Ourselves

by S. G. Redling

  Panic flooded Tomas; he screamed, taking in more water as he struggled to break free. He was yanked to the surface long enough to spit out a mouthful of pool water and suck in a blessed breath then the two Storytellers thrust him deep under the water again and again. Tomas could feel knees and fists and feet pushing at him as his fear set off a keening sound in his brain.

  After an eternity under water, Lucien and Vet dragged him from the pool, throwing him over the edge to land roughly, his hands still bound, on the concrete edging. Tomas vomited water as he hacked, the skin on his cheek and forehead torn against the rough floor. His muscles screamed from exhaustion and oxygen deprivation, and his left shoulder felt dislocated from the painful binding of his wrists. He lay curled on the floor, his only thought getting air into his body and water out of his lungs, when he saw a new pair of feet. He looked up, still coughing, and Dalle looked down at him.

  He tried to speak, to beg for help, but could only hack and gasp. When Dalle bent down, Tomas wanted to cry in thanks, but Dalle jerked him up by his right elbow, dragging him across the concrete, tearing more skin off his face and shoulders and knees. Tomas screamed as his shoulders jerked violently. He tried to get his feet under him once again but Dalle was moving too quickly.

  He dragged Tomas across the concrete patio to an unmarked door. Slamming Tomas face-first against the wall, he slid the bolt that held the door closed. Tomas tried to push off the wall, to turn around and defend himself, but Dalle pinned him against the brick with an iron grip to the back of his neck. Blood ran into his eyes and filled his mouth as he struggled to breathe in the crushing grip. The door swung open and Dalle, grabbing a handful of hair, threw Tomas onto the floor of the small room and shut the door.

  Tomas slid across the concrete floor into the brick wall on the far side. His hands still tied behind his back, he couldn’t stop himself and the rough brick cut a deep gash in his scalp. His shoulders were on fire, his hands numb, his body convulsed as blood pooled beneath him. He could hear his panicked whimpers and rattling breath. He lay on the floor, waiting for the next barrage, his mind desperately trying to catch up to the assault.

  There was no sense, no pattern; in one heartbeat the universe had gone insane. If he couldn’t get himself together, he would be killed. The pain in his shoulders and back was beyond excruciating, lightning bolts of heat firing one after another from his skull to his wrists. Blood blurred his vision and his diaphragm cramped so badly he couldn’t straighten up.

  Breathe, he told himself. If he could breathe he could think, if he could think he could survive. Drawing from deep within himself, he struggled to draw in precious air and silence the pitiful mewling that threatened to bury him in panic. His heart raced when he couldn’t silence the sound; it seemed to come from outside himself and Tomas felt a new wave of terror breaking over him.

  He wrenched his arms, the pain in his shoulders giving him something concrete to focus on. He cried out from the torturous sensation but the mewling didn’t stop. Blinking blood from his eyes, his vision cleared and there, just four feet away, hanging by her hands from a hook in the ceiling was a common girl bound and gagged.

  She screamed behind the bandanna tied around her mouth, writhing helplessly from the rough ropes that bound her to the industrial hook in the ceiling. Her eyes were wild with panic, her terror keen as she kicked and twisted, trying to keep this new intruder at bay. Tomas stared at her, his own pain forgotten. His sense of unreality deepened as her eyes locked onto his, her terror and confusion mirroring his own. She stopped her struggles when Tomas began to scream.

  The room erupted in a swarm of black snaking figures. Tomas scrambled to the far wall, crushing his incapacitated hands beneath him as he pressed his burning body into the brick. All around the girl writhing appendages whipped through the air, black with the texture of armadillo skin. They burst from her chest and flew about the room, each tendril ending in a gaping maw that snapped and whistled as it tore through the air.

  The creatures slammed against the wall, scrabbled across the ceiling, snaked across the floor, screaming for escape, for connection, for life. Tomas heard only his own shrieks as several of the larger figures locked onto him, their hollow gaping mouths chomping air as they lunged for his chest. There was nowhere for Tomas to escape and the blunt heads of the creatures punched against his chest, bumping and probing. He couldn’t close his eyes and his screams turned to whimpers as he felt burning spots erupt on his chest where contact had been made.

  Then there was stillness.

  The creatures hung suspended, their motion slowed to the point of silence. The only sound in the room was his jagged breath. As the nearest black figure withdrew slightly, Tomas found the girl’s eyes. Her terror was gone. She began to make muffled cooing sounds behind her gag. She was trying to comfort him.

  “No. Oh no.” Tomas slumped against the wall, his voice a ragged whisper. If the snapping, voracious creatures had been terrifying, what came next was even harder. Some small part of his brain knew this was the same phenomenon he had experienced in the diner after his r ‘acul with Stell, that these visions were a manifestation of the girl. As her terror turned to compassion, the tendrils became graceful, rushing at him with all the venom of a butterfly, brushing against him with soft fingers. The tenderness was more than he could bear as he felt their warm tips pushing softly through him, piercing him, running through him like sunlight through glass.

  He wished he could close his eyes to escape the terrible sweetness of it. That this girl, this common surrounded by predators she couldn’t understand, fearing for her life, could step past her own terror to comfort him without knowing him, having no connection to him but an inborn compassion, was more than he could bear. He wanted to scream at her to stop, but couldn’t as the truth of her flooded his mind. Her name was Rebecca. She had a daughter and a drug problem and money worries and fear and, above it all, she had a hunger for life. She had joy and hope and tenderness despite all that surrounded her. She believed in life.

  Through a narrow mesh screen on the door, Sylva watched the room with Dalle. Like the girl on the hook, she couldn’t see what Tomas saw. She saw only two people bound and frightened, one bewildered by the other’s panic. Next to her, she heard Dalle’s uneven breath. His forehead was pressed against the mesh, tears flowing down his cheeks. She knew he and Tomas shared a vision invisible to outsiders. Tomas had drawn the Vint. Sylva handed Dalle a bath sheet and a knife.

  The sliding of the bolt broke the silence in the room. Tomas was finally able to close his eyes, breaking his connection to the girl, and he crumpled against the wall in misery. Anything was better than this. Dalle stepped into the room and the girl faced him bravely. She kicked at him but he easily avoided her feet and stepped behind her. Her eyes widened in fear as his thumbs pressed against the sides of her neck. He didn’t squeeze hard, but he pressed until she slumped unconscious. He lifted her free from the hook and laid her on the floor. Lucien and Vet slipped into the room, picked her up, and carried her out.

  Tomas let his body slide to the side until his face was pressed against the concrete. He was beyond caring what happened now.

  Dalle laid the bath sheet out on the floor. He rolled Tomas onto his side, straddled him, cut his bindings. Quickly, before Tomas could react, Dalle cut away the shoulder straps of his blood-soaked tank top then slipped the blade along the front of the shirt, opening its length. Tomas closed his eyes and felt the cold blade slide up each leg of his shorts, pulling the wet fabric from his skin as the shorts were cut away from his body. Dalle peeled the fabric away, leaving Tomas naked on the floor beneath him.

  Tomas cried out as the agony in his shoulders was reawakened. Dalle moved quickly, lifting Tomas from his wet clothes and placing him on the bath sheet. The fabric was soft and warm beneath him and Dalle wrapped the sheet around his shivering body. His muscles screamed at the manipulation, but there was comfort in the swaddling. Tomas wished his mentor would wrap the sheet over hi
s face as well, to put a warm, soft end to this nightmare.

  Dalle lifted Tomas and slipped under him, resting the boy’s head in his lap. Tightly bound and exhausted, Tomas could not resist as the Storyteller lifted his head and held a stone mug to his lips. The water was warm with a flowery smell that wasn’t unpleasant. His throat burned as he swallowed, tasting an evergreen essence in the water. He could see white flower petals clinging to the inside of the vessel. He recognized those flowers, had seen them growing on Calstow Mountain, but before he could register the knowledge, new pain began.

  A fist of heat punched into his stomach, drawing him into himself. His lungs seized up, shutting off all but the thinnest ribbon of air. His skin caught on fire beneath the sheet, alternating with blankets of ice that froze him. It was pain like nothing he had ever known before. His teeth gnashed together and his body twisted in a tortuous spasm.

  All that could be seen of his eyes were bloodshot whites but Dalle looked into his face, watching the muscles in his cheeks twitch and jerk, his nostrils flare as his body struggled for air. He held the boy, the swaddling containing the worst of the spasms. There was nothing to do now but wait as the deadly tea cast its evil spell over the young man.

  A freezing rain pounded against his back when Adlai pulled himself off of Colts Jersey. He could see the drops bouncing off of Stell’s white back as she dragged Mustache closer to the curb. She had shed her torn shirt and woolen jacket despite the icy rain, the blood and the kill turning her body into a furnace. Adlai caught her eye and for a moment they stared at each other, blood and rain puddling beneath them. She slid her tongue along her lower lip and Adlai began to laugh. She looked like a firecracker, her enlarged pupils turning her eyes glossy black, the rain sparkling off her in the exaggerated night like diamonds. He tossed away Colts Jersey and stood, waiting for her next move.

  She stood on unsteady legs, the blood high making her stagger. The rain picked up power and she turned her face to it. The blood streaked down her pale body, darkening the waistband of her jeans. She giggled as Brady, the only surviving member of his gang, struggled toward consciousness in an icy puddle.

  “You want him?”

  Stell thought for a moment then shook her head. “I’m full.”

  “Me too.” In two steps, he crossed behind Brady and snapped his neck with an easy twist.

  “What are we going to do with them?” The alleyway was turning into a sludgy river of mud and blood. Adlai put his hands on his hips and tried to think. It was a messy scene, sloppy and careless. There could be witnesses. There could be evidence. He looked back at Stell.

  “Fuck it. Let’s just leave them here.” Stell laughed out loud, clapping her hands together as he continued with a giggle of his own. “Let’s give the Indianapolis Police Department a mystery to solve.”

  Stell leapt with both feet into a deep puddle, splashing water everywhere as she laughed and danced her way out of the alley. Adlai scooped up her jacket and shirt and ran out after her.

  “You forgetting something, Lady Godiva?”

  “Who?”

  He wrapped the jacket around her shoulders and pulled her close to him as they headed back toward the bike. Along the way they passed busy restaurants and nightclubs and diners full of common. Stell was relieved to learn that Adlai had no more interest in the common during his blood high than she did. The night was so much more interesting. They let the rain wash the evidence of their crime from their faces, climbed onto Adlai’s bike, and sped out of the city, looking for a quiet place to watch the stars burn through the heavy autumn clouds.

  The pain stopped, or rather, Tomas left the pain.

  He was freezing. And filthy. His skin felt gritty and greasy, sticky with the darkness that hung in the air like a cloud. He’d never seen darkness like this. It moved around him like a living shadow, stalking him, confronting him. The cold drilled through him, throbbing in his bones and in his teeth.

  There was Stell. The darkness parted around her and he wanted her to wrap him in her arms, to ward off the creeping cold but she held something to her chest. A black stone. Stell hugged a black stone to her body and smiled at him. Tomas longed for her, for her touch. Longing twisted through him and then she was gone, swallowed by the darkness.

  Cold. So cold. That strange darkness pressed against him, his ears and his jaws and his teeth aching with the darkness, with the cold.

  He wanted to leave this place. More than Tomas had ever wanted anything, he wanted to leave this place. Out, out, out, he thought. Then he felt foolish.

  He was at the door.

  Not just a door. A thousand doors. A sea of doorknobs spread in every direction, each with a small window above it. He knew those windows. They were the colored windows of the Storytelling room, although the darkness now covered each window like soot. Funny, he thought, that he had never noticed the doorknobs.

  Which door would let him out? Which knob to turn? He had to pick the right one, he knew. If he opened the wrong door, he knew he would never leave the darkness. He swiped his hand over one of the windows, wiping the darkness away long enough to see a room crowded with common. A party. They laughed and drank and waved to him through the glass. He tried the knob but it wouldn’t turn and the darkness clouded the window.

  Knob after knob he turned, desperate to escape until one knob froze his hand. His knuckles ached with the cold but before he could pull away, the knob turned, the door opened, and the darkness held its breath.

  There was a man, thin and bent, seated on the floor, his back to Tomas, rocking back and forth. He clutched at his black hair and hid his face behind bony hands.

  “Who are you?” Tomas didn’t feel his lips move, but heard his voice ask the question.

  “S-s-s-s-s-s-s.” The man answered.

  “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

  “Hesssssss.”

  Tomas moved to stand in front of him. “What do you need?”

  The man pulled at the skin on his throat. He pulled at the tendons and muscles that strained taut until the skin gave way. Rather than blood, however, something black poured out of the wound, something black and moving. Bees, hundreds of black, buzzing bees. They tumbled out around his fingers, some clambering and climbing, some flying up to his chin onto his face, others falling to the floor and skittering away.

  “Can I help you?” Tomas felt calm despite the horrible show before him.

  “Help me get them out.”

  The floor grew black with the teeming bodies.

  “I don’t know how.”

  The man pulled his head up and Tomas could make out dark blue Nahan eyes beneath the undulating mask of bees. “You take them. Take them with you. I don’t want them.” Tomas didn’t want them either. The man bent his face into his hands, the bees fleeing his grip. He fell forward, clutching his face, and the black insects swarmed his head and body. Tomas stepped back as the pulsating cloud of bees converged on the bent man, climbing over his thin back and over each other until he was nothing but a humming mass of black bees.

  Another step back and Tomas could feel a pressure building within him. His stomach cramped and he could feel a clutching sensation in his lungs. He looked down at his torso, terrified he would see a bulging mass of the stinging insects erupting from his abdomen.

  Instead he saw a blue light glowing beneath his shirt. The light burned intensely, a pinprick of brilliant blue, that grew, spreading out over his stomach, blinding him as it burst through his clothing. It blew through him like an explosion until all he could see, all he knew was the brilliant vibration of the blue light. He fell backward, tumbling with no sensation of up or down until he felt an icy knife cut through him.

  Dalle held on tight as Tomas sucked in a deep gasp of air, color flooding his pale face and his lips losing their frightening shade of blue. The sheet that swaddled him was soaked in sweat and Tomas struggled in its grip. Dalle smoothed his hair, stroking his face and murmuring soft words as Tomas thrashed his way bac
k to life. Vet pulled the wet fabric away from his body, stepping back quickly as Tomas shot his arms out above him, reaching for nothing. He kicked his legs, blood flooding his abused muscles, and the Storytellers kneeled beside him, waiting for his return to consciousness.

  Tomas opened his eyes and saw Dalle at his head, Vet at his right, Lucien on his left. His breathing was harsh as his lungs sucked greedily at the air. He twitched helplessly as his teachers lifted him once again and moved him onto a thick, blue blanket. They pulled the edges around him loosely, keeping him warm rather than restraining him. Above his head, Dalle leaned over him. His mouth never moved but Tomas clearly heard the gentle voice of his mentor.

  “Welcome back, Storyteller.”

  Tomas closed his eyes and dropped into a dark, dreamless hole.

  The rain showed no signs of slowing, so they decided to head back to the motel. Even with her blood high, Stell was shivering. She dumped her dripping clothes on the floor and headed for the shower. Adlai moved behind her, picking up the muddy jeans and ruined t-shirt and tossing them onto the counter of the sink outside the bathroom. He peeled off his own shirt and washed himself in the basin. Over the roar of the shower, he could hear Stell singing to herself. He had to laugh when he saw the amount of blood on the waistband of her jeans. She ate like a slob. He dumped the clothes into a plastic bag, tossed them into his suitcase, and lay back on the bed to wait for Stell.

  Adlai had had dozens of lovers over the years. He still felt as he had a decade ago that he had no desire to pair. The women he slept with were entertaining, some were passionate, some were even fellow acul ‘ad. In the past few years, he had chosen women within the Council who could help him get information he needed. Vartan’s assistant, Fiona, had been his most recent encounter and they’d certainly found plenty to amuse each other. The physical aspect of it filled a simple need for him, an itch easily scratched. Never did any of the encounters eclipse the always burning, always hidden desire to find Shelan.