Lydia could scream—could panic, fight, thrash—beg for freedom, throw up or cry. Maybe it was the drugs, or she was just exhausted and tired of being afraid. But something in her fell flat at the news and gave up trying to condone and understand everything that she had seen and heard so far.
This wasn’t Earth anymore.
Really, she had no reason to doubt them after everything she’d been through. No reason to think the strange and flat hole through space she had witnessed wasn’t actually just that. A gate to another place. It felt so ludicrous, she almost wanted to laugh, but she was too tired to even muster that.
Instead, she laid her head back against the incline of the table and stared up at the ceiling. It had a beautiful chandelier up there, with lights upon winding brass arms, burning to resemble candles. The classical fixture was attached into a ceiling medallion whose curling acanthus leaves looked twisted and warped. Too pointed and angular—like the writing on her arm. Like the writing on their masks.
“I want to go home,” she admitted to them, feeling small and hopeless. Feeling as childish against what was happening as the statement belied.
“I promise you, in a few days, if not shorter, this will be your home. You will be at peace with all that has happened. You will see this world as a new opportunity. I vow it,” Aria pledged to her adamantly.
Lydia raised her head to ask a question but found herself interrupted.
“A point of advice,” Maverick said, and she turned her head to watch him as he was now gesturing at the wound in her arm with the back end of a Q-tip. “Living tissue does not separate like dead tissue. It is clear to me that is with what you are accustomed to working. The dead skin comes away from the matter underneath quite cleanly.” Talk about a change of subject. The man had the air of a professor, and suddenly she felt like she was back in med school. “What you see here, the blistering of the dermis, is due to the trauma you caused when you, as far as I can tell, yanked the skin off.”
“Look,” Lydia responded, getting defensive again at his judgmental tone. She could latch onto that, at least. Everything else was too big, too insane. But arguing with a man and explaining to him exactly how impressive her home surgery was, considering the circumstances, was easy. “I did the best I could with what I had.”
“Which was what, precisely?” he asked, once more incredulous.
“My hobby knife and a pair of forceps. And that’s it. And yes, fine, I work on dead people. I’m a forensic autopsy tech. What do you want from me?” That really was the motto of the past day.
“Hm,” he said, making that mildly impressed noise Aria had pointed out to her earlier. “That must have been immensely painful.”
Lydia laughed at the understatement. “Yeah. I woke up on my floor.”
Maverick shook his head, but there was a faint smile on his features. His one visible yellow eye was looking at her somewhat bemused, if still somehow also managing to look like a college professor. “Well, as you can see,” he gestured to her other arm, where the small backward N with the swirl had reappeared, “the effort was sadly wasted.”
“I had to try.”
“You are not the first,” Maverick said with an idle shrug. “I do not recommend trying again.”
“Noted,” Lydia said with a breath and leaned back against the table again. “Good job changing the subject.”
“It is a gift,” Maverick commented dryly.
Lydia had to laugh again. If that was his attempt at a joke, she didn’t honestly know, but she found it funny. Then again, Lydia found humor in the worst of things. She worked in a glorified morgue, after all.
“Goodness me, Maverick. Note the calendar, for someone has finally arrived who understands your humor.” Aria had taken her hand off Lydia’s shoulder at some point—and she hadn’t noticed, damn drugs—and had wandered over to a bookcase to start leafing through books.
“It was not a jest,” Maverick responded, deadpan, as he began to wrap up the wound on her arm. “I will inform Lord Edu you are ready to join the others.” He picked up the syringe on the table, the one he had threatened her with earlier.
Lydia tensed reflexively. “Wait, wait! I’m not struggling.”
“No, but you certainly will be in short order. It is better for you to be transported in an unconscious state.” Maverick swabbed a spot on her arm and inserted the needle with no more pomp or circumstance. “I will not have you thrashing about and tearing off the bandage or, worse, re-injuring yourself,” he continued as he depressed the plunger.
It was astonishing how quickly blood circulated in the body. All through med school, Lydia had been impressed with how fast something could go from point A to point B in the bloodstream. And this moment was no exception.
The world began to dim. Oh. Oh, hell, please, no…
***
“Master Edu wonders why you did not simply leave her unconscious the entire time,” Ylena said from Edu’s side. Her flowing red dress made a faint whisper on the wood floor as she moved to stand beside him.
Edu looked down at the young woman on the table, the straps that held her there undone. The human girl was lying senseless to the world, her eyes shut, head rolled to one side. Her blonde hair was splayed around her face, falling in soft curls along what he decided were sultry and beautiful features.
Edu was not one to hesitate in appreciating the beauty of those around him. But it was not her appearance that had struck an ember of curiosity in him, for he was privileged to enjoy the company of any he saw fit to have. Beauty alone did not inspire such attention as he now paid this young one—coming to fetch her from the doctor in person, as it were. It was that she had, quite simply, caught him off guard.
The look of defiance in her flashing blue eyes as she had fired off her weapon into his head had been breathtaking. Firearms had evolved significantly over the past hundred and eighty-odd years since he had walked Earth. He had not expected so much impact out of the little pop-toy.
The woman was undoubtedly of stronger will than most he had met in his many, many years, and she was amusing to chase, however briefly the pursuit had lasted. Edu had underestimated her strength of character when hunting her, and that misjudgment had allowed her to kill him. Edu had not died in a very long time, and it was with no small amount of chagrin that he had awoken from the injury she had paid him.
It was an enjoyable diversion to be surprised in such a manner. It was not often Edu was caught unprepared.
“For the same reason I suspect you come in person to fetch her.” Maverick stood from his desk and was wiping his hands off on a damp cloth. The man was shorter than Edu by a fair length, but then again, most creatures who once claimed humanity found themselves in such a state. “Curiosity. Aria wished to cast a glance into the modern mind before she is to be added to our ranks.”
Ah, yes. The Fall was a cause for much rabble in his world. It upended the balance of things, adding new life and new invigoration into a dead and dying world. It was the cause for excitement for all.
“Master Edu thanks you for your service,” Ylena said from his side.
No, in fact, he had not done any such thing. He admonished Ylena silently, and her psychic connection with him would allow her to feel it as certainly as the moons might rise. Her expression did not change, and he knew she did not care for his scolding. “Do not speak for me, Ylena.”
Ylena was often want to soften Edu’s manners. To add a sense of civility where he had none, she would usually tell him. “That is all I do,” she responded silently to him. Her voice in his head was as familiar as his own.
“It is an honor, of course.” Maverick bowed his head.
Platitudes and niceties. This was what Edu hated above all else. He despised such bending and scraping. Maverick no more respected Edu than he did a table lamp, and his disdain was as clear as the Earthen sun. But Maverick rightly feared Edu. Edu would have it no other way. At least terror was a real emotion. Respect was not tangible; it was a cons
truct of man and society. Fear served a purpose.
He had the sudden overwhelming urge to grasp Maverick by the back of the head and ram his skull through the wall. He could. He was king.
Edu felt his hand twitch and Ylena’s presence in his mind once more. “Do not entertain this desire further,” she said into his mind. “He has done nothing to deserve your wrath.”
But he desired to harm the man for no other reason than he wanted to do so. Edu was not keen on self-restraint. Yet in this case, the moment of indulgence would cost him more trouble and annoyance in short order. Maverick was regent and elder of a house, after all. Edu sighed from under his mask and felt the urge pass.
Very well.
Edu leaned down and picked the young woman up in his arms. She was a tiny thing, with curves in all the right places. She had full lips, and he wondered what it might be like to touch them. Edu was in no rush. He could have her when he wished. There would be many amusing creatures worth exploring in the years to follow, and for that reason alone, Edu always looked forward to when their worlds aligned.
Perhaps he would bid her to his chambers for a night or two, once the ceremony had come and gone. Playing with someone so willful and with such conviction would be entertaining, with her flashing blue eyes and fiery spirit. She would be easy to take but harder to tame, he was sure. All the better.
But that was for another time. For now, the girl must go back with the others and await her turn for the Fall.
Chapter Six
It was like helplessly re-watching a film where someone dies. No amount of knowing what was going to happen would help the poor, doomed character on the screen. No amount of yelling at the TV would change the outcome. It was scripted. It was unavoidable.
And so, Lydia was helpless as she walked toward the edge of that obsidian sarcophagus in that twisted and eerie stone crypt. She was replaying the actions she did before in her dream, and just like a film, she couldn’t stop, unable to help it as she stepped up onto the stair that surrounded it and peered down over the edge at the sleeping man inside—the creature with the black mask and the clawed, gauntleted hand.
But the tomb was empty.
And just like that, the script changed.
It didn’t take her long to find out where the man had gone.
Lydia let out a startled squeak as a metal hand twisted in her hair. She was suddenly pushed forward and pinned to the edge of the obsidian sarcophagus. A body, warm against her back, was pressing her against the surface.
“Well, hello…” a voice purred close to her ear. It sounded like a knife wrapped in velvet. “I am surprised you returned.”
“Let me go!”
“You invade my mind, and I am supposed to let you go? How quaint.” The man laughed. As Lydia struggled, his other hand grabbed her left wrist and crossed over her right arm, pinning it to her body. “Now, now. None of that. You are the trespasser here, after all.”
“Not on purpose.”
“Of that, I am certain. The mark on your arm speaks that you have not yet Fallen.” His metal mask touched her temple as he leaned in closer to her. He smelled like old books and dusty leather, like the back aisles of some ancient library. “So, by what method are you here, I wonder?”
“I don’t know. Let me go!” Lydia struggled.
“So feisty.” The man laughed. He released his grasp on her hair and her arm. For a moment, she thought he was going to listen and let her go. But as she whirled around, he merely let her turn to face him before grasping her wrists and pinning them to the lip of the sarcophagus on either side of her.
The smooth black metal mask, with the single hole for his right eye, was hard to mistake. She could see now the stray few gray hairs serving as the only contrast of color in his long, jet-black hair. He was taller than average but not nearly as much as Lyon, nor was he nearly as broad as Edu. But he was just as intimidating. His appearance seemed cultivated for that purpose. It wasn’t helping that he was now leaning against her, pinning her back to the sarcophagus with the length of his thigh.
The man’s very dated, if expensive-looking, three-piece suit was tailored to accent an angular but toned build. It was meant to differentiate him from all around him. He looked like a living nightmare. Maybe he was.
Lydia was stunned to silence, looking up wide-eyed in fear at the smooth metal mask that peered back down at her.
“I suppose it is more likely you are here by my doing,” he said thoughtfully.
“You…aren’t sure?”
“No.” He pulled in a sharp breath through his nose and let it out in a small sigh as if conceding a debate in his mind. “Ah, well. You will discover this soon enough. I fear my grasp on my own mind may be a bit…tenuous at best.”
“Oh, good. I’ve dreamed up an insane nightmare man,” she griped.
“You believe I am a figment of your mind? How charming. No, my dear. I am very real. My shattered mind may play tricks upon me, but of that fact, I am certain. You merely have found yourself inside my sleeping psyche.”
Lydia’s heart sank into her stomach. Now it really had gone from weird to worse. She would ask how this was possible, but she had been chased through the streets of Boston by a man in a full suit of armor—after she had shot him through the head—and been thrown through a black gateway into another place. Not to mention Lyon and the corpse in her lab and her magically appearing surprise tattoo.
Right now, logic was out the window. So, sure…why not. A strange, insane man in all black was haunting her dreams.
“Well, that’s…just great,” she finally managed to muster.
The man chuckled at Lydia’s candid expression of dread. “You are a sardonic one, aren’t you? Lovely.” He was caging her in with his arms on either side of her, keeping her hands held to the edge of the obsidian sarcophagus. He leaned in, and she shrank back as far as she was able. “But why have I brought you here, I wonder?” The man lifted his clawed gauntlet from her wrist and hovered the points of his knife-like fingers over her cheek.
Lydia felt her eyes go wide. If her heart could pound in a dream, it was. “Wait, I—” she squeaked out, unsure of what he was going to do to her.
“Once more, you ask for my restraint?” The man spoke, deeply amused. He curled his clawed fingers into his palm and ran the metal knuckle down her cheek instead. It was a tender, gentle gesture. But it terrified her all the same. At the look on her face, he let out a quiet noise in his throat thoughtfully before speaking again. “If you do not wish to be here, then simply wake up. Even if you are here by my power, you can free yourself.”
“I—I can’t,” Lydia stammered.
“Oh?”
“He drugged me.”
“Who is he?”
“His name’s Maverick, I think,” Lydia peeped out, not quite knowing how she managed to have such a casual conversation with a monster, pinning her to a tomb and looming over her like he was.
The man let out a deep and beleaguered sigh. He hung his head and shook it, the dark tendrils of his hair falling alongside the black of his mask. The only difference between the two was how they reflected the flickering candlelight. “That man, for all his intelligence, is an utter moron.”
“You know him?”
“I very well should. I am the one who brought Maverick to Under. I knew him as a mortal man before he came through the gate and Fell to the House of Words and became its regent,” he said through another amused chuckle. Somehow, he managed to sound oddly friendly, even as he was looming over her like a creature out of a slasher film.
“House of Words?”
“You would not understand. Once you Fall, all will be made clear.”
“Fall where?”
The man sighed wistfully. “The uninitiated are always so wonderfully naïve. Did you tell Maverick of our previous encounter?” The man shifted to rest his metal palm against her jawline, the dagger-like blade of his thumb running across her cheek. It made her shiver, and she pressed harder ag
ainst the edge of the sarcophagus. The touch sent her heart lodging into her throat.
“No,” she said a little too quickly. “I…thought you were a nightmare. I’m still not sure you aren’t.”
The man leaned in insistently. “You must not tell anyone that we have spoken. Do not speak a word that you know anything of me.”
“What will happen if I do?”
“It will mean your life, little one. They will kill you in a heartbeat, the Fall be damned, if they learn that I have drawn you—even unwittingly—into my mind.”
“But why?” Lydia swallowed thickly.
The man ignored her question as he finally removed his clawed hand from her. “You wish to wake up, do you not?”
“Yes, please,” Lydia murmured.
“But you are drugged and cannot do so on your own.”
“I don’t think so…?” Why was this conversation suddenly making her very nervous?
“I suspect I know how to force the matter.”
“What do you mean?”
“What is your name, my dear?”
“Lydia.”
“Well, Lydia,” he purred out her name, and it made her skin flood with goosebumps, “it is a distinct pleasure to meet you. My name is Aon, and you will come to fear me.”
Before she could react, he moved—and drove the fingers of his clawed gauntlet deep into her ribcage.
***
Lydia woke from her dream with a jolt, her heart pounding in her ears. Her stomach swirled dangerously as everything moved around her. “Oh, damn it.” She guessed a nightmare shouldn’t be unexpected, given recent events. But that felt so damn real.
And whoever that guy was, he was a piece of work. The feeling of his clawed hand digging into her ribs lingered in her mind and made her shudder. If he was real, she knew she was in trouble. If he was fake, she needed therapy.
“Jesus Christ,” came a familiar voice next to her. “You had me scared.”
When the world finally managed to sit still long enough that she could uncover her eyes without throwing up, she blinked the world into focus. Someone was kneeling next to her and blotting out whatever dim light was around them. “Nick?”
Destiny: A Fantasy Collection Page 93
