Peggy’s words came back to her, an echo in the stillness. Amara whispered them aloud, “The grave itself is but a covered bridge. Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!”
Amara reached out for Marcus’s hand, taking strength from his presence. A strange thought occurred to her then. If we make it through this, if we somehow survive, I’m going to fall in love with this boy.
The other side of her, the side that was not a human girl, shook its head and laughed. What do you know? You are not meant for love, you are the child born without destiny, and a Keeper without a soul to keep is nothing at all.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind, and with her head raised high, Amara took a brave step toward the darkness. She shivered and thought of the Reaper when she felt a cold chill race across her neck, but she kept her nerve. With hands joined, the group stepped through the doorway, side by side.
As if an opaque screen had slid down behind them, closing off the passage, complete and utter darkness swallowed them whole. When Desiree squeaked, Amara nearly jumped out of her skin. Her fingers tightened in a death grip on Marcus’s hand.
“Okay, take a deep breath. We are going to be okay. Everyone stay together. I’m going to find the wall, and we are going to follow it through. Alright?”
As the others murmured consent, she forced herself to release Marcus and stretch her hand toward where the wall should have been. Nothing. She took a step, secure in the knowledge that the others were just behind her, no farther than a few inches from her reach. Still the wall was not there. Another step. Her hand fell through the empty space.
“Impossible. The door was right behind us, there should be a wall,” her voice died in the atmosphere, hollow and desperate sounding. Amara groped backwards, anxiously trying to find the others. “Marcus. Desiree. Anthony! What the hell?”
Her voice echoed in the quiet as it rose to a panicked pitch. Her eyes darted around the room frantically, trying to focus, and throbbing from the strain of focusing in the blackout. Amara shoved both hands in front of her and turned in a small circle, the isolation settling like a heavy weight.
If I can just find Marcus, it will be okay.
In the distance a spark ignited—scalding white light. The flash was so brief, she questioned its existence. Staring, straining her eyes more, shaking in terror, Amara blindly stepped forward. The remnants of the flicker leaving dancing gray spots in her vision, she tried to find its source.
Like dried leaves scuttling down the sidewalk on a bitter cold day, a voice whispered too close behind her. “Looking for something, Amara?”
She spun, loosing her footing and falling down. She screamed Marcus’s name as her body met roughly with the floor, and a pulse of light erupted, larger and brighter than the one before. In that moment, she saw the Reaper. The cowl of his hood hung low over his face, leaving nothing to be seen other than the smooth oval of his bone white face, a portion of the hideous grin, and one blazing eye.
Chapter 16
Into the Light
Amara scuttled backward, his image scarred into her brain as she fled. When her back slammed into stone, her screams were deafening, bouncing back from the walls to assault her ears.
“Scream all you want, no one can hear you in the Antrum Timere, little Keeper. The Cavern of Fear holds you separate from the world, and here, fear rules everything.” His laughter sounded as if a murder of crows had entered the pitch dark with them, all cackling at once.
Though her screams ceased, Amara’s breaths came in short gasps, sucking in air as her heart slammed against her ribcage. If she could only slip into the mists, if she could only see him, she might have a chance. Instead, the darkness seemed to grow denser, encasing her in a bleak cocoon.
Over top of her panting, Amara heard a whisper, not the bone dry rattle of the Reaper, but a familiar comfort amongst the terrors that plagued her mind. “You only fear what you do not know, do not understand, or do not control. Take control, Amara. Take control.”
She struggled to find her footing, Morta’s words giving her strength. The midnight veil in the room seemed to shift, lighten, and soften to something less than pure nothingness.
The Reaper, oblivious to the voice in her head, taunted Amara, relishing the taint of fear rising up around her like a sweet aroma. “Your friends are gone, lost in their own nightmares. Do you fear for them? Do you think their weak little human minds can survive? See them? Their bodies like dried husks forever preserved in the walls of this cavern. They will rot here, trophies for my brothers and me.”
The images plaguing her mind were like long, sharp needles bursting through the frontal lobes and out of the hindbrain. Each new pain brought visions of her wards and Marcus staring wide-eyed and dead, drying away in one of the glass boxes, buried beneath layers of dust for hundreds of years. The stone cut her palms as she braced herself against it, fighting to stand, even as the torture in her head dragged her back down.
Morta’s voice came again. “Fight it. You are strong, Amara.”
Scrunching her eyes closed tight against the darkness, against the fear of the Reaper, Amara pictured Desiree and Anthony. She saw them in her mind’s eye as they had been before she had rewound their clocks. She focused on their love, their deep sense of security, and she knew they would survive anything just to save the other.
Beyond her closed eyes, the darkness lightened.
Next, she saw Marcus. His vivid blue eyes were focused on her, the feeling unrepressed within them. He reached out his hand, beckoning her with a smile. Her fingers were a breath away. She could feel the warmth of him, just out of reach.
Beyond her closed eyes, the darkness lightened.
In the vision, she grasped Marcus’s hand in desperation, but in the cavern, the Reaper’s enclosed tightly around her arm, covering the rattlesnake wound in a painful grip.
The familiar words came in a grating tone, like wind through decaying death shrouds, brittle and crumbling. “I am the raven, the wolf, the serpent. I am the black dog demon waiting for when your step shall falter. I am…Death—your death.”
“No-o-o!” Amara’s eyes flew open, as her free hand swung upward in a hard left. The instant her fist connected with the fragile bones of the creature’s face, light flooded the room. She blinked, spots dancing before her half-blinded eyes, until they finally focused.
The bone mask that the Reaper wore had shattered, revealing the leathery skin of something ancient and possibly reptilian beneath. Yellow stumps of teeth stuck out of his blackened gums, dotting the slash of mouth that leered at Amara in rage.
“Little Keeper, you will not win. I do not need the darkness to strike fear in your heart or end this paltry life you claim.” His blood shot eyes bulged from the dark scaly skin surrounding them.
Amara did not reply. Words were nothing to her in the moment. The creeping knowledge that, if she died in that room, the Reaper would destroy Desiree, Anthony, and Marcus stole into her heart and turned it as cold as an Arctic wind. Suddenly, she no longer cared if she lived or died. Her only thought was to protect those she loved.
Love. I love them.
She held no weapon, she was not at full strength, and even if she were, she was not as big or as strong as the Reaper. None of that mattered to her. If she had to die trying, she would end his life before he ever laid a hand on the others.
He held his sickle, sharp and deadly, in a white knuckled grip. The decaying grin spread across his face until the skin around his mouth cracked—oozing yellow puss from the gray and leathery flesh.
Amara lunged, her hands held out in hopes the creature had a neck that she could rip open or strangle. Her thoughts as she attacked were filled with a twisted combination of love and hate. Love for the ones she protected and hate for all those that threatened their well-being melded together with a sense of sorrow for the life she had never been given the chance to live.
She saw the sickle move as if in slow motion. The razor sharp edge gleamed in
the light, a deadly promise as it whispered through the air. Somehow, by some miracle, she dodged the first blow, and the metal glinted off the stone floor, sending blue sparks up into the air.
Amara twisted, her fist jutting out to plummet into the Reaper’s skull. Knuckles sinking through the outer flesh, she felt the snap of hollow bone as the creature’s eye socket collapsed. Sickened, she spun backward, shaking her hand out to rid it of the sticky residue clinging to her as she fought off a wave of nausea.
The cackle of crows filled the air and the Reaper’s face shivered and flaked away as he laughed. “Is that the best you can do, little Keeper? Surely, you don’t think you can win?”
The edge of his blade whirled by, the tip grazing Amara’s shoulder as she rolled out of the way. The wound was small, superficial, but it burned like Sheol’s fire. She winced and cried out, cupping her hand over the cut as she spat curses at the demon spawn.
“You bastard! I’d rip out your heart with my bare hands if I thought you had one,” Amara seethed.
No more words were wasted as she kicked out with her right leg, connecting with something below the waste and hidden in the Reaper’s robes. She wasn’t sure if it was a leg, knee, or groin. She only knew the solid impact had the desired results.
The Reaper went down, the scythe slipping from his hand as he fell. A loud roar burst through his mouth as if the dogs of Sheol had all risen to howl at a nonexistent moon. The sound echoed off the vaulted ceiling and fell back down around them like acid rain.
Amara wanted to cover her ears with her hands, but she fought passed the sound of her blood pumping so hard that it threatened to burst through her eardrums. Instead, she ran toward the Reaper as he reached out for his discarded weapon. Just as his fingers touched the crooked wooden handle, she kicked. The flat side of her heavy boot caught the already half-destroyed portion of his face.
His head exploded in a putrid spray of skin and bone. The gaping hole where his skull had caved in was filled with squirming maggots and shiny black beetles. His body stilled, falling flat on the rough stone. Still, his hand crept forward in an attempt to reach his weapon.
Amara stepped forward, grabbing up the scythe and holding it askew. She prepared to swing the blade down in a deadly arc, but as she raised it above her head, the Reaper turned. His one eye, yellow and slick, swiveled to meet hers. Her body froze as she was caught in his gaze. Unable to lower the sickle or look away, Amara felt herself plummeting into the dark.
The mist swirled up around her feet and crawled up her legs like the arms of a squid. Instead of bringing the comfort and promise of safety as it had in the past, the fog felt as if it were pulling at her soul. She tried to scream, but the sound stuck in her throat as she desperately looked around her for help.
As the mists reached over her head, Amara panicked. The fear and hopelessness closed in. The light peeking through began to dim, the darkness looming.
The Reaper appeared before her, whole and masked once again. He reached a hand out, pointing a long, bony finger. “You cannot escape me. No one can out last death.”
As the words drifted across the spiraling haze, his form began to shift and change. Gone were the polished remains of the ivory mask and yolk colored eyes. Morta’s long, white hair flowed forth and her stern eyes stared at Amara in anger. Another transformation and Anthony stood before her with blood pouring from his neck, his cocky smirk clearly blaming her for his death.
Amara felt the hopelessness of her position fill her, and her grip on the scythe loosened. Still frozen in place, she could do nothing to wipe away the tears streaming down her face. The Reaper’s words repeated in her head, and she knew he was right. No one could escape death. It was the inevitable end to every life. Despair washed over her, threatening to swallow her spirit whole as she gave her body to the Reaper’s whims.
His form continued to meld and blend. Desiree came, crying and reaching out for Amara’s hand. Peggy Macklin, holding her head in her arms, leered and spat at her. Bryan, bulbous and swollen, called for his mother through deformed lips. All of them blamed her, and there was nothing she could do.
At some point, Amara had closed her eyes, but it did nothing to rid her of the horrid images tattooed on the inside of her eyelids. The Reaper’s charades had turned gruesome and vivid, the stuff of childhood nightmares and horror creep shows. Amara knew she’d never be able to wash her brain clean of what she had witnessed.
“Amara?” Marcus’s voice was a healing balm. “Honey, are you okay?”
Amara’s eyes opened and joy filled her in such abundance, she thought she might explode. “You’re alive!”
Dropping the scythe, she leapt into his arms, not caring that she stunk of sweat and death. There were no words to encompass the great relief she felt, knowing he lived. Desiree and Anthony were there as well, unharmed and confused, but Marcus was the most important thing in the world to her in that moment.
Surviving meant a lot of things to her, but another day as a human with him, seemed the greatest. She kissed him, but not in the shy or seeking way she had in the cabin. Her lips burned with passion and he responded with the same. She melded into him, but as his tongue slipped passed her teeth, the taste of rot filled her senses.
Amara pounded her fist on his shoulders and tried to force her face away, but one bony hand held the back of her head, while the other tightened around her throat. She chocked and gagged, but nothing could stop his tongue, rough as dried cornhusks, from seeking to fill her mouth completely.
A thought, so purely disgusting that she could barely finish it, filled her mind. Repulsive as it seemed, it was her only chance. Amara bit down on his tongue as it squirmed like a fat worm between her teeth. A fluid, not blood, burned the back of her throat and ran down her chin in thick, ebony gushes. As Amara turned her head and spat the detached organ onto the floor, the Reaper finally released her.
The discarded tongue lay between them, still wriggling with possessed life, but the Reaper seemed unfazed. “You are such a foolish child. You can’t kill that which is dead. I’ve tired of playing with you. It’s time this ended.”
She took a step backward, eyes searching for the scythe, only to watch it lift of its own volition and return to her enemy’s hand. Amara straightened her shoulders; she would face death with dignity.
“No one escapes death,” the rasping voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.
He had robbed her of something she treasured more than her own life. He had taken the passion she thought she had shared with Marcus. Her fury somehow fortified Amara as she, quite literally, stared death in the face. She would gladly die for love, but for that same love, she was determined to live.
A force she didn’t know she possessed rose up inside of her like a whirlwind, building as it climbed. The power of it drove her to a new heightened awareness, aiding her senses until she felt as if she were a god. The mists dissolved, the light returned to its full power, and the Reaper lay once more at her feet—his paltry illusion shattered.
Amara smiled as she brought down the sickle, severing the Reaper’s head in a single stroke. “There’s only one thing that outlives death, Reaper,” she spoke to the corpse with a voice full of triumph as it turned to dust. “Love!”
In a puff of dirt, scattering beetles, and crawling things, the Reaper dissolved. A strange breeze gusted through the room, carrying death away with it, and leaving behind a shining bauble. As blood red as the heart it was sculpted to resemble, the light shining off its multi-faceted edges nearly made the crystal look as if it was beating.
Amara dropped the weapon and seized the stone with a triumphant smile. As she raised back up, the world shimmered and waivered. Shaking uncontrollably, her human body succumbed to both mental and physical exhaustion. She stared, untrusting, across the room at what seemed to be Marcus, Desiree, and Anthony. They looked frightened and confused, as if they had not witnessed anything that had taken place.
The trio moved toward her, concern
shining in their eyes, and she knew they were real when the questions hammered down on her throbbing head. Feeling self-conscious about how she must look, Amara ran her hand across her chin, expecting to pull it away covered in dark sludge. Instead, there was nothing.
Understanding dawned on her. All that had happened within the Cavern of Fear had been more real than anything else she had experienced, but it was an illusion just the same. The Reaper had even told her as much, but at the time she had not understood.
Her eyes raked over Anthony, Desiree, and Marcus. They all had gaunt faces and haunted eyes. Their hands shook as they reached out to check on her, and when she leaned her face into Marcus’s chest, the hammering of his heart told the story. They had all fought their inner demons, and they had all come out victorious. Yet, that type of fight never truly had a winner. She understood, probably better than anyone, though they had conquered the illusions, the scars would remain.
“I don’t know what each of you saw inside this cave, I never have to know. Whatever it was, you defeated it. We won. We are going to walk out of here victors in a war no one else will ever know or understand, but we are walking out of here.”
There were murmurs of agreement and faces filled with relief that they would not have to speak of the horrors they had faced. A quick look around showed them the way out. Iron bars jutted out from the wall at intervals, creating a ladder that led upward.
The sound of voices echoed in the passageway just as Anthony put his hand on the first rung. For a moment, they all froze, listening for a clue as to who had followed them down. There were only two choices: the Apollumi or the police. Amara didn’t know which one to hope for more. With two dead bodies in the room above and Mabel long gone, either option was not a good one.
“Go!” she urgently whispered.
The light in the chamber began to dim and she knew, if they could reach the escape hatch, the newcomers would be lost inside their own fears long enough for her and the others to escape. Insisting she be last, she sent Marcus up after Anthony to help break through the door at the top, and Desiree followed. They moved silently, and luckily, the latch was easy to throw when the boys pressed against it with their shoulders.
The Keeper's Heart Page 11