Count On Me

by Abigail Graham

“This isn’t for you,” I tell him. “I was supposed to find this.”

  I walk inside.

  Yea though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.

  Grandma took me to church dozens of times. It never took. I don’t know why, but now of all times, I start reciting the Lord’s Prayer in my head, going so fast I jumble the words together. It’s half my voice and half hers. It mattered to her. She was very Catholic, my grandma. She was so much to me.

  The smell of cookies and the smell of pews, pinches on my cheeks and a dish towel to dry my tears, a confessor to hear my first fumbling sins with boys. She was all compassion, as pure and sanctified as the light she worshipped.

  As I walk in the dark I think of my grandfather with his battered, gray-handled Swiss Army knife. Lying in the grass with him somewhere, too young to remember where, as he showed me each tool by turn and explained its function. Even the fish scaler. I was so fascinated. His was a strong hand when I needed, never pushing or grasping. He only held me up, not down.

  I remember my mother, the way she was before she began to waste away, eaten from the inside out by her own body. The way she would sing to me while she brushed my hair.

  Most of all I remember a hundred lifetimes with Conrad. A hundred first kisses, stolen glances, horse rides, first nights in bed.

  There is so much of me. This tiny body can barely hold it.

  There is a light here in the darkness. It pulses slowly, and I rise to meet it. Thrust into a black stone like a giant’s fist stands a sword of spun crystal, as delicate as glass and harder than any steel of man’s forging. It comes loose in my grip with a simple tug, so light it feels alive.

  This time is different.

  My eyes open. Fully.

  There is no sword.

  It used our own trap against us.

  That thing is powerful beyond imagination, an evil so ancient it’s seeped into the bones of the mountain. An intelligence so old that peering into it feels like shoving my hands into ice.

  Now I understand why it hates me so.

  It didn’t trap us here. I trapped it.

  It found its revenge after Conrad stopped it. One night of terror, stalking through the castle, cutting us all down with that red blade. It saved me for last.

  That was a mistake.

  I can still feel it: the freezing agony of the blade rammed through my chest, a pale shadow of the raw torment of it sucking me down into its depths, feeding on my essence.

  On my cold, dying lips, a spell…

  I step out of the cave. The air is rotten, crisscrossed with invisible cobwebs the others can’t see. The creature’s web. I look on our prison with new eyes.

  “Mother?” he breathes.

  “We have to help your father,” I tell him. “I have to help him. With me.”

  Without a word he picks up his sister and we walk for the doors. I don’t know how to open them. I don’t have to. A quick swipe, left, then right, and the spun crystal sword slices through wood and steel like paper. The doors fall away, and I pass through them, into the castle.

  15

  Torment

  Conrad

  He doesn’t make it far into the tunnels. He runs into the light, howling, and throws himself at Manfred. A wall of force stops him, hurling Conrad back to the floor. The red bitch hangs slung on his back, its power pulsing into the stone corridor like choking smoke.

  Manfred is full in its grasp. His eyes are glassy and unseeing now, and greedy. He flexes his fingers and Conrad winces. Everywhere his skin bends has dried and begun to crack, red-black blood seeping from the wounds. His nails have gone black, and dark tendrils like infected veins claw through his face, dark blood even in the whites of his eyes.

  He’s not strong enough. It’s eating him alive, making him part of itself.

  Manfred grins with sharp teeth, slicing his own lips in the process.

  “Bring him.”

  His men drive their fists into Conrad’s belly, kick his ribs, and drag him to his feet. Inhuman strength resists his struggles, as immovable as stone for all his might. He can almost feel the cursed blade mocking him.

  Gave me up so quickly, did you?

  Manfred twitches as Saska touches his shoulder, drawing her fingers down his arm. She presses her cold lips to his throat and laps up the blood trickling from a raw spot on his jaw, shivering in the process.

  “I’m going to kill you all,” she says, laughter bubbling through her voice. “Ah, the boons of immortality. I can take my time.”

  “Bring him,” Manfred says again, his voice thick with blood from his own tongue. “To the great hall.”

  His creatures lift Conrad from the floor and carry him by the arms. His struggles are futile, but still he fights. Every beaten, bruised inch of his body begs him to surrender, but the moment he does these things will turn their attentions to Roxanne.

  He’ll have to give them good sport and keep them occupied.

  Saska turns back and her eyes caress his face. When their gazes lock, it’s like a cold spike through his face into his skull. He shudders all over, the strength leaving his legs.

  “You think you can outwit me?” she says, her silken laugh echoing in the halls. “Oh, Conrad. I’m not chasing your little pets because she’ll come to me. You mortals and your love. It makes you blind and stupid.”

  “It makes us more than you.”

  Saska’s smirk sours into a frown, and she licks her lips.

  “I’m going to devour you last. You know that, don’t you? I’m going to make you watch.”

  “You’re trapped here just as we are,” Conrad rasps, every word like a knife in his throat. “You can’t escape.”

  “I could,” she says, with a dismissive wave. “A thousand of your little witches couldn’t bind me with all their strength combined. I leave whenever I wish.”

  Conrad smiles, despite the blood trickling from his lips.

  “Without your power,” he snorts. “You can come and go as you please, but you’re as mortal as the rest of us outside the standing stones.”

  She turns back, baring her teeth. All the pretty girlishness of her appearance is gone, melted away. She is vile, her face an emotionless mask, waxy skin moved here and there by muscles driven by no human emotion. Her very existence is an affront to nature and human goodness.

  He understands her now. She is the enemy. The dark beyond the torch, the cold that presses against the firelight, the endless void between the stars. She is Hell.

  So is the great hall.

  They drag him inside and his gorge rises. What was done here could not have happened in so short a span of time, and yet it has.

  Conrad’s memories swirl in his head. Time is coming undone. It as if the world has been some rotten flesh and its skin has sloughed off.

  This creature that pretends to be his child has made the world into herself.

  Black ichor seeps from between the stones. Conrad is dragged through a mad orgy, wincing when he sees Marta lying lifeless in a too-small iron cage hanging over his throne. The wooden branches and leaves have been re-carved into scenes of wonder and terror, entangled bodies in ecstasy and agony.

  “Why are you doing this?” he rasps.

  “This is what I am.” Saska says, whirling. “Isn’t it lovely, Father?”

  “You’re not my daughter.”

  She giggles, a sound so false it makes his guts churn.

  “When your father fucked me he liked me to call him Papa,” she says, kneeling in front of him to look into his battered face. “You mortals… You men. So easy to control. All it takes is a little shake of that worm between your legs and you’ll do whatever I ask. That and a taste of my power.”

  She circles Manfred, eyeing the hilt of the sword.

  Conrad laughs.

  “You want it, too. Why not take it, then?”

  She does. She reaches for the hilt and winces at a spark of light that leaves her hand wilted, sizzling. She flexes it
and grits her teeth. Her cuts do not bleed, but reek of corruption.

  “Your little bitch put a ward spell on it. I can’t touch it.”

  Conrad laughs.

  “It doesn’t matter. As soon as I kill her, it will be mine again.”

  Conrad laughs, as bitter as tears. “You, too. Are you so stupid, in all your power?”

  Saska frowns.

  “She’ll just come back. We all come back. I don’t know what you did…”

  She smiles, like invisible hooks spreading her lips.

  “Oh, you think I trapped us here,” she laughs, like leather on stone. “Silly boy.”

  16

  The Last Battle

  Roxanne

  The yard is empty. The great hall booms with sound. We approach, the sickly light from within turning my children’s faces pale.

  “Wait here,” I tell them. “This is my battle to fight. Hide until I come back with your father.”

  It’s one we thought we won already, but we never did. She never let us go.

  When I pass through the doors, it’s like crawling through a window in hell. A pale light pulses from everywhere and nowhere, as Saska writhes on Manfred’s lap, stroking his chest with nails that leave red streaks. She leans down and licks the blood from his chest and sits back up, smiling a red smile.

  Manfred looks like he’s dying, as though something is digesting him from the inside out. He barely keeps his head up.

  Well I’ll be damned. There was a vampire after all.

  They have Conrad surrounded by five men all armed with live steel; he holds them off with a blunted sword with a rounded tip. Were he even to break out, he’d be run through with sharp spears.

  “Look!” Manfred cries, his voice wet and sickly. “It’s the little bitch. Shall we begin, my love?”

  Saska looks at me. Alarm flashes on her face, and then she smiles.

  “This is interesting. What are you planning to do with that?”

  “Enough,” Manfred bellows, standing so Saska slides off his lap onto the high carved throne. “It’s time. I grow weary of all this. Conrad, you stand accused of getting in my way. The sentence is death.”

  “Coward,” Conrad roars. “Face me yourself.”

  “I knew you’d say that!” Manfred cries, exultant. “I will, in a trial by wager of battle. You already have your weapon.”

  He takes up the red sword. Blüdjager, the blood hunter.

  “And I have mine.”

  “You can’t!” I shout. “That’s not fair.”

  “When he offered to duel me with this, I might as well have had a blunted blade myself. I think it’s quite fair.”

  I step forward, only to be surrounded by the points of spears.

  Wait. Let this play out.

  Memories pulse in my mind. It’s not time yet.

  Conrad shakes his arms. He’s already bleeding from a dozen cuts, but he rolls his neck.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll be given armor either,” he says.

  “What good would it do you?” says Manfred, descending to meet him.

  “A fair point,” Conrad says. “Roxanne. Run.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Good, stay and watch him die.”

  The ring of steel parts, and the five armed men pull back, leaving Conrad to their master.

  We all have our battles to fight. This is his.

  I glance at Saska.

  I can play this game, too.

  Reaching deep into my memories, I pull out a mystic sign, and form the shape with my fingers, whispering wordlessly to myself as I touch my thumb to each in turn. I reach out for Conrad, feeling him.

  Everything in this place is greasy, rotten, and wrong. A thick, invisible sheen of dark power writhes around Conrad’s body, a chain he can’t feel.

  My power slips under it. He stands straighter, taller, strength returning to his muscles. He winces as a broken rib knits together.

  Saska turns to me and I barely have time to fend off a wave of sick, vicious cold. I stumble back a step and lose my concentration.

  “No tricks from you,” she says, grinning.

  Manfred raises the blade in salute, then charges.

  He’s fast, but Conrad is faster, and experienced. He was only toying with us at practice, I realize. He moves with such grace, precision, and power that I barely follow his movements.

  Except I can. I read them, watching the play of his muscles, the movement of a shoulder as he throws a swing. Yes. I know this.

  After no more than a minute or two, Conrad’s blade, already dull, is badly notched where the red sword has bitten through the steel. Manfred is toying with him. He thinks he is, anyway.

  “What do you want with him?” Conrad says.

  Manfred looks confused. “What?”

  “How many have I fed you, thing? Why do you deny me? He took you by guile.”

  Manfred edges back. “What are you talking about?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Conrad says.

  Bellowing, Manfred runs in, swinging. Conrad ducks it and bashes Manfred’s calf with his blunted sword. It may have no edge, but it’s still a steel bar. Something crunches, and Manfred howls.

  The sword writhes in his hands. It moves, shifting somehow, as in a mirage.

  “Heal me, damn it,” he demands. “I know you can.”

  “See how easily I defeat him, even with such power. He’s unworthy.”

  “Shut up!” Manfred roars. He charges, limping.

  Conrad drops his own weapon, twists out of the way of Manfred’s clumsy thrust, and they begin to wrestle, Conrad prying the grip out of Manfred’s hands.

  Saska watches, her lips curling into a smirk.

  That’s right, eat it up, you vile thing.

  Conrad twists the blade loose and knees into his brother’s back, sending him sprawling.

  He stands over Manfred, point to the back of his head.

  “Don’t move.”

  Manfred laughs. “I knew it would come to this. Will you see my soul screaming in your blade, brother? Will you?”

  Saska watches, smiling.

  “No,” he says, “I won’t.”

  He turns and whips the sword from his hands, throwing it with all his might. It spins in the air, a red blur, and plants point-first in Saska’s chest. It sinks straight through her body, and she sags to her knees, clutching it.

  A rattle escapes her throat, and her head droops. Her arms fall to her sides.

  All around me, Manfred’s men shift uneasily. They look at their weapons as if they forgot why they’re holding them.

  Magic. She bewitched them. I push through.

  It’s not over yet.

  Saska’s face flicks up, and she grins. Her head rolls back and her rubbery face twists in agony and ecstasy as air rattles from her throat. The blade quivers in her chest, shivering as her arms lift, her hands resting on the edge even as it sinks into her palms, cutting.

  Something is happening. The blade itself lets out a sound, a cry of high-pitched agony, shaking and twisting. The red begins to flow, like blood within a pale stone vessel, darkening where it meets her body. It spreads into her skin and sinks in.

  Something flexes under Saska’s skin, something chitinous, some insect. It moves under the skin of her face and her slack ecstasy becomes a grin.

  She rises to one knee then stands. With one hand, then the other, she takes hold of the sword and pulls it loose. She turns it in her hand, examining the blade.

  It’s changed. The blade has gone as pale as milk, the guard and hilt like spun glass taking the shape of delicate, feathery wings.

  It hisses in her hand, and she drops it to the floor.

  Then she takes her other hand and brings it down over her face, from the top of her head to her chest. As she does, she grows. Six inches to her height, less to her shoulders. Her hair goes bone white. Her skin is pale as death, the only color in her body in her eyes, the dirty brown-red of dried blood. She smiles a bloodless,
emotionless smile.

  “Oh, that feels good,” she says.

  I grab Conrad’s arm.

  “Get behind me.”

  He resists for a moment. I take up position in front of him. He holds my hand in his.

  “It was a cruel thing, robbing me of my power,” Saska, if that’s even her name, hisses. “You left me with only the thirst and no way to slake it. Trapped my essence in this wretched thing. Thought you could stop me. Me, one of the Firstborn. It’s time for you to learn your lesson, little witch. You don’t die this time. You live—”

  “Until I release you,” I finish. “Never.”

  “What?” Conrad says.

  “You didn’t kill her, I did,” I tell him with a glance.

  “You couldn’t kill me. I’m already dead,” she laughs. “I was born when the world was young, and you little rats squirmed beneath the heels of sorcerer-kings. You fear time. I am time.”

  “You think I’m letting you loose into the world? Nah.”

  “Such bravado. We’ll see how it lasts when I feed you your children’s eyes.”

  “Alright, you prehistoric she-bitch. Let’s go.”

  It grins, and comes screaming at me.

  Conrad pulls my arm, but I shake loose, reaching.

  The pale sword leaps from the floor, jumping into my hand. Saska evades a swing, circling me, hissing with her too-wide mouth.

  She flexes her hands, and her arms lengthen. I fight the urge to be sick as her skin pulls tight over something hard and slick, not like bone but like the carapace of an insect. Her hands lengthen into claws, long talons that almost drag the floor as she stands taller, even as her back bulges.

  I circle around, swinging at her. She deflects and parries, knocking my cuts aside, but with a look of concentration and nearly surprise.

  “This won’t last,” she hisses. “You can’t defeat me, and I will never tire. I’ll never stop. I’ll take that trinket from you and bugger you with it.”

  I nod. “Come get it, then.”

  The pale sword is alive in my hands, moving so fast that I wonder if I’m moving it, or it’s moving me. Every impact rings like a shrieking bell, sparks blue, and she shrinks back.