by Val Crowe
“What’s up with that box?” said Dominique.
I had it in my pocket. I hadn’t been able to bring my backpack along, because we’d run off without it, but I had the box. I took it out and opened it up and turned it over in my hands. It was wooden and small and covered in intricately carved symbols. “This can trap Negus.”
Dominique’s eyes lit up. “Okay, that’s great. Wonderful. So, how do we use it?”
“It, uh, didn’t exactly come with a how-to manual.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Wonderful,” she said again, but in a completely different tone of voice.
I shut the box. “I had sort of hoped that I could open it in front of him and he’d be compelled into it or something, but that didn’t happen.”
She turned to me. “Hey, do you still have that oil that we used when we were trying to free Macon’s spirit?”
“Um…” I felt in my pockets and then came up with the vial of it. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s something,” she said. “Maybe if I put the oil on the box, that will make a difference.”
“I guess it’s worth a try,” I said. “We have to try something.”
“Okay,” she said.
I nodded. “So, should we do the oil and then call for him?”
She shook her head. “Let’s wait. Try to get some sleep. We’re not going to be any good against him if we’re exhausted.”
Truthfully, after Negus had sucked energy out of me, I was pretty dead to the world anyway. Maybe I should have argued, but I’d been woken up in the middle of sleeping before, and I really was tired. I was out in moments.
* * *
I woke up to the dawn filtering through the tree leaves. Dominique was still asleep.
I tried to call Mads again, thinking that maybe she hadn’t shown up before because of not wanting to be near Dominique. Maybe she knew something about her that I didn’t. Or maybe she was still jealous. That seemed like it had been a zillion years ago, but I wanted there to be a reason why Mads hadn’t come, one that meant she’d show up now.
Except she didn’t.
I was parched, but we didn’t have any water. I didn’t know where the river was, and even if we could get there, it was down a steep rock face, so we weren’t going to get water there. However, this was a mountain, and there had to be little streams that fed that river. Furthermore, when this campground had been in use, they had to have gotten water somewhere. I wished that Alice were still alive. She knew all about this place, including where we might find a well or something.
Dominique stretched and yawned and rolled over onto her back.
“Good morning,” I said.
“What’s good about it?” she said.
She had a point.
She gazed up at the branches crisscrossing the sky. “You know what I could go for right now?”
I didn’t say anything.
She turned to look at me pointedly.
“What?” I said.
“IHOP,” she said. “You like IHOP?”
“Sure,” I said.
“If we could go to IHOP right now, what would you get?”
I sighed. “What is the point of this?”
“I’d get coffee and bacon and French toast and eggs,” she said. “And orange juice. Definitely orange juice.”
“We can’t have any of those things.” I got up. “Look, let’s try to find Negus, okay? See if we can’t get him into this box.” And then, even if we did that, we’d still be stuck with a set of other problems, namely getting out of this woods and escaping Macon. Of course, we hadn’t seen Macon since Negus had shattered him. Maybe Macon was really out of the picture. Maybe we’d caught a break for once.
I got out the vial of oil. I spread it liberally over the box—inside and out. When I was done, I handed it to her. “You hold onto this, all right?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Call for him.”
She squared her shoulders. “Negus?”
A rustling in the nearby bushes.
We both turned in that direction.
A squirrel darted past us, climbing up the nearest tree trunk.
I took a deep breath. “Try again. Louder.”
Dominique nodded. She raised her voice and called out, “Negus!”
It was quiet.
Dominique yelled again.
Still nothing.
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe we should go try to retrace our steps, go back in the direction where we came from.”
“You mean when we were running last night?”
I nodded. “We left him behind. If we can get back to where we left him, maybe we’ll be close enough that he’ll be in earshot.”
She furrowed her brow. “I don’t know why he’s not coming. He can always sense me. He always comes when I call.”
“Maybe not if he’s possessed someone.”
“Well, that doesn’t make sense,” she said. “He said that I was safer when he was in corporeal form. That’s his endgame. That’s what he wants you for.”
“Okay, well maybe you’re safer if he’s close by or something. I don’t know.” I spread my hands. “If he could hear you, he would have come already.”
“Unless he knows it’s a trap, and he’s avoiding us.”
“Well, it could be that.”
We were quiet.
She sighed. “Okay, fine. What direction did we come from?”
“Uh…” I turned in a circle, trying to think. I could see from the direction of the sun which was was east and which was west and all that. And I was fairly sure that the river was west of the campground. Which was all well and good, but I didn’t know where the campground was from here. Still, we hadn’t crossed the road, so…
Of course, the road dead-ended at the campground, so if we’d gone past it, we could be anywhere.
And none of this was helping me figure out which way we’d run. It was only that I was pretty sure we’d been running east, away from the river. So, I guessed we should walk west now, put the sun at our backs. I pointed. “That way.”
“You sure?”
“No,” I said.
“Wonderful,” she said.
“Can you stop saying that?”
She made a face at me.
We started out walking.
After a bit, it became clear that we were probably going in the right direction, because we could see where we’d broken branches and torn through bushes on our way the night before. So, that was at least something.
“You think I should call for him again?” said Dominique.
“I don’t see why—”
Macon suddenly darted out from under a bush at our left. He tackled Dominque, his knife to her throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dominique’s eyes were like saucers. She was trying to get her hand into her pocket, and I wasn’t sure what she was after.
I punched Macon in the back, right between his shoulder blades. “Hey!” I said.
He didn’t even look at me. He was gazing into Dominique’s eyes, seemingly mesmerized.
“Look, you kill her, you won’t be able to take solid form anymore,” I said. “Your knife will just go through everything. You’ll be pointless. That what you want?”
Macon hesitated, looking puzzled, and I could see that he had pulled his knife back just a bit. There was a half an inch between the blade and Dominique’s skin.
Dominique yanked the oil out of her pocket and spattered Macon with it.
The oil hit Macon’s forehead and then it dripped down onto Dominique’s skin.
Macon blinked hard.
“Don’t do this, brother,” whispered Dominique. “It’s me. It’s Deborah.”
Oh, what the hell was she playing at?
“Deborah?” whispered Macon, unsure.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve come back to you. We can be together now.”
“But it’s an abomination for us to be together,” said Macon.
&n
bsp; “Let me up,” she said.
Macon scrambled backward, but he still held out his knife.
“Put that away, my love,” said Dominique. “Don’t you realize that now that we have been consecrated to evil, it no longer matters if we are an abomination? We are free.”
“Free,” echoed Macon.
“Yes,” said Dominique. “Now, put away the knife.”
Macon’s hand wavered for a moment. But then he darted forward, knife back to her throat. “Deborah could never be evil.”
Dominique panted, panic blooming across her expression. Her little game had backfired.
“I am evil. I must kill you,” said Macon.
“No,” I said. “Let her go.”
“But not here,” said Macon. “Not here. I will take you back to the cabin, that is where it has to be done.”
“No,” said Dominique.
“No,” I said.
Macon picked up Dominique and threw her over his shoulder.
I grabbed him by the arm. “Stop it.”
Macon stabbed me with his knife. The blade buried itself in the meat of my upper arm.
I cried out in pain.
Macon pulled the knife out.
I staggered backward, clutching my wound.
Macon turned and began to walk, taking Dominique with him.
I went after him, holding onto my bleeding shoulder. I caught up and grabbed at him again. “Let Dominique go. She isn’t Deborah, not really.”
Macon turned on me, hand outstretched. He touched my face, and suddenly, he was sucking at my essence.
The world went gray as I tried to to struggle.
Grayer and grayer and grayer…
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Someone was kicking me.
I opened my eyes and Rylan loomed over me, her foot making contact with my stomach.
I groaned.
No, I remembered. Not Rylan. Negus. “Stop,” I gasped, though why I was begging from Negus was beyond me. He certainly wasn’t going to listen to anything I had to say. I coughed.
And, miraculously, Negus stopped. He knelt down next to me, cocking his head, his eyes focused and blank. He was like a lizard or a snake. I didn’t like what his presence did to Rylan’s features. It reminded me too much of what had happened to my mother when she had been possessed.
Out of nowhere, another horrid thought occurred to me. If being stuck in a body meant that Negus destroyed the vessel, how much longer would my mother have held out if he hadn’t been driven out of her? Negus could have killed my mother.
Also, I had a ticking clock to get him out of Rylan.
“The last time I saw you, you were with my daughter,” said Negus.
I coughed again.
Negus slapped my face. “Answer me.”
I coughed again. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember hearing a question there.”
“Where is she?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, that’s the question. Well, I don’t know. Macon took her.”
“Who’s Macon?”
“You met him,” I said. “Maybe you don’t remember? He’s the big ghost with the big knife who’s trying to murder all of us? Really, if you were going to protect your daughter, you’d think you would have taken care of him first.”
“It’s not that easy,” said Negus. “You think that I wouldn’t have done that if I could? My daughter makes the supernatural strong. She calls to the dangerous things, and they are drawn to her. Just by being close to her, they gain power, and they stay as close as they can. It’s hard for me to fight against them as they grow more strong.”
I yanked the box out of my pocket and opened it.
Negus knocked it out of my hand again. “You think waving that thing at me is going to do something?”
“Well, I was kind of hoping so,” I muttered. So, okay, the oil was a bust. Damn it. That thought I’d had about us catching a break? I’d totally jinxed us. We were screwed. I tried to get to a sitting position. My arm jolted in pain when I tried to put weight on it.
Oh, that was right. I’d been stabbed. Excellent. I peered down at the wound, which had started to scab a bit but was still bleeding. My entire arm was bloody. I grunted.
“No spirit can be forced into a box like that, idiot,” seethed Negus. “It has to be done willingly.”
What? Seriously? That would have been a good thing to know, Mads. “So, I’m guessing you’re not going to climb in there for me, huh?”
“Not a chance.”
I managed to sit up anyway, using my good arm. I felt horrible. The essence that Macon had taken from me had knocked me on my ass. I’d lost blood. And I was thirsty as all hell. I shut my eyes. “So… you want to know where your daughter is? How about you find me some water?”
Negus backhanded me.
It stung.
I coughed again.
But then Negus stalked off, disappearing into the woods.
Huh.
That was weird. What was going on with that, exactly? Maybe he’d decided to let me go. I struggled to get to my feet. Once I did, everything was spinning a little bit. I grabbed onto a tree trunk for balance.
Negus reappeared.
So much for letting me go. He’d come back with my backpack, though, so that was a good thing. He rummaged through it until he found a bottle of water. He handed it over.
I twisted it open, salivating for it. Well, I would have been salivating if I hadn’t already been dehydrated. I upended the bottle into my mouth and gulped down several greedy swallows.
It hit my stomach and threatened to come back up, so I stopped. It took quite a bit of effort, but I managed. I panted and then I waited to take another, smaller drink.
“Where is my daughter?” growled Negus.
I eyed him, nostrils flaring. “It occurs to me that maybe there are some other demands I could make.”
He snatched the bottle of water away from me.
I looked at it longingly. Man, I should just spill the beans. But, no, I could use this to my advantage, and I needed to do that. “My friend? Rylan? You get out of her body.”
“I can’t fight Macon without a body,” said Negus.
“So, maybe take me instead,” I said. I didn’t really want to be possessed by Negus, but I also had to save Rylan.
“I can’t possess you,” said Negus. “Not if I want to be able to use you to make myself permanently corporeal.”
“Okay, well, that’s just fine with me,” I said. “I’d rather you didn’t do that, anyway.”
“You don’t understand,” said Negus. “If I possess you, even for a short time, it would ruin you for that purpose.”
“Again,” I said. “Not really seeing the downside.”
Negus folded his arms over his chest.
“That’s the deal,” I said, lifting my chin. “You want me to tell you where Dominique is, you get out of Rylan and take over my body.”
“No deal,” said Negus. “That’s something I’ll never do. I guess I’ll just have to find my daughter myself.”
“What, take your chances? I know exactly where Macon took her. I can give you that information in a moment. All you have to do is—”
Negus was coming for me, moving fast.
I ducked. I had gotten fed on by a ghost once already today. I wasn’t in a big rush to have it happen again. Instead, I ran.
I hadn’t gotten very far before Negus tackled me.
We went down on the ground, me underneath, face in the dirt. Which was just fine with me, because it seemed like these ghosts had to have access to my face in order to feed. So, I tucked my head in, keeping my face down on the ground, and I tried to dislodge Negus with my elbows.
Negus had me by the back of the neck, digging nails into me. One of his knees was pressed into my kidney, and it hurt like fuck.
But luckily for me, I was significantly bigger than Rylan, and I had more upper body strength. So, even though she was possessed by Negus, I was able to dislodge her body.
I wasn’t interested in hurting her, though, so I didn’t stay to try to fight. I just ran.
After all the running through this woods that I’d done, I would have expected to be better at it than I was, but I was still ducking stray branches and thorn bushes and I still felt as if the woods was reaching out and trying to slow me down. I careened around trees and ran as fast as I could.
And then, something caught on my shoe—a vine or a branch or something—and I went sprawling, down on the ground again.
It hurt.
I grunted, absorbing the impact. I tried to get to my feet as quickly as I could.
But Negus was there, and he leaped onto my back, feet first.
The collision knocked the wind out of me, and it was painful. I cried out.
Negus began punching me—my neck, my jaw. He knocked my head this way and that.
I tried the thing with my elbows again, but it didn’t work this time, possibly because it was tough to aim while being punched in the head. What I wanted to do was somehow roll onto my back so that I could see what I was doing. But that left my face open for getting my energy sucked. No, thank you. So, instead, I tried to crawl forward. I did manage to inch forward.
But Negus was still on my back, still pummeling me. He was trying to turn me as well. He wanted to get at my face.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Except he was prying at my shoulder, and I half wanted it to happen. If I was facing him, I could stop this.
“Tell me where she is,” said Negus.
I only grunted.
Then Negus’s fist collided with my nose.
I saw stars. It hurt a lot. And with a roar of rage, I turned over, dislodging Negus from my back and sending him sprawling.
Negus crabwalked backward.
I got to my feet, not thinking, still in pain. I wanted to hurt back, that was all I could think. So, I punched Negus in the nose.
Negus screamed. His nose started to bleed. Except, of course, it wasn’t Negus’s nose, but Rylan’s.
What the hell was I doing? I hesitated.
Negus was coming for me, eyes flashing.
And I couldn’t back away. I had nowhere to go, not in time. I had to defend myself. So, I punched again, another punch to Negus’s already bloody nose. But it was with my bad arm. It hurt. I screamed too.