by Eva Brandt
Before long, I had begun to think this had to be a strange hallucination. It was also one that bored me. I wished something would happen already so that I could either find my way out of this labyrinth or forcibly wake up.
Of course, since I was just that lucky, the dream responded to my wish. I would have rejoiced, except for the nature of the event the dream had picked to fulfill my request. Almost instantly, I wanted to go back to the previous status quo, no matter how eerie it had been.
It happened so suddenly. One moment, I had been not-so-happily walking through the silent street, debating the merits of knocking on someone’s door just to ask for a map or something, and the next, a massive truck rushed past me. I didn’t know what kind of instincts made me jump out of the way just in time to avoid being run over, but I came awfully close to being turned into roadkill. The driver did not acknowledge my presence or slow down, continuing on his way by performing an illegal U-turn. But perhaps there was such a thing as karma because, in the process, he skidded and lost control of the vehicle. The truck hit two parked cars and came to a crashing halt several feet away from me.
Okay then.
For a few seconds, I just stared at the truck, not sure what to do. The scene looked... real, but that didn’t mean anything. The smell of smoke was definitely genuine. I hoped I would not wake up to find my kitchen on fire. That would suck. Come to think of it, this might be some kind of nightmare resulting from my experience at the club. If I willed myself to wake up, would it work? It was worth a shot.
I closed my eyes and attempted the method I had just thought of. Wake up, wake up. Come on, Lucienne. You can do this. Wake up.
I might have been more successful at my entirely rational endeavor had the sound of screams not interrupted my mental mantra. “Help! Please, somebody help!”
Cursing under my breath, I opened my eyes once again. I didn’t have the heart to leave the people in the crashed truck stuck there. Figments of my imagination or not, they did not deserve to die in a fiery hell. And okay, I was aware that the concept made no sense whatsoever, but I could not help myself. Setting aside my misgivings, as well as the brief question of what might happen to me if the truck exploded and I died in my dream, I ran to the car.
The front of the truck was crumbled, and the amount of blood seeping through the shattered windshield told me the driver and the person in the seat next to him were both likely beyond my aid. Still, the first thing I tried was to break into the car that way. The driver’s door opened, but that was where my luck came to an end.
The bodies of the people in the front had been thrown through the windshield. Perhaps they hadn’t been wearing their seat belts and the airbags had been damaged in some way. It had not ended well for them. While my angle wasn’t quite right to see the details, one of them appeared to have been impaled through his midsection by a massive pipe. The other was missing and no matter how much I looked around, I couldn’t find him or her.
To make matters worse, some kind of partition divided the front of the truck from the rest of the vehicle. It was not that uncommon for trucks that transported goods, and it appeared to have limited the damage to the people in the back. However, it also meant that I could not get them out through my current access point. The trapped passengers kept hitting the partition in a panic, crying out for aid, but I could not see a latch or anything like that. “Hang in there!” I shouted. “I’ll get you out.”
“Hurry!” a male voice responded, high-pitched and tremulous with panic. “Please hurry. Come in through the back.”
The massive back doors of the truck were a good bet, except they appeared to be locked, and I had no clue how I could fix that. Trucks of this size usually had locks of industrial quality, but I couldn’t see any level or keyhole. On the other hand, the truck had crashed next to a fairly big fence. The exact same thing that had led to the unfortunate demise of the driver provided me with a method to try to force the door open. Sort of. I wasn’t very confident that the sole metal pole I found would suffice to free the people captive in the truck, but what else could I do?
In an ideal world, my efforts and resolve would have compensated for my lack of physical strength and the less than adequate tools at my disposal. In an ideal world, I would’ve magically succeeded in my noble quest and broken the lock through the power of determination. But I did not live in an ideal world, and even my dreams had chosen to pinpoint that. No matter how much I strained against the metal, I could not force the door open. The scent of gasoline was already getting stronger, and I feared that any moment now, the truck would explode.
I didn’t know what to do. My head hurt. My arms ached from the effort of trying to break into the truck. At one point, possibly when I had been investigating the front of the car, I’d cut myself in the shards of glass. Two people had already died and I wasn’t sure it hadn’t been my fault.
Would the truck have crashed if I hadn’t been there? Did it even matter? Why were my dreams trying to spite me in such a way? God, my head hurt.
My vision was starting to blur again as the voices from inside the car assaulted my mind.
“Please, help...”
“Oh, God. We’re going to die here.”
“Mommy! Where are you? I’m scared!”
I was scared too. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, why I was here and not in my apartment. I didn’t understand why I felt this insane need to help these people, why it was so important to me even if I knew they weren’t real.
“Please, help,” I sobbed, echoing the words of the men, women, and children trapped inside the vehicle. “Somebody, please...”
A single tear trailed down my cheek, so hot it seemed to burn my skin. When it reached the corner of my mouth, it tasted coppery, like blood.
Just like that, a shock of energy coursed through me and my head cleared of the strange fog. I could not give up. I had never been a quitter, not when I had grown up as an orphan, not when I’d been told over and over that I would never amount to anything, not when I had failed to hold onto my first jobs for reasons I still could not understand, not when I’d come close to being forced into homelessness and prostitution. I’d clawed my way out of the gutter once, at a time when I hadn’t had anybody, not even the Garniers. I could do this too.
I grabbed my steel pipe again—when had I even dropped it?—braced my leg against the tarmac, and pushed with all of my might. I’d never been all that strong, and my exercising in that field was limited to carrying the occasional grocery bag, so my muscles protested the abuse. Even so, the effort was not in vain. Against all odds, the lock broke and the back doors of the truck opened.
“Oh, thank fuck,” I gasped out.
Half in a daze, I climbed into the car, seeking out the people who needed my help. Since they hadn’t come out already, I assumed they must have been trapped or stuck in some other way.
Once again, the world proved to have it out for me, because as soon as I was inside, I realized my self-appointed rescue mission would not be as easy as I had hoped. Granted, there were more people in the back of the truck than I had expected, but that wasn’t the big surprise. Considering the amount of noise they had been making and the size of the car, I had been prepared for a big number.
What did, however, shock me was the fact that they were all locked in cages like animals. In fact, the truck was eerily reminiscent of the inside of a dog catcher’s vehicle, if much larger. And while dog catchers had standards and provided certain amenities for each animal they transported, the people who had kidnapped these poor souls had not been so kind. The cages were so crowded it was difficult to distinguish one person from the other. Men, women, and children clustered together and strained against the bars, trying to pry them open. Some were covered in blood, having obviously been injured in the accident. I couldn’t see any unconscious or seriously wounded people, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
“Oh, God!” someone cried out. “Please. Please let us out of he
re.”
“We’ll do anything,” another person added. “Anything you want. Just don’t leave us here to die.”
“Marie is only five. Have a heart. We’re begging you.”
They seemed to believe that I was one of the kidnappers. I didn’t know why they would make that assumption since I didn’t think I looked that scary, but I didn’t have the time to ask them about their reasons. Instead, I focused on finding a way to free them. “It’s okay,” I said, already rushing over to a cage. “I’m here to help.”
Once again, in a repeat of what had happened with the truck doors, I could see no convenient latch. “How do these things open?”
“You’re not with them,” someone commented to my right. “You’re not one of those monsters.”
I ignored the useless comment. “How do these things open?” I repeated. “Is there a key? Anything like that?”
“He has it,” a woman said from one of the cages, pointing at a body on the floor. The man must’ve been a guard, but appeared to have been injured in the accident. In fact, judging by the alarming and unnatural angle of his neck, “injured” was putting it a little lightly. The kidnapper would’ve likely been beyond my aid even if I had felt inclined to assist him, which I didn’t. It was unkind of me to think that way, but I had never been the kindest person in the world and the man’s ultimate fate might’ve been just as karmic as the crash of the truck.
Hoping the woman was right, I rushed to check the stranger’s jacket. The first thing I found was a large, heavy gun, and the moment I touched the weapon, a weird feeling of déjà-vu flowed over me. I didn’t let it distract me, and my determination paid off. After what seemed like forever, but must’ve been less than a minute, I managed to locate the keys.
“Found it,” I declared as I shot to my feet. I really didn’t have to, as the captives must have already taken note of my success, but perhaps it would provide them with some reassurance and keep them from stampeding over me while they attempted to make their escape.
My concern proved to be for naught, as I never got the chance to make use of the keys I had procured. Mere seconds after I stood up, a child screamed in one of the cages. “Be careful!”
My first thought was that I had moved too slowly and the truck would catch fire, turning all of us into crispy strips. Instead, I found myself being grabbed from behind and pinned against the wall of the truck, face front. Apparently, the kidnappers had had friends, and I had been so distracted with my shoddy attempts at heroism that I’d missed one of them sneaking up on me.
“You really shouldn’t be so rude, little human,” a male voice hissed in my ear. “Don’t you know it’s not nice to steal?”
My self-preservation instincts must have hit an all-time low because my mouth provided a dumb reply with little input from my brain. “Of course I know. That’s precisely why I intended to free these nice people. They belong to themselves, you see, and holding them captive like this is stealing.”
For a few seconds, the man remained silent, as if processing my answer. Then, much to my surprise, he burst into laughter. “Oh, I like you. You have fire. I look forward to devouring you, piece by piece. I bet you taste good.”
That didn’t bode well for me. In fact, when the man licked my neck, I had the strange feeling that my captor meant his words in a literal sense.
“Umm... Can I veto that suggestion?” I asked, trying to struggle against his hold, but having about as much luck as the people trapped in the cages. “It’s not that I’m not flattered and all, but I like my pieces where they are, and I’d prefer to not be devoured.”
“I’m sure you would.” The stranger chuckled once again. “But it’s your duty, you see. To sustain us, to strengthen us, to be our source of food and power. You should rejoice in this, little human. It is for the best, and it’s quite an honor to be picked.”
Okay, I was never watching horror movies again in my life. This was getting ridiculous even by the standards of my usual nightmares.
“Thanks, but I’m not much into vorarephilia. I don’t even watch Hannibal. It’s just... not my thing. So if you could please, you know, let me go, I’d much appreciate it.”
The stranger brushed strikingly sharp teeth over my neck. Despite myself, I yelped when I felt the sting. The pain was insignificant, but still present, and for some reason, I grasped its meaning, despite having failed to do the same with everything I had experienced in the past half an hour.
I could feel pain. I had felt it before, when I’d cut my hands in the glass, when I’d been hit by my migraine, when I had forced the door open.
Such things could not happen in dreams. Pain from the real world could transfer over into a nightmare, but when it was persistent, the person sleeping would unavoidably wake up. I had been trapped in a much too coherent and detailed dream for a while now. I still could not understand what in the world had happened that had led me to this moment, but it suddenly became very obvious to me that what I had deemed a nighttime hallucination was happening in reality.
How did I always manage to get myself into these predicaments?
“You smell like fear, little human,” the stranger murmured in my ear. “Have you finally realized the fate that awaits you or...”
The smug sentence trailed off in a choked gurgle and all of a sudden, his hold on me faltered. It didn’t help as much as I would’ve liked since, at the same time, he slumped onto my back. My knees almost buckled under his weight. He was much heavier than a man his size should have been. Stupid bodybuilders with their stupid steroid taking.
Fortunately, the person who had caused the... gurgle decided to give me a hand with this as well. The body disappeared off my back, granting me full freedom of motion once again.
I turned around and was treated to the sight of yet another stranger throwing the guy who had attacked me out of the truck. I didn’t know what I found odder, the fact that my attacker appeared to have been the same man I’d stolen the key from—and who had been dead even before my rescuer’s intervention—or the nakedness of said rescuer.
The new arrival returned to my side and cupped my cheek gently. “Angel, are you all right?” he asked. “What in the world are you doing here?”
Our eyes met, and despite the limited lighting in the truck, a veil seemed to fall off my consciousness. I knew this person. It was him! It was the man with green eyes! The man from the club! I remembered him now. How could I have ever forgotten?
Wait... What had happened at the club again? There had been a fire, right? And what about the other people? Who had actually been there, and what had they been doing? I couldn’t recall anymore, and my migraine had returned. God damn it.
“Angel?” the man inquired once more, his voice thick with concern. “Can you hear me?”
“What? Err... Yes. Yes, I mean, I....”
I was so confused about the whole thing that I didn’t know what I’d have said or done had I not caught sight of something I should have never forgotten about. The kidnapped people were still trapped in their cages and still injured. They had gone silent and barely appeared to be breathing, but I didn’t think the man who had attacked me would’ve had time to hurt them. They were probably just afraid, and rightly so, since the truck was still in danger of exploding. “Oh, no,” I managed to say. “We have to let these people out! The truck... The gasoline... The key... What did I do with the key?”
The new arrival took me in his arms and his warm embrace was an instant balm to my senses. “Breathe, angel. It’s going to be all right. I promise you, everyone will be fine.”
I didn’t know why, but I believed him. He had helped me once before. Hadn’t he? “I’m sorry for panicking like this,” I mumbled. “My head... I’m just... I’m not sure what is going on.”
“Don’t apologize,” he answered, his voice tight with something dark and angry. “Nothing about this is your fault. Now, I hate to ask this, but please, go wait outside while I free these people from the cages.”
My words died in my throat when the man pulled away from me. I felt the absence of his touch like a physical blow. My breath caught and I suddenly grew light-headed again. “Go,” the stranger insisted, his green eyes glowing in the darkness. “Please.”
There was so much desperation in that one simple word that I didn’t have the heart to deny him. Feeling wretched and numb, I headed toward the exit of the truck.
The moment I saw the people waiting for me outside, I somehow knew that this strange not-dream had turned even more complicated.
Seven
Sword of Damocles
Darius
She was here again, the beautiful human whom I had touched at the club. I could not understand why. The magic I’d weaved over her mind should have made it impossible for her to remember the existence of our world, but her presence on the scene of a battle she shouldn’t have known existed couldn’t be a coincidence. What was going on?
We’d been pursuing the scavengers through the streets of New York for the better part of the last hour, and they’d split up in an attempt to shake us off their tail. They had done everything in their power to not get caught, veered in every possible direction to confuse us. It had not ended well for them, as Guardian Whelan’s tracking skills had won the day. However, the fact remained that nobody could’ve known the scavengers would be here since going in this direction had most likely not been in their plan.
The exchange between her and Guardian Whelan did nothing to improve my mood or provide insight. I had been right to be wary of him. It made no sense that the power of a guardian would be able to have effects the likes of which I had already detected, but stranger things had happened.
Either way, there was one thing that remained perfectly clear to me. Guardian Whelan already felt a degree of attachment toward Lucienne. The pet name alone was an indisputable piece of evidence. “Angel”, he had called her, and I could not argue with his assessment. Not only that, but he had also dared to touch her, and she seemed to take comfort in this.
