Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Part 17

A muscle worked in Stephen's jaw. "No."

"Then get the h.e.l.l out." Rainer's voice was too deep, shivering at the edges; the sound made Alex's teeth ache.

Stephen straightened his jacket in a poor attempt at nonchalance. Then he turned and retreated down the stairs with the measured steps of a man trying not to run.

Rainer turned toward Alex and Liz, and they both flinched. The shadow under his skin rolled back like a wave, leaving his usual face pale and drawn. "I'm sorry you had to see that," he said.

The crowd drew one more collective breath and slowly returned to life. Guests blinked at one another in confusion. A gust of wind shook the windows and someone squealed, followed by a nervous giggle. One by one conversations picked up where they'd been abandoned as if nothing had happened.

Rainer took Antja's arm, and Liz tugged Alex away. Hand in hand they fled down the stairs and into the icy night.

14.

Hooks

LATE THAT NIGHT, well into the next morning, Antja sat in the candle-pierced darkness of the loft. Rainer slept at last, snoring softly while rain battered the walls.

She hugged her arms around her knees, as if she could hold herself together so easily. The seams were unraveling, threads slipping through her fingers. The gallery, their lives in Vancouver, the fragile veneer of normalcy she'd built for herself-soon it would all be gone. She'd nearly cut the last thread herself tonight, nearly lost control in a way she couldn't afford. Anger and careless magic were a deadly combination, no matter how intoxicating they might be in the moment. She'd been nothing but reckless tonight, first with Alex and then with Stephen. She couldn't let it happen again.

They could run, she and Rainer. The idea was all too tempting- pack a bag and vanish in the night, as they had from Berlin. This time they wouldn't have the Brotherhood's thugs on their trail. Run and start over someplace new. Someplace warm.

But where would that leave Blake, or Alex, or Liz, or anyone who'd been caught up in her and Rainer's troubles. Alain's death, and all the others, would mean nothing.

And anyway, Rainer wouldn't leave Blake.

They consume us like moths, Alain had said, without even meaning it. Had it really been him, or simply her guilt and unspoken fears wearing his face?

He needs me, she'd said to Alex, but was that true? She couldn't tell love from cowardice anymore. Another thought circled, implacable as any shark: she could ask for help. She could bargain.

She would never forget that night, had relieved it in dreams more often than she could count. The sight of the Brotherhood's agent standing under the window of their rented room. The cold rush of panic when she realized their luck had run out. But trained killer or not, the man was still distracted by a smile and a song, by the swirl of her skirt around her knees. Easy enough to join him in the shadowed alley, to lean in close enough to kiss. Close enough to use the wicked little knife in her pocket. But even as she stood over his crumpled body, watching his blood run black into the gutter, she knew she and Rainer wouldn't make it off the continent. With that fear in her gut and the memory of blood sticky on her hands, it had been easy to find the incantations in Rainer's stolen books, to speak them to the dark and make the devil's bargain.

The candle on the table guttered, rippling shadows across the walls. Rainer stirred with a sigh and rustle of sheets, then stilled once more. Antja closed her eyes, burning with sleeplessness and misery, and lowered her head to her knees. "What am I going to do?"

"Yes. What are you going to do?"

Her chair sc.r.a.ped the floor as she started. The dark man stepped out of the shadows behind her, the candle flame washing his black eyes to liquid gold. Rainer slept on.

"What are you doing here?" Her bare feet slipped to the floor and her fingers tightened on the arms of the chair.

"You're distressed. You needn't torment yourself this way." He laid a warm hand on her shoulder and she jerked away, twisting out of the chair.

"Not when you're here to torment me instead."

He chuckled. "That wasn't my intention. Not entirely. I might ease your suffering, if you'd let me."

"With what? More death? Your gifts are poison."

He tilted his head, and the light kissed the curves of his cheek and brow. "You bargained for your safety, and his." One mahogany hand gestured toward Rainer. "And you're both safe. I can keep you free from harm, but not from pain and doubt and fear. Well, I could," he amended. "But I think you're too attached to your humanity for that."

She shuddered and dragged a hand over her face. "What do you want from me?"

"Only your occasional service, as per the terms of our agreement. Some help me willingly, you know. Have you ever considered that?"

She had, if only in the dark watches of the night when she couldn't lie to herself, but she would die before she admitted it to him. "Some people are fools."

His lips pursed. "So very many. All right, Antja Michaela. I can release you, if that's what you wish, but not for free. What do I gain if I strike your name from my book?"

She turned away, hugging herself. Still Rainer slept.

"Would you give me another name to replace yours?"

That drew her around again. "Another name?"

"A trade. But who?" He flicked dismissive fingers at Rainer. "He's already spoken for. Another of his flock, perhaps?"

Don't even think of it. But it was too late. "You would trade a name for a name? No tricks, no lies?"

He shrugged and straightened the flawless line of one sleeve. "If it were a fair trade. Someone talented, someone interesting. Someone who means something to you." He c.o.c.ked his head. "Why? Do you have someone in mind?"

"I can't," she whispered. "I won't."

"Ah. Well, if you think of something else, do let me know." He closed the s.p.a.ce between them and cupped her chin gently. "You look so tired, my dear. You should rest."

Then he was gone, leaving her shivering in the guttering candlelight.

THE STORM RAGED through the night like it meant to end the world, a deluge fit for Deucalion and Utnapishtim. Alex's mood was fey enough for eschatology, even in the comfortable darkness of the bedroom.

Liz lay soft and warm in his arms-except for her inexplicably icy feet, which were tucked against his shins-too still to be sleeping. He wished he could concentrate on the shape of her hip under his hand, the smell of rain clinging in her hair. He could install her image in the galleries of his memory palace, could remember the shades of her hair, the pattern of her freckles and the agatine flecks of her eyes. But the feel and scent of her, the rasp of her breath- could he hold onto those, or would they wither in time like flesh from bone?

But even this moment of sensation did nothing to hold the images at bay: Antja's shimmering glamour; Rainer's eyes gone black. A room full of people turned to dolls with a gesture. Alex wished he could cling to his horror so easily, but Antja was right. The more his shock faded, the more he wanted to understand what he'd seen. The same way he'd felt when he first watched a stage magician make a coin disappear, when he'd first seen an illuminated ma.n.u.script written in characters he couldn't read. But this was more than that-something had been taken from him, and he had to get it back.

"What are we going to do?" He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until Liz stirred.

"I don't know."

She rolled over, touching his chest lightly with her bandaged hand. Her fingertips traced the dips and hollows of his ribs and sternum as if she meant to memorize them, and he shivered. He still responded to her touch, for all he'd tried to train himself not to. On rare occasions she invited-permitted, a scathing voice corrected, endured-physical intimacy, but now was hardly a time for it. Not with Antja's false face waiting behind his eyes.

"Thank you," Liz said after a moment. If she noticed his shudder, she had the grace to ignore it. "For coming with me. It helps."

"This is too much for us," he said, as gently as he could. "We can't help Blake this way."

She stiffened, and he thought she would pull away. Instead she sighed, warm across his throat and went limp again. "I know."

He'd come to dread those words, so gentle and agreeable and utterly intractable. He wanted to hold her closer, but her wounded hand lay between them and clinging would only drive her further away. He slid his palm over the soft flesh of her upper arm, tracing the familiar constellation of moles there. "Liz-"

"Shh." She touched the corner of his mouth, soft as a kiss. "It's all right. We'll think of something. In the morning."

He prayed that she was right. He didn't know what else to do.

THE SEA SPIT him out but Blake still drifted. Hands buoyed him, clutching too tight. Voices surrounded him, wild and cacophonous, every chant and shriek a spike of pain through his skull. He tried to open his eyes, but hot crimson light slivered between his lids and he screwed them shut again. The revelers bore him on, relentless as any tide, and he sank once more.

He resurfaced blind and bound, strapped tight to a cold, hard surface. More hands touched him, but these were cool and clinical, except for an occasional taunting caress. He tried to fight, to struggle, to move at all, but straps and clamps held him fast, and his limbs were heavy and weak.

After the hands came the blades. Skin split under cold steel, peeled away layer by layer to bare flesh and sinew. No pain, but he felt every centimeter of the incision as they husked him like fruit. He couldn't scream: metal and leather filled his mouth, trapped his tongue and any sound he could make.

"Show us where it hurts," a woman said, soft and mocking. The scalpel stopped below his navel, tracing ticklish, feather-light patterns but not breaking the skin. "It will never heal if you don't share."

Tears leaked hot down his cheeks and mucus clogged his nose. He was glad he couldn't whimper.

Different hands wiped away the tears and stroked his hair. "You have to show us what hurts you, if you want to be free of it." This voice was gentle, veined with distant pity.

Fingers sifted through his intestines, lifting wet coils and letting them fall. The reek of blood and waste filled the air, and something worse, something black and stale and rotting. It's just meat, he told himself, an all-too-familiar refrain. They can't hurt me. It's just meat.

"So much misery," the first woman marveled. He hated her already. Her hands moved higher, caressing his lungs, stroking the quivering muscle of his heart. "How do you fit it all inside?"

Ignore it. They can't hurt me. Fists and stones could break his bones, bruise flesh and tear skin, but that would heal. He could retreat from pain, hide behind the walls in his head.

A different voice called to him, a whisper from the darkness. A pale spark of presence that smelled of vanilla shampoo.

Liz?

No, he couldn't trust it. He curled tighter within himself, trying to block the sound.

Blake! The fear in her voice seared him like lightning, but he didn't dare reach out.

"You're not listening." A hand slapped his face, light and teasing. The touch lingered, then cool flesh was replaced with cold metal. She held it against his cheek, letting him feel the shape of it. A hook, long and thin and sharply curved. "You have to show us, Blake."

The hook slid into his nostril, a cold pressure against his sinuses. Only fragile whorls of bone lay between his brain and the steel. He choked on tears and the stench of his own fear.

The spark brightened. Blake, it's me. I'm here.

"If you won't share, we'll pull it out." One hand adjusted its grip on the hook while the other stroked his jaw.

Justmeat.i.tsjustmeat.i.tsjustmeat- The hook shattered his skull, shattered his walls, and dragged the first scream out of him.

AFTER THE NIGHTMARE, Liz curled limp and shaking against the slick fibergla.s.s curve of the tub. Her stomach ached from vomiting herself empty; her jaw ached from m.u.f.fling her sobs. Scalding water stung her skin, but her hands were still cold and tingling. No matter how she scrubbed, she couldn't rid herself of the memory of hands and metal and mocking laughter.

She tried to talk herself through the panic, but none of her rote rea.s.surances could help her now. Blake was trapped, trapped and suffering, and she was too weak to stop the dream from forcing her out, helpless and useless. She couldn't even stay with him through the pain.

Her hiccupping sobs slowed and died and tears and snot sluiced away. Her bandage unraveled in the spray and rusty pus oozed from the bite; the sight made her tender stomach churn all over again. She didn't know how long she sat there; her fingers and toes were wrinkled, but the water was still hot. Her own water heater would never have tolerated hysterics for so long. Finally she shut off the tap and stood, trembling until she thought she would shatter. Tendrils of steam snaked through the door when she opened it. Beads of condensation peeled down the mirror, baring her reflection in stripes.

Rain hissed down outside and Alex still slept. Liz watched him from the bathroom doorway, sticky and shivering. All she wanted was to crawl under the covers with him and sleep for a hundred years, sleep and never dream. But she couldn't- wouldn't-leave Blake in that nightmare city, and he was running out of time.

Her T-shirt and underwear clung to her skin as she pulled them on, and her hair dripped down her shoulders. Four in the morning, the clock said-hours yet till dawn. If she meant to act, she had to do it before Alex woke up.

She left a trail of damp footprints as she crossed the room. Alex slept deeply, a pillow cradled to his chest. The blanket pooled around his hips, baring the long line of his back and the aliform curve of his shoulder blades.

Would he forgive her if she killed herself in some foolish experiment? Would he forgive her if she didn't? She had no choice that didn't hurt.

She had no choice at all.

She leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against his shoulder. "I'm sorry." His skin roughened at her touch, but he didn't stir.

Her coat lay where she'd tossed it over the back of the couch, still damp from the storm. The vial was intact in the pocket. The liquid inside was clear as water in the dim lamplight, with only a faint golden shimmer to betray it.

Morpheus. The king of dreams. Would it open the ivory gate or the horn?

Liz nearly laughed-she didn't even know how to take the stuff. The women in the gallery had dripped it into their eyes; the thought made her flesh crawl. Her knees buckled and she sank onto the couch.

She could call Rainer. But all she could think of was his black eyes, a room full of people with their will stolen. And he'd already said he couldn't do this. She was on her own.

Her fingers trembled as she unscrewed the cap. She expected bitter chemicals, but a smell like raw honey floated through the air. Fluid glistened on the dropper, shivered but didn't fall. Please, she prayed to whoever might listen, and tilted her head back.

The drops stung like ice. She flinched, catching a breath between her teeth. Moisture clung to her lashes and bled down her cheeks when she blinked. She raised the second half of the vial to her lips.

Drink me.

It was bitter as tears after all, bitter as hearts. She swallowed it down.

15.

Down the Rabbit Hole

ALEX WOKE TO cold sheets and the sound of rain, to dreams clinging thick as cobwebs behind his eyes. Dreams of being young and lost, of searching frantically for a woman who wasn't his mother, a woman who wouldn't turn and show him her face.