Pandora's Ring (8 page)

“Where?” Eli asked.

She tossed her head, trying to clear it, rid herself of the squirming, mewling voices which crawled beneath her skin. “Anywhere,” she moaned. “Just away. Fast.”

He stepped on the accelerator and Samantha resumed rocking, clutching her arms and trying to steady her breathing. The voices rose and fell in waves. She knew they were the reason she’d been able to walk away from the ordeal at all, but God, at what price? Had these voices been in her mother’s ring all along? The thousands upon thousands of ghosts, talking, screaming, gnashing their teeth? The two clanging bells of power which pressed against her chest, threatening to burst her heart with every spiritual altercation they carried out? She’d never understood why insane people rocked back and forth, never understood the inability to stay still or stare at one single point for hours at a time.

Now she understood. The rocking gave her a focus. Back, forth, back, forth. If she could just keep up the pattern she’d be okay, right? Back forth, back, forth. Don’t break the pattern, don’t mess with the rhythm or she’d break herself, she’d skip a beat. Only, the beat was her heart and it would just stop from the sheer stress of it all, the voices, the touches, the screams, the crying, the countless babes only just born and the one not there–
I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to be there!

The point on the dashboard she stared at prevented further input into her already shattered mind. Like a desperate drunkard struggling not to empty their stomach, to keep conscious, she swam in and out of clarity. Eli asked if she wanted to open the window. She couldn’t open her mouth, and shook her head once, gaze unmoving. If she just kept her gaze right there, she wouldn’t see anything to make another voice go off. She could keep them quiet, she could keep herself together long enough to get out of the city. They’d be away, they’d be safe, she’d be okay, she’d be fine if she could just keep her eyes there long enough. Once they got out of the city she could…

Suddenly, she sobbed.

The voices were in her mind. Leaving the city wouldn’t do anything.

She was trapped.

* * * *

Samantha buried her face in her hands. She’d been rocking back and forth, staring at the airbag for the last three hours. He was fairly certain she’d lost track of time entirely. Could he speak now? Truth was, he didn’t have any idea what was going on. The ring was the source of the power, clearly, and since he’d destroyed it, the power must have passed to her. But was that power sheer souls? And why in all the hells had they been in her ring? That kind of magic was practically unheard of nowadays–people had finally started to wise up and stopped spelling and sealing things into anything even remotely breakable ages ago. So who had been so stupid? Or desperate? And why the hell Marie Parker’s ring, of all things?

Artifacts couldn’t just be bespelled on a whim. They had to have a history, a meaning, both in general and to the caster. The obvious was, Marie herself did it–but Marie hadn’t a lick of magic to her. Still–not only had she defeat Diego somehow, but now her daughter had just laid the smack down on a higher Damned, using her ring.

“What a mess…”
 

“Where are we?” Samantha whispered, finally lifting her eyes.

Eli shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “I went north. I kept going.”

“How long?”

“About four hours now.”

She swallowed, gaze shifting to the digital clock. “It’s four AM.”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“A little…but Damned only sleep a few times a month.”

She looked small, terrified, but somehow his mental image of her was still ten feet tall.

“You okay now?” he ventured after another few minutes.

She shook her head slowly. “They’re just being quiet for a minute.”

“They?”

“Voices,” she whispered. “Especially the two big ones.”

 
“Two big ones?”

“They’re fighting.” She said. “They’ll start again, soon. I can feel it. We…we should find a hotel before they do.”

“You don’t want to keep going?”

“I want to be in a bed,” she whispered. “I want my bed, but any bed will do.”

Eli’s throat clenched in sympathy, but he nodded, guiding the car off the route and into the next town. Thank God for the American highway system, he thought. Wherever they were, there was a Super-8 with a vacant sign. He hoped there wasn’t a BOLO out for the vehicle yet. Maybe they should walk in. Damn good thing he still had his wallet and effects on him.

He looked in the back once they’d parked and found a sports coat, which he bundled Samantha in before wiping her face and coaching her on their story. Their rental broke down on the highway, they had a friend coming, and they’d just walked in. Their excuse for her raggedy look was as simple as a fall.

He needn’t have worried. The attendant looked so sleepy, Eli instead opted to try his luck in not filling out the car information, and nothing was said, other than, “Continental breakfast six to nine, pool opens at ten.”

They tumbled into the room as the sun broke over the hills. Eli drew the curtains and Samantha clawed her way out of her shirt, shivering.

“Do you think you can sleep?” Eli asked softly.

“I don’t know,” she said.

He kicked off his shoes, led her to the bed and tucked her in, trying to ignore the scratches and bite marks all over her body. Cyrene had done a number on her. “Let’s try. You lie down, I’m going to get a washcloth.”

By the time he returned with the warm cloth, she was asleep. Quietly, he bathed her anyway, wishing he could renew her more completely.

* * * *

They were probably staying put for a day or too, so he left her after an hour to hide the car. He made certain to wear the sport coat out, and changed his appearance enough, even if the guy figured out a description, there was no way they’d pin the stolen car on him. Besides, his identity was essentially a ghost in the system. Everything went through, raising no suspicion, and paid off then disappeared as if it had never been. Job perks, he thought with a wry smile as he collected some fruit and bagels in the front room.

When he returned, she was still sleeping, so he sat next to her, checked her breathing. She was running a fever, so he dabbed her with a washcloth, wondering if it even helped. She leaned into the touch, though, so he kept on.

He expected her to sleep until two in the afternoon. It was eight thirty when she awoke with a gasp. “No,” she whimpered, and curled into his lap, her breathing shaky.

Eli felt her forehead. Her fever hadn’t abated. If anything, was worse. “Samantha?”

“They’re back,” she whispered, and grabbed his shirt, her nails scraping his stomach, pinching his skin as she gripped at him. “Oh God.
 
No, no, please.
 
I’m so tired, let me sleep.”

“Samantha, hold on,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Here, I brought breakfast.”

She shook her head, hair falling into her eyes but not blinking. “Can’t eat,” she whispered. “Can’t eat. They’re too loud, too loud.”

“Who’s too loud?” he tried holding out the fruit again to no avail. “do you want me to open the curtains? The sun’s up.”

“No,” she shrieked, slapped a hand over her mouth and went stock still, as if she’d been pinned to the bed like a butterfly in a box. Then she shuddered and let out the breath. “He saw me,” she whispered.

“He who?”

“I don– No. Stop it. Oh God! ” she cried out, buried her face in his chest and gripped her stomach. “Eli, Eli, help...”

“I can’t,” he whispered. “Tell me what’s happening in there? What do you hear?”

“Voices. So many voices.” She shivered, kicking her legs into his lap and clinging to him. Tears slid down her cheeks. “A thousand–no, more–screaming and begging and–”

Eli felt sick. It couldn’t be. If it was then she was as good as dead. “Samantha…what do they say?”

She shivered. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” he murmured. “You can hear them, Samantha. What do they say? What do they feel?”

Her mouth opened, closed, and finally she wept into his shoulder, mumbling, “Regret…anger…pain…betrayal…horror…”

“Samantha,” he whispered, encircling her with both arms and hugging her tight. How was she even this sane, if she’d inherited a greater number of lives? When he’d first begun as a Damned, he’d lost his mind. “Souls. You’re hearing soul echoes.”

“What does it mean, Eli?” she asked. “What happened?”

His eyes closed, thinking.
 
Should he tell her how much danger she was in?
 
Maybe not yet. “You broke a stone on the ring. It let you destroy Cyrene’s bonds. So I just did the rest of the job.”

“You destroyed the ring?” She held up a hand and, on seeing only the slightly white band of a ring tan, stared. “It was the ring. That’s why I could see you…her.”

“Yes,” he stroked her hair. “You mentioned people fighting in the car. Who?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I just know they’re angry.”

“Have they said anything?”

“No.” She flinched, and then held a hand to her mouth. “Bathroom,” she croaked.

Eli helped her to the bathroom in short order, where she vomited nothing. He encouraged her to drink water, and sat with her on the bathroom floor as she cried softly.

“I’ve never felt so terrible,” she whispered. “What’s happening?”

Eli gulped as she looked up at him, eyes wide and puffy. He wracked his brain. Finally he sighed. “I only have a guess.”

“Good enough,” she said, moaning as she clutched her stomach. “Just talk. Please, Eli.”

“If you’ve gotten an influx of souls, which explains the voices you’ve been hearing. They’re inside you–”

“Like you?”

“Probably. My soul is different than yours. The Damned have souls like ropes–for lashing, trapping, tying down. Mortal’s souls are more…” He frowned. “Like bubbles. Golden bubbles.”

She looked as if she might have been amused if not for the cramp that made her bend over the toilet rim again. “Champagne,” she whispered. “God, I wish I was hungover.”

“It might actually be similar,” he said, gently tying her hair back with one of his own shoelaces and smoothed her cheek. “Your body is trying to deal with the influx of power and complexity of being a soul receptacle.” He paused, wondering if it were wise to say what was on his mind. “If you’ve really got a thousand souls in there, I’m…in awe you’re alive. Mortals…they just don’t have the ability to deal with the power.”

“What happens?” she asked.

He’d been in the business about fifty years. He’d only heard, way off hand, about a mortal who had taken in just one other soul. “It’s not their spirit or their soul that has trouble…but the body…it’s just too weak.”

She collapsed slowly against the tub lip, panting with the effort of staying upright. “I think I’m done,” she murmured. “Can’t keep the water down.”

He nodded, stood and helped her to the bed again. She was silent there, lying down, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes staring at the ceiling. Always restless–twitching, wincing and gasping at times. Near noon, she whispered, “My father is a rich guy. Took me to Africa once. Cyrene said you’d been there.”

“Yeah.”

“Where were you?”

“Sudan. Congo. Ethiopia. Uganda. The ugly spots, at least in terms of war.”

“What about landscape? People?”

Eli sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Desperate. The wars there are because of famine, water shortages, mostly. Disease is rampant because everyone’s too busy fighting, or undernourished, or too sick in the first place. But they smile sometimes. It means a lot more there.”

“Have you been anywhere else?”

“Plenty of places. India, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Tibet, China, North Korea…”

“North Korea? Can’t imagine you fit in well there.”

“Didn’t need to. They barely flinched when I walked undisguised through the prison camps. Some of them begged me to take them.” He bowed his head, recalling the women who welcomed him with open arms, who still found their disembodied lives preferable to the cold hunger they had endured. “It was winter, and they were very desperate.”