Anna Dressed in Blood

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I’d like to leave now. I’d very much like to leave now. The hairs are up on the back of my neck and my teeth would chatter if I wasn’t clenching so hard. Given the choice between fight or flight, I would choose to dive out the window, knife in my hand or not. Instead I turn and pivot closer to my mom, putting me in between her and the open door.

Footfalls hit the ladder, and my heart has never pounded so hard. My nostrils catch the scent of sweet smoke. Stand my ground, is what I think. After this is over, I might puke. Assuming, of course, that I’m still living.

The rhythm of the footsteps, the sound of whatever is coming down the ladder is driving both me and my mom steadily toward peeing our pants. We can’t be caught in this bedroom. How I wish that weren’t true, but it is. I have to make it out into the hallway and try to get us to the stairs before whatever it is blocks our escape. I grab her hand. She shakes her head violently, but I pull her along, inching toward the door, the athame held out in front of us like a torch.

Anna. Anna, come charging in, Anna, come save the day … but that’s stupid. Anna is marooned on the damn front porch, and how would that be, if I died in here, ripped to bits and chewed on like a rubber pork chop, with her standing powerless outside.

Okay. Two more deep breaths and we go into the hall. Maybe three.

When I move I’ve got a clear view of the attic ladder, and also of the thing descending it. I don’t want to be seeing this. All that training and all those ghosts; all that gut instinct and ability goes right out the window. I’m looking at my father’s killer. I should be enraged. I should be stalking him. Instead I’m terrified.

His back is to me, and the ladder is far enough east of the stairs that we should be able to get there before he does, as long as we keep moving. And as long as he doesn’t turn around and charge. Why do I think these thoughts? Besides, he doesn’t seem inclined to. As we slide silently toward the staircase, he has reached the floor, and he actually pauses to put the ladder back up with a rickety shove.

At the top of the stairs, I stop, angling my mom to go down first. The figure in the hallway doesn’t seem to have noticed us. He just keeps swaying back and forth with his back to me, like he’s listening to some dead music.

He’s wearing a dark, fitted jacket, sort of like a long suit jacket. It could be dusty black or even dark green, I can’t tell. On the top of his head is a nest of dreadlocks, twisted and matted, some half-rotted and falling off. I can’t see his face, but the skin of his hands is gray and cracked. Between his fingers he’s twisting what looks like a long black snake.

I give my mom a gentle push to get her farther down the stairs. If she can get outside to Anna, she’ll be safe. I’m getting a little tinge of bravery, just a wafting of the old Cas coming back.

Then I realize I’m full of shit when he turns and looks right at me.

I should rephrase that. I can’t honestly say that he’s looking right at me. Because one can never be sure that something is looking right at them if that something’s eyes have been sewn shut.

And they are sewn shut. No mistaking. There are big, crisscrossed stitches of black string over his eyelids. Just the same, there is also no mistaking that he can see me. My mom speaks for both of us when she lets out a yelpy little “Oh.”

“You’re welcome,” he says in that voice of his, the voice of my nightmares, like chewing on rusted nails.

“I have nothing to thank you for,” I spit, and he cocks his head. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know he’s staring at my knife. He walks toward us, unafraid.

“Perhaps I should thank you, then,” he says, and the accent shows. The “thank” is “tank.” The “then” is “den.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “How did you get here? How did you get past the door?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” he says. He’s got bright white teeth. His mouth is no bigger than any man’s. How does he leave such gigantic marks?

He’s smiling now, his chin tilted upward. He’s got an ungainly way of moving, like lots of ghosts do. Like their limbs are stiffening, or like their ligaments are rotting away. It isn’t until they move to strike that you see them for real. I won’t be fooled.

“That’s impossible,” I say. “The spell would’ve kept you out.” And there’s no way that I’ve been sleeping in the same house with my father’s killer this whole time. That he’s been one floor above me, watching and listening.

“Spells to keep the dead out are worthless if the dead are already in,” he says. “I come and go as I please. I fetch things back that foolish boys lose. And since then I’ve been in the attic, eating cats.”

I’ve been in the attic, eating cats. I look closer at the black snake he’s been weaving through his fingers. It’s Tybalt’s tail.

“You fuck — you ate my cat!” I yell, and thank you, Tybalt, for one last favor, this pissed-off rush of adrenaline. The quiet is suddenly filled with the sound of knocking. Anna heard me yell and is banging on the door, asking if I’m all right. The ghost’s head snaps around like a snake, an unnatural, disturbing movement.

My mom doesn’t know what’s going on. She didn’t know Anna was outside, so she starts clinging to me, unsure of what to be more afraid of.

“Cas, what is that?” she asks. “How are we going to get out?”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” I say. “Don’t be scared.”

“The girl we wait for is right outside,” he says, and shuffles forward. My mom and I drop down a step.

I put my hand out across the railing. The athame flashes and I bring it back to eye level. “You stay away from her.”

“She’s what we came for.” He makes a soft, hollow rustling when he moves, like his body is an illusion and he’s nothing more than empty clothes.

“We didn’t come for anything,” I spit. “I came to kill a ghost. And I’m going to get my chance.” I lunge forward, feeling my blade part the air, the silver tip just grazing his front buttons.

“Cas, don’t!” my mom shouts, trying to drag me back by one arm. She needs to knock it off. What does she think I’ve been doing all this time? Setting elaborate traps using springs, plywood, and a mouse on a wheel? This is hand-to-hand. This is what I know.

Meanwhile, Anna is pounding harder on the door. It must be giving her a migraine to be so close.

“It’s what you’re here for, boy,” he hisses, and takes a swing at me. It seems halfhearted; it misses by a mile. I don’t think he missed because of the whole stitched-over-eye thing. He’s just playing with me. Another clue is the fact that he’s laughing.

“I wonder how you’ll go,” I say. “I wonder if you’ll shrivel up, or if you’ll melt.”

“I won’t do either of those things,” he says, still smiling.

“And what if I cut off your arm?” I ask as I leap up the stairs, my knife retracted and then slicing out in a sharp arc.

“It will kill you on its own!”

He strikes me in the chest, and my mom and I fall head over ass down the steps. It hurts. A lot. But at least he’s not laughing anymore. Actually, I think I finally succeeded in pissing him off. I gather my mom up.

“Are you okay? Is anything broken?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Get to the door.” As she scrambles away, I stand up. He’s walking down the steps without any sign of that old ghostly stiffness. He’s as limber as any living, young man.

“You might just vaporize, you know,” I say, because I’ve never been able to keep my damned mouth shut. “But personally, I hope you explode.”

He takes a deep breath. And then another. And then another, and he’s not letting them back out. His chest is filling up like a balloon, stretching his ribcage. I can hear the sinews in there, ready to snap. Then, before I know what’s happening, his arms are thrust out toward me and he’s right in my face. It happened so fast I could barely see it. My knife hand is pinned against the wall and he’s got me by the collar. I’m hitting him in the neck and shoulder with my other hand, but it’s like a kitten swatting yarn.

He lets go of that breath, rolling out through his lips in thick, sweet smoke, passing over my eyes and into my nostrils, so strong and cloying that my knees buckle.

From somewhere behind me, I feel my mom’s hands. She’s screeching my name and pulling me away.

“You’ll give her to me, my son, or you’ll die.” And he lets me drop, back into my mother’s arms. “Your body’s filth will rot you. Your mind will drain out your ears.”

I can’t move. I can’t talk. I can breathe, but not much else, and I feel far away. Numb. Sort of confused. I can feel my mom yelp and lean over me as Anna finally blows the door off its hinges.

“Why don’t you take me yourself?” I hear her ask. Anna, my strong, terrifying Anna. I want to tell her to watch out, that this thing has tricks up its rotting sleeves. But I can’t. So my mother and I huddle in between this hissing match of the strongest spirits we’ve ever seen.

“Cross the threshold, beauty girl,” he says.

“You cross mine,” she says back. She’s straining against the barrier spell; her head must feel almost as tight as mine. A thin rivulet of black blood dribbles from her nose and over her lips. “Take the knife and come, coward,” Anna shouts. “Come out and let me off this leash!”

He’s seething. His eyes are on her and his teeth grind. “Your blood on my blade, or the boy will join us by morning.”

I try to tighten my grip on the knife. Only I can’t feel my hand. Anna is shouting something else, but I don’t know what it is. My ears feel stuffed with cotton. I can’t hear anymore.