Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(89)
It was all well and good. Belle was off being chatted up by a young actor who’d once professed to be her fan, not that she seemed very engaged in the conversation. Chae Rin was off by herself, eating half the tray of tiny sandwiches left on a table full of food platters. It was a little bit of respite from everything I’d been through in the past few weeks. Taking pictures with celebrities, watching people go crazy online. For a few blissful hours, I could forget that there were monsters chasing me. I could go back to being just a fan again.
Maybe it was all the noise, but my head was suddenly throbbing. I grimaced and bent low. GBD had just returned backstage from performing “Scandalous,” and in the midst of glaring at Jo, Lake noticed me wincing.
“You okay?” Lake asked when I pressed my hand against my forehead.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I’d have been more worried if it were the back of my neck again. This was probably just the aftereffect of the mind control. “I think I’m just tired.”
“Well, it’s almost over.” Lake seemed relieved at the thought as the mechanical female voice called out the nominee list over the sound system. The crowd went wild after every name, but they gave a resounding cheer when the Effigies were listed. Even though I was backstage, I was still streaming the show on my phone—I could see images of us fighting phantoms spliced together in an awesome montage they showed on the jumbotron.
“And the winner is . . .” The presenter of our award paused for effect. “The Effigies!”
“Yes!” Lake pumped her fist in the air. “Yes! I told you, bitches!” she said, turning and giving Jo the finger before grabbing me and pulling me up the stairs.
Everything hit me at once. The lights. The biting cold. The herd of fans, the sound of their screams echoing in the night sky. The jumbotron behind us had a split screen of our profiles, our faces plastered against different-colored backdrops with our names scrawled under each one. The host handed Lake some kind of strange silver trophy as Belle, Chae Rin, and I lined up beside her.
Lake was babbling her thanks as the rest of us posed and just tried our best to look good. That’s why we were here, at the end of the day. Be pretty. Be a role model. Be a celebrity. Gather your fans and make the Sect look less menacing. That was the task we’d been given, and even knowing what we knew about the Sect, it was too late to skip out on the event Sibyl had okayed. Lake wouldn’t have let us, anyway. I could see how much holding the trophy and waving to her fans meant to her. She clung to the moment as tightly as she clung to her new award.
“Ugh.” My head was throbbing again. Even in front of so many cameras, I couldn’t stop myself from wincing.
Maia . . .
No. My hands fell at my sides. I could hear her. Natalya. I thought I’d buried her deep after that last time she’d tried to take me.
Maia . . . Don’t be fooled. . . . Pay attention. . . .
Panic seized me as another wave of pain crashed against my skull from the inside, like she was pounding against the bone with her knuckles.
“Stop.” I winced again, shutting my eyes. Next to me, Belle shifted her head, confused as she watched me struggle.
Don’t be fooled. . . . Pay attention!
My eyes snapped open. Quickly, I looked at the crowd. Something was wrong. I scanned the army of bodies until I found Ha Rin close to the front of the pit behind the glowing barricades. She was waving at us, trying to get our attention. But no, something was wrong. What was this feeling? What was Natalya—
A rush of cold slipped down my body, freezing me to the bone.
Vasily.
His stringy, unwashed blond hair draped over half his face from beneath a black hoodie. He looked at me and smiled.
My heart thumped so painfully it was difficult to breathe. In that moment, he’d slipped out from between a pair of screaming fans to stand behind Ha Rin. She didn’t notice. Nobody noticed. Nobody could see because nobody was paying attention—not the fans, not the staff, not the celebrities, not the other girls.
His skin was sallow and bruised, but I knew he was hiding worse injuries beneath his clothes. He looked wired and ready, like a rabid dog that had been starved too long.
He looked hungry.
Ha Rin was still trying to get her sister’s attention, but Chae Rin was distracted by Lake, who’d shoved the microphone in her face to get her to say a few words. She didn’t see Vasily float his two fingers near her sister’s temple without touching it, his index and middle finger pressed together and his thumb in the air in the shape of a gun as his eyes locked with mine.
No, no, no. The blinding lights, the shrieking crowd. In that moment, my senses were off-kilter, panic surging through me. Vasily’s emaciated face sparked with malice. And through it all, Natalya was screaming.
Don’t be fooled. . . . Pay attention! Pay attention!
Vasily’s hands, quick as a flash, flew into his left pocket.
“Stop!” I screamed suddenly, and, as the music began playing us off the stage, I erupted into flame, the pole of my scythe forming in my hands, its blade glinting in the night. Everyone onstage jumped back to avoid being touched by the flickering fire.
“What are you doing?” cried Lake after tripping and falling to the ground. “Stop it!”
Camera phones were flashing, and while some gasped in fear, there were more excited screams echoing in the night as if I were showing off my power for their amusement. Vasily’s hand was out of his pocket, but it took me a moment to realize that he wasn’t holding a weapon—it was a remote control. He fiddled with a few of the buttons before slipping it back inside his pocket and, with a wink, disappearing into the crowd.