Nevermore

44 Red Death

The growing silence seared her mind. Isobel arched against the constricting earth, the enclosing darkness. Her dirt prison shifted in answer to her movements, compressing.

Out! She needed to get out!

With her mouth clamped shut, she unleashed a scream from the back of her throat. But who would hear? She couldn’t move her arms. Her legs. Anything. Panicked, she realized she’d been holding her breath. The packed dirt squeezed her chest, crushed her lungs. She couldn’t breathe!

She gasped involuntarily and was rewarded with a mouthful of coarse grime. She swallowed and her body convulsed at the acrid taste. Her lungs burned for air. Her heart knocked hard against her rib cage, begging for release.

If she didn’t get out, she was going to die. She knew it. She was going to die.

Varen. She thought his name over and over in her head. Varen, where are you?

No answer came to her, and gradually she grew still again. Locked in the earth’s suffocating embrace, she listened to the flutter of her heart, the only sound in her ears as, beat by beat, its rhythm began to slow. Its thump reminded her of the sound of a clock, one that was winding down, about to stop forever.

At least she’d gotten to see him, she thought, to tell him how she felt. At least he knew. At least she’d tried. Tears pricked at her eyes. How could she die when she’d promised to come back for him? When he was waiting for her? She squeezed her eyes and felt the tears leave her, stolen by the absorbing dirt that had taken her breath, and with it, her final hope.

Something cool grazed the very tips of her fingers. That was when she realized that they must be the only bit of her still above ground. Her waning consciousness told her it was the wind. The sensation came again, and Isobel flexed her fingers—and felt the soft brush of . . . fabric?

All at once, the crushing pressure pushing down on her lightened. Something drove into the dirt, and Isobel latched at once to the arm that plunged to grasp hers. It pulled, and she felt herself being dragged up one inch at a time. The dirt fell away, releasing her from its death grip. Her head broke the surface. She gasped. Someone was there, pulling her free.

Coughing, Isobel sucked in cool gulps of air, her lungs battling to expel hunks of dark gray soot.

“Varen?” she choked, groping for the arms that pulled her from the grave. “Varen!”

“Why will you not heed my words?”

The gloved hand clutching hers tightened. She opened her eyes.

From behind the white scarf, Reynolds’s dark gaze tunneled into hers, anxious, angry, and . . . fearful? He shook her. “Why do you not listen to me? If you would only take control!”

The world swam. Above him the sky churned to a deeper, more tumultuous violet. The ash fell heavily now, catching like snowflakes on her eyelashes. She blinked them away.

“Varen,” she croaked. She released her clutch on Reynolds and fought to sit up.

Ahead, through blurred vision, she could see the doors of the masquerade palace open. That thing—the Red Death—had gone inside.

Isobel pushed against Reynolds, who held her still. She struggled to stand, but he gripped her hard, holding her steady by the shoulders. “You will not find him there.”

Her eyes snapped to his.

A long, low moan of wind stirred the edges of his cloak, the gale picking up speed. It whisked a cascade of falling ash between them in a whirlwind.

“What are you talking about? Where is he?”

“Escaped. If I am discovered in this, his release could cost what is left of my soul. And yours,” he added in earnest. “In truth, it could cost everything. Do not let it have been in vain.”

Isobel shook her head, trying to understand. “How?”

“I followed you,” he said, his tone clipped. “You left me no choice. I knew how to enter the purple chamber. May it be that I was not witnessed. If he was not intercepted, then it is on the other side, in your world, that he now waits.”

Isobel hesitated, gripping his sleeve, wanting to believe. “You said there was no way!”

“In truth, there is no real escape for him—for anyone,” he said. “Not unless the link he has created is destroyed. As long as it remains, this world shall always lay claim to him.”

He drew back, and from within his cloak, he brought forth a gathering of coarse green cloth. A familiar jacket—Varen’s. There was the emblem of the bird pinned to the back, and the patches of all his favorite bands sewn to the sleeves. Startled, Isobel reached for it. She took it in her dirt-caked hands and knew from its scent that it was truly his.

“How did you get this?”

“He bequeathed it to me as a token of testimony, because you had mentioned me as a friend. And so now, as your friend, I beseech you.” She looked up from the jacket and saw that the plea within those black eyes was real, filled in equal parts with pain and desperation. “Help me to honor my vow as I have helped you to honor yours.” The fluttering ash began to fall more heavily around them. “The world of dreams and the world of your reality have already begun to merge. All that you know is in danger. The fusion has only just begun. It is incomplete, and so there is yet a small chance. As long as that hope remains by your side, so shall I. But you must end this now.”

Her eyes strayed down to the churned soil, to the thick, black liquid trail of blood, the ominous path left by the Red Death.

“What about Brad?”

“His spirit, stolen by the Nocs, exists here in astral form alone, trapped between realms. As long as he is held by forces here, his body will remain in your world while his mind, his essence, lingers here, imprisoned. A torturous link, which only death could sever. It is what happened to Edgar.”

He stood, and Isobel felt herself being drawn to her feet.

“But how can I free him when I couldn’t even touch him?”

“You mustn’t touch him now. He has been cast in the role of the Red Death—a figure whose sole function, you well know, is to destroy.”

“What do you mean? Cast by who—or what?”

“There is no more time for questions. If you wish to save either of them, then you must take action now. You must change the dream, Isobel. It is here, in this realm, that you hold the ability to control your surroundings, as long as you do not allow them to control you first. That grave”—he pointed—“you could have flown out of it.”

Isobel stared at the sunken ground, disbelieving.

“Come,” he said, releasing her. “We must go at once to the woodlands.” He started away. Following the path of blood, he moved in the direction of the abbey.

“Wait!” she called after him, gripping Varen’s jacket to herself. “First tell me why you came back. Why did you change your mind?”

“I didn’t,” he said without turning. “You did.”

She took a wobbly step after him. “But you said—how do I know I can trust you?”

Calling back, he did not stop. “As I have been left with no choice but to place my faith in you, Isobel, so it seems have you been left with no choice but to place yours in me.”

She glared after him, a shudder running through her. He was always talking in circles like this, always leaving her with more questions than answers. It made her want to scream at him, to demand one single cut-and-dry, yes-or-no reply.

But she knew he was right. Time had run out. It had slipped through her fingers, like sand, leaving her with no other choice but to trust him. This person, this entity who she knew nothing about yet at the same time knew enough to have called him a friend. He had warned her from the beginning. He had saved her. He’d tried to save Edgar. And now he was trying to help her save Varen.

She moved to follow him, and her feet wobbled unsteadily beneath her, her knees weak. She paused to slide her muddied arms into the sleeves of Varen’s jacket. She drew the fabric close around her and turned up the collar as she had once seen him do. His scent washed over her, expelling from her mind the bitter taste of dirt and the coppery smell of blood. Now each of them held in their possession something of the other’s. Something to return. A double promise. Affirmation that there was still a chance. That they would see each other again when, at last, the nightmare ended.

When she ended it.

Ahead, Reynolds turned, waiting, his black cloak fluttering around him as he watched her through the screen of falling ash.

She ran to catch up, her footfall sure once again.