by Julie Reece
His associates mimic the action, each movement small, stiff, and robotic. It’s as though they’re playing a sick game of copy-cat. Every stomach bloats to capacity, human balloons filling with air. Pregnant monsters.
“I’m almost too full to continue,” Pan snickers. “But I will. How shall we produce a second course, gentlemen? Hm.”
Wait … Produce? An idea surfaces too horrible to contemplate, and yet I can’t stop the thought from forming. You eat feelings?
“Yes!” he answers excitedly, though I never spoke aloud. Or did I? “Yes, that’s it exactly. Oh, well done, you. I’m rather proud. Audience?”
The faceless men in the window applaud.
“Though I suppose I should correct you, we’re only interested in the negatives—physical pain, mental anguish, all your scrumptious miseries … ”
My gag disappears. A breath of relief escapes as my mouth closes. I moisten my lips and rest my aching head against the gurney. “You trap people here and live off their suffering.” It’s a statement, not a question. I understand him now. Should have guessed from the beginning, the signs were all there.
He might have me, but Cole and Gideon are still out there. You think you’ve won? I shake my head. Not yet, you son of a—
“My, my, aren’t we the optimist.”
I can’t remember speaking, but I must have. They will beat you. Gideon will beat you.
“Gideon is an arrogant boy.”
“How … ” He hears my thoughts.
“But I suppose you reference your newfound ability?” he asks. “Some believe human beings only use three percent of their total brain capacity. Did you know that, Miss Weathersby?”
I say nothing, trying to block my thoughts from my enemy. Movement draws my gaze to the attendants arranging scalpels by size on the nearby trays. I can’t control my shudders.
“It’s a myth, of course,” Pan goes on. “The actual number is twenty-seven percent. Humans have an unlimited capacity to feel, and learn, and understand, but they can’t access the power inside them. Power suppressed by years of over reliance on machinery and technology. People have ‘evolved.’” He makes his point with air quotes. “So much so, no one believes in good old magic anymore, and that works in my benefit. The word magic has bad connotations in the modern age. Yet true magic is nothing more than utilizing brain capacity to manipulate the elements, deconstruct matter and rearrange atoms and molecules to suit our needs. As you are learning, elemental manipulation isn’t that difficult once you access the part of your brain controlling it. The ability is no different than exercising a leg muscle that’s been dormant too long. A little physical therapy and the muscles remember and function properly.”
“Wait, you’re equating therapy with starting fires?”
“Yes, and not at all. You’re rather dimwitted, aren’t you?”
I ignore his jab. “If what you say is true, then why can’t I summon fire? Why can’t Gideon control the wind?”
“Why can some sing and some dance? Why can’t I paint like Leonardo da Vinci? Why are there only some who succeed in mathematics, while others play professional sports, or invent?” His eye roll is dramatic by any eight-year-old’s standard. “How incredibly boring to be exactly alike, Raven. We are unique as individuals. And in that uniqueness lies our separate talents and aptitude levels. Understand?”
I’m beginning to.
“And of course, initial power must germinate from somewhere.”
The Artisans broken curse. Gideon was right all along.
“Indeed, he was. Though it won’t save him.”
We’ll see. Maybe Pan isn’t perfect either, just had more practice. He must have a weakness. Maybe one we can use to our advantage. The idea gives me hope. Shores me up for what’s ahead. I need to tell Gideon what I’ve learned. If I get the chance.
“Now, let’s see what’s going on inside that teeny-tiny, little mind of yours, shall we?”
Pan’s eyes remain lifeless for someone who sounds so over-the-top perky. His faceless attendant holds something resembling a miniature saw blade.
I fight the restraints until my wrists burn. My heart races; the muscle knocks against my ribs as though trying to free itself, because the rest of me is finished.
I love you, Gideon. Always.
Pan leans over, inspecting me like a culture in a petri dish. I freeze, blood chilling under his evil smile. I can’t control the terror widening my eyes while his are relaxed and unmoved.
Somewhere outside, maybe down the hall, I swear I hear Gideon’s voice. Desperate, he calls for me, screams my name.
My mind reaches out, feeders of thought and feeling search for him through space and time—somewhere in The Void. He’s close, calling to me just ahead in the shadows, but the closer I get, the more he slips away. I’m desperate to find him, and when I can’t, my hope fades along with his voice.
Pan touches my cheek with his gloved finger. The smell of antiseptic and latex triggers my gag reflex. He runs his lips gently over each of my eyelids. “I gave you every chance, sweet Raven. We might have been together, lovers, but now … ”
Any bravery I had evaporated the moment that fleeting connection with Gideon broke apart. I’m about to die, and all I can think about are the people I saw in heaven across the divide. The ones I couldn’t save, or control. Gideon is right; people can’t be collected and stored. Protected like priceless heirlooms or rare birds in a cage. Humans have freewill. And when they choose, do I judge them? Love them unconditionally?
All this time, maybe it’s been me that was lost.
Tiny teeth from the saw blade bite my forehead. My courage bleeds out as screams flood the auditorium. My will to survive leaks away, drips down my face. An angry, red river flows over my chest and arms and onto the floor, seeping into the drain under my bed.
As Pan continues to cut.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cole
When I wake, my mouth is crusty and tastes like feet. Lips smacking with the worst case of cotton-mouth ever, I rise up on both elbows and spit. What comes out is mulch and not dirty socks. Still tastes like feet.
I thought I was dead, but dead guys don’t hurt this much.
The swamp scene where I fell last night sharpens and comes into focus. Smooth, white trees tower up from the murky water. They raise their spindly branches to the sky in a hallelujah choir, but I’m not rejoicing yet. Light filters through the leaves in long strips highlighting patches of bog. Around me, the purple lotus-type flowers lie spent. Their delicate edges, darkened with poison, curl in the sun.
The yellow powder is gone. A hallucinogen, I’m sure of it.
My aching body reminds me of my first trip to the labyrinth. No picnic then, either.
Not long after I’d been banished by Gideon’s father, I was floating around Maddox’s garden, minding my own business, doing my ghostly thing—which is not much of anything—when a woman approached and asked if I’d like to go on a “quest.”
I don’t know about other guys, but to me, the word quest evoked the idea of a noble adventure, especially when asked by a gorgeous, older woman. I’d never been off the Maddox grounds before. In fact, I’d been warned by the others against it. Still, one look at her baby blues and I answered as any hormonal, bugged-eyed boy of fourteen would. “Hell yes.”
My first night in The Void I experienced a darkness unlike any other. Rather than the absence of light, the dark there ate it like acid. The notion of peace or happiness drained from my soul as if it never existed to begin with. Unfortunately, I remember every detail …
“Cole, you idiot. Don’t stand on the pathway in plain sight. Why not invite the Minotaur down on our heads?”
I curse myself and the pretty blond who’s yelling at me. Turns out her name is Desiree. She’s Gideon’s step-monster, fellow prisoner, and not remotely nice. Her talk about a deal with the magician to escape brought us to the center of the maze tonight
. Who knows what she thinks she has to trade, but it takes balls of brass to enter the labyrinth. Mine must be made of lesser stuff.
“Get over here!”
I join her in the copse near the center of the maze. In part, because I don’t know what I’m doing, the other part being her balls are still bigger than mine.
“Do you even know where to find him?” I ask.
“Of course we do.” Jonathan Lawrence steps from the shadowed hedgerow. Trapped here as long as anyone, he smells of things long forgotten: dust, and dry rot, and the attic you’re too scared to visit. I’m fascinated by the constant swivel of his fat head, and I’m pretty sure at least one of his parents was a cobra.
Desiree peeks at a white tower above the bushes. “Pan spends most of his time here. Follow me and keep quiet.”
Cobblestones, bleached pale with moonlight, guide the way. I bring up the rear in our skulking band of three.
The air is cool and unfriendly. Things I don’t want to think about rustle the shrubbery. An animal squeaks followed by the sickening sounds of flesh tearing. I should have kept to the mansion. Monsters don’t hunt outside the maze.
“There,” Desiree says.
Craning my neck, I follow the tower spire jutting up beyond the bushes. We turn the corner around a twelve-foot hedge trimmed to resemble a phone booth. Before I remark on this oddity, we pass more sentinels. A rowboat, fox, and giant clown all constructed from shrubbery. The clown smiles, and I shrink from the fangs more vampirish than circus performer.
Only fourteen-feet of courtyard lie between us and the tower door. A shadow moves near the archway, and I get a really bad feeling.
Desiree pauses. We stop behind her as she calls, “Pan?”
There’s a dry scrape against the pavers. The movement is clumsy. Slow.
Icy prickles pelt my spine. “Let’s go,” I warn, but it’s too late.
Two horns emerge from the inky dark. Moonlight falls, inch by inch, unveiling the body of a man with the head of a bull. Muscles more pronounced than a top bodybuilder tense and bulge with each steady movement. His eyelids rise exposing two glowing red fields where eyes should be. Instead of a foot, a cloven hoof paws the ground.
Is it terror or stupefied wonder that keeps me frozen in place? The man-beast tosses his head. When he snorts, the sound echoes like a thunder clap.
Shite on a biscuit!
It’s not until my partners give me a look somewhere between shock and fury that I realize I’ve spoken out loud.
“Run. Run!” Desiree cries.
Believe me, I’m going!
The Pamplona run has nothing on us. We streak down the path toward the mansion where some magic boundary keeps the monsters from crossing over. Ever the fool for a pretty face, I was the bigger idiot to follow Desiree in here.
The ground shakes as the Minotaur gives chase. Old man Lawrence puffs louder than the bull.
Sure, our tactile functions are diminished in The Void, but that doesn’t mean we won’t feel a fifteen-hundred-pound Minotaur standing on our heads. I’ve heard the stories. And since our spirits are temporarily separated from our bodies, we can’t die. Meaning we’ll have to endure Mr. Moo back there, and his mauling, until he exhausts himself or gets bored.
No thanks.
Desiree sprints alongside me, blond hair glowing in the dim light. Her white evening gown doesn’t slow her one whit. Jonathan, I’m sorry to say, is falling behind. The guy runs like a bloated woodchuck. He’s about to be trampled, and there’s no way to stop it.
Desiree must see that too, because she darts left toward a break in the hedge. “Separate!”
Her plan comes too late to save Lawrence. The Minotaur slams into him, and they roll. Bull and man legs tangle, bones crack and snap. Lawrence cries out, but Desiree’s abandoned him to the whims of a psychotic man-animal.
Will I do the same?
I veer around a clump of bushes to catch my breath. It doesn’t take long. I’m a quasi-spirit after all.
The Minotaur grabs a handful of Jonathan’s hair before whacking his skull on the path below. Cranial plates split. Blood seeps from the back of his head staining his gray hair crimson, the ground a gory red. The bull’s hands are slick, his breathing is labored, yet he doesn’t stop smashing.
Something pink and jellylike collects on the stones. Though I know the spell that binds us to this world will heal him in a few hours, Lawrence’s screams for help turn my stomach.
I crouch, pick up a small rock, and lob it. “Leave him alone!”
My rock pelts the bull’s mucus-slathered nose. Minotaur lifts his head and sniffs. Jonathan’s crying, pleading for mercy, but it isn’t necessary anymore. The bull’s moving on.
Toward me.
Brilliant.
I’m off, but running blind without Desiree’s guidance. Bloody traitor. I don’t spend time in the labyrinth, and the ton of thundering bison behind me is a good reason why.
I dart around hedges, but there’s no break in what seems like miles of maze. I’m so dead. Well … more dead.
Just ahead, a small stand of trees grows up through the hedge. Vines hang off lower branches like lifelines. The ground trembles, evidence the bull is on my heels. I have a minute, maybe seconds before he catches me. Then it’s my head battering the ground until my brains scramble.
Heavy breaths warm my neck. I leap for the clump of dangling plants. Wrapping thick coils around both wrists, I hoist myself up. Climb higher in the web of tangled runners. A tug on my waist nearly tears my arms from their sockets. I’m barely hanging on as the bull beneath me snorts and pulls again. I kick my invisible feet. He stumbles, and my knee connects with a bright, red eye.
The bull bellows and covers his eyes. Then his hands drop and he charges. Clutching one of my dangling legs, the Minotaur wrenches until tendons rip and my bone cracks with a wet pop. I scream and he trumpets. Our struggle loosens a vine that wraps his neck.
Now, I have an idea. One chance to keep the rest of my appendages in place.
I fight the pain and throw my legs over the bull’s broad shoulders. He bucks, and I ride while wrapping more vines around his impossibly wide neck. He stops jumping when I cinch them tighter, cupping his throat with his stubby, human fingers.
Thank God for pro wrestling and sleeper holds. If I can cut off Minotaur’s airway, maybe he will pass out long enough for me to get away.
I tug the vines until my muscles cramp, but my arms alone won’t exert enough pressure to drop this monster before I tire out. Keeping the vines taut, I slide my body over his shoulder, and down his back, adding the whole of my dead weight to the pressure on his windpipe. I hang there, limbs shaking with fatigue. I bite my cheek against the pain until the taste of copper floods my mouth.
Finally, the beast sags. His knees buckle, and he crashes to the ground. I leap away to avoid being crushed. My busted leg won’t hold, and I roll several feet, cursing loudly at every turn.
I swear vengeance on Desiree, Maddox, my old man. Everyone.
Thanks to the curse, I’ll heal, but tonight it’s a long hike to the mansion on one leg. As much as I hate it there, I’m not signing up for more midnight meetings. Desiree be hanged. The woman’s certifiable, and from now on, completely on her own.
The underbrush rustles, pulling me from horrible memories.
I jump, thinking the zombies have come to finish me off. Pain stabs my trapezius as I twist for a better look. “Damn it, Maddox,” I say, as he limps from behind a tree. “What the hell? I thought you were … something else.”
“I missed you too, Wynter. You look like I feel.”
Comedian.
Gideon’s slides to a sit and rests against the tree trunk, knees pointed at the sky. Shadows collect under his legs, darkening the molding leaves beneath him. As his lids slide shut, my gaze follows the dark blood trail on his shirt connecting ribcage to waist.
“Are you all right, mate?”
“Fine.”
“Where’d you come from?”
One eye opens. “Hell if I know.” Both eyes. “I woke up half-dead and face down in a ditch. Started walking. Found you.”
Always chatty, Maddox is.
“Have you seen her?”
“Seen who?”
“Who? Raven!”
Oh. “Right, right.” As I stretch, each vertebra in my back snaps louder than mallets on a xylophone. “Not yet. She ran a different direction than you and I did, but she can’t be far. Likely we were all sent on Pan’s little Peyote party last night.” I jerk my chin toward the black flowers.
Gideon nods. Lips pressed to a flat line as he cradles his injury with one hand. “My supplies are gone, cane too. Do you have anything left?”
I glance about. “Nah, probably dropped my satchel in the woods.”
He accepts or guessed as much because he’s staring off into space. “We have to find Rae. She needs … you.”
I palm my neck, rubbing stiff muscles loose. “Er, yeah.” The turnabout still mystifies me, since only a few days ago he wanted to cut my heart out for smiling at her. I should be thrilled, and I am, I guess. Yet an uneasy thought hides in the shadows of my mind. I can’t seem to focus, and then it’s too late.
A wail rolls out from the woods shattering the stillness.
“Come on.” Gideon’s already moving, struggling to stand. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah.” I force my body vertical. “I’ll live. What about you?” I’m staring at the blood on his shirt again.
He gives me his back as an answer, boots shuffling over the uneven ground.
As we hurry toward the cry, I expect to see someone behind the first tree, or the next, perhaps the one after that. Hope keeps us tromping through the swamp, but we don’t find anyone. One hour. Two. We walk until the earth dries and hardens. With no more cries to guide us, we continue in the same direction.
The forest thins, then stops altogether on the edge of a rolling meadow. Vegetation changes color from sickly gray, to yellow, to green. One last, scrawny tree bends to greet me like a withered, old man. My steps slow. A cluster of three knots located on the trunk’s center suggests a nose and eyes. A bunch of protruding moss mimics a perfect goatee.