Grave Signs (Hellgate Guardians Book 4)

by Ivy Asher

  Whimpers escape me as he keeps going, the wire cutting into me with every pass, and I will myself to wake up, for my mind to right itself and make this all go away, but my inner voice retaliates, screaming at me to open my eyes and realize that the monsters I’m seeing are real. That the pain is real. That I’m not in some mental ward, I’m here. But to admit that...to face the reality of that…

  “Call to your scythe, Sable.”

  The firm order comes as Dr. Ophidian continues to loop more wire around my leg. Around and around he goes, never slowing down, never stopping, every rotation slicing into my skin and making blood run off in rivulets.

  I jerk and struggle against the bindings that hold me to the table, but it’s no use. I’m held completely captive as he wraps me in a cutting spiral, all the way up to my fleshy thighs. I scream when he digs in particularly hard, so deep that I know I’ll need stitches.

  I blink furiously, trying to get the vision and the tears to go away, and my body suddenly jerks in retaliation, though it feels like I’m being electrocuted. I scream through gritted teeth as pain rips down my back, and then some foreign muscle tears out of my shoulder blades, something hitting the back of my head and bunching up behind my back like an uncomfortable mattress.

  I look behind me only to see dark purple feathers beneath me—so dark they look nearly black. What in the world…?

  “There you are.”

  My eyes snap up to Dr. Ophidian again, and his grin is so wide and ecstatic that he looks like a frenzied predator, pleased with the prey lying at his feet.

  He tightens his hold on the wire again at the same time that his other hand comes up to pluck a feather from behind me. I flinch at the feel of it, and then my heart pounds in my chest. I felt that, as if the wings were mine, but that’s impossible.

  Why the hell did I feel that?

  Blood pools beneath my leg, the cuts weeping like they’re begging for relief as the wire digs into my flesh. The back of my leg sticks to the table, and every time another flash of pain hits me, a dawning truth that I don’t want to face digs its heels in.

  This is real.

  Dr. Ophidian leans forward until his face is right in front of mine. He tsks. “You can make this stop, Sable. We’re so close to Nihil that your wards are already starting to break,” he says, making no sense at all as he twists the dark purple feather between his fingers. “All you have to do is call to your scythe.”

  I can’t help the tears that flow freely down my cheeks and drip into my scalp.

  “Call it,” he says, but this time, his words once again take on that layered wrongness that I recognize from before.

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, but my broken mind is stuttering, and just as he cinches the wire harder, his voice trying to pound into my head, the first tendrils of blackness come over my vision.

  Yes.

  The blackness always protects me. Shock therapy, intrusive medicine, fights with other patients, unwanted attention from the monsters... As scary as it is to lose consciousness, it’s like an answer to prayers I didn’t even know I was pleading.

  As the blackness fades out my vision, I nearly sob in relief. It will take this all away. The darkness will shut my mind off, and I can go far, far away from here.

  So when it surrounds me like a giant ocean swell, I don’t fight it. I embrace it with open arms. I’m ready to drown in it. To sink down into inky oblivion where the monsters are just in my head, not all around me, where the monsters aren’t...me.

  4

  Metal clangs, and if I could control my body, I would flinch against the loud noise. Ophidian screams out in frustration, and I hear the sound of metal objects being thrown around the room in an all too familiar fit of rage.

  One thing I’ve learned, he has a horrible temper.

  I can’t turn my head to observe his hissy fit though, regardless of how much satisfaction it gives me these days to enrage him. When the blackness comes over my vision, I’m aware of what’s happening around me, but in the black-soaked state I’m in, there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t react, I don’t feel. I’m just a bystander in a frozen vessel, watching things happen to me.

  For my whole life, the blackness has played a part. Any time the flickers would become too terrifying, the darkness in my head would spread and wrap me up in its safe, catatonic state. But something down here has altered it slightly. It still protects me, but it’s no longer a curtain I have to work to pull back so that I can see past it. It’s a thin veil now that I’m frozen inside until it subsides. Thankfully, it hides the pain, and it stops Ophidian’s attempts to crawl into my brain and force me to do whatever it is that he’s asking of me.

  But I see it all. Remember it all.

  Every cut, burn, and beating is cataloged in my mind, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I still have no clue why I’m here, or where here even is. But I’ve had to face some brutal realizations in the time I’ve spent suffering in this place.

  One, this is not a nightmare.

  Two, this is not a hallucination that will go away.

  Three, I am really here, in this dungeon.

  Four, monsters really do exist.

  And five, I’m probably going to die here.

  Since that first time, I’ve been put on this torture table more times than I’ve been able to keep track of. I have no idea when day or night is, no concept of how much time is passing. All I know is, when Ophidian comes to visit me, it’s always accompanied by pain and anger. But as soon as he uses that strange tone of voice, the blackness takes over, shutting me down faster than the lights go out when you flip the switch.

  Sometimes I have wings. Sometimes I don’t.

  Always, Ophidian orders me to call on my scythe, but I don’t know what that is or what he wants me to do. Every time I fail to do as he asks, he grows even angrier. Every time his power-laced voice fails to pull a reaction from me, and the blackness creeps in to steal my pain, he loses his mind.

  I thought I was crazy, but this man is a whole other level of insane. I’ve dropped the pretense of doctor when I think of him. I don’t know who or what he really is, but he’s no doctor. He’s not even human.

  The blackness I’m cocooned in allows me to blink, but I know it’ll be a while longer until I’m fully in control of my body again. It takes time for it to recede to the inner corners of my head where it will lie in wait to come out and protect me again later.

  I have a new routine. Ophidian comes, tries to get me to do what he wants, and he punishes me when I don’t. He leaves in a fit of rage, and I heal—quicker than I should be able to—as the blackness recedes, and I regain control of my body again. Then I wait for him to come back and start all over.

  My routine sucks.

  Who knew I could ever miss the days of tasteless oatmeal and milk on the verge of going bad for breakfast, of meds, treatments, shrink sessions, more meds, avoiding the things I see, and punishing myself by replaying the memories of what I’d done to end up in a facility over and over again. I never knew there’d be a time where I’d beg to go back to that. But I’d never known a hell like this place could exist before then.

  I blink again as Ophidian’s body passes by my line of vision. He’s got a dagger today, and I know he’s been cutting into me like a butcher does a piece of meat. My vision is shadowed, the black veil in my mind keeping me safe from feeling any of it. I know it confuses and enrages him that I don’t react. I don’t understand the darkness myself, but I’m thankful for it. My eyes stare straight ahead as he continues to talk to me, his heavy voice trying to claw into my brain and force me to give him what he wants.

  I let my mind wander past the glint of the dagger and his merciless words, but then I see movement at the other end of the room.

  The other woman.

  Ophidian put her in the empty cage beside mine right before he dragged me to the table for another one of our friendly torture sessions. But she’s awake now. I can’t see much, not wi
thout the ability to move my head or eyes, but I see her foot move, and my heart pounds harder in my chest.

  He seemed entirely too pleased with himself when he dumped her in her cage. Unfortunately, I don’t think her fate will be much different from mine. Maybe it’ll be better for her, though. Maybe she’ll understand what he wants, because I sure as hell don’t.

  Anger flares in my mind at that thought as Ophidian leans closer to my face, his snakes snapping threateningly in my direction. “I will break you,” he whispers malevolently in my ear. On my shoulder, I see the evidence of chills as they rise in uneven bumps across my skin. I can’t feel them, just like I can’t feel it when he digs the tip of the dagger against my ribs, but I can see it.

  I never considered myself a violent person before, but rage starts to pump through me as I’m forced to watch what he’s doing to me. When I first got here and these sessions began, all I felt was overwhelming and crippling fear. But after days and days of this, I want nothing more than to pummel everything around me to the ground. I want to strap the snake-haired bastard to the table and tear him limb from limb. I want to cut him for hours and see how he likes it. I want to make him bleed.

  I let my vengeful imagination run wild.

  I won’t be fast or merciful, I’ll slowly and meticulously implement the same techniques he’s tried on me. And then, stone by stone, I’ll tear this place down and scream and rage until I have all the answers I need and I can purge all the horror that’s been inflicted on my soul. I want this prick to feel my fury, to spill just as much blood as I have. I want it to be him helpless on this table. I want...I want…

  Hot tears fill my eyes, and if I could scream, I would. In this moment, I want to burn the world to the ground. I want to know why me, and then punish everyone who’s ever hurt me, who’s ever violated my trust and my soul and ruined me one merciless act at a time, but I still can’t move.

  “Sounds like an excuse to me,” a rough-edged, gritty voice declares.

  The sudden masculine voice in my head would’ve made me flinch if I were capable, but my mental torrent pauses in confused wariness as the statement settles in my mind like a feather falling slowly from the sky, its slow trajectory eventually meeting a depthless lake below.

  A dark, silky chuckle vibrates through my head, and once again gooseflesh springs up on my shoulder, this time for entirely different reasons. The laugh and matching voice is pleasant. That instantly puts me on guard.

  “Don’t let me interrupt. You were working up to a frothy and delicious level of vengeance and outrage, but personally, the whole I can’t move thing is such a sorry excuse,” the voice tells me as though he’s playfully mocking me.

  I blink against the bewilderment welling up inside of me, but I can’t do more than that while the blackness still has a hold of me. Is my green-skinned cellmate talking to me? But no, that doesn’t make sense. Ophidian is still working me over, and I didn’t say anything out loud. This new voice isn’t familiar, and it’s acting like he can hear my thoughts.

  “I can,” he answers evenly, but there’s a hint of surprise hidden deep in his timbre.

  Irritation quickly works to replace my confusion. Great, just when I think things can’t get any worse, I start hearing voices.

  Maybe the Ophidian finally cracked my brain, and he’s breaking me just like he said. If that’s true, though, then this voice can piss off.

  I hear a dark chuckle. “Now there’s a fire a male could warm himself with,” the voice encourages, and if I could scoff or roll my eyes right now, I would.

  “Get out of my head!” I snarl.

  “Mmm,” he purrs. “I like you angry.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask for your opinion or invite you in here, so go away,” I growl in my mind, hoping that a firm word will shove whatever this is back wherever it came from.

  I feel the wing I’m lying on twitch slightly, and I don’t know if I’m grateful or despondent to realize that the blackness is receding sooner rather than later. Let’s hope Ophidian leaves before I can start feeling things again.

  “You called me, Snarls, so don’t go getting all testy. Though, I have to admit, I enjoy a hot temper,” the man’s disembodied voice murmurs with wicked desire.

  I don’t know how he’s talking to me, or what he is, but it’s setting alarm bells blaring through me. I internally grit my teeth. “I didn’t call you. I certainly didn’t summon a useless voice of ridicule and judgment into my head. Not one who doesn’t understand what I’m up against right now.”

  The voice sighs like I’m being unreasonable or something, and irritation ripples through me. “As you can see, this space is occupied, so go find someone else to practice your Simon Cowell impression on,” I snap at him.

  I feel a stroke down my mind as surely as if someone was smoothing a finger down the curve of my neck. It makes me want to shiver. “Your rage and demand for retribution called to me, Snarls. You should know how this works. Only something worthy should be able to beacon me like that. But honestly, if I had a Hellhound for every time someone whined about what they were up against, I’d have a fuck ton of Hellhounds, so you should know I’m questioning that whole worthy thing already.”

  “Know how this works? I should know…” I trail off.

  Part of me, the logical part, the part that tried to rule my mind as much as possible before I found myself in this hellhole, is telling me that this isn’t real. That I’m arguing with myself, and have created this voice to meet some kind of need. But I listened to that voice entirely too much in the beginning of this whole horrible situation, and I just don’t trust the bitch anymore.

  I’ve been so wrong about what’s real and not, that I can’t just dismiss this encounter as a delusion. But whether it’s authentic or a legitimate schizophrenic break, this voice needs to kick rocks and mind its own damn business.

  “Go sell your cocky crap to someone who’s buying. I’m all stocked up on unnecessary bullshit, but thanks.”

  “I’m not a figment of your imagination,” he says, addressing thoughts he shouldn’t even be able to hear. “Like I said before, your anger called to me, so I’m here, but if you think I’m caught, you have another thing coming,” he warns. “Didn’t your sire and matron teach you anything?” he adds superiorly.

  Thoughts and doubts swirl through me, but since arriving in this place, I’ve had to face some hard truths. Truths that shouldn’t be true at all. I wanted to pretend that none of this was real, to argue that it was just hallucinations or nightmares, but logic cut that safety net right up, and now I’m freefalling in a reality that I don’t understand.

  Frustration seeps through me as Ophidian throws something big against a wall, and it clangs loudly to the ground. “If anyone is caught, it’s me, and I promise you I’m no happier about it than it sounds like you would be,” I growl at him as something ricochets off the wall and hits the table. “I’d love nothing more than to get away, but I don’t know anything about any of this...”

  My voice breaks with emotion, and I try to shove away the helplessness that I’m feeling and fill the gaps with rage instead. Anger is easier to navigate right now than the pain is. I need to stay angry so I don’t succumb to the cloying devastation that wants to smother me.

  “Mmmm, that’s more like it,” the gravelly voice hums appreciatively. “But I’m not answering until you prove you’re worthy of me. If you want Wrath, then you need to become wrath,” he declares arrogantly.

  “You can shove worthy wrath right up your—”

  A loud slam pulls my attention away, and I pause, listening to see what it was. The large room is suddenly silent, and all I can hear is the fire as it burns down the torches on the walls and an occasional sniffle from the girl in the cage next to mine.

  I don’t hear Ophidian anymore, and I try to release a relieved sigh. He must’ve left without tossing me back in my cell. I’m still in the clutches of my darkness, so I have no choice but to just lie there, the sound of flames
licking at my eardrums, the voice in my head suddenly mute.

  I try to think through where it went, but my thoughts are interrupted.

  “Sable?” a silvery voice asks me, and surprise rockets through me at the stranger’s use of my name.

  My heart trips inside my chest. I don’t recognize the voice, but I listen carefully, wishing I could pause my pulse to make sure I’m hearing correctly. But she isn’t in my head like the man was. I hear her clear as day with my ears, her voice echoing slightly in the damp dungeon as she calls to me.

  The sound of someone shuffling over the stone floor reaches me. “Sable, can you hear me?” she asks, her voice wobbly with emotion and her words infused with a Southern twang that I find oddly comforting.

  “She won’t answer you,” and I recognize that voice and know it belongs to the green-skinned monster that resides in the cell on the other side of mine.

  A trickle of irritation moves through me. He hasn’t said a word to me after my first day here, and now on this girl’s first day, he’s speaking to her? Maybe it’s a new fish in the pond kind of thing?

  I mean, I was quiet in the beginning, but I thought I was hallucinating for longer than I want to admit. But even then, he didn’t really try to spark up a conversation. It’s as though he gave up, and that thought suddenly makes me sad. Maybe if I had realized that all of this was real sooner, I might not have been so alone in all of it like I have been so far.

  “You have to wait for her to start moving again. Then she’ll be able to talk,” the green-skinned monster tells her.

  I don’t know how to feel about the fact that he knows that. It’s like he’s been watching me closely, while I’d pretty much forgotten that he was even here.

  “Who are you?” the girl asks, her voice wary. “Are you sure she’s even alive? She doesn’t look…” she trails off, and the loss that I hear in her tone befuddles me.

  Why would this stranger care if I’m alive or not?