by Scott Hale
R’lyeh pulled away from the sight of the lake and turned towards Operations. A gasp caught in her throat as she found Gemma beside her, her dirty bare feet floating every-so-slightly above the boards.
“You’re the one with the mask?” Gemma asked.
R’lyeh wrinkled her forehead and looked around. They weren’t alone—cabalists were moving back and forth in a steady stream from one level to the next—but there was no one nearby, either. They had never been kind to the Night Terror, and now that she was consorting with a vampyre, they gave her the kind of wide berth that made her feel like she was already diseased.
Gemma fussed with the bloodstained linen wrapped around each of her palms. “I like your mask.” She tilted her head towards R’lyeh, sniffed, and said, “We never met many Night Terrors, but your kind don’t really have your own scent, you know?”
R’lyeh didn’t know what to say.
“Bunch of copycats, you Night Terrors.” Gemma laughed, made a cocking sound with her mouth, pointed her fingers at R’lyeh, and pretended to shoot her. “What’s up?”
R’lyeh still didn’t know what to say.
Gemma rubbed her ankles together, but still she stayed suspended. “Any other kids around here?”
Kids? R’lyeh often though about her age, but not the fact she wasn’t far out from having once been a kid herself. Kids? She scoffed.
Gemma didn’t notice, or didn’t care, and kept on with: “The Skeleton said you’re the only Night Terror here, too. You must be some kind of celebrity. I wouldn’t be too bummed about not bringing Audra back. Pretty sure the Skeleton was banking on that.”
R’lyeh peered across Gallows, to Mr. Haemo’s haunt. The mosquito’s home at the center of the lake was still shrouded in pink fog, but it was thinner than before; and if she wasn’t going crazy, and there was no guarantee on that, there appeared to be several shapes inside the fog, talking. The Skeleton was the only one who ever made the harrowing jaunt into the bug’s den. Who the hell else was in there?
“Earth to R’lyeh.”
“Why’s t-that?” she stammered.
“Why didn’t he want you guys to bring back Audra?” Gemma rolled her eyes and then finally brought her feet to the ground. “I mean, he’s got plans, hasn’t he? Obviously. Plus, dude’s got the Black Hour’s heart in his chest. Got to cut him some slack for not thinking too clearly.”
“How do you know that? The Black Hour heart thing, I mean.”
“I was there when he got it. Well, I showed him where the Dread Clock was. The Dread Clock and I go way back.”
Sensing bullshit, R’lyeh said, “Oh, really?”
“Yeah, the Dread Clock completely ruined my life. Mom brought it home once, and it made my parents do awful things, and then it made them get rid of me. Dumped me at the Orphanage, and I never left.
“During the Trauma, I hunted that fucker down and dragged it into the Nameless Forest with us. I mean, it helped it was right outside, but still… I think that worked out better than I thought it would…” She laughed. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
R’lyeh laughed and looked away from the vampyre girl. Should she believe her? Did it really even matter? They weren’t friends, and they weren’t about to be, either.
Camazotz let out a high-pitched squeak that bore through R’lyeh’s brain. Vision trembling, she stumbled backwards, only to have Gemma reach out and catch her by the wrist. The girl’s hand was clammy to the touch, and it pricked her skin, as if it were covered in thorns.
Realizing what was going on, R’lyeh ripped her wrist away from Gemma and shouted, “Stop!”
Amused, Gemma turned her hand over, the linen that once wrapped it hanging loosely around it. Her palm was slit open, from her middle finger to the heel. The womb-like wound quivered; inside it, glistening muscles throbbed out cloudy secretions. There were teeth, too, like the thorns R’lyeh had thought she felt. They were farther back—a hungry wreath of curved fangs—slowly making their way to the front of the slit, to feast.
R’lyeh went for her daggers, but they weren’t there. They were on the Divide, in the mud, somewhere near Miranda’s mutilated corpse. “What the fuck did you just do?”
“Nothing. You’re fine.” Gemma wrapped her hand back up. “The offer is there, just so you know.”
Had the bitch bit her? Or were these the phantom pangs of paranoia she felt on her wrist? She rubbed her skin and searched for marks, but there was nothing there—only drool.
“Elizabeth told me about you and your Orphanage.”
Gemma straightened out the red collar of her green dress. A few fat spiders scurried out of the gaping seams and ran back inside. “I’m sure she did. I’d really like to like you, R’lyeh. You seem cool.”
What the hell is she doing?
The October wind buffeted Gallows from the North. The ramshackle town of reclaimed wood and ruins rattled and wavered, as if it didn’t have much time left until it gave up for good. The Skeleton and his crew had made of it what they could, but even R’lyeh knew its time was up. She went for her faerie silk cloak, realized it wasn’t on her, and hugged some warmth into herself, instead. Geharra was gone. Alluvia was gone. And by winter, Gallows would be gone, too. And she didn’t have shit to show for anything, except for the shit she had inside her head, and no one was going to see that unless—
“What’re you thinking about, R’lyeh?” Gemma asked coyly.
Need to keep moving, she thought, and started past Gemma.
“I’m sorry about Miranda.”
R’lyeh stopped in her tracks, giving a start to the cabalists behind her. They went around her, grumbling.
“I’m sorry about all of them—Elizabeth, Jessie, and Miranda—but they should’ve never grown up. I warned them about adults and becoming one.” Gemma started unraveling the linen on her hand again. “It’s not worth it, R’lyeh. Seems like it is, but it isn’t. I’ve tasted a lot of them. They all taste the same.”
“What… do you want Gemma?”
“A… friend, I think.” The vampyre gave a half-hearted shrug. “I heard you’re ferocious, and you’re a monster like me. But it’s fine. Whatever.” Gemma closed her eyes, looked away at Camazotz.
A friend? R’lyeh couldn’t be anyone’s friend. Miranda had been ripped apart, and Vrana wasn’t much more than a name that haunted her like a curse.
“You can ride with us tomorrow morning, when we leave,” Gemma offered. Then, disinterestedly: “You know, if you want.”
“Didn’t you know any Night Terrors back during the Trauma?” R’lyeh asked, completely changing the subject.
Hurt like lightning flashed across Gemma’s face. It was there for a moment, and then it was gone. “No,” she said, resolutely. “There were no Night Terrors back then.”
“Yes, there were.”
“I don’t mean to be a bitch, but were you alive back then?”
Bitch, R’lyeh thought.
Gemma smiled; she sniffed R’lyeh once more. “Ride with us tomorrow morning. If these humans really appreciated you, you’d still have your mask on.”
“And you’re saying you appreciate me?”
Gemma smiled smugly. “Just saying I’ll actually make the effort.”
What the hell was going on? R’lyeh stormed her way up to the second level of the platform and zeroed in on Operations. Had she been talking aloud? Was Hex reading her mind? Or had Gemma? She hugged herself harder and remembered Rime and its Rot that had tried so hard to wrack her body. She was a good friend to have—she could take a beating and her heart would keep on beating—but she didn’t need to have any friends of her own. Only poisons, and poisonous distractions.
R’lyeh threw the doors to Operations open and gasped. Where was everything? The tables were empty, the walls stripped bare. Gone were the maps, documents, field reports, and artifacts. Gone were the sections of the room dedicated to the progress of the Disciples of the Deep and the Holy Order of Penance. Every piece of evidence and dat
a that had been collected was gone, vanished, either into a box or into shreds. R’lyeh started down the center, crouching and standing as she went, searching for the stacks of mandatory readings of The Disciples of the Deep, Helminth’s Way, and The Sinner and the Shadows, but they were gone, too. All that was left was the Skeleton’s desk, and even that looked ransacked.
There was moving, and then there was moving on. Gemma had said the Skeleton wanted R’lyeh and the Beauties to come back empty-handed, and that made sense to her now. But if he had done all of this for his family, then why the hell wasn’t he taking his family with him?
R’lyeh ran to the Skeleton’s desk and started ripping out the drawers. Empty, empty, empty—not a speck of dust, not that that was all too great a feat for a man with no skin. Where were the maps? Where were the drawings with the buildings and the word “bomb” written all over them? She dropped to her knees and worked free the last drawer. Before she could get it out, she could hear something rattling inside.
“What did you forget?”
She tugged, and the drawer gave. Falling back on her ass, the drawer going all the way to her crotch, she caught her breath, and caught a glimpse of what was inside.
At the bottom of the drawer, atop of a bedding of cloth, sat a vial of thick, gritty liquid. It was the vial of Thanatos she had stolen from him and then returned before leaving for Rime. A little bit of it was missing, but that was okay. It was just what she needed.
With death in her pocket, R’lyeh hurried out of Operations and headed to the bottom level of Gallows. Because of Camazotz’s thrashing in the blood lake, most of the docks on the lower level were so slick with blood it was like trying to walk across ice. The mosquitoes were worse there, too; as the cabalists were trying their hardest to shift supplies from the town to the caravan, the insects moved in thick, ballooning clouds, sucking up the excess blood the fat bat had spilled. If anyone was glad to have the Marrow Cabal leaving this place, clearly it was Mr. Haemo. And that’s exactly who she needed to see.
Another burst of wind rocked Gallows. R’lyeh reeled and slipped on the slippery docks. She crashed into the blood-soaked boards and cracked her funny bone. A stomach-churning sensation flared throughout her arm, up to her neck.
“Goddamn it!” she belted, her hands skating across the docks as she pushed off them and onto her feet. Swift as a knife, the mosquitoes slashed across her body, and when they were gone, it was clean—not a speck or spot of blood left on her.
Mr. Haemo could kill of us anytime he wants, R’lyeh thought, rubbing her elbow. He won’t because of the Skeleton. But if the Skeleton leaves…
In a matter of seconds, all oddities became ill omens no longer possible to ignore.
The cold wind, ripe with decay, crept like a killer across the town, working its destructive charms on the unguarded and weak. Standing there, bearing the violent blasts, R’lyeh could almost feel the static of intent, as if the air were a discharge from some yet unseen plot.
Gallows was alive, but only because of the living desperate to be gone from it. At first, R’lyeh had mistaken the Marrow Cabal’s response to the Skeleton as loyalty to the cause. Now, she realized that wasn’t the case at all. Cabalists came and went, but their expressions remained the same: horror chancing relief. Watching them now was like watching prisoners who had woken to find their cells unlocked. How many cabalists were there, exactly? The number seemed to dwindle every time R’lyeh bothered to notice. And what exactly did the Skeleton have them doing? He had far more bodies to command than commands to give out. Like the Deadly Beauties’ mission to retrieve Audra, it seemed the Marrow Cabal had been mostly for show.
Then there was the lake of blood and the beasts that worshiped it. Camazotz had been having a field day with the red stuff ever since she arrived, but it wasn’t just her flailing that was making the blood churn. At the edge of the dock, the lake lapping like a dog at the supports below her, R’lyeh found something in the waves. Every time the blood moved, small spirals formed, in the same way water would ripple when rain would hit it. And it wasn’t only that they were the shapes of spirals, but they were spirals turning inwards, like whirlpools, as if every inch of the lake was its own part, and every part was being drained.
R’lyeh went to one knee and pressed her ear as close as she dared to the lake. Gallows was loud today, but the blood was louder. There was something inside the spirals, speaking. Words inside the whirlpools. A seething rhythm; puerile poetry. Trying to make sense of what she was hearing made her brain burn and eardrums swell.
As if the speaker knew she was listening, the words suddenly stopped. R’lyeh’s heart sank. Feeling caught, she looked up from the blood. Camazotz wasn’t moving, and the vampyre children servicing the bat were staring directly at R’lyeh, letting the blood in their mouths run down their chins.
She had seen something wasn’t supposed to have seen; heard something she wasn’t supposed to have heard. Something was going on here.
“Are you ready to go?”
R’lyeh let out a shout. She looked back. Will was behind her, a bag slung over his shoulder. His face was covered in patches of stubble that he kept touching, proud to have finally grown them. She had felt that way once with her breasts, before Penance’s soldiers got ahold of them. It didn’t seem fair. As soon as you grew up, something always came along and made you wish you hadn’t.
Will smiled at her like she was nuts. “You look like you’re about to jump in.”
“Heh.” R’lyeh came to her feet, shaking her head. “Not a very good swimmer.”
“I didn’t know you were back. Sorry I didn’t—” He twisted his mouth. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me, too.”
“I know you told my dad about the shepherd in Bedlam. I’m not mad.”
That was like two months ago; I completely forgot.
“Where’s your mask?”
R’lyeh blushed. “Oh, I—”
Camzotz and the vampyres went back to making a loud mess in the lake.
“—I, uh, it’s back in the Barracks.”
“Weird seeing you without it.” Then, quickly, he added, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You think I’m hideous?” R’lyeh made a fist, and then she remembered her plan. With that, she no longer felt like playing. “It’s alright. How’s your mom?”
“Same old same old,” Will said. “She’s happy to leave. Me, too. Hey, R’lyeh?”
Looking at the center of the lake, R’lyeh said, “Yeah?”
“Did my dad talk to you yet?”
“No, I don’t know where he is,” she said, but that was a lie. She knew exactly where he was. She could almost see his boney silhouette beyond the fog surrounding Mr. Haemo’s Haunt. He was there with the bug and who knows what else, putting some terrible thing into motion.
“Oh. Oh, well, Elizabeth is gone.”
Something snapped in R’lyeh’s chest. “What?” Instinctively, she searched Gallows for the Deadly Beauty. “What? What do you mean?”
“She disappeared. I heard about Miranda…” Will’s eyes went watery. Miranda had been his and his mom’s guardian; by R’lyeh’s guess, she’d probably spent more time with them than the Skeleton had lately. “Dad was going to ask her to watch over us, but she left.”
She’s gone? R’lyeh’s eyes went watery, too. Her jaw locked; she tasted snot at the back of her throat—that universal flavor of sadness. She left me.
“Dad’s going to ask you to help watch over us. Probably with Warren, too, but… yeah. Will you? My dad’s crazy. It’s good to take a break from him.”
“I’m as old as you. I… what can I do?” R’lyeh remembered the Divide, and when she, Elizabeth, and Miranda had breakfast on it. “You have shepherds following you.”
Will shook his head. “No, we don’t.”
“Come on, dude.” There she was, using Gemma’s word. “I saw it.”
“I know, but I don’t think it was a shepherd. A real one.” He
readjusted the strap of the bag over his shoulder. “Mom and I’ve been lying to him. Telling him we’ve been seeing shepherds. I freaked out on you on purpose. I’m sorry.”
Stunned, R’lyeh asked, “The hell? Why?”
“Mom said he needed reminders. Something to keep him focused on us. He has the heart. He can make things… happen. I think when shepherds show up, it’s because he’s making it happen and doesn’t even realize it. They should’ve taken us by now. I think Dad was so scared a shepherd was going to show up while we were in Bedlam, he made one appear—probably while he was sleeping. Or pretending to.”
R’lyeh stepped away from Will. She had a plan. She had a plan. What the hell was going on? What the hell were these distractions? Did everyone know? Or was it just the blood? Her blood was in there, wasn’t it? A bit from Geharra carried here to Gallows. It wasn’t paranoid to think that it would be enough form a connection between her and the lake and the forces that controlled it. She had a plan, and something didn’t want her to see it through.
“What’s wrong?” Will had noticed her uncertainty. “I swear, it’s true.”
R’lyeh backpedaled, going farther and farther down the dock, towards the untended walkway that would lead to the center.
“Don’t go in there. R’lyeh, stop.” Will reached for her, but he didn’t follow. “Did he tell you something else? Did he change his mind?” His voice shook as he said, “Please, stay with us.”
“He didn’t tell me anything,” R’lyeh said, slipping her hand into her pocket and gripping the vial of Thanatos. “I’m doing this myself.”
“Doing what?” he shouted after her.
She didn’t answer.
R’lyeh ran down the lone path that led to the center of the lake. She passed the point where she had spoken to the Skeleton earlier before leaving to rescue Audra, and kept going. If she slowed down, she’d stop, and if she stopped, she’d be back with Will, or even Gemma, doing something someone else wanted her to do. That wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t happen. That was the life of a girl who might’ve been, if Miranda hadn’t died, and Elizabeth might’ve stayed, and the Skeleton hadn’t dumped her like a bad date five minutes into dinner.