Lady Midnight
Page 84

Elf-bolts took a great deal of magic to make and were very valuable. Kieran had given it to him not long after he joined the Wild Hunt, and had strung the point on a chain so Mark could wear it near his heart.
“Shoot straight and true,” said Kieran. “Find the killer, and then come back to me.”
“But my family,” Mark said, his hand closing reflexively over Kieran’s. “Kier, you must—”
“Come back to me,” Kieran repeated. He kissed Mark’s closed hand, once, and ducked out through the dangling coats. Though Mark scrambled after him immediately, he was already gone.
The interior of the theater was gorgeous, a romantic ode to the glory days of cinema’s golden age. A curved ceiling split into eights by gold-painted beams, each segment painted with a scene from a classic film, done in baroque jewel tones: Emma recognized Gone with the Wind and Casablanca, but not others—a man carrying another man across burning golden sands, a girl kneeling at the feet of a boy holding a gun across his shoulders, a woman whose white dress blew up around her like the petals of an orchid.
A heavy sweet scent hung in the air as people hurried to take their seats in the semicircular space. The seats were upholstered in purple velvet, each with a gold M embroidered across the back. As the ticket girl had promised, their ticket now had their row and seat numbers printed on it. They found them and filed in, Cristina first, then Emma, then Julian. He sat down beside Emma.
“M for Midnight?” she said, pointing at the seat backs.
“Probably,” he said, and went back to looking at the stage. The curtains were drawn back and a massive painting of an ocean view covered the back wall. The stage itself was bare, the floor gleaming polished boards.
Emma felt flushed. Julian’s voice had been calm, neutral. But the expression on his face only a few minutes ago flashed across her vision anyway: the way he’d looked when he held her on the dance floor, that naked look in his eyes, all pretense stripped away.
That glimpse had shown her an intent and agonized Julian she’d never known. A hidden face she’d never seen, that she didn’t think anyone had ever seen.
She felt Cristina shift beside her and turned with quick guilt: She’d been so caught up in her own bewilderment that she’d forgotten to ask Cristina why she’d looked so flustered.
Cristina was glaring across the theater. Her eyes were glued to the man in the herringbone suit. He was seating himself next to an elegant blond woman in a silver dress and high heels.
“Ugh,” Cristina said. “I practically had to peel him off me. What a pervert. My mother would just have stabbed him.”
“Do you want us to kill him?” Emma suggested, only half-joking. “We could kill him, after the show.”
“That would be a waste of our energy,” Cristina said dismissively. “I’ll tell you what I found out: He is a half werewolf. And he’s been a member of the Followers, that’s what he called them, for six months now. That’s what he meant by being a Blue.”
“The fact that he’s been a Follower for a long time, or the fact that he’s part lycanthrope?” Julian asked.
“Both, I think,” Cristina said. “He went to great pains to tell me all about what it meant to be part werewolf. How he’s stronger and faster than a human. He says he could kick through a brick wall.” She rolled her eyes.
“I don’t even get it,” said Emma. “How do you wind up being half-werewolf?”
“It means you have the werewolf virus, but it’s dormant,” said Jules. “You can pass it on, but you can’t Turn yourself. You’ll never change into a wolf, but you do have increased speed and strength.”
“He said they all have increased speed and strength,” said Cristina. “Every time they hold a Lottery, he said, the Followers all get stronger.”
“Sympathetic magic,” Julian said. Suddenly there was a commotion in their row.
“Am I late?” It was Mark, seeming flustered, tumbling into the seat beside Julian. His fair hair looked as if he’d been standing in front of a wind machine. “Sorry, I got distracted.”
Julian looked at him for a long moment. “Don’t tell me,” he said finally. “I don’t want to know.”
Mark looked surprised. “You don’t?” he said. “I would.”
“I do,” chimed in Emma, but before Mark could say anything, the lights in the theater dimmed. Silence fell instantly—not the slow hushing of voices Emma would have expected, but an abrupt, unnatural cessation of noise.
A shiver passed up the back of her neck just as a single spotlight lit up the stage.
The band had gathered in the orchestra pit. They began to play a quiet melody, almost mournful, as a black-velvet-draped object was wheeled out onto the stage by two uniformed men. The music faded, and there was the tap-tap of high heels; a moment later the woman who had been taking tickets at the door appeared. She had changed and was wearing a gorgeous full-length dress of black and dark blue lace that looked like foam on the ocean. Even at a distance Emma could see the dark kohl liner ringing her eyes.
The woman reached out a hand, the nails painted viper red, and seized hold of the black velvet, tearing it aside and hurling it dramatically to the floor.
Revealed underneath was a machine. A large transparent drum sat atop a metal plinth; inside the glass were hundreds of colored, numbered balls. A metal chute stuck out from the machine, and in front of the chute was a tray.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the woman onstage. “I’m Belinda Belle.”
“‘Belinda Belle’?” Julian whispered. “Made-up name.”
“You’re a genius detective,” Emma whispered back. “Genius.”
He made a face at her, and Emma felt a wave of relief. This was her and Julian, making faces at each other, making each other laugh. That was normal.
The woman on the stage continued, “Welcome to the Lottery.”
The room was silent. Belinda smiled, resting her hand on the device, perfectly still.
“A lottery machine,” murmured Julian. “That’s literal.”
“The Guardian could not be with us tonight,” said Belinda. “Security has required tightening. The last hunt was interrupted by Nephilim, and the value of the sacrifice was endangered.”
There was a low hum. A jolt went through Emma. Nephilim. The woman had said “Nephilim.” These people knew about Shadowhunters. It wasn’t a surprise so much as a confirmation of what Emma had suspected all along. There was something going on here, something that reached its threaded tendrils into Downworld and clawed at the roots of everything they knew.
“The sacrifice?” Emma whispered. “Does she mean human sacrifice?”
S-H-H-H, Julian wrote on her arm. She saw with a pang as his fingers touched her skin that his nails were bitten down to the quick.
The music picked up. Onstage, Belinda pressed a button on the side of the machine. The metal arms whirred to life. The balls spun around inside the globe, becoming a blur of color like the inside of a kaleidoscope.
Turn, and turn, and turn. Emma on the beach, her dad’s arm around her. Kaleidoscopes are like magic, Emma. No two people who look into them ever see the same thing.