Forsaken (The Netherworlde Series)

by Sara Reinke

  Outside, he saw a pair of commercial trucks parked on the street below, one for an electrical contractor and the other for an HVAC service. It was bright and somewhat hazy, as the last vestiges of the city’s customary early-morning fog burned off, creeping back in reluctant misty tentacles to the sea. With it, so too did his lingering unease, the disturbing memories of his dream lifted.

  It was all in my head, he told himself again. Just bad dreams, that’s all. I’m awake now, safe now. It’s broad daylight outside and I’m home again. Whatever happened to me, wherever I’ve been…nothing else matters but that.

  Glancing down, he noticed something dark staining his fingertips, ink on his forefingers and thumb. I’ll go in there right now, take his prints, Bear had said last night, in a conversation so impossible for Jason to have overhead, much less witnessed, it didn’t seem possible.

  But it must have been, Jason thought. All of it, a dream, something brought on by the drugs.

  The apartment was empty. A pair of stainless-steel bowls sat on the floor beside the refrigerator, one half-filled with water, the other half-empty with small round pellets of dog food. A coffeemaker with an oversized carafe had been set up on a countertop to brew, and otherwise nothing appeared to be unpacked. A pair of mugs, both with the shallow puddles left over at the bottom, sat beside the sink. A third cup, empty and unused, waited for him by the machine. Sam had also left an opened box of doughnuts on the counter near the coffee, the chocolate-frosted miniature Hostess variety of Donettes, which were her favorites.

  I could eat a whole box of these things.

  He remembered her saying this, lying naked in bed, her perfectly proportioned breasts standing at pert, perky attention, her nipples hardened and round, her skin speckled lightly with goose bumps. She’d balanced a box against the smooth, supple plane of her belly and licked her fingertips as she’d proven true to her word and single-handedly polished off the entire package.

  All except for one. She’d offered him a nibble from this one, then giggled as she’d crammed the whole thing into his mouth. Since she’d been eating one too, and had made him laugh in the process, they’d both wound up spraying each other with little globules of half-chewed cake.

  He poured a cup of coffee and took it into the living room, sitting in one of the stylish but uncomfortable dining chairs. The coffee was hot, scalding his lip when he took a hesitant sip, but he drank anyway, because even though he wasn’t sitting near any windows, the drafts had still found him somehow and he was cold. He was still shivering when he’d emptied the cup, so he went into the bathroom, stripped off his T-shirt and sweatpants and stepped into the shower. Closing his eyes, he stood beneath a stinging, steaming spray.

  As soon as he turned the taps and cut off the water, he was freezing again. And he’d soaked his bandages, rekindling that deep throbbing pain from his shoulder. Shivering, he re-dressed, mopped his damp, disheveled hair back from his face and sat against the bed, carefully peeling back the surgical tape from the sopping gauze pads.

  To his surprise, his forearm was unmarred, the skin whole and unbroken, even though yesterday, the dog, Barton, had torn into him with its teeth, leaving a jagged series of lacerations punched deeply into the meat. Jason rubbed his arm, puzzled, but felt no residual soreness, nothing to suggest there had ever been any injury at all.

  That’s weird, he thought with a frown.

  He wasn’t so lucky with his shoulder. Dean had sutured the wound as neatly as possible and what remained was a red-rimmed, crooked line cinched closed by countless tiny meticulous stitches. Unlike the dog bites, the place where the sword had impaled him was sore to the touch in a broad circumference from the original point of entry, as if it festered beneath the uneven seam of stitches. It had felt like Nemamiah’s sword had been on fire when he’d stabbed Jason, and that heat remained, palpable, nearly boiling beneath the surface.

  Jason grimaced, sucking in repeated, hurting gasps as he tried to bind the wound again himself. He didn’t want one of the narcotics Dean had prescribed for him, but found a bottle of ibuprofen in a small overnight pouch by the sink, where Sam had stowed her toothbrush, deodorant and other toiletries. Downing a handful of them in a single gulp, he hoped it would at least dull the pain to something tolerable.

  He left the apartment, following the narrow staircase down to the exit door leading into the building’s back alley. Here he stood for a long while, because the last concrete, conscious memories he had were of this place. I was shot here, he thought, the idea of this making the hairs along his forearms raise. I might have died at the hospital, but for all intents and purposes, this is it. This is where I was killed.

  Although he’d believed this was the alley in which Nemamiah had stabbed him, as he stood there, turning in a slow circle and looking at the pub building, backing up slightly, he realized he was wrong.

  It was different, he thought, his gaze traveling up past the rooftop parapet. As Nemamiah had shoved him back against the wall, Jason had looked beyond his shoulder. He remembered now. There had been a tower of some sort, something I could see just above the top of the nearest building.

  It had looked like a UFO, the stereotypical circa-1950s flying saucer mounted in the sky with spindly, graceful beams.

  The Space Needle, Jason thought, even though he’d only ever seen the landmark in pictures. In Seattle. I was looking at the Space Needle.

  Which made no sense. Between the moment when Nemamiah had stabbed him and when Jason had found himself standing outside Sully’s, little time had passed. Even though his own memories of that period were murky, the fact that his wound had still been fresh enough to bleed, and profusely at that, served as incontrovertible proof. Which meant I’m either remembering it wrong, or I was somehow stabbed in Seattle, he thought, a distance of more than 800 miles from where he was standing, a damn near thirteen-hour drive. How is that possible?

  It hurt his head to think about it, and besides, the cool, damp morning air had permeated his clothes. He was shivering again but found the back door to the bar locked when he tried to get inside. He left the alley, walking around the front of the building, past the contractors’ trucks for the main entrance.

  The door to the pub stood propped open, and a series of overlapping footprints cleaved paths through the dust and dirt on the floor. Jason heard muted voices as he stepped inside, but saw no signs of anyone.

  Last night, it had been dark in the building, but now, with sunlight streaming in through the doorway, Jason could see just how stark and dilapidated the bar had become. His shadow splayed out in front of him, an elongated smear bisecting the slash of sunbeam against the floor. If he closed his eyes, the empty room came to life around him in his imagination, not the last night he’d seen it open for business, but the first, his father’s grand-opening celebration, when everything inside had been clean and glossy and new.

  He’d been so proud, Jason thought. But when he opened his eyes, his happy memories melted abruptly away, dissolving into the stark, shadow-draped reality of what remained. He looked around the empty bar, the husk of what had once been his father’s dream.

  I’m sorry, Dad, he thought, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes stung with tears.

  He heard footsteps behind him, then the guttural sound of Barton growling.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Sam jerked hard against the dog’s leash as she led it out of the kitchen. Two men accompanied her, both in jumpsuits and wearing laden tool belts, carrying clipboards and flashlights.

  “What’s gotten into you, Barton?” Sam scolded; then her gaze cut across the room and she saw Jason. “Oh,” she said, surprised. “Hey. Good morning.”

  While the two men continued outside without her, walking past Jason with brief nods and muttered greetings, she lingered behind, grasping the leash in both hands as Barton strained against it, snarling at Jason.

  The dog was afraid of him. Just as Jason had realized this, seemed to sense it somehow with Dean the night b
efore, he sensed it now. It was something nearly palpable to him, a cold chill that shimmied down the length of his spine and spread from there, seeping out to envelop his entire body. He stared at Barton, his entire body rigid, his breath suddenly bated. Because he didn’t immediately avert his gaze, he couldn’t tell if it was his imagination or not, but it seemed as if out of his peripheral vision, he could see his shadow move, just like the night before. Like thin streams of ink, it seemed to trickle across the floorboards, and if he was imagining things, then the dog must have been too, because it began to bark now, trying to lunge against the restraint of its leash.

  “Barton, cut it out,” Sam exclaimed, but when this did no good, she looked at Jason sheepishly. “Hang on. I’ll be right back. Just let me put him upstairs.”

  The dog barked in further protest and she snapped at it roughly a couple more times as they disappeared outside. Jason blinked, feeling momentarily dizzy, as if he’d just snapped out of a sleepwalking episode. He looked down and his shadow was normal, any hint of the movement he thought he’d spied not apparent in the least against the backwash of sunshine.

  What’s wrong with me? he thought, forking his fingers through his hair and uttering a shaky sigh.

  They’re drawn to fear, he remembered the man from his dream, Sitri, telling him. Eidolons, I mean. They feed off it. It makes them stronger.

  Eidolon. That was what Sitri called the thing in his dream, the oily ichor that had covered his body, stolen inside him. That was exactly what his shadow had looked like, the strange pseudopods he’d thought he’d seen creeping out both last night and only moments earlier.

  It’s just my imagination, he thought, crossing the room and ducking into the men’s restroom. I had a bad dream, that’s all, and now I’m imagining things. Shit like that doesn’t happen, not like in my nightmares. It’s not real. It’s not possible.

  “It’s not real,” he whispered aloud.

  The bathroom was pitch-black, with no windows to offer even a hint of light. Jason fumbled, found, then flipped the switch a time or two, with no luck. Either the power remained off downstairs or the overhead bulb had burned out.

  Hand outstretched, Jason groped until he found a dented metal waste can that had been forgotten. He propped this between the door and jamb to keep it open a brief but illuminating margin. By the faint glow seeping in from the front doorway, he could see the sink now, the cracked mirror listing at an awkward angle above it.

  Jesus, he thought with a grimace. Smells like something died in here.

  A dank sort of stench permeated the entire bathroom, as if the toilets had backed up at some point and been left untended. Opening the door hadn’t helped in the least. It still smelled thick and damp, nearly overwhelming.

  He turned the water on and shied back as the faucet uttered a loud hiss, followed by a series of sputters, like a car engine struggling to find its rhythm on an icy morning. When water finally spewed from the tap in a clear stream, he cupped his hands beneath it and leaned over, dousing his face. He splashed himself again, then again and again, until the front of his T-shirt was wet and the floor beneath him was splattered.

  “It’s not real,” he told himself again. “It’s not real.”

  When he looked up again and into the mirror and saw an enormous hulking humanoid figure standing behind him, he whirled around with a startled, frightened cry. A heavy hand clamped against his throat, slamming him backward, splintering the mirror at the impact with his head. Jason gagged vainly for breath around the sudden crushing force shoved against his windpipe. The stink of sewage was suddenly overwhelming, and when he slapped at his attacker’s arm, to his surprise he didn’t feel skin or the sleeve of a shirt. Instead, his fingers sank into wet, spongy dirt, as if whatever was in the room with him, whatever had him pinned, had been formed out of the ground, out of the thick sludge lining the sewer drains beneath the building, and wasn’t human at all.

  Jason’s eyes rolled back into his skull and that terrible, nearly leaden coldness that he hadn’t been able to shake all morning suddenly engulfed him. The splash of light from the ajar door faded, and he felt momentarily weightless, as inconsequential as smoke. The hand against his throat seemed to vanish, or rather, he seemed to vanish, and all at once, he found himself on his hands and knees in the narrow confines of an alley.

  “What?” he gasped, wide-eyed, bewildered and afraid. “Where am I?”

  He glanced up at the nearest building and to his surprise, saw the top of the Space Needle again like something out of those campy Jetsons cartoons, only this time it was daylight outside—broad daylight, in fact—and there was no mistaking it.

  Seattle, he realized in stupefied wonder. I’m in Seattle. How in the hell…? As he looked wildly around the alley, he caught a glimpse of sunlight winking against something lying partially hidden beneath a nearby Dumpster. He crouched, leaning over to peer more closely at it.

  A gun.

  Not just any gun, he thought. My gun. It must have been knocked out of my hand while I was fighting with Nemamiah…

  He didn’t understand how he knew this, but he did somehow. It was strong and certain in his mind, like something remembered. Something important. I dropped it last night and it brought me back here to get it…the Eidolon…

  Never mind the Eidolon was just a dream, he told himself as he reached for the gun, slipping his hand around the cool black stock. And all of this too. I’m dreaming again. I probably never even woke up. I’m still in the apartment, sound asleep in bed, and any minute now, I’m going to…

  His thoughts faded as soon as he’d closed his fingers about the pistol grip. His index finger slid comfortably, almost instinctively against the trigger, and as he hefted the gun in hand, it felt strangely, impossibly familiar to him, natural in his grasp.

  Then the bright landscape of Seattle was abruptly swallowed whole by shadows as he felt that peculiar sense of weightlessness again, like his body was dissipating into smoke. After a long moment in which he blinked dumbly at the floor, trying to let his eyes adjust to the sudden unexpected gloom, he realized he was back somehow, in the bathroom at Sully’s again.

  “What the…?” he gasped, and then he smelled the overpowering, gagging stench of human waste. He heard a damp, sodden squishing and saw something looming against the backdrop of light from the partially opened door. Whatever had attacked him was still there and was coming straight for him again.

  “Get back,” he cried, swinging his arm up, moving reflexively, his finger folding inward against the pistol trigger. The gun fired, the roar deafening, trapped in the tiny confines of the restroom. Jason staggered back, banging into the wall and crashing down hard onto his ass, his legs splayed clumsily in front of him.

  The earthen creature shattered upon the bullet’s impact, sending a heavy shower of mud, shit and shredded, soggy toilet paper tumbling down against his calves and the floor. Jason uttered a disgusted cry, kicking away from the mess, scrambling clumsily to his feet again. He pressed himself back against the bathroom wall, gasping wildly for breath, holding the gun out in front of him, his hand shaking uncontrollably.

  “Jason!”

  The bathroom door burst open wide, spilling in a broad swath of pale light, and Jason shrank, squinting, leveling the gun at the doorway. He realized who it was before his finger closed against the trigger—Oh, Jesus!—and the gun fell from his hand, clattering against the floor.

  “Sam,” he gasped. She stood at the threshold, her hand still against the door, holding it open, her eyes wide, her expression stricken. She’d seen the pistol, seen it pointed at her face, and she stared at him now as she would have a stranger, a mixture of horror and shock in her face.

  Jesus Christ, I almost shot her!

  “Sam, I…I…” he stammered. “Please, I…”

  The electrical and HVAC contractors came running up to the doorway. “You okay, lady?” one of them cried, while the other, his voice shrill with panic and overlapping, exclaimed, “
We heard a gunshot!”

  “It’s all right,” Sam said, backing away from the door, still looking at Jason in that bewildered, mistrusting way. “I’m all right, really.”

  Oh, God, Jason thought, tangling his fingers in his hair again. What have I done? I could have killed her. What’s wrong with me?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Where did you get the gun?”

  The contractors were gone. Jason and Sam were alone in the vacant tavern. He’d gone back to his apartment and changed his clothes, returning to the bar to find her waiting for him, arms folded across her chest. The pistol now sat on top of the bar, bathed in sunlight from the doorway, its silver frame nearly aglow. The smell of gun smoke lingered in the air even now, faint but pungent.

  “I found it,” he said, which wasn’t a complete lie. Wherever it had come from, the gun was very real. If nothing else that had taken place in the last hour made any sense, that, at least, did.

  Sam looked skeptical at this and he shook his head. “I did. Earlier, while you were in the kitchen. It was my dad’s. He kept one hidden underneath the bar. For emergencies, he said. It’s hard to find it, reach it, unless you know where to look. It must have gotten left behind when the pub closed.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded once, dubious. “Must have.”

  He wanted to tell her to truth but kept biting it back because he knew she wouldn’t believe him. There was no way.

  What am I going to say? “Sam, for the last five years, I’ve apparently been in Seattle…at least until Nemamiah stabbed me and killed the Wyrm that was in my head. It had been controlling me, along with this shadow-thing that’s inside me too, a demon called an Eidolon. The Eidolon’s still in there and that’s what your dog keeps barking at, what brought me here. Because it can move itself anywhere instantaneously, I guess, and me along with it. Both it and the Wyrm were put inside me by this crazy tattooed guy named Sitri…only I don’t think he’s a man at all. Oh, and don’t even ask about the gigantic scorpions. They’re called Goblins and the smell of blood gets them all hot and bothered. Trust me on that one.”