Girl of Nightmares

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jestine was wrong. The Order did show up to take one of us. They took her, just before sunset. Two women walked up without a word. They weren’t much older than us, both with stark black hair left loose and hanging. Jestine introduced them as Hardy and Wright. I guess junior members go by their last names. Either that or their parents are jerks.

Gideon came for me not much later. He found me wandering under the lampposts along the paved footpath. Good thing, too. The adrenaline had set in again, and I was this close to doing wind sprints. He led me back to the compound and through the buildings to his room, where rows of white candles had burnt down to nubs, and three of the dummy athames rested on red velvet.

“So,” I say as he closes the door. “What can you tell me about this ritual?”

“I can tell you that it begins soon,” he replies. Vague. It’s like I’m talking to Morfran.

“Where are Carmel and Thomas?”

“They’ll be along,” he says. A smile breaks the solemnity of his face. “That girl,” he chuckles. “She’s a firecracker. I’ve never heard such a tongue. Normally I’d say she was insolent, but under the circumstances—it was rather lovely to see Colin’s face turn that shade of red.” He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Why didn’t you pursue her?”

Carmel, antagonizing Burke all day long. I wish I could’ve seen it.

“Thomas beat me to it,” I reply, and grin.

Our smiles fade slowly, and I stare at the shrinking candles. The flames float on the wicks, so small. It’s strange to think that they can reduce the wax pillar to nothing. Gideon goes to his closet and slides the door wide. At first it looks like he’s reaching for a bundle of red curtains, but when he lays them out on the bed, I see that they’re actually ceremonial robes, just like the one he was wearing in Thomas’s stolen photo.

“Ah,” I say. “I was wondering when the robes and censers were going to show up.”

Gideon straightens both robes, pulling at the hoods and sleeves. I’m wearing an army-green t-shirt and jeans. It feels fine to me. The robes look like they weigh twenty pounds separately.

“Is wearing one of those going to help me with the spell?” I ask. “I mean, come on, you know most of the ceremony is just ceremony.”

“The ceremony is just ceremony,” he repeats, sort of like my mom does. “No, it won’t really help you. It’s only tradition.”

“Then forget it,” I say, eyeballing the plain rope that ties around the waist. “Tradition can shove it. And besides, Anna would laugh her ass off.”

His shoulders slump and I brace for impact. He’s going to yell now, about how I never take things seriously, about how I never show respect. When he turns I step back, and he grabs me by the shoulder.

“Theseus, if you walk out that door right now, they’ll let you go.”

I look at him. His eyes are shining, almost shaking behind his wire glasses. They’ll let me go, he said. Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn’t. Burke would probably come after me with a candlestick if I tried, and the whole thing would turn into a life-size game of Clue. I tug free gently.

“Tell Mom,” I say, and then stop. My mind is blank. Her face floats in it for a second, and disappears. “I don’t know. Tell her something good.”

“Knock, knock,” Thomas says, and pokes his head in. When the rest of him follows and Carmel after that, I can’t suppress a smile. They’re both wearing long, red robes, the hoods down in the back and the sleeves hanging over their hands.

“You guys look like Christmas monks,” I say. The toes of Thomas’s Converses poke out at the bottom. “You know you don’t have to wear those.”

“We didn’t want to, but Colin had a bird.” Carmel rolls her eyes. “They’re really heavy. And sort of itchy.”

Behind us, Gideon takes his robe off of the hanger and puts it on. He tightens the waist and straightens the hood on his back. Then he takes one of the dummy knives from the velvet and tucks it into the rope at his hip.

“You’ll each need one,” he says to Thomas and Carmel. “They’ve already been sharpened.”

They exchange a look, but neither one turns green when they go over and take a knife.

“I talked to my grandfather,” says Thomas. “He says we’re idiots.”

“We?”

“Well, mostly you.” We smile. I might be an idiot, but Morfran will be watching. If Thomas needs protection, he can send it from across the ocean.

I clear my throat. “Listen, I—I don’t know what kind of shape we’re going to be in when we get back. If they try to do something to Anna—”

“I’m pretty sure Anna could rend the Order into bits,” Thomas says. “But just in case, I know some tricks to slow them down.”

Carmel smiles. “I should’ve brought my bat.” A strange look comes on to her face.

“Has anyone considered how we’re getting Anna back to Thunder Bay?” she asks. “I mean, I’m pretty sure her passport has expired.”

I laugh, and so do the others, even Gideon.

“You two had better go along,” Gideon says, and motions out the door. “We’ll be right behind.”

They nod and touch my arm as they pass.

“Do I need to ask you to make sure they’re safe, if—?” I ask Gideon after they’re gone.

“No,” he replies. He puts his hand on my shoulder, heavily. “I swear that you don’t.”

In the space of a day, this place has aged a century. Electricity has been exchanged for candlelight. It flickers along the walls of the halls and bounces across the stone surface of the floor. Business attire is gone too; every person we pass has robed up, and each time we go by they make this gesture of blessing and prayer. Or maybe it’s a hex, depending on the person. I don’t do anything in return. Only one hand gesture springs to mind, and it just isn’t appropriate.

Gideon and I move through the maze of passages and connected rooms until we stand in front of a set of tall oak double doors. Before I can ask where the Order keeps the battering ram, the doors open from the inside to reveal a stone staircase, twisting down into the dark.

“Torch,” Gideon says tersely, and one of the people near the door hands him one. The light reveals finely carved granite steps. I expected them to be dark and wet, primitive.

“Careful,” I say when Gideon starts down.

“I won’t fall,” he replies. “What do you think I grabbed the torch for?”

“It’s not that. I was mostly thinking that you’d trip on the robe and break your neck.”

He grumbles something about being perfectly capable, but he steps carefully. I follow and do the same thing. Torch or no torch, the stairs are dizzying. There’s no handrail and they twist tightly around and around until my sense of direction is shot and I have no idea how far we’ve descended. The air is progressively colder, and damper. It feels like we’re walking down the throat of a whale.

When we reach the bottom, we have to curl around a wall, so the candlelight hits us suddenly as we walk into the large, circular space. Candles line the wall in three rows: one row of white pillars and one row of black. The center row is a pattern of both. They sit on shelves carved into the rock.

The robes are standing in the center in a semicircle that’s waiting to close. Only the senior-most members of the Order are present, and I look at their faces, all old and anonymous, except for Thomas and Carmel. I wish they’d put the hoods down. They look weird with their hair obscured. Burke is of course standing at the center like a keystone. He doesn’t make any show of warmth this time. His features are cut sharp in the candlelight, and that’s just how I’ll remember him. Looking like a jerk.

Thomas and Carmel are on the edge of the semicircle, Thomas trying not to look out of place and Carmel not giving a shit one way or the other. They give me nervous smiles, and I eyeball the Order members. At each one of their belts glitters a sharpened knife; I glance at Gideon. If this goes wrong, he’d better have some kind of trick up his sleeve, or he, Thomas, and Carmel will all be Julius Caesar’ed before he says two words.

Thomas locks eyes with me, and we glance up. The ceiling isn’t visible. It’s too high for the candlelight to reach. I look at Thomas again and his eyes widen. We hate this place. It feels like it’s underneath everything. Underground. Underwater. A bad place to die.

No one has said anything since Gideon and I arrived. I feel their eyes, though, on my face and flickering over the knife handle in my back pocket. They want me to take it out. They want to see it, to ooh and aah over it one more time. Well, forget it, assholes. I’m going through the gate, finding my girl, and coming back out again. Then we’ll see what you have to say.

My hands have started to shake; I clench them up tight. Behind us, footsteps echo down the stairway. Jestine is being led in by Hardy and Wright, but led is the wrong word. Escorted is better. To the Order, this show is all about her.

They let her go without a red robe too. Or maybe she refused it. When I look at her, there’s still a persistent twinge in my gut saying she’s not my enemy, and it’s hard not to trust it after so long even if it seems crazy. She walks into the circle and her escorts retreat back up the stairs. The robed circle closes up behind her, leaving us alone in the center. She acknowledges the Order and then looks at me, tries to smirk, and falters. She’s wearing a white tank and low-riding black pants. There are no visible talismans, or medallions, or jewelry. But I catch a whiff of rosemary. She’s been anointed for protection. Around her leg is a strap that looks to contain a knife, and there’s a similar one strapped to her other thigh. Somewhere, Lara Croft is wanting her look back.

“Can we really not change your mind?” Burke asks without an ounce of sincerity.

“Just get on with it,” I mutter. He smiles without showing his teeth. Some people can’t make anything but dishonest faces.

“The circle has already been cast,” he says mildly. “The gateway is clear. All that remains is to swing it wide. But first, you must choose your anchor.”

“My anchor?”

“The person who will serve as your link to this plane. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to find your way back. You must each choose.”

My mind flickers to Gideon. Then I look left.

“Thomas,” I say.

His eyes widen. I think he’s trying to look flattered but succeeds in just looking sick to his stomach.

“Colin Burke,” Jestine says beside me. No big surprise there.

Thomas swallows and steps forward. He draws the dummy athame from his belt and wraps his fist around the blade. When he pulls the edge against his palm, he manages to keep from flinching, even as the blood wells and spills out the side of his fist. He wipes the athame on his robe and slides it back into his belt, then dips his thumb into the blood pooling in his palm. It’s warm when he smears a small crescent onto my forehead, just above my brow. I nod at him as he backs up. Beside him, Carmel’s eyes are wide. They both thought I’d choose Gideon. I thought so too until I opened my mouth.

I turn; Burke and Jestine repeat the ritual. His blood is shining and crimson against her skin. When she turns to face me, I fight the urge to wipe it off. She swallows hard, and her eyes are bright. Adrenaline is releasing into our blood, making the world sharper, clearer, more immediate. It’s not the same as when I hold the athame but it’s close. At a nod from Burke, the rest of the Order pull their knives out. Carmel is only a half step behind them as they all drag the blades across their palms; her eyes narrow at the brief sting. Then all of them, Thomas and Burke included, turn their hands over, allowing the blood to drip onto the floor, spattering onto a mosaic of pale yellow asymmetrical tiles. When the droplets strike, the flames on the candles flare and energy like the waves over intense heat rushes to the center and reverberates outward. I can feel it, beneath my feet, changing the surface. Just how is hard to describe. It’s like the ground beneath our shoes is becoming less. Like it’s thinning out, or losing a dimension. We’re standing on a surface that isn’t a surface anymore.

“It’s time, Cas,” Jestine says.

“Time,” I say.

“They’ve done their part, paving the way. But they can’t open the door. That you have to do yourself.”

Magic is swimming through my head in a fucking torrent. Looking around the circle, I can barely distinguish Carmel and Gideon from the others. Beneath the hoods, their features have blurred. Then I catch sight of Thomas, so clear that he might as well be sparkling, and my stomach drops down a few inches in my throat. My arm moves; I don’t realize that I’m reaching for the athame until it’s in my hand, until I’m looking down at it, the flames from the candles flickering orange on the blade.

“I have to go first,” says Jestine. She’s standing square to me. The athame is pointed toward her stomach.

“No.” I pull back but she grabs my shoulder. I didn’t know this is what they meant. I thought it would be Burke. I thought it would be a shallow cut on the arm. I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t think anything; I didn’t want to. I back up another step.

“If you go, I go,” Jestine says from between clenched teeth. Before I can react, she grasps my hand where it holds the athame and plunges it deep into her side. I watch the blade sink in like a nightmare, slow but so easily, like it was sliding through water. When it comes out it shines a translucent red.

“Jestine!” I shout. The word dies loud in my ears. The walls give off no echo. Her body folds up and she sinks to her knees. She’s clutching at her side; only the smallest bit of blood breaks through her fingers, but I know it’s worse than that.

Her life’s blood.

As I watch, she loses a dimension, becomes less, like the air around us and the floor beneath our feet. She’s gone, crossed over. What’s left is hollowed out, nothing more than a place marker.

I look down at her, hypnotized, and turn the athame inward. When it breaks through my skin the world spins. It feels like my mind is being pulled out through a pinhole. I clench my jaw and press harder, thinking of Jestine, thinking of Anna. My knees hit the floor, and the light goes out.