Take Me To Your Reader: An Otherworld Anthology

by Amy A. Bartol

  "That's her," May growls behind us. "Matt's little toy woman."

  Clyde pauses; I glance at him, seeing his eyes close in frustration. When he opens them, he turns us back around to face May and the Gramercies. May stops beneath the soggy pine trees near Milligan. She swipes the hood away from her face, exposing her ivory skin. Thick, red lipstick stands out starkly on her sculptured lips as she smiles at me.

  "Where are they?" She asks me.

  My eyebrows rise. "Where are who?" I murmur.

  "Matt's ashes?"

  I shrug. "They're at my apartment," I lie.

  A skeptical look crosses May's lovely face. "We've been to your hovel; they're not there." She holds up the papers from the lawyers—the ones with the details of this lake property. She throws the papers at me; the white leaves curl and scatter, floating to the muddy ground between us.

  I would turn and walk away from her, but Clyde has me pinned to his side like a kept animal. Clyde leans drunkenly on me as he says, "We don't have Matt. He's gone. Bye-bye! I'm sure he'll find you when he grows a new body and reunites with himself, it should only take a couple hundred years. He probably knows you tried to kill him; I'm sure you'll be the first one he looks for."

  May's beautiful face looks wasp-stung as she jerks her cherry-red fingernail at me. "I tried to have her killed! She's going to ruin everything! She has enslaved Matteyo. I was only trying to free him!"

  "Free him!" Clyde laughs, "Your drug addict blew him full of holes! You divided him! You think he's not going to be upset about that?"

  "All I need are his remains. I'll have the proverbial genie in a bottle. He'll be beholden to me when I let him out and reunite him. I just have to locate where he has collected—"

  Clyde doubles over, dragging me with him as he laughs himself silly. He straightens and looks at May. "You think so?" Clyde shakes his head. "I think you're delusional. I think he'll just be really pissed off when his soul merges with his body again. He's the Sweven; he's beholden to no one." He speaks to the conclave of wet monsters next to her. "May is just going to get you killed. You know that, right?"

  May's voice is thin when she says, "You're the one who is as good as dead, Clyde. I've already spoken to the Dexfields. They'll pay me any price I ask just for the honor of cutting your head off! So don't speak your heresy to me!"

  "Heresy? You think you're the authority now?"

  "I'm acting on Matteyo's behalf as his intended geltry."

  Clyde laughs with derision. "You're not his geltry! She's his intended geltry!" Clyde indicates me with a nod. "You're the hag he threw away. How long has it been, a couple centuries? Get over it! The only thing you are to him is a stalker."

  "I have the bloodlines—"

  "My family had the bloodlines, too. Look what happened to us. That's the thing about blood, May, it's worthless without power."

  "You're a heretic!"

  "It's not heresy I'm speaking, May. It's fire." Clyde's grin is deranged, like a cornered dog's. He takes another huge swig of vodka before he pulls the bottle from his lips. He spews the alcohol in a shower at May and Milligan. At the same time, green orbs of light the size of his palms manifest in his hands like magic. Touching the light to the alcohol fountain spraying from his mouth, it ignites the mist. He resembles a dragon breathing green fire.

  May and Milligan become torches engulfed in the flames. Hair and skin burn with the acrid smell of a crematorium. Joplin whips his coat off, throwing it over May's screaming head to extinguish the fire, but Milligan continues to burn with unearthly shrieks. Clyde tosses the rest of the bottle of vodka at him and he becomes unrecognizable within the inferno.

  Clyde lets go of me and pushes me in the direction of the house. "RUN!" he yells.

  My footsteps make crunching sounds as I crush pine needles in my attempt to make it to the front door. Before I get there, I'm lifted off my feet and held fast against a hard body. My heart convulses in fear when I glance at Floyd with his Neanderthal face mere inches from mine. His breath hisses like a viper in my ear as he spins me around.

  Tellico and Ellis attack Clyde with brightly colored orbs of orange and lavender light. It issues from each one, like a battle of lost souls in the night. They stretch and coil and crouch, their light bleeding like terrible banners when they throw them. Trees splinter and catch fire as Clyde evades each comet. He returns their colorful barrage with a green light of his own; but with every return volley his light pales, becoming less emerald and more lime.

  I struggle in Floyd's arms, but it's a simple thing for him to hold me. He's over a foot taller than me with a hundred times my strength. As I watch the fight between these strange creatures, I realize that with each shot they take, their lights get dimmer and dimmer, until finally, they're just throwing sparks at each other. Clyde slumps behind a fallen tree, panting and waning in the rain. Thunder rumbles in deep, piercing claps.

  Joplin steadies May with an arm around her shoulder. She looks gruesome; half of her face has been burnt to peeling flakes of charred, blackened skin like corroded metal upon rust-colored flesh. She leans heavily on him, as she says, "Floyd," her voice the pitch of a rusty gate, "make her tell you where she's hidden the urn!"

  Floyd gives me a wicked grin. "What do you taste like, little human?" He asks me. His tongue snakes out of his mouth and he presses it to my cheek, licking me. I hear sizzling sounds; smoke and flames rise from his mouth, his tongue melting within it like he consumed battery acid. Screaming in pain, he drops me as he clutches his hands to his mouth in agony.

  Set free, I run for the house. Poseidon's eyes mounted to the door brighten when I near it, scanning me with green light. It opens immediately. Pounding feet behind me makes me look back at Floyd. Blood and saliva drip from the corners of his mouth, but it's his eyes that scare me most; they're murderous.

  I enter the foyer and SOA manifests near me. "Get behind me," SOA orders. I obey. When Floyd crosses the foyer, high-powered red beams of light from the tracks on the ceiling shine down on him, cutting his torso in half. The pieces of him slip to the floor to flop around like caught fish on a ship's deck. I scream in terror and back away from the bloody horror in shock.

  Just when Floyd stops twitching, Clyde is shoved into the foyer to shield Ellis and Tellico behind him. With his hands behind his head, Clyde slowly comes toward me into the main room. His expression is grim as he stares at me with a look of apology in his eyes. Tellico raises his hand and shoots orange beams of light at the ceiling, disabling the lasers mounted there. SOA's hologram disappears from sight as sparks rain down from above.

  Joplin enters moments later, helping a wheezing May into the house. She shuffles through the foyer and past the bloody mess that used to be Floyd. Pausing at the entrance of the main room, May shrugs off Joplin's hand on her arm. Gingerly she lifts her watch and opens the face of it. She plucks out what looks like microscopic dust specks and pinches them like nutmeg over her burned face.

  "Have you found the urn, yet?" May demands. She adds another dash of dust to her burnt scalp where her long, silky hair was singed off. Her face is forming a film, not unlike cobwebs, over the damaged area.

  Ellis shakes his head, his brown hair falls over his thick forehead. "It could be anywhere."

  "Make her tell you where it is!" May growls, closing her watch face with a snap. Her hairline that was destroyed is beginning to sprout new growth. Blond, spiky wisps push through the webbing over her scalp.

  Ellis leers at me before he frowns. "She's covered in zinc oxide," he replies, his brown eyes scanning me. "I can't even touch her!" He extends his hand towards me. "See?" he says in frustration. "I can't levitate her while she has that crap on her skin. It repels everything."

  May lifts her hand; it glows red. She directs her palm towards the bookcase. Thick, heavy volumes fly off the shelf towards me as she swings her hand in my direction. I put my arms up to protect my face, cringing as I see them coming. When the first leather bound book is a fraction from strik
ing me, it stops dead and drops to the floor in front of me. The other books take the same course. May hisses, "There's an entire lake in the backyard. Go wash her off! Then you can employ any means necessary to make her talk."

  "Zinc oxide is insoluble in water," Ellis complains.

  Joplin pitches a bottle of wine from Mattie's kitchen at Ellis; he catches it easily. Joplin gives him a brilliant smile. "Pour this on her and then drop her in the water. The acid in the wine will take it off. Make her scrub in there or she never comes out."

  Ellis's thuggish face lights up; he smiles at me wickedly. "It's an expensive bottle, but she's worth it." He sets the wine on a table. Shedding his dark trench coat, he straightens the sleeves of his thin, black cashmere sweater. He extracts gloves from his coat pocket and puts them on. Retrieving the wine, he approaches me in an assessing way.

  "Don't do this," Clyde growls at Ellis, but Tellico has taken off his black belt and wrapped it around Clyde's hands, restraining them behind his back.

  "Shut up," Tellico sneers at him before he levitates a marble figurine of the world from the coffee table and bashes it into the back of Clyde's head. Clyde falls into a chair by the glass door. Blood trickles from his scalp onto the white fabric, staining it red.

  "Here we go, Violet," Ellis says. With his meaty fist full of my sweater, Ellis drags me outside and down to the end of the dock. Using one hand, he dangles me over the water. "You're a real beauty, eh—so petite. I like 'em small," he winks at me. "There's something about ya—I see what the Sweven saw in you."

  "You're disgusting, Ellis!" I try to scratch his face but he leans away from me.

  "Oh-ho and lively! Ready to get wet now?" he asks. He holds the wine bottle away from him and the cork pops out of the bottle, as if it were champagne. He holds it over me, pouring wine on my face. My eyes squeeze shut as I sputter. He douses wine on my hands and sprays some on my legs. When the bottle is empty, he tosses it, making a splash in the water. He sticks his finger near my face. "Scrub hard now. I want to touch every inch of you."

  He opens his gloved fist and drops me in the icy water; I begin to sink to the bottom. Struggling to pull my sweater off over my head, I free myself from it. I kick out underwater, swimming as far as I can away from the dock.

  My lungs ache from holding my breath. Unable to go further without more air, I resurface and glance back at the dock. Ellis raises his hand and a burst of lavender-colored light illuminates the sky above me. When he locates me, Ellis steps off the wooden planks of the dock. His dress shoes splash on the top of the water and he strolls toward me on the surface as if it were a puddle on pavement. I make a gagging sound and turn to swim in the opposite direction, but within a few seconds, Ellis reaches down and yanks me out of the water by my neck.

  He has taken off his gloves and my throat burns as he holds me out from him with his arm extended. "You can't go now, Violet. We're about to have some fun." Ellis's smile is nefarious. He licks his lips, beginning to say something else when he stops abruptly and looks down at his feet.

  His expression changes instantly from one of satisfaction to one of terror. As I clutch his hands at my throat, I feel his skin grow icy. His face begins to wrinkle, his hair turns white. His ruthless brown eyes sink into his skull as his flesh retracts, losing hydration. They dry up like beads of glass. His nose collapses into his face as his lips curl up, receding from his teeth. Ashy skin flakes from his cheeks before it crumbles like sand and drops into the water beneath us.

  The light from above extinguishes as Ellis's arm that holds me extended breaks off suddenly; I plunge back into the black water. The rest of Ellis caves in and splashes beneath the surface, leaving just his clothes floating near me. I scream, but all that comes out are shallow horror-filled whimpers. "Mattie?" I croak his name as I begin to cry softly, but there is no answer.

  May's garbled voice yells from just outside the house, "Ellis?" The entire interior is illuminated behind her. She limps further out onto the patio, looking toward the dock. Tellico and Joplin are still inside, tearing the rooms apart looking for Mattie's ashes. Clyde remains slumped in the chair just by the door, unconscious.

  My eyes shift to the dock; I can just make out the silhouette of Mattie's urn beneath the white of my t-shirt. She'll find him, I think as I struggle to keep my head above water. "She's not getting him," I murmur aloud.

  As quietly as possible, I swim back to the dock. When I make it to the ladder, I ease myself out of the water.

  "Ellis?" May's harsh voice drifts to me from somewhere near the other end.

  I creep to the post that hides the urn. Chilled to the marrow of my bones, my hands shake as I uncover it. It's smooth to the touch like a river stone. I fumble to unscrew the lid. The planks creak on the dock as May nears me. I back to the ladder and hold the urn out over the water.

  "Stop!" May makes a harrowing screeching sound when she sees me and realizes what I'm doing. She extends her hand; it begins to glow with red light. I tilt the opening of the urn toward the water threateningly. She immediately drops her hands and takes a step back. "Wait!" She gives me a glare that would turn my bones to dust if it could.

  "Let Clyde go," I order with venom.

  "Do you have feelings for Matt's slave? That's priceless!" May tries to smile, but her burnt skin pulls; soot cracks and falls from it. Her smile turns rancid and becomes a wince. She calls over her shoulder, "Bring Clyde here!"

  Tellico and Joplin spill out onto the porch. When they see us, Tellico goes back inside for a moment. He must have flipped a switch in the house because lights turn on and glow from each post along the dock, defining our features with a soft haze.

  "What did you do to Ellis?" May asks as she looks around.

  "He couldn't swim," I lie. "He drowned."

  The webs of new flesh on May's cheek get thicker; tiny, dust-speck spiders crawl in and out of it. May's scowl is one of unease. "You're lying! He doesn't need to swim! What did you do to him?"

  "I didn't do anything to him," I answer honestly.

  Fear enters May's eyes as she asks, "He's here, isn't he?"

  "Who?" I counter, wanting her to say his name.

  "This is where he has collected. His spirit is in the lake, isn't it?"

  "What are you talking about?" I ask with a shiver.

  "It doesn't matter if he's here. He still needs his remains and an energy source to reunite," she murmurs.

  Tellico emerges again from the house, this time with Clyde. He and Joplin drag Clyde down to the dock. They drop him near May's feet. He curls up and groans, clutching his head.

  May looks deeply concerned now. She extends her hand to me once more and motions me with her fingers. "Give me the urn, Violet, or I'll kill him," she threatens.

  My knees strike together in fear. I want to run senseless into the night.

  Clyde stirs. "Don't give him to them, Violet!" he groans. "They're gonna kill us anyway!"

  My eyes connect with Clyde's and I know he's right. "I'm sorry," I murmur to him. "A toast then, to the dying and the dead." I tip the urn.

  May's hand comes up again, her sharp nails scratch the air. An anguished sound drones from her as Mattie's ashes cascade from the cold vessel. They fall down to drown in black water. The lake takes them over and hisses like I touched a hot iron to it. A blue glow emerges on the surface. Cerulean mist rises up, swirling and billowing. It entwines as it reaches toward the sky, growing and climbing over itself like a winding beanstalk of water and light. It illuminates the night in a fiery blue aurora, connecting with the storm clouds above.

  Deep rumblings of thunder fall down on us; they ripple the water below. My hand weakens in fear and the urn slips from it, hitting the lake with a splash. An instant later, an enormous shaft of white lightning spews downward from the sky. It encompasses the stalk of blue light, turning it bright white and tearing the night in two. I flinch as electricity hits the black water, branching out in a roadmap of fiery veins. I'm knocked off my feet, blown back fro
m the exploding current.

  We lay on the dock like pearls from a broken necklace. The smell of burnt fish is everywhere; it sticks in my lungs as would tar to a rooftop. Certain that I'm dead, I close my eyes to wait for everything to fade away and my pain to end.

  Chapter 6 – I MIGHT BE CRAZY

  I open my eyes to find it's darker again. All but one of the lights has extinguished. My cheek rests against a wooden plank. The lightning and rain have disappeared, but an unearthly crack of thunder shears the air around me, causing me to grimace and scrunch my face up tight. The dock trembles at the sound, threatening to plunge us into the lake. I gather my limbs to me, curling up in pain. My eyes open again just as a man-shaped silhouette of fire rises straight up from the water. I blink hard, and then stare at his flickering flames as he walks forward over the lake towards us.

  The man of fire pauses and bends down, lifting Ellis's clothing from the water. The fire begins to change to flesh as the flames extinguish. He shrugs on Ellis's dress pants; they hang loosely over his flat stomach and hips. Strolling barefoot on the surface again, he grows nearer.

  "Mattie," I murmur as my heart races. He's bare-chested; my eyes drink in his flawless skin, noticing how it pulls taut against his lean-muscled abdomen, accentuating the perfection of his physique. His black hair is made even more so, wet and slicked back from his handsome face. It's longer, too, than it had been a few months ago when I last saw him alive. Bristles of a beard cover his strong jawline, making him look different because he always maintained a close shave...and his eyes...his eyes glow blue like captured moonbeams.

  When he reaches the dock, Mattie doesn't hesitate, but comes right to me. I feel him before he even touches me. He's electric and when his skin meets mine the current within him jumps to me. It's painful at first and I grimace, but then the energy subsides. He scoops me up in his arms and I relax against his warm chest. With his finger, he brushes my hair back from my eyes. "Violet," he says my name softly.