Girl of Nightmares

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Hey,” Jestine says. She takes me by the shoulders and shakes once. I shrug her off. “Now’s not the time to be doing anything stupid.”

The hell it isn’t. I pace across the damned rock, clenching my teeth every time my foot strikes the hardness of the surface. It sends vibrations of pain all the way up to my knees. What do I have? The knife in my hand. The rage in my throat. This body, bleeding out in another dimension. I turn to Anna. Her eyes trail across the landscape, wondering at the way the rock seems to hint at shades of red and electricity. It’s picking up on my intentions. The edges are getting sharper.

“Can we beat him?”

Her lips part in surprise, but something moves in her irises too. Something quick, and dark, that I remember. It makes my pulse go faster.

Jestine shoves me in the shoulder. “No, we can’t bloody beat him! Not here. She couldn’t beat him, and from what I understand, she’s some big badass ghost.” She glances at Anna, who stands quietly, dark hair hanging down her sides. “Course I can’t see that now. But even if we could, we don’t have time. Can’t you feel that? Can’t you hear it? Colin says that my breathing is slowing. What does Thomas say?”

“Thomas doesn’t say anything,” I reply. And it’s true. I haven’t heard a peep from him since we crossed over. If I looked back now, I could see him, but I don’t. Jestine’s breathing is slowing. Mine must be too. But time is different here. Over here we might have hours. And I’m not leaving until this is finished.

“What is this?” I ask Jestine, holding the knife up before her eyes.

“Have you lost your mind?” She knocks it away like it was a threat. “We’re out of time.”

“Just tell me,” I say, and hold it back up again. “It’s here, where it came from. So over here is it just a knife? Or can I still use it?”

Jestine looks past the blade, into my eyes. I don’t waver, and she looks away first.

“I don’t know what it is,” she says. “But it’s tied to the magic of the Order. It’s always more than just a knife.”

“I can feel it too,” says Anna. “It doesn’t hum like before but—he could feel it. That’s why he ran.”

“Is he afraid of it?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Not afraid. Maybe not even surprised. Maybe just excited.”

Cas? Can you hear me? Time’s up. Get back here.

Not now, Thomas. Not yet.

“Jestine,” I say. “Don’t take any chances. Go back. Anna and I will follow, if we can.”

“Cas,” she says, but I step back and take Anna by the hand.

“I can’t leave here until he’s done,” I say to them both. “Until he’s alone and torn apart. I can’t let him keep them any longer. Not Will, or Chase, or that poor jogger from the park. Not my dad.” The corner of my mouth curls and I look at Anna. “Not even that asshole Peter Carver. I’m going to cut them loose. And you too.”

“One more time,” she says, and when her eyes snap to mine, she’s the girl I remember. Her hand presses my stomach. Yes, I know. We have to hurry.

“Fuck it all,” says Jestine. “You stay, I stay. You can use me anyway. I’ve got chisels, and magic.” She wipes at her forehead with the back of her wrist. “But let’s get on with it.” She nods at Anna. “You’d better come in handy. Something tells me we won’t have time to be saving damsels in distress.”

Anna’s brows knit. “Damsels? You get sliced open, burned, and dashed against the rocks about a thousand times or so. Then we’ll see who the damsel is.”

Jestine lets her head fall back and laughs madly; it rings through the dead air without an echo.

“Facing him one on one would be trouble. I don’t even know if he can kill us here, but hand to hand he could incapacitate us, pull our spines out like he was deboning a fish. And that’d be enough. We’d lie here until our bodies bled out on the floor of the deep well. Then he’d have us.” Jestine crosses her arms.

“It should be together then,” Anna says. “Can you fight?”

Jestine nods in my direction. “I can take Cas on pretty easily.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” Anna asks, inclining her head, and Jestine laughs.

“Cas, your girl’s got quite a tongue.” She steps closer and narrows her eyes. “And she seems suspiciously, suddenly sane.”

“It’s the purpose,” Anna replies. “There is no purpose here. No reason. It’s disconnected. If I had to describe this place in one word, that would be it. The purpose makes me all right.”

She glances at me. Jestine doesn’t know her well enough to recognize the shadow in that glance, but I do. She’s not all right. But she’s going through the motions and wearing the masks. There’ll be more time, later on, to mend her, and make her forget. I tell myself that. But if I’m truthful, I have no idea what can be done to wash it away.

Cas. You’ve got to come back now.

No, Thomas. Not now. My eyes scan the bleak, expansive landscape. It looks flat, with just a slight slope here and there. The lack of distance and perspective makes my head spin. But it lies. It all lies. He’s out there somewhere, and he’s got plenty of places to hide.

“He’s not going to come to us,” I say. “I think he knows what I want.”

“Well, we can’t just stand around,” Jestine says. She blinks fast and her head moves in a quick, jerky twitch. Burke must be in her ear.

“He might come,” says Anna. “If we let him hunt us.”

“Sounds fun,” Jestine mutters sarcastically. She looks at me. “I suppose solitary prey is more appealing than a herd. If I scream, come running.” She takes a deep breath and turns to go.

“Don’t,” I say. “If you lose sight of us, you might lose us completely. This place can take you.”

She grins over her shoulder. “This place takes you where you want. We’ll be seeking him, and he’ll be seeking us, and then we’ll double back on each other. You’re always lost here, Cas. One way or another.”

I smirk. I didn’t lose her before. She disappeared on purpose, so she’d have time to find her damn vein of metal. Fine. I should have known.

“Don’t take chances,” I tell her. “If you have to go back, then go back.”

“Don’t get dramatic,” she scoffs. “I’m your friend but I’m not dying for you. I’m not Thomas. I’m not her.” Her footsteps fall flat on the rocks as she walks away, whistling a tune that sounds like Elmer Fudd’s when he’s after rabbits. When Anna and I look at each other, I know that behind us, Jestine has disappeared.

Walking through Hell with Anna, it feels like I should blurt out every damn thing I’ve wanted to say to her for the last six months. It feels like we’re on borrowed time, even though I’m here to bring her home. I never really counted on seeing her again. It was just a dream. A quest, like a knight after the Holy Grail. But I’m here now, with a hole in my stomach that’s starting to throb, trying to lure my father’s killer out into the open. The surreality of this moment is probably making my brain bleed in nine places.

“I won’t tell you that you shouldn’t be doing this,” Anna says. “Trying to free your father. I know I would, if he were mine.”

“Is that what I’m trying to do? Free him?”

“Isn’t it?”

I guess it is. I’m trying to free all of them. Will and Chase—they’d have been stuck here forever if I hadn’t come looking for Anna, and the thought makes my insides twist. And my dad. I thought Anna had done it six months ago, when she dragged the Obeahman down here.

Something moves in the corner of our vision, and we both jump. But it’s not him. It’s something in the distance, hanging from the branches of a lonely tree. We keep on walking, walking without walking, because we can’t really tell by looking whether we’ve made any progress. The landscape just shifts and changes; rock formations crop up and disappear. It’s like being on an enormous treadmill. Now we look down over a canyon of sorts, cut down deep into the stone. There’s what appears to be a black, oil-slicked river cutting through the bottom.

“Do you—have you ever talked to him? My dad, I mean?”

Anna shakes her head gently. “He’s just a shadow here, Cassio. They all are.”

“But do you think he knows where he is? Has he known the whole time?”

“I don’t know what they know,” she says. But she looks away. She doesn’t know. But she thinks he does.

Ahead, the canyon looms closer, too quickly for the pace at which we’re moving. I hate this place. It’d drive a physics professor batshit crazy in the span of three seconds. Where is he? Where is Jestine? The pain in my side is heavy, and it’s starting to get harder to walk. If Jestine’s breathing had slowed already, she might not even be here anymore. I guess I hope she isn’t. By my side, Anna tenses as she scans the landscape. But there’s still nothing there.

“Listen,” I say. “After this is over, assuming I’m still alive to go back, I want to take you with me. I came here for you, and so did Thomas and Carmel. We want you to come back.” I swallow. “I want you to come back. But it’s your choice.”

“I’ll still be dead, Cassio.”

“So will I be, someday. It doesn’t matter.” I touch her shoulder and we stop so I can look into her eyes. “It doesn’t.”

She blinks, long and slow, her lashes black against her cheeks.

“All right,” she says, and I exhale all over. “I’ll come back.”

The Obeahman’s scream cuts through the still and vibrations resonate up through our feet.

“There he is.”