Death of the Body (Crossing Death) (24 page)

Her lips slackened, and when I realized she was trying to say something, I moved closer. Her mascara was running in wet streaks down her cheeks. “Nicholas and Quon,” her mouth moved.

Suddenly I was running, Xia in tow, directly into the darkness. The moment she said the names, a surge of adrenaline spurred my feet into action. The sticky carpet didn’t help my feeling of being unable to get to them fast enough, every step was like getting stuck in a puddle of thick syrup.

I could see the shadowy outline of the wall that made out the end of the hall. Our room was the first door around the corner. I was in such a frantic state of mind that I only slightly noticed the air get colder as Xia and I leapt over a bloody body and burst through the unlocked door into the room.

My eyes had to adjust to the strange way the light came in through the blood-covered window. So much blood—the scene here was no different.

Xia gasped at the same time that I saw Nicholas—a red silhouette against an even redder backdrop.

Nicholas sat rigid on his bed, his knees pulled up to his chin, rocking slightly back and forth. I could see his dark eyes as they glowed red in the dim light, but they didn’t look at us, only through us.

“Nicholas?” I asked softly, taking a cautious step forward. “Are you okay?”

His naked legs were covered in blood up to his knees, but it wasn’t until I got closer that I noticed his heaving chest and twisted face were as well. At least he was breathing.

I ran toward the bed. “Are you hurt? Xia, get a blanket.” I tried to pry his hands from around his legs so that I could lower them and find where the blood was coming from. When I touched him, he was colder than the air around us.

His face turned slowly toward me and his eyes finally fell on mine. His expression instantly softened, but only slightly. His body remained tense. With his muscles flexed, I couldn’t pry open his arms.

“I’m just glad you’re alive,” I said feeling relief.  I stared directly at him, trying to use the strength in my eyes to get him to respond. “Who did this?”

Nicholas’s face tensed again and his brow furrowed. His lips stretched into a straight line. I could see the strain in his neck muscles as he attempted to unclench his jaw.

“I did.”

I wasn
’
t sure I heard him correctly because the words came out with a gurgle of blood that spilled out of his mouth. He started to vomit uncontrollably. The tension in his body exploded and I took a few uncontrollable steps away from him.

Nicholas
’
s eyes pleaded with me to understand as the force with which he was heaving threw him off the bed. He coughed up blood between gasps for air.

He was now on the floor on all fours, his chest and back rising with his raspy attempts to breathe. His entire body was smeared with blood.

“He
’
s still here,” he managed to choke out coherently, stronger than I would have expected, enough to make me flinch.

That was all he needed to say, and I understood. “None of this is
your
blood?”

Nicholas didn
’
t look up at me, he was too busy staring at the floor trying to decide if he was finished throwing up, but he shook his head.

“No. Not mine...” His stomach twisted again, and more blood lurched out of his mouth.

The whole scene was proving too much for Xia. I saw her collapse in my peripheral vision and her back rolled as she followed Nicholas’s lead, spewing red liquid—not blood in her case—just wine.

“… need… get…” Nicholas mumbled as he rolled onto his back and painfully stretched his limbs.

I crossed the room and helped Xia to her feet, giving her a reassuring squeeze as I stared into her pale face. Her eyes were full of fear and questions, as I’m sure were mine, but there was a sense of profound control behind them, and I had no doubt I could count on her. I pulled a blanket from my bed and wrapped Nicholas’s body. When I finally got him to his feet, I turned back to Xia.

“We should probably go somewhere warm and safe… public. Then we can sort out what happened.”

She nodded her head once in acknowledgment and took one step toward me before I felt large, strong arms grab me from behind and pull me away from her.

I hit Nicholas’s hard body at the same time he pressed his back onto the wall. I looked down to find his arms around my waist, the muscles tense like when we found him. I could feel fear ripple through his body.

“Nicholas!” I cried. “I can’t breathe. Let me go.”

But he didn’t. Instead he just whispered in my ear, “He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming.”

My heart skipped a beat as everything went eerily silent. I thought I was screaming at Xia to get down, or hide, or who knows what, but any sound that came out of my mouth was instantly swallowed up by a more forceful presence—a silence that had a life of its own. I saw Xia dash toward us as the door burst open and all light was drawn from the room.

This demon, for I assumed it could be nothing else, had no human form. It was a void—a void that devoured all sound and light. Its presence filled the room so densely that it pushed out all the air. Nicholas was clenching his arms so tightly around me that pain was shooting through my hip and the lower half of my body was starting to tingle from lack of blood. Of course, he couldn’t hear my petitions to release me.

And then there was a voice, soft like the wind, gentle like a breeze, “So it is true. Edmund lives.”

The pressure in the room pulled back as the darkness receded. For a brief moment I thought someone must have come to help us because the red tinted light from the blood-streaked windows was slowly returning and I found myself able to swallow a deep breath of air. But I saw rather quickly that the darkness wasn’t actually dissipating, just consolidating. Within seconds, every shadow around the room quivered with life.

Nicholas unexpectedly dropped me. Unfortunately my legs collapsed from underneath me as soon as they were asked to support my weight and I fell face first into a puddle of blood. Then they caught fire as my heart pumped life back into them.

“What do you want? Who are you?” I was finally able to ask.

“Blood,” the shadows quivered as it responded. “I want the blood of all living creatures.”

Nicholas was now inching toward the open door and Xia was curled in the fetal position in the center of the room. I couldn’t see her face but I hoped she was okay.

“And your blood, Edmund,” the creature continued, “your blood will fetch a great price. I will be rewarded handsomely.”

“How do you know me?” I asked, trying to buy myself enough time to get us out of here safely.

“I know
of
you. The level walkers speak of you. Some have heard rumors but none have been able to enter this world as you have.”

Now I was not only buying time, but intrigued. Still, the answers to any questions I could ask were not worth the risk to the lives of my friends.

“Let me and my friends live and I will share my secret.”

I assumed the sound the shadows made next was laughter, but it sounded more like a hiss.

“I will kill your friends and claim your soul along with all of its secrets.”

I thought I had more time. I thought I would be able to do something to save Xia and Nicholas. I thought I could barter with the demon, but it moved too quickly. The quivering shadows around the room leaped forward, latching onto me. Their touch was so cold my skin burned. Their weight was so heavy, I felt myself collapse under the pressure—but something odd happened: when I collapsed, my body stayed standing, and then took a step toward Xia.

Now I knew what it was like to be possessed. My spirit crumbled under the crushing blow of the demon, and in doing so, I unwillingly relinquished control of my body to it. I could hear its thoughts in my head, screaming so loudly it drowned out my own.

“Such a glorious connection you have, Edmund. What a great, unused power. With my knowledge and your body, I will do amazing things.”

… including killing my friends. The demon didn’t have to say that part. I knew all that it desired.

“Edmund?” Xia asked in fear as I came toward her.

I could feel the lust burning in my eyes, scared to realize that the lust for her body was partially my own, grateful that the lust for her blood was entirely the demon’s. I knew she could see it as well.

“Edmund, no. What are you doing?” she took a fearful step back and I felt the demon relish in her discomfort.

No!
I screamed, fighting for control. The demon was now in a body—my body. If someone could just cast an exorcism spell, the first spell I learned as a child in Orenda, all would be well. The demon laughed as I thought this, as I fought to get my own mouth to mutter the words.

I felt Nicholas grab me from behind in an attempt to stop me, but his arms were not strong like they had been a few minutes ago—his tense arms felt so fragile.

“I’ll deal with you next, pet boy,” I said, casting him aside easily.

I expected Xia to run, to cower, or to plead, but instead she stood and firmly planted her feet. “I’m sorry, Edmund,” she whispered as I tried to fight my own hand from reaching out toward her.

“Hecate!” her voice boomed. “Hear your daughter. Deliver us from our enemy.”

Her eyes softened as they met mine and the look in her eye told me this was going to hurt.

An ear-splitting howl sounded from behind me. The demon whirled, my body responding slower than it would have had I been in control. As I turned, I was bowled over by a large white dog.

I watched in horror as it ripped into my flesh, its pale blue eyes unblinking, never disconnecting from my own. I braced myself for pain but instead simply felt a slight slip, a crack in the shackles that the demon used to bind my body to his mind.

Shadows oozed out of my skin like liquid and started combining against the dog, but as they did I began to regain control over my own body.

“Xia!” I managed to cry out before being muzzled by the demon again, thrown back into my mental cage that I was fighting so frantically to escape. In my mind I saw two animals: the white dog on the outside clawing its way to the inside, and myself, clawing desperately at the cage in my mind, howling for escape.

Instead of running, Xia bolted to my side and grabbed my hand.

“If you can hear me Edmund, if you can fight for enough control, get us out of here! However you need to do it get us out of here!”

The dog continued to struggle against the shadows but was weakening. I could feel the effort of the demon’s successful defense against Xia’s beautifully conjured assault. All I could do was glance toward Nicholas, but it was enough for Xia to get the message. She called him over and gripped his hand in one of hers, while holding fast to mine with the other.

I hoped my miraculous escape from the demon in my small pickup truck would be enough experience to keep my friends from meeting an icy fate. Had they not been there when I inexplicably emerged in my dorm room I could have died, and I had no idea if someone would be there to save us all where my mind wanted to take us.

And then there was the issue of this mental block the demon was somehow able to cage me into. Would I be able to use his connection to me, and to the world he was from, while caged against my own body?

I hoped the demon was distracted enough. I could feel Xia’s warm hand in my own, and with that thought turned my vision inward. I searched frantically for that silver strand of light that saved me, and almost killed me, the last time. When I found it, I tightened my hand and pulled Xia and Nicholas with me into the cold.

Seventeen

The rolling hills where the wayward pines sheltered the damp earth that played host to hundreds of wild mushrooms were unmistakable, and the miles of sprawling sweet alfalfa fields were just a short journey to the west. When the wind blew just right, I could almost taste the morning dew.

“Where are we?” I heard Nicholas whisper to my right. He was standing, staring intently at me, his question more an accusation than a question.

“I’m not really sure. Somewhere between reality and a memory I think,” I answered almost reverently, the last word punctuated with a quick inhale as the ring on my finger pulsed with icy frigidity.

“Come on,” I didn’t delay. “We need to get to the ruins about an hour north of here. They’re this way.”

“You’ve been here before?” Xia asked.

I felt sick. “Welcome to Orenda,” I replied dryly. “Sort of. I think. At least my memory of it. I’m not really sure, actually. The fields are familiar, the mountains too, but at the same time everything is…” I had to wrestle for the right word, “…ghostlike.”

I reached out to hit a tree branch as I walked to prove my point; it passed through my hand without moving.

“I’m pretty sure wherever we are just uses my memory as a representation. The last time I was here I spent three days trying to get back to my childhood home. I made it as far as the gates before the dogs…”

Xia wasn’t about to let me get away with leaving my sentence unfinished, but instead of prodding me, she let her silence speak for her.