Girl of Nightmares

by Kendare Blake

  “No!” The scream rips out of me as her body contracts, her head whipping back and forth, her eyes sewn shut against tears, mouth sewn shut against noise.

  The Obeahman twists his face upward. The look of shock is unmistakable, even though his eyes are sewn shut too, crisscrossed slits laced through with black string. The crosses of black seem to hover over his face in a psychedelic scribble and the eyes behind them bulge and bleed. It wasn’t like that before, when he was just a ghost. What is he now?

  I flash the knife and he roars with a sound that only machines make; it has no discernible emotion, so I can’t tell if he’s afraid, or enraged, or just insane. The sight of the knife backs him off, though, and he turns and disappears into the rocks.

  I don’t waste any time, scrambling off the rock like a crab, afraid to let Anna out of my sight, not wanting this place to swallow her up like it did Jestine. My landing has no grace, hard and mostly on my hip and shoulder. It hurts, a lot, and there’s a tender spot in my gut that feels like a bad bruise. “Anna, it’s me.” I don’t know what else to say. My voice doesn’t seem to be easing her mind. She’s still thrashing, and her fingers twitch at her sides, stiff as a bundle of sticks. Then she slumps back and lies flat.

  I glance around, and take a deep breath. There’s no scent or sign of the Obeahman, and the passageway where he disappeared into the rock is gone. Good. I hope he gets lost as shit. But somehow I don’t think he will. This place feels like his place, like he’s cozy here as a dog in its own backyard.

  “Anna.” My fingers trace lightly over the string and I consider the athame. If she thrashes again, I could end up cutting her. Dark, almost black blood is spreading around the wound he made in her stomach, staining the string and the white fabric of her dress. It makes it hard for me to swallow, or think. “Anna, don’t—” I almost said, Anna, don’t die, but that’s stupid. She was dead when I met her. Focus, Cas.

  And then, almost like I wished it, the string unwinds. It snakes back off of her body, like it was never there at all, and the blood goes with it. Even the string zigzagged across her eyelids and lips slides free and disappears, leaving no holes behind. Her eyes open and focus on me warily. She pushes up onto her elbows and pulls in a breath through her mouth. Her eyes stare ahead. They aren’t panicked. They aren’t tormented. They’re vacant, and don’t seem to see me at all. Her name. I should say her name. I should say something, but there’s something different about her, something disconnected. This feels like the first time I saw her, coming down the stairs in a dripping red dress. I was in awe. I couldn’t blink. But I wasn’t afraid. This time I am; I’m afraid that she won’t be the same. That she won’t understand me or know who I am. And maybe part of me is afraid that if I move too quickly, those granite fingers of hers will shoot out and squeeze the words from my throat.

  The corner of her mouth twitches.

  “You’re not real,” she says.

  “You’re not either,” I say. Anna’s eyes blink once, and swivel my way. The instant before I look into them there’s a flash of panic, but as her eyes travel up from my stomach and over my chest, there’s so much skepticism in them and so much quiet hope that all I can think is, there’s my girl, there’s my girl, there’s my girl. Her eyes stop at my chin and one of her hands lifts, hovering over my shirt.

  “If this is a trick,” she says, and starts to smile, “I’m going to be very, very angry.”

  “Anna.” I shove the athame into its sheath in my pocket and reach out to pull her off the slab but her arms wrap around me and squeeze. I draw her head down to my shoulder and just stand; neither of us wants to let go.

  She has no temperature. The rules of this place have taken that away, and I wish for the press of her cold skin, the way I remember. I suppose I should just be glad that she still has the right number of joints.

  “I guess I don’t care if you’re real,” she says against my shoulder.

  “I’m real,” I whisper into her hair. “You told me to come.” Her fingers dig into my back, pulling at my shirt. Her body sort of jerks in my arms, and at first I think she’s going to be sick. But then she draws back to look at me.

  “Wait,” she says. “Why are you here?” Her eyes scan me wildly and her balled-up fists feel like stones on my ribs. She’s panicking. She thinks I might be dead.

  “I’m not dead,” I say. “I promise.”

  Anna climbs down off the rock, cocking her head suspiciously. “Then how? Nothing’s here that isn’t dead.”

  “There are two things, actually,” I say, squeezing her hand. “Me, and this other, annoying girl that we have to find.”

  “What?” Anna smiles.

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is we’re leaving.” Except I don’t really know how we do that. There isn’t a line tied around my waist for me to tug on and be pulled back. We need Jestine.

  Anna’s eyes are bright, and her fingertips trace my shoulders, still waiting for me to disappear. “You shouldn’t have come,” she says, like a scolding, but she can’t quite make it stick.

  “You told me to,” I say. “You said you couldn’t stay.”

  She blinks at me. “Did I?” she asks. “It doesn’t seem so bad, right now.”

  I almost laugh. Right now it doesn’t. When she’s free of burns, and cuts, and not strung through with butcher’s twine, it doesn’t seem so bad.

  “You have to go back, Cassio,” Anna whispers. “He won’t let go of me.” Through her bright eyes I can see what this place has done to her. She seems smaller somehow. There’s happiness on her face to see me, but she doesn’t really believe that I can get her out.

  “It’s not his choice,” I say.

  “Always his choice,” she corrects. “Always his pleasure.”

  I hold her tighter. Over six months she’s been here, but what does that mean? Time doesn’t exist. Even I’ve been here too long. It seems like I walked that maze with Jestine for an hour, and then an hour more without her. Not true. Nowhere near true.

  “How did this happen?” I ask. “How did he beat you?”

  She draws away and tugs at the strap of her white dress with one hand. The other stays firmly attached to me, and I don’t let go of her either.

  “I fight and lose, again and again, over and over, until forever.” Her eyes lose focus, over my shoulder, and I wonder what she sees. If I looked in the same direction, I might not see the same thing. Her eyes sharpen. “Prometheus on the rock. Do you know that story? Every day he’s punished for giving mortals fire by being strapped to a rock and having his liver eaten out by an eagle. I always thought it was a poor punishment. That he’d just get used to the pain, and the eagle would have to think of some new torture. But you don’t. And he does.”

  “I’m so sorry, Anna,” I say, but the words bounce off. She’s not complaining. In her mind there’s been no crime. She thinks that this is retribution. That this is justice.

  She studies my face. “How long has it been? I don’t remember you right. The memory is from too far away, like I knew you when I was alive.” She smiles. “I think I’ve forgotten what the world is.”

  “You’ll remember.”

  She shakes her head. “He won’t let go of me.” The movement is strange. It doesn’t fit; it hangs on her lopsided and it makes me wonder just how much damage has been done.

  I pull her gently to her feet. “We have to go. We have to find my friend, Jestine. We—” I cringe as sharp pain hits my gut. Then it’s gone and I can breathe again.

  “Cas.” Anna’s staring at the front of my shirt. I don’t need to look down to know that the blood is starting to show. I’m not sure whether that means I’m not focusing hard enough on forgetting it, or that time is short. But I’d rather not take chances.

  “What did you do?” she asks. She presses her hand against my stomach.

  “Never mind. We just have to find Jestine, and then we can get out of here.”

  Something taps my shoulder. When I turn, there’
s Jestine, looking as pleased with herself as ever.

  There are cuts and lacerations on most of her fingertips and knuckles. Blood streaks are smeared across her cheeks and forehead like war paint, probably from wiping her torn-up hands against her face.

  “Where have you been?” I ask. “What happened?”

  “I’ve been solving our problems,” she says, and digs her hand into her pocket. The move makes her grimace, but when she pulls her hand back out, she’s absolutely beaming. When she unfurls her fingers, I see rough chips of shining silver in her palm.

  “Two pockets full,” she says. “I found a vein. Of the metal. The same metal that’s in the blade of the Biodag Dubh.” She puts it back, out of view. Two pockets full. Plenty for the Order to forge a new athame. Something inside me quivers, some quiet, growling, jealous thing. “Now the Order will have its proper warrior. They’ll leave you and yours alone.”

  I wouldn’t count on it, I want to say, but she nods at my shirt.

  “Wound’s starting to show. I can feel mine too. I think that’s our cue to leave.” Her eyes shift toward Anna, and they regard each other levelly. Jestine smirks. “She looks like her picture.”

  I put my arm around Anna protectively. “Let’s just get her out of here.”

  “No,” says Anna, and when she speaks, the Obeahman roars, a high, mechanical screech that rings out from everywhere, like he’s directly above, or beneath us.

  Jestine cringes and pulls out a short knife and what looks like a chisel. Both have chips and dents out of them. I guess they’re what she used to get the metal out of the rock.

  “What’s that then?” she asks, makeshift weapons at the ready.

  “The Obeahman,” I explain. “The ghost that Anna dragged down here last fall.”

  “No ghost,” Anna says loudly. “He’s not a ghost anymore. Not here. Here he’s a monster. A nightmare. And he won’t let go of me.”

  “You keep saying that,” I say.

  “Where he goes, I go.” She closes her eyes, frustrated. “I can’t explain it. It’s like I’m one of them now. One of his. Twenty-five murderous dead. Four moaning innocents. We wear him like chains.” Brittle, pale fingers slide down her arms and wipe at the fabric of her skirt. It’s a traumatized, cleansing gesture. But when she sees Jestine watching, her hands return to her side.

  “He’s tied to her,” Jestine says. “If we pull her through, he comes along for the ride.” She sighs. “So what do we do? You’re not going to be in much shape to send him back when we get home. I suppose the Order could hold him, maybe bind him or banish him for a while.”

  “No,” Anna insists. “He’s past that.”

  My ears have mostly shut off as they go back and forth. Twenty-five murderous dead. They’re all here, locked inside him. Every one that I killed. The greasy-haired hitchhiker. Even Peter Carver. That’s why I saw him in the rock, and why Emily Danagger chased me through the cliffs. None of them went where they were supposed to. He was lying in wait like a shark, mouth open, waiting to swallow them whole.

  “Anna,” I hear myself say. “Four moaning innocents. What do you mean by that? Who are they?”

  Her eyes move to mine. There’s regret in them. She hadn’t meant to say it. But she did.

  “Two boys you know,” she says slowly. “One man you don’t.” Her eyes lower. Will and Chase. The jogger in the park.

  “That’s three. Who’s the fourth?” I ask even though I know. I need to hear it. She looks back up and takes a deep breath.

  “You look so much like him,” she says.

  My fists clench, and when I yell it’s at the top of my lungs, so the sound will carry far enough in this fucking place for that bastard to hear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Hey,” Jestine says. She takes me by the shoulders and shakes once. I shrug her off. “Now’s not the time to be doing anything stupid.”

  The hell it isn’t. I pace across the damned rock, clenching my teeth every time my foot strikes the hardness of the surface. It sends vibrations of pain all the way up to my knees. What do I have? The knife in my hand. The rage in my throat. This body, bleeding out in another dimension. I turn to Anna. Her eyes trail across the landscape, wondering at the way the rock seems to hint at shades of red and electricity. It’s picking up on my intentions. The edges are getting sharper.

  “Can we beat him?”

  Her lips part in surprise, but something moves in her irises too. Something quick, and dark, that I remember. It makes my pulse go faster.

  Jestine shoves me in the shoulder. “No, we can’t bloody beat him! Not here. She couldn’t beat him, and from what I understand, she’s some big badass ghost.” She glances at Anna, who stands quietly, dark hair hanging down her sides. “Course I can’t see that now. But even if we could, we don’t have time. Can’t you feel that? Can’t you hear it? Colin says that my breathing is slowing. What does Thomas say?”

  “Thomas doesn’t say anything,” I reply. And it’s true. I haven’t heard a peep from him since we crossed over. If I looked back now, I could see him, but I don’t. Jestine’s breathing is slowing. Mine must be too. But time is different here. Over here we might have hours. And I’m not leaving until this is finished.

  “What is this?” I ask Jestine, holding the knife up before her eyes.

  “Have you lost your mind?” She knocks it away like it was a threat. “We’re out of time.”

  “Just tell me,” I say, and hold it back up again. “It’s here, where it came from. So over here is it just a knife? Or can I still use it?”

  Jestine looks past the blade, into my eyes. I don’t waver, and she looks away first.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she says. “But it’s tied to the magic of the Order. It’s always more than just a knife.”

  “I can feel it too,” says Anna. “It doesn’t hum like before but—he could feel it. That’s why he ran.”

  “Is he afraid of it?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Not afraid. Maybe not even surprised. Maybe just excited.”

  Cas? Can you hear me? Time’s up. Get back here.

  Not now, Thomas. Not yet.

  “Jestine,” I say. “Don’t take any chances. Go back. Anna and I will follow, if we can.”

  “Cas,” she says, but I step back and take Anna by the hand.

  “I can’t leave here until he’s done,” I say to them both. “Until he’s alone and torn apart. I can’t let him keep them any longer. Not Will, or Chase, or that poor jogger from the park. Not my dad.” The corner of my mouth curls and I look at Anna. “Not even that asshole Peter Carver. I’m going to cut them loose. And you too.”

  “One more time,” she says, and when her eyes snap to mine, she’s the girl I remember. Her hand presses my stomach. Yes, I know. We have to hurry.

  “Fuck it all,” says Jestine. “You stay, I stay. You can use me anyway. I’ve got chisels, and magic.” She wipes at her forehead with the back of her wrist. “But let’s get on with it.” She nods at Anna. “You’d better come in handy. Something tells me we won’t have time to be saving damsels in distress.”

  Anna’s brows knit. “Damsels? You get sliced open, burned, and dashed against the rocks about a thousand times or so. Then we’ll see who the damsel is.”

  Jestine lets her head fall back and laughs madly; it rings through the dead air without an echo.

  * * *

  “Facing him one on one would be trouble. I don’t even know if he can kill us here, but hand to hand he could incapacitate us, pull our spines out like he was deboning a fish. And that’d be enough. We’d lie here until our bodies bled out on the floor of the deep well. Then he’d have us.” Jestine crosses her arms.

  “It should be together then,” Anna says. “Can you fight?”

  Jestine nods in my direction. “I can take Cas on pretty easily.”

  “Is that supposed to impress me?” Anna asks, inclining her head, and Jestine laughs.

  “Cas, your girl
’s got quite a tongue.” She steps closer and narrows her eyes. “And she seems suspiciously, suddenly sane.”

  “It’s the purpose,” Anna replies. “There is no purpose here. No reason. It’s disconnected. If I had to describe this place in one word, that would be it. The purpose makes me all right.”

  She glances at me. Jestine doesn’t know her well enough to recognize the shadow in that glance, but I do. She’s not all right. But she’s going through the motions and wearing the masks. There’ll be more time, later on, to mend her, and make her forget. I tell myself that. But if I’m truthful, I have no idea what can be done to wash it away.

  Cas. You’ve got to come back now.

  No, Thomas. Not now. My eyes scan the bleak, expansive landscape. It looks flat, with just a slight slope here and there. The lack of distance and perspective makes my head spin. But it lies. It all lies. He’s out there somewhere, and he’s got plenty of places to hide.

  “He’s not going to come to us,” I say. “I think he knows what I want.”

  “Well, we can’t just stand around,” Jestine says. She blinks fast and her head moves in a quick, jerky twitch. Burke must be in her ear.

  “He might come,” says Anna. “If we let him hunt us.”

  “Sounds fun,” Jestine mutters sarcastically. She looks at me. “I suppose solitary prey is more appealing than a herd. If I scream, come running.” She takes a deep breath and turns to go.

  “Don’t,” I say. “If you lose sight of us, you might lose us completely. This place can take you.”

  She grins over her shoulder. “This place takes you where you want. We’ll be seeking him, and he’ll be seeking us, and then we’ll double back on each other. You’re always lost here, Cas. One way or another.”

  I smirk. I didn’t lose her before. She disappeared on purpose, so she’d have time to find her damn vein of metal. Fine. I should have known.