NIGHT THREE OF PHANTASMA
Ophelia woke the next day drenched in sweat. A damp cloth was covering her forehead and something warm was pressed against her hip. As she struggled to sit up, a mewl of protest rang out.
“Careful,” a voice warned, just as a shooting pain went through her arm.
She blinked her eyes open to find Blackwell sitting in the armchair across from her bed, and Poe lying by her side. The cat glared at her for disturbing his slumber.
“What are you doing in my room?” she croaked to them both, reaching up to remove the cloth from her face. No, not a cloth, a ragged piece of a… shirt?
“You almost got eaten by a giant serpent, and that’s the first question you have?” He raised his brows and leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees. “Not, ‘are any of my limbs missing?’ They aren’t, by the way.”
She took him in for a long moment, noting that something was different—his outfit had changed. Instead of the black jacquard suit and shirt, he was now wearing a three-piece ensemble made entirely of viridian silk. His long coat had polished gold buttons and his cravat was ever so slightly askew where it was tucked into his vest.
“What happened?” she finally asked, her voice still thick.
“What happened is that you’re incredibly impatient,” he answered flatly.
She tried sitting up again, wincing when she put pressure on her right arm. He shot to his feet to assist.
“The snake…” she realized as he gently propped her back against the headboard. “I thought you had abandoned me—”
“I told you to wait for my signal.” His tone was irritated.
“And I’m supposed to trust you?” She wrinkled her nose. “This entire place is designed to kill me. I barely made it out of that first level, and when I did, there were more monsters waiting. Excuse me for not just taking the word of a Ghost who keeps stalking me.”
“Stalking is a bit dramatic,” he drawled.
She only glared at him.
He let out a frustrated breath. “I could have not offered to help you at all—does that not warrant at least a sliver of confidence that I’m not trying to get you killed?” He lifted a brow, growing more indignant with each word. “I also could have left you to be possessed by that Poltergeist you decided to traipse after in the hallway. I’d ask if you had any wits left in your head at all, except I’m fairly certain the venom in your system was responsible for that unadvised foray.”
“Poltergeist?” she questioned.
Poltergeists were the souls of deceased Demons that had managed to weasel their way here from the Other Side and had the same abilities as regular Apparitions with one major addition—they could possess you. And if they possessed you long enough, they could steal your soul and resurrect themselves back to their original demonic forms.
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. Another few seconds alone, and it would have swindled you into a possession. Poltergeists will shapeshift into people you care about and lure you in, so you shouldn’t trust anyone you think you might know here. If your sister is in Phantasma, she is not in your group or this wing. Until you reach level seven, it’s safe to say you should stop looking for her. I thought a Necromancer would know to be more careful about such a trick.”
The last bit brought her blood to a full-on boil.
“Excuse me for not being in the best mindset after fighting off a giant serpent! I don’t think making one mistake under the influence of venom is an accurate reflection of my skills as a Necromancer.” She glowered at him. “I did just fine against the Hellhound and getting myself out of that maze by myself. If you think I’m so incapable, why are you pestering me to help you with your silly little scavenger hunt?”
Blackwell snorted. “I didn’t say you were incapable. In fact, I was mildly impressed with how you managed to get out of level one. And most people drop within two seconds of being injected with so much venom—if they don’t faint from seeing a beast like that in the first place—so I think you’re rather a force to be reckoned with there, too.”
She gaped at him. “You saw me in the maze? How?”
He shrugged. “The levels of Phantasma take place on a different linear plane than this one. Corporeal souls can only see what has been created by the Devil who runs each level. But those of us able to shift between planes can watch the events from the outside.”
“So, this is all some sort of sick entertainment to the Apparitions here?”
He shook his head. “The Apparitions don’t really invest themselves much with the happenings in Phantasma outside of their debts. The Devils on the other hand… they have a betting pool for each group. Don’t worry, you’re not in their loser brackets. Yet.”
Her nose wrinkled. “That’s sick.”
He shrugged again. “A Devil is a Devil.”
“And you?” she asked.
“What about me?” He lifted a brow.
“Do you usually watch mortals run around like ants, trying to escape their deaths? Is that entertaining to you?”
“No, I’m usually helping my chosen contestant survive,” he told her. “Since you turned down my bargain, I didn’t have much else to do. Besides, I find the interpersonal group politics much more entertaining to watch. Two of your group members have already begun quite the sordid affair.”
She ignored that last part. “So, you watched to see if I’d fail without agreeing to your bargain?”
He huffed a laugh. “Partially. You did well, but I do think you underestimate how much harder the trials can get. That first one was easy compared to the others.”
“That was supposed to be easy?”
He smirked. “You get the picture, then.”
She moved to hug her arms around her torso in comfort and flinched when the action pulled on the wound at her shoulder. She pulled her sleeve down to see a long, jagged bite mark marring her skin. And something else. A small golden star-like marking she had never seen before. Her prize for completing the first trial, she realized. She wondered if the glittering tattoo would be permanent.
“Your arm is in pretty bad shape,” Blackwell cautioned as she tried to move again. “And I can’t help heal you until…”
“That’s what this is all about,” she accused, jabbing a finger in his direction and disturbing Poe’s slumber enough this time that the cat finally winked out of the room. “Let me guess—you summoned that serpent yourself so you could pretend to save me from it and trick me into trusting you.”
“I had nothing to do with the serpent,” he retorted. “That was a manifestation of one of the other contestant’s darkest fears—the one you saved from the Hellhound. It was the secret he paid to enter Phantasma. The manor chooses when to utilize those. And I’m not trying to trick you into trusting me, I’m trying to show you that we can help each other. If you’d listen to me, that is.” He muttered the last bit.
She had the sudden urge to stick her tongue out at him, but she resisted, and the corners of his mouth slowly turned up as if he knew that was exactly what she wanted to do.
“I don’t need your help,” she maintained. “And I can heal my arm myself. I just have to get a good night’s sleep.”
He snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that here. But that reminds me—you’re stretching your magic too thin, too quickly. You’re going to burn yourself out. I, on the other hand, would be able to heal your shoulder completely with very little effort. Even better, the next time you found yourself in a ghastly predicament, I could simply transport you away and you wouldn’t have to worry about using up your magic before the next level.”
“And why is it you can’t do any of that without a blood bargain? You helped me back to my room, didn’t you?”
“And being corporeal long enough to carry you back here took a great deal of effort,” he revealed. “The only way I can do such things consistently is if I have a connection to something living.”
“The decade you’re asking for,” she said with realization. “That’s how you’ve become a Phantom. That’s how you sustain yourself to become more powerful than normal Ghosts. More solid.”
“Yes,” he confirmed, and she could swear she heard a smile in his voice as if what she had said was an innuendo of some kind. “My powers are stronger during a blood bargain. You’d be able to summon me at will.”
She bit her lip. She had to admit his offer was sounding more enticing the longer she thought about it. And like he pointed out, it wasn’t as if she would be able to look for Genevieve unless she made it past the next six levels anyway, so she would have plenty of spare time over the next few days to search for his key…
“And if you take a decade from me and that’s all the time I have left, I would die?”
“You could’ve died ten times in this manor already,” he told her. “But you’re right—that is a possibility. Still, it seems less painful to me than, say, getting ripped to pieces by a Hellhound?”
“Aren’t you afraid that even if I do find this key, you still might not be able to pass over fully? That you’ll be able to leave Phantasma but not have any other place to go?”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Life happens. Even in death. No use worrying about things that haven’t occurred yet.”
She was silent for a long moment as she mulled over his words, but she knew in the back of her mind she had already made a decision. She could hear her mother’s voice scolding her for what she was about to do, but she ignored it. Her mother wasn’t here.
She shooed him away from the side of the bed so she could stand, her right arm hanging uselessly as she straightened herself up before him. “What are the terms, exactly?”
His green eyes blazed with excitement as he cleared his throat and declared, “If you agree to this blood bargain, I vow to use our connection only to answer your summons and to help you in any dire situations. In exchange, you have until you leave Phantasma’s grounds to find my anchor. A heart and a key, according to you. Failure to find it will result in you transferring ten years of your life span directly to me through the blood bargain—not a second more or a second less.”
“And if I do find this key?” She tilted her head. “I want payment for that.”
Something sparked in his eyes at the request. “What would you like?”
She didn’t hesitate. “My family has a debt against our home. I need money to pay it off.”
“I’m a Ghost,” he deadpanned. “I don’t have access to mortal currencies.”
“Well then, how about finding and keeping tabs on my sister? You should be able to see if she’s in another group, right?”
“You don’t get your prize until after you complete our bargain,” he reminded her. “But if you win the competition, a gift from me seems moot anyway considering Phantasma’s prize is better than anything I could offer.”
“I don’t care about winning,” she told him.
“You should. The winner gets a Devil’s Grant—one of the most coveted, omnipotent favors there are—and you could use it to settle your debt. Make it to level seven, find your sister and convince her to forfeit, then stay and let me help you win. Why go through seven levels of Hell to find her just to give up and go home when you’ve only got two levels left?”
She hated to admit that he had a point. As she searched his eyes for a sign of sincerity, he reached out and lifted her left hand, turning her palm face up. He traced one of the long lines in the center with his index finger, and she felt her locket warm against her skin.
“This is your lifeline,” he told her, and she watched as her arm broke out in goosebumps. “I see a very long life here. But I don’t think that’s something you should bother worrying about anyway.”
“And why not?” she breathed. The sensation of him touching her so delicately sent a whirlwind of butterflies through her stomach.
“Because I have a feeling you’re not going to fail,” he answered seriously, his gaze even more intense than before. “Not with your abilities. You’re…”
He trailed off as if he were trying to decide if what he wanted to say was advantageous to his cause.
“I haven’t been this hopeful in a very long time,” he settled on.
“I think you’re putting a lot of stock into abilities I can’t even seem to control,” she muttered. “When Cade tried to stab me, I disappeared. I’ve never done that before. My mother never mentioned that’s something Necromancers were even capable of.”
“Maybe that power is particular to your personal brand of magic,” he suggested. “It’s possible for the same types of beings to have unique abilities.”
She sighed. “My mother is turning in her grave somewhere at me having this conversation with you. Though, I think she’d be more upset that I drove Genevieve away in the first place.”
“Do we have a bargain or not?” he prompted.
“One last thing,” she pressed. “The bit with the heart—I’m not capable of killing anyone. We’ll have to find a way to get that piece of this puzzle ethically.”
“You’d be surprised what you’re capable of doing under the right circumstances,” he said.
“Let me rephrase, I don’t want to be capable of that.” She looked down at her hands. “It’s enough that so many people already think Necromancers are dark, even evil. I will not stain my hands with blood and prove them right.”
He sighed. “Hearts are everywhere here. Let’s focus on the key first and cross that bridge when we get there. Do we have a deal?”
She took a deep breath and finally nodded. “We have a deal. Make the bargain.”
He disappeared abruptly and then reappeared a second later, now with an ornate onyx dagger in his hand. He held out his palm for hers, and she gave it to him, watching intently as he ran the steel blade across her delicate skin. She hissed at the pain while he lifted his own hand and made a similar cut before clasping their bleeding slashes together and closing his eyes. He said a few words in a language she recognized from all the times she eavesdropped on her mother’s appointments, and sucked in a sharp breath when her entire body flushed with a pulsing heat. The sensation was the closest thing she could imagine a high would be, but it faded just as quickly as it had come on.
He dropped her hand gently. “Whenever you need to summon me, all you must do is recite my name three times. I’ll come.”
Three times, the Shadow Voice purred, satisfied.
“Whenever?” She lifted a brow. “So, if I want you at my beck and call every second of the day—?”
“Yes,” he confirmed with amusement. “You can summon me any time you want. The morning. The afternoon. The middle of the night…”
She cleared her throat. Wherever his thoughts were trailing off, she did not need to follow. “I got it. What about my injuries?”
He placed a hand over her shoulder, causing her to grit her teeth, and after a few more words in that same language, all the pain melted away. She looked over to inspect his work, rolling her arm in its socket to make sure it was good as new. The only evidence left of the ordeal from the night before was the dried blood crusted on her skin and clothes.
“Thank you,” she told him sincerely. “Now what?”
“Now, we begin.”
