Chapter 19: Aiden

 

 

 

"Oh, shit. Is that Eliza?" Carla said.

"Yup. That's her," Karen, our receptionist, said in a voice full of dread.

I walked out of the hallway to join them in the lobby. From that spot, I could see Eliza's blonde head emerging from the driver's side of her gold BMW, which was parked right in front of the entrance.

I suddenly got a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Silently, we watched Eliza marching towards the glass doors. When she walked in, both of us perked up and forced ourselves to smile.

"Hello, Miss Eliza," Carla chirped.

Eliza stopped in the middle of the waiting area, the heels of her crocodile shoes dimpling the plush carpet. She didn't speak or smile. She surveyed, sweeping her cold blue eyes from one end of the room to the other. When they settled briefly on me, I went instantly cold, as if I'd been touched by a ghost.

Much like the sun, a lot of people found it hard to look Eliza directly in the face. She was ageless in a frightening way, beautiful like a freshly sharpened blade was beautiful. I could never meet her eyes for very long. I always found myself glancing away after a second or two, my inner fortitude crumbling pathetically.

Thankfully, her gaze moved on to rest on Karen.

"You," she said frostily. "Who was in charge of setting the alarm last night?"

Karen's face paled to a sickly grayish-green. There was a tingling in my jaw as I experienced a similar paling of my own. I realized that I'd forgotten to reset the alarm before fleeing the spa in a blind panic.

Oh shit.

"L-let me see," Karen stammered, and she paged through the spa's appointment book with shaking hands. "Janelle."

"Is she here?" Eliza said, in that same freezing voice.

"She's off today, ma'am," Karen said.

"Well, call her in," Eliza said. With a snap, she took a few steps towards the hallway. "Take care of any clients who are still here and cancel the rest of today's appointments. We're closing the spa. Once Janelle arrives, I want everyone to meet me in the lab. That includes you."

Even though I was looking at the back of her immaculately coifed head as she entered the hallway, I could still feel the eerie touch of her stare and knew that when she said you, she meant me.

"Better get a move on. You don't want to see Eliza when she's mad," Carla muttered.

I nodded. "I believe you," I said.

But something told me that it was too late, that Eliza would be showing us her angry side whether we liked it or not.

 

* * *

 

Along with Carla, Karen, and myself, there were three others working with us: Savannah, Hailey, and an apprentice witch named Dinah. Janelle finally walked in about fifteen minutes after Eliza's arrival.

"Am I in trouble?" she asked, eyeing each of us frantically.

Nobody answered her.

The seven of us trailed into the back hallway, with Janelle bringing up the rear. Ordinarily, she was an energetic and perky twenty-two-year-old, but today she was gravely silent.

I felt bad, because Eliza thought she was responsible for the alarm…which I'd disarmed last night.

At the end of the back hallway, Carla entered the code to unlock the lab door and held it open as we all walked in. It was just as unsettling to be in there as it was last night, but I knew where the bad energy was coming from this time. My other coworkers were just as uncomfortable. Whether or not they knew what Eliza kept hidden in those boxes under the sink, I couldn't say.

Eliza was standing at the far end of the room with her arms folded across her chest. We gathered in front of her, like high school students standing to watch a demonstration in biology class. Eliza pinned Janelle with her icy gaze and crooked a perfectly manicured finger.

"Come here, Janelle," she said, her voice deceptively calm as her eyes burned with steely fire.

Biting her lip, Janelle took a few steps forward, separating herself from the rest of us. Carla and I exchanged uneasy looks behind her back.

Eliza unfolded her arms and leaned back against the counter behind her, gripping the edge with her hands. "Maria called me after she opened the spa this morning. And do you know what she told me?"

"No, ma'am," Janelle said in a near-squeak.

A single vertical line appeared in the center of Eliza's forehead, and it transformed her entire face into a mask of rage. Half the people in the room stopped breathing, myself included.

"She told me the alarm was never set last night," Eliza said in a flat voice.

Janelle began wringing her hands. "But I set the alarm! I even double-checked! I always do—"

Eliza raised a slim hand. "That's impossible, Janelle. Maria didn't have anything to disarm this morning, because the alarm was never set."

"I…I guess I made a mistake," Janelle said in a small voice.

Eliza hitched herself off of the counter and began pacing a wide, circular path around Janelle, who rotated inch by inch to keep the head witch in her sights.

"Why do we have an alarm? Can somebody answer my question, please?" Eliza said.

From somewhere to my left, Savannah cleared her throat. "To protect our business."

"That's right," Eliza said, without an ounce of happiness. "To protect our business. Our hard work. Imagine what could've happened if someone got into the back of the spa. Or even this room!"

I noticed Janelle's eyes shifting briefly to the cabinets under the sink.

Eliza abruptly stopped pacing. "We could have lost everything, all because of Janelle."

When she snapped her fingers, a sphere of blue fire about the size of a tennis ball appeared in the air, just a few hand-lengths away from her right shoulder. Janelle saw this and visibly began shaking, as if the temperature in the room had plunged down several hundred degrees.

The floating ball rotated slowly, pulsing with fire. It seemed to feed off of the gloomy energy that permeated the room.

Do something, my brain screamed at me. Say something!

I could barely even breathe, let alone open my mouth to beg Eliza to stop. I got the feeling that the fiery ball was alive and looking at me. It was a terrifying thought.

"P-please, Eliza. I won't let it happen again," Janelle whispered. Both of her eyes were wide and shining with a layer of tears, reflecting the dancing blue flames.

"How can I be sure it won't happen again?" Eliza said sharply.

In front of all of us, Eliza waved her right hand, and the fiery ball sped towards Janelle and engulfed her face.

Her hands jumped up to her head, but there was no scream. We learned why a few seconds later when Eliza snapped her fingers once again.

The flames disappeared, and the reason behind Janelle's silence became obvious. There was no mouth, no eyes, no nose. Her face was as featureless as an egg.

Janelle's frantic hands groped around the smooth skin covering her skull. Then, she threw herself to the floor, her entire body jerking violently as she screamed without a mouth.

Eliza clasped her hands behind her back and observed Janelle like someone who'd stopped on a walk to examine a dead bird on the ground. For a few horrible seconds, the only sound in the room was the sound of Janelle's convulsions of silent panic. Everybody else was simply too petrified to speak up.

Finally, Eliza gave her fingers one last snap. The features of Janelle's face blinked back into existence. She made a deep, grunting noise as she gulped in a mouthful of air. Then, she broke down weeping. A dark, wet stain spread in the inside of her jeans as she wet herself.

"Don't let it happen again," Eliza said coldly.

The moment she walked out of the lab, we all rushed to Janelle's side.

"Are you okay?" Carla asked as she grabbed Janelle's arm.

I took the other, and we helped Janelle to her feet.

"That was horrible," Hailey murmured, to many nods of agreement.

"It was m-my f-f-f-fault," Janelle stammered out between tears. "I deserved it." She erupted in a fresh burst of sobs.

Carla and I exchanged glances. Judging from her expression, she was clearly scared.

I was, too, but for a different reason.

For the first time, I wondered if I was supporting the wrong side of Riverrun's supernatural community.