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The Nightmare Game

Page 15

by Martin, S. Suzanne


  “It helped you tremendously. You’re still alive, aren’t you? The evil one got to you in the shower only because you partook of her poison at The Crypt. That’s how her influence got inside of you. She used it to get hold of you, to gain control over you. That’s why Virginia and Marcus warned you not to drink anything that originated from the evil one. Not even a drop.”

  “And I kept that in mind. Of what memories I have of last night, drinking that bizarre looking concoction they served at The Crypt is not among them.”

  “True, you did not drink it willingly, but think back. There was more to last night than you currently recall.”

  I did think back, going over last night’s events once more. But a nagging in my mind led me further. It led me into the tiny black room with its blood-red doors. It led me into the door I’d chosen and the fall. It led me into the glowing, blue, iridescent puddle of sweet liquid that had splashed into my mouth and tasted so much like oranges and liquorice.

  “Oh, crap!” was my knee-jerk response to this new memory.

  “Yes, that’s it. That’s the memory,” he said. Apparently I wasn’t the only one ever to have uttered a profanity at recalling the previous night’s events.

  “How do you know?” I asked him anyway. “Can you read my mind?”

  “In here, I can to a limited degree. But I didn’t have to. The witch got to you in the same way she did with most of those I call. Unfortunately, I’m generally not able to revive them as I did you. Most of them are already dead by this point. In all these years, only one man I’ve ever called had the strength and reflexes not to react instinctively and to escape that first poison.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Edmond answered. “Despite a very promising beginning, he never made it to the end.”

  “But what I don’t understand is, Virginia and I spent awhile talking and she never mentioned it except very briefly at the end. Then she didn’t have time to explain it properly. If she’d explained it more thoroughly, it might have helped, you know.”

  “Yes, I do. But she couldn’t go into it further because no matter what the evil one is doing, when she hears one of my helpers warning one of my called about her little ‘surprise’, she comes running. The very mention of the subject calls her. That’s why Virginia had explain everything else first and why she was forced to leave before she was able to go any further into that subject.

  “Oh, Ashley, this has been so frustrating all these years. It’s so hard to convince anyone to believe that this insanity is even real, much less that they have to stay and fight such a powerful opponent, especially considering how fettered we are in our ability to pass on the information that our fledglings need in order to survive the beginning of this undertaking.”

  “I still can’t help but wonder, though, why didn’t you help me when she attacked me in the shower?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t. It’s only when you sleep that I can come to you. I can’t reach you when you’re conscious.”

  “Then you could have helped me before I woke up today.” Tears welled up in my eyes from the hurt I felt. My voice sounded far more accusatory than I’d actually intended, but I was still quite traumatized. “I really needed you then.”

  “I tried to help you, tried so hard to reach you, but I couldn’t,” he explained, sounding as hurt as I felt. “I told you that she used her poison to gain control of you from the inside. Because of that, she was able to block all my efforts to rescue you. The best thing I could possibly do this morning was to impart some level of healing into the food you ate. It was weak, I know, and not nearly enough to counter-act the evil one’s power. While I cannot do much secondhand, it was my only option to help you in any way at all.”

  “That was your doing? That was why the food made me feel so much better?”

  “Yes. I’m so sorry I could do no more.”

  “No, Edmond. I’m sorry. I’m still shaky and that came across as ungrateful. I didn’t mean it to seem that way.”

  “My dear, it is I who should apologize for having to place you in this situation. Your suffering was not in vain, though. I know that after the hell you’ve just been through, this may sound like very little consolation, but besides allowing you to see her true face, something else beneficial resulted from that attack.”

  “How on earth could anything beneficial possibly come out of that?” The use of the word “beneficial” in that context tasted like ashes on my tongue.

  “It may not sound like much to you now, but you should know that you’re much stronger from being forced to fight her. You may not notice it right away, but when you need it, you’ll find that your endurance has been greatly enhanced. It will continue to grow as you continue in the game. It’s a gift to you from the amulet, for it wants you to triumph. That amulet is the key to everything. It’s what this battle is all about. The evil one wants desperately to possess it because it contains is a powerful force that is the only means of her destruction. The amulet doesn’t want her as its owner, so from the moment you first put it on, it has been slowly merging its energy with your own to help you win. The longer you wear it, the more it joins with you, the more it strengthens you. The attack in the shower accelerated that merging, so you’re much stronger now than you would have been otherwise.”

  “What?” I didn’t quite fancy the idea of being “merged with”.

  “Don’t worry, it’s completely to your advantage. You see, over time, the amulet actually gets to know you, so it is able to impart greater and greater amounts of its own energy to you. The longer you wear it, the more it will be able to help you.”

  “For how long?” I asked.

  “It is bound to protect the wearer until the task is fulfilled, the wearer abandons the task or the wearer is dead. It will give you the strength, courage and stamina that you’ll need in order to finish this task. We’re experiencing one of its benefits right now, in that I was able to bring you here, into my sanctuary. I could never have brought you here before the attack. It’s been made possible only because the talisman has now imprinted itself upon you.”

  “Does this mean her poisons won’t work as well on me now?” I asked hopefully, because not having to go through a hell like I’d just been through again would make being “merged with” well worth it to me.

  “I’m sorry to say that you’re immune only to the class of poison that she used on you last night. She also uses one more type of potion and she will still attempt to poison you again, of that I am most certain. That’s why you can drink no liquid that comes from her or hers.”

  “Doesn’t she control this apartment?” I asked.

  “More than I would like,” he answered.

  “Then why was I able to drink the water here? Why didn’t I have to be concerned about that?” I asked.

  “A good question,” he answered. “Tampering with the water here would not work, so she doesn’t bother with it.”

  “Why not?”

  “The only way that she can make a potion to work against those that wear the amulet is to use black magic. Magic works very well in her realm, because the amulet’s powers are diminished by the dampening field that the evil one weaves into her dimension. Her sorcery will not work against you as well in the outside world, although it doesn’t stop her from trying. In the real world, the necklace amulet protects you from her schemes, especially within the walls of this apartment.”

  “I was in the real world last night,” I said.

  “No, you weren’t. You had stepped into the doorway of her realm where you were vulnerable. She can still get to you, but not through the same class of poison you were given last night again, for it will not work a second time.

  “If she used merely ordinary poisons, the amulet could block them from the onset and protect you from them completely, because they work basically the same way in every person. But her poisons are different, more insidious, more sophisticated. With each class of her potions, the am
ulet can only protect you from it after you’ve been exposed once, because they work differently on every person, taking a different path in each one in order to do their malice. They are what you might call ‘designer toxins’, interacting with your own particular DNA, a sample of which she attained from her attack on you yesterday in her office.”

  “How could you possibly know about such things? DNA wasn’t even discovered until the twentieth century.”

  “I know about many things I’ve never seen or personally experienced. In the long years that I’ve been held prisoner, I’ve called upon so very many people to help me escape. They’ve come from all walks of life; some have been scientists. Whenever I connected with their minds, they helped me better to understand the things that I have seen, even though they could not explain fully, for the evil one’s science was far beyond even them.

  “You are now immune to the poison you were exposed to yesterday. It can no longer be used against you since it can work no more. The amulet knows now how it affects you and will easily be able to neutralize it. But she has one more substance at her disposal. It’s in a completely different class and can still work on you all too well. It is much more pleasant but in a way, it is even more dangerous. She will try to tempt you, to make you think you need it to survive, but don’t give in. This warning should be moot, however, for everyone I’ve called to champion me has been wary enough by this point in the game to stay away from her poisons. The amulet will sustain you and should allow you to resist almost indefinitely.

  “It is here your path becomes even harder because now she will try to trick you or seduce you into giving up the talisman. Up until now, she’s only been trying to kill you. In the beginning of each game, it’s the path of least resistance for her, because while she could decimate a city without blinking an eyelash, it takes an enormous amount of power for her to fight the one that wears the amulet, the only thing that has an energy in it as strong as hers, the only thing that can destroy her. That’s why she wants to control it, that’s why, in all of these years, she’s been looking for other, easier ways to get it. She’s overplayed her hand this time, though, for you’ve just survived what should have killed you. Because of that, the necklace you wear has bonded with you so strongly that, out here in the real world, she would have to expend enormous amounts of energy to murder you. If she wants to kill you now, it will have to be in her realm.”

  “I still don’t get it. I mean, why try to kill me at all? If I understand this right, I have to give this thing up willingly, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why not just try to buy it from me? I mean, I know it’s not mine to sell, but hey, for the right price, people have been known to sell things they don’t own.”

  “For two reasons. First, the only people that are allowed to wear it are those I’ve chosen, those I’ve called to help me. I’d never call on anyone that would have such low moral character, not even for the ‘right price’.”

  “Fair enough. And what’s the second reason?”

  “It wouldn’t work. It’s such a cheap, obvious ploy that the amulet would see right through it. The talisman’s inhibiting factors make the wearer not bribable by conventional methods. Also, she cannot use torture to get it from you either.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said, relieved. “How come?”

  “Torture won’t work because the necklace will disappear in a few seconds back into its box if she tries to obtain it that way. She’s tried that before and it didn’t work. It has to be given willingly and the only way to do that is to trick it out of the wearer. She can only procure it if the wearer thoroughly believes that handing it over is the just and right thing to do in order to serve some greater good. I can’t stress strongly enough that for the witch to procure the amulet, the wearer must give it willingly to those that serve her, those that are in league with her.”

  “Okay, I get it. Sort of. But I still don’t understand why, if it’s so hard, that she went to all the effort of trying to kill me herself? I mean, why not just hire a hit man and get it over with?”

  “Yes, that path would be infinitely easier for her, more practical as well, but she will never do it. Remember that Virginia told you that the witch has her weaknesses, that she is not infallible?”

  “Yes.”

  “One of her failings is that she is truly mad. She would never have anyone else murder you because it would deprive her of the pleasure. She enjoys the kill too much.”

  “So what do I have to look forward to now?” I asked, knowing it was a question to which I really did not want an answer.

  “She’ll pull you into her domain and seduce you into relinquishing the amulet. You’ll be leaving the real world very soon and you’ll have to go into hers. As I said, it’s a realm in which she rules completely and has total control. Let me emphasis that I cannot go in there with you, cannot be with you or help you at all. I wish I could, but she does not allow it. You will be alone. You must be brave, and, I must remind you, you must never let down your guard. It’s the only way you can escape without losing both yourself and the amulet to her.”

  “Is she going to try to kill me again at some point?” I asked, hoping I’d at least be safe from that for the duration of this nightmare.

  “Not until she’s sure that she’s lost this next round. The power of the talisman has now grown so strong within you that she prefers to have you in the bargain. Possession of the amulet that you wear around your neck will give her the unlimited power and freedom she once had and now longs to regain; she needs it. To procure you in the deal, one of my own converted to her side, would be a great prize. She wants possession of you, body, mind and spirit now. It is only if she can’t have that, if, despite her trickery, she has lost, that she will want to see you dead again.

  “Oh, my darling, I wish there were more that I could tell you about where you’re going, but I can’t. Just always beware and remember that, like the devil, the witch will be at her most dangerous when she is at her most charming.”

  “Will I get any help at all in this?” Already I was beginning to feel forsaken.

  “Very little, I’m sad to say. You won’t be seeing Virginia again because she can no longer appear to you. She’s done all she can. You will see Marcus, but only once more. There is one additional helper of mine that you have not yet met. His purpose is to guide you out of her realm and back into the real world through the mirror in her temple. If he does not have opportunity to make visual contact with you, he may come to you first as only a voice you hear. Heed his voice and go to it, because without him, you will be lost there.”

  “Will it be the same voice I heard when I landed on the bathroom floor? If it is, it was mean and hateful and I really don’t want to hear it again.”

  “No, the one you heard before was the witch when she had control of your mind. My friend that will help you is a very kind man, his voice is gentle and there is nothing at all frightening about him.”

  Edmond suddenly seemed exhausted.

  “Are you alright?” I asked him.

  “We have to leave this place now because the strain is growing too much for me. Besides, there is nothing more I can tell you here. However, there is something I need to show you. I waited to take you there only because where we go is not nearly as protected as where we presently are.”

  He held my hand and the white space that surrounded us began to fade, a landscape slowly taking shape where before there had been nothing. Without having moved an inch, we now stood upon a tall hill of dirt, overlooking a scene of total ruin and desolation. The sky was black with smoke; the earth around us below, or rather what was left of it, was mortally wounded.

  Clutching Edmond’s arm, I asked, horrified, “I don’t like this place. What is it?”

  “It’s our world, the Earth, or rather, what it is most likely to become. This is not only a possible future, it is the probable future should the witch win. Now you see why I call this conflict a war. It goes be
yond your freeing me, it goes beyond your life or mine. So much is at stake. Everything is at stake.”

  “I still don’t understand it, though. What happened here? How?”

  “The inevitable. If she wins and gains control of your amulet, there will be nothing holding her back. She’ll have nothing to fear and there will be no stopping her.”

  “So she does this? She destroys the world?”

  “No, we do. She will eventually take the Earth and make it hers, but there will most likely be almost nothing left of it when she does. At first she will try to use religious seduction to gain control, and it will work well. But she lacks patience and her seduction will soon turn to aggression. World powers won’t be passive in the face of her hostility, though; they will fight back, tooth and nail. There is no method by which they can win because she is far more powerful than they are, but they will try, using every weapon in their arsenals to resist her. This will be the result.

  “I know this is a hard, terrible thing that I’ve asked of you. I hated having to bring you into this. There’s absolutely nothing fair about it and you deserved far better than to be dragged into this horrible, sick game of hers. But now that you understand how high the stakes are, you know why I had no choice.”

  “You’re saying that if I don’t win, the world ends?” I was completely overwhelmed.

  “It is not absolute, but it is by far the strongest probability. There is only one other possible outcome. There is a very slim chance that the evil one will succeed in ruling the world without resistance. Either way, however, the world will be plunged into darkness and mankind will be enslaved for eons.”

  “No, this can’t be on my shoulders alone.” I protested. “It can’t be just up to me. I mean, this ‘game’ or whatever is started a long time before I was born, right?”

  “We’ve been battling her for over almost two centuries.”

 

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