Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Page 12

  Antja stood, the blanket sliding off her shoulders. She hadn’t fastened all the buttons of her borrowed shirt, and it gaped over the soft curve of her stomach. “I should go.” Her voice was painful to hear.

  “Just like that?” Lailah said. “If anyone owes an explanation, it’s you. Don’t you want to tell them about your boyfriend’s business, and all the ways it’s coming round to bite you?”

  “Leave Rainer out of this.”

  Lailah pushed away from the wall with a laugh, her posture intent and predatory. “It’s a little late for that.”

  Alex was inclined to agree. But Antja had helped them, and without the reassurance of a gun. He rose, pulling his shoulders straight.

  “I think everyone’s day has been bad enough without an inquisition.”

  Antja reached for her coat, not quite hiding a flinch as she slipped it on. “I agree.” Her hand brushed Alex’s arm in passing. “Thank you. For the shirt.”

  Lailah scowled at the door as it swung shut. “You’ve picked dangerous company to keep,” she said when the latch clicked. “Keep going and you’ll become one of the messes I have to mop up.”

  “All we want to do is help our friend,” Liz said.

  Lailah’s frown softened as she studied them. Pity, Alex decided, was worse than threats. “Go home. That’s all you can do—go home while you still can.” And she followed Antja out the door.

  Alex shot the deadbolt behind her and fastened the chain. The locks offered little comfort.

  10

  Touch

  BY THE TIME the cab stopped in front of Antja’s building, the icy rain was a welcome relief from the blasting heater and the chatter she couldn’t reply to. Her throat burned inside and out, limbs stiffening with adrenaline aftermath—she wasn’t sure if she shook from nerves or anger or grief or all three. As soon as she was inside, she promised herself, safe in her own condo, then she could collapse. Scream and shake to her heart’s content.

  She pulled her filthy coat closer as she hurried down the sidewalk. The sky was the color of tarnished pewter and the rain promised to become sleet. It stung her face and dripped cold through her hair, warming by the time it trickled under her collar. She drew glances as she neared the lobby. She knew what she looked like: tangled hair and torn stockings; a swollen lip; a man’s shirt. At least the doorman would have something to gossip about.

  A tattered curtain of water poured off the awning; she gasped as she stepped through it, and regretted the breath as soon as her throat expanded. When she wiped her eyes, she saw a man leaning against the sheltered wall.

  “Excuse me, Miss—”

  Drowning out his question, a too-familiar voice filled her head.

  Don’t let him touch you .

  A perfectly ordinary man, dark-haired and well dressed, the sort she passed a dozen times on the street every day. Black-gloved hands left his pockets, reaching as if to catch her attention. Not leather, those gloves—rubber. Rubber shimmering with moisture. The smell of honey wafted through the air.

  Seconds passed between the warning and his touch, but she was too slow and befuddled to react. His hands closed on hers, wrapped around her wrist. Cool, but warmer than her own winterchilled flesh.

  “What—” She jerked away, but he held on. Warmth seeped through her skin, and a sharp, stinging taste filled her mouth, pungent as raw garlic. She shuddered and might have fallen, but the man caught her elbow and held her up.

  “Miss?” She read the word on his lips, but the sound drowned in her rushing pulse. “Are you all right?”

  I did warn you.

  Poison. Her knees buckled, but the man didn’t let go. His hand burned on her bare skin. Heat flooded her, surging in time with her heart. She recognized that liquid fire, like a summer sky in her veins. Mania. Morpheus.

  She hadn’t taken it in years, not since Berlin. Lovely languid warmth, clarity of senses, an intoxicating amplification of her own magic. But it wasn’t worth the visions and nightmares that came after. Something was wrong, though. This was too fast, too strong.

  Augmented. Not just the drug, but sorcery with it. The fire would scorch her from the inside out, turn her brain to cinders. And the assassin would hold her as she died, his dark eyes wide with concern.

  The world sharpened. Rain fell like steel shot against the pavement. Tires shrieked loud as baboons, and her pulse roared in her ears. Colors deepened, shone like sunlit cathedral glass. The wind whipped razors through her flesh, while inside she burned.

  The stained glass world shattered and fell away.

  Not the assassin before her now but Rainer, his hands in hers, her name on his lips. She wanted to cry, to fall into his arms and let him make everything all right again. But darkness stood behind him, his angel wrought of leather and bone, enfolding him in winding-shroud wings and the stench of tombs.

  :He is ours: said the angel, and its eyes were full of stars. :He has always been ours. You can never touch the oaths he has sworn us, or replace us in his heart. He is Chosen, and he can never choose you:

  As she watched, Rainer’s forget-me-not eyes ran black. Ink spread under his skin, filling every vein. In the darkness that was his eyes, pinpricks of light began to burn. Wings the color of decay unfurled from his shoulders. He was the angel and the angel was him, and they spoke with the same shuddering voice.

  :I’m sorry. Nothing you do can change this:

  His wings unfolded and carried him away, ripping his hands from hers and leaving her in darkness.

  But not alone. Alain stood beside her now, pale and translucent as milk and cobwebs. His eyes were black pits, all light extinguished, and when he spoke his gravelly voice was wet and drowned.

  “Everything you’ve done is for nothing. You can’t save him, any more than I could save Blake. I held on—I held on tight, but it was no use. They consume us like moths, without even meaning it. But it’s all right—stay with me. Wait with me, and we’ll watch it all burn.”

  But she was falling away from his outstretched hand, into a redlined darkness that went down forever.

  Antja Michaela!

  A snap, a wrench, and the world was back. She stood on the sidewalk, untouched by wind or rain, and watched herself slump in a stranger’s arms. Raindrops glittered in midair, frozen along with time.

  The dark man stood beside her, a frown carving his beautiful face. “I warned you. Now look what’s happened.”

  “You could have warned me earlier.” It didn’t hurt to speak here, outside of time and flesh. All her aches and bruises were far away, only dying echoes of pain.

  “I could have. I could have blinded him, let him stand in the rain long after you were safe inside and you never would have known.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve saved you and your beloved? Do you know how many of the Brotherhood’s assassins I led astray after you first called me? How many other random perils I’ve shielded you from?”

  Her mouth opened and closed silently. “You don’t,” he went on, his voice gentling, “because our arrangement was never about keeping score. It was about your safety, for as long as you wanted it, in exchange for a few eventual favors.”

  “I don’t like your favors,” she whispered, hugging herself though she felt no chill.

  “No one ever does, after the deal is struck. But you like your life, and your beloved’s life. I didn’t warn you earlier because I don’t want you to take me for granted. And I don’t want you to remain blind to problems that are within your power to solve.”

  “It doesn’t look like I’ll be solving this one.” She stared at herself—mouth open, eyes rolled back, spine arching as if about to fall. She looked awful. Her collar gaped to show the swelling, handshaped bruises around her throat, the scratches the maniac’s nails had carved. Her cheeks were pale and splotchy, the skin around her eyes fragile as tissue under smeared makeup. So much, she thought wryly, for leaving a good-looking corpse.

 
; “In a few seconds, the spell that’s soaked through your skin will reach your brain, and rupture. Not unlike an aneurysm. You’ll die quickly and in pain. When your corpse reaches the morgue—don’t worry, I think you’ll have a bruised, Ophelian sort of beauty about you—the doctors will discover a very high concentration of mania in your blood. And the police will want to know where it came from.”

  “And they’ll go to Rainer.” She swallowed. “All this to cause trouble for him?”

  He took her hand and squeezed it softly. “Forgive me, my dear, but this is hardly much effort as murders go. One death, quickly accomplished. I’m sure the spell was a tricky bit of work, but that’s practically its own reward to a good magician.”

  “Who—”

  She stopped even as the dark man tilted his head chidingly. “I think you can deduce that.”

  And she could. It was clever: not only might the police trace the mania back to Rainer, but any serious investigation into their finances would stir up even more trouble. And though the police couldn’t catch Rainer, his absence would mean that control of mania would fall into the hands of his sometime business partner.

  And a bit of revenge for a wasted glass of scotch thrown in for good measure.

  She let out a long breath. Outside of her dying body, she could appreciate it. Admiration would fade when the pain of her death set in, she was sure.

  “Oh no,” the man said. “You’re not going to die. That would be breaking our agreement, and I could never have that on my conscience. Look closely.”

  She followed his pointing hand. If she concentrated she could see the magic moving through her body—not the quiet sparkle of her own craft, but the shining gold of Stephen’s spell. It pumped through her blood with the mania, traveling to her heart and lungs before it reached her brain. It was already in her chest—it wouldn’t take long from there.

  She knew what she had to do. Easy now to step forward and plunge ephemeral fingers into her own flesh, and pluck out the spell.

  It shimmered in her hand like a golden pearl, filled her head with the scent of brandy and smoke and Stephen’s cologne. She tilted her palm and it fell to the rain-drenched sidewalk. It crunched like a pearl, too, as she brought her boot heel down.

  The devil’s smile warmed her through, and she hated herself for it. “That’s my girl.” He leaned down to kiss her brow. “Now take care of this poor dupe.”

  With that she was back in her wet, bruised flesh, crumpling slowly backward, the taste of garlic and chemicals in her mouth and mania surging through her veins. She caught herself, straightened in the would-be assassin’s grip. The smile that stretched her face felt terrible; he flinched from it.

  “Miss?” Still following the script, but now his motivation was gone. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The warmth of the drug eased the pain, flooded her with strength. Easy now to twist her arm free, to catch his wrists in turn and force them upward, toward his face. He realized what was happening, but couldn’t tear away from the hooks of fascination her voice sank in him. Gently as a caress, she pressed his own palms to his cheeks, held them till the ensorcelled mania and its absorbing agent sank into his blue-shaven skin.

  She leaned close enough to kiss. “Tell Stephen,” she whispered, her voice ringing with command, “that the next time he has a clever plan like this, he should come himself.”

  He stumbled back, eyes widening. Slipped and fell on the pavement. Other pedestrians paused in concern.

  “Sir?” Antja called from the shelter of the awning. “Are you all right?”

  The man gaped, stammering something incoherent. Another man tried to help him up, but he shrieked and scrambled away. Already lost in the nightmare.

  Antja watching him dash through honking traffic and vanish into the twilight gloom. Then she opened the door and stepped into the warmth and light.

  Her composure crumbled as soon as she locked her door, and all the hysteria she’d promised herself came rushing in. A terrible noise scraped out of her throat, neither laughter nor a sob. She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle it, wincing as her cracked lip stung.

  She had to call Rainer. Everything was spiraling out of control and she couldn’t handle it alone. As she tried to simultaneously strip off her coat and fumble her phone out of her purse, her shoulder clipped a picture frame hanging by the door. Glass sprayed across the floor.

  Pressure bloomed inside her sinuses and her eyes began to leak. Call Rainer, let him comfort her and promise to make everything all right: it would be a lie.

  Her throat burned with every sob, but she couldn’t hold them back. Burying her face in her hands, Antja sank to her knees amid broken glass and wept.

  AFTER THE FUNERAL, Rae rode back to the gallery with Rainer and Jason and the others. But when they disappeared into the warmth of the building, she stood on the steps, staring at the gloomy parking lot and the service alley behind it.

  “Are you coming up?” Rainer asked, lingering in the doorway. “In a minute,” she lied.

  His lips thinned, but he nodded. “Be careful.”

  She didn’t ask what he meant her to be careful of. There were too many possibilities. Instead she nodded, forcing a smile until the door swung shut between them.

  She couldn’t go inside, couldn’t go home. She’d held Jason’s hand through the service, but all she’d felt was numb. Her friends were his friends, and she knew she wasn’t going to call her sister. There was no one to call. Too much explaining and not enough answers.

  Her bones itched and the rhythm of the maenad’s dance still tugged at her. Maybe she should just walk and see where she ended up. The vial in her pocket would keep her warm.

  Which was, she thought wryly, as far from careful as she could get without a map and a native guide. But it was the only plan she had. And if she wandered in front of a bus or got eaten by a monster, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about breaking up with Jason.

  The ritual of mania soothed her: the stinging drops that turned to bitter tears leaking down her cheeks. Then came the warmth, driving away her fears and doubts, filling her with starsong strength. The gloom lessened as her eyes sharpened. Colors brightened and gleamed. Restless energy surged through her, and Rae pulled up the hood of her coat and began to walk.

  The rain had let up. Now it was a frigid haze, swirling like the breath of ghosts. Streetlight haloes bled through the fog, shimmered on the webs of ice that spidered across the sidewalks. The bacchanal chorus swelled inside her.

  Mist ebbed and eddied, turning familiar streets into a twisting dream maze. Dancing shapes flitted around her, whirling and spinning just out of sight. They whispered her name. Her vision wavered, and the towers rising around her weren’t brick and glass but ivory and jade, the soaring arches and minarets of a fairy city. Christmas lights became flickering will o’ the wisps.

  Rae laughed aloud and spun, skirts belling. Laughter answered from the shadows as she staggered to a dizzy halt. The rhythm of dancing feet echoed around her.

  She walked blind, full of visions of dancers and angels and bloody-mouthed maenads. The fog smelled of roses and incense and the warmth in her blood burned away the winter chill. She would have danced forever, followed the visions wherever they led.

  They led through Gastown, she realized when her eyes finally cleared, to a narrow alley near the docks. A clatter and boom rolled through the haze, echoing like hammers, like giant sour bells. Only container trains loading and unloading, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d left Vancouver far behind. She shivered; twilight had given way to true night and the cold was worse than ever.

  Light burned at the end of the alley, painting wet bricks orange and gold. She followed the promise of warmth into a dead end, where a fire crackled inside a rusted metal drum. A man crouched beside the barrel, muttering to himself. Hatless and gloveless in the cold, sweatshirt sleeves pushed past his elbows. The flickering light washed his shirt from blood to
black and back again.

  He looked up as Rae approached, his face a mask of shadow. His aura writhed with black and yellow flames. Paper piled in drifts around him: newsprint, receipts, crumpled napkins. Metal gleamed in his hand.

  “They sent you, didn’t they?” His voice was rough, wet and bubbling, like he gargled milk and broken glass for breakfast.

  She moved closer, into the fire’s warmth. “Who is they?”

  “The twins.”

  The knife flashed as he drew the blade along his forearm. Steady looping strokes, calligraphy in flesh. She sucked in a breath, waiting for the ruby spill, but he didn’t bleed. She smelled blood, though, clotted and sour.

  She crouched beside him, folding her arms across her knees as she studied the loops and whorls covering his arms. The same writing covered the scattered paper. “What is that?” The smell was worse here, cloying under the ash and hot rust from the fire. Rot-sweet. Honey-sweet. He was manic too.

  “I don’t know what it means,” he said, “but they keep showing it to me. I have to write it down so I’ll remember.” Gaunt and sunken-eyed, hair matted with pine needles—she wondered if he’d been sleeping in a park. In the unsteady light the veins in his wrists and neck were black.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked, touching his hand. A spark crawled between them.

  “I’m not sure. It’s so foggy.” He took her hand and turned it palm-up. Her veins looked dark, too, threads of licorice under almond-milk skin. “I remember the door opening. You saw it too, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. His hands were icy despite the fire. “I saw.”

  “After that... it gets confusing. I was with my friends. We were going to find the door. But something happened. Screaming and thunder...” He stood, pulling Rae to her feet with careless strength. Letting go of her hand, he tugged up his ragged shirt. “Something bad.”

  Dried blood covered his chest and stomach. More soaked the front of his jeans. She hissed at the neat black puncture below his sternum: so much blood for such a tiny little hole. His skin stretched as he moved and the rusty crust cracked in webs.