The Echoed Realm

by A. J. Vrana

  Ama slouched against the bench and grumbled. “I maintain my promise.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Gavran hopped along his make-shift roost. “You know what you have to do.” She swept up her arm and propelled him into the air.

  The raven crowed his farewell, gliding towards the trees and disappearing into the maze of earthy hues.

  “Don’t worry,” said Ama as she caught Miya staring pensively into the distance. “Gavran will find him.”

  “How do you know?”

  The white wolf leaned her head back and smiled towards the sky. “Ravens always hunt alongside us. They’re scavengers. They feed on our kills.” She took up Miya’s hand and squeezed reassuringly. “Where we go, a murder is sure to follow.”

  16

  KAI

  “Do you feel that?” Rusalka hissed in his ear. “The pain, the impotence, the stubborn belief that they matter.”

  Kai had never much given a shit about people’s feelings. Perhaps it was a nasty side effect of refusing a second glance at his own, but since Rusalka had wormed into his head like a brain-eating amoeba, she’d taken every opportunity to point them out. And God, people had a lot of fucking feelings.

  Whenever someone attacked him, he never thought about why. He grinned and savoured the pleasure of defending himself—usually by putting the other guy in a coma for a week. But Rusalka showed him just how deep the roots ran.

  If survival drove Kai to violence, then fear drove men to it. Kai was no stranger to fear, but what lurked below it, why it was so dangerous, never registered until now.

  Fear was Rusalka’s weapon of choice, and in her deft hands, she moulded it into anger like a sculptor perfecting an art form. She showed Kai a world festering beneath people’s actions—a world to which he’d been blissfully unaware. People, it seemed, were terrified of each other…and themselves.

  “Over there,” she instructed, the shadow at the edge of his vision nodding towards a woman standing at the street corner. It was a busy day, chattering voices echoing from every direction as people peppered the main road for their weekend splurge, but this girl was alone. She smoothed out her knee-length skirt and pressed her rouged lips together. Her dark bob was perfectly styled, the straightened locks dead in the wind even as the gauzy fabric whipped around her thighs. She was waiting for someone.

  A man about Kai’s age approached her then, his hand brushing her elbow to grab her attention. He smiled and began speaking. Kai couldn’t discern the words, but he knew exactly what was happening. The girl pulled away with a tense smile; the man was leaning in too close.

  “What do you see?” Rusalka’s voice chimed like a bell.

  “An embarrassment,” Kai replied without looking.

  Rusalka laughed shrilly. “Accurate, but what else?”

  Kai sighed, uninspired to analyze a stranger’s cringey cock posturing. “His socks don’t match, and that plaid shirt looks like vomit-themed Tetris.”

  “I don’t care about what’s on the outside,” she warned, drumming her fingers on his shoulder. “I care about what’s inside.”

  Kai’s breath halted; her nails were like icicles digging into his skin. He focused on the interaction. The smiling faces and the pealing laughter fell away as he permitted himself to open the door to his senses, if only just a crack.

  “He’s anxious,” Kai observed, noting the beads of sweat pooling around the man’s collar.

  Rusalka’s mouth lifted, her nostrils flaring with excitement. “And the girl?”

  Kai’s gaze drifted past Gary—that’s what Kai was calling him now; he looked like a Gary, and Gary was the perfect name for a plodding pedestrian with mismatched socks. The girl clutched her handbag, a tight-lipped smile plastered on her face as she blinked heavily and nodded. She glanced past him as though trying to flag for help, then choked back a laugh and quickly shook her head. “Looks like she’d rather walk barefoot over a sea of pinecones than bump uglies with Gary.”

  “Gary?” Rusalka blinked at him.

  Kai shrugged. “Know any mouth-watering specimens named Gary?”

  She frowned and slanted her head as though scanning her memory stores. “Can’t say I do.”

  Kai flashed her a wolfish grin. “Exactly.”

  Something warbled in Rusalka’s throat. “Stop diverting. Your petty resistance is meaningless.”

  His mouth curved into a vicious smirk. “Small victories, you dead-eyed bitch.”

  Grey skin swiftly found his thigh, nails like rust and cold tunnelling into his wound. Although the tendons had sewn themselves back together, his leg was in no condition for another mangling. Kai clenched his jaw and grimaced, his eyes like blood and fire. Patience whittled to a mere splinter, he grabbed Rusalka’s wrist and squeezed with stone-crushing force. “Your kitty claws are tickling me,” he menaced in a low growl. “Remove them.”

  “You’re a strong pup,” she snubbed, “but if you don’t play by my rules, I’ll do more than tickle you, little wolf. Perhaps a scuffle with Gary? Or a visit to your favourite bar? A lone woman tending to an establishment with such disreputable clientele—well, there’s no saying what might happen, is there?”

  Kai wanted to crush her waifish wrist, tear her hand free, and feed it to the crows, but he was powerless without Miya. A living person couldn’t clobber a spirit manifesting in the physical plane, and a spirit had no way of ending another spirit in the dreamscape. No, these were two different realities. Miya knew how to find the in-between, a limbo where all things existed inseparably from one another. That was the only place he could do damage.

  The infuriating catch: only Miya could navigate that liminal space, and only she could bring others into it. She found the borderlands between dreams as they rippled out from their dreamers. In rare instances, dreams touched like strangers brushing past one another on a crowded street. Miya’s true power—the Dreamwalker’s true power—was to inhabit that sliver where two worlds became one, and to move between them unfettered. Sure, Kai could reach a fist into the in-between and slug a bastard in the face, but they had to be brought there by the Dreamwalker first.

  Kai loosened his hold. “The girl’s nervous,” he said, staring dully at the woman with the black bob. “She wants to get away, but she’s meeting someone, so she can’t.”

  There was a sharp sting as Rusalka retracted her nails. His wound was still closed, absent of marks where she’d sliced into him, but the ache persisted.

  Just then, another man—this one with matching socks—approached the awkward couple and slinked an arm around the woman’s waist. His bulging eyes glued to the peacock invading his territory. Gary immediately backpedaled, raising his hands as he addressed the man with matching socks. The woman he’d been hitting on was quickly forgotten, shrinking into the smog of escalating dickmanship. Although Kai couldn’t hear Gary’s words, he knew they were a rapid-fire apology.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rusalka dubbed the exchange. “I had no idea she was your girl!”

  Kai’s eyebrow arched as he watched the trio, a series of guttural barks and catty hisses sounding next to him as Rusalka enacted the scene.

  “Oh! What do you think he’s saying now?” she gasped into Kai’s ear, clutching his arm in giddy anticipation.

  “I could punch your face through the back of your skull,” Kai muttered in monotone, intentionally vague about who, exactly, he was referring to.

  Rusalka pouted. “No jab at his manhood?”

  Kai refused to acknowledge her.

  She gestured towards the two men. “This isn’t even about the girl anymore, is it?”

  When Gary finally retreated, tail between his legs, he didn’t give the woman with the black bob so much as a second glance. She was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed as she stared at her shoes. Her human football of a boyfriend knotted his fists as his eyes darted left and right in search of the next threat. Then, his glare landed on his girlfriend, lingering on her hemline.

  “Isn’t it
funny,” began Rusalka, “how men always apologize to other men for disturbing women?”

  Kai was too engrossed to reply. Body language was a dialect he spoke well, and he tensed in response to the man’s barely contained aggression. Kai glanced around the square, but other passersby seemed oblivious. The girl was a hair’s breadth away from being yelled at by Biceps, yet no one noticed his clenched-up asshole and the veins ready to burst under his purpling neck. How did no one notice?

  “It’s because the girl doesn’t matter,” he said to both Rusalka and himself. “It’s not about her. It’s about their egos.”

  Rusalka purred in his ear, “Well done, little wolf.”

  “I’m not a toddler,” he snarled, his scorching stare still on the football-man with misdirected anger.

  “They’re treating her like toilet paper,” Rusalka’s voice dripped with disdain.

  Kai couldn’t disagree with her. Both men feared they’d lost something, but while one was forced to slink away, the other had the perfect outlet for his frustrations: the possession he thought almost lost.

  “They’re all afraid,” Rusalka whispered like it was a well-kept secret. “The man fears he is now less of a man. The woman,” she added darkly, “the woman is simply afraid.” She laughed like an omen before a catastrophe. “How easy it would be to turn them on her. To tear down the fragile barrier between anger and action.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?” Kai asked, his spine tingling with the heat of kinetic fury.

  “Nothing, perhaps.” She smiled sweetly. “Or everything. Your fear is what brought you to me. Fear whispered, open the door,” her lips found his ear, tongue darting out like a snake’s, “and you did. You let me in.”

  Kai pulled away, repulsed by her rancid breath. “I’m not some jealous asshole.”

  She threw her head back and cackled. “Jealousy? Dogs get jealous.” She waved her hand dismissively. “No, this runs far deeper than mere jealousy. This is entitlement. Entitlement over your women, your egos,” she cast him a sideways glance, “your freedom.”

  Kai turned to stone beside her. His freedom. He’d never thought about it before Miya, but since being tethered to her in the dreamscape, he loathed his dependence on her, even if she was his best friend. The tether demanded his trust, and no matter how hard he tried to surrender it, every inch he gave left him bitter, angry, and—

  “Fearful,” Rusalka finished his thought. “You were afraid she’d never unshackle you. You’re still afraid. Just like they are.” She gestured towards the throngs of people in the square.

  Kai watched the couple disappear into the crowd, his eyes lingering on the man’s large hand clasped possessively around the woman’s. He wondered if it hurt, if her fingers felt like they were breaking in his grip. If she was in pain—and he sensed that she was—no one would know. Her boyfriend didn’t notice; he was so focused on grasping on like a child with a stolen toy. They would go home, and she would swallow whatever accusation seethed under the lid of public propriety.

  Breath hitched in Kai’s throat, waves of panic crashing through his chest. He’d spent the last thirteen years teetering between repression and unbridled rage. He didn’t have the energy for this, but now that Rusalka had coerced his animal senses into perceiving things he’d never considered, he found himself paralyzed by the onslaught of others’ emotions. They were so…leaky. Sure, most people shoved their bullshit so far down that an oil drill couldn’t excavate it, but it was still there, oozing like pus, pooling around the edges of Kai’s mind.

  How hadn’t he seen it before? Humanity was the most destructive force on the planet because they lived in constant fear.

  And the irony of it all?

  Those in whose likeness he was made were the most fearful and destructive of all. Men were violent because they’d been promised the world, yet no kingdom had been delivered to them. They hadn’t realized there were no more kings.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Kai asked, cutting the thread of his spiralling thoughts. “Your bullshit won’t work on me if I know how you do it.”

  Rusalka blinked, her mouth a thin line before she howled with laughter. “Oh, my sweet, little wolf. Just because you know how something works doesn’t mean you can stop it. Nothing is more painful, more terrifying than watching a spider spin its web around your paralyzed body.” Her spindly fingers caressed his arm as her eyes trailed over him, admiring his physique.

  Kai felt sick. Between her probing questions and her cloying affection, he was dizzy with doubts. He shot to his feet, shaking off her syrupy hands.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” Her voice was now laced with venom.

  She was worse than Abaddon. At least Kai’s former nemesis let him go where he pleased. Rusalka wanted him to believe that Miya had him on a short leash, yet nothing in Satan’s playground could’ve compared to the chokehold this mouldy washcloth had on him. She was a plague. Not only did she dictate his movements, but she’d also weaseled into his mind during his weakest moments. His best defense was to keep a level head, stay calm, and dole out sarcasm like it was candy corn on Halloween.

  Easier said than done. She’d unsettled him more than once in thirty minutes of idle chit-chat. How long until he cracked? Until he lost agency and did the unthinkable? No. He would rather die. He’d made that abundantly clear with his leg and a sharp blade.

  But Kai was first and foremost a survivor, and he was good at getting by against the odds, no matter the cost. He doubted Rusalka would be torn up if her new doll ripped itself to pieces before she could. There were countless others she could replace him with, and that made the prospect of dying less appealing. If she was after Miya, any number of men were candidates: good old absentee Raymond, or that golden turd, Evans. What if she dug up old acquaintances—some disappointment from college who clung to an old flame that was never kindled? And what of those who straddled more than one world like Kai? Could Gavran be turned against the person he was most loyal to?

  “I’m hungry,” Kai grunted, though it was an excuse—an attempt to shield the panicked spate flowing through his bones. Yet in his mind’s eye, he only saw one thing: a boy with waxy skin and eyes like depthless pools of black ink.

  Gavran.

  He needed Gavran.

  17

  Kai surveyed the trees peering over the gabled rooftops of Orme’s Rest. He scrunched up the wrapper of his freshly devoured burger and tossed it into the trash. The raven had always been near, both in Black Hollow and in the dreamscape. Would Orme’s Rest be any different?

  Where are you, Shit-for-brains?

  “What shall we do next?” Rusalka interrupted his surveillance as she twined her arm with his.

  Kai weaved away from the bustle and meandered towards the outskirts of town. The colourful boutique shops and restaurants were gone, leaving a trail of dilapidated depots along a pockmarked road with no sidewalk. Weeds poked through the craggy pavement, and the bulbs of overarching streetlights were blown out or broken.

  “Thought you’d force me to murder someone,” he said dryly.

  “Why, of course!” she trilled. “In due time, that is. It’s no fun if you’re expecting it at every turn. Maybe we should do something to relax you first.”

  Kai’s thoughts wandered to Miya. He felt a prickle of discomfort every so often—a sure sign she was slipping into the dreamscape—but no burning agony, no eviscerated cells marking lengthier departures. His heart twisted as a caustic lump tugged at his throat. She must have been exhausted. One bad night of insomnia typically had her glum and implacable. He couldn’t imagine what several days without rest would do. Was she eating? Had she found shelter? He wanted to see her, tell her he was rebelling, and beg her not to give up on him—to take a goddamn nap for more than ten minutes. He’d last at least thirty. Maybe forty.

  “Tell me,” Rusalka leaned on his shoulder, “what do you enjoy?”

  “Killing, fighting, fucking.” It was an evasive respo
nse, but he was torn in two—one part of him aching to find the raven while the other fought to keep collected.

  “Hmm, so basic. Though I suppose it explains your mulishness. You are irritatingly true to your instincts.”

  “Eating too. I like eating.”

  Rusalka rolled her eyes. “Now you’re boring me.”

  Kai kicked at a pebble on the worn-down asphalt. “I also like being alone. You wouldn’t mind fucking off, would you?”

  A caw echoed from above. Kai glanced up to find a raven settled on a rusted lamppost, and the scavenger wasn’t alone. There was an entire congress of the bastards, circling overhead as though searching for the perfect head to shit on. Kai reckoned they’d found it.

  “How rude of you,” Rusalka chided. Her pupils darted around the bulging twin cases of her serpent-like eyes as she caught sight of the looming threat. “Is that any way to treat your guest?”

  “You’re not a guest,” said Kai. “You’re a parasite.”

  “I’m a gift!” she roared, her nails slicing into his forearm.

  Glowering at her hold, Kai whipped his arm free. “Sure, a gift.” His mouth quirked. “Pickled meat for the crows.”

  The raven from the lamppost divebombed her in a blur of muddy black. All wings, feathers, and talons, his beak thrust into her hair and face. She swung her arms and spun like a pinwheel, shrieking as purulent blood oozed from her cuts.

  The raven chortled, and the others descended in one fell swoop, swarming the demon in a cloud of darkness. Her cries were swallowed by the cacophony until the first raven—the largest in the group—freed himself from the frenzy and perched on Kai’s shoulder.

  She won’t be held down for long, the boy’s voice echoed in his mind.

  Kai didn’t need to be told. He bolted down the street and turned sharply behind a run-down garage with a junkyard at the rear, the raven fluttering close behind. “What the hell do you mean she won’t be held down for long? Pluck her to death!”

  A wet hiss escaped the raven’s throat. Feathers and air, you gargantuan oaf.