Dreams of Shreds and Tatters (19 page)

A
LEX WOKE TO
cold sheets and the sound of rain, to dreams clinging thick as cobwebs behind his eyes. Dreams of being young and lost, of searching frantically for a woman who wasn’t his mother, a woman who wouldn’t turn and show him her face.

He sighed into the pillow; his subconscious was such a waste of good processing power.

He tugged the covers closer and dozed again, waiting for Liz to return. The alarm clock on the bedside table was a green-and-black blur until he snaked out an arm and found his glasses. Eleven o’clock. Minutes rolled by with no sign of Liz. The room was so still he could hear the electric hum of the clock. Finally he surrendered his hard-won warmth and rolled out of bed. The movement triggered a sticky cough deep in his chest.

He found Liz in the curtained gloom of the living room, asleep on the couch. Her hair trailed across the cushions and one foot dangled against the floor. He sighed to see her sleeping so peacefully. Then he saw the glitter of glass in her palm.

“Liz?”

Her breath was shallow, pale lips parted. An unsettling sweet scent clung to her skin. She didn’t stir as he pried open her cold fingers. He stared at the vial, at the last drop of fluid clinging to the glass, and the tightness in his chest had nothing to do with asthma.

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.

S
HE 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.

A
NTJA 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 to 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.

A
LEX 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.

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.