The Restorer

Thirty-Seven

I had just driven around the Institute and was about to pull onto the street when I saw him on Madam Know-It-All’s front porch.

They had just come out of the house, Devlin and a woman—the palmist, I presumed—and though I couldn’t see her features as clearly as his underneath the porch light, I knew she was attractive. I could tell by the way she carried herself. Really gorgeous women have an air about them. Temple and Camille both had it. Mariama’s ghost still had it.

Devlin appeared to be in the process of leaving, but then the woman touched his shoulder and he spun back around. There was nothing particularly sexual about the interaction, but I did sense some intimacy in the way he peered down into her upturned face and a measure of urgency when he took her by the arms. My window was open, but I couldn’t hear a word of their conversation, no matter how hard I strained.

I wasn’t proud of myself for trying to eavesdrop, nor for easing onto the street behind Devlin’s car when he drove off a few minutes later. I didn’t know what had come over me. I hadn’t been raised like this. Discretion and decorum went hand in hand in our household, and I had a sudden vision of how appalled my mother would be at my behavior. Listening in on private conversations. Following a man home without his knowledge or permission. Her imagined censure made me wince, but it didn’t stop me.

I had no idea how to tail someone—much less a cop—without being spotted, but instinct told me to hang back. Traffic was light so I allowed a good half block between us. But with such a wide gap, I was afraid I might lose him if he made too many turns.

Thanks to Ethan, I had some idea of where Devlin was headed. From Rutledge he turned right on Beaufain, then left onto a side street. I drove past the intersection and circled back, giving him time to park and get inside.

Switching on the interior light, I checked Ethan’s note as I drove slowly down the street, searching for a lovely Queen Anne with a blue porch and a well-tended garden. When I spotted the address, the windows were all dark and I didn’t see Devlin’s car. He must have parked around back, I decided. Or else he’d spotted me in the mirror and driven on by.

I checked my own mirror just to make sure he hadn’t doubled back and come up behind me.

No one was there. Coast all clear.

Now what?

Pulling to the curb, I shut off the engine, cut the lights and just sat there, my thoughts in turmoil. Why had I come here? I wanted to blame the impulse on Essie’s tea or the few sips of champagne I’d had at Dr. Shaw’s party. I wasn’t behaving like a woman who had always lived her life by a strict set of rules. I could see my reflection in the car window and thought, that’s not me. She has my eyes, my nose, my mouth, but inside she’s morphed into some strange, reckless creature I don’t know anymore.

“Go home, Amelia.” I said it aloud because I thought the words might have more power. Home to my safe, pleasant, empty sanctuary where I was guarded from ghosts and governed by my father’s warnings.

But I didn’t start the engine, didn’t turn around, didn’t drive off into the night. Instead I sat there for a while longer and then finally I got out.

Crossing the street, I stood at the bottom of the veranda steps, my face upturned to the sky. Clouds drifted across the moon and I could feel something in the air. A storm was coming. The drop in pressure tickled my scalp and I felt almost giddy with excitement as I lifted my arms and let the wind sweep over me.

It was a very liberating moment, a casting off, but then I turned toward the house—her house—and something darker coursed through my veins. Someone stood in the front window. A shadow that darted away when I saw it.

Shivering, I knocked on the front door. It swung open and I took a cautious step inside. “Devlin?”

I took a moment to acclimate my eyes to the gloom. Directly in front of me, an elegant staircase curved up and around to a wide second-story gallery. Beyond the stairwell, a long hallway led back into the house and to my right was a murky parlor.

Moving to the arched doorway, I allowed my gaze to travel over the old-fashioned furniture, which surely had not been Devlin’s choice, and the imposing portrait of Mariama over the mantel, which surely was. The air smelled faintly of sage and lemon verbena—like Essie’s house—with a musty undercurrent of dust, abandonment and unspeakable despair.

Veiled moonlight shone through the large front window, and for a moment I saw Shani standing there staring out. Watching for Devlin. Waiting for him to come back and say goodbye.

She was tiny and luminescent, and as I stood there observing her, she faded into nothingness.

The fresh coat of blue paint on the porch had not kept out the ghosts. The chill of their presence surrounded me. Not just Shani and Mariama, but the ghosts of another life. The ghosts of a happy family. The ghost of the man Devlin had once been.

As I backed into the foyer, my gaze lifted to a flickering light beyond the gallery. I could hear music up there now, something exotic and tribal. A drumming that stirred primitive instincts.

Slowly, I climbed the stairs, calling out Devlin’s name. Some thing cold swept against me, the merest brush of a silk dress, and I knew it was her. A mirror hung on the wall, and as I passed by, I caught a glimpse of my reflection. Only this time…I didn’t see my eyes, my nose, my mouth. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw Mariama staring back at me, but the illusion was fleeting. Once again it was me in the mirror. Wide eyes, freckled skin, bedraggled ponytail. Hardly the vision of a temptress.

And yet as I neared the top of the stairs, I grew bolder, freer. When I reached the landing, I paused to remove the band from my ponytail and shake out my hair. My head fell back, swaying in abandon as the rhythm of the music seemed to crawl inside my skin.

The sound came from the room down the hallway. The door was open and the beat seemed to intensify as I approached.

Inside, everything was hazy and candlelit. It was like stepping into someone else’s dream. The breeze that blew in through the balcony doors stirred the flames and rippled like waves through the silky fabric that cocooned the bed. An eerie audience of African masks hung from the walls, and the hollow eyes seemed to watch me as I walked across the room to Devlin.

He stood on the veranda looking down on the garden. His shirt was open and the wind blew it back. As he turned, something cold floated between us. I felt her touch, her icy breath, and shivered. But I wasn’t afraid. Which was strange because here in her house she would be at her strongest. I had already seen what she could do and yet…I wasn’t afraid.

My gaze locked with Devlin’s and a current of heat surged through me. He felt it, too. His eyes flared and his body went very still.

The moment stretched on and on.

And then he closed the distance between us and I heard him mutter, “I knew you’d come,” but I didn’t know if he meant me.

I reached up and traced the silver medallion with my fingertip. A symbol of his mysterious past, a talisman of all his secrets. The metal was cold, but I could feel the heat of his skin drawing me to him as surely as his warmth enthralled his ghosts.

Rising on tiptoes, I offered him my mouth. He took it with a groan, crushing me to him in an embrace that seemed at once familiar and foreign, desperate and devastatingly controlled.

He tasted of whiskey and temptation and my darkest fantasies. I wanted to hear him say my name in that seductive, decadent drawl. I wanted to skim my tongue along his hot skin, press my mouth to the throbbing pulse in his neck, wrap myself around him until nothing could come between us. Not time, not distance, not even death.

Backing me up against the wall, he tore aside my clothes right there on the balcony while a voice inside my head warned: This is not you, Amelia. This is not you.

But it was me. It was my hands that flung his shirt aside. My mouth that opened so readily beneath his.

My decision to discard the rules by which I’d lived my whole life.

He lifted my legs around him and, half drunk with desire, I let my head fall back against the wall, exposing my neck. He devoured me hungrily, his teeth nipping and tugging the tender skin at my throat, his tongue laving and soothing the pleasurable sting.

Through slitted eyes, I caught the barest hint of movement down in the garden. When I looked again, I saw only the flutter of leaves in the wind.

And then I saw nothing at all as Devlin whisked me into the bedroom. The charged air came with us, tingling over bare skin, feathering along aroused nerve-endings.

From where we stood, I had a view of Mariama’s dressing mirror, oval and ornate. In the candlelight, I could see the ridges of muscle in Devlin’s back as he bent over me. I had the strangest sensation of being outside my body, of watching something forbidden, something dangerously taboo.

I slipped from his embrace and when he turned, I pressed him against the wall, trailing my lips down his chest as I fumbled with his belt buckle and opened his zipper. Smiling up at him, I slid to my knees and then I did things to him I never knew I was capable of. He shuddered as I encircled him, and when I felt he was on the verge, I turned again to glance over my shoulder at the mirror. My smile now was sly, wanton. A temptress’s invitation.

Rising, I put my lips against his ear. “I will never leave you,” I whispered, and where those words came from, I had no idea.

Devlin’s eyes smoldered and before I could move away, his hand shot out to grip my chin. He tilted my head back, searching my face.

“Amelia.” It was almost a question.

The sound of it made me tremble. “Yes, yes, yes,” I breathed and wound my arms around his neck, pulling him down for my kiss.

The breeze through the open doorway whipped the candle flames as the silky curtains billowed and beckoned.

Devlin pulled away and stared into my eyes for the longest moment, and then with a muttered oath he swept me up and carried me to the bed. The fabric parted in the breeze, and before I could catch my breath, we were falling through that shimmering fabric into another world, dark and lush. Devlin’s world. Mariama’s world.

I heard nothing of the music now but the drumbeats. The primitive sound thundered in my ears as he rose over me.

Trapping my wrists, he lifted my arms over my head, kissing me again and again and again. Long, hot, out-of-control kisses that left me thrumming. That left me begging. I closed my eyes tightly as his lips slid over my stomach.

My arms were still over my head, but the fingers around my wrists had turned cold. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. Something held me in place as I felt Devlin’s tongue skim the inside of my thigh.

I squirmed and tried to free myself. Tried to say his name.

He lifted my hips to meet his mouth, and as a white-hot pleasure filled me, I heard her laugh.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

A ghost hovered over the bed. Eyes burning into mine. Mouth twisted in a ghastly grin.

I tried not to react, but how could I not?

Tearing my hands free from whatever held me, I tried to push Devlin away. He looked up, eyes heavy with desire. “What’s the matter?”

They were all around us. Drawn by the heat and energy of our lovemaking. Drawn to the most elemental act of life…of what they could never experience again.

Hungry and covetous, they watched us. Leering from the darkest corners. Crouching like gargoyles atop bedposts. Touching diaphanous body parts in grotesque parody.

A scream rose in my throat as Devlin moved up beside me. “Amelia? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you? Scare you…?”

He didn’t have a clue they were there. How could he not feel the cold dankness that surrounded us? The evil that had blown in with the breeze?

Across the room, the entity I’d seen in the garden at Rapture sat slumped in a chair. He wore shackles, one clamped around his wrist, the other dangling free. Lifting the loose end to his face, he sneered knowingly at me through the hole.

Devlin touched my shoulder and I flinched away. “I…have to go.”

“What is it? What did I do?”

I slid out of bed and grabbed my clothes. “I’m…” Haunted. “I have to go!”

I ran blindly from that room, Devlin’s voice calling after me. “Amelia!”

Later when I looked back on that night, I never remembered dressing or leaving the house. Had I not been so traumatized, I might have noticed the shadow that lurked at the corner of the veranda. I might even have recognized the troubled visage that tracked me.

As it was, I barely had any recollection of how I got home. I knew that I must have driven like a bat out of hell, though, because I was already inside my house, locked in my own little sanctuary, by the time Devlin caught up with me.

He beat on my front door, called out my name, but I didn’t let him in. I slid to the floor, arms wrapped tightly around my legs, shaking uncontrollably as my father’s warning pounded through my head.

…take care you don’t let them in. Once that door has opened…it cannot be closed.

“Papa,” I whispered. “What have I done?”