Alizarin Crimson

by Erica Millard

  Come on. I rolled my eyes. Could they be any more conspicuous?

  I couldn’t hear what she said, but she pointed down the paths of the park and two of her minions started down each one.

  “Other entrance,” Liam whispered in my ear. “Let’s go,” We backed away from the spot, keeping the shrub between Dune’s people and us, but they were moving fast.

  “Run!” I said as we rounded a corner and were out of sight.

  I kept the Dirus clutched in my hand as my backpack bounced painfully against my back. We dodged behind trees and foliage until we saw the pathways were clear. Relief swelled as the entrance became visible.

  “There they are!” someone yelled behind us.

  I turned instinctively, and across the park were two black figures sprinting towards us.

  “Come on!” Liam grabbed my hand and jerked me through the gate.

  We turned right and dashed up the road toward the cathedral, but they knew where we were. The yell had brought all six members of Dune’s patrol scurrying toward us.

  There was nowhere to go.

  I was about to run around the back of the Cathedral when Liam yelled, “This way!” He jumped over a metal fence as tall as my waist that had a severe looking blue sign on the gate with a huge X across it.

  I hoped the sign said, Do not enter, unless someone who wants to kidnap or kill you is chasing you.

  “Over here,” I yelled at Liam when I spotted a service door. I jerked on the knob, but the wood could have been solid stone for all it would open. I smashed my knuckles against the door, hoping someone would let us in. All the while, running footsteps echoed toward us.

  “Bad idea.” I started running again, but Liam caught my arm.

  “Hold on,” he said, “let me try.”

  “It’s locked,” I said.

  But as soon as Liam touched the handle, the door swung to the inside and revealed a passageway.

  We plunged into the darkness. The door swung closed behind us, and the passage went pitch black. I sprinted forward then halted.

  “Lock the door,” I whispered.

  “Done.”

  We half ran, half stumbled through the curved passageway that ended in another door. Organ music saturated the space, and tiny spears of light filtered through the cracks around the closed door. A strip of bright light sliced into Liam’s face, illuminating his blue eye, making it look transparent. A view of the room was hidden behind a layer of deep crimson curtains. I reached out with my Talent.

  Red was everywhere, but none of it moved and pulsed like the blood of humans close by. I gasped as I realized I could sense if a red object was alive or not.

  “What?” Liam asked with a sharp look in my direction. His breathing had an edge to it.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “You still have the cylinder?”

  “Yep.” I shoved it into my bag, leaving my hands free.

  Liam fished his inhaler out of his backpack and breathed in his medication. “You ready to go again?”

  I nodded, and he pushed open the door.

  Light filtered into the huge cathedral’s nave from windows lining the walls, and we sprinted down a walk with massive stone pillars lining either side. Our steps echoed into the dome and back down, making it seem as though someone chased us, but when I glanced behind, it was only ghosts and shadows. I dodged around tourists holding cameras and guidebooks and for a moment I was jealous of their simple, terror-and anger-free lives.

  When we burst out of the front door, the sun blinded me, and I stumbled down the first few steps. Liam caught me before I face planted.

  “Thanks,” I said between gasping breaths.

  “No problem. Let’s just get to the closest train station.”

  “Agreed.”

  We were running through the park south of the Sacre Coeur when I chanced a glance back at the cathedral. Figures clad in black swarmed the entrance and fanned out along the courtyard.

  There were so many—way more than I’d seen at the park.

  We ran south toward the Anvers metro stop. I was grateful for all the tourists, even though Liam and I had to dodge around them. I hoped they would mask our flight from Dune’s pack. But a yell came from behind us, and black figures dashed in our direction.

  From the edge of the park, it was a straight road to the metro stop. My backpack made it awkward to run, and I couldn’t help glancing behind me. I didn’t know what was worse, seeing Dune’s people, or not seeing them.

  Liam was faster than I was, and he was several yards ahead when he turned to make sure I was coming.

  I was about to yell that he could go on, when a man, dressed in all black stepped out between two buildings.

  I couldn’t stop in time and ran straight into him.

  He dragged me into the alleyway.

  My eyes had just been in the blinding sunshine, and I couldn’t see in the shadows. The man had me in a chokehold, and I clawed at his forearm. I tried to think of the moves Liam had taught me for self-defense, but at that moment hundreds—no, thousands—of spiders appeared out of nowhere.

  28

  Where you can see a troubled face and many fine pictures, where you are certainly moved, but alas, moved as in a graveyard.

  —Vincent van Gogh

  They crawled over my face, down my neck, and under my clothes. Seeing those spiders, feeling their thousands of legs, the silk brushing across my face and floating in the air around me, sent a shock of terror coursing through me. I tried to shove them away, like I did people, but their tiny bodies weren’t full of red. Each time I swiped them away, there were a thousand more to take their place.

  I jerked my head back and it collided with my captor’s nose. He swore in a language I didn’t understand, but his grip around my neck tightened, hot and slick with sweat. I couldn’t think of what to do to him while he still had his arm around me. How could I use my Talent? The red rushing through the arm around my neck begged to be used. The tiny capillaries, through which his blood ran, would be so easy to destroy.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I would not be a monster.

  The spiders began to bite, one by one. My whole body was pulsed with pain. I didn’t know what was worse, the pain or the legs flitting across my skin. His grip tightened, and I couldn’t breathe.

  I tried to scream, but I didn’t have the air.

  A shadow covered the light from the alleyway.

  “No, Liam,” I gasped, the words hardly audible even to me. “Run!”

  Liam raised his hand, like he was going to wave hello to a friend. The man holding me laughed, but I’d seen that move. Liam flung out his arm and even though I couldn’t see it, I heard the impact of the throwing knife as it hit the man’s visible shoulder. Again and again, four altogether. I sensed the red bloom out behind me. I forced the man’s own blood to take hold of the knives and drag it deeper into the tissue.

  It was his turn to scream.

  For a moment he relaxed his grip, and in that instant I threw the red in his body backward. He slammed into the cement ground.

  “Run!” I screamed, and Liam didn’t hesitate as we sprinted together to the train stop. The spiders still covered me, but they did not bite now they were deprived of their master. The thousands of strands of web brushed along my face and arms and made me want to take sandpaper to my skin.

  Liam and I reached the metro entrance. A figure clad in white was a mere 200 yards behind us. I sprinted after Liam, not caring which way the metro would take us. He seemed to know where he was going.

  The train platform was packed, and we made our way to the front of the mass.

  “Liam, we are trapped down here if the train doesn’t come,” I whispered desperately. I swiped at my arms and legs, while Liam brushed at my back, the last of the spiders spinning away on their silk parachutes.

  “It will,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  His eyes flitted down the dark shaft. “Because we’re sc
rewed if it doesn’t.”

  The deep thunder of the train ricocheted off the tunnel walls before I saw it. It was standing room only, but we leapt inside the doors and Liam pulled me below the visibility of the windows. The buzzing signaled the doors were closing and I peeked over the windowsill.

  Dune. She fought her way through the crowds of people getting on and off the train. The doors closed just before she reached the train and she mashed the button with a white knuckle, but it was too late.

  She found my gaze through the throngs of people. The window in front of me split with a crack, fragmenting Dune’s image. But I held her gaze until we disappeared into the darkness of the tunnels.

  Liam drew out his cell phone and took out the battery. I gave him a questioning look.

  “I thought it was crazy when you threw your phone,” his expression was grim, “now I can see why you did it. Do you still have the cylinder?”

  I rummaged in my bag and held up the Dirus. It was perfectly white. But I couldn’t grip it. My hands had swelled and began to itch where so many spiders had bitten me.

  “Aya, are you all right?” Liam asked.

  “The spider bites . . . I feel sick. Dizzy.”

  Liam led me through a series of train changes and finally back up into the fresh air. I stumbled, and Liam scooped me up as though I didn’t weigh anything.

  “No, put me down, I can walk,” I said.

  Liam ignored me, and his gaze stretched down the street in front of us. “There it is.”

  “What?”

  “A pharmacy.”

  We stepped up to a building with a florescent green cross sticking out of it. Liam set me on a bench inside the door and went to talk to the man behind the counter. The room spun, but I watched Liam, and he was my anchor. I loved hearing him speak French. He gestured to me in his conversation, and the man handed him a small box.

  “Merci!” Liam said after he paid. Once back out on the street he said, “We need to find a place for you to lie down.” He acted as if he would pick me up again.

  “No, I can walk. We need to figure out how to open the Dirus.”

  “And we will . . . after you are feeling better.”

  “But—” Then a wave of nausea rolled over me. “Okay.”

  We staggered another block. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Rue Cler,” Liam said.

  We turned a corner and even in my sick state, I knew this was where we were headed.

  Tiny shops spilled goods out into the pedestrian only street. It was such a different world than the one I was used to. Potted plants, cafés—many with more seating on the pavement than inside—flower carts, and crepe stands littered the street. I wished I could enjoy it.

  “This way,” Liam said.

  I lurched, and he acted as if he would pick me up again, but I protested. He took my arm and put it behind his shoulders to help me walk.

  “Bloody stubborn,” he mumbled.

  I laughed . . . and stumbled.

  In between two shops was a door with a glowing sign that read Hotel du Champ de Tournesol. We were buzzed through the front door into a tiny and adorable lobby with ruffled fringe on the bottom the chairs and tiny-rose printed wallpaper. I stood dazed as Liam, I assumed, reserved us a room.

  And then it hit me, a room, as in, a room. When I’d decided to come here, I’d thought we would get in, grab the book, and be on the next plane back to the U.S. Clearly that was now unreasonable. But spending the night with Liam?

  The lack of sleep was taking its toll, and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open.

  We took the elevator to the third floor and Liam slipped the card key into door 308. The room was tiny, with barely enough room to maneuver around the two-twin beds mashed together. Sunlight shone through shear curtains on the far wall. The bedding was spotless white and inviting.

  I lay down without even thinking.

  “The pharmacist said that even though there aren’t many venomous spiders around, multiple bites from the usually benign ones might set off an allergic reaction.”

  “Is that what this is?” Red, no sleep, a splitting headache, the spinning room. “I could sleep for a week.”

  “You can try, but I might get bored and draw a mustache on your face.” He smiled, but his eyebrows knit together in worry. “The pharmacist said to give you this.” Liam handed me two tablets from the box and a glass of water.

  “What’s in it?” I asked.

  “It’s the French equivalent to Benadryl,” Liam said. “I hope.”

  I swallowed the tiny pills and was asleep before I had another thought.

  Light no longer shone through the window when I woke with a scream, the ghosts of phantom spider legs still flitting across my skin. I groped for the lamp switch beside the bed and squinted when it flared to life.

  “Liam?” The room was empty, and my skin felt cold despite the lingering summer heat. I swung my legs to the floor and was relieved that they were no longer shaky or swollen. What would I have done without Liam? I glanced at the clock beside my bed: eleven thirty. I’d been asleep for six hours. At my feet were a sheet and pillow, where Liam must have slept. On the floor? But where was he?

  Down the hall, the elevator dinged. The lock registered the key card and the door swung open.

  “Oh, good,” Liam said. “You’re awake. Are you feeling better?”

  “So much better, thanks.”

  He lifted a plastic bag. “Dinner?”

  “You’re the best,” I said.

  I sat cross-legged on the bed, with Liam leaning against the pillow next to me. Dinner was a creamy soup and delicious pastry filled with cheese and vegetables. I described all the food with a terrible French accent. “But ov course zis cheese is moldy! Nozing else would be appetizing!”

  Liam laughed.

  “Liam?” I asked.

  “Yeah?” His eyes sparkled from the laughter.

  “Thanks.”

  He was silent for a moment. “You’re welcome.”

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “For what?”

  “For me to tell you what we’re doing here?”

  “Aya, I need to tell you something, too—”

  “Please, can I go first? If I don’t say it now, I’ll lose my nerve.” I sat next to him on the bed and drew up my sleeve. “The tattoos you saw today? They aren’t tattoos.” But my sleeve was too tight to pull it up. “Screw it.” I jerked off my T-shirt leaving only my spaghetti strap tank top underneath. “The color red—it seeps into my skin. It lives there.” I brought my arm closer so he could see. The lines danced their slow, methodical patterns across my skin.

  “It’s so beautiful.” His facial expression was calm and questioning, and he reached out to touch my hand.

  I jerked it away. “Don’t touch it!”

  He flinched back.

  “Sorry, I just don’t have the control.” I told him everything, about that day at school. About what happened at Grand Central with Dune. How red took over my emotions and what happened with Andy, and how I sent him to the hospital.

  “That’s why you asked me not to touch you?”

  I nodded. “I can’t control it. But if something does happen, between us I mean.” I swallowed. “I want it to be real.”

  His lips quirked into a little half smile and his eyes were soft. “I understand.”

  I told him about Van Gogh’s message and about Dune attacking me before I called him, and the Aveum and Leslie and Danny and my dad. Everything. How I could move red, and how color had driven Van Gogh mad, and how I feared it would do the same to me. He didn’t interrupt or look at me like I was crazy.

  “I know it all sounds insane,” I said, “only because it is insane.” I’d given my whole speech looking straight at the wall in front of me, but now I turned to him. “But I can’t tell you how important it has been to me to have you a part of my life, always outside the chaos, outside the world of Aolians and Talents, of magic and danger. You
are the one thing that has kept me sane. The only thing I could turn to when I couldn’t bear this strange new world I was thrown into. I can’t thank you enough for that.” Tears started to run down my face, and I leaned forward with my back to Liam. I slipped back into my long sleeves and was comforted by the curtain closing over the visual markings of my Talent.

  Liam’s warm hand closed around my now-covered forearm. He drew me back against him. “I’ll be careful not to touch you,” he said.

  He snuggled me into his arms, and I cried. No part of his skin touched mine, and having him so near did more to calm and reassure me than anything else could. He stroked my arms and my back, and just let me cry.

  “Here, hold on,” he said when the tears began to slow. He grabbed a box of tissues from the bathroom. While I rubbed my entire face with them, he took a long sleeve button-up shirt from his bag and threw it on. “Just in case,” he said with a wink. He sat back down on the bed, and I nestled against him, reveling in his warmth and closeness.

  We lay like that a long time.

  Then I remembered. “What did you want to talk to me about?” I pulled back so I could look into his face.

  “Nothing.” He drew me close again. “Don’t worry about it. We can talk about it later, tomorrow.”

  Even though I’d slept for so many hours, I longed again for sleep and, tucked in against Liam’s warm chest, the world around me faded away.

  “It would be real for me,” Liam whispered.

  I smiled before the sweet oblivion of sleep claimed me.

  In my dreams, I appeared in a cell. Maybe I wasn’t in the cell, but I couldn’t quite tell. Bars, not of metal, but of terra cotta, held me in—or they held me out and the girl in. It seemed like the bars should easily shatter, but no matter how much I kicked and hit, they stood firmly in place. The girl with the long black hair reached through the bars and grabbed my hand, hers icy cold against mine. She didn’t say anything, but her gaze pleaded.

  I woke in darkness, and I found the clock on the side table: four-thirty. I’d slept long enough and was now painfully aware of Liam curled up with his back to me, breathing heavily. I reached out and brushed my fingers along his spine. For something to do besides lie next to him and dream about his skin against mine, I grabbed my backpack and tiptoed to the tiny bathroom. One corner was separated with a shower curtain. I took off my clothes and studied my face and skin in the mirror. My eyes were puffy from my long bout of crying, but the spiders didn’t seem to have done any permanent damage.