Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Part 26

"What do you want?" he asked. Let Stephen think the fear in his voice was for the gun; he wished it were.

"I have a lot invested in Vancouver. I thought Rainer could help me, but I was wrong. He'll get himself killed with his crazy cultist bulls.h.i.t, and a lot of other people too. It's bad for business."

A thin stripe of light glowed under the door of the loft. Stephen's eyes narrowed and the smell of ozone drifted through the air; the hair on Blake's arms stood on end.

"Open it," Stephen told him.

Static sparked under his hand as he turned the k.n.o.b. Blake jerked, teeth closing on the inside of his cheek.

He started again when he saw Rainer. The man's sleek self possession was gone. His cheeks were pale and hollow, eyes sunken, hair matted. He leaned on the bar as though he couldn't stand without it. Bandages wrapped his left shoulder, and ugly mottled bruises crept past the edge of the gauze. His jaw slackened when he saw Blake. "Blake." Rainer's voice broke on his name, and Blake's chest tightened. He drew a breath, but Stephen spoke first.

"Good evening." The gun barrel pressed against Blake's shoulder, pushing him gently into the room. "I've brought you a present." Rainer's eyes narrowed to electric slivers. "What have you done to him?"

"Nothing yet, but that reminds me-"

Stephen's empty hand moved. Blake tensed for a blow, but instead the man grabbed his jaw and twisted his head around until their eyes met. "Don't move."

The words echoed through his skull. He tried to flinch, but his muscles were locked and rigid. A shivery taste like biting aluminum foil spread through his mouth.

"What are you doing here?" Rainer asked. He straightened, but one hand gripped the edge of the bar, white-knuckled. "I thought I should check up on you. And it looks like I was right." Stephen flicked a finger toward Rainer's shoulder. The gun didn't waver. "Your friends from the cabin? I still haven't figured out how they got in. Our philosophical differences aside, I know you can build a ward. And I'm sure you think it was me, but it wasn't. So which of your friends sold you out, do you think?" Stephen paused, glancing around the room. Blake followed the sweep of his gaze-his eyes, at least, he still controlled-to the pile of bags on the floor. "Leaving town? Pity, if you'd thought of that a week ago I would have let you go. But now I'd rather not take that chance."

The smell of ozone returned and the room blurred like a heat shimmer. The air between Rainer and Stephen crackled; the hair on Blake's nape stood on end. He looked past the suitcases, and noticed other details Stephen ignored: a woman's coat draped across the couch, and light glowing beneath the closed bathroom door. He fought against Stephen's compulsion, but the more he tried the more his muscles cramped and burned. The cold thing inside him could still move-he felt it coiling and uncoiling through him, testing the limits of its prison.

Stephen's head swung as if under a blow and he took a step back.

Blake, still struggling, fell to his knees, biting his cheek b.l.o.o.d.y as charley horses knotted both his legs. Under the roar of his pulse he heard a distant crack, then another-like a car backfiring, but he doubted it was that innocent. Stephen steadied himself and gave a shaky laugh.

"Is that it? I didn't even need a hostage."

On his hands and knees, Blake felt a warm draft, smelled steam and shampoo. Light moved across the floor, then vanished abruptly.

Stephen flinched again and a dark trickle oozed from one nostril.

His mouth pressed to a white line. Rainer took a step forward and Stephen fell back. Blake's breath caught.

Then Rainer's legs buckled and he slumped against the bar.

A bottle tottered and fell, spraying gla.s.s and the sharp scent of whiskey through the room.

"Nice try," Stephen said, his voice strained, "but give this up before you embarra.s.s everyone. Anyway, bullets trump magic."

He raised the gun.

The cold shadow spread through him, lending him strength, and in that instant Blake could move again. He lunged at Stephen, catching him hard at the knees. They both sprawled across the floor.

Thunder cracked, but the pressure that caught Blake in the face was an elbow, not a bullet. His head snapped back and blood filled his mouth, thick and sickly sweet. Dark spots swam across his eyes. He scrambled backward and fell, waiting for the next shot. But Stephen was empty handed.

"Looking for this?" Antja asked.

Stephen raised a hand, shock stripping away his slick veneer.

"Antja-"

Thunder roared again and his head burst in a warm red spray.

Blood and thicker things splattered Blake's face.

Antja stood over them, hair dripping down the shoulders of her bathrobe, hands white-knuckled on the gun. The barrel never wavered.

Blake stared at the wet red ruin that had been a man's face.

The smell of copper and raw meat filled his nose, followed by the pungent stink of urine; the taste slid down his throat as he swallowed.

"I don't think he's getting up," he finally said.

Antja blinked and lowered the gun to her side. "No." She looked down at Blake and her mouth twitched. "h.e.l.lo."

He laughed once and his whole body trembled. He scrubbed a hand across his face, wincing as gore smeared. His nose throbbed, and blood trickled sluggishly from both nostrils.

"Hi." Muscles screamed as he stood, his calves still twitching with cramp. Gooseb.u.mps rippled down his skin. At first he thought it was shock, until he felt the icy draft. Stephen's bullet had gone through a window.

Blake and Antja turned to Rainer, who had regained his feet. His face was paler than ever, and a crimson stain like a Rorschach blot seeped across his bandage. Antja dropped the gun on the table and ran to him before he fell again.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not badly. No worse than before, anyway. You?"

"I'm fine." She helped Rainer into a chair and stepped back, straightening her damp robe.

Blake started forward, stopped short. "What the h.e.l.l happened to me?"

"I'm sorry," Rainer whispered. "I never meant for you to be hurt.

For anyone-"

"Alain is dead." He fought a shudder; he hadn't put the words together since Liz spoke them in Carcosa. "So are a lot of other people."

No one spared a glance for Stephen's cooling body.

"What happened to me?" Blake asked again. "That thing-your King, your angel-he put something in me. It's still there." He moved closer and Antja fell back, her face tight and pale. Rainer stood, leaning hard on the chair. Blake smelled blood and sweat and the crackling ozone scent that he realized must be magic.

He met Rainer's snow-shadow eyes and the shadow in him stirred once more, this time in recognition. Rainer's eyes darkened, and Blake knew he felt it too.

He reached out and cupped Rainer's cheek. His fingers tingled at the touch, and gooseflesh rippled across Rainer's chest. Beneath the other man's skin, Blake felt the same darkness moving. But so much less. A noonday shadow compared to the bottom of a lightless well. Blake's stomach tightened and he nearly leaned into the touch.

Instead he pulled away, his pulse beating sharp in his throat.

Rainer's eyes were wide and nearly black.

Before either of them could speak, the floor beneath them shuddered and a howl tore the air.

NO ONE SPOKE as Lailah's smoke-colored car cut through the slick streets toward downtown. Liz sat in the backseat next to Rae, clutching her seatbelt at every too-sharp turn. Alex had given up complaining after the third stomach-lurching swerve. Now he hunched in the pa.s.senger seat, his hand white-knuckled on the overhead handle.

It wasn't until they reached the bridge that Rae reached across the seat and caught Liz's hand. The girl's eyes were wide and dark-too dark, as if her pupils had swallowed her irises and were spreading across her sclera. Liz tried not to shudder.

"What was it like?" Rae asked. Her voice was all but lost beneath the engine and hiss of the tires.

"Awful. In every sense of the word." During her bath she had found thin welts criss-crossing her arms and stomach. Echoes of the wounds she'd taken in Carcosa. "Terrible. But"-the admission caught in her throat-"it was beautiful too."

Rae made a choked little noise and turned away. She tugged the sleeves of her sweater over her hands, but not before Liz saw the darkness creeping under her skin. Lailah's eyes flickered in the rearview mirror; her hands tightened on the wheel.

The downtown streets were quiet, even for two days after Christmas. Did other people feel the unnatural tension in the air? Did they have the sense to avoid it?

Light glowed in the gallery's upstairs windows. Slush sprayed from the tires as Lailah swung through the alley and into the narrow parking lot. Liz had her hand on the door before the car finished braking. The night air sliced through her coat and sweater, but the chill she felt went deeper than that.

Two men stood by the back door, no one Liz recognized. One huddled unhappily against stair rail, arms folded across his chest. The other moved forward. His hands were open at his sides, but there was nothing friendly in the set of his shoulders.

"Who are you?" Lailah asked.

His lips moved but he didn't answer. The light shifted around him, the yellow sodium glare gathering in his hands. He raised a hand, a glow like a dying star cradled in his palm.

Lailah was faster. The gun spoke like thunder and the man fell. Blood trickled black across the snowy asphalt and his light flickered and died.

"f.u.c.king magicians," she muttered.

The second man shouted, his voice high and young. Hardly more than a teenager. Liz's stomach tightened, but she was too slow. Lailah fired again and he fell to his knees.

Rae shrieked, short and sharp, and bolted forward. "Jason?"

The young man looked up from the wet ruin of his chest and his eyes widened. "Rae?" A dark bubble burst on his lips, leaking down his chin. "What-" He sank back against the door, while tendrils of blood snaked across the stairs. Rae knelt beside him, brushing a shaking hand against his face. Her fingers came away red and wet.

Lailah's face was a cold mask in the jaundiced light. "We need to go."

Rae's eyes were lost in shadow. Her throat convulsed. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the dead boy.

Liz caught Alex's hand. He trembled with cold or rage or both, but let her pull him toward the door. She heard him swallow as they stepped around the spreading puddles of blood. The cold numbed Liz's nose, but not enough to mask the smell.

As they stepped over the boy's body slumped on the threshold, a shot echoed upstairs. Liz started, slipping in a smear of melted snow and thicker fluids. Alex caught her before she could fall. A few heartbeats later the sound repeated.

Lailah held her back again when Liz wanted to run. The other woman took the stairs cautiously, scanning the shadows all around them. They reached the second floor landing without any more shots.

But as they stood before the door into the gallery, Liz heard something else. Something worse. A high, ululating wail that stood her hair on end. The cry of the bacchante.

"The door," she whispered. "Blake's door. It's in there."

A crash reverberated through the stairwell and they all jumped, but it was only the upstairs door flying open. Lailah spun and aimed; Liz grabbed for her arm, but her fingers closed on air.

Blake froze at the top of the stairs, his face pale beneath smeared blood. Liz's breath rushed out at the sight of him.

"Christ," Alex breathed. Then, louder, "Put the f.u.c.king gun down."

Lailah's eyes narrowed, but she lowered the pistol. Rainer and Antja followed Blake onto the landing. Rainer was shirtless, b.l.o.o.d.y and bandaged, and Antja wore a coat pulled over a bathrobe and a bag slung over one shoulder. She slipped one hand into her pocket, and Liz caught the now-familiar shape of a gun.

Blake took the steps two at a time and pulled up short in front of Liz. Beneath the blood his face was even thinner than when she'd last seen him in the hospital. But his eyes were open. His grin crinkled the gore drying on his face. Her sinuses p.r.i.c.kled as Liz stepped into his arms and hugged him until he grunted. The pressure set her left hand burning again, but she ignored it.

Lailah shoved past them to glare at Rainer. "Open that door."

"I'm surprised you haven't shot it open already," Antja said dryly.

"I didn't bring a shotgun. Do it and hurry. Something bad is happening in there."

Antja's hand closed on Rainer's arm. "We need to get out of here."

"Not until you clean up your f.u.c.king mess," Lailah snapped.

Rainer's shoulders sagged. "She's right." He shrugged off Antja's hand, leaning hard on the railing. The door opened at his touch.

A draft exhaled from the gallery, warmer than the night and damp, smelling of blood and wine and sap. And beneath that, a bitter chemical reek that was all too familiar; the wind off the black sea. Light rippled across the walls, and the cries of the bacchante carried through the twisting corridors of the exhibit.

Liz's good hand clenched on the cold stair rail, her palm slippery with sweat. Panic seared the veins in her throat. But she had faced Carcosa once already, alone. She could do it again.

Lailah shoved Rainer through the door first and followed close behind. Antja hesitated, one hand trembling on the strap of her bag.

Alex's hand closed on Liz's sleeve, but he looked at Antja when he spoke. "This isn't your problem anymore."

"No," Blake answered. "It's mine. I made the door. I have to close it."

He stepped through the door. Liz followed, leaving Alex and Antja cursing softly behind her.

The outline of the gallery remained, but it was already changing around them. Vines snaked across the walls, dripped quivering from the light fixtures. The walls pulsed, and the floor shivered. What should have been firm tile beneath Liz's boots was softer, yielding. Where paintings had hung the walls now opened into windows, each one looking into a different nightmare view. Liz kept her eyes straight ahead. Rainer and Lailah had already vanished into the maze.

"I am never letting you plan a vacation again," Alex muttered as he fell in beside her. She pretended her watering eyes were the fault of the draft.

The air grew warmer and wetter the deeper they went, stinging Liz's throat with every breath. Alex began to cough. They balked when they reached the arches. What had been plaster now glistened slick as wet bone. Red tendrils writhed across their surface, meshing to form a pulsing web of tissue. The walls expanded and contracted with the rhythm of the draft, and fluid seeped across the floor. Behind them, the ivy had devoured the lights, leaving only the sulfurous glow ahead to guide them.

From the other end of the tunnel, someone shouted. A woman's laughter answered. Beside her, Liz felt Blake shudder.

"Keep going." Antja shouldered ahead. "It will only get worse."

Moisture squelched beneath Liz's feet as she followed; mephitic fumes seared her lungs. Alex gagged, but kept moving.

Antja's breath caught as they turned the last corner, an instant's warning. Then Liz looked up and saw the door.

It was still a painting, barely, but the canvas had stretched to fill the room. The great stone door stood all the way open now, framing a view of towers and black water, and the gathered horde of the bacchante.

RAE FELT STRONGER with every breath of the damp, acrid air. The smell of Jason's blood lingered in her nose; it had sickened her at first, but now saliva pooled on her tongue. Soon, the voices promised. Soon she would have all the blood she wanted.

She was a danger to everyone. Lailah had to know it, too. Was a bullet waiting for her at the end of the hall? The part of her that cared was growing weaker and quieter with every step into the labyrinth.