Sunshine glinted off a small puddle a few feet ahead. A cat mewed and scurried somewhere unseen. The space was filled with things, but nothing that could say my name. Slowly, I stepped backward, not wanting to turn my back on the long line of dumpsters. I’d seen my fair share of dead things and many of them came part and parcel with one of those grungy blue things. It wasn’t farfetched to worry something scary would pop from in or behind one of them.
Scared I’d fall and commit horror movie sacrilege, I forced myself to turn carefully and move as quickly as I could to civilization. My heart thudded in my chest as I faced my back toward a space I knew held something I should be afraid of. Feeling like a kid making their way from the kitchen to their bedroom down a long, dark hallway, I tucked my ass and high-tailed it to the corner.
The faster I ran, the further it seemed I was from people and safety. I pushed my legs to move quicker, harder, vigorously pumping, carrying me to safety. The corner and my salvation approached; safety, or the impression of, was eminent.
My feet carried me swiftly as I bounded around the corner, and a breath of relief left my lungs before I could stop it. My sneakers squeaked against the asphalt and I stopped in my tracks. I stood again in the alley I’d fought so hard to escape. I’d originally had a feeling of ridiculousness when I’d taken off running from nothing substantial. Standing next to the stairs that led to the second floor office of Embrace, I fought the urge to puke.
“What the fuck is this?” I screeched.
Running my hands through my crazy hair, I looked around trying to find some logical reasoning for my odd journey ass-backward. The alley was exactly the same as it was when I left it, or tried to. A breeze kicked up discarded garbage around my legs and I felt suddenly like Bill Murray, repeating events without control.
Not wanting a repeat incident, I clomped up the stairs instead of trying to escape toward the end of the alley. At least I knew what was up there. I knew there was a lock and probably a phone actually connected to a wall. I tried going up two steps at a time then realized I was far too fat for that and settled for scurrying up practically on hands and knees. I pulled the handle and the door flung open with ease, slamming behind me and literally hitting me in the ass in the process.
I wrung my hands through my matted, wild hair. “Holy fuck!” I growled through my gritted teeth.
The space was dark, only stage lights on, but I knew where I was and it wasn’t the confines of the twenty-by-twenty office space where I’d intended to flee. I stood instead in the center of the Embrace dance floor. A spotlight clicked on and focused on a single microphone center stage.
“Cyrus?” I called, hopeful. “Dominika?” No one answered me. No one would, I knew. Whatever was happening, like the other times, I was alone and had to ride it out, hoping along the way I survived.
Desperate, I squished the clumping dirt in my pocket. “Dad?” My heart pounded, terrified and desperate for a familiar face.
My chin quivered when nothing happened. Minutes ticked by and nothing. Just me and the spotlight-mic. “Marco?” I practically sobbed. It was a last-ditch effort at some form of contact.
“Polo,” a familiar voice answered.
“Tatum?” My voice shook, tiny and afraid. “What is this? Help me. What am I supposed to do? How do I get out of here?”
“Your eyes are open, aren’t they?” she answered and movement caught my eye.
I turned and found Tatum’s reflection in the wall of mirrors I knew to be an illusion. I looked to my left where she should have been and realized I was alone. She stood, as naked as she had been, alone in the reflection. Me on one side, her on the other.
“Why can’t I see myself?” I moved my hand around, trying to fix the issue.
“You’re right here.” She turned and pointed toward the darkness behind her.
“Why won’t you say anything else, dammit? How the fuck am I supposed to do this on my own?” Panic and desperation filled my head and seeped out in my voice.
“In your head, fucking dunce. Jeez,” she scoffed.
“Goddammit! Please!” I grunted and moved quickly toward the mirrors. “Why don’t you talk to me anymore? What did she do?” Lupe had tooled around in my head and fucked up my connection with Tatum. It wasn’t until after that meeting I had been haunted by something more malevolent than the ghostly voice of my dead best friend. “Tell me, Tatum, tell me.” I touched along the cold glass as if she could feel it. As if it were her. “What did Lupe do to you?” I had no proof that the old woman had done anything, only a gut feeling and a spark of an idea.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she repeated, looking around her nonchalantly.
“Fuck! Please!” I begged as if it’d make a difference.
“I never get to go anywhere.” She looked over her shoulder as if to listen to something behind her.
“Tatum, please. I need you. There’s something with you, and I think it’s coming for me. I think it’s using you to get to me. I don’t know what it wants and I don’t know how to stop it. Fuck, T.” Tears welled at my lids. “The son of a bitch has left its stench all over me. The stench of Hell.”
“I’m down there,” she said with a smile.
“Where? You’re where, Tatum? Tell me, please. Where are you? I’m marked, whatever the fuck that is, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know who to trust. I can’t save myself, like I couldn’t protect you,” I cried. “I can’t protect my soul.”
“Or mine,” she said as a telltale slit formed at her throat. Streams of blood marred the smooth line from her chest to her bellybutton. As she stood there smiling at me, her pretty blonde head slid slowly to the right and splattered to the floor.
“No!” I screamed and slammed both my fists into the glass. In the mirror, I saw myself over Tatum’s headless shoulders a moment before I shattered the glass that held our image. “Come back! Come back,” I cried and fell to my knees. My hands hit glass dead center and shredded the skin.
Blood soaked the knees of my jeans and pooled under my legs, more blood than my hands could’ve been pumping out. Searching for the source, I found Tatum’s head spilling blood a foot from me. Her body had disappeared in the glass; where, I didn’t know. A familiar ticking and clicking tapped along the glass, and blackness filled a single pane left unmarred by my pounding. In the center of the blackness, two golden eyes glared out.
“What do you want?” I snarled, trembling inside with fear.
It moved closer to the glass and the blackness took shape. Shadows and highlights formed to suggest limbs, slender and clinging to the backside of the reflection. A sneer spread across its pointed jaw, shimmering with goo in the dim light. It ticked and clicked along the glass, sounding like a crack in a windshield spreading on a cold, winter night.
I fell back onto my butt and scurried backward, spreading bloody handprints and shoving shards of glass deeper into my palms. “What do you want from me?” I screamed.
It tilted its head and blinked once at me. “I want,” it gurgled as if talking through a tub of Jell-O, “what lies within you.” Its words slid over the air and crawled along my skin. Not a sound to be heard, but a threat to be felt soul-deep.
“Over my dead body, motherfucker!” If I’d had a moment, I would have flipped the stupid thing the bird.
The thing clicked along its side of the mirror, tapping the glass with long, pointed fingers. Screeching across the surface, it scratched a long line with a single, sharp claw. The glass broke, halting the God-awful noise, and the blackness scurried out of its confines. My breath caught and I pulled myself backward as fast as I could. Inhumanly elongated arms pulled its slender body across the bloody dance floor. The thing, whatever faction of creature it was, had no secure form I could pin down. From the first sighting to that moment as it scurried toward me, it never once appeared exactly the same. Spider-like legs flipped over its shoulders and ticked along the tile while it crawled toward me. The stench it carried with it reminded me of
the tub of blood I’d found in Tatum’s sink.
I backed against the step which led to the raised lounge area where all the couches were. The beast slithered itself over my legs. Our noses an inch apart, it breathed me in; one long, ragged breath which rattled deep inside its chest. “I smell your sin,” it gurgled and growled. I closed my eyes, holding back every last ounce of terror that tickled along each cell in my body. “It devours you,” it warbled. “I devour you,” it sneered. “Like I devour her.”
My eyes went wide. Its glowing orbs, a horrific reminder of the reality that loomed over me, penetrated my defenses. A primal need, a feeling near rage, boiled inside me. I couldn’t tell if it was the beast that consumed me or my own wrath finally finding its footing. I shoved a hand in my pocket and pulled from it a fist full of my father’s grave dirt. Without a plan, without an idea of what I could do, I shoved my fist against its face and plunged the handful of consecrated dirt into the mouth of the beast.
The moment my fist hit home, I knew I’d done something right. The monstrous thing screeched and tumbled backward, freeing me to escape. I pulled myself to my feet, legs trembling from terror. An unearthly howl shook my core as I scuttled out the front doors into the blinding light of day. Shielding my eyes and praying before I realized I’d done it, I blinked and tried to make sense of what they saw. My brain finally understanding what I was seeing, I fixated on the intricate pattern that made up the largest throw on Cyrus’s bed.
I sat up straight, my lungs burning with each hurried breath. Realizing I was awake, truly awake, I flung my legs over the edge of the bed and in the center of Cyrus’s gut. He let out an umph, which I ignored. I didn’t have time to stop and chat. I didn’t have the energy to include anyone else in my fury. If I stopped for just a second, I’d break, and the beast, which had been lying in wait, would pounce and I’d be lost forever. My rage was the only thing keeping that piece of shit at bay.
I slid my feet into my sneakers without acknowledging Cyrus. I had my keys in my hand and my phone in my pocket before he had the chance to stop me. I’d need him eventually, of that I was certain, but unless he followed me out and hopped in the car with me, I didn’t have time to bring him up to speed.
“What in the world are you doing?” he asked from his spot on the floor, his hair jutting out in all directions.
“I don’t know, but I’ll probably need an alibi.” I let the heavy door slam on my way out.
I didn’t bother to check the alley before I took off in a full sprint toward the illustrious corner. Sliding around, one hand on the wall to brace my skid, I entered the side street exactly as I should have. My car was parked against the curb around front, right where I’d left it. I slid into the seat and slammed my fist against the steering wheel. Taking a moment to breathe, an epiphany hit which I could only attribute to the attuned senses of indignation.
Leaning over the driver’s seat, squishing my boobs down to nothing, I dug around the garbage and found what I’d forgotten I had even left there. Appearing to be trash, a wrinkled takeout bag held the one thing I could count on. In the glove box, exactly where I’d left them, the remaining bullets I’d removed for the safety of the world at large lay loosely about, just waiting to be scooped up and pointed at something bad. I didn’t have power. I didn’t have a lifetime of immortality to fall back on. Hell, I didn’t even have sanity on my side, but I sure as fuck had a full clip and a hair trigger.
The Beatles had it right: happiness is a warm gun. But without the metaphorical heroin undertones.
Chapter 14
I hardly had the Geo in park when I opened the door and my feet hit the pavement. It hadn’t been twenty-four hours. Fuck, it was still daylight out, midafternoon if I had to guess. I wasn’t there for my cure. I was there for my answers. That bitch had fucked around in my head and let the darkness in. She saw what I knew about Cyrus, the big fat secret. There was no way she didn’t see more. There was no way she didn’t know exactly what was happening to me, to Tatum.
The bell dinged as I shoved through the door. The nameless grandson leaned behind the counter looking at a Mini-Trucker magazine. He looked up at me and I flipped him off as I passed him by. Ripping the stupid curtains down from their flimsy rod, I flew into the back room with a fire in my eye and a rage in my gut, which felt as though it’d eat me from the inside out if I didn’t set it free.
“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t be in here. It’s not your time.” The once-old woman said, her two brown eyes wrinkling at the corners as she glared at me.
I grabbed the magically middle-aged woman by the yolk of her dress. “What you said before, what Cyrus made you admit. You see things; what do you see?” She laughed. “What do you see about me?” I grunted into her face.
“You think you can barrel in my shop and make me talk. Ha! I’ve had scarier shit than you in my face before, la perra. I’m not telling you shit.” Her expression set on stubborn.
I didn’t know whether or not her refusal was due to my attitude or hers. “You know something. Tell me!” I screamed, only inches from her nose. The last I’d seen her, she was quite willing to help me. Perhaps her finding a fountain of youth changed her attitude. It also could’ve been my approach.
“No,” she sneered.
“What you’re keeping from me could change everything. You know something.” I saw something pass over her. “You know something about my dreams.” I didn’t bother asking. I knew I was right; I just needed clarification.
“I don’t know anything.” She was lying, I felt it like a poker in my gut.
“Liar!” I shook her with both my fists clenched tight to the fabric of her dress. “People died! You can help. You can help me make sense of this shit. You can help me stop that thing from coming for me. I know you can!”
“I helped you enough girl. I gave you your protection and you’re too early to finish the job. Come back tonight.” She swatted at my fists which refused to release her clothing.
“You gave me shit! You gave me smoke up my ass and an open door to anything and everything looking for a soul to steal. You lied to me for your own gain. You used me more than once for something you didn’t have the balls to do yourself. You owe me, bitch! You owe me my life back!”
“I owe you a quick death.” Her lip curled into a sneer, and I knew damn good and well she meant what she said.
I released one sweaty hand and whipped it under my shirt. The warm steel at home in my hand, I pressed it to her cheek before she even knew I’d moved. “Quick? You think this has been quick? I’ve been dying one second at a time every day since the moment I met Azelie d’Entremonte.” Her steely eyes glared at the gun pressed to her face. “I took a life I loved. There is no torture in this world that can compare. Now, I need to know why she’s haunting my dreams and why she’s got this tagalong demon with her.”
“You think I know?” she rebutted defiantly.
“I think you know everything. I think you also know I’m fucking serious. I slit the throat of my best friend just last week. Trust me when I tell you blowing a hole in your ancient head won’t even turn the turds in my gut.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Her focus shifted to my eyes, which, I was sure, were the picture of sanity.
“I’m Dylan Hart. I’m fucking nuts. I’m the bitch holding the gun. Nice to meet you.” I shoved the metal into her skin.
“You won’t do shit.” She pinched her lips together.
“Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Lupe’s grandson burst in the room.
“Negotiating.”
“Get this girl away from me,” she demanded.
I heard him make a move behind me. I didn’t know what he was doing and I didn’t care. I was done reasoning, I was done bullshitting, and I sure as hell was done with East L.A. “Touch me and I won’t think twice about pulling this Goddamned trigger.”
“You don’t have the balls,” she sneered.
The grandson squeak
ed his Nike Cortez’s across the concrete floor. Clutching Lupe with one hand, I turned my body toward the man in the undershirt. He’d gotten the long machete I remembered glinting in candlelight before it lopped the head off Zephyrinus. Without one thought, let alone a second, I aimed and pulled the trigger. Blood spat from his bare leg. He screamed and fell to the ground. Holding his injured limb, he pulled his body full fetal, rocking back and forth with each wail.
Pressing the hot barrel against her skin again, I set my face to bitch. “Now, are you ready to answer my questions? Or do I need to prove myself again?” She stayed quiet, staring me down. With a crooked brow, I pointed the gun back at the wailing man and pulled the trigger. He squawked but it didn’t last. I’d missed; I wasn’t looking so it was no surprise. It was a show. I only had so many bullets. That would be the last show of the day.
“Your friend, the lovely blonde girl, she haunts you because of what you did to her,” she declared finally.
“What’s this thing with her?”
“It followed her up from Hell.” My gut sank into my ass.
“Clarify.” I pushed the metal into her slightly less-leathery skin.
“You spat the words of a witch when you slit her throat. You sent her to Hell. Now she’s brought it back with her. She’s brought it to you.”
“Because of you, it found me. They’re all going to find me because of you and your fucking open door.” My finger twitched over the trigger, seriously contemplating ridding the world of one more lying cunt.
“Do you not see what you’ve done?” Panic filled her voice.
“What I’ve done? Why is everything a fucking secret? If I’ve done this to myself, then why in the fuck won’t anyone tell me why this is happening?”
“Get that thing away from me and we’ll talk.” Her terrified eyes slid over the shiny metal and back to me.
I eyed the gun and looked back into her eyes. “I want everything.” She nodded and the barrel squished her skin around her eye.
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