Betwixt

by Tara Bray Smith

  “Do you know where the old lady is?” He smiled distractedly and Ondine continued. “I — I saw her dog.”

  His ear to his walkie-talkie, he nodded. “She’ll be very happy,” he said loudly, as if he were talking over some other conversation. “That’s great.” He tipped his head toward the ambulance, whose lights were fluttering in the corner of Ondine’s vision. Cars still honked, but people were starting to walk away.

  “Over there. She’s in the back.”

  Ondine nodded and started toward the ambulance. She turned, almost forgetting, and called back: “Is the driver okay?”

  “Can’t release that information, ma’am,” — he waved Ondine on — “but the old lady, she’s fine. She’s just back there.” She headed in the direction of his hand, rolling the brown bottle in her fingers, then rubbing her thumb against the glass. Was it the way he nodded? A certain flicker in his eyes?

  No. She was imagining things. She was walking toward an ambulance to tell an old woman that her dog was fine. She was about to go home and talk to her mother. She’d throw the stupid letter away. Everything would go back to normal.

  She undid the top of the bottle with a shaky hand and put one drop in each eye. Just a drop. What would a drop hurt? She blinked, still walking, toward the open doors of the back of the ambulance. They were thrown open, the universal sign of “this is being taken care of.” She stepped toward them, still blinking from the silly thing she had done to her eyes.

  “GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN, MOTH.”

  Morgan’s delicate hands covered her head, and she was crouching near the end of the table Neve was belted to.

  She could hear Bleek’s voice. Whatever had just happened to her left her feeling pain, everywhere, as if each of her bones had been jammed. Her skin felt ill-fitting; her temples pounded. She was desperately thirsty. So this was what losing control felt like. This time she would not look up. She did not want to see the coiling slippery thing that had been trying to ram itself down her throat just a moment before. She nudged her tongue between her lips and could taste it there, under her nose, Moth’s sticky leavings. She could not think about what to do next. Everything had gone awry. Nix was gone; Moth — whatever he was now — had overheard her threatening Neve; and Bleek, she didn’t know what Bleek would do. They had stumbled into his private torture chamber, that much was clear, and as Morgan crouched there, terrified, Neve’s broken crying began to seep into her, slowly and surely as the blood on the girl’s sundress had bloomed over its center. “Nononono,” the girl moaned. “Nonono, not again. Bleek, I don’t need any more.”

  Need more what? What the hell had Bleek been doing? Morgan willed herself to look up. Get a hold of yourself. Whatever it was that Moth had commanded her to do, whatever shapes he had released inside her, she would not reveal any more. Not until she was ready.

  Too soon, Moth had said at Ondine’s party, and he was right. It was too soon and she had much more to learn.

  Fingers scraping the ground, she felt cold earth and forced herself higher against the wall she had backed onto. Moth was straightening, too, his head turning back and forth, trying to locate Bleek’s shape in the flickering darkness. She didn’t want to look at the cutter yet, but she could hear him.

  “You’re looking … terrible as usual, old pal. No, really. Sticking around hasn’t been so good on the old bod, huh, James? And you used to have such a manly one. Such a chick magnet. Really, it’s sad, what happens to us. That’s why I’ve got Neve here.” Morgan edged her eyes over to Bleek, who smiled cruelly, hovering over the tied-up girl. She had recognized the fiend’s voice and was now gasping for air, begging.

  “Please, please. No more.”

  “She’s helping me.” Bleek looked up. Neve, on the ground and still belted to the table, followed his eyes.

  “Please.” Morgan saw tears forming. “Please someone help me.”

  He ignored her. “If you think you’re gonna get the girl, Moth, you’ve got another think coming. Morgan, dear. Thanks. No, I mean it. Thanks.”

  He turned, whispering, and Morgan started shaking and could not stop. She backed against the wall farther; her palms felt cold, moist earth. Everything: the darkness; the dead human smell; the horrible, raw crying of Neve. Her blood-spattered sundress. Morgan’s own guilt. They wormed into her head and twisted there, nibbled and oozed.

  No, it was too soon.

  Now it was Bleek’s voice in her ear.

  “Muchas gracias for aiding me with this little problem, Morgue, but you’ve failed in one crucial aspect.” He was up against her, his face pinched. “Nix. Where is he?”

  She was trying to coil herself tighter into the shadows, but could not go any farther. She moved her eyes to Moth, who stared at Neve, clearly wanting to help her. The girl had dropped her head and was weeping silently into her knees.

  “I don’t know where Nix is, Bleek,” Morgan whispered. “But Neve’s not well. You need to let her go.”

  “But you’re the one who tied her up, Morgana dear.” He laughed and turned back to the tied-up Neve. “So far she’s been so easy. Easy-pleasy Neve. But now. Well, I suppose you know what happened.” He grabbed a fistful of blond hair and jerked. “You ran away, didn’t you, silly little girl? I guess I should have expected it. The cave is … Well, let’s just say it gets a little cozy in there. Doesn’t it, pet? But fortunately Morgana found you.”

  Bleek inched his stubbled muzzle into Neve’s neck.

  “We want you to stay awake after all. We have a long nine months. Hm?” He laughed again, and Neve wailed hoarsely.

  “Let me go. Please, Tim, let me go. Please. I’ll be good. I won’t tell anyone. Please let me go —”

  “Well —” Bleek aimed his eyes now at Morgan, who felt her fingers again grasp the wall and her gut loosen. “You’ll have to ask your friend.”

  The light in the room had changed. Subtle, but altered. Morgan looked up, careful not to betray too sudden a movement. Ever so slowly, as Bleek prodded his runaway slave, Moth lifted the lantern that had been on the table. He was not staring at Neve anymore, but at the wheezing creature in front of him, with a look of hatred and determination so profound Morgan found herself shaking. Would he hurt her too? Just as the lantern was at its highest point, Moth flicked his eyes to her. Though she could not read them completely, she sensed what he wanted her to do.

  “What about me,” Morgan heard herself say. “I thought you liked me.” And Bleek — hideous, vain Bleek — turned, a smile haunting his lips.

  “What, my love?”

  “I said I thought you liked —”

  The lantern came down on Bleek’s head in a sputtering crash.

  “Me!” Morgan bellowed, and Moth lunged. For a moment, everything was chaos. Bleek, doused in fire, rolled onto the table. Morgan bent to free Neve’s wrists, helping her up.

  If she could just get Neve to the door, they could make their way out of the tunnels. Morgan would be the heroine. Moth wouldn’t be able to accuse her. He would be the mistaken one. She would be right. Neve she could explain later — a sister’s insane jealousy. Moth could take care of himself.

  “Come on, Neve —”

  While Bleek writhed, Morgan pulled the confused girl toward the hole in the wall that was blackest — beyond which she thought she could see the barest suggestion of daylight. Neve dragged.

  “Morgan?” She whimpered. “Morgan, help me — I’m sorry — I —”

  “Faster!”

  “I’m scared —”

  One last look over her shoulder at Bleek, who was starting to stand now, the fire having skipped from him to the kerosene-spattered table.

  Just one more step.

  “Neve!”

  A shadow entered the frame. The last in the world Morgan had expected.

  HELL WAS DIFFERENT FROM HOW K.A. HAD PICTURED IT. He thought it would be hot, but it was cold. Cold and it smelled like death, despite the fire that was now raging in the center of it, lighting everyone a putri
d shade of yellow-green. Devils, it turned out, had beautiful names. Like Timothy and James, Neve and Morgan.

  Not his sister. Not her. She was saving Neve. She was there with her arms wrapped around the girl, heading out the door K.A. had just entered, her hands tangled in his girlfriend’s hair. Yet how did she know Neve was down here, in the tunnels? And Neve, why was there blood all over her?

  Innocent, perfect Neve. Lightest, whitest, purest snow, melted by the fire that licked the walls of the death chamber around her. Lovely Neve, scratched and bruised, and her big eyes hollow. And her white teeth bared. Running to him, her skinny arms flailing, Help me K.A., help me, and behind her his sister. Toward the light, K.A. Run toward the light. A turn, and a presence in the doorway, hands on his shoulders, cold.

  Bloody Neve. Lovely Morgue. Then a blow, to his chin, from below. Bone against bone, flesh against flesh, hurling K.A. backward. Burning, enveloping pain. Swelling, magnificent pain. Blackness, and an even softer blackness, lit by tiny stars.

  The avenging archangel: Saint Michael.

  IT WAS HER LIGHT THAT GUIDED HIM. At first Nix had followed a distant glow in the direction of the voice he had heard screaming, but that was extinguished and another emerged in its absence: hotter, more intense. When it started to move — away from him? — Nix panicked, thinking he’d lose it, and so he’d sped toward it in the darkness, and when he’d reached it he was so certain he’d have to confront Bleek that the reflected, altered visage of K.A. D’Amici shocked him, and he punched. Nix’s closed fist hit the younger boy’s jaw and K.A. went reeling backward, into the curved chest of the jerking body that Nix realized was Tim Bleeker.

  What K.A. had been holding before became Nix’s, and Nix was suddenly in possession of the glowing white thing he had been trying to find: Neve. Beautiful, bloodied Neve, the ring around her a ghostly white. He moved in front of her to shield her. To his left, Morgan D’Amici stared, shaking her head, mouthing, No, no … K.A. Past her, near the back wall, was Moth, eerily transformed, his bulbous head rudely lit by the fire in the middle of the cavern Nix had stumbled into.

  Except for Ondine, the ring was all there.

  Too late he realized that K.A. was trying to do the same thing he was: save Neve and escape. And too late he understood that the figure now holding K.A., pinning his arms behind his back, was none other than the one he had come to kill. Remnants of a small explosion were visible — glass on the floor, rivulets of flame running up the walls. Metal chains, at the end of which looped handcuffs, spiraled on the ground.

  “K.A!” Morgan screamed.

  “I couldn’t have planned this better myself.” Bleek smiled, his eyes skipping from Morgan to Moth to Nix and Neve and back again. “Oh, wait. I did! My old best friend and my new best friend. A stranger in my arms.” Bleek tightened his forearm around K.A.’s neck, which he now held against his shoulder. “And my girl close by. Neve, honey. Come to Daddy.”

  Nix turned. Curling his hands more protectively around her soft upper arms, he sensed the girl was too scared to move, though he noticed that her eyes didn’t leave the creature standing hunched, half-scowling, half-grinning, in front of them. What had Bleek done to her? For the halo of death around her was shining, pulsing now, starting to go through its changes.

  “Run, Morgan!” Moth shouted from the back of the room. “Get out of here!”

  “No … K.A.,” Morgan cried. “I won’t leave you, K.A. —”

  “Go, Morgan,” her brother said groggily. “Get out of here. They’re all crazy. They’ll hurt you —”

  “Oh no, you’re not going anywhere, bitch.” Bleek drew a shining blade from his jacket and held it to the boy’s throat. “You make one move and your little Kaka dies. This is the kind of party where everyone is invited.”

  All Nix could do was hold on to Neve. He tried not to breathe.

  “Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better situation. Of course this one …” He traced the blade across K.A.’s throat and the boy closed his eyes. A spidery crimson thread trailed. “… isn’t of use to us, but that’s for later.”

  “Moth, do something!” Morgan yelled. Nix tried to meet the older boy’s eyes — a sign of what to do — but Moth only stared, hatred stiffening his face.

  “Cat got your tongue, old buddy? You were normally so chatty with the girls. For a while there I thought you were batting for the other team.”

  It was meant to distract. Inch by inch, Nix observed, Bleek was starting to move himself and his hostage toward the door where Nix stood in front of a trembling Neve.

  “Do it!” Moth whipped his head around. “Do it now! Kill him!”

  Nix was confused. Was Moth talking to him?

  “Kill me?” The cutter spoke to Moth, but stared at Nix. “And how do you propose the lad do this, James? You are on my territory now. I rule here.”

  He was now within a few feet and advancing. Nix had started to back against the wall nearest the door, still clutching Neve, but there was nowhere to go. If he escaped with her, K.A. would die. If he stayed, they all would.

  “I should have eliminated you when I had the chance, back in Eugene,” Moth spat. “I should have done it. If I had only known you were Raphael’s bastard son —”

  Raphael Inman? Ondine’s art teacher? Nix saw Morgan’s eyes widen, but Bleek only snorted.

  “Oh boo hoo. Saggy ass finally tell you his little sob story? Too bad for you, finding out so late. We were on Oprah last week. You know what, Moth?” He seethed, inching closer to Nix all the while. “You belong in Novala, with the fairies. Though,” he paused and fake sighed. “It’s going to be hard to explain how you lost the girl and the new changelings. And we both know you don’t want to be eliminated. That’s just devastating. Your body tortured; your consciousness synonymous with eternal pain. Your everlasting home a perpetual moat of despair.” He sighed again. “Really shitty. Literally. Oh, what to do —”

  Moth yelled this time.

  “Do it, Nix! Do it!”

  Neve’s head followed Moth’s and they were both staring at him, waiting. Neve, for the first time, seemed to recognize that it was Nix — her old friend Nix — standing in front of her, and the recognition made her whimper and her knees buckled so that he had to turn to catch her. He knew the shimmering too well now. Blood traced faded curlicues along the inside of her forearms and splattered onto her toes. Her hands were dirty. Dried clay caked her back. What had Bleek done?

  Even K.A. was staring at him, waiting, though for what, he could not imagine. What did the boy think he was seeing? Bleek stepped forward again, more boldly now, still holding K.A. and the knife, as if he knew no one was going to stop him.

  “You can do it, can’t you?” Moth whispered loudly. “Can’t you transfer the ring of fire?”

  Nix seized. Could he? If what happened with Jacob was real, then he should be able to. Yet he knew there was something wrong with the equation. He couldn’t just transfer Neve’s fate. With Jacob it had been different. The old man punching him had made the girl choose a path that eventually led her here, to the tunnels. That was how the fire must have jumped. But this. This was different. Neve was still burning. He couldn’t just transfer her fate without Bleek making a different decision, separately, inside himself that would eventually lead to his demise.

  Yet Moth seemed convinced. There must have been something he knew that Nix didn’t. What was Neve there for? Why did Bleek want her? And why had he … where was the blood from?

  “I can’t —” Nix whispered, staring. He was shaking his head, begging him with his eyes to reveal no more, but Moth, whether from fear or incomprehension, would not cease.

  “But you have the gift,” he continued, his voice screwed to a manic pitch. “You’re the one. You’re the ringer. Save her, Nix. Before it’s too late —”

  Bleek started laughing, his stiletto jogging against K.A.’s throat, his head thrown back in a sick imitation of delight. “Oh this is rich. Nix, the seer. The great oracle of
his generation. And I’ve got him by the balls.” He turned and faced the ringer again. “Yes, please do. Please do engulf me in flames. That’s what you see, right? A ring of light around someone doomed to die? Except, shit for brains —” He had taken the belt that had been used for Neve and tied K.A.’s wrists together. Just as quickly he was next to Nix, starting to unwrap the changeling’s arms from his charge. Though Nix was clinging fiercely and Neve was struggling to get away, the fear of her ever-increasing fire sapped his will.

  “You don’t know the whole story. You don’t know where it all started. Or when it might end. But I do. That’s the whole reason I lured you down here in the first place. I don’t want my little pumpkin to die … yet. That’s why I need a ringer. For Nevie. And for what’s inside her.”

  This time Bleek bent down to one of the chains and in one deft movement cuffed the confused, frozen Nix. Just as quickly, he grabbed Morgan’s wrist beside him and did the same, though she managed to swipe a long-nailed hand across Bleek’s face, drawing a few viscous pearls of what was left of his desiccated blood. He did not stop. Leaping across the wreckage to corner a caged Moth, Bleek continued to address Nix, his buzzing voice hovering in air around them as he bent down to pick up another chain.

  “Everything’s got to start somewhere. And thanks to Raphael,” he sneered at Moth in the corner, still edging forward, “I know a little secret about Ondine. She’s special, I hear. Has something the rest of us don’t. I found out what it is and how to do it again. I’m going to do what every parent wants to do. Make myself, only better. I just need you, my friend, to get started. Neve isn’t going to die. Well, not right now at least.” He smiled evilly. “I need her. I think I almost love her.” Bleek stopped at Neve and tipped the girl’s chin up. She was sobbing. “She hasn’t taken so well to being down here, but she needs to stay alive during this — ahem — procedure. And for a good while after. But I’m sure you can manage that, can’t you? Huh, Neve?”