Dreaming Awake (19 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Haden

E
ven their blood was putrid. I pulled the sword out of the freshly slain goblin and heaved when the aroma reached my nose. Jesus. Even if a person could survive the talons and the feral temperament of the damn things, the smell might be enough to kill you.

I looked up and Theia was gone. I shook my head. I couldn’t give in to wondering how she’d become a giant or what was going on outside of this damn atrium. I had to trust that she would do what she needed to do to survive.

From the corner of my eye I saw yet another creature descending on me. How many had my mother sent? Even if I couldn’t see it, I’d have smelled it coming. I pivoted and thrust just as it tried to take a swipe at me. As I gutted the beast, I hoped my soldiers were able to get through the carnage with the extra weapons for my friends. Each of my skeletal guard knew who they were assigned to protect, but in the thick of battle, especially a battle against goblins, things often went awry.

As if to punctuate the thought, I found my feet stuck to the floor. A quick glance showed me that all of us—the skeletons, the creatures, and the humans—were stopped and stuck in midmovement. A shift in the atmosphere echoed in my bones. Something was not right—even for Under. The floor began tilting, even though we were stuck to it. As the laws of nature were breached, up became down quite literally.

There was nothing to hold on to, but I wasn’t falling anyway. The goblins screeched in fear, a sound no one should ever have to hear, and I heard my friends shouting. I looked down at the glass roof now below me. Everything quaked, shaking loose a dusting of flower petals. Heart shaped. And then we pitched and rolled once again. A carnival ride of terror.

I focused on not losing the contents of my stomach. The smell combined with the constant jostling made that task difficult at best.

Theia
. Something was wrong. I felt it in the change of my heartbeat. An unwelcome sensation overtook me. What if she was gone?

I don’t think she ever understood that she’d already saved me just by breathing. It was her quiet presence that stopped me from following the path Mara had laid out for me. It was her heart that showed me a new way. If I died today, it would be worth it. I didn’t fear death as much as I feared becoming the monster.

As long as she was alive, I had reason to live. I would earn back the trust I had sacrificed in order to save her.

And then the dome cracked. Shards of glass began falling like raindrops, each one hitting the floor with a ping and then a crunch and they began falling faster, a downpour.

Suddenly freed from the floor, I resumed the battle against the goblins. It was much later when I realized the girls were gone.

Down Is Up Again

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Theia

I
blinked awake, tied to some kind of table. Above me, a single lightbulb hanging by a cord swayed back and forth. The ceiling was stark white and the coppery smell of blood tinged the air.

I couldn’t sit up; the straps were as strong as they were snug. Panic lodged itself in my throat.
Breathe, Theia. And think.

What had happened?

The shadow had entered my room. I’d been too frightened to turn around, my body literally paralyzed, so I’d watched in the globe as if it were happening to someone else. It approached the girl in the chair from behind and as it melded into her, my blood froze, all sensation stopped, and I dropped the globe.

I couldn’t remember anything else. I had no idea how I’d gotten to this room and all I could feel was surprise that I was even still alive and the ever-present fear that hadn’t gone away since I’d first met Mara.

What had been in that shadow and what had it done to me?

I didn’t feel as if I’d been physically harmed, other than the fact that I was tied down. In fact, I felt less . . . helpless than I had. What had changed? Did the shadow do something to me?

The straps holding me down chafed my skin. If I could access demon speed and blow up glass . . . maybe I had other, unknown powers. Strength would be ideal. I accessed the others when I was upset and agitated—that’s when I saw auras too—so I focused on my feelings of fear and anger to see if I could get untied. If I was going to be cursed with demon blood, I might as well use it to my advantage.

My whole life I’d been trained to choke emotions, hold things inside, but now my source of power was intricately woven into the volatile core of my heart. Tapping that power, really focusing on my rage, I flexed beneath the straps and they snapped off as if I were the Hulk instead of, well, me.

I swung my legs over the table and tried to get my bearings. I wore a hospital gown, but the room was too dingy to be a hospital room. Ancient medical equipment flanked the table next to me. Rust coated the surface of the metal in patches of varying shades of oxidation, as if some indefinable liquid had pooled time after time but had never been wiped down.

Unlike my father’s hospital room, no disinfectant odor concealed the fusty, malodorous air. In one corner, an industrial-size hose hung on a hook, and in the middle of the floor, a drain cover clogged with bits of hair and . . . something . . . sat there menacingly.

I remembered a field trip to a grocery store once, when they took us to the butcher room in the back with a similar setup. I remembered what they did to the meat in that room.

I needed to get out of there.

I gasped and choked on my breath when I saw the lines on my arm. Someone had drawn on me with a black marker. I hopped off the table. I didn’t want to know why that had been done. I just wanted out of that place.

Halfway across the room, I stopped short when the door flew open and Donny and Amelia were brought in by skeleton guards. They too wore hospital gowns. They too were marked up.

Donny struggled more than Amelia. “Don’t you hurt my baby!” she yelled. Ame saw me then. “Thei!”

It all happened so quickly. More guards came in and rushed me. Behind them, several more came with two additional gurneys and a rolling tray with instruments. Even with all my fear and rage, I couldn’t shake the skeletons on either side of me. They herded my friends and me to the middle of the room and watched the door, so that is what we watched too.

I glanced down at the marks on my arm and then back at Amelia’s and Donny’s arms, and then I knew.

Oh God.

Thoughts gave form to fears I’d never let myself dwell on before. The handmaids. Had they been hacked apart and restitched like foul jigsaw puzzles in this very room? Were we next?

At the door, Mara appeared, still wearing the same slinky outfit from my kitchen. On her arm a small old man shuffled in alongside her. She escorted him gently into the room, patting him endearingly and smiling as if she were on the arm of Brad Pitt on Oscar night.

The old man was shrunken and white. Every step wavered him precariously closer. Time had carved deep grooves into his translucent skin. He had no teeth left and his jaw worked uselessly as he made nonsense sounds in a frail, old voice. Spittle collected in the corners of his mouth.

His tattered lab coat had been stained to the color of bisque, with blotches of brown and red.

They stopped in front of us. Mara spoke a little louder than normal, enunciating her words carefully with a gleeful enthusiasm. “Here are your patients, Doctor. They are all ready for you.”

Amelia whimpered while Donny struggled. The “doctor” made a few sounds like “mah, mah, mah” and he raised his shaky hand towards my cheek. I flinched. His eyes were clouded completely over. He couldn’t see a thing.

“We’re all very much looking forward to seeing your work again, Doctor. You’ve always had such a way with the scalpel.”

The maids came in then, each bringing a different-colored dress of the same style. They hung them on a bar and cooed at each other happily. Their heads wobbled unsteadily on their necks at the point where there was heavy black stitching. Their mouths had been seamed closed with black Xs.

The dresses they brought in were identical to the ones they wore.

Oh, God. This could not be happening.

Mara’s eyes cut like black diamonds when she looked at us. “I’ve been impressed by the strength of your friendship, ladies. It occurs to me that you should have a more permanent bond to celebrate that substantial link you share. The good doctor has agreed to help us transform your relationship to the next level.”

At that, the guards hauled us to the gurneys. We didn’t make it easy for them—I’m sure after seeing the maids, Donny and Ame realized we were going to be an encore production for the invalid doctor.

We all struggled, but the skeletons were too strong. It was impossible to hurt them, for they had no soft flesh to punch or kick, no organs to protect. Just bones and a viselike grip.

There was a tray of sharp objects next to my bed, all of them dirty and rusty. I managed to kick it over before they forced me to lie down. It didn’t matter. The skeletons just picked up the instruments from the dirty floor and put them back on the tray. It took six of them to hold me down.

We all continued screaming and thrashing, trying to get away. Donny’s fever pitch broke my heart. She was so concerned for the unborn child in her belly. I didn’t understand how it came to be there, but it didn’t seem to matter to its mother.

“I think you should sew their mouths closed first, Doctor.” Mara loomed over me so I could witness her cool smile. “That might quiet them down.”

The doctor had a scalpel in one shaky hand. “Mah, mah, mah,” he said, gumming his lips and coming closer to me. The knife shook terribly as he got closer and closer to my eyes. He wasn’t even seeing me, just coming towards where he thought he should make the first cut.

The seconds lasted too long. They were stretched and drawn tight so that every excruciating detail could be remembered in perpetuity. The last things I would ever see with my own eyes would be the crags on his face, the strange wiry whiskers that grew like tufts of white tumbleweed on his chin, the vacant milky eyes. I’d remember the sour smell of age and death and senility bearing down on me to ransack my youth and sanity. Slower and slower, the shaking instrument that would take me away from myself for good continued to inch towards me at a godforsaken crawl. A maggot crawled out from his nose before oozing back into it.

That high keening sound had to be coming from me. It was the sound of desperation. I bet Mara loved it.

The doctor trembled so hard and his hand was so weak that he dropped the knife just as it was about to make contact with my skin.

I whimpered with relief and a certain letdown. The reprieve was temporary. I would only have to go through it again.

The scalpel landed on the gurney next to my head and Mara picked it up and put it back in his hand, folding his fingers over the instrument. “There, there, love,” she told him. “Do try again.”

There would be no anesthesia, no drugs to block the pain or dull the senses. And it would take hours and hours for him to finish this job. He was too weak to make effectual cuts; they would be dull and painful and ugly.

Death would have been kinder, but people don’t die in Under unless Mara wants them to.

Like Varnie.

My heart filled my throat. How would we ever be the same without Varnie?

Remembering his bravery and his sacrifice sharpened my desire to live. I wouldn’t let what he did be in vain. Not while I had breath in my body. Shoving past the fear, I found that place in the center of my soul and pushed with everything I had. A sharp crack filled the air as if I had summoned a lightning bolt. More cracking and popping followed and I was free from the oppression that had been holding down my limbs. The power inside me grew and grew, filling me with a confidence and strength I’d never felt before.

And then I remembered. The shadow creature hadn’t hurt me or tied me down. It had found me because it was
my
shadow—it had been looking for me because it belonged to me. It was the darkness I shared my soul with. The darkness I tried to deny.

I accepted that now—that I was made up of more than human flesh and bone. And that darkness would not be caged. The beast within had simply been biding its time, waiting for me to accept it as Haden had needed to reunite with his demon side to save me.

I might damn my soul forever, but maybe I deserved no less.

One thing was certain: my demon cried for vengeance.

I sat up and watched as each of the skeletons in the room snapped and splintered, collapsing as their bones became brittle and ground to dust. As
I
ground them to dust. It felt incredible.

Donny and Amelia were still tied to their tables, so I pushed the ancient doctor away and we tumbled to the floor. I grabbed a scalpel from the floor and rose to cut their straps, but Mara stood in front of me, blocking me.

“Get out of my way.” An unusual bravado filled me to overflowing. I was so done with all of this.

Her eyes narrowed. “You forget yourself.”

“I know my place and it’s not here. Your reign of terror is over, Mara. You keep coming at me with everything you have and I keep thwarting you because I will not give up.”

I thought of every strong woman I knew about—my mother, Muriel, my best friends . . . Buffy the Vampire Slayer . . . I would not back down. I would not surrender.

Everything boiled down to its most basic form in my head. A certainty, almost an epiphany, solidified there. Like a spotlight shining on a single thought, I realized I wasn’t afraid. I was free. Perhaps also insane, but free from fear.

I kept moving towards Donny and Ame, scalpel in my hand, and Mara actually backed up. I felt like maybe the insanity was taking over a little, but I also felt empowered. I had something she didn’t have.

I wagged the knife at her. “Your evil is strong, but I shouldn’t have to tell you that my love is stronger. And that is what makes you so angry, isn’t it? Of all the things your kind can do . . . all the damage you wreak and all the power you hold, you still can’t defeat humanity. You never will. You keep searching for a way to steal our strength because you’re jealous.”

She hissed. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill all of them. We’ll see how strong you are when I eat your precious little heart.”

“You’re nothing but a big bully. You’ve made a career of scaring people, but it’s all tricks. Smoke and mirrors. What are you going to do to me, Mara? Send more skeletons? I’ll kill them. Send the doctor after me?” We looked at him, unconscious on the ground at our feet.

“You unworthy little tart! You don’t think I can cut you without the doctor? You will be just like those handmaidens you dread—mark my words. I will dismember you one piece at a time.”

I chuckled. I actually chuckled. “You really don’t understand humans at all.”

She let her face register surprise.

“I won’t stop fighting you. You’ve thrown everything you had at me. You tried to erase who I was by kidnapping me the first time, and you tried to make me forget who I love by playing with my memory and taking away the people I care for—but I’m still here and I’m still fighting.”

“You would do well not to give me more ammunition, child. You forget that I’m still standing too.”

“Not for long, Mara.” Okay, some of my bravado was bluffing. “You’re so jealous of me.”

The snake bracelets on her arms began hissing and coiling as her anger built. “I’ll destroy you.”

“You hate that Haden loves me—that he can love but you don’t know how. More than that, you hate that humans have souls and you never will. It doesn’t matter how many you steal or destroy in your quest to possess one, you will never have a soul of your own.”

She smirked. “Have you seen your father lately, Pussycat? Do you know how he suffers? It’s all your fault. You brought this on him. All of them.”

“Don’t listen to her, Theia.” Amelia’s voice rang out, clear and true like a bell in the din of my doubts. “Mara brought this on us all, not you. She’s been playing with us like toys for a long time.”

Mara laughed. “Oh, Amelia, you pathetic child. You owe me so much and yet this is how you repay me. You were nothing—you still are nothing. Without my gift, what do you have?”

“That wasn’t a gift. You cursed me!”

Mara shrugged. “Without my curse, how will you fight me? My spell gave you power, Amelia. Now you have nothing.”

I remembered the day on the beach that Mara sent something dark after the three of us. We stood together and buffeted her magic then. We could do it now.

I began reciting the spell Ame had taught us the day on the beach. “Though in the shadow, darkness hides.”

Mara snapped her soulless gaze to me.

“This spell protects and thrice provides.”

She hissed.

Amelia’s voice joined mine. “For whom I trust the dark divides.”

“Crap,” Donny yelled. “I totally don’t remember the words.”