by Mac Flynn
"That sounds like a nightmare to me," Quill quipped.
"And me," Bram chimed in.
"Stop agreeing with me, Pipsqueak," Quill scolded him.
"You're not my mom," Bram shot back.
"Guys?" I called to them.
"Yeah?" Quill replied.
"Shut up."
There was silence on the other end. I closed my eyes and stepped into the abyss.
The fall was long and hot. I pressed my arms together and dove head-first into the steaming air that arose from the lava. The temptation was too great, and I opened my eyes. They widened as I beheld the river of lava. The bubbling bursts of red liquid metal welcomed me with its fiery arms. I shut my eyes and turned my face away from the heat just as I was about to hit the melting river.
Vincent.
A cold blast of air hit me in the face. I opened my eyes in time to watch me crash head-first into Vincent's chest. We fell to the floor in a tangled pile of limbs and confusion. Vincent wrapped his arms around me, straightening me out and pinning me to his chest.
"I'm so glad you're okay," he whispered.
"So am I, but could you give me some air?" I wheezed.
"Oh. Sorry." He released me and I sat up atop him. His eyes swept over me and his hands pressed against my arms. "You're all right, aren't you?"
I snorted. "You've been saying that a lot lately."
"You've been in a lot of trouble lately," he countered.
I frowned and leaned towards him. "And you have some explaining to do."
A clapping noise interrupted my inquisition. Quill stepped up beside us and clapped his hands. "Congratulations. You've made a believer out of me, except for that whole werewolf business. That, or you've suddenly become experts at optical illusions."
I glanced over my shoulder. Behind me stood the vanity and the unblemished mirror. Beside the vanity stood Bram.
"That was definitely no illusion. I couldn't smell her until she flew through the mirror," Bram insisted.
"Then I'm a believer, and we're in a hell of a lot of trouble," Quill commented.
I stood and brushed myself off. Vincent followed suit behind me. "You guys are safe. The ghost only wants me."
Vincent frowned. "Why you?"
I shook my head. "I'm not sure. She kept saying I was a proxy and she could use my body to live again. I'm thinking she was interested in possessing me."
"How'd she get you into that mirror, anyway?" Quill asked me.
I swept my eyes over the men and glared at them. "She took me while all three of you were gone."
Vincent shook his head. "We never left the room."
I spun around to face him and narrowed my eyes. "I know what I saw. The room was empty."
"He's telling you the truth," Quill insisted. "We never left the room, but you did."
"Yeah," Bram spoke up. "One second you were there, and then the next you were gone!"
I furrowed my brow. "But I know I walked over there, and you three weren't in the room."
"How about we figure out the physics of phantoms later?" Quill commented. He jerked his thumb at the mirror. "Having that thing in here can't be safe for any of us."
"Should we get rid of it, or put a blanket over it?" Vincent suggested.
"I think I have a better idea," Quill offered. He stepped forward and picked up the jewelry case from the vanity. Quill stepped back and threw the box into the mirror. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces and the box clattered to the floor. He turned to us and folded his arms across his chest. "There. That's better."
"Fuck no it's not better," Bram spoke up. "And it's not going to get any better until we get out of here. Right now."
I looked down at the floor. The contents of the jewelry case lay scattered among the bits of glass. My eyes widened. I stooped and grabbed one of the pieces.
"What is it?" Vincent asked me.
I stood and opened my palm. In my hand was a broach, and on the front was a face carved from ivory.
"The woman wore one of these," I told him.
Vincent frowned. "Are you sure?"
I nodded. "I'm positive." I clasped the broach tight in my hand and frowned. "And that means we need to have a talk with our host."
"Talking? What the hell are you guys thinking?" Bram spoke up. He stepped into our small circle and waved a hand at the mirror. "You idiots might not know it, but werewolves are no good against ghosts. That means we can break all the mirrors we want, but we can't stop them from coming after us through walls or anything like that."
"If we stick together we have a chance," I insisted.
Bram snorted and jerked his head towards me. "Yeah, like that worked for you. The only thing that's going to work here is running, and that's what I'm going to do. See ya."
He turned and ran from the room.
"Where are you going, Pipsqueak!" Quill called. He cupped a hand over his mouth. "We've got to stick together!" Bram's footsteps pounded down the hall. Quill ground his teeth together and rushed after him. "Damn it."
"Come on," I ordered Vincent as I, too, ran from the room.
"But can't we let him leave?" Vincent wondered as he followed me.
"It's too risky to go out into the fog!" I pointed out.
We clamored down the stairs. Quill was half the stairway ahead of us, and Bram was nearly at the entrance that led onto the deck. The kid grabbed the handle and swung open the French door.
A cold wind rushed into the house. I stopped at the foot of the stairs and flung up my arms. Vincent slid around me and wrapped his arms around me. His back faced the gust as the room was invaded by a damp chill. The oil lamps were blown out and the room was enveloped in darkness.
I looked over Vincent's arm. Bram stood in front of the door with his arms over his face. The mist on the deck floated into the room and reached out for him with white tendrils. Quill rushed forward and tackled Bram. They both fell to the floor close to the open doorway. The fog curled downward towards them. Quill caught his foot on the edge of the door and slammed it shut.
Silence reigned inside the house. Quill sat up and brushed himself off.
"Next time you decide to get yourself killed, don't open the door and let in the monster to get us all killed," he advised the kid.
Bram rolled over and blinked at Quill. "You. . .you saved me."
Quill stood and held out his hand for the boy to take. A crooked grin slipped onto his lips. "Who else am I going to beat at arm-wrestling?"
Bram smirked and took his hand. Quill pulled him to his feet. "Next time I won't let you cheat," Bram warned him.
Quill pursed his lips and looked around the room at each of the windows. "If there is a next time."
CHAPTER 11
Vincent released me and stepped back. I swept my eyes over the room and frowned.
"Where's Umbra?" I asked my companions.
They all mimicked my movement and inspected the large room.
"He should've come. Bram's feet were loud enough to wake the dead," Quill quipped.
Bram glared at him. "And you were shouting like a screech owl."
Vincent stepped into the center of the room and cupped his hand around his mouth. "Umbra? Umbra?" The answer was silence.
"Maybe he scrammed before the fog got worse," Bram suggested.
Quill folded his arms over his chest and furrowed his brow. "So what do we do now? We go outside and the fog gets us, and I don't think it's waiting out there to give us hugs."
"Just the kind that stop breathing," I commented.
I wracked my mind for a solution. Nothing was forthcoming until Vincent stepped towards the French doors. His back was turned to me. When he spoke his voice was calm and firm.
"I have to go out there."
I frowned. "Like hell you do. We'll stay in here until-"
Leila~
I stumbled back and clutched my chest over my beating heart. "That voice! The ghost!"
Leila~
Vincent half-turned to me and
frowned. "I don't hear anything."
"Neither do I," Quill added.
"There's nothing there," Bram chimed in.
Leila~
I clapped my hands over my ears, but the haunting voice reverberated inside my mind.
Leila~
"Get out of my head!" I screamed.
Vincent took a step towards me and reached out his hand. "Leila, what's-"
The French doors behind him flew open and slammed against the walls. Fog swept into the room and surrounded us. I felt dozens of tendrils grab me and tear me from the room. They dragged me onto the deck and slammed the doors shut behind me. The white hands shoved me against the railing. I grasped the wood as they tried to lift me off my feet and over the side.
"Let go, you bitch!" I yelled.
"Leila!" Vincent roared.
A dark shape crashed through the shut doors and landed on the deck. Its presence swept aside the fog and gave me a clear view. It was Vincent fully transformed into his werewolf form. Bram and Quill stepped into the hole left by Vincent. Their mouths were agape as they beheld his form.
"Holy shit. . ." Bram murmured.
"You're not kidding, Pipsqueak," Quill agreed. He nudged the kid with his elbow. "I thought you said he couldn't transform."
Bram shook his head and his eyes fell on me. "She's gotta be a proxy."
The fog's momentary dissipation wore away and hid our friends once more. More tendrils grabbed me and hefted me over the railing. My fingers slipped. I twisted in their grasp and reached out for Vincent.
"Vincent!" I yelled.
Vincent roared and lunged at me. He wrapped his arms around me and tore me from my pale captors. We landed hard on the shifting beach sand. I was cradled in his arms and against his chest. A few feet in front of us sat the remains of a ruined dock.
The piercing scream of an angry woman came from behind us. Vincent spun around and snarled. My eyes widened as I beheld the fog shift into the shape of the woman from my dream-my soul. The mist shaped the head and a pair of red eyes glared at me. She raised one of her fog-created arms and pointed a finger at me.
"Give me the woman, monster," she growled.
Vincent clasped me harder to himself and snarled. Tendrils shot out from the mist around the woman. Their ends transformed into stakes that barreled down on us. Vincent leapt back. The tendrils speared the ground and left deep depressions. Again and again they stabbed at us, and again Vincent dodged them by jumping back.
His feet landed on the rotten boards of the dock. I glanced over his shoulder. The fog behind us gave way and revealed the end of the decrepit structure. A half-sunk boat floated beside the dock. Inside sat the corporeal, rotten form of the woman. She smiled her black-toothed grin and beckoned to me.
"Vincent, we have to stop going backwards!" I yelled at him. He leapt back further onto the dock and snarled. I whipped my head to him and frowned. "Vincent!"
His reply was to growl and clutch me tighter. He wouldn't meet my gaze. His eyes were glued to the danger ahead and not behind.
This called for desperate measures. I wiggled one arm loose and slapped my hand across his long snout.
"Snap out of it, Vincent, or you're not going to keep your promise to protect me!" I shouted.
Vincent straightened and his eyes widened. The transformation was immediate. His snout shrank back into his face and returned to his normal features, and his eyes returned to their emerald-green color. His skin, however, was still a dark gray. He looked down and blinked at me.
"Leila?" he whispered.
"Watch out!" I yelled.
A fog spear flew at us. Vincent stepped aside so that the spear cut across his back. He cried out and stumbled forward towards the edge of the dock.
"What is it? What's-" My eyes fell on the spear as it slammed into the dock. The tip and body were covered in blood. Vincent's blood.
"Leila! Vincent!" I looked to the shore some fifteen feet off. The silhouettes of Bram and Quill appeared from the mist behind and to the left of the ghostly woman.
I waived my arm over my head. "Over-"
Vincent shifted his weight and his foot fell through a rotten board. He dropped down and his leg was swallowed into the darkness beneath the dock. I toppled onto the deck and rolled off the side. I whipped out my hand and caught hold of a rotting board. My legs up to my knees splashed into the water. I felt something thin and slimy wrap around my lower legs. I kicked and flailed, but each time the slippery tendrils returned.
The sound of oars in the water caught my attention. I looked to my right. The boat at the end of the dock floated towards me, propelled by the oars in the hands of the undead woman. Her brilliant red eyes grew brighter the closer she came to me.
Vincent pulled himself from the hole and grabbed my arm. He hefted me from the water just as the bow of the boat reached me. Vincent wrapped his arms around me as the boat slipped up to us. Its sole passenger glared at Vincent.
"Release her, werewolf. She's more use to me than you," the woman snarled.
Vincent shook his head. "Never."
The woman snapped her fingers. The fog swirled around us and thickened until we could only see the dock beneath our feet and the woman in the boat. We were trapped in a world of whiteness that had no end and no beginning. Tendrils grew forth from the wall and shaped themselves into the spears.
"Do it or you will both die," she hissed.
"That's enough, Lillian," a voice called out.
A patch of fog to our right pulled back and revealed our host, Umbra. But he was changed. His clothes hung limp on his body and were stained with soil. His pale skin more resembled the fog than a living human being. Blood poured from the side of his head and dripped onto the dock. The source of the blood was a distinct bullet hole at his temple.
The woman hissed. "Murderer! You dare come out here after what you did!"
He took a step towards her and held out his hand. "Please, Lillian, listen to me. You must stop this, all of this."
"No! I will not listen to the man who murdered me!" she shrieked. She whipped her head to us and her eyes fell on me. "I deserve life! I deserve it!"
Umbra dropped his arm to his side and shook his head. "Neither of us deserves any more than we received, but it's time to end this. We need to rest."
"No! Not when I'm this close!" she insisted.
She crawled to the dock and hoisted herself onto the boards. Vincent pulled me away from her clawing hands. Umbra rushed forward and slipped himself between us and the undead woman. He spread his arms on either side and frowned at her.
"I won't let you take another one like you took Adriana," he told her.
"Get out of my way!" she screeched.
Lillian tried to tear him from her path, but he grabbed her wrists. They grappled for a moment before both spilled over into the boat. The leaky vessel capsized and threw them both into the chest-deep water. The pair broke the surface. Umbra still held Lillian's wrists.
"Let go! Let me go!" she repeated.
"No! No more of this!" he shouted.
He released her wrists and wrapped his hands around her throat. She clawed at his hands, but he pulled her beneath the water. Her hands flailed and pawed at him. Air bubbles escaped her hollow lungs and bubbled to the surface.
The fog around us slowly dissipated. Bram and Quill came back into sight. They rushed down the dock and arrived at our side just as the last of the fog disappeared.
The air bubbles, too, vanished. Umbra released his hold and stepped back. Lillian's body floated to the surface. It was changed. Gone was the rotting corpse, and in its place was the woman I'd seen inside my head. Her face was peaceful. Umbra gave her body a push, and the corpse floated away into the distance.
"What the hell just happened?" Quill asked us.
Umbra turned to us. Bram cringed. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked our host.
"What you witnessed was a close reenactment of my sin," he explained. He turned his head to his right and
looked out on the wide lake. The sky reflected on the calm surface. "My wife coaxed my mistress onto the lake, and there the boat capsized. My wife could swim, my mistress could not. I tried to save Adriana, but the woman I pulled from the waters was my wife." He turned away from the lake and shook his head. "I. . .I was wrought with grief and madness. In my anger I drowned my wife." He reached up and touched the hole in his head. "And it was by my own hand that I took my life inside my home."
Bram's eyes widened. "The stain!"
Umbra nodded. "Yes. My constant reminder of my two sins." He sighed and hung his head. "Now I'm trapped here. Alone for eternity."
"Michael~"
He raised his head and his eyes widened. We all looked around us. Quill pointed at the lake. "There!"
We followed his gaze. The white form of a woman in a white dress walked towards us. Her bare feet floated above the water, an each step caused a small ripple against the surface. A halo of light surrounded her, and behind her floated her long, black hair. She had a bright smile on her face that eased my weary body.
Umbra stumbled towards her. "Adriana? My god, is it really you?"
She stopped at the edge of the dock and opened her arms. Her voice was like soft wind chimes in a refreshing breeze. "You've suffered enough, my beloved. It's time to rest now."
He paused and raised his hands. His eyes looked down at them and he shook his head. "But how? How can I rest with so much blood?"
"I will show you the way," she promised.
He struggled through the water. His progress was too slow, so he climbed onto the dock and rushed to her. Adriana stepped onto the dock and he wrapped his arms around her.
"My love, my beloved," he murmured.
She returned his embrace and lay her head on his shoulder. "It's time to rest now." She raised her head and smiled at us. "Thank you."
"For what?" I asked her.
Her eyes swept over our small group. "For your humanity, and your caring for one another. For that, I thank you."
Cool, white, fluffy mist rose from the water. There was no chill or clammy feeling from the mist. It wrapped us in a warm, soothing blanket that warmed me to my soul. The mist floated around the pair of lovers and covered them from our view.
A breeze blew from the shore and past us. It swept away the mist. The dock was empty. They were gone.
CHAPTER 12
There was silence among us for a while. Then Quill raised his hand.
"Could somebody pinch me?" he requested. Bram obliged. "Ouch! Not that hard, Pipsqueak!"
