by Sharon Hinck
Suddenly, two men lurched into view at the far end of the alley, slashing at each other with swords.
Swords? I would have laughed if my head weren’t throbbing. Were these actors rehearsing a scene? Not likely. The community theater was miles from my house. Whoever they were, they circled each other. One man lunged in with lightning speed, and the other blocked. Metal scraped as one sword pushed along the edge of the other before disengaging.
My eyes seemed to take in details with an impossibly keen focus, despite the haze of rain and the even hazier confusion in my brain.
The taller man whipped his head around and turned for a rapid parry, his long, brown hair flinging rain in all directions. Every muscle of his face was tight with fury. His breath whistled through clenched teeth. He was a constant swirl of movement, unhindered by the loose grey sweatshirt and trousers he wore—both of them torn and dirty.
The shorter man’s mop of tight curls hinted at reddish gold, even though matted with rain. He also wore something shapeless and solid colored. At least these actors had the sense not to wear their costumes if they had to practice out in the rain. The shorter man grinned. His teeth stood out brightly among the otherwise muted colors. Swords crossed and held, the men’s bodies drawn together as they wrestled for control.
Though it shouldn’t have been possible from where I knelt, I could hear each rapid breath and gasp from the men over the rain.
“It won’t do any good, Tristan,” the red-haired man said. “Kendra won’t be coming back.”
So they were rehearsing a scene.
The taller man stumbled back, his face raw with pain. At first I thought he’d been hit, but he didn’t seem to be wounded—just defeated. The men stared at each other, chests heaving. Then, with a suddenness that blurred the movements, the man called Tristan rushed forward. With strike after strike, he drove his opponent back. The shorter man slipped on the slick blacktop, and his guard faltered.
The sword thrust right through the torso of the redhead. His high-pitched wail echoed against the alley buildings. Tristan pulled his sword back, dark liquid glistening on the blade.
These weren’t actors.
A nightmare, maybe. Or gang members fighting over a dark corner of the city. But not actors.
Screams stuck in my throat, my mouth opening and closing soundlessly like Anne’s goldfish. My fingers clenched and I realized they still gripped the plastic sword from the toy box. Only it was no longer plastic. The blade lay heavy and cold across my knees. Lifting it away from my body, I saw the luster of the metal and felt its impossible weight. My wrist shook from the effort to hold it with one hand.
When I looked up again, the victor had collapsed to his knee near the body of his opponent, bracing himself with his sword. I needed to get away before he saw me. But before I could move, he turned and looked right at me. His expression snapped instantly from exhaustion to alarm.
I willed to disappear, to melt into the puddles on the ground, to blink and find myself back in my attic.
The man’s focus dropped to the sword in front of me. His eyes widened as they traveled back to my face. Using his sword for support, he pushed up off his knee. Dangerous purpose hardened his face as he stalked toward me.
My mental paralysis released me. I dropped my sword with a clatter and stumbled to my feet. Run! Run, run, run! my brain screamed. My confusion no longer mattered. In that moment, I stopped wondering where my attic was. I didn’t care if I was dreaming or suffering a concussion from a rafter that hit my head in a storm. I couldn’t sort out why there were actors, who turned out not to be actors, playing with swords in the rain.
All I knew was that one of them was well and truly dead, and I had to get away, or I might be next. My legs wobbled, then remembered how to move, and I sprinted down the alley.
“Wait!” The man’s shout only spurred me on. I ran hard—already I was half a block away and near the entrance of the alley. My heart pounded in rhythm with my feet thudding against the wet asphalt. I looked over my shoulder and saw him coming.
That backwards glance made me miss a curb. I stumbled into the street as some sort of truck bore down on me. The man yelled again, but I couldn’t hear over the squeal of brakes.
The truck slammed against me. Then everything disappeared.
•••
Through the haze of pain, I sensed movement, but couldn’t open my eyes. Splintered sounds seeped into my awareness.
“Bringing home souvenirs now, Tristan?” mocked a voice from a distance.
“Shut up and help me,” said someone close to my ear. I felt myself being jostled and lowered, and heard a gasp.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know.” The voice belonging to Tristan was no longer as close. “The Rhusican is dead. She saw it. Ran into a transport trying to get away. I don’t think she’s one of them.”
“And you risk bringing her here? Have you lost what little mind you have? Why didn’t you just leave her?”
There was something important I needed to remember. I had to pay attention. But the pain roared back in, and I moaned. The voices were dissolving.
“Kieran, find out what you can about her. I need to clean up. Just—find out. I’ve been wrong before . . .” The words fractured into meaningless sounds, and all my senses went as black as my sight.
I coaxed a deep breath of air into my lungs and had the strange sense that it was the first breath I had taken in hours. As soon as my ribs expanded, pain exploded outward, and my mind overloaded trying to sort all the things that felt wrong. Every part of my body shrieked with hurt. Squinting through the pain, I got an impression of lying on a couch or bed in a warmly lit room. Another wave of pain rolled through me. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my jaw to hold back screams.
“It hurts!” I hissed to no one in particular.
“I know,” a quiet voice answered. Someone took my hand, and I held on with desperation, as if the hand could pull me out of the swirling misery. “It’ll pass. Hold on.”
I imagined I could feel bones knitting together within me. Itchy prickles made me squirm as torn flesh regenerated and internal wounds mended. I was about to whimper, “Make it stop,” but then it grew easier to breathe. I was finally able to open my eyes again.
The man holding my hand was slim and wiry. Cropped black hair framed a face full of angles. He studied me with more curiosity than sympathy.
“What happened?” I asked when I managed to form words again.
“You lost an argument with a transport.”
“Is this a hospital? Are you a doctor?” But when I squinted at him again, my question seemed silly. He was no doctor. He had the rough-edged look of a suspect on Crime Stoppers, complete with dark, piercing eyes.
“My name is Kieran.” He eased his hand away from mine, as though embarrassed by his earlier compassion. “A friend brought you here.”
I pushed myself up to see the room. As I struggled to sit, my head sagged forward, and I couldn’t suppress another groan. The pain was easing, but there was still a thrumming ache inside my skull.
Kieran poured something into a stoneware mug and held it out to me. “What do you remember?”
Turning the cool mug in my hands, I winced at the effort it took to think. The whole room looked odd . . . like a stage set or a museum exhibit of some obscure culture. There was light but no lamps. The gently curved walls seemed to give off a soft glow but without the fluorescent buzz I would have expected. In fact, the room was strangely empty of sound, like our house when a storm knocked out our power: no hum of a refrigerator or whir of an air conditioner.
Focus. My memories were elusive fragments. I had to look at them sideways, gently tugging on the threads to pull more images into focus.
“I remember running. Being scared. But why . . . ?” I frowned as I pieced together my thoughts. “I heard
brakes squeal. A truck came out of nowhere. I was running. Looking back . . .” Suddenly, the fog lifted and memory returned. The murder in the alley.
“There was a man . . . Where’s your phone? Police . . . Call them!” The words tangled in my hurry to be understood.
I tried to stand as panic took over, but the dark-haired man pressed me back down.
“You don’t understand.” My urgency cast aside the remnants of pain. “Someone was stabbed. We have to call the police. He’s still out there somewhere. He could kill someone else.”
Why was he just staring at me? Didn’t he understand? He may have provided first aid, but if he didn’t let me call the police in the next two seconds, I was going to start screaming.
Kieran’s eyes broke contact with mine, and he looked over my head and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Don’t worry; he’s not out there.”
I stopped fighting to get up and turned my head to follow his gaze.
Standing in the doorway of the room behind me, only yards away, stood the man I would likely see in my nightmares for years. His victim had called him “Tristan.” His long hair was still wet, and he stood in bare feet and formless pants, with a towel around his neck. His eyes were weary. Hardly the look of a crazed murderer, but all my memory had surged back now. Those same eyes had burned with rage as he drove his sword through another man.
The mug fell from my hand and hit the floor with a thud. I dodged Kieran and bolted. Where was the exit? Tristan blocked one doorway, and I wanted to get as far from him as possible. There was another door across the room, and I tried to sprint toward it. My progress was more of a desperate, lurching stagger. I expected one of the men to grab me, but I made it to the door and fumbled with the unfamiliar latch. I glanced back.
The men weren’t even looking at me. Tristan was glaring at his friend. “Great, Kieran. You’re a real help.”
Kieran shrugged, unconcerned. “Do you want me to get her?” He deliberately settled back down on the couch and propped up his feet on a coffee table.
“Never mind,” Tristan growled. He grabbed a sweater off the top of a trunk and pulled it on.
I wiggled the bar that held the door shut. It had a little play but refused to slide and release the door. Finally, I gave up and pounded the door itself. I hit the hard surface again and again.
A heavy hand clamped onto my shoulder.
That’s when I started screaming. “Help! Someone—”
A large, warm palm closed over my mouth. I kept shouting, but the words came out as muffled shrieks.
“Don’t be afraid. You’re safe here.” Tristan’s voice rumbled near my ear.
Funny, I didn’t feel particularly safe. My free hand clawed at the fingers over my mouth, and I slammed one elbow backward. I managed enough leverage to crash my heel back, and Tristan grunted in pain behind me.
Instead of loosening his grip, Tristan shoved me forward against the door, knocking the wind out of me. “We just want to talk to you. Please.” He released me abruptly and stepped back.
I spun to face him with the door against my spine.
He held his hands up. I had another flash of visual detail and saw the ridges on the calluses above his palm and even the jagged edges of a broken blister at the base of one finger. He spoke slowly, gesturing as if he were trying to calm a family dog. “I won’t hurt you. We just need to talk to you.”
I tried the same tactic, forcing my voice to be soothing. “Sure. I’d love to talk to you. But right now, I need to go home.” I spoke with exaggerated slowness. “Just open the door for me, and we can talk tomorrow.”
Kieran snorted in amusement from the couch where he still sprawled. He linked his hands in his short black hair and leaned back to watch. Tristan turned to glare at him.
Breathing rapidly, I felt for the door catch behind my back but still couldn’t loosen it.
“Tristan, let her go. If I’m right, we can talk to her later.” Kieran’s voice was bland with a hint of humor. I didn’t see anything funny in the situation, but if he could convince his friend to open the door, I wasn’t going to criticize.
Tristan moved toward me.
I squeaked and flinched sideways.
He ignored me and flipped up the long latch and pulled it to the right. The door swung inward.
“Thanks!” I shouted over my shoulder as I ran out. No harm in being polite.
I’d find the closest phone or flag down a car. Most people carry cell phones. I’d tell the police what I’d seen and where to find Tristan. First I had to call Mark. He was probably worried sick about me. And what if the kids had still been at the park when that storm hit? What if . . . ?
My thoughts were racing, and I was a half block away from the door before I actually saw my surroundings. I stopped dead. From my throat came a whimpering sound I hadn’t made since I was six years old—the day our neighbor’s German shepherd lunged at me, barking and straining against its leash. That day, panic had glued me to the sidewalk.
Now I was frozen again—like a six-year-old overwhelmed by a terror way too big for me. I blinked several times, the only movement I could manage.
Stark concrete buildings squatted all around me like huge bubbles of grey spackle. Their edges were rounded, and they had no windows. The strange shapes reached only a story or two upward from the tar street, some butting against each other or layered like an adobe village. This didn’t look at all like the tall buildings around the alley where I’d witnessed the murder, at least as far as I could see in the deepening gloom. There were no streetlights, no cars, no people. The silence was terrifying. Then something swooshed against the wet tar pavement. About a block away, a truck crossed the opening between two buildings. There was no engine noise, only a splash of water as it passed. The truck was even the wrong shape—long and sleek like a moray eel nosing out from the rocks.
This was not my town. This was no place I had ever been. It looked like a Play-Doh village Anne had once made for her Polly Pockets—lumpy, abstract caverns with arched doorways and no windows. The light was wrong, the shapes were off, and even the smells were confusing. Instead of the cut grass and wet dirt scent of my neighborhood, the air smelled like burnt marshmallows.
God, help me. I had slipped from mild depression into psychosis. Or I was lying in a coma somewhere, struggling to recover from the attic roof collapsing on my head. This could not be real.
Movement caught my eye. A lizard-shaped creature the size of a squirrel ran across the street and up the side of a curved building. It was muddy red in color and seemed to have wet fur all over its body.
A shudder ran through me. “Mark,” I whispered, “where are you?” The thought of Mark—who always squashed the scary bugs in our house and defended me against relentless insurance agents or dishonest repairmen—did me in. I fell to my knees and covered my face. “Please find me. Please.” I cried until my nose started running. Eventually, I had to stand up to fish into the pocket of my slacks for a tissue. It was the first time I noticed my clothes. My cardigan was torn and stained with blood and dirt. What was it Kieran had said? “You lost an argument with a transport.” From the looks of the damage, I belonged in a hospital, not the rain-soaked streets of a deserted city. My limbs and ribs still felt bruised. The feeling of bones knitting together had been real—or as real as anything was at the moment.
Something slithered behind a nearby building. Fine hairs on my arms lifted. Danger stirred out there among the amorphous buildings. I turned back. Tristan was leaning in his doorway watching me. Light pooled around him, accenting the furrows on his forehead. “You’re welcome to stay here. We’ll be safe for tonight.”
He felt the danger, too. He might be an actor, a murderer, or a hallucination, but he was also afraid. Somehow that gave me the courage to walk toward him. He ducked back into the house, then stepped into the doorway with something wrapped in a cloth.
He flipped back the fabric to reveal a sword.
“You dropped it in the alley. It’s yours.” Tristan held it out to me, hilt first. “Maybe it will help.”
The blade had the sheen of liquid mercury. My right palm itched. I reached out tentatively, and my finger traced knots carved on the hilt. I flexed my hand and then clenched the grip and lifted the sword, standing taller, ignoring the way my muscles ached. Emotions had overloaded me until I’d gone numb, but now a new feeling stirred inside me, moving from my sword arm into the center of my being. Determination.
I looked up. Tristan nodded and stepped back so I could enter the house. He didn’t smile. If anything, there was a deeper weariness in the slump of his shoulders. His eyes studied me and reflected back only sadness.
Chapter
3
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” I said under my breath as I walked back into the large room.
“What?” Tristan threw me a startled look.
“Nothing. Just a saying.” I studied the room. Now that I was here by choice, I took the time to soak it all in.
The couch where I had regained consciousness had a wooden frame and a simple design. However, the wood was a rich honey color, with amazing whorls in the grain and smooth, rounded edges. Mark would be fascinated by the craftsmanship and warm finish. Once, I’d caught him touching his tongue to a small carved box at a craft fair to identify the unusual wood.
On the couch frame, an earth-toned, fabric-covered futon provided cushioning. A few rounded chairs scattered throughout the room also supported upholstery that looked removable.
The low table in front of the couch was made from the same unusual wood. Its long oval shape rested on several fat round legs running along both sides. The floor was the same bare concrete as the outer walls—the stucco substance I kept thinking of as dried Play-Doh.
Behind the couch stretched a large, bare area, which made the room look as though someone were in the process of moving in or out. Someone with sparse possessions. Cubbies were shaped into the left wall, like arched lockers with no doors, and one of these shallow caverns protected bulky bundles wrapped in fabric. A sword was propped against a small trunk nearby. The doorway where I had first seen Tristan after waking was at the far end of the room.