A Shade of Vampire 43: A House of Mysteries(51)

Silence.

I looked down at our hands, reassuring myself that he was still there. Perhaps he couldn’t hear me. There was nothing much else I could do other than make sure my grip didn’t falter.

The whispered voices continued, and I stopped, stunned, as my name was called.

Phoenix.

Vita and Field both yanked me forward, and the voice was swallowed up by the cacophony of the other strange sounds and whistles carried in the winds. A few moments later, I could hear my name being called again, and it was in a voice I was sure I could recognize, but couldn’t quite place.

Phoenix.

Why haven’t you told your friends that you saw her?

I looked around, instantly angry. Who was this? Was it the Druid or Bijarki taunting me? Had they seen me trying to dig her up last night?

She is beautiful, isn’t she?

But will you be worthy, Phoenix?

Are you a great man like your father—or are you a mere shadow of him?

I gritted my teeth against the voice. I was now sure it wasn’t any of our company. I doubted the Druid or Bijarki knew anything of my father, or my relationship with him. How I truly felt. But someone was managing to push my buttons…Who? I listened out for the voice again, trying to rack my brain to work out where I’d heard it before.

“Don’t listen to the voices!” Serena shouted across the winds. It snapped me back to reality. “Remember, the shape-shifters!”

Right. Yes, the creatures that had called out to my sister in the swamp, taking on the voices of Field and Jovi. The shape-shifters must have been mimicking the voice of one of us, but distorting it so it was unfamiliar and couldn’t be placed.

Phoenix. The voice came again. Phoenix.

If you come with us, we will show you how to save her.

You can be with her, always.

You can find true love, contentment.

I yanked once again at the hands of my friends. Their grip was suddenly irritatingly tight. Why wouldn’t they let me go? I wanted to follow the voices, let them lead me back to her, find a way to remove her from the worm-filled earth, from the rot and decay that surrounded her.

Come with us, Phoenix.

I looked around, searching the empty expanse of the sandstorm. I could see shapes, emerging from the mists, but flickering so quickly in and out of my vision I wasn’t sure if they were real or imagined. I squinted, trying to make them out.

One appeared in front of me, a few yards ahead. It was the figure of a man, I was sure of it, but from this distance, and with the sand still stinging unrelentingly in my eyes, I couldn’t make out any particular features. The figure struck me as strange though, as if its arms were too long for its body, its head too slim and small for its frame. As I watched it, the figure flickered and darted away, moving at great speed.

“Wait!” I called out, trying to run after it.

“No!” Vita cried out. “Phoenix, don’t listen to them! They’re lying to us!” She pulled on my arm, keeping me alongside her. Field’s grip didn’t falter either.

I saw another, moving up ahead through the mists. It was running on all fours, not upright like a man, but still with a human figure—long legs that arched its spine upward, its arms scrabbling in the dirt while its face appeared to be turned at an unnatural angle, looking at me as it ran past. They moved fast—surprisingly so.

The noises started to give way to cries. Long, pain-filled and tortured, they echoed through the winds. I knew my friends had been right to hold on tightly and not let me go. These creatures were hungry. I could hear their howls of misery that none of us would join them.

Help us! they now cried. Please help us!

The voices that called out were no longer familiar. They belonged to the tortured and insane—wretched creatures that seemed to be locked in these mists. Never finding their way home, only desiring to feed, to follow their most base instincts.

I shuddered, gripping Vita and Field tightly. I couldn’t wait to get out of here. How long did this barrier continue on for? I couldn’t see an end in sight, just more of the red and yellow hues of the sandstorm with the same dark, flickering figures lying in wait up ahead.

I dreaded the voices calling to me again, tempting me to follow them, using the girl as a ploy. Had the others heard what they’d been saying to me, or had they been locked in their own madness, the shape-shifters playing on their innermost secrets? My own behavior seemed completely baffling to me now, especially what I had done this morning. Why wasn’t I telling my friends about the girl I’d seen? It was foolish, and actually downright dangerous, to keep them ignorant of what lay beneath the magnolia tree. It started to occur to me that the shape-shifters weren’t the only ones that had managed to create some kind of hold over me—last night I had been scrabbling at the dirt with my bare hands in some kind of desperate frenzy to uncover her. Was the sleeping beauty manipulating me in some way? Using me to uncover something that was just an illusion, or something potentially deadly?