Girl of Nightmares

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

My life’s blood, leaking out of my guts. Oh, is that all? That’s what I should have said. I shouldn’t have let him see the fear shiver through me. I shouldn’t have even clenched my jaw. It gave him too much satisfaction, knowing I was scared, and that I wasn’t going to turn back. Because I’m not. Not even with Thomas and Carmel giving me their bug eyes.

“Come on,” I say. “I knew from the beginning that it might end up like this. That I might have to walk a fine line between breathing and not breathing, if I was going to save her. We all did.”

“It’s different when it’s just a possibility,” Carmel says.

“It’s still just a possibility. Have some faith.” My mouth is dry. Who am I trying to convince? They’re going to practically gut me tomorrow, to open the door. To Hell. And once I bleed it open, they’re going to shove me and Jestine through.

“Have some faith,” Carmel repeats, and nudges Thomas to say something, but he won’t. He’s been behind me on this. All the way.

“This might not be such a great idea,” he whispers.

“Thomas.”

“Look, I didn’t tell you everything my grandpa told me,” he says. “They’re not backing you. All of his friends, the voodooists, they’re not looking out for you.” He glances at Carmel. “They’re looking out for us.”

Some kind of disgusted, disappointed sound comes out of my nose and throat, but it isn’t real. It’s not surprising. They made their position about bringing Anna back pretty clear from the start.

“They think it’s out of their jurisdiction,” Thomas goes on. “That it’s the Order’s business.”

“You don’t have to explain it,” I say. Besides, that’s just an excuse. No one but us wants Anna in the world. When I pull her out of Hell, it’s going to be into a room of people who want to send her right back. She’d better be ready to fight. In my mind I see her, exploding into the room like a dark cloud, and lifting Colin Burke by his puppy scruff.

“We can find some other way to help Anna,” Carmel says. “Don’t make me call your mother.”

I half smile. My mother. Before I left for London she made me promise to remember that I’m her son. And I am. I’m the son she raised to fight, and do the right thing. Anna is trapped in the Obeahman’s torture chamber. And that can’t be left alone.

“Will you guys go find Gideon?” I ask them. “I want you to—will you do something for me?”

The looks on their faces say they hope I’ll still change my mind, but they nod.

“I want you to be there, for the ritual. I want you to be part of it.” As someone in my corner. Maybe just as witnesses.

They turn back down the hall, and Carmel tells me one more time to think about it; that I have a choice. But it’s not a real choice. So they go, and I turn around to pace the halls of this fireplace-infested druid brainwashing summer camp. As I turn a corner to a long, red hall, Jestine’s voice rings out.

“Oi, Cas, wait up.” She jogs to me. Her face is slack and serious. Without the confident smirk, she’s changed entirely. “They told me what you said,” she says, slightly flushed. “What you decided.”

“What they decided,” I correct her. She looks at me evenly, waiting, but I don’t know what for. Tomorrow night she and I are going completely off the map, to the other side, and only one of us is supposed to come back. “You know what it means, don’t you?”

“I don’t think it means what you think it means,” she replies.

“Jesus,” I snap, turning away. “I don’t have time for riddles. And neither do you.”

“You can’t be angry with me,” she says. The old smirk returns as she keeps pace. “Not four hours ago I saved your best mate’s life. If it hadn’t been for me, that corpse would have chewed through his carotid faster than you could blink.”

“Thomas told me I shouldn’t trust you. But I didn’t think you were anything to worry about. Still don’t.” She bristles at that, like I knew she would. Even if she knows it’s a lie.

“None of this was my choice, right? You of all people should know what that’s like.”

She’s fidgeting while she walks. For all her tough talk, she must be terrified. Her hair hangs down her shoulders in damp, wavy strings. She must’ve had a shower. When it’s wet it all looks dark gold. The red blends in, hidden.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she snaps. “Like I’m going to try to kill you tomorrow.”

“You’re not?” I ask. “I sort of thought that was the point.”

Her eyes narrow. “Does it make you nervous? Wondering who would win?” There’s steel in her jaw and for a second I think I’m looking at a genuine crazy person. But then she shakes her head, and her frustrated expression looks a whole lot like Carmel’s. “Have you ever considered that I might have a plan?”

“I never considered that you didn’t,” I reply. But what she calls a plan I call an agenda. “Have you ever considered that it might be just a tiny bit unfair? What with me bleeding all my guts out.”

“Ha,” she scoffs. “You think you’re the only one? Blood is a one-passenger ticket.”

I stop walking.

“Jesus, Jestine. Say no.”

She smiles and shrugs, like being stuck like a pig happens to her every other Thursday. “If you go, I go.”

We stand in silence. They mean for one of us to make it back with the athame. But what if neither of us brings it back? Part of me wonders if I could just lose the athame there forever, and they’d be without it; without a way to open the gate and without a purpose. Maybe then they would just disappear and get their hooks out of Jestine. But even as I wonder, the other part of me hisses that the athame is mine, that stupid blood-tie singing in my ears, and if the Order has its hooks into Jestine, the athame itself has its hooks into me.

Without a word, we start to walk together down the long hall. I’m so pent up and irritated with this place; I want to kick down the closed doors and break up a prayer circle, maybe juggle the athame with a couple of candles just to see the horrified looks on their faces and hear their screams of “Sacrilege!”

“This is going to sound weird,” Jestine says. “But can I hang out with you guys tonight? I’m not going to get much sleep, and”—she glances around guiltily—“this place is giving me the creeps right now.”

When I walk in with Jestine, Thomas and Carmel are surprised, but they don’t seem hostile. They’re probably both pretty thankful that Thomas still has his whole carotid. Gideon is in the common area with them, sitting in a wingback chair. He’d been staring into the fire before we came in and doesn’t really look focused now that we’re here. The light from the fire digs into all of the creases of his face. For the first time since I’ve been here, he looks his age.

“Did you talk to the Order about being in the ritual?” I ask.

“Yes,” Carmel replies. “They’ll make sure we’re ready. But I don’t know how much good I’ll do. I’ve been a little busy for extra witchcraft lessons.”

“Witch or not, you’ve got blood,” Gideon pipes up. “And when the Order readies the door tomorrow, it’s going to be the strongest spell anyone has attempted in perhaps the last fifty years. Every one of us will have to pay in, not just Theseus and Jestine.”

“You’re going,” Thomas says to me, sort of dazedly. “I guess I hadn’t thought of that. I thought we’d just pull her back. That you’d stay here. That we’d be there.”

I smile. “Get that guilty look off your face. A corpse just tried to eat you. You’ve done enough.” It doesn’t do any good, though; I can see it behind his eyes. He’s still trying to think of more.

They all look at me. There’s fear in them, but not terror. And there’s no reservation. Part of me wants to smack them upside their heads, call them lemmings and adrenaline junkies. But that isn’t it. Not a single one of them would be here if not for me, and I don’t know whether that’s right or wrong. All I know is that I’m grateful. It’s almost impossible to think that less than a year ago, I might’ve been alone.

Gideon said it would be a good idea to get some sleep, but none of us really listened. Not even him. He spent most of the night in the same wingback chair, dozing uneasily, on and off, jerking awake every time the fire crackled too loudly. The rest of us lay where we could without leaving the room, on one of the sofas, or curled up in a chair. The night passed quietly, all of us staying in our own heads. I think I passed out for a few hours around three or four in the morning. When I woke up it felt like the very next moment, except the fire was dead and pale, and misty light was drifting in through the line of windows near the ceiling.

“We should eat something,” Jestine suggests. “I’ll be too nervous later on, and I don’t fancy being bled dry on an empty stomach.” She stretches, and the joints of her neck crack in a long string of pops. “Not a comfy chair. So, do you want to go find the kitchen?”

“The chef might not be there this early,” Gideon says.

“Chef?” Carmel exclaims. “I could give a shit about a chef. I’m going to find the most expensive thing in that kitchen, eat one bite, and throw the rest on the floor. Then I’m going to break some plates.”

“Carmel,” Thomas starts. He stops when she fixes her eyes on him, and I know he’s reading her mind. “Don’t waste the food, at least,” he mumbles finally, and smiles.

“You three go ahead,” says Gideon, taking me by the arm. “We’ll catch up shortly.”

They nod and head for the door. When they turn into the hall, I hear Carmel mutter about how much she hates this place, and that she hopes Anna can somehow get it to implode like she did with the Victorian. It makes me smile. Then Gideon clears his throat.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s the things that Colin didn’t tell you. Things that you might not have considered.” He shrugs. “Maybe just the useless hunches of an old man.”

“Dad always trusted your hunches,” I say. “You always seemed to help him out.”

“Right until I couldn’t,” he says. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that he still carries that around, even though what happened wasn’t his fault. He’ll feel the same way about me if I don’t make it back. Maybe Thomas and Carmel will too, and it won’t be their fault either.

“It’s about Anna,” he says suddenly. “Something that I’ve been pondering.”

“What is it?” I ask, and he doesn’t reply. “Come on, Gideon. You’re the one who kept me back.”

He takes a deep breath and rubs his fingers along his forehead. He’s trying to decide how, or where, to start. He’s going to tell me again that I shouldn’t be doing this, that she’s where she should be, and I’m going to tell him again that I am doing it, and he should butt out.

“I don’t think that Anna is in the right place,” he says. “Or at least, not exactly.”

“What do you mean, exactly? Do you think she belongs on the other side, in Hell, or not?”

Gideon shakes his head, a frustrated gesture. “The only thing anyone knows about the other side is that they know nothing. Listen. Anna opened a door to the other side and dragged the Obeahman down. To where? You said it seemed like they were trapped there, together.

“What if you were right? What if they’re trapped there, like a cork in a bottle neck?”

“What if they are,” I whisper, even though I know.

“Then you might need to consider what you would choose,” Gideon replies. “If there is a way to separate them, will you pull her back, or send her on?”

Send her on. To what? To some other dark place? Maybe someplace worse? There aren’t any solid answers. Nobody knows. It’s like the punch line from a bad spook story. What happened to the guy with the hook for a hand? Nobody knows.

“Do you think she deserves to be where she is?” I ask. “And I’m asking you. Not a book, or a philosophy, or the Order.”

“I don’t know what decides these things,” he says. “If there’s judgment from a higher power, or just the guilt trapped inside the spirit. We don’t get to decide.”

Jesus, Gideon. That’s not what I asked. I’m about ready to tell him I expected a better answer when he says, “But from what you’ve told me, this girl has had her share of torment. If I were cast as her judge, I couldn’t condemn her to more.”

“Thank you, Gideon,” I say, and he bites his tongue on the rest. None of us know what’s going to happen tonight. There’s a weird sensation of unreality, laced with denial, like it’s never going to happen, it’s so far away, when the time remaining is measurable in hours. How can it be that in that small space of time, I could see her again? I could touch her. I could pull her out of the dark.

Or send her into the light.

Shut up. Don’t complicate things.

We walk side by side to the kitchen. Carmel has stayed true to her word and has broken at least one dish. I nod at her, and she blushes. She knows it’s petty, and that it doesn’t make an ounce of difference to the Order if she breaks twelve entire place settings. But these people make her feel powerless.

When we eat it’s surprising just how much we manage to put away. Gideon whips up some hollandaise and assembles some wicked eggs Benedict with a heaping side of sausage. Jestine broils six of the biggest, reddest grapefruits I’ve ever seen, with honey and sugar.

“We should keep as many eyes trained on the Order as we can,” says Thomas between bites. “I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. Carmel and I can keep tabs while we help prepare the ritual.”

“Make sure to put in a call to your grandfather as well,” says Gideon, and Thomas looks up, surprised.

“Do you know my grandfather?”

“Only by reputation,” Gideon replies.

“He already knows,” says Thomas, looking down. “He’ll have the entire voodoo network on standby. They’ll be watching our backs from their side of the world.”

The entire voodoo network. I chew my food quietly. It would have been nice to have Morfran in my corner. It would have been like having a hurricane up my sleeve.

In observation of Carmel’s rebellion, we left the kitchen a complete disaster. After we got ourselves cleaned up, Gideon took Thomas and Carmel to meet with the Order members. Jestine and I decided to walk the grounds, to nose around and maybe just to kill time.

“They’ll be coming for one or the other of us before long,” I say as we walk the edge of the tree line, listening to the trickling whisper of a stream not far off.

“For what?” Jestine asks.

“Well, to instruct us on the ritual,” I reply, and she shakes her head.

“Don’t expect too much, Cas. You’re just the instrument, remember?” She snags a twig off a low-hanging branch and pokes me in the chest with it.

“So they’re just going to shove us through blind and hope we’re good at winging it?” I shrug. “That’s either stupid, or really flattering.”

Jestine smiles and stops walking. “Are you scared?”

“Of you?” I ask, and she grins. There’s early adrenaline coursing through both of us, springy tension in our muscles, tiny, silver fish darting through my capillaries. When she swings her twig at my head, I see it coming a mile away and trip her up with my toe. Her response is a crisp elbow at my head and a laugh, but her moves are serious. She’s practiced and fluid; well trained. She’s got counters I haven’t seen before, and when she catches me in the gut I wince, even though she’s pulling her punches. But I still knock her backward and block more than she lands. The athame is still in my pocket. This isn’t half of what I can do. Without it, though, we’re almost an even match. When we stop our pulses are up and the adrenaline twitch is gone. Good. It’s annoying when it doesn’t have anywhere to go, like waking up from a nightmare.

“You don’t have much of a problem hitting girls,” she says.

“You don’t have much of a problem hitting boys,” I reply. “But this isn’t real. Tonight will be. If you leave me on the other side, I’m as good as dead.”

She nods. “The Order of the Biodag Dubh was entrusted with a duty. You corrupt it by bringing back a dead murderess.”

“She’s not a murderess anymore. She never really was. It was a curse.” What’s so hard to understand about that? But what did I expect? You can’t rinse the cult off a person in only a couple of days. “What do you know about this anyway? And I mean really know. What have you seen? Anything? Or do you just swallow what you’re told?”

She glares at me resentfully, like I’m being unfair. But she’s probably going to try to kill me, and kill me righteously, so eff you very much.

“I know plenty.” She smiles. “You might take me for a mindless drone, but I learn. I listen. I investigate. Far more than you do. Do you even know how the athame functions?”

“I stab. Things go away.”

She laughs and mutters something under her breath. I think I catch the phrase “blunt instrument.” Emphasis on the “blunt.”

“The athame and the other side are linked,” she says. “It comes from there. That is how it functions.”

“You mean it comes from Hell,” I say. In my pocket, the athame shifts, like its ears were pricked at the subject.

“Hell. Abbadon. Acheron. Hades. The other side. Those are just names that people call the place where dead things go.” Jestine shakes her head. Her shoulders slump with sudden exhaustion. “We don’t have much time,” she says. “And you’re still looking at me like I’m going to steal your lunch money. I don’t want you dead, Cas. I’d never want that. I just don’t understand why you want the things that you do.”

Maybe it’s the minor scuffle we just had, but her fatigue is contagious. I wish she wasn’t mixed up in this. Despite everything, I like her. But you know what they say about wishing in one hand. She moves closer, and her fingers trace the line of my jaw. I take them away, but gently.

“Tell me about her, at least,” she says.

“What do you want to know?” I ask, and look off into the trees.

“Anything,” she shrugs. “What’s made her so special? What made you so special to her, that she’d send herself into oblivion for you?”

“I don’t know,” I say. Why did I say that? I do know. I knew it the moment I heard Anna’s name, and the first time she spoke. I knew when I walked out of her house with my insides still on the inside. It was admiration, and understanding. I’d never known anything like it, and neither had she.

“Well, tell me what she looked like then,” Jestine says. “If we’re going to bleed to death looking for her, I’d like to know who we’re looking for.”

I reach into my pocket for my wallet and fish out the newspaper photo of Anna when she was alive. I hand it to Jestine.

“She’s pretty,” she comments after a few moments. Pretty. That’s what everyone says. My mom said it, and so did Carmel. But when they said it, it sounded like a lament, like it was a shame that such beauty was lost. When Jestine said it, it sounded derisive, like it was the only nice thing she could think of to say. Or maybe I’m just being defensive. Whatever it is, I hold my hand out for the picture and put it back in my wallet.

“It doesn’t do her justice,” I say. “She’s fierce. Stronger than any of us.”

Jestine shrugs, a “whatever” move. My hackles rise another few inches. But it doesn’t matter. In a few hours, she’ll see Anna for herself. She’ll see her dressed in blood, her hair floating like it’s suspended in water, eyes black and shining. And when she does, she won’t be able to catch her breath.