“Was the water black magic?”
“Normally, it’s usually just a result of her ancient technology. But, like the poison she fed you at The Crypt, she enhanced it using the black arts to make it work against you while you were at the mansion.
“She wants that necklace with its amulet more than anything else in the world. It’s important for you to keep in mind that the witch cannot get close to you physically, for as long as you wear the necklace, it repels her. Those that help her can get near to you, but no one can take it from you and be able to keep it. It’s especially important at this stage of the game to remind you that she is unable to take possession of it by force, or by the torture of yourself or someone you care about and still be allowed to keep it. It will simply disappear in a few seconds and rematerialize back into the box from whence Virginia retrieved it when she gave it to you. It will stay there until the next person I call comes along and this game starts anew.”
“Why doesn’t she just take the box?”
“She can’t. It hides itself from her and those that are either wittingly or unwittingly in league with her. It hides itself even from me and from my helpers, because it knows that she could, without my consent, get into my mind and retrieve its location. All I know is that I call someone and if she’s not able to kill them before they come to the apartment, Virginia returns, the box with the necklace amulet returns, and you know the rest. The house is a beacon to it, which is why you always return here, to this apartment. It’s why you didn’t remain in the alley after the first door, why you didn’t wind up at The Crypt this time. Whether you had gone through the mirror or through the pool it didn’t matter, you still would have come back here, to this apartment, to my old house. The amulet considers it to be its home as well, and it will always bring you home. The evil one knows this and that is why she keeps control over the property.”
“Why is she able to control it if it’s your house?”
“I wish I knew. She somehow seized control of the property back at the end of the nineteenth century, although it hasn’t seemed to have helped her.
“Your voluntary submission of the necklace to one of her followers was the entire point of placing you at the mansion. Putting you in a position in which you were forced to take in her drugged water made you forget who you are. All the rest of it was nothing more than window dressing, a con to seduce you to her side. She surrounded you with luxury, a group of people that you would like, a best friend in the form of Ben. Without a memory, if she could keep you there, it would have been only a matter of hours before you took off the necklace willingly. That was the entire point of her ‘transformation ceremony’. She never needed it to transform people. It was nothing more than a ruse to get you to surrender willingly the necklace amulet. The game would have been lost forever then and the world along with it.”
I shuddered when I thought back on my temptation to join her group. Shame filled me as I realized I’d come so close to handing over the amulet to Arrosha, to blowing this for everyone.
Sensing my mortification at what I’d almost done, Edmond wrapped his arms around me and said, “I wish I could have helped you at the mansion, Ashley, when you needed me so much, but I couldn’t. As I told you before you entered the second door, the wicked one is able to keep me out of her realm completely. During your stay there, I was absolutely ignorant of your predicament, just now learning of what transpired there during the energy exchange with which I was able to heal you.”
“Still, Edmond,” I said, not feeling a whole lot better. “I almost ruined it for everybody. I mean, if I’d joined her group and given up the amulet, even for a few seconds, that would have meant catastrophe. You know the old saying, ‘relax, it’s not like it’s the end of the world’? Well, that’s one expression I never could have used again, now isn’t it?”
Edmond stroked my fingers and said, “You have too much ahead of you to worry about what might have been but wasn’t. Let’s be glad things worked out the way they did, alright?”
“Okay. I couldn’t have gotten to the necklace anyway, because it was buried under my skin, right?”
“Wrong. It would have seen your actions as deliberate intent, not forced in any way. It can protect itself, but not from its own wearer.”
“Oh, Edmond, I am so sorry,” I said, feeling terrible.
“Ashley, listen. It didn’t happen. Almost doesn’t count in this game. It’s all or nothing. We almost won a few times, but didn’t. Besides, there’s too much ahead to worry about your ‘almosts’.”
“Like what?” I said, cringing as I asked it.
“Do you remember that I told you there were two main reasons we can spend so much time together here, that we can speak so freely, that I can reveal so much to you now?” he added.
“Yes.”
“The first reason is increased protection by the amulet, but the second one is bad news indeed. The evil one is insanely angry at you for being successful thus far; she is also enraged at her followers for failing her in the best chance she’s ever had of gaining possession of the amulet you wear about your neck.
“She’s not paying attention to you right now because she’s busy setting up her punishments. She wants everyone to suffer, so she’s making ready to exact her revenge. In her mind, all of her followers let her down, not just Geoffrey, so she no longer loves them. They betrayed her and they must be punished. She wants everyone to die horribly.”
“What’s she going to do to them?”
“It’s always different, but it’s always terrible.”
“Always? So this has happened before?”
“Yes. She had a group prior to this one that she destroyed, one that was associated with a champion that preceded you. She’ll torment them now, more for her own amusement than anything else and she’ll make you watch until it’s your turn. She’s sadistic and likes, even needs, to play with her prey before and until she kills it.”
“Wonderful,” I said. This was getting worse and worse.
“But always remember, as Virginia told you when you first started this endeavor, the witch can be defeated. She has her faults; she is fallible. She allowed you to take essence, even though it brought back your memory, if only temporarily. The essence broke through her dampening field, allowing the amulet to calculate a permanent, albeit quite slow, antidote to the water. The evil one had no idea that this would happen. She’d never been able to use the essence on one of my people before. The essence interacted with the amulet in a way that she never could have predicted. The witch thought only of its benefits, hoping that those benefits would bring you over to her side. She was short-sighted, thinking only of the best way to seduce you into relinquishing the amulet.”
“Why did she use such an elaborate ruse to trick me? Surely there must have been an easier way.”
“There wasn’t. She’s tried easier routes in the past, only to have the amulet return to its box. She had to make you believe that giving her the amulet freely was a good thing. The talisman is literally worth the world to her, since it’s the only thing that can destroy her. It would be akin to a vampire taking possession of the very last stake of wood left on earth or a werewolf owning the last piece of silver. It was worth the gamble to her and making you younger and stronger was an integral part of that seduction.
“It’s why Arrosha would want to give you the gifts of youth and beauty, to entice you into surrendering the necklace amulet voluntarily. She wanted to seduce it from you. She needed you alive and healthy for that. She needed you to believe that she was a benevolent entity. She almost succeeded this time, before Geoffrey ruined it all for her.”
“I don’t want to frighten you any more than you already are,” he continued, “but I have to prepare you for what lies ahead. Once you pass through that third door, things will be bad. She thought she could win before now and she is incensed more than ever. In her plan to beguile you into relinquishing the necklace, she gave you gifts, gifts of youth, health, strengt
h, and now she wants them back. That you would use those gifts against her absolutely enrages her.
“She needs to weaken you now, to take back as many of her gifts as she is able to before she can feel satisfied in killing you. You are her enemy and she needs and wants to lord her power over you.
“The good news is that you’ve successfully conquered the first two doors and have only one more left. If you can succeed there, it will all be over, she will be dead, I will be free and you will have won.”
“But in almost two hundred years, no one has ever won, right?” I said, again, not liking my chances.
“Correct. No one has ever won. You would never have been called into this if they had. But few have ever made it this far, Ashley. Only Virginia, Marcus and Zachary made it farther than you have now. I had extremely strong psychic connections with each of them when they were sucked into this conflict and that wound up making the biggest difference. My connection with you is even stronger, which gives me great hope. Also, all three of them were able to help you as well. We have to take full advantage of every edge we have, Ashley, because the evil one is very strong.”
“Edmond, there was a fourth man, wasn’t there? His photo was in the box with the other three.”
“Yes, there was,” he replied, sadness in his voice.
“His name was Max” I said. “That’s the same name as the bartender at The Crypt, except there was no resemblance.”
“It’s no coincidence. It was the bartender. He failed.”
“What happened to him?”
Edmond sighed. “I had such high hopes for Max. I really thought that he was going to be the one that would win and free me. But at the last minute, he handed the amulet over to Arrosha.”
“But the world hasn’t ended. We’re all still here.”
“She forced his hand. He gave it to her to stop her torture of someone he loved.”
“I thought that wouldn’t work.” I said.
“It didn’t,” he replied. “ At the time, the evil one didn’t know for certain, but the game had gone on for far too long as it was and she thought it was worth the chance. Max remained strong, refusing both essence and water, so the game went into stalemate. Max’s fatal mistake was that he fell in love with one of her followers, and when the witch threatened to torture the girl, Max gave in and handed the amulet over to another one of her devotees. Oh, she couldn’t keep it under those circumstances, of course. It returned to its box after only a few seconds, as she suspected it would, but Max has been her unwilling servant ever since. That’s why I can’t count him with the others.”
“Was his mistake that he played too well?”
“His mistake was that he gave into coercion. It’s why you never, ever, can hand over the amulet. If you do, for whatever reason, the best you can hope for is to wind up like Max.
“What happens if I don’t give up the amulet, but fail and she kills me anyway, what happens to me then? Will I become like Virginia and the others?”
“I hate to think that would happen, but yes, you will have gained enough strength, absorbed enough power from the amulet to continue on to help those that succeed you.”
“As a ghost,” I said, crestfallen.
“Not exactly,” he said.
“But close enough,” I finished for him. “Okay, Edmond, just what exactly am I supposed to do when I go through that third door?”
“You must find me, you must be near where I am being held prisoner. You have one of the amulets. I have the other.”
“The headpiece on your cane?”
“Yes, the one I’ve shown you in your dreams. The two must come together. It is being held prisoner with me in her lair. You must get it close to our cage, so close that you can ensure that you won’t miss. Take off the amulet quickly, tear it from your neck if you have to, for the clasp will become weak at that point, and throw it at me as if you wish to smash the glass under which she keeps me. You have to be quite close for it to work through the device that is my prison. Don’t worry about anything else, as long as you can get it close enough, the amulet will take care of the rest. Do that and you will have won.”
“What if I can’t get it close enough?”
“Then it will land on the floor and return to its box after several seconds. You will have lost. While she will never be able feed off of you again because the amulet has changed your energy forever, she’ll be able to kill you by any other means.”
“Okay, then, how do I find you?”
“Just keep going. She’ll lead you through a maze of your old nightmares until she brings you to me eventually. Let me show you what my prison looks like, so you will be prepared. Close your eyes for a moment.”
When I did as he asked, I saw a strange-looking upright chamber that reminded me, more than anything else, of a coffin of metal and crystal.
“You’re in that little box?” I asked, stunned by its size.
“Yes, locked in one position, unable to move for close to two hundred years. This is the prison that has kept me linked to her for so long that I know at the very end she will do the same thing every time. If you’ve come this far, she will bring you to me to finish you off. She wants me to see you die.”
“Ashley, I have to tell you now as best I can as to what you’ll be up against. Virginia, Marcus and Zachary have done all they can do for you; you won’t see any of them again. The same holds true of me. This is the last chance I’ll have to help you. I’ve passed onto you all the protection that I can. You’re on your own now.”
“No, Edmond, no. I can’t do this without knowing that somebody’s going to be there for me. I can’t do this alone. I need you.”
“You’ll have the amulet.”
“It isn’t enough.”
“I’m sorry, Ashley. It’s not my choice. My helpers can’t help you anymore because they’ve played the roles they’ve been assigned. When it comes to me, I can’t help you in her realm, regardless. She’s able to block me out of there. But each time we’ve been together, I’ve passed on to you more and more of what I have to offer you. You now have protection and healing. You also have the strength, stamina, and courage you’ll need to continue. Whatever you haven’t been able to soak in, the amulet has absorbed for you. It will be able to calm and reassure you because it has an increasingly personal connection to you. It will be there for you, although you may not actively feel it. You see, you won’t be entirely alone.”
“Edmond, how can I possibly win this?” I asked again, feeling defeated before I’d even gone through that last door.
“This fight, it’s about connection, about affinities. It’s more psychic than physical. You have a better chance of killing her than anyone I’ve called in years.”
“But I’m not strong or brave or particularly resourceful.”
“You will be. Besides, the amulet will be able now to keep you going. It will help you. It knows you so well now that it can shield you from the worst of your own fears and terrors.”
“So I won’t be afraid?”
“I wish that were so, but no, you’ll still be afraid. The amulet will protect you from being paralyzed by your fears, from collapsing into them. It will make sure that you have the strength and bravery simply to keep going and not give up. It’s important because once you step through that third door, she’ll use your own fears and nightmares against you. Make no mistake about it. It will be bad. She knows what you’re afraid of.”
“She can read minds?” I asked. As if Rochere weren’t scary enough to me already, was I was finding out she had new powers?
“Yes, but it’s not that easy for her. She prefers to emotions, the baser, the better, no matter how far back they go. She read your fears in her office when she first attacked you. But your mind and your psyche has been impenetrable to her since you put on the necklace and will continue to be as long as you wear it.
“But since she failed to bring you over to her side, she’ll fight this battle using the worst fears of both you
and her followers. Every horror that you’ve ever seen, every tall tale or urban legend you’ve ever heard, every nightmare you’ve ever experienced are all fodder for her persecution of you. She will put you through a maze of psychic darkness, leading you wherever she wants you to go, into a game of cat and mouse in which, ultimately, you are the mouse. There’s no turning back, no running away. You can only go forward, and, in the end, she will bring you to me. I remind you again, never to take off that necklace, for it’s the only thing that protects you from the fate that Max has earned. Never take it off until it is time to free me. Have no fear, you will know when that time has come.”
Edmond gave me one last kiss and held me tightly. He sighed deeply.
“I have nothing left to give you now, Ashley,” he said. “Please be confident that everything you need is already in either you or the amulet now. She can no longer try to use our connection against you.”
“How could she use it against me?”
“She tries to see into your mind through me. I’m able to keep her out, but it’s very hard to keep her out completely as long as I still needed to connect with you. Now that I will no longer be connecting with you, I can close my mind completely to the witch until this is finished. Because of my prison, she can read my mind and when she is not on guard, which is when she is sleeping or distracted, I can read hers. That which keeps me prisoner links us.
“But let me leave you with this one thought: she can be conquered, she can be killed. It’s hard but not impossible. She is extremely powerful but even so, she is not as powerful as she thinks she is. She is overconfident and she underestimates all others for better or worse, which is why Geoffrey was unwittingly able to undermine her plans. She is mad and insane, which makes her dangerous but it also makes her fallible. She is vengeful, petty and cruel, but her vanity makes her blind in the extreme to her own faults. Her arrogance makes her careless. She blocks out her own failures, refusing to acknowledge them, refusing to learn from them. It is through these things that she can be defeated. Ashley. Always remember that.”
The Nightmare Game Page 52