Jules smiled. “Elliot failed to mention that you know about Kjirsten.”
“Did Elliot kill her … or did you?” I asked on a cold snap of inspiration.
“I had to test Elliot’s loyalty. I took away what was most important. Elliot was at Kinghorn on scholarship, and nobody let him forget it. Until me. I was his benefactor. In the end, it came down to choosing me or Kjirsten. More succinctly, choosing money or love. Apparently there’s no pleasure in being a pauper among princes. I bought him off, and that’s when I knew I could rely on him when it came time to dealing with you.”
“Why me?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet?” The light highlighted the ruthlessness in his face and created the illusion that his eyes had turned the color of molten silver. “I’ve been toying with you. Dangling you by a string. Using you as a proxy, because the person I really want to harm can’t be harmed. Do you know who that person is?”
All the knots in my body seemed to come undone. My eyes moved out of focus. Jules’s face was like an Impressionist painting—blurred around the edges, lacking detail. Blood drained from my head, and I felt myself start to slip off the chair. I’d felt this way enough times before to know I needed iron. Soon.
He slapped my cheek again. “Focus. Who am I talking about?”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t push my voice above a whisper.
“Do you know why he can’t be hurt? Because he doesn’t have a human body. His body lacks physical sensation. If I locked him up and tortured him, it wouldn’t do any good. He can’t feel. Not an ounce of pain. Surely you’ve got a guess by now? You’ve been spending a lot of time with this person. Why so silent, Nora? Can’t figure it out?”
A trickle of sweat crept down my back.
“Every year at the start of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, he takes control of my body. Two whole weeks. That’s how long I forfeit control. No freedom, no choice. I don’t get the luxury of escaping during those two weeks, loaning my body out, then coming back when it’s all over. Then I might be able to convince myself it wasn’t really happening. No. I’m still in there, a prisoner inside my own body, living every moment of it,” he said in a grinding tone. “Do you know what that feels like? Do you? ” he shouted.
I kept my mouth shut, knowing that to talk would be dangerous. Jules laughed, a rush of air through his teeth. It sounded more sinister than anything I’d ever heard.
He said, “I swore an oath allowing him to take possession of my body during Cheshvan. I was sixteen years old.” He shrugged, but it was a rigid movement. “He tricked me into the oath by torturing me.
After, he told me I wasn’t human. Can you believe it? Not human. He told me my mother, a human, slept with a fallen angel.” He grinned odiously, sweat sprinkling his forehead. “Did I mention I inherited a few traits from my father? Just like him, I’m a deceiver. I make you see lies. I make you hear voices.”
Just like this. Can you hear me, Nora? Are you frightened yet?
He tapped my forehead. “What’s going on in there, Nora? Awfully quiet.”
Jules was Chauncey. He was Nephilim. I remembered my birthmark, and what Dabria had told me.
Jules and I shared the same blood. In my veins was the blood of a monster. I shut my eyes, and a tear slid out.
“Remember the night we first met? I jumped in front of the car you were driving. It was dark and there was fog. You were already on edge, which made it that much easier to deceive you. I enjoyed scaring you. That first night gave me a taste for it.”
“I would have noticed it was you,” I whispered. “There aren’t many people as tall as you.”
“You’re not listening. I can make you see whatever I want. Do you really think I’d overlook a detail as condemning as my height? You saw what I wanted you to see. You saw a nondescript man in a black ski mask.”
I sat there, feeling a tiny crack in my terror. I wasn’t crazy. Jules was behind all of it. He was the crazy one. He could create mind games because his father was a fallen angel and he’d inherited the power.
“You didn’t really ransack my bedroom,” I said. “ You just made me think you did. That’s why it was still in order when the police arrived.”
He applauded slowly and deliberately. “Do you want to know the best part? You could have blocked me out. I couldn’t have touched your mind without your permission. I reached in, and you never resisted.
You were weak. You were easy.”
It all made sense, and instead of feeling a brief moment of relief, I realized how susceptible I was. I was stripped wide open. There was nothing stopping Jules from sucking me into his mind games, unless I learned to block him out.
“Imagine yourself in my place,” said Jules. “Your body violated year after year. Imagine a hatred so hard, nothing but revenge will cure it. Imagine expending large sums of energy and resources to keep a close eye on the object of your revenge, waiting patiently for the moment when fate presented you an opportunity not just to get even, but to tip the scales in your favor.” His eyes locked on mine. “You’re that opportunity. If I hurt you, I hurt Patch.”
“You’re overestimating my value to Patch,” I said, cold sweat breaking out along my hairline.
“I’ve been keeping a close eye on Patch for centuries. Last summer he made his first trip to your house, though you didn’t notice. He followed you shopping a few times. Every now and then, he made a special trip out of his way to find you. Then he enrolled at your school. I couldn’t help but ask myself, what was so special about you? I made an effort to find out. I’ve been watching you for a while now.”
Nothing short of dread gripped me. Right then, I knew it was never my dad’s presence I’d felt, following me like a phantom guardian. It was Jules. I felt the same icecold, unearthly presence now, only amplified a hundred times.
“I didn’t want to draw Patch’s suspicion and backed off,” he continued. “That’s when Elliot stepped forward, and it didn’t take him long to tell me what I’d already guessed. Patch is in love with you.”
It all clicked into place. Jules hadn’t been sick the night he disappeared into the men’s room at Delphic.