Second Skin (Skinned)

by Graves, Judith

  “By God, it’s a woman.”

  I opened my eyes and observed the men towering over me as I lay on my back. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, threatening to slice into my bottom lip or cut off my tongue. The force of my inner tremors knocked my head against the wooden planks. I contracted my muscles and assessed my surroundings. At my side were men clad in ragged white shirts and brown leather vests, with scarves wrapped around their substantial girths, trailing to their swashbuckler boots. The sailors swayed with the sea. The motion brought on a bout of nausea. As salt water gurgled from my mouth, I stared beyond their sly faces at the clouds trapped against impossibly tall stalks of wood. Billowing with the wind.

  Sails.

  A black flag with white skull and crossbones waved on the mast.

  An honest-to-God, poke-a-needle-in-my-eye, crazy-freaking- real pirate ship.

  Low voices reached my ears—words spoken with a thick British accent. One voice pleading, the other authoritative. Compelling. Familiar.

  “But why can’t we keep her? It’s not like she’d be an extra mouth to feed.”

  “The boys will fight over this one. Best to throw her back in.” “Aww, captain, let them have some sport. We ain’t had a show since Mad Micky had the scurvy.” A pause. Then hopeful, “We could make her walk the plank at the very least. Always cheers the lads up a mite.”

  The plank? Yeah, right. That was probably pirate code for something really nasty.

  I groaned and sat up, clutching my aching ribs. I looked down at a ruby blouse and skirt, my waist caged in a black bustier that had actually produced cleavage from my meager offerings. No wonder I couldn’t breathe. Might as well have been wearing a boa constrictor. I struggled to my feet and scanned the horizon just above the sides of the ship. Not a hint of land in sight. I stumbled, tripping over the damp, unwieldy length of my skirt.

  My movements had the men circling me like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

  “She’s a bonnie thing.”

  “I heaved her out of the water. Finders keepers, I say.”

  The pirates unsheathed their weapons in a series of swooshes and clangs. Dread pooled in my stomach. I held up my hands, standing in the center of a deadly circle as twenty sword tips pointed at me from all directions. Sharpened metal gleamed under the scorching sun. I stared down the blades at weathered, gap- toothed, cunning faces. The swashbucklers looked pleased with themselves for making such a fine catch. Each had a glint of lust in his eye.

  Each wanted first dibs. On me.

  I swallowed hard, my throat still burning from the salt water

  I’d gulped.

  “I suppose there’s amusement to be had before we toss the lass over.” The captain’s bored tones reached my ears. “Give her a go, lads.”

  Give her a…what? Where was the plank when you needed it?

  I scanned the deck and zeroed in on the captain’s location as he turned from the men. His long charcoal coat swirled at his feet, the black silk scarf at his neck snapped in the wind as he climbed a wide wooden staircase to the bridge. His familiar, smooth movements caused yearning to strike me low and hard. He’d change his mind. He’d come back and call off his men.

  Or he’d simply glide away and disappear from view, leaving me to my fate. Like he’d done before.

  I took in a shuddering breath. It was up to me now.

  The wind shifted, bringing with it the foul stench of unkempt bodies. I held a hand over my nose, glaring at my captors, assessing their rounded shoulders and lust-filled eyes for the weakest link. The one who’d never expect a woman to fight back. Hard. One particularly ugly specimen licked his lips and stepped forward, making my decision easy. He boldly slid the point of his blade along my neck, resting it on the exposed flesh and flimsy ties of my corset.

  Oh, no you don’t. I reached for my athame, clutched at my ribs but found only the bones of the garment binding me. Stupid, rotten, highly impractical, though admittedly gorgeous dress. How was a girl supposed to stow a weapon in this getup?

  I swore, loud and long. The men tittered. “We’ve got a live one, mates.”

  Did they ever. A popping. An ache along my jaw. “What’s she doing?”

  I wasn’t a damsel in distress, vulnerable. Helpless. The wobble of teeth and a feeling of release as canines extended and filled my mouth.

  “Run lads, it’s a she-devil!”

  They should have thrown this catch back into the sea. A growl rumbled in my chest. I lifted my head and howled.

  The scent of brine faded, only to be replaced by gunpowder and death. My throat burned, raw as if I’d been screaming for my life.

  The ship was gone, and I’d returned to human form, crouching low in a six-foot-high earthen trench. I shivered as a brutal night wind whirled at my back. My feet were cramped within heavy boots and seizing up in the cold. How had I gotten here? What happened to the ship? I could barely recall the sails, the splintered wood at my back. I crawled along the earth, searching.

  “Where’s my dagger?” I muttered under my breath, desperate to feel its familiar weight in my hands. I came to my knees, dug deep into the blood-soaked soil like a dog uncovering a bone.

  “Quit your bitching, recruit,” a guttural voice hollered.

  In the moonlight a shape came out of the mist that hovered and snaked through the trench. A captain in a mud-encrusted uniform stalked forward, shoulders hunched, knees bent in a crouch like he’d been traveling this pit for years. I had no idea how anyone could survive here that long. Tracer rounds flew by his helmet, thudded into the ground, burying themselves deep.

  “We’ve got a mission to complete.” He tipped his helmet back with his rifle. “Here’s your first lesson, soldier. You drop your weapon, you pick one up from the dead.” He nudged my shoulder with his boot. Unbalanced, I fell backward onto a pile of sandbags.

  The hairs on my neck trembled, and my body stilled. Not sandbags. I’d landed on a body stiff with rigor mortis.

  “Take Cooper’s. Not like he’s using it.” With that the captain continued on, barking orders at other men huddled in shell holes.

  I turned my head and met the cloudy gaze of the dead soldier beneath me. He was a mountain of a man. No, a boy, with high cheekbones, tanned skin, and black hair.

  The name wasn’t right. Not Cooper, but who?

  I scrambled off him, bile collecting at the back of my throat. Just a boy, now dead. His body draped over a crumbling half- empty ammunition crate, his raw, muddied fingers contracted around the barrel of a gun.

  He’d given his all, done everything man and country had asked of him—sacrificed it all, and for what? Guts and glory? A wrenching sob built inside of me that, once released, would never stop. I gritted my teeth and refused to give it a voice.

  Why did I feel like I’d let him down? Caused his death?

  I hesitated. A whistle from high above descended hard and fast. I ducked my head against the fallen soldier. An artillery round exploded to my right. I heaved Cooper onto his side, using his girth as a shield. Shrapnel embedded into the frozen flesh of his back. His body pressed down on me with the impact of each hit. I watched for a change of expression in those dead eyes, but he slept on, oblivious to the nightmare around us.

  My throat clenched and my vision blurred as I grabbed his weapon and tugged. I yanked again, but it cleaved tight to its owner. Do instruments of death ever have a master? I planted my knees in the mud, floundering for an instant, and coming all too close to sprawling once more over that cold, rigid body. I pried the dead boy’s fingers one by one from the barrel, feeling the bones give way under the pressure. Finally, I held the rifle in my shaking hands. I took the ammo as well. Like the commander said, Cooper no longer had use for it. Battle always had its casualties. The living had to ensure their deaths had meaning.

  Over distant, crackling gunfire, a happy pinging rang in my ears. Then a calm voice said, Rifle acquired. Ammunition acquired. You’ve earned 50 bonus life points.

  What the
hell?

  “Who said that?” I called up into the night, shifting my weight, pivoting in a slow circle. “Where are you?”

  “Where’s who?”

  I whirled to face Janie. Blonde curls bounced around my head, sliding across my face, getting stuck in my lip-gloss. I spat out a lock or two. “Who, what?” I glared at Janie, keeping her in my sights. You never knew when she’d stab you in the back. “Forget it,” she drawled. Her manicured nails slid over the fine cotton tank tops hanging on a rack. “Did you see what Lili wore to school today? I swear, it’s like that girl doesn’t have eyes in her head.”

  Razor slicing deep. Blood, so much blood.

  I blinked, grabbed Janie before I collapsed in the middle of Redgrave Mall. This was wrong. I stared down at my short skirt and go-go boots. I was all wrong. I had to look up into Janie’s face. I was about six inches shorter than she was, despite the boots. I shook my head. Impossible. Blonde curls bobbed in my peripheral vision. I scrunched my hands through the voluminous hair on my head. Ringlets linked and knotted around my fingers. I shoved Janie aside, staring into the full-length mirror mounted to a support beam. Blue eyes blinked back at me.

  Sweet Jesus, I was Paige.

  Janie’s lips twisted into a sneer. “What’s your problem?” She made quote marks with her fingers. “Fasting again?”

  Was Janie implying Paige was anorexic? I turned sideways. Paige’s—my?—reflection cut a lean line, and I did feel…weightless. But that could just be because I appeared to be inside my cousin’s body.

  What a nightmare.

  I winced. That was it. I was in a nightmare. I’d been slipping in and out of them for a while. The pirates, the soldier. A flash of the costumed kids at the Harvest Moon Dance and how they’d dropped to the gym floor. Dreaming. Having nightmares.

  And now I was in one of Paige’s.

  The Hour Grows Late

  “Someone get a straitjacket,” Janie said.

  Had she figured out I wasn’t Paige? I jumped back from the girls, crashing into a rack of designer jeans.

  The blonde trio didn’t notice my stumble. They were too focused on the tall, gangly girl walking down the center of the mall, glaring at the other shoppers as if she expected a coordinated attack.

  “The psycho’s headed this way.” Janie crossed her arms, watching the girl.

  And that girl was me. The me not currently inside my cousin’s body. Convoluted dream realm, or what?

  I sneaked another glance at myself. Or Paige’s dream impression of me. I cringed. Did I really look like that? That wary? That angry?

  That alone?

  Janie shot me—Paige—a look filled with the promise of bad things to come. “I think it’s time we showed your cousin a little Redgrave hospitality, don’t you?” She withdrew a Swiss army knife from her jacket pocket and flicked open the short blade.

  Since when did cheerleader wannabes carry concealed weapons?

  Clearly, I’d underestimated their true level of evil.

  “Leave her alone, Janie.” Paige took over. No longer actively moving Paige’s body, I’d drifted to hover near the ceiling, a silent witness as her dream unfolded below.

  Was she actually defending me?

  “I told you, making Eryn’s life miserable is my job. She’s my family, I have first dibs.” Paige flipped through items on the racks, looking completely disinterested in the fact that one of her minions had threatened to gut me in the middle of Redgrave Mall. Yet fear spiked around her. The fingers gripping the metal hanger were white with tension.

  When dream-Eryn passed them without incident, Paige’s relief drifted to me, cotton candy sweet. With her back to Janie, she never saw the blonde plunge the blade deep into her shoulder— but she must have felt it. She shrieked, her hands flailing, clawing at her back, unable to reach the blade.

  Paige wasn’t kidding about the backstabbing. Dream Janie was a monster. I bet she was worse in real life.

  Paige might be the biggest victim of all.

  She wasn’t the leader of this pack—she was their domesticated prey.

  Find the others.

  A woman’s sharp voice echoed through the mall’s expansive halls, familiar, yet out of place. The shock of it had me floating away from Paige, who spun in circles trying to get the knife out of her back. I sought out the voice. Drifting until I heard it again.

  Destroy the night mare.

  No one in the world below reacted to the power of it. They continued to shop and gorge themselves on food-court grease. The tile floor beneath moved faster, blurred like I’d become a jet plane coursing along a runway, about to lift off. The ceiling faded.

  I had to take control. The woman was right. I had to find Alec and Wade. We had to end this. I’d wasted enough time already.

  Where are you? I pushed the thought with everything in me. Projecting to the one who could help the most.

  Where else?

  I walked for miles in blistering heat. My lips were as cracked and dry as the crumbling earth under my feet. Dust cycloned around me, sandblasting the landscape. Grit crunched between my teeth. I spat, only to suck in more sand with my next breath.

  A shadow appeared in the distance. A house, shaking on its foundation with the wind’s brutal force. I crossed the distance in an instant, in a lifetime. My hand on the doorknob. Turning. Pushing the wooden door open.

  Blinding light. The smell of mint. And I stood beside Wade, watching as his past self drained the life from his mother.

  Of course this would be his nightmare.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Wade said. He hadn’t turned or acknowledged my presence. Before us, the figures twisted in the final moment between eternal life and damnation. Wade flew at the vampire, his intent clear. He wanted to seize the thing he had become, wrestle it away from his mother, and destroy it once and for all. I cringed when his momentum was cut brutally short. His body slammed into an invisible barrier with the force of a battering ram.

  Wade’s face twisted with grief. I couldn’t look away from his pain, and he made no effort to hide it. He tilted his chin toward the ceiling in a silent prayer, or perhaps a curse of the heavens. Either way, I understood at least a fraction of what he felt and could barely breathe. At that moment he was in his own world of sorrow and suffering. He’d returned to the time of his turning, only to be as helpless as I’d been when Elizabeth had called me back to act as her witness.

  Wade surged to his feet, bashing his fists repeatedly against the veiled wall. Energy waves rippled from the barrier, blasting back at us with each of his strikes. On the other side, Elizabeth’s face shifted. Her eyes became maggot-infested sockets, her skin sagged with rot. She mouthed cutting words.

  You did this to me.

  His shoulders shuddered. I knew if he turned, he’d be fighting back tears. But his mother hadn’t blamed him, not once did I sense that from her. This was the night mare playing its tricks.

  “Wade, you’re in a dream. You can make it stop.” I grabbed his arm, but he shook me off. “She doesn’t blame you for what happened. She never did. She’s sent you on a great guilt trip, I admit, but don’t get sucked into it. That’s what the night mare wants, all of us at our weakest. Then we won’t be able to fight back.”

  I focused my power, sought his mind, and found it defenseless. Everything Wade had ever felt or experienced lay open like the pages of a treasured book, or a sacred grimoire. The power there invited me to linger. Turning away from the temptation, I merely projected a single thought, I believe in you.

  By the time he regained control, the skin had shredded from his fingers, revealing blackened bone. He rested his forehead on the wall of energy as if it were a pane of glass dividing him from the deeds of his past.

  “Forgive me,” Wade said, his voice a whisper. Only I could hear his plea.

  Straightening his shoulders, Wade turned, determination stamped in the sharp line of his jaw, the terse set of his mouth, and the blackness of his hair. His gray eye
s shimmered with power, giving them a metallic sheen. He scared me with that look. I retreated, my back against the wall.

  “The hour grows late, and we’ve got ourselves a doozy of a night mare to kill,” he said, his light tone a stark contrast to the shadows that flickered across his features.

  The sky darkened above us. “It’s getting close, latching onto your location,” Wade glared at the golden cloak of whirling dust forming overhead. He grabbed my hand, black smoke already swirling at our feet. “I’ll take you somewhere safe, gather the others, and then we’ll destroy the night mare.”

  Could Wade really vamp mist both of us?

  I tugged back my hand, but Wade glared at me. His fingers dug into the sensitive flesh around my wrist. “Don’t let go, whatever you do, don’t let…”

  Dust and black smoke filled my lungs. I coughed, gasping for breath. What if we got lost? Came back horribly wrong with a foot sticking out of our foreheads? Dread settled in stomach. My vision darkened. All I could see was emptiness. A vast nothingness. My scream echoed in both our minds as we vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

  We ended up in the woods. Our smoking arrival caused a flock of chirping sparrows to abandon a large redwood. The world pitched and dipped.

  What the hell just happened?

  Wade spoke in my mind. I smoked us around. A warning, the aftereffects may be unpleasant.

  He wasn’t kidding. No sooner had Wade released me, than the tug of dry heaves began low in my gut. I dropped to my hands and knees, retching into the grass. Wade paced a few feet away, holding his hands out, chanting. Casting wards while I lost my lunch. The mint of his magic permeated the air, blending with the scent of evergreens, rotting leaves, and the earth’s deep musk. Not really helping my stomach issues.

  “Was that necessary?” I grumbled and stumbled to my feet while Wade strode in an arc around me. Tendrils of smoke trailed after him, then sank deep into the forest floor. Returning from whence they came, I supposed. I gave a frustrated sigh. “Where are we? Hello, Wade, fill me in. Is this your dream, or mine?”