Phantom Heart

by Kelly Creagh

  Whenever I returned to my room, though, I always found that anything I’d moved had, in my absence, been returned to its original state. Any food I’d brought up with me also vanished when my back was turned. These changes happened too quickly to be caused by him or one of the masks, though. It was almost as if the house was somehow resetting itself. Rebooting like a computer.

  Preparing to leave my room again, even knowing he might be waiting for me this time, I stood in front of my door, steeling myself, and reached for the doorknob.

  But the muffled yell—that of a man—caused my fingers to retract.

  Only silence followed, which was what prompted me to take hold of the knob again.

  Slowly, I opened the door and slid out of Myriam’s room, stepping as lightly as I could as I ventured all the way to the banister.

  “Stephanie!”

  I jolted at the low thump that followed the sound of my name, my head snapping in the direction from which the muffled racket had come.

  That voice. Though it struck me as somehow familiar, it wasn’t one that I could place. But the far-off way it had come through the walls told me that it hadn’t emanated from this side of the house.

  I gripped the banister, prepared to shout back. But I stopped myself.

  Think. What if this was a trap?

  “Stephanie Armand!”

  The sound of my full name incinerated my reservations.

  “I’m here!” I shouted. “Help me! I’m here!”

  My heart jumped into a breakneck gallop. With quaking hands, I pulled myself along the banister, all the way to the stairs, where I waited for the man to shout again, to tell me what to do.

  “Stepha—grrh!”

  “Oh God,” I whispered at the sound of my name being cut off by—

  “No!” I screamed as I barreled down the stairs. “Run! Whoever you are, run! Get away!”

  The voice—the man’s. It had come from the same place I stood now in the foyer.

  Someone was in the house. Someone who not only knew who I was but understood that I was trapped here.

  But the stranger had been ambushed, and now there was only horrible silence.

  Of course, it must have been him. On the other side. Attacking the man who had come to save me and who I was powerless to rescue in return.

  Rushing through the parlor doors that had once served as a gateway between realms, I found myself again in Erik’s parlor, where the black clock on the mantel ticked endlessly away.

  The man groaned, and a low thud sounded in the foyer, prompting me to whirl.

  “Erik!” I screeched. “Stop it!”

  Someone was about to die for me. If he hadn’t already.

  My eyes darted over the pristine furniture, the lavish décor, and, finally, the spotless stained glass of the front door that Erik had once also used to transport me.

  Desperate, I lunged toward the door, and grabbing the handle I swung it wide. But instead of a cool autumn breeze, an artic one blasted my heated face.

  Twisted dead trees lined the horizon, their skeletal limbs powdered white.

  Helpless. I was helpless to do anything to stop what was happening.

  My breath fogged and my eyes stung from the cold. Yet, through their blur, I saw a sliver of what the trees, in their fullness, had always hidden from me on my side.

  There, in the distance, gleamed the lake. The one Erik had used to convey me here.

  That had been in a dream, yes, but didn’t everything here mirror the other side? Hadn’t I heard the piano notes and the ticking clock and now the man’s voice through the walls?

  The waters of the lake were, perhaps, a barrier, too. Could the lake do for me what the doors had so far not been able to?

  I didn’t have anything else.

  I clambered down the stairs, rushing into the screen of falling snow. Then I began to run as hard and fast as I could in the direction of the forest.

  Toward the lake.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Zedok

  I’d grabbed the dagger Wrath kept sheathed in one boot.

  After turning to spot me, Rastin had lifted a hand, but I advanced on him anyway, giving him no time to utter even a single syllable before I struck, slicing the palm he’d hoped to stay me with.

  A crimson arc slashed the floor, but his shout struck me more as one of surprise than pain. He swung away, his left hand gripping the wrist of the injured right. His back to me, I swiveled the blade in my grip, prepared to drive it through his ribs. Except I did not strike.

  Because I could not.

  The pain. Debilitating and arresting, the sudden rupturing in my empty chest caused me to stagger. I somehow managed to keep hold of my weapon while my free hand rushed to stifle the wound that had torn itself open again.

  Rastin shouted Stephanie’s name as he whirled—charging at me. His outstretched hand, streaming blood, met with my equally bloody sternum—an action that rendered me paralyzed.

  He drove me backward, and I went—halting only when I collided with the wall.

  It was then that Rastin unleashed the full power of his mind, sending into me his first retaliation.

  Emotions, thick as blood themselves, flooded me. Rastin’s.

  His anger and the bitter sting of betrayal burned behind his pain. Not physical pain, but something much more potent. Regret.

  Still, I laughed at him and took yet another swipe with my knife.

  Wisely, Rastin jumped back, taking his psychic attack with him. Unwisely, he called again for Stephanie. This time, he even received an answer.

  “I’m here!” she shouted from my side of the home. “Help me! I’m here!”

  Rastin, on instinct, swung toward her voice—toward the grand staircase.

  “You cannot reach her,” I reminded him in a snarl. “It is hopeless, and you know it.”

  At once, Rastin turned to me, fists clenched, eyes alight with a strange fire I had never seen there before. “She is not who I have come in hopes of reaching!”

  In an instant, my dark mirth morphed, transmuting wholly into fury.

  This . . . pity. Rastin’s. It was what made me loathe him.

  I lunged for him but, displaying unexpected dexterity, he dodged me. Turning on him a second time, my cloak snapping as it whirled behind, I feinted toward him. Unflinching, he sent me an exasperated glare, as if to say he knew better than to fall prey to any trick of mine.

  And with that look, rage dug its claws into my nonexistent innards—and twisted.

  No more games. No more patronizing from either of our sides.

  No more deluding myself.

  With my open hand, I reached toward Rastin, and with my mind, I dove into his chest.

  Rastin had called for Stephanie again, but stopped cold, convulsing with my invasion. She shouted in response, urging him to flee, but it was too late for that now. Holding him in my sway, I shut my eyes and narrowed my focus on that beating muscle just behind his sternum.

  Fear thrummed in him and his heart hammered as I closed my mental hand around it. Overcome, Rastin collapsed with a groan to his knees, grasping at his chest.

  “Erik!” came Stephanie’s shrill but muffled shout. “Stop it!”

  Her command. It won my hesitation. And that mere flicker of resolve allowed him to slam me with his most vicious attack yet.

  This time, instead of anger or regret, Rastin pierced me through with a feeling so unexpected, I had difficulty even identifying it.

  Until suddenly, I knew it.

  Relief. It coursed from his spirit—from his soul—and came pouring into me, striking with more force than any blow could have.

  He was glad to be here? Compassion, above all, coated the snarl of everything else. Including his fear. His anger.

  I let him go. Because I could not bea
r to be faced with this irrefutable proof that he did care. About me.

  “Why?” I asked him as I drew back, clutching the knife tighter, as if willing myself to use it again. “Why do you seek to save me when you know it is useless? Why do you care what becomes of me?”

  Rastin ignored me, shouting once more for Stephanie, though his tone had changed. Now he seemed to be calling after her rather than for her.

  “Erik,” he then huffed between labored breaths, peering toward the door. “The . . . girl—”

  “I’ll not give her up,” I said. “Not now, not ever.”

  “The lake,” he wheezed. “Erik . . . she’s . . . the lake . . .”

  At once, his meaning occurred to me. Stephanie had gone silent after crying out. And Rastin was now insinuating he could sense Stephanie’s whereabouts on the grounds. But . . . this must be a distraction. A ploy. For what reason would Stephanie have to go to the lake? The lake that, on my side, was sheeted by ice.

  Without another word, I departed, leaving Rastin there, gasping and bleeding on the floor as I hurried to the front door that returned me to my realm.

  I left the porch, my gaze fixed upon the white-hazed horizon that held no sign of either movement or silhouette. My boots crushed the fallen snow that continued to barrel in currents from the sky, hurrying to fill the tiny grave-like prints left by a smaller set of feet.

  The prints led away from the porch and from me, trailing across the grounds in a straight line that terminated at the trees.

  The lake. Rastin’s voice, full of warning, rang through my skull.

  But . . . why would she go there?

  There was only one reason I could think of.

  And it was a reason that made me run.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Lucas

  I hadn’t even finished shifting the Dart into park next to the empty black Beamer when we heard the shout. Someone inside the house calling out for—

  “Stephanie.” I pried off my seatbelt, leaving my keys in the ignition and my friends in the car.

  “Lucas, wait!” Charlotte called from the front passenger’s seat. But I charged straight toward the house and the open front door, not bothering to look back.

  “C’mon, man, I thought we had this talk,” growled Patrick, his steps along with Charlotte’s and Wes’s now pounding the pavement in time with mine.

  As my feet thudded up the porch steps, a blast of frozen air slammed straight into me. I ignored its warning, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape before bursting through the door and into the darkened foyer.

  Arcs and splatters of crimson slashed the floor. Two sets of footprints tracked the blood this way and that, and there—in the center—knelt a man.

  He gripped his chest with one blood-soaked hand. Reaching toward me, he beckoned with the other.

  “Ho-ly man on the TV,” Wes said from behind me as I rushed to the man’s side, not recognizing him until his outstretched arm took hold of mine. His eyes. I had seen them countless times before. I’d even spoken to him once. At that convention. And there was the email I’d sent. Did this mean he’d gotten it?

  “You have got to be kidding me right now,” exclaimed Charlotte, her voice emanating from the door.

  “I knew I’d seen him on the cam!” shouted Patrick. “I figured it couldn’t be, but—”

  “Please,” said Rastin, heaving for breath as I helped him to his feet. “Autographs later.”

  I swiveled to find Patrick hovering close by. Wes still lingered in the door, his face a mask of pure shock. Charlotte stood beside him, dumbstruck.

  “Joking aside,” said Rastin, looping an arm around my shoulder. “We need to get out of here.”

  “But—” began Patrick, gesturing to where Rastin gripped his shirt.

  “Now!” Rastin rasped, and then he nearly collapsed.

  I caught him and hauled him upright, bearing as much of his weight as I could.

  My brain told me to get him out of there, stat.

  My heart, though. It knew I wasn’t finished here yet. “Stephanie—”

  “She lives,” Rastin said. “But we will not if we stay.”

  “Wes, get his keys,” I said as I helped Rastin toward the door. “Charlotte, you and Patrick take the Dart. Follow us out.”

  No one argued. Wes dug through Rastin’s blazer pocket, the one the medium indicated with a nod.

  “Go,” Rastin urged. “All of you. Before he returns.”

  Patrick, hurrying to Rastin’s other side, helped me usher him out. Charlotte, in the meantime, ran ahead to the Dart.

  “You swear she’s alive?” I asked as we ambled to the Beamer.

  “He will not let her die,” said Rastin, even as he faltered again, his knees giving.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I propped him—maybe a bit roughly—against the side of his car while Patrick broke off to catch up with Charlotte. Rastin winced. It was then that I got a better look at his chest—the source of his pain.

  His shirt, though spattered with blood, showed no slashes or cuts.

  That only left room for an internal issue.

  His heart.

  Wes, rounding the Beamer, climbed in on the driver’s side.

  “C’mon,” I said, deciding that, for the moment, it would have to be enough to know that Stephanie was alive. And so long as Rastin was here, well, I couldn’t let him die. “We have to get you to the hospital.”

  “No hospital,” said Rastin as he slid into the back seat.

  His head lolled to one side before he passed out.

  “Just go,” I said to Wes as I climbed in next to the medium. Wes shifted the car into gear before I could even pull the door shut.

  We peeled out, tires kicking up gravel as we raced back the way we’d come, Charlotte and Patrick in the Dart barreling after us.

  “Dibs on the car if he croaks,” said Wes as he gunned the gas.

  “It’s a rental,” murmured Rastin.

  “Hey!” yelled Wes, his gray eyes flashing in the rearview. “Are you faking back there?”

  “Sometimes . . .” Rastin murmured as he faded out again, “I wish I were a fake.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Stephanie

  Half running, half sliding, I rushed down the steep, tree-covered embankment of white that sloped to the lake’s edge.

  Though my ears burned from the cold and my fingers went numb, the threat of hypothermia didn’t concern me as much as the thought of what he would do when he discovered I was gone. Because as far as I knew, he had just killed whoever had come to help me.

  Embedded in a wide clearing, the lake, frozen and black, stretched as wide and long as it had in the dream. Only the faint hiss of the falling snow and the sound of my own panicked breathing disrupted the muted silence of the night.

  Every few stumbling steps, I kept checking over my shoulder, searching for any sign of red amid the trees. Then, skidding to a halt at the bank, the stitch in my side loosening by a fraction, I scanned the surface of the lake for a weak point.

  Flawless, the ice reflected only the darkness of the forest, as well as the overhanging tangle of white-laced limbs. My own face, haggard and frightened, nearly unrecognizable in the onyx ice, begged for the answer of what to do next.

  “Lucas,” I whispered aloud to the ice, and his name left my lips in in the form of a cloud. One that I imagined could, like a prayer, somehow find its way to him.

  Nearby, I spotted a jagged stone poking through the snow and seized it.

  When I made it to my world again, would I find Lucas there, too? Had he also been trying to reach me? Could he have possibly even come here with the man?

  Tap . . . Tap . . . Tap . . .

  The sound of my steps on the ice pierced the bubble of my swelling hope. It reminded me of the ticking cloc
k on Erik’s mantel. A sound that must have plagued him for years. Decades.

  Over a century.

  I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t stay in a place like this for my whole life and beyond. I’d go insane. Like I was right now. Ready, apparently, to die if it meant I got a chance to live.

  Reaching the center of the lake, where the ice thinned enough to creak and whine underfoot, I stopped and peered down again at my reflection and took a simultaneous breath.

  Then I slammed a heel hard into the frozen barrier.

  A crackle split the silence, but I didn’t go through. Instead, white spiderweb splinters burst out in jagged lines beneath me.

  The impact hadn’t been enough.

  Determined, I knelt onto the crack and raised the rock over my head before bringing it down as hard as I could, hard enough to cause the edges of the rock to slice into my flesh.

  Multiplying, the white veins shot farther outward, spiking thinner offshoots.

  A growl that started in the back of my throat transformed into a yell of frustration. Again, I slammed the barrier separating me from the water—from home—and this time, along with a sharp crunch, there came a soft and eerie ping. I blinked, startled by the unexpected sound. The way it echoed through the silent wood caused me to pause. And strangely, to want to hear it again.

  As if answering my unspoken request, the sound repeated—an ethereal and almost musical peal—like the far-off snapping of a metal cord. Confused, I lowered my hands, now bleeding.

  Stilling, I waited for the moment when the pinging from the ice would stop.

  If I wasn’t moving, though, then there shouldn’t—

  I lifted my eyes with sudden understanding.

  Slowly, I turned my head.

  He stood on the ice at a distance of thirty feet, those two pinprick lights fixed on me, shining from within the depths of the silver mask that gleamed cerulean in the gloom.

  He had thrown back his cloak. The garment spilled from his shoulders to frame his crimson uniform, which, against the backdrop of white, blazed brighter even than the blood that smeared his chest.