Dark Duets

by Christopher Golden

  12

  Thomas Rhymer did not call an ambulance or any other aid.

  As darkness closed over Stacey, she was half aware that he was dragging her up the slope toward the parked Bentley.

  When she opened her eyes for a moment, the light outside had changed. Rough bandages were wrapped around her wounds. She wasn’t bleeding, but she didn’t know if she had any blood left to lose. She lay in the plush backseat of the Bentley watching treetops flicker past the windows. She had only one red sneaker on, but her other foot was bathed in enough blood that it almost looked like a match.

  She said, “Where are we?” Managed to turn her head enough to see him.

  Rhymer was hunched over the wheel, his face gray, his fists white-knuckle tight on the wheel. He did not have the strength to answer.

  “Oh, well, that’s fine then.” Darkness came for Stacey and took her down again.

  13

  The café was quiet. The waiter came and poured fresh coffee into their cups, murmured something in French, and walked away. Traffic whisked back and forth, but no one seemed to be in a hurry.

  The bandages beneath her long sleeves chafed, the stitches itched. They would have to come out soon.

  Stacey sipped her coffee, wincing at the pain in her lip. It had been split and was taking its own sweet time to heal. Rhymer wore sunglasses even at night. A broken nose had given him black eyes.

  People walked by, some of them laughing, a few hand in hand.

  “Is he gone?” she asked. It was not the first time she’d asked the question since that day. For a lot of that time Rhymer had remained silent, morose, lost in his own inner darkness.

  This time he answered her. “We hurt him,” he said softly. “That’s the most you can say for certain. He’s not like most of the Yvag. He’s royalty. I’m not sure if he can die.” He paused a moment. “But either he steps into the well of the damned or someone else of his bloodline has tae. ‘You’ll scream for a thousand years’ was nae hyperbole.”

  “God . . .”

  “At the very least a princeling of the elves has been wounded by a mortal, a woman, and that’s only happened once before in the whole history of the world, to my knowledge.” He added sugar to his coffee, stirred as if everything depended on it.

  “Will it stop them?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “It’ll complicate things for them. Opening the gateway takes a lot of power. I . . . don’t know if he can accomplish it with what we did to him. Others will, though, next time. And next time they’ll come early to the party. You came dear.”

  She nodded and they sat together for a quarter hour without talking. Then she said, “Rhymer . . . I was the tithe.”

  “Aye.”

  “Now we spoiled that.”

  “Aye.”

  She looked around at the square. Paris glowed with life. “The Yvag said that my life would buy the safety of the whole world. Of all the worlds. Is that remotely true? Has saving me opened everyone up to something bad?”

  “They sold you a lie tae make you cooperate in your own sacrifice. Their idea of fun.”

  “So . . . hell won’t take revenge?”

  Rhymer smiled. “Not on us, lass,” he said. “Their bargain.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but all she said was, “God . . .”

  “Some believe that the Yvag were angels once,” said Rhymer. “When certain angels revolted, God ordered that the gates of heaven and hell be shut. Any angels left in heaven became the true and sanctified angels. Those who were shut into hell became demons. But there were many who were trapped in the worlds between.”

  “And they became the Yvag?”

  “According to that version of things.” He nodded. “Not pure enough for heaven but not evil enough for hell.” He laughed. “More like us than they want to believe.”

  “Or . . . maybe they do believe,” she suggested. “Maybe that’s why they mess with our world so much.”

  He considered it, sipped his coffee awhile before speaking again. “As I said, that’s one version of it. The tithe paid is to stay free from hell. As fallen angels they belong to hell, and the tithe buys their freedom.”

  “So . . . why would hell take it out on us if the tithe isn’t paid?”

  “It wouldn’t. And that’s your version of them filtered through Christian theology. I know a deal more. They’re older than our religions. Older than our race, maybe our world.”

  She thought about that. “Hell will go after the Yvag, then?”

  “Aye. It’s a war they cannae hope tae win. But hell . . .” He looked grimly at some memory. “Hell is like nothing Christianity ever dreamed up, and vaster than worlds.”

  “The well of the damned?”

  His mouth twitched at her repeating his own phrase back at him. “The universe balances on a knife edge.”

  “So saving me you forced an immortal creature to sacrifice itself to buy the Yvag time?”

  “Which runs differently in their world between worlds. But, aye. The span until the next teind comes due.”

  A cold wind seemed to blow among the tables. “Twenty-eight years, you said.”

  “Your being their tithe is done now. The mark on you is no good to them anymore. Like the one on me.”

  “Then I’m safe, am I?” She knew the answer but needed to hear it laid out.

  Rhymer’s mouth pulled tight with sadness and weariness. “They won’t come after you as their tithe, no,” he said quietly. “But the Yvag are a bitter race. You injured their prince. Maybe slew him. They’ll ne’er forgive you. Never stop hunting you.”

  Stacey felt like she wanted to cry, but she didn’t. She’d known it already.

  Instead she asked, “You said only one woman has ever injured a prince of the Yvag before.”

  “I did.”

  “Who was it?”

  He finished his coffee, then looked into the cup, head bowed. When she thought he wasn’t going to say anything, he replied, “Someone that mattered. A long, long time ago.”

  “And you’ve been running from them and fighting them, what, ever since?”

  “Ever since.”

  “Alone?”

  “It’s not a journey ye . . . Of course, alone.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “Well, not anymore.”

  He smiled at her, but there was so much sorrow in that smile that Stacey knew that behind the sunglasses his eyes weren’t participating. She turned and looked away, looked out at the passing traffic on the rue de Rivoli. Every once in a while one of the people in the passing cars would catch her eye. The looks were brief, except sometimes they went on just a second too long.

  Rhymer squeezed her hand, and they sat in silence as the world turned around them.

  She, Doomed Girl

  Sarah MacLean and Carrie Ryan

  I stood alone in the gray, surrounded by cloud.

  My throat burned and my eyes watered as the frigid wind snapped at my face. I’d never felt emptier in my life. It was like that sensation you have after waking up from a dream, when your emotions are still trapped somewhere else and all you’re left with is a feeling that you don’t understand.

  Sure, I’d left everything behind when I’d stepped onto the ferry, but I hadn’t expected it to hurt like this. There’d been nothing keeping me in my old life—nothing I couldn’t bring with me.

  Nothing that wouldn’t be forgotten.

  Silently I cursed the airline for losing my luggage, leaving me to finish the trip with only my purse and a handful of change.

  And a deed. And a key.

  And no idea what I was getting myself into.

  “You’re headed for the castle.”

  The voice startled me, coming from the fog like in some old gothic movie, where the terrifying Vincent Price character growls the words, all skeletal angles and crooked fingers. But I wasn’t in a gothic movie. I was on a boat. In Scotland. And despite the rolling fog that had come down off the hills an
d pooled in dark cinematic swirls along the banks of the North Sea, hiding both the land I’d left and the land where I was headed, there was nothing gothic about the bearded Scotsman in front of me.

  There was nothing skeletal about him, either.

  I swiped at my eyes to clear them, but the bitter wind drew fresh tears. It was obvious looking at the Scotsman that he’d spent his lifetime out on these waters. His cheeks were weathered red from the sting of cold salt air whipping across the deck of the ferry and his words disappeared into a laugh that betrayed a lifetime of whiskey and cigarettes.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, bracing against the wind and wishing I had the winter coat I’d packed when I left Los Angeles. The Scotsman was wearing one of those beautiful, warm fisherman’s sweaters—the ones that are probably knitted using wool spun from the sheep outside the house. The ones you don’t need in Southern California—but that you absolutely need here. I’d have to buy one tomorrow.

  Now, I just wanted to get to where I needed to go. I was tired. And I wanted a bed. I’d always been a terrible traveler, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept.

  The man stared at me, expecting an answer. His eyes gleamed nearly silver in the strange light of dusk and the bleak, gray sea, and I realized that I’d forgotten what he said. “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head, “I didn’t—”

  “I said, you’re headed for the castle.”

  I nodded, feeling numb. At least there was good news in that he’d confirmed there would be a castle at the end of this trip.

  At least that hadn’t been a lie.

  “I’m Charlie.” He extended one hand, the size of a Christmas ham, and added, “Charlie MacLaron. And you’re Emily.”

  My hand stilled inside his massive grip.

  “How did you know that?” I mean, this might be quiet Scotland, and this guy might be wearing a sweater no doubt knitted by his loving wife, but it didn’t mean a girl shouldn’t be careful.

  He grinned then, revealing a gold-capped tooth. “Few make it all this way on their own,” he said, as though it explained everything. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for you.”

  I suppose it made sense. The key and the deed to the castle had been left for me a few days earlier, and while I didn’t know much about castles or land, I did know that it wasn’t every day a waitress living paycheck to paycheck was given a castle on an island halfway around the world. Add to it the fact that this place didn’t seem to be a booming, bustling metropolis, and I should expect a fair amount of curiosity and gossip.

  The wind blew again, harder than before, bitterly cold, knocking me off balance, toward him. Charlie laughed, reaching out to steady me, and said, “Don’t have legs for the boat yet? You’ll get them. There’s plenty of time.”

  I shoved my purse high on my shoulder. “How long is the ride?”

  His eyes lit up. “As long as it takes, lassie.”

  I faked a smile and looked away. Now was not the time to tell my new neighbor he was more frustrating than funny. I wrapped my arms around myself once more, trying to rub feeling back into them. “In that case, I really wish I had a coat.” When he didn’t reply, I added, “They lost my luggage.”

  “You’ve lost more than that,” he said.

  I snapped my attention back to him. “What did you say?”

  He was looking out over the prow of the ferry, toward the bank of fog that marked our destination. A wide, blank future. Untouched. Pure.

  Paradise.

  “I said you’ve lost more than your luggage. You’ve lost your way.”

  I have.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re on a boat in the North Sea with nothing but the clothes on your back and a key to a castle. It’s not exactly ordinary.”

  He was right, of course. I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “It was a gift.”

  He looked back to the shore. “Was it, now?”

  He wasn’t talking about the key or the deed to Castle Anaon, and neither was I. The trip had been a gift. The change. The offer to walk away from everything I was. Everything I had.

  Which wasn’t much.

  Which was nothing.

  And the day it all came to a head and I realized that I had nothing—that I was in danger of becoming nothing—everything had changed.

  My grandmother used to have a silly saying about doors and windows. I always thought it was the kind of thing that poor women said to keep hope alive. But in that moment, as I’d stared down at the old, weathered piece of paper and the large brass key on the linoleum countertop at Sal’s Truck Stop Café—which was neither a truck stop nor a café nor owned by someone named Sal—I’d heard that stupid saying whispering in my ear.

  A castle.

  Escape.

  “What are you running from?” Charlie said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  The question made it seem like I was on the lam—like I’d done something terrible. Which I supposed I had. Wanted too much. Loved too hard. Let myself believe that happily ever after was real.

  After I’d been punished for it, a stranger had marched right into Sal’s Truck Stop Café and opened a window. One that looked out onto the mist-covered banks of the North Sea.

  So here I was—to start over. To try again. To be reborn.

  Somehow, Charlie’s question still hung in the air. What are you running from?

  Trust. Love.

  I finally settled on, “Truth.”

  “Sounds like something that you run toward.”

  I smiled. “Maybe I’m doing that, too.”

  “Well, if you’re to find it, then here’s where it’ll be.”

  The Scots loved their Scotland, that much was true. I reached into my pocket, fingering the heavy brass key that now seemed like the only thing that hadn’t been left or lost on this long, unyielding journey. “I hope so.”

  The ship lurched at the words, giving a great, heaving groan and sending me to one knee as Charlie cursed. “It always shocks the hell out of me, that,” he said, helping me up.

  When I was on my feet again, I asked, “What happened?”

  “We’ve run aground. The tides are never where they should be on this side.”

  It occurred to me that tides are regular as . . . well, tides . . . and that ferries have schedules, but it seemed not the appropriate time to question the ferryman’s knowledge of his trade.

  “We’re here?” I looked past him to the shoreline, where the fog was thick enough to shield everything but the dock.

  “Aye, you’re here.”

  I started forward, getting only a few steps before I turned back to Charlie. “I didn’t pay you.”

  He looked at me for a long moment with his strange silver eyes and said, “No, you didn’t.”

  “What do I owe you?” I asked, reaching into my pocket and extracting a handful of change, holding it out to him in that way that tourists do when they don’t entirely understand how a new currency works.

  I’m not really a tourist now, I had to remind myself. This is my new home.

  Home.

  There was something in the word. Something that felt at once good and right and strange and desperate.

  There was no time to dissect the feelings before Charlie leaned forward and picked through the coins in my hand, extracting two heavy golden pieces. “That’ll do.” He then nodded toward shore. “Up the path to the castle.”

  I followed his directions and was halfway down the dock when he called out to me. “Emily!”

  I turned back, fog swirling around me, cold and wet and fresh on my skin, to find him peering at me intently. “Yes?”

  “Sometimes it’s best for everyone if you don’t look back.”

  And then he turned away to tend to his boat and I stood in confused silence trying to understand what he meant. The moment was broken when a large man jostled past me on his way down the dock. I pressed myself against the railing to let him pass, but not before my legs wer
e tangled in the leashes of the trio of Labradors following him toward the ferry.

  “Wait!” I called out, not wanting to pitch face-first onto the dock, and not wanting to crush the smallest dog—a sweet-faced black puppy who sat the moment I spoke, staring up at me with the most loyal of faces. “I’m caught in your dogs,” I added, carefully trying to extract myself from the leashes.

  The middle dog, full grown and eager, leaped up at me, his massive black paws catching the strap of my purse and pulling it off my shoulder. It fell to the ground, the contents spilling everywhere. The grayed muzzle of the third dog extended to the bag, sniffing at the honeyed almonds I’d packed for the journey. I snatched them away before he could claim his prize and shoved everything back into the bag.

  The dogs’ owner didn’t say anything, instead waiting patiently until I was clear of the leashes before turning without a word to board the boat, dogs following along behind him.

  “Charming,” I said under my breath, turning back to the dock, which led to a dirt road and, not too far away, a narrow path that disappeared into a thicket of willow trees. It didn’t look inviting.

  Few things dark and foreboding ever do.

  A sharp shiver of unease sent goose bumps crawling along my spine. Perhaps this entire trip wasn’t a good idea after all. I turned back toward the ferry, intending to ask Charlie to take me back across, but the shore was empty. Only a soft sweep of fog curled against the dock in the boat’s wake—the tide must have risen fast.

  The yipping of his passenger’s dogs faded as they began the return journey to the other side of the North Sea.

  And, like that, alone on the bank, something felt off. Terribly so. Like I’d forgotten something important.

  My sanity, perhaps?

  Whatever it was, it was too late now. Charlie had left, which meant I was stuck. Unless I wanted to swim. I took a step toward where the dark water lapped against the shore and was just about to dip my fingers in to test the temperature when I laughed.

  I was in Scotland—the very north of Scotland, where it may as well have been the Arctic. There was no way I could swim back to the mainland. If I didn’t die of hypothermia, I’d disappear into the fog never to be seen again.