by Aaron Gansky
Shrieks echoed from all directions. The sound of scraping like nail files surrounded her. Something touched her arm, then on her other arm. She spun around. The icy spikes hit something like a mattress, again, and again. More shrieks.
She was going to kill Oliver. If she lived through this, she would kill him.
The weight on her arms slid off. Skittering, like mice racing over tile floors, replaced the sound of shrieking. All sound ceased, save her shallow breath.
“What in the world was that?” she asked as she shook.
“Those,” Ullwen said, “were the nar’esh.”
* * *
Franky shifted into reverse and started to pull out of Bailey’s driveway. “What was that all about?”
Bailey didn’t answer.
“Hey,” he said. He took her hand in his and squeezed. “You okay?”
Laughter split her sobs. “Franky Myers, that may be the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say. And you’ve said a lot of dumb things.” She wiped her eyes, opened his glove box, found some Kleenex, and blew her nose.
“Nice, babe. Real attractive.”
Bailey took a few deep breaths and concentrated on slowing her ragged gasps. “Shut up.” She gave him the directions she’d printed out.
“What are all these?”
She cleared her throat and buckled her seatbelt. “The addresses of every Hall and Price in North Chester.”
Franky turned south on Grove Street. He glanced over the paper quickly. Franky took a minute to put all the pieces together. Finally, he said, “You’re looking for Aiden and Erica’s families?”
“I have to talk to them.”
Franky drove carefully over the icy roads. “Didn’t the police already do that?”
The Jeep warmed quickly. Bailey struggled out of her parka and put it in the back seat. She didn’t want to remember what had happened—didn’t want to think she might not be able to go back to her house. “Yes, but I haven’t.”
“What are you going to ask them?”
She thought for a minute. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I can save you some time. I know where Aiden lives.”
Why hadn’t she thought of that before? They were friends and teammates. Just because she didn’t know him didn’t mean Franky didn’t. “Okay. We’ll go there last. Let’s see if we can find Erica’s family first.”
Clouds gathered above the river to the west and rippled out like an upside down ocean. “Storm’s a-brewin’, Marge,” Franky said.
She didn’t want to, but she smiled. “You’re such a goof.”
“A hot goof.”
He had a point. He turned west on Pine Avenue, toward the lake. Bailey wanted to start as close to the lake as possible and move east. That way, they could avoid traffic and end up close to her house when done. “Am I doing the right thing? Am I being stupid?”
“Baby, you’re never stupid.” He ran his fingers over her cheek.
Bailey closed her eyes. “I keep hoping I’ll wake up and Lauren will be here. She’ll be back, or better yet, it’ll be like she was never gone, like I dreamed the whole thing.”
He said, “Doesn’t even seem real.”
“It doesn’t, does it?”
“A bad movie.”
“A bad dream.”
He turned onto Elm Street, drove almost down to the bank of the river until he found a long, stretching driveway. A house the size of a hotel stood at the end of the driveway, beyond a brick wall and an open iron gate. Franky drove slowly to the home. “This Erica chick must be loaded. Maybe it’s a ransom thing?”
“No one’s asked us for money,” Bailey said. She unbuckled and slipped into her jacket.
“Not yet, you mean.”
“Would you please shut up, Franky?”
“What? I’m saying maybe …”
Bailey got out, slammed the door and walked to the house.
Chapter Eighteen
And the world shall twist around them. It will form itself to them; it will resist them. And they shall bend the earth around them, the water and the skies, even the air and the trees. They have known the world, but will not know the world.
—The Book of Things to Come
OLIVER’S AMULET GLOWED. THE faint light diffused through his blue cotton robe. And, strangely, it warmed him. The heat from the metal, warm as blood, melted through his body. It reminded him that God’s limitless power had no boundaries. God, the true God, still reigned supreme, even in this world. But, admittedly, he struggled to believe with much conviction. Nothing in his Christian upbringing prepared him for jumping from one world into another.
Enoch had done it. Enoch walked with God and was no more. And a chariot of fire carried Elijah away. Neither died, but both disappeared forever. Is that what had happened to him and his friends? Did God make a habit of snatching people from Earth and thrusting them into other worlds?
An ear-splitting scream made him close his eyes. He snapped them open again and held the torch higher, hoping to better illuminate the narrow passageway. He needed to see the nar’esh, needed to see what the dark imaginings of his mind created.
True to their design, six moved in front of them. Likely, the same number flanked them. Most of them sat like frogs on the floor, knees bent at awkward angles, arms straight from their shoulders to the ground, their palms flat on the rock floor. Two, though, crawled on the walls on either side of the passage. One crawled on the ceiling, staring down at him with its tarantula-like eyes. He tucked his staff under his arm and readied himself.
The nar’esh were long, tall, and sinewy. Loosely human in their musculature, their limbs stretched out like elastic. “They’re about to attack,” he whispered. He tried to keep his voice steady, but had little luck. He cursed himself for programming Erica’s digital counterpart with only daggers. What good was a dagger against the likes of the nar’esh, with arms as long as logs?
“There’s more, above and behind us,” Aiden said.
Erica spun her daggers. “Good job with the monsters, genius boy. Nothing like being outnumbered three-to-one.”
“I wasn’t planning on having to fight them for real,” he whispered.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re too smart for your own good?” Erica asked.
“Quite often, unfortunately.”
“Don’t listen to her, bro. The numbers of the dead can only bring us gory glory.”
A squeal—so high Oliver’s brain shook—shattered the stillness of the cave. His head hurt, and pain stabbed behind his eyes. The nar’esh hunting tactic—shriek and strike. It left their prey disoriented and clamoring, giving the near-blind beasts an advantage.
Erica covered her ears, the daggers pointing out like a gruesome set of headphones. She pinched her eyes closed. In the dim light of the torch, he could see the wrinkles of her face, her grimace, as if someone had stabbed her.
Unfazed, Aiden moved fast again, thrusting his sword in front of him, pulling it from the black, shadowy nar’esh and spinning around to separate another from its head.
The nar’esh bled a lot. Dark liquid spilled on the rock floor like viscous tar. Something spattered on Oliver’s face. Aiden had thrust his blade into another.
Four more nar’esh leapt toward them. Closing his eyes, he took two steps back and pointed the torch at them. Two, directly in front of him, backed away. Two more flanked him. He held his ground, steadied his breathing, and waited. He tried to block out the sounds of shrieking and stabbings, tried to hear the faint click and clack of nar’esh nails on rock walls. But he couldn’t. He’d have to rely on the instincts of Vicmorn.
Moving with practiced form, Oliver spread his arms out to his sides. The torch on his left swung close to the nar’esh. The black beast leapt back into the shadows.
On his right side, Oliver’s staff hit something soft, like tree branches wrapped in towels.
He didn’t stop. He turned on his heels, bringing the torch to the nar’esh he’d hit with his staff. Its skin
lit quickly and burned like a match. The resulting screech rattled his ears.
He used the distraction, and the new light, to bring the tip of his staff into the chest of the nar’esh behind him. He shoved it into a wall and felt the creature’s sternum crack. Its long arms wrapped around the staff. Oliver drove again, and it went limp.
Another shriek, but this time it sounded more like a chirp. Erica.
Shadows descended from the ceiling. It was like a tornado, a black wind swirling in the dancing orange light of the torch and the still blazing nar’esh.
Bats. They called back to Erica. They swarmed the ink-dark monsters. The nar’esh turned their attention from the team to the bats.
“Now,” Oliver said.
Aiden raced ahead of him, slicing and cutting with swift motions. Never had Oliver imagined such high-caliber swordplay. Aiden must be adapting the standard set of moves in new combinations to better complement his arsenal of attacks.
The narrow passageway ignited in screeches and squeals, shrieks and screams. Erica moved with surprising grace, stabbing and slashing with her daggers. Several nar’esh reached for her, but most pulled their arms away after a quick slash. Her flashy attacks kept the nar’esh back but did little to provide a permanent end to the wave of monsters.
Aiden laughed. “These things are a trip!”
From the ceiling, the black stick shadow of a nar’esh fell on Aiden. His shield slid off his arm, and the feet of the nar’esh pinned his sword to his chest.
Oliver spun, his staff outstretched, and crushed the nar’esh’s skull.
Another dropped from the ceiling. Aiden held his sword up, and the beast impaled itself on his blade.
Erica kicked one back and followed with a swift attack. She sank both blades in its chest, then pulled away before it could grab her.
Another monster clicked its tongue four times, alternating pitches.
Erica cocked her head to one side and stared at the nar’esh. “They talk?”
More clicks of tongues, and the final three ran under the cloud of bats and away from the torch light. They disappeared into the darkness.
“That was creepy,” Erica said. She slipped her daggers back into the leather sheathes Ullwen had given her.
Aiden kept his sword out but balanced it on his hand and his shoulder. “Bro, that was wicked sick.”
Oliver shook his head. This was too real. He touched Erica’s elbow gently. “They didn’t touch you, did they?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She didn’t pull her arm away.
“You’d know it if they had. How about you, Aiden?”
“I’m good. A little messy. Those things bleed like leeches.”
The simile didn’t really work. Must be why he needed an English tutor.
“You never told us what happens when they touch you,” Erica said.
“I didn’t want to scare you,” he said. “I figure we can cross that bridge if we come to it.”
“I’m guessing Ullwen already knows what happens?” Aiden said.
“If he knew about the nar’esh, he should know about the dangers of their touch.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“If he doesn’t,” Oliver paused, allowing the hypothetical situation to play through his mind, studying each outcome with slightly different variables. And then it hit him—Lauren.
* * *
Lauren’s chest tightened. In her ears, Ullwen’s words jumped together and back, skipped like a scratched CD. “Indigo, are you alright … alright Indigo? Are you?”
The pain, like being squeezed to death by a beresus, came after the pinching in her neck. Her insides smoldered, not like the burning that preceded her bursts of magic—more like swallowing battery acid. Her shoulders burned, too. She tried to call for help, but couldn’t speak.
“Lauren, we need fire … fire need, Lauren.” Ullwen spoke slowly, soothingly.
Her legs numbed. Dizziness seized her as if she’d just gotten off a tilt-a-whirl. Even splayed on the cold stone floor, her world didn’t stop spinning.
“Lauren?” Ullwen’s voice sounded as if it had been carried over tin cans and string.
She wanted to throw up. She was going to die. The pain, the searing pain spread like octopus tentacles through her. She couldn’t breathe. How long could she live without air? She was drowning, and there was no water.
The little she could see in the dark looked fluid and runny. It rippled like a lake in the rain. She closed her eyes. Compared to the persistent pain, death sounded appealing.
But what happened beyond death? Would she end up back in North Chester? No. Death in Alrujah was as real as death in North Chester.
God, she thought, pushing her mind past the pain. God, please.
Images stretched out in her mind. Oliver at his computer, clacking on his keyboard. The cliff outside her house in the snow. Oliver’s arm around her as she stood in her pajamas. Her sister and her mother. Her father. She loved them all.
She saw Oliver’s face again, his dopey sideburns down to his jaw, his silly hood covering his head. Then, she saw nothing.
* * *
Oliver’s chest burned as if a freshly forged ring had slipped down his cloak and seared itself into his sternum. The amulet. He tucked his staff under his arm, reached under his robe and clasped it in his hand. The burning ceased, but an image of Lauren formed in his mind.
She looked different. Spines of ice stuck out of her gray skin. He recognized the dullness of her pallor—she’d been touched by a nar’esh.
Immediately, he dropped to his knees.
Erica’s laughter erupted sharply. “What’d you do, trip or something? How graceful.”
Oliver clamped his eyes shut and prayed. The amulet burned for Lauren. She needed his prayers.
“Oliver,” Erica said, concern replacing the humor in her voice. “What are you doing?”
Oliver ignored her. He focused on the image of Lauren. Holding the amulet, he saw her in the east passage. Ullwen had his hand on her forehead as if checking for a fever. Not good.
“It’s Lauren,” he whispered.
“What about her?” Aiden asked.
Oliver prayed for her, prayed God would heal her. He wondered how God worked here, why He would even put them here. Anger scorched his chest. Home may not have been perfect, but at least they didn’t have to fight for their lives.
“What’s wrong?” Aiden demanded again. His steel armor clanked as he plodded over to Oliver. He readied his bloodied sword.
“Lauren’s been touched,” Oliver said.
Aiden’s voice came quickly and firmly. “I think it’s time you tell us what happens.”
He said, “It’s poison. Wicked fast and fatal.” He said the final word with surprising ease, which startled him, and made the anger well up again. Not at God, but himself. Hot guilt kicked him. If he hadn’t programmed the nar’esh, or this cave, Lauren wouldn’t be in this situation.
“You should hope, for your sake,” Aiden said, “that it’s not.”
The stench of nar’esh blood, some combination of rotten grapefruit and vomit, distracted Oliver as he prayed. He choked back a gag and remembered something from the code—a residual combination he’d put in shortly after designing the nar’esh. “We have to find her. Fast. Aiden, bring your sword. Erica, I need you to keep an eye out for a green mushroom. It should be glowing. It’ll be near a wall.”
“I hope you’re not planning to make Lauren eat a glowing mushroom,” she said.
“Not for eating.” He stood up and ran toward the east passage.
Chapter Nineteen
The Great Evil that brought humans from Alrujah into slavery will rise again. His power will rend the earth, bring fire from mountains and stones from the sky. Alrujah will cry out, as a mother in labor. And the Hand of Adonai will close like a fist around the Evil.
—The Book of Things to Come
OLIVER KNEW THE RUSH to Lauren’s side wouldn’t take long,
but every second counted. He ran like he’d never run before—not like his life depended on it, but like Lauren’s did. In the frantic race, Erica snatched the first mushroom they passed and a couple more for good measure. She slipped them in the sleeve of her dress and matched the hectic pace Oliver set.
Oliver found Ullwen, exactly as he’d seen him when he touched the amulet, holding Lauren’s head in his lap, his hand on her forehead.
“The nar’esh,” Ullwen said.
“We know.” Oliver dropped to his knees and put his fingers on her neck, just under her jaw line. No pulse. His throat knotted up. “Mushrooms,” he squeaked.
Erica gave him the four she’d grabbed.
“Get me a rock,” he said to Aiden.
The clanging of Aiden’s armor echoed down the corridor, but no more nar’esh would come. They would amass deeper within the caves, waiting for the travelers to venture further into the depths.
Aiden came back with a small black rock the exact color of the wall. “Will this work?”
Though small, the rock had a long, flat surface. “I’ll make do. I need your sword.”
Aiden presented the blade to Oliver, who mopped up the blood with the mushrooms and laid them on the cold black floor. He kneaded the flesh of the mushroom with the black blood and glowing liquid until it became a paste. “Where did it touch her?”
“I didn’t see,” Ullwen said. “Her fire went out.”
Oliver handed the torch to Aiden. Welts rose up from Lauren’s skin like ulcers. The red circles of raw flesh on her neck plunged under the neckline of her dress. He untied her cloak and carefully pulled the shoulder of her dress away from her neck. “Here,” he said, indicating the scarring. Within the larger red circles, four round, black stains marred her clammy skin, like acid burns. He recognized them—something else that seemed cool when he coded it.
He smeared the paste over the raised sores on Lauren’s shoulder and neck. She didn’t move. “Come on,” he whispered. Nothing happened.
“Will this work?” Aiden asked. “This better work.”