually care, don’t you?”

I whirl back to the woman. She’s still just sitting there, watching me. Observing me. “Who are you?” I demand. And then, considering the convenience of her arrival, it occurs to me that she might have an idea about what’s going on. “Where is he?”

She gives me that smile again. “My dear girl. Do you think you’re friends with him? He doesn’t care about you. He…”

I hold up a hand to cut her off, and surprisingly enough, she does. Her lips purse a bit, though, as if she’s getting increasingly frustrated that I’m killing her vibe. Interrupting her drama.

…Wait a minute.

“Are you his associate? The one who got us away from the Templar with the…” I wiggle my fingers at the air. “The woowoo stuff?”

There’s a wariness in her gaze now as she studies me. “…How did you know that?”

…How did I know that?

Lucky guess, I want to say, but was it? I’m not so sure. Now that I’ve really zeroed in on her, I get a feeling. As if I’ve met her before. Or maybe sensed her before? There’s something about her that feels intrinsically familiar to me. Like when you see a face in a crowd and bump into them again a few days later.

When I don’t answer right away, she appears to shrug it off, but I don’t get the sense her shrewdness has truly abated. She just sets it aside for more important things.

“You want your demon back?” She asks pointedly.

I just stare at her, squaring my shoulders. The urge to hit her ripples through me, but I decide against it. I’m not going to do William any good by getting my neck snapped in the Hotel lobby.

“You do, don’t you?” She gives her head a wry shake. “My dear girl. He will kill or abandon you the moment he gets the chance. He doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”

“How about,” I reply softly, “You leave those decisions up to me, and tell me where William is.”

She rises to her feet with the sort of grace that immediately makes my heart pound. I have a feeling this woman could slip in and stab me before I had a chance to run away.

“You’re in luck,” she replies brightly. “That’s precisely why I’m here. I have some people who are very interested in meeting you. In fact, that’s the entire reason William brought you here in the first place.”

That unbalances me for a moment. Uncertainty worms its way through my head, and I think the woman in front of me can tell. Her smile becomes just a little more pointed.

“What’s the matter?” she murmurs. “Didn’t he tell you who he was working for?”

I choose not to say anything. I can tell she’s looking to widen the crack and get under my skin, and I instinctively shut down to avoid it.

“Pity,” she says. “I wonder what else he’s been choosing to omit. But then, William Doherty has never been particularly communicative.”

Doherty. His full name is William Doherty.

I want to believe that he didn’t remember it, and that’s why he didn’t tell me. I haven’t forgotten the way he tensed up when I asked about his name, though. He didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to. He didn’t even want me to know his name.

I feel another twinge of something on the edge of my consciousness - pain. Fury. I can tell William is trying to muffle those sensations. Is it so I can’t feel that pain?

Or is he interfering with the bond so I can’t find him on my own?

“I appear to have shaken your resolution,” the woman says. “I do hope not. I would prefer if you came with me willingly. Quietly. We wouldn’t want to make a scene, would we?”

I’d be stupid to go with her, I know I would. It could be a trap. In spite of everything, William has been keeping things from me. He’s been pulling me towards something and he never even bothered to tell me. All his obfuscations have stacked up, his talk of an expert and finding someone to undo our bond. I really thought we were being more open with each other. That I could trust him.

But is the sin of hiding something from me enough to just let him suffer? After the number of times he’s saved my life?

No. No, it isn’t. I can’t just leave him. I can still feel his pain on the very edges of my senses, like a tingling in my fingertips, and in spite of the way this woman has tried to stir the pot, I hate that. I hate that someone is hurting him.

“Where is William?” I ask again, wincing internally at how raw my voice sounds.

“Stubborn,” she coos. “I like that. Why don’t we…”

“Lyds?!”

The voice startles her, and she turns her head. I look away and see Nathan — big, blond, beautiful Nathan — walking towards us. For whatever reason the sight of him makes me want to cry. There he is, perfectly human and perfectly normal. He barely acknowledges the strange demon-woman as he sweeps towards me and scoops me into a hug.

“Jesus, Lyds. I’ve been so worried about you. Are you alright?”

I hug him back. It feels so good to hold him, so I allow myself the moment of respite. I have no idea how he found me, but I don’t want to ask that question right now. We’ll get around to that in a minute.

When I pull back, my first move is to slip an arm between him and the mysterious woman I’d been speaking to. There’s a high chance she’s dangerous, and I don’t want her anywhere near…

She’s gone.

“Lyds?” Nathan asks, his voice full of concern. “Everything okay?”

I only lost sight of her for a second. I think I see a glimpse of her red dress disappearing between a couple near the door. I start after her, then stop, gritting my teeth so hard it makes my jaw ache.

“Lydia.” Nathan turns me towards him, his hands on my shoulders. “Is everything okay?”

I look up into his expectant green eyes. The ripple of pain moves through me again, the barest echo of whatever is happening to William, and I feel my heart sink.

“No,” I answer honestly. “No, it’s not.”

My eye catches on something on the table, and I turn to look. One of the napkins has been plucked out of its holder, and I can see an address scrawled on it in a neat, even hand, slanting in black ink. Beneath it is a short message:

You can come willingly, or we will collect you.

My voice is hoarse as I whisper: “It’s not okay at all.”