Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Read online

  No amount of shaking or pinching or calling her name could rouse her. Her pulse was steady but weak, her breath even, but she was insensible as... as a coma patient. As Blake.

  Maybe they could share a hospital room.

  “You idiot,” he whispered, and wasn’t sure who he meant. He should have known. He should have seen it coming. He stopped himself as he reached for the phone, clenched his fist and nearly punched a wall. She wouldn’t want him to call the hospital.

  If he’d listened to her earlier, if he’d shared the things he’d seen—

  That was a pointless line of thought. He could excoriate himself later.

  He wrapped her in a blanket and sat beside her, stroking her tangled hair. An hour passed with no change. If anything, Liz was paler than ever, the shadows around her eyes deeper. It wasn’t until Alex’s fingertips began to ache that he realized he was rubbing the medallion at his throat. He couldn’t sit here helpless—there had to be something he could do.

  He swallowed an unpleasant taste. There was something, an alternative to a hospital, loath as he was to use it. But what choice did he have?

  He left Liz inert on the sofa and went to retrieve Antja’s number.

  SHE ARRIVED HALF an hour later, damp from the unceasing rain. Alex blinked when he opened the door; her face was scrubbed clean, no cosmetics to hide her chewed lips or bruised eyes. No masks.

  “What— Oh.” Her eyes slid past him to Liz and she stepped inside. He bolted the door behind her.

  “How long has she been this way?” she asked, kneeling beside the couch.

  “I found her an hour and a half ago, but she might have been like this for hours before that.” Alex folded his arms, forcing himself to give her room when he wanted to hover.

  Antja ran careful fingers over Liz’s brow, her dark eyes unfocusing. She pulled her hand back with a frown, fists clenching against her thighs.

  “Can you do anything?” Alex asked.

  She shook her head, her ponytail arcing across her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  He pulled the vial from his pocket and tossed it to her. “She got this from Rainer, didn’t she?” The words were harsh and ugly; fear and fury were a jagged lump in his throat.

  Antja caught the glass tube and stared at it. Her already pale lips pinched white as eggshells, and a crease formed between her brows. “Yes.”

  He took a step toward her. “Blake and Alain weren’t enough for him? How many more people is he going to kill?”

  Antja’s chin lifted. “He’s done everything he can for Blake. And this was Liz’s decision.”

  The truth of that meant nothing to his rage. He closed the distance between them and grabbed her arm. The vial fell from her hand as he shook her. “I’m tried of tricks and excuses and lies. Bring her back!”

  Dark eyes widened; flesh dented under his fingers. His anger drained away, leaving nausea in its place. Antja let out a rush of breath that was nearly a laugh as he jerked away.

  His legs buckled and he collapsed into a chair. He’d laid hands on two people in the past few days, and no amount of anger or desperation could excuse that. He tried to apologize, but the words wouldn’t come. Antja settled lightly on the arm of the couch by Liz’s feet, studying him. If he’d frightened her, she gave no sign; he wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

  “What is this poison, anyway?” he finally managed. He chafed his hands on his thighs, trying to forget the feeling of yielding flesh.

  Antja stared past him as if the answers were written in the swirls of the wallpaper. “It was called Morpheus before it was mania,” she said at last, “and probably a dozen other names besides. It was created by a group called die Brüderschaft des gelben Zeichens.”

  Alex rolled the words around in his head. “The brotherhood of the yellow... symbol?”

  “Sign—I think that would be the better word. But yes. They’re... magicians. Sorcerers.” She arched her eyebrows as if daring him to scoff, but they’d come too far for that.

  “Like the Golden Dawn?”

  “Something like that. Or the Thule-Gesellschaft, before the Nazis. They like to act respectable, but they’re vicious bastards. Morpheus was designed to grant visions, to strengthen magic. Someone eventually found a more lucrative use for it.”

  “Were you part of this Brotherhood?” he asked.

  She laughed humorlessly. “They wouldn’t have much use for me. But Rainer’s family has a long history with them.”

  Alex drew a breath to say something caustic, but the words died as he glanced at Liz. Her nose was bleeding. A thick line of crimson ran down her upper lip, pooling in the corner of her mouth before dripping into her hair. Antja hissed in dismay as Alex scrambled for a tissue.

  “What the hell does Rainer want, anyway?” Liz didn’t even twitch as he wiped away the blood.

  “He wants Blake back.” Her voice was soft and miserable.

  “And he’s willing to kill Liz to do it?” But Antja was right: Liz was more than willing to kill herself.

  He rose, the crumpled tissue lying on Liz’s chest like a bloodspotted flower. “Please.” The word caught in his throat like fishhooks. “There must be something we can do. Anything. Whatever you want—” He broke off. He would beg if he had to, but what did he have to offer?

  Antja’s face drained to a pasty grey. “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes, damn it! Of course I do.”

  “What if—” But she closed her mouth tight against the question, and before he could press her she turned on her heel and fled to the bathroom.

  ANTJA LEANED AGAINST the locked bathroom door as if she could barricade herself from the thought that drove her there. A name for a name. This was her chance.

  Alex waited on the other side of the door—a clever young man, already drawn to the illusory ghostlight promises of magic, defenseless now in his desperation to help someone he loved. Desperate enough to take the devil’s bargain.

  She turned on the tap and splashed her burning cheeks, watching the water swirl around the drain. It would be easy. She sucked in a deep breath and waited for the nausea to pass. She would be free.

  “Is this your decision, then? One of them?”

  The smell of incense and ozone filled the little room and her stomach churned anew. Her hands tightened on the edge of the marbled counter.

  “The girl? The dreamer?” The devil’s hands closed on her upper arms, soothing the ache Alex’s fingers had left. “No, her young man.” His warmth soaked into her rigid spine, but when she looked up she saw only her own tired and damp reflection.

  Maybe Alex would make better bargains than she had. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for him.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. The words washed away with the swirling water.

  “It’s nothing dramatic.” He reached past her to shut off the water. “Look.” Gently, he turned her around and opened the door, leading her across the threshold and into the perfect stillness of frozen time.

  Rain hung like diamonds beyond the windows, the curtains belling softly in the heater’s draft. Alex knelt beside Liz, his hand raised to touch her face. His ditchwater hair was uncombed, clothes rumpled. Stubble glinted along the long line of his jaw. His eyes were shut in misery; the grey light was unkind to the shadows beneath them.

  “All you have to do is introduce us,” the dark man said. “He’s in pain. I can help him.”

  Do it, she told herself viciously. Alex was nothing to her, just a chance-met acquaintance. Never mind how much she sympathized. Never mind that she had meant it when she offered to teach him. Never mind that she’d wanted to kiss him. Without that spark of interest, it wasn’t a bargain the devil would take. And what was one more piece of guilt compared to her freedom?

  She could say the words, and spare him this pain. He might even thank her for it.

  “The decision is his,” the man said, “just as it was yours. All you would do is provide the opportunity.”

  She tried t
o summon the cold she’d felt when she reached for her knife all those years ago, the chill in her veins that stripped away doubt. But all she could remember was the hot rush of blood. Blood on her hands, blood in the gutter, blood on the floor of the cabin.

  Say it. Say it and end this.

  The devil was silent, tracing circles on her stiff shoulders with his thumbs. “You’d rather continue our relationship, then?” he said at last. “I don’t mind, of course, if that’s what you want.”

  “We don’t have a relationship.”

  “You’ll hurt my feelings with talk like that. Haven’t I always been there for you? Who else can you say the same of?”

  She’d found the cold after all. It spread from her stomach, chilling her limbs and finally coating her tongue. “You can take your feelings back to hell. I won’t help you any more.”

  The caressing hands stilled. “Do I understand you correctly? Do you no longer require my protection?”

  He was calm and gracious as ever, but the words rang with weight. Take it back, take it back, the frantic voice in her mind implored her, but she stood on the brink of a roaring chasm and there was no way to go but forward.

  “That’s right.” Her voice didn’t crack; she was proud of that.

  “As you wish, my dear. We’ll see how well you do on your own. If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

  She spun, but he was gone. Time resumed with the hiss of rain and the rumble of the heater. A warm draft blew across her face and she shuddered. She very nearly ran, but her legs were shaking too badly. Instead she turned, bracing herself to face Alex, and her consequences.

  ALEX GLANCED UP to see Antja standing behind the couch and nearly flinched—he hadn’t heard the door open again. But he was too tired for surprise. He wiped another drop of blood from Liz’s cheek, staring at the smear of rust-red across white skin. His head throbbed and his hands trembled.

  “If there’s nothing you can do, I have to call the hospital.” He could have made it a threat, but he was too tired for that, too. The crease deepened between Antja’s eyebrows. She hugged herself as if her own hands were all that kept her together.

  “I can call Rainer,” she said. “Maybe he can do something.” She didn’t sound very hopeful.

  Alex’s hand clenched around the bloody tissue. “Rainer is the last person I want to see right now.” Even as he said it, a worm of doubt stirred. Which would be worse—dealing with Rainer, or explaining to the paramedics and police that his girlfriend had overdosed on a strange drug because she was trying to rescue a friend from a nightmare?

  The room darkened and Antja started. Alex looked up, but saw nothing but grey sky and rain-streaked glass. He stood, stiff joints popping, and dragged a hand through his tangled hair. “There must be another option. Don’t you know any other sorcerers?” His lip curled on the word. His sneer died as Samantha’s face rose in his mind.

  No. No, anything but that.

  He paced an angry circuit in front of the balcony door, bare feet silent on the worn blue carpet. There had to be an answer; he refused to accept the alternative.

  The light dimmed again and Antja let out a choked sound. “We have to go.” Her voice was strained and clipped.

  He paused mid stride. “What? I’m not leaving—”

  The window rattled. He looked up to see a sleek black shape slide past the balcony. Adrenaline swept through him in a scalding rush, left his hands icy and shaking.

  “We have to go now!” Antja grabbed his wrist and tugged him toward the door.

  “I can’t leave Liz.” He jerked his hand free, but momentum pulled him in her wake. “I thought you said they were after Rainer.”

  “I don’t know anymore.” And, more softly, “Damn him.”

  The balcony door swung inward with a rush of wind and rain. The monster crouched on the threshold, silhouetted against the storm-silver sky. Shadow wings flared, blotting the light.

  “Run!” Antja flung the door open and Alex was hard on her heels, even as he cursed himself for a coward. She ran down the corridor and threw her weight against the emergency exit. Alarm will sound, the sign read; Door will open in thirty seconds. Sure enough, a shrill whine filled the air, reverberating through his skull.

  He had to go back, gather his scattered wits and do something. He had to protect Liz. But the monster didn’t seem interested in her. It stepped into the hall, head snaking back and forth on its sinewy neck. No eyes, no ears, no features at all to mar the slick black curve of its skull, but it turned unerringly toward them. Alex’s vision flickered—one instant it was a man, lean and tenebrous, a long coat flapping around his legs; the next it slunk on all fours, wings furled to fit the hallway. Sickle claws sank into the faded carpet, and it was too easy to imagine them meeting flesh.

  Someone called out in confusion and concern down the hall. The emergency door opened with a groan and spilled them onto a rain-slick fire escape. Antja staggered against the rusted railing, and Alex stumbled into her in turn. Raindrops spun toward the pavement below. Icy metal dented the soles of his feet and he remembered his shoes, abandoned along with Liz in the room. Their footsteps rang as they plunged down the iron steps.

  “How do we stop them?” he gasped as they reached the next landing. Six more to go.

  “Fire works.”

  Rain fogged his glasses and trickled down his collar—he nearly laughed. Five more flights. The clatter of their descent echoed between the narrow alley walls, a faint and distant sound over the roar of his pulse. Four.

  He felt the crack of wings an instant before the creature struck. Black talons whistled past his face and closed on Antja’s shoulder. Alex grabbed her arm and pulled her free, only to lose his balance and send them both tumbling down the stairs in a tangle of limbs and wet cloth.

  Grey sky and black iron and wet brick kaleidoscoped around him, until his head cracked against the railing and everything washed red. Antja landed on him, driving the last of the air from his lungs. Sobbing, she rose and hauled him down the rest of the steps.

  He fell again when they reached the alley floor, bruising his knees on rain-drenched concrete. His glasses slipped off his face, and the world washed grey and featureless. Pain was a hammer on the back of his skull, his lungs filled with molten lead. He slapped at his pockets, knowing it was futile—his inhaler, like his shoes, was still upstairs.

  “We can’t stop moving,” Antja said, tugging at him. Alex wasn’t sure he could start. A quick death by claws, or slow asphyxiation. Choices, choices. Only contrariness let him stumble to his feet.

  The alley mouth was blocked. The creature crouched like a gargoyle, its horned head trained on them. Oilslick haunches rippled as it started toward them. Even half-blind Alex could see the grace of its movements, its sinuous, Gigeresque lines.

  “It’s herding us,” he said, glancing at the cavernous mouth of the parking garage behind them. Black wings spanned the alley and they fell back. There was no way to go but down.

  Wind funneled down the slope of the driveway, slicing through wet cloth and flesh. Sodium lamps cast yellow pools on the slick floor, but shadows filled the corners. The monsters—two of them now—slunk down the ramp, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four, silent save for the scrape of claws on concrete.

  Antja raised a hand and light crackled incandescent around her fingers, shuddering across windows and windshields and glazing the oily puddles at their feet. The glow cast her shadow and Alex’s huge and grotesque against the walls; the creatures cast none. They balked at the sudden brilliance, whip-sharp tails lashing, but didn’t stop.

  The light showed the lines of strain carved on Antja’s face. “How long can you keep that up?” Alex asked. His voice was a thin wheeze, his chest cramping with want of air. Drowning on dry land.

  “Not very.” Her voice was soft and grim; the light wavered. Broken glass glittered on the ground; his feet were bleeding, the pain a distant warmth. He wondered if he could hotwire a car.


  He might not last much longer than her light. The drone of the lamps echoed in his skull, and his vision tunneled. He felt the adrenaline-scald of panic moving through him, but it too was distant. At least unconsciousness meant he would stop hurting.

  He didn’t realize he’d stumbled until Antja reached to steady him. Her light died with the movement. A blister wept on her right palm where the fire had been. Her good hand lingered on his arm.

  He ought to say something noble, like “Save yourself,” but he didn’t have breath to spare.

  Antja shook her head as though she’d heard him anyway. “I can’t run anymore.”

  It was, he thought dimly, a more interesting death than he would have imagined for himself. That didn’t make it any less annoying.

  The shriek of wet rubber reverberated through the garage, followed by an engine’s growl. The creature’s blind heads swung round as headlights carved away the shadows. For an instant they paused, backlit by the glare; then they melted like tar and dissolved.

  A familiar glossy, storm-grey car screeched to a stop in front of Antja and Lailah slid out of the driver’s side. Relief dizzied him— or maybe that was only hypoxia.

  “Are you all right?” she called. A pale face watched them through the tinted glass of the passenger window. “Then let’s get out of here before they come back.”

  “Liz—” Alex wheezed, even as Antja let out a strangled breath and whispered, “Oh God, Rainer.” She pressed her blistered hand to her mouth and left a smear of blood and fluid behind.

  “You’ll be safer with us,” Lailah said. Alex wasn’t sure when they’d become an ‘us’, but he was in no condition to argue.

  “She’s right,” Alex said, surprising himself. “You’re hurt.” Each word was more effort than the last. The world felt disconnected and far away.

  Her eyes were black holes in the pallor of her face. “I can’t.” She brushed her fingers over his; his nails were shadowed lilac grey with cyanosis. “Take Liz and go.”