The Space Between

by Brenna Yovanoff

  For a moment, he just stands over the bed, staring down at me with bright, crow-black eyes. His eye sockets are deep. His countenance is even and largely unremarkable, but even in the dark, I recognize every line of it. This is the faceless man from Truman’s dream, but no longer faceless. Standing here in our room, he is utterly recognizable—as real as if he just stepped out of one of my mother’s murals, full of righteous fury.

  “Azrael,” I whisper, so small it’s barely a sound.

  He nods and his smile is mild and appallingly lovely.

  Suddenly, I understand that he’s more powerful than anything my mother could ever aspire to, even at her most intrusive. His power is apparent in the way that he’s brought the church with him, filling our room with tasseled hangings and carved pews and the choking smell of incense.

  “I saw you,” I tell him in a flat, breathless voice. “I saw what you were doing in the church. My brother—” The word stirs something in me—a kind of panic—and I sit bolt upright, staring around the room, but the table with Obie on it is nowhere to be seen. “Where’s my brother?”

  When Azrael laughs, his eyes glitter for an instant, then fade into shadow. “How very clever of you. But don’t get too excited. You’ll never find him, just like Truman will never escape me.”

  I press my back against the headboard, clutching the covers to my chest. “Why are you here? How did you get in?”

  Azrael gestures to Truman. “He’s burning up. Sleep can make the fabric between places pretty thin at the best of times, but delirium can destroy it completely.”

  “But why? Why are you following him?”

  Azrael is leaning very close and his voice is low and soothing. “Don’t you worry about that. Just know that I’m doing everything in my power to help Truman. And if you interfere or get in my way, I’ll kill you. It’s nothing personal.”

  Suddenly, I feel disoriented, uncertain as to whether I am dreaming. The fact of Azrael standing over me, having a conversation with me, is utterly unreal and I need to see him in the light, see the face of the man who has stolen my brother. I lean across Truman and reach for the lamp.

  Azrael makes a sharp hissing sound and before I can find the switch, he strides around the end of the bed and grabs me by my ankle.

  He jerks me out of bed with a force that makes all the joints in my leg ache. Even as I hit the carpet, he yanks me up again, slamming me into the nearest church pew. It tips and the rest go over like dominos, but Azrael doesn’t let go.

  He drags me across the room, pinning me against the wall by the wardrobe. Behind him, the bed looks small and far away, like the room has lost its proper dimensions, stretching and lengthening as the church expands around us.

  As I watch, Truman flings one arm out and makes a fretful noise, but doesn’t wake up. I want to cry out, but Azrael’s gaze is paralyzing, boring into me. This is how snakes hypnotize birds. Suddenly, everything seems very quiet.

  Azrael leans close, so close I think he might press his cheek to mine. His voice in my ear is kind. “Hold still, my dear. This will only take a second. Then we’ll see what’s under that bloodless skin.”

  It is then that I register the knife in his hand. He’s holding it deftly, almost casually. When he moves, it is straight for my throat. I barely have time to fling my hands up.

  The blade is long, slashing across my palm. Pain explodes up my arm and the sound I make is high and shrill—the sound of metal on metal. I can’t tell if it’s a shriek or a laugh.

  For one dizzying moment, the room rushes in on me in a glittering sea of sparks. Stars are colliding, solar systems imploding. I am consumed by a sensation I didn’t know existed.

  Then the pain crests and washes out, leaving me breathless but clear-headed, standing against the wall. I raise my hand and Azrael backs away. In a kind of dull wonder, I see that I’m bleeding. It spreads quickly, filling my cupped palm, and I realize that in a second, it will spill over, drip down onto the floor, unleashing whatever horror sleeps there. Fire, I think with a giddy hysteria. Acid, plague, pestilence. Whatever form it takes, it will mean destruction.

  Too late, I make a fist, squeezing my hand closed in a desperate attempt to hold on. The blood oozes out between my fingers anyway.

  One drop. Azrael has backed away from me and is standing in the center of the room, arms motionless at his sides.

  I slap my hand to my chest, smearing blood across my collarbone, pressing the cut flat against my own skin, but it’s too late. We stand facing each other across the toppled benches, waiting to see it. My mother’s gift to me.

  One drop, and time stretches out.

  It lands on the carpet, its impact soundless. The seed, planted deep in the scrambled pattern of the carpet. Where it fell, the floor begins to smoke and a girl materializes in front of me, pale and crouching. She’s almost naked, veiled in smoky wisps that move and swirl around her as she straightens. Although her features look like mine, her eyes are steel-gray like my mother’s and her teeth are dull silver, bared like fangs. Then she lunges, knocking over the end table. The lamp crashes to the floor. She scrambles over scattered luggage and carved benches, leaping and clawing her way toward Azrael.

  When she rakes at his face, he doesn’t even flinch. He just stares back at her, expression stony, blood running down his cheek.

  “Get ready to regret that,” he says, striding toward her, kicking the shattered lamp out of his way.

  The girl snarls, showing her teeth like a dog, but he doesn’t hesitate. The knife makes a graceful arc, up and in, flashing brightly one second, sunk deep in her chest the next. He lifts her, skewers her to the hilt, holding her nearly off her feet, then peels her neatly off the blade. She lands on the carpet with a boneless thud, then smokes briefly before collapsing into nothing. Dust and ashes.

  “Try it again,” he says to me, over the pile of ashes. He’s smiling now and it’s a bad, festering smile. It makes me think of bodies. Blood is running down his face. It looks black in the dark room. “Think you’re clever? Think you’re so fierce? Try it again, because I can do this all night.”

  With my hand held to my chest, I step between him and the bed, where Truman lies sleeping. Standing in the sliver of light thrown by the gap in the curtains, I feel disoriented and very small, but I also feel brave. And it is a good feeling.

  “Cut me then. I’m not going to let you hurt him.”

  Azrael laughs, and it’s the coldest sound I’ve ever heard. “Noble little thing. Your brother would be proud. But then, he always was a hopeless sentimentalist. Pain is necessary, my dear. It’s good for you.”

  With another icy laugh, he steps sideways into the shadow cast by the wardrobe and is gone as surely as if he’d passed through a door.

  I want to go after him, but I only get as far as the ruined lamp before my knees start to tremble. I stumble to the bed and I sink down beside Truman, who’s sitting up now, staring around in panic. I reach across him and turn on the lamp to find the room is in shambles, filled with toppled furniture. In the light, the benches fade like afterimages, then vanish completely.

  Truman is sitting with his back pressed against the headboard. His whole body is shaking and I put my arms around him, holding my injured hand away from us. The bleeding has already stopped. The wound is raw, but closing.

  “Daphne,” he says in a harsh whisper. “Wake me up. Please, wake me up.” He’s holding onto me now, his fingers deep in the fabric of my sweater. He’s staring at someplace in front of him, trying very hard to breathe.

  “How?” I ask. “Aren’t you already awake?”

  His eyes are wide and dazed, drifting past me to the little pile of ash on the carpet. “Talk to me.”

  But the room is spinning and I don’t know what to say. My hands feel weightless and numb.

  His breath is warm against my skin and I hang on tighter because the scene is fading in and out and I’ve started to shake. My whole body is trembling, like I’m coming apart at the joints
and after a while, I can’t tell who is holding who. Truman’s arms feel tense and wiry, but safe.

  The carpet is chalky and pale where the girl fell. Dusty with a layer of ash.

  MARCH 10

  1 DAY 0 HOURS 6 MINUTES

  Truman sat on the edge of the hotel bed. According to the clock on the bedside table, it was just after seven in the morning, which meant nine o’clock at home. It was the latest he’d slept in a long time.

  He sat with his hands pressed against his forehead, staring around in disbelief. The carpets and the furniture were all upholstered a deep burgundy, and there was nothing wrong with the actual decorating scheme, as long as you liked velvet. But even with the curtains closed, he could make out the general state of the room. It looked like it had been recently destroyed by one of those guitar bands from the seventies.

  Lamps and room service guides and packets of instant coffee were all over the floor. Over by the TV was a mess of broken glass that might have started the night as a hotel ashtray. The throw pillows had all been knocked off the couch and one of the burgundy armchairs was lying on its back.

  Beside him, Daphne was still asleep. He was about to wake her up and ask what had happened, but the sight of her face stopped him. Against the white backdrop of the pillowcase, she looked fragile. Her hair was spread out around her, framing her face. When he leaned over her, she burrowed into the covers and smiled slightly, but didn’t wake up. Her eyelashes were dark against her cheeks and suddenly, Truman wanted to kiss her.

  The desire was immense and wordless. It filled his chest, making it hard to breathe. She was the one peaceful thing in the whole demolished room and he sat beside her, breathless with how much he wanted to press his mouth against hers.

  Then the closet door swung open and Raymie peered out at him from her cardboard box. She was sitting up, holding onto the folding flap. When she leaned her weight against the side of the box, it tipped forward and she flopped out onto the floor. She wriggled around a toppled lamp and began to paddle her way toward him, perilously near to the pile of broken glass.

  Truman slid off the bed, careful not to wake Daphne. He picked his way through the chaos and sat down on the carpet, lifting Raymie into his lap. She was very warm and her back felt soft and fuzzy when he rested his palm against it.

  “I was tired of being shut in,” she whispered. “Why is the room so messy?”

  Truman looked around at the overturned furniture, and didn’t know how to answer. His memory of the night before was fuzzy at best. After Daphne had drawn the door, things had gotten very weird.

  The trip through had not been pleasant, and by the time they’d gotten up to the room, he was pretty sure he’d been running a fever. He’d fallen into a bad, restless sleep. Then the shadow man had shown up. Only he wasn’t a shadow anymore—now, he had a face. Truman had woken up to a dark room and a lot of noise, and in the chaos that followed, the only thing he’d been sure of was that the intruder had stuck a knife in Daphne’s chest.

  Only he hadn’t, because she was curled up on the bed, looking exhausted, but all in one piece. So the vision of her death must have been a dream, but it was hard to find that reassuring when the destruction of the hotel room was still absolutely real.

  “Come on,” he said scooping Raymie into the crook of his arm and getting to his feet. “Let’s go talk where we won’t wake up Daphne.”

  In the bathroom, he set Raymie on the counter and closed the door. The room was as huge and old-fashioned as the rest of the hotel, with tiny octagonal tiles and a claw-footed tub. The counter, which ran the length of the wall, was one big slab of solid marble.

  In the mirror, his reflection stared back at him, hollow-eyed and rumpled-looking. He was wearing jeans and his undershirt, but sometime in the night, he must have taken off his sweater. The sight of his bare arms had the effect it always did, making him feel a little sick. Instinctively, he turned toward the wall, crossing them over his chest.

  Raymie sat on the counter with her back against the glass. She didn’t look like she cared about his arms one way or another. “Why do you sleep in the bed with Daphne?” she asked, and began to suck on her hand.

  Truman pushed himself up onto the counter and leaned back next to her. “It’s complicated.”

  “Do you like it?” Raymie’s voice was muffled by her fist. “I have always slept alone.”

  “Yeah, I like it.”

  “What makes it nice?”

  “A lot of things. To touch someone, to feel them next to you.” He laughed, but it was a short, injured sound. “I can actually sleep.”

  “Someone came last night,” Raymie said. “I heard him out in the room, making noise. Is he the one who knocked over the furniture?”

  Truman nodded. “I think so. Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

  He knew it was bad news when your nightmares started spilling out into real life. The shadow man had always been more solid than any normal dream, but now he’d officially managed to make himself real enough to break things.

  Truman knew he should be shocked, terrified even. Under other circumstances, fear would have been easy to come by. But two days ago, he’d met a girl who claimed to be a demon and then turned out to actually be one. Now he was in Las Vegas, with no money and no way to get back, sitting on the counter in the bathroom of what was obviously an insanely expensive hotel, talking to a baby with metal teeth. Surprises were becoming a thing of the past.

  Truman looked over at Raymie, who was still chewing on her hand. “That guy—he visits me, I guess, but this was kind of a new thing. He’s never broken stuff before.”

  “Why does he come to see you?”

  “He says he wants to fix me,” Truman said, and even saying it out loud made him feel ashamed. “And I don’t know if I can be fixed.”

  “I can’t help you,” she told him.

  “I know. I don’t know if anyone can. I don’t even know if I deserve it.”

  “You are always tender.” Raymie was looking up at him with her strange eyes, a little terrifying in the light that shone above the bathroom mirror. “You are always tender to me.”

  “I like you, Raymie. Don’t you know that?”

  “Tender,” she said again. “Tender is kind and gentle. It’s also sore, like the skin around an injury.”

  Truman touched his wrists again, but the nerve damage made it hard to feel anything.

  BLOOD LOSS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I wake up feeling light-headed and hungrier than I’ve ever been, like if I don’t eat something now, right this second, I will implode. The whole room is in disarray, furniture overturned and luggage scattered everywhere. A lamp is lying on the floor, shade torn like someone put a foot through it.

  After staring at the ceiling for a moment, I drag myself out of bed and pick through the room, opening drawers and cupboards, looking for something to eat. It’s light out and Truman is already awake, sitting on the couch with a heap of decorative pillows at his feet.

  He watches as I eat two packets of instant coffee from a wicker basket beside the television. Raymie is on the floor by the wardrobe, playing with her rabbit.

  “Good morning,” she says, reaching for me. I scoop her up and set her on the bed. Then I cross to the window and pull back the blinds.

  Our room has a sliding door that opens out onto a tiny veranda. Through the glass, I can see the boulevard, full of cars and crowds of pedestrians, and a row of extraordinary buildings lined up like toys. Castles with a jewel-colored roof on every tower. An emerald city, dark, reflective, massive. There is a cluster of miniature skyscrapers, looming behind a scale replica of the Statue of Liberty. And the black pyramid, onyx-colored in the sunlight.

  When I turn around, Truman is sitting on the edge of the couch, watching me. With the sliding door at my back, the sun shines into the room and I can see him very clearly, like he’s the only thing in the room worth shining on. He gets up and comes to stand with me.

  “H
ey,” he says, then doesn’t say anything else.

  He’s looking down at me, standing very close. From the bed, Raymie is watching us, and her eyes make me feel warm and self-conscious.

  The blood on my collarbone has dried to a crusty, brownish smear. The cut on my hand is long gone. I’m just about to ask if Truman wants to get something to eat, when he touches me, reaching for my collarbone. I can feel the way his fingers tremble, jittering over the smear of dried blood. “You’re shaking,” I tell him. “Why are you shaking?”

  He doesn’t answer, just stares down at me with an anxious, complicated expression. “Where’d all this blood come from?” His hand on my skin is warm, moving gently up my neck to cup my cheek.

  “From me,” I tell him. “From my hand.”

  He doesn’t ask what happened to it, just moves closer. “I had the worst dream,” he says, still touching my cheek. “I dreamed you died.”

  “No, I just got cut a little. I’m all right.”

  “What’s he doing to you?” Raymie asks, shaking the corner of the duvet at me.

  Truman jerks back like he’s just coming awake. Suddenly his face is colored by a deep flush, and he takes his hand away. He turns abruptly and shuts himself in the bathroom. After a minute, I hear the shower come on. I can still feel the warmth of his fingers on my skin, and I’m hungrier than ever before.

  Raymie clutches the duvet, looking up at me. “Why did that man wreck the room last night?”

  I stare down at her in surprise. “Did you see him, too?”

  “I heard him, but I was hiding. Will you play a game with me?”

  I take the rabbit and wave it so its ears flop, but she just stares.

  “This isn’t a very good game,” she tells me. “What is a better one?”

  I pick up Truman’s plastic lighter, flicking it to life.

  Raymie claps her hands, then looks surprised at herself. She’s smiling, and I wave the flame above her, drawing swirls and spirals in the air. She reaches with doll hands, trying to catch the smoke. Her teeth are spectacularly gray.