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Three blots of crimson fell to splatter the smooth rectangular slab on which she now knelt. There, letters formed, creating trenches for the blood droplets.
Through the matted dreads of her hair, Isobel read the carved words.
ISOBEL LANLEY
BELOVED DAUGHTER, DEVOTED SISTER,
CHERISHED FRIEND
LIVED FOR LOVE, YET PERISHED BY ITS HAND
“Carries a certain Poe-etic ring to it, does it not?” asked a low feminine voice.
A soft shifting followed by a quiet drag of fabric sounded loud in Isobel’s ringing ears. Then pooling folds of white and violet-stained gossamer entered her view. Poking through the puddled hem, curved black talons clicked to a stop atop Isobel’s engraved name.
“Pun intended,” Lilith said, “as our wayward Pinfeathers might have suggested were he here. Had you not incited him to self-annihilation, I mean. But then, you do possess a certain knack for impelling lovesick wretches to ruin, don’t you? I suppose you and I have that much in common.”
“I am nothing like you,” Isobel growled. Slamming her palms flat against the slab, she pushed to her feet and lunged at the figure in front of her. Instead of digging into soft veils and flesh, though, her fingers clashed with hard marble.
Another statue.
As though mocking her, the figure smiled serenely at Isobel from behind its pall.
“You do like your epitaph, do you not?” Lilith asked, her voice now emanating from a separate corner of the courtyard.
Isobel shoved away from the frozen effigy. Whirling, she scoured the endless multitude of veiled forms.
“I’d rather hoped you would,” the same voice called, issuing from yet another direction. “Given that it is the prize you’ve been fighting so hard to obtain. A sorrowful ending to a mournful tale whose greatest tragedy is that it happened to conclude with your name instead of mine.”
“Where are you?” Isobel yelled. She twirled in place, and in a kaleidoscope of muted faces, statues wheeled around her. “If you think you can end this, if you want to kill me, then come out! Stop hiding like a coward.”
“You seem upset,” Lilith said. “Don’t care much for having your own tricks turned against you, do you?”
Isobel rotated again and again. She began to slow, though, when she noticed that none of the statues appeared to hold the same position as before. But when she stopped, the courtyard only spun faster, continuing its rotation without her.
Isobel teetered. Her feet tangling in her ribbon, she fell onto the cold slab bearing her name.
Her surroundings whizzed by in a blur—a merry-go-round of phantoms that halted only when a familiar mausoleum slid into view directly across from Isobel.
Mist, thick and rolling, enshrouded the tomb she recognized as Lilith’s.
Its decorative wrought-iron and blue stained-glass door hung wide open, revealing a rectangle of pure black.
Above the void, etched over the archway, Isobel saw a name she knew but had not noticed there before. Not until now.
LIGEIA
“Enough with games, though,” Lilith said, her sultry voice resounding now from within the tomb. “You called. And now, here I am.”
For an instant, the cavity of pitch darkness remained undisturbed. Then, like a dead thing floating up from black waters, the demon’s hollowed white face and emaciated form emerged to stand in the door frame.
Lilith’s sheer shroud, tattered and stained, hung from her in strips and shreds. Her tangled, dripping hair fell long over her shoulders, its ends still soaked in inky muck.
A pit oozed in the center of the demon’s ivory chest, where Reynolds’s hamsa-strung blade had impaled her. Only lightly smeared now with the violet-black substance she’d nearly dissolved into, Lilith’s pale, papery lips entertained a renewed smile.
“Lilith,” Isobel said, spitting the name from between her teeth as she scooped up her ribbon again. “Ligeia. Lenore. Emily. Lilo and Stitch. Which is it?”
“‘Ulalume—Ulalume,’” Lilith replied, her voice going sweet and soft, making the syllables sound like a song. “’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume.’”
