by JM Guillen
How many sleazy couples would use this place as a pay-by-the-hour getaway? The hallway could in no way be in the same building where I had slept. The ghastly figure that chased me had transformed the world around him into a gruesome shadow of itself.
I had expected as much.
Every time I dealt with Lorne, I’d been drawn into a nightmarish reflection of wherever I had just been. Reflection or no, this in-between place held as much stark reality as my everyday world, only painted with the hues of darkling insanity.
Typically, Mister Lorne’s servitors and I had our little chats within these sideways worlds. More than once, he had told me that if I failed to hold up my end of our bargain that he would send “his acquaintance” to make things right. And, in truth, I hadn’t held up my end of his twisted little fact. Not that he had dealt me straight either. In fact, one could say that he’d screwed me first.
I just hadn’t expected a reckoning would come so quickly.
Needless to say, no secretive couples looking for a quick bit of afternoon delight hid behind these doors. Instead, loathsome, reptilian half-men would wait there or perhaps abhorrent children with only bloody sockets where their eyes should be.
“So, I can hear that you are still with me.” I didn’t even bother to glance over my shoulder. From behind, I heard wet breathing, along with incessant meaningless whispers. “Any chance you’d like to chat?”
It never truly spoke; I didn’t even know if it could say anything comprehensible. The loping creature whispered wetly instead, only occasionally rasping out words that made any semblance of sense.
“Come through.” A gurgling breath. “It’s too dark.”
“What the fuck?” I asked and pushed myself a bit harder. What the hell did that mean?
The creature grunted, noncommittally.
“I’ve been hoping you might carry a message for me.” I glanced back to see how close it followed. “To a certain Mister Lorne.”
The hallway ended in fifteen feet or so, with another of those wooden doors. The emergency exit had stood there in the motel, but this unlabeled door looked just as the other doors did, half-rotten and plain.
If I could just get outside, I might make it far enough to break my way out of looking-glass land. I’d done it before, it seemed as if it wouldn’t be far to my bike.
And my knives.
Then we’d see how things went.
Almost free…
Pain exploded in my scalp as fingers closed in my hair.
I cried out, my head jerked back, and I fell to the ground.
“Forlorn.” The desk clerk’s thin lips scarcely parted as it whispered bizarre words. Its fingers were vice-like as it began to walk back the way we’d come, dragging me along the slick tile by a thick fistful of my dark hair.
“Fuck!” I squirmed toward him, trying to get some slack in its grip. If I turned sideways, I could level a kick at the side of its left leg. I didn’t have any skill points in brawling, but perhaps—
The ghoulish freak turned as I tried to twist in its grip. Those silver eyes gleamed with inhuman glee as it balled up its other fist and slammed it into my face.
Something behind my nose crunched, and I cried out. Blinding brilliance burst in my vision.
I collapsed to the floor.
“Between the cries,” it whispered. “Nothing lay there.”
I brought my hand up to my face, where rivulets of crimson warmth ran from my nose. Broken? I couldn’t tell.
With a sudden jerk, it began to drag me again, pulling me back down the hallway. I cried out, as panic and adrenaline burned in my veins.
Where is it taking me? I half-knew. It would drag me through this little carnival of horror, but eventually we would end up in Lorne’s fucking shop.
Once there, I felt certain that I wouldn’t go anywhere else. Ever.
The cretin dragged me down the hallway, despite the fact that I kicked and writhed like a snake on speed. Raw animal terror flushed through me and I frantically tried to pull myself loose.
I spun sideways, trying to twist myself up, and landed on my right thigh. Something bulky in my pocket poked into the meat of my leg.
My pocketknife! I gasped at the realization. It wasn’t one of my throwing knives, but it would more than do.
Pushing with my legs, I threw myself in the same direction the cretin pulled, so the pressure would let up on my poor hair. At the same time, I dug into my pocket, and almost grinned when I gripped the knife there.
I unfolded the small blade easily. It didn’t need to be huge to do some damage—I just needed to roll a crit.
The knife had to be enough. If I drew on the Wind—on the things Simon had taught me, I could draw the wrong kind of attention to myself. That would stack problem upon problem and could be even more dangerous.
The last thing I wanted was to give away my position to the wrong sort of people.
“Ah!” I lurched forward and buried the sharpness into its calf. It wasn’t a nat twenty or anything, but that blade cut deep. The moment I felt the greasy blood on my hand, I jerked away, knife in hand.
But the asshole held fast.
“Stark and sharp.” Those misbegotten eyes gleamed down upon me, its whispers soft and senseless. If the creature felt pain, it didn’t show it.
I twisted again even as it yanked my head back, and attempted to stab at the creature’s face, but missed wildly.
It slammed me back to the floor, my breath knocked from me in a whoosh.
That’s a botch. I opened my eyes and gasped. Blood splattered, covering the filthy tile floor and the dirty skater shoes that the clerk wore before my personal horror movie came along.
Lorne’s body-stealing goon grunted before continuing to drag me along the hallway.
I wriggled, still trying to keep the pressure off my hair, but I could do little about it. The clerk’s thin form belied his strength, stronger by far than I would have guessed.
“They never come out.” Its nonsensical whispering rambled into the dimness of the room, aimed at no one in particular.
“Who?” My eyes widened in wild panic. Did it mean… other people that Mister Lorne had taken?
I shook my head. The thing rambled nonsense. It couldn’t be talking about him.
Except…
“Fuck that.” Perhaps the mutterings weren’t as random as I thought. Hadn’t I just considered that once Lorne had me, I’d be unlikely to squirm my way free?
What would happen if I were caught? Horrible things, my imagination insisted. I didn’t know what the creepy, gaunt man wanted with me, not really. I’d been desperate when I went to his depraved little shop; I’d thought that perhaps he’d actually be able to help.
Even now, in the middle of having my hair ripped out, some small gibbering part of my mind re-lived the moments I’d spent with him, as if trapped within some mobius moment of time.
“So you want your mother to live?” He scratched at his bony chin as he spoke, his fingernails long, brittle, and yellow.
“She has less than a month.” I didn’t meet his gaze, instead fighting to remain calm, centered.
The Wind thundered in my heart.
“The life of a loved one,” he mused, looking me up and down in a way I found oddly proprietorial. “Well now. I can do that for you, Miss Shepherd.”
“Liz,” I mumbled as I glanced around the weird little shop. Labyrinthine, tall stacks of weird collectibles teetered on every surface. Behind his counter, a wooden shelf nestled against the wall, filled with thousands of jars.
In more than one of them, things moved.
“If that’s what a young lady like you needs, then we can talk.”
“What do you want from me?” I kept trying to steal peeks around myself. How big was this place? It seemed huge.
“Little.” He gave me the widest smile I thought I’d ever seen, almost as if his smile pushed through pale, paper-thin skin. “Pray tell, how old is your dear mother?”
&nbs
p; “Forty- two.” I tried to hold his gaze, but found I couldn’t. His green eyes burned into me.
“That means she should have made it…” He reached beneath his counter, pulling a well-worn book from beneath it. As he flipped, dust poofed into the air.
“…approximately another twenty-five years, on the mean.”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “I mean, I dunno exactly but that seems right.”
“Twenty-five years.” His smile, impossibly, grew even wider. “I can give you that.” He put the book away, then pulled out an old fashioned watch on a chain attached to his vest pocket. He fiddled with the thing for a moment, smiling.
“What’s the catch?” I’d fiddled with the weird side of things for a few years. Nothing ever came easily, or free. I knew that much.
“One favor, for every year of her life.” He gave me a hard look through steel blue eyes. “Nonnegotiable. First favor due in forty-five days’ time.”
“How fairytale of you,” I snarked.
“I find this arrangement quite reasonable.” He glanced down at the watch and then back at me. “Most of your time would be your own, of course.”
“And she’ll live? Twenty-five more years?”
“That’s my agreement. She lives, and in forty- five days you come to me.” He paused. “Once you complete your first task, your bondage to me will be complete.”
“After I know she doesn’t die.” I nodded.
“Once struck, my bargain holds.” Mister Lorne eyed me shrewdly. “Forty-five days, you come here, and keep yours.”
“Agreed.” I nodded and held out my hand. As he shook it, I found I could hold his black gaze.
The world trembled, just a bit.
“One more thing.” He reached beneath his counter and pulled out what looked like a pickle jar. The label and lettering looked like something from the great depression.
Yet, whatever lay inside wasn’t dill green. Instead, many small yellow and faded white things tumbled and clinked around.
“What’s that?” I leaned closer to the jar as he opened it with nigh-skeletal hands.
“Teeth.” He gave a wintery smile. “Specifically milk teeth.” He rummaged in the jar with one bony finger, and then pulled out one in particular.
“Baby teeth?” Revulsion rippled across my back. “What do you have those for?”
“I’ll show you.” Mister Lorne chuckled.
“Death is a mercy,” the former desk clerk muttered, as if continuing its rambling thought. My breath caught at the context, the implied horror.
Perhaps it was time to make use of Simon’s lessons after all. I had to get away.
Attempting to ignore the hair being ripped from my scalp, I closed my eyes and struggled to focus. Typically, I needed little more than a few deep breaths and concentration, but then, typically, I wasn’t being dragged down the hallway of a madhouse by my dark locks.
What if it doesn’t work? Panic burned in my mind. This place wasn’t exactly Connecticut anymore.
I breathed, calm.
Elation.
Echoes of singing wind thrummed through my body, to tease and tickle at my mind. It blew like cascading eternity, the never ending breath of the world.
It sang into infinity, far more than I could ever grasp. Regardless of the vastness of that power, when I drew upon it I always felt like I tried to drink the ocean through a straw.
Yet, that had always been enough.
Even as my poor head burned with agony, I couldn’t help the tiniest of smiles. I felt the Wind come to me, falling into my mind as certainly as a tool might to my hand.
“Now.” I clenched my teeth, while holding the wind in place.
I called to mind the Empyrean Seals Simon had taught me. I had spent hours and hours drilling on them, calling the intricate sigils to mind while running, while sparring, while exhausted. I knew them better than I knew my own breath, better than I understood the nature of my dreams.
I released the Wind.
The hallway exploded with a tempest of sharpened cold. Its power burst into the eldritch sigils in my mind, and they exploded into existence, into azure fire. I could feel the wind hover in front of me and coalesce into a shape through some alchemy I did not know.
The light from the Empyrean Seal of Oeriim unfurled around me, brilliant and scalding with furious wrath.
The brute banged into the solid, yet completely imperceptible wall.
“Ha!” Elation leapt through me, yet I held focus. Wind hated being in one shape; I knew from experience that the moment I relaxed, the barrier would fall away.
“Clever Jack has no fingers.” Those mirrored eyes squinted down at me, as if it understood what I had done. And, just as it had before, it slammed me back to the floor, and knocked the breath from me.
The sudden pain broke my concentration. The brilliant ring of mystical runes pulsed once, brilliant cobalt and faded.
I felt the wall fall away, and was again treated to a vision of dirty skater shoes.
Those fucking shoes, I noted dazedly. I hated the style. Marketed for athletic types, but far too short for good ankle support—
That’s it. I blinked at the thought, and smiled.
Completely unaware I had plotted its undoing, the creature pulled me up again and peered at me for a moment before it smashed me to the ground again. Air exploded from my lungs.
“Fucker,” I wheezed, not glancing up at it. I needed to take my shot, now, before the thing knocked me unconscious.
“Little Sue has broken eyes,” the creature muttered, like that explained everything.
“Does she?” Wriggling sideways, I swung.
My strike buried the small blade in its ankle.
Liz hits! Elation burned through me. Roll for damage…
Before the cadaverous thing could move, I pulled back and sawed savagely at its Achilles tendon.
“You cannot drink the Master’s wine.” Just a hint of alarm gilded the goon’s words as it swiped down to strike me.
A wet POP gave voice to the visceral sensation of slicing the tendon. With an inhuman groan, the creature stumbled sideways.
I pulled with all my might and grunted when the knife tore free to spray blood across the floor.
“Asshole!” I grit my teeth, growled, and pushed myself at him with all the strength in my legs. I bowled into the creature, who couldn’t keep balance without its Achilles tendon.
We both went down, spilling and rolling over each other.
It might not feel pain, but physics apparently still applied.
The moment its grubby fingers released my hair, I pushed myself to one side. Forcibly relaxing, I reached for the echo of Wind that lay within my heart.
That eternal thunderstorm awaited me there, a tempest of beauty and furious wrath. The same instant the fierceness touched me, I called the Empyrean Seal of Oeriim again, the same one I had just used.
It blossomed around me, a whirling circle of blazing blue. Around me, the wind thundered into form.
Lorne’s creature lunged up, pushing off with its one good leg, only to clothesline itself on this new wall, a barrier it could not see.
Free! I rolled to my feet, and leveled the hardest kick I could muster at the creepy fuck’s face.
That was stupid. It swiped at me, trying for a grab.
I pulled the kick, realizing I had almost been caught again, and it missed. Gleefully, I leapt past the broken thing and ran.
It swiped again, this time catching my jeans cuff.
For a moment I stumbled, but jerked away at last.
“Tell Lorne the deal’s off! He did me wrong, and we’re through.” I almost spat at him, but decided that might be too much.
I probably would see the wretch later, after all.
I ran.
“You shall know.” The emaciated cretin lunged for me again, but I dodged well out of reach.
“I mean it. If I see that creep again, I’ll shoot him in the face,” I threatened, cognizant of the
fact that I’d never owned a gun.
“Memory is sharp,” the bastard grumbled.
“I’ll assume you’ll deliver my message.” I turned and broke into a lope.
Before me, the door that was once an emergency exit awaited. I took a breath, gained speed, and leaned into my run, rolling my right shoulder forward.
Strength check, I thought and grimaced just before I struck the door.
It shattered beneath me, every bit as weak as it had looked. Along with the splintering sound of wood, that ear-rending CRACK! came again, rumbling like gargantuan stones slamming in my mind. For less than a second, I felt as if I pushed against something, an invisible barrier that stretched as I hurled myself through the doorway.
Then—
I burst outside into unyielding sun and wind that smelled like late summer.
With every bit of grace and dexterity I had gleaned from freerunning and Ms. Lexel’s gymnastics class, I tumbled like a drunken sheep onto the unyielding concrete of the parking lot. The brilliant light of midday blinded me as I rolled sideways and crabwalked backward, away from the emergency exit door.
Frantically, I peered into the darkened maw of the hallway. The silver-eyed creature still limped toward me, and dire madness seeped from its eyes. Its lips moved, pronouncing some horrible, nonsensical judgement that I could not hear.
“No,” I whispered. It wasn’t exactly an evocation, more a plea wrought with terror.
As if suddenly brought by a storm, the wind burst around me, cold as winter. It caught the careening door, which swung heavily closed.
The metal door clicked loudly as it latched.
Silence.
“Move it, Liz,” I breathed, my eyes wide. I stared at the door, expecting the inhuman creature to burst through any second. My nose still bled; my freshly skinned hand bled a bit more. Yet for a long moment, I couldn’t move, held fast by the thought that my pursuer would burst through that door.
A bird chirped, somewhere behind me. The motel still looked skeezy, but aside from the insanity within, I sat in a brilliant autumn day in New Canaan.