Brenna Yovanoff - The Replacement

“She will receive you in the formal parlor.”

The room was fancier than the Lady’s reading room, with an intricate rug and painted vases in niches along the walls. There were bronze sculptures of soaring birds and shepherdesses placed on tables around the room. The Lady was reclining on a long dark-colored sofa. When we stopped in the doorway, she looked up and smiled like she’d been expecting us.

Danny and I stepped into the room, while Roswell and Drew hung back in the doorway, with Drew slightly in front so he was shielding the revenant from view.

“Mr. Doyle,” the Lady said. “It is so lovely to see you again. To what do we owe this pleasure?”

I kept my expression neutral and pleasant. “I was thinking about some of the things you said before. I was pretty unfair—I know that—and I wanted to bring you a present.”

The Lady smiled at me expectantly. Then she looked past me and the smile disappeared. “Send them out,” she said, looking thunderous. “Out, now!”

My first thought was that she’d seen the revenant, and it took me a second to realize that she was talking about Drew and Danny. I stared at her, shaking my head. “They can’t both go. They’re the reason we’re here.”

“You brought unnatural monsters into my house? How dare you? How dare you presume to defile my house!”

I glanced back at the twins. Their resemblance had never seemed shocking or even very unusual. Or at least, they’d always seemed a lot more normal than I was. Apparently, freakishness was a little different for everyone.

I moved toward the Lady and held up my hands. “ Wait , if Drew goes, can Danny stay and show you the present? One of them has to stay and show you how it works.”

The Lady watched me, her expression wary. “Very well. You, with the gift. You can stay. Make the other wait in the hall.”

Drew and Roswell beat a precipitous retreat and the Lady turned her attention back to me. “What gift do you have for me?”

“I wanted to bring you something that would help you. You were talking about how the Morrigan lied to you, and up in town, they have a solution for that. This would keep anyone from lying to you ever again.”

The Lady smiled and her eyes were hungry. “That would be a precious gift indeed.” She barely glanced at me. Her gaze was on Danny and the suitcase. “But it looks so ordinary.”

He was kneeling on the floor, opening the suitcase. “That’s part of how it works. No one knows you’ve got it until it’s too late.”

I began to back toward the door. “While you’re seeing how it works, do you mind if I check on my friends?”

The Lady didn’t even look up. Her eyes were fixed lovingly, greedily on Danny’s hands as he undid the clasps and opened the Red Scare.

Roswell and Drew were waiting in the hall, looking out of place and nervous. I didn’t want to leave Danny, but we needed to find Natalie.

We started back toward the entrance, then I retraced the way to the Lady’s reading room. I had an idea that even though the burrow under the park was big and sprawling, there weren’t nearly as many people living there as there were in the House of Mayhem.

We found the room without much trouble and without seeing anyone. The fire was out and some of the wall lamps had been shut off.

At first, I didn’t see her. The House of Misery didn’t seem to be as big as the House of Mayhem, but it was just as convoluted, and if they’d taken her someplace else, I didn’t know how we’d find her. But Natalie was there. She’d dragged her pillow under one of the low tables and sat staring into her birdcage. Her hair was messed up, the bows untied. She’d taken off the button boots and one sock.

I crouched next to her and went to pick her up, but she turned away, covering her face. When she raised her hands, I got a good look at her arm. A raw, oozing seam circled her wrist, red at the edges and nearly black at the center. Around it, the discoloration feathered out, spreading under the skin, working its way in the direction of her shoulder.

“Roz,” I said in a low voice, trying to sound calm and conversational so that I wouldn’t scare her. “Take the charm off the revenant, now .”

Roswell came up behind me. “But what about the plan? Isn’t the whole point to have it look real?”

“Take it off, now!”

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. It’s your show.” There was a sharp ripping sound as he snapped the ribbon. Then he yelped and there was a heavy thump. “Oh, Jesus !”

I twisted around, but I already knew what I’d see. Roswell had dropped the revenant on the carpet, and there was nothing remotely human about it anymore. It was still moving, writhing on its back, but its skin was so gray it was nearly colorless. It squirmed over onto its hands and knees and raised its head to look at me. Its irises were a dirty yellow and so were its teeth.

From under the table, Natalie made a thin high-pitched noise, like a caught rabbit, and Roswell dove for the revenant. He threw his jacket over it and scooped it back up, keeping its face hidden, but Natalie was already working her way farther under the table, hiding her own face, trying to wedge herself into the corner.

“Natalie,” I said, but she wouldn’t look at me. “Natalie, it’s okay. Come out from there.” I didn’t want to grab her, but it looked like I might have to.

Then Drew sat down next to me and took out a quarter. “You like magic tricks, right, Nat?” He walked the quarter over his knuckles.

When she peered out between her fingers, he made the quarter dance along the edge of his hand and said, “I used to be your neighbor. Do you remember?”

She didn’t answer, but after a second, she nodded.

I knelt on the floor and started working at the knot that fastened her to the chair. Roswell was trying to keep the revenant covered, but it didn’t want to stay under his jacket.

When I got the ribbon loose, Drew leaned under the table, never looking away from Natalie, even when the revenant started to whine and struggle behind him. “We’re going to take you home now, and you need to cover your eyes.”

For a second, Natalie didn’t move, but when he said it again, she dropped the bird and put her hands over her eyes. He picked her up, holding her close against his shoulder. He kept her turned away while Roswell unwrapped the squirming body, trying to keep it from clutching and pawing at him.

“This is bad,” he whispered, knotting the ribbon around the revenant’s waist, peeling its hands off every time it reached for him. “We’re going to hell for sure. This is so bad.”

“You haven’t begun to appreciate how bad things can get,” said a hoarse voice behind us.

Someone was standing in the doorway, so still and so backlit that at first I couldn’t make out his face. His arms were folded over his chest and he was nothing but a shadow except for the flicker of his eyes.

“Forgive me being so bold as to say so, but we’re in a world of trouble, aren’t we?” He stepped into the room and I saw his face. It was the Cutter. He looked exactly like he had when he’d shown me out except that now he was wearing black gloves. They were heavy, with short steel claws sewn into the fingertips.

Natalie had her arms around Drew’s neck, clutching at him, and I tried not to stagger as the Cutter moved toward me and the first clouds of iron seeped into the room.

“Would you care to explain what you are doing in the Lady’s private quarters with two trespassers and a corpse?”

Roswell stood up, looking resolute and not half as scared as I felt. He was taller than the Cutter but young looking, without any of the qualities it took to be cruel. “What are you supposed to be, like some kind of boogeyman?”