Dreams of Shreds and Tatters

by Amanda Downum

  Open to the Dark

  “IT’S NO USE. He’s still flatline.”

  “It’s been five minutes.”

  Blake woke to darkness and voices. The darkness filled him—it would burst through his eyes if he opened them, tear open his throat if he tried to scream. His skin was too tight, his skull too small to hold all the pain. The voices moved around him, shouting things he couldn’t understand. Hands touched him, always hands, an endlessly repeating hell of hands.

  “Clear!”

  Electricity hit him, a kick to the chest, searing every nerve. The world washed white as he convulsed. A scream clawed its way up from the pit of his stomach, ripping out of his mouth with such force he thought his jaw would break. Fire raced under his skin, through his veins, burning him to ash. Other voices joined the scream, all underscored by a shrill mechanical shriek.

  Then it stopped, a silence so abrupt he felt deaf. Blake opened his eyes, but the world was a kaleidoscope of spinning lights and shadow. The hands were gone, but tentacles still held him, worming under his skin. A slick plastic tube ripped out of his nose as he flailed, and he gagged as it snaked up his throat. Another stung his arm as he ripped it away, and the smell of blood blossomed bright and hot. Beneath that he smelled harsh chemical disinfectant. A hospital. How had he ended up here?

  He yanked at another tube on his thigh, realizing his mistake too late. Warning pressure gave way to pain, like fishhooks through his groin, and the smell of urine cut through the layered stink. He opened his mouth to scream but vomited instead, doubling over the cold metal bed-rail. Watery bile dripped down his chin.

  His legs folded beneath him when he tried to stand and he sprawled on the floor, curling helplessly around the agony in his crotch. The fluorescent lights stuttered fitfully. People shouted in the distance and running footsteps shivered through the cold linoleum. Cramps knotted his calves.

  He groped for the edge of the bed, a chair, anything to pull himself up. Instead his hand fell on flesh, and he jerked away with a startled yelp. A woman in hospital scrubs curled on the floor an arm’s reach away, her wide eyes fixed somewhere beyond him. Her mouth moved, shaping words, but no sound came out. Blood trickled sluggishly from her nose, dripping into her mouth and down her chin. Blake reached for her, moved his hand in front of her eyes, but she didn’t react. When he sat up, he saw two other bodies fallen beside the bed, another woman and a man: they didn’t move at all.

  Blake bit his lip against a whimper, turning away from the woman’s blind stare. Tears filmed his eyes, turning everything into a flickering blur. Blood oozed from his wrist; pink-streaked piss leaked down his thigh; a dull ache throbbed behind his sternum. Finally he hooked one hand on the bed frame and pulled himself to his knees. He was too weak to stand, let alone run, but if he didn’t get away from the pain and the lights and the noise he would start sobbing and never stop.

  Something stirred inside him, cold and dark. An anesthetic tingle spread through his limbs, soothing his cramping legs, steadying him as he hauled himself to his feet. He didn’t trust this strange chilly strength, but it whispered at him to run, and he couldn’t argue with that.

  He flung open doors and cabinets until he found his clothes, leaning against the wall as he struggled into jeans and sweater. His fingers trembled too badly to lace his boots.

  The corridor was a confusion of shouting and alarms and running nurses. No one bothered him as he staggered down the hall, except to push past. What had happened? He didn’t stop to ask. All that mattered was escape. Through the maze of hallways and clamor of the lobby, into the clean, scathing night.

  Lions Gate, he realized as he reached the sidewalk. North Van. City lights blazed white and gold, blue and green, mirrored in the black water of Burrard Inlet. A chiaroscuro blur through his watering eyes.

  His strength didn’t last long. A block from the hospital he slipped on icy pavement and sprawled into a gutter full of frozen slush. He crawled across the sidewalk, too weak to stand again, and huddled against a dark shop front. Sirens screamed nearby.

  The sky over Lions Gate seethed with shadows, winged shapes spiraling through the clouds like giant bats.

  The monsters from the cabin.

  Headlights cut the night open. Blake flinched, expecting an ambulance, police, but the car that pulled up to the curb was sleek and black, its windows midnight mirrors. The back door swung open.

  “Get in,” a man called.

  Blake moved closer in spite of himself, drawn by rich, familiar tones. The door opened wider and the streetlight slanted across the curve of a shaven head, gleamed in one pearl-black eye.

  “Please,” the man Liz had called Seker said. “Get in. Unless you came all this way to freeze to death.”

  Blake laughed. Or maybe it was a sob. He climbed into the warmth of the car.

  LIZ FLOATED ON the edge of sleep, drifting in a warm red sea. She didn’t hurt; she wasn’t afraid. That was important, but she couldn’t remember what had ever scared or pained her. Surf beat in her ears. There was a word for that soft whispering sound, a word she used to know, but it was a hole in her memory now, like the empty socket of a tooth. The sensation filled her with a sadness she couldn’t explain.

  You did it, didn’t you? Alice’s wet voice coiled around her. You solved the puzzle, faced the dragon, saved the princess. Now what? Closure? Resolution? Happily ever after? The words were mocking, but veined with something soft and wistful.

  Liz woke with a dizzy start, all her peace undone. Tears leaked down her cheeks. “It doesn’t work that way,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to Alice or herself.

  The room was dark and silent. Blankets weighed on her, stifling, but the air drifting across her face was cold. Her skin itched with dried sweat; her scalp crawled.

  What had happened? The last thing she remembered was Blake’s hand in hers, the rush of falling and the whiplash crack of tumbling out of the dreamlands. Her joints ached and her muscles felt weak and stiff, as if she hadn’t moved them in days. Her head was stuffed with something—old socks, by the taste in her mouth— and her tongue was a slab of dry meat. Sore back, numb toes, aching bladder: her body’s list of complaints grew longer with every passing minute.

  Where was she? Not the hotel, not a hospital. Not Carcosa, and that was what really mattered. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she recognized Alex’s familiar outline slumped in a chair at the foot of the bed, his head propped on one hand.

  Her good hand twitched, nails snagging on the weave of the blanket. She held something in her palm, a small, unfamiliar shape. Her knuckles crackled as she opened her fingers. A gold and lapis scarab bounced against her chest, gleaming in the dim light. Blake’s ring was gone.

  She made a soft, wondering noise and Alex stirred. Liz closed her hand around the brooch again and tucked it out of sight.

  “Liz—” Something inside her untwisted as he said her name.

  “I did it,” she said. Dry lips cracked and stung. She’d never been so thirsty.

  “What did you do, besides scare me half to fucking death?” His voice was tired and thin.

  “I found Blake.” She tried to sit up, but slumped against the pillows again, weak as a newborn kitten. Movement woke the pain in her left hand, sharp and hot and sickening. She twitched her fingers and gasped as torn skin stretched. Rosettes of blood spotted the bandage.

  Alex switched on a lamp and she winced at the sight of his face. His eyes were shadowed and sunken, naked without his glasses. His hair hung lank against pale, splotchy cheeks. She could see the effort each breath cost him.

  “You’re sick.”

  He waved it aside with an angry gesture. “That doesn’t matter. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you talk to me before...”

  Liz propped herself up again, with better success this time. “Because you would have tried to stop me, and I couldn’t explain it to you.”

  “You could have tried.”

  Her lips thinned.
“Would you have tried to believe me?”

  He frowned and rubbed his temples. “Tried, yes. Succeeded... I don’t know. I’m sorry, sorry for the things I said before.”

  She reached out, slow and careful with her wounded hand, and brushed her fingertips against his. “I’m sorry too. But... Can you help me out of bed? I really need to use the bathroom.”

  THE BLACK CAR carried Blake away from the sirens and chaos, purring through the wet streets. Blake slumped against the soft leather seat and watched the city lights bleed through the haze. Seker studied him silently; the driver—a pale man in tinted glasses—didn’t speak either. He wasn’t sure where he expected the car to take them. Eventually he realized it wasn’t going anywhere, only circling through the city. Waiting for him? He knew he should be alert, ready to run, but his head sagged against the cushions. Turning to look at his rescuer took all the strength he had.

  Streetlights swept rhythmically across tinted windows, revealing his face in flashes. Strong cheekbones, deep-set eyes, a wide, amused mouth. A face Blake would have itched to paint a month ago; now the thought left him cold and unsettled. The white robes he’d glimpsed in the palace were gone, replaced by a tailored dark suit.

  “Is your name really Seker?” It wasn’t what he’d meant to say. The words scraped out of his aching throat, slurred as if he was drunk. The thought of drinking reminded him how painfully thirsty he was.

  “It sounds silly here in the real world, doesn’t it?” His voice was as deep and rich as Blake remembered. He said real as though it were a private joke. One hand slipped into his inside pocket, slowly enough that Blake didn’t flinch. He took the offered card and tilted it toward the light. Shadows lined the embossed letters. Sebastian Sands, it read, beside a stylized scarab. On the back, in smaller type, was a phone number.

  Sands reached down into the darkness and Blake tensed, but when the man straightened he held a bottle of water, its plastic seal still intact. Anything else he could have refused, but his tongue curled at the sight. Condensation slicked his hand as he accepted it; he didn’t notice the chill. He shuddered as the first swallow soothed his throat and lined his hollow stomach with cold.

  “Thank you.” Plastic dented under his fingers as he lowered the half empty bottle. “For helping us.”

  Seker—Sands—dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Your friend did most of the work. My assistance was minimal.”

  “Liz. Is she—”

  “She’ll be fine. She has people to take care of her. You, however, look terrible.”

  Even in the dark car that much was obvious. His hands were pale and gaunt around the water bottle. Shadows pooled between bone and tendon. A crust of blood stained his left wrist where he’d ripped the IV out, and a fresh bruise purpled beneath it; his groin still ached as if he’d been racked. His palms and knees were dark with grime, jeans clinging damp to his legs. The water couldn’t entirely rinse away the lingering taste of bile. Over the aroma of leather and citrus cologne that filled the car, he could smell himself—greasy hair and skin, piss and sickness. Humiliating, but he was too tired and raw to feel the sting.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Sands asked.

  Blake swallowed. A drink of water. A cup of coffee. A hot meal. Then the snare of debt would close around him.

  “Why?” he asked before Sands could go on. “Why did you help us? Why are you helping me now? What do you want?”

  “I wanted you out of Carcosa. Now I want to keep you alive. Which would be easier to manage if you’d eat something, but we’ll skip that for now.”

  Every mention of food reminded him how hollow he felt. How long had machines pumped paste and fluids into him to keep him alive? Plastic creaked as his hands tightened.

  “That’s all? Simple altruism? Just like Rainer?”

  Sands sighed. “Morgenstern is a fool, little better than a dilettante. Though in fairness, he never meant to hurt you. He merely courted you with gifts he didn’t understand.” He tilted his head, one eye flashing as light slid across his face. “As for my altruism, I wouldn’t call it simple. More a long-term investment. Some day I’ll ask for your help. But for now I want you safe, and away from Carcosa and its king. Can you accept that?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Sands’ mouth quirked, a hint of a smile in the shadows. “You always have a choice. You can refuse to help me, when I ask. Though I hope that you’ll at least consider it. Tonight, however, all I want is to be sure you don’t end up dead in a gutter.”

  Blake turned back to the window, leaning his forehead against the glass. The chill soothed the band of pain that circled his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut as they turned onto Lions Gate Bridge; water was the last thing he wanted to see.

  Blake dragged a hand across his eyes, pretending it was fatigue instead of tears he fought. “What happened to us at the cabin?” he croaked, swallowing the taste of salt. “Where did the monsters come from?”

  “From the dark places between dreams,” Sands said after a moment. “They’re hunters.”

  “Hunting who?”

  “They came to stop Morgenstern’s invocation. But now—” He reached out and took Blake’s hand, turning it over to expose the veins in his wrist. Blue now, but Blake felt the shadow inside him, waiting. “You’re marked now. You escaped Carcosa, but you carry a piece of it within you. The King will be drawn to it. His enemies will be drawn to exterminate it.”

  “To exterminate me.”

  “Only if they find you.” Sands smiled. He let go of Blake’s wrist, but the warmth of his touch lingered. “I can keep you safe. We can leave the city. Tonight, if you like. Anywhere you want to go.”

  Blake fought a shudder. It would be so nice to say yes. To let someone else take care of him. To trust. But he should have learned that lesson eighteen years ago; he wasn’t about to forget it again now.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done, but I can’t do that. Not now. There are things I need to do, people I need to talk to. Alone,” he added, before Sands could offer.

  He waited for anger, refusal, violence. But after a frowning silence, the man nodded. “If that’s what you wish. You have my card. If you ever need my assistance—”

  Blake nodded. “I’ll call. You can let me out here. Please.”

  The car slowed, sliding neatly up to the curb.

  “You’ll need these,” Sands said. He reached inside his coat again, this time retrieving a lumpy envelope. Metal clinked as Blake took it, spilled cold into his palm. Leather slid after. His keys and passport and wallet—warped now and water stained.

  “And while we’re at it, you might as well take this too.” Sands shrugged out of his coat and held it out.

  Blake hesitated, his hand on the door handle. He could feel the cold waiting for him. “I’ll be fine.”

  Sands raised an eyebrow. “You’ve survived terrible things. That doesn’t mean you can’t get hypothermia. It’s a coat, not an obligation.”

  “I—” His fingers closed on heavy wool. The smell of incense and oranges clung to the fabric. “Thank you.”

  “Be careful.”

  The door closed on his warning and the car pulled away, leaving Blake shivering on the sidewalk.

  LIZ’S SENSE OF accomplishment lasted almost an hour, long enough to wash her hair awkwardly with one hand and for the bath water to cool. Alex sat with her, explaining as best he could what had happened since she took the mania. He wouldn’t admit it, but she suspected he was also making sure she didn’t pass out in the bathtub.

  But when they came out of the bathroom, tension floated through the front of the house like strands of a spiderweb. Lailah sat at the tiny kitchen table, her gun stripped to metal bones. Rae—who Liz had met briefly only a few days ago, though it felt much longer now—perched on the arm of the couch, her arms wrapped tight around her.

  Rae looked up as they walked in. Her hair trailed like a black veil across her face and beneath it her eyes were dark and s
unken. A chill settled in the empty pit of Liz’s stomach as she met the other girl’s gaze.

  “It isn’t over,” she whispered. Rae shook her head, sending her hair flying. “You thought it would be? If you and Blake woke up, it would be a miracle cure? Nothing’s changed. No,” she corrected herself with another shake of her head. “It’s still changed. It’s still changing. The monsters are still out there, waiting.”

  Before anyone could speak, Lailah’s phone buzzed. Liz flinched at the sharp rattle, and Lailah’s frown stretched into a snarl. She turned away to hold a short conversation punctuated by curses.

  “Lions Gate lost power an hour ago,” she said when she ended the call. “Even the backup generators. No one knows what happened, but people are dead. That was just about the time you woke up.”

  The towel slipped off Liz’s hair, snaking down her shoulder to pool on the floor. “Blake?”

  “Missing.” Lailah turned back to her gun, reassembling the pieces into their killing shape. “I don’t give a damn about your friend, but whatever’s happening in the city, happening to Rae, he’s in the middle of it. We have to find him.” She punctuated the last word by slapping the clip into her pistol, and all the dread Liz thought she’d left behind in Carcosa surged fresh.

  Rae stared down at her hands as if she didn’t recognize them. “The door is opening.”

  “Oh.” Liz’s face drained cold with realization. “The door. The door to Carcosa. Blake painted it. It’s on display in the gallery.”

  Lailah holstered the gun at the small of her back. Her smile was harsh and sharp. “Get dressed.”

  RAINER DRIFTED BELOW the pain, as he had drifted for days. It waited for him, red and ugly, and it was simpler to hold his breath and sink.

  When he did surface, Antja was with him, changing his bandages, feeding him tea and broth, humming charms to speed mending flesh. Sometimes she wept. He reached for her then, though movement twisted a hot knife in his shoulder, but she always pulled away.

  He never should have involved her in this—the Brotherhood, the gallery, the intrigues of the world beneath the world—should never have wooed her with tricks and magic lessons. Once, burning with fever, he tried to tell her all of that. Delirium rode him, and he wasn’t sure if the words made any sense, or even what language he spoke. She only kissed him, and her lips tasted of magic. The spell settled over him, warm and soft, and he drifted into the dark once more.