by DD Barant
“But that’s in your world, Jace. Here, things are very different.”
“Granted—his lone hunting and obsession with fire might be more about his culture than damage to his psyche. But I’m seeing other aspects that fit, too: his empire-building plans, the inhuman experiments, the promiscuity, the compelling but mercurial personality. To me he sounds like a textbook case of malignant narcissism: no conscience, pathological need to accumulate power, inflated sense of his own worth. His impulse control is no doubt poor, but he’s obviously smart enough to have constructed an elaborate facade that he shows the rest of the world, one that lets him hide his real persona.”
“He’s a sorcerer intent on conquering an entire world, Jace. Are you saying that underneath that, he’s even worse?”
“Much worse. Malignant narcissism has been called ‘the quintessence of evil’; those who have it essentially build up their own low self-esteem by destroying others, and experience pleasure by doing so. They become addicted to the experience, and just like any addict, they need a bigger and bigger dose to get off. Many psychopaths wind up self-destructing; the malignant narcissist can function well enough to perfect his disguise even while his crimes escalate.”
I’ve taken off the globe-light that Nightstorm gave me, and Azura’s playing with it as we speak. She rolls it from knuckle to knuckle on the back of her hand, the fireflies inside swirling around like living bits of light. She’s not really paying attention to what she’s doing; even though it requires superb muscle control, to her it’s obviously as mindless as tapping a pencil on a desk.
The room suddenly feels dark and cramped, the air thick and close. I don’t usually suffer from claustrophobia, but I have the overwhelming urge to feel fresh air on my face. I stand up abruptly, fighting a surge of panic.
“Jace?”
No dizziness this time. One second I’m here, and then I’m there.
I squat beside the mound of dirt in the basement, but don’t touch anything. A distant part of my mind is pleading with me: Don’t look up, it begs. Just don’t look up.
But no matter how real this all seems, it’s just a memory. A piece of the past, projecting frame after inevitable frame on the screen inside my head. Knowing what comes next won’t stop it.
I look up. The second-from-the-bottom shelf is level with my eyes. The jar right in front of me isn’t nearly as dusty as the others, and I can see what’s floating in there quite distinctly. I don’t recognize them, though, not immediately; taken out of context, they’re just lumpy, vaguely familiar objects.
But then something inside my head shifts, changing my perspective. Changing it forever.
In the jar is a human tongue. And two lips.
This time I regain awareness in the middle of a panic attack: heart pounding, hyperventilating, impending feeling of doom squeezing my chest and throat and brain. I’m lying on my back on the dirt, which makes it worse; the feel of the damp earth on my skin is almost unbearable. I shriek and sit bolt upright, but Azura grabs me by the shoulders before I can get to my feet.
“Jace!” she shouts. And I mean, really shouts—it’s enough to make my ears ring. I jerk in surprise, and shoot her an angry look.
“What?” I snap. It works, though—kind of like an auditory slap. My heart’s still going a mile a minute and I’m gasping like a fish on a dock, but I know where and when I am.
“Sorry,” Azura says. “Memory attack?”
“Yeah.” I focus on getting my breathing under control. “Old case. Bad one. I’m—I’m okay.”
She lets go of my shoulders, then helps me get to my feet. She’s surprisingly strong for such a small woman. I’m only upright for a few seconds when the dizziness hits, but there’s no way I’m going to lean on the dirt wall for support.
“I’ve got to do something about this,” I say. “I can’t have this happening out in the field. I’ll get someone killed.”
“Probably you,” Azura says. “Well, we can’t have that. We’ll have to fix you.”
“You can do that? I asked Nightstorm, but he was less than optimistic.”
She rolls her eyes. “All Lyrastoi fancy themselves wizards, but only a few really have the knack. Trues make the best mages—it’s one of the reasons all Astonishers are human. Nightstorm himself probably couldn’t pull it off—well, not unless he had a lung from an Eldritch Bogg or the Book of Aether handy, and those aren’t exactly items you can pick up in the marketplace—but he’s not the one that’s going to cure you. You are.”
“I am?”
“With a little assistance from me. Trues may not be able to change shape or resist injury on their own, but we do have an affinity for mystical forces—and that includes a built-in resistance to magic attacks, a natural immune system. Most people simply don’t know how to access it.”
“And you do, of course.”
“It’s the very first thing they teach us. Still dizzy?”
“No, I think I’m all right now.”
“Good. Follow me.”
She leads me out of the room, down one tunnel and up another. We end up facing a bare earthen wall in the middle of a tunnel, one that turns out to have a cleverly concealed entrance to another room in it. Azura pushes aside a piece of cloth that a moment ago I would have sworn was made of dirt and leads me inside.
It’s larger than the room we were in, one wall lined with wooden barrels. There’s a long, deep tub set into in the center of the floor.
“Where are we?”
“This is a ritual center. See those barrels? Filled with water from the Lethe River. Powerful stuff—which is good, because we’re going to need it.”
“Lethe? Nightstorm said something about using that to treat my condition. It didn’t sound like he had any, though—”
She sighs. “Nightstorm doesn’t know nearly as much as he thinks he does.” She walks over to the farthest barrel and opens a stopcock. Warm, steamy water gushes from a pipe, then flows down a narrow channel in the floor and into the tub.
“Hot water?” I say. “I thought you didn’t have fire.”
“We don’t. But we do have hot springs—geothermal heat is what keeps Nightshadow a tropical environment.”
“So, a hot bath is going to cure me?”
“No, it’s going to provide the proper support for you to cure yourself.” She pauses. “It’s not going to be pleasant, Jace. There’s only one way to beat nightmares, and that’s with a stick.”
“I’ve got one of those. Two, actually.”
“Good. You’ll need them.”
“You know, the last time I let you talk me into an aquatic environment, you tried to drown me.”
“It was for your own good.”
“So’s this.”
“I won’t try to drown you.”
“Can you remove the qualifier, please?”
She sighs. “I won’t drown you, okay? Neither will the water. Or the lack of air in your lungs. Are those promises sufficient, or shall I find some paper and compose a contract?”
I give her a hard look. She waits patiently.
“Okay, okay,” I mutter. “So what exactly are we doing here?”
“You’re going to soak in the water, which will help you attain a meditative state. I’ll be maintaining physical contact, my hands on your head. I’ll guide you through some imagery.”
“Is this an exorcism or a spa treatment?”
She smiles. “The memory curse will try to take you to a place where you feel lost, afraid, alone. We’re going to subvert that—just like Ahaseurus detoured you at the myth site, we’re going to send you to a different place.”
“Please don’t say ‘a happy place.’ I’ll wind up drunk and half naked in Amarillo.”
“Oh, you’ll be completely naked. Take your clothes off.” She kneels at the head of the tub and tests the water, seems satisfied. “But this isn’t about relaxation or euphoria. It’s about fighting back.”
I kick off my shoes, skin out of my clothes.
Azura seats herself cross-legged at the head of the tub.
“You’re still going to recall an unpleasant memory, Jace, and it’ll be connected to the other flashbacks you’ve been having. But you won’t be helpless in this one; you’ll be in a place of power. And most important, it won’t have the same inevitability that a memory holds, because you’ll have a powerful mystic resource counteracting that: the Lethe water. It’ll make your memories malleable—you’ll be able to act, to change things.”
I step into the steaming water carefully. Nice and hot, just how I like it. “Change things how?”
“That’s up to you. Just let your feelings guide you.”
“Great. Throw in a few scented candles and some chanting and we can write the whole thing off as a religious retreat.”
I sink into the water, which feels really, really good. Azura links her fingers together and cradles my skull as I lie back.
Despite the wisecracks, I’m actually scared. No cure is 100 percent, and I’m messing around with my mind here. What if Azura keels over from a heart attack halfway through? Am I going to be trapped inside my own memories forever, wandering through my history like a ghost in a maze? Add a trail of anti-psychotic medication for me to gobble along the way and I can rebrand myself as Ms. Pac-Man.
I close my eyes, trying to relax. “Breathe through your mouth. Keep your breathing deep and even,” Azura says. “Focus on who you are, what you are. There’s a stubborn little knot at the center of your being; feel it, know that it’s you. Wrap your fist around it, hold it as tightly as you hold your weapon. Feel its power.”
And I do. It’s exactly like she’s describing, a little knot. I clench my own fists as I try to grab it with my mind, hold it as tightly as I can.
“Now close your mouth. Inhale deeply through your nose. Smell, the dark, rich earth of the soil all around you…”
That’s all it takes. The world spins away beneath me, swirling like water down a drain. But this time I have something to hold on to: myself.
I open my eyes. Seated across from me is a man in an orange prison jumpsuit, with long, greasy brown hair spilling down the sides of his head. He’s bald on top, with a pinkish scar that starts at the top of his forehead and disappears into his hairline. It’s where I shot him.
“Agent Valchek,” he says. He’s got one of those soft, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth southern accents. “How nice to see you.”
His name is Gibby Reddinger. He killed at least eight women and used them to fertilize his roses. He also cut off their lips and tongues and pickled them.
“Mr. Reddinger,” I say. I open the file folder lying in front of me on the table. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about an open case.”
Gibby smiles at me with prison-dentist teeth. “I’ll do my best to help.”
This is the man who gave me nightmares for years. I’m not here because of a case—the case is bullshit, it’s just fishing for information on a missing woman that Gibby probably had nothing to do with. But I volunteered to conduct the interview, because I was tired of drinking myself to sleep and needed to do something.
Something else, I mean. My first attempt to deal with Gibby hadn’t gone that well.
“I’m investigating the disappearance of this woman,” I say, pushing a photo toward him. He picks it up, studies it. He’s not in restraints; despite his crimes, he’s not classified as being high-risk to commit violence. He’s been nothing but cooperative since we caught him.
Since I caught him.
“She does look familiar,” he admits. Which is prison lingo for I’m wasting your time because I have so much of it myself. He raises his hand to his scar and winces, ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, Agent Valchek—ever since I was shot, my memory’s been a little spotty.”
Ever since I shot you, you mean. Ever since that bullet creased your skull and put you in a coma for three weeks, ever since you woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed and asked for a lawyer. Ever since you used that as an excuse to plead diminished capacity and claim you didn’t remember all the horrifying things you’d done.
“Her name is Kendall Corliss,” I say. My voice is worse than emotionless; it’s actually polite. Personalities like Gibby’s respond better to courtesy than they do threats. “Please try to remember.”
“Mmm.” He leans back in his chair, frowning in what I’m supposed to believe is concentration. Maybe it is, but if so, then what he’s trying to think of is how long he can draw this out and whether or not he can get something out of it.
He winces again, running his middle finger lightly over the scar in a way that’s almost obscene. “Yes, yes, Kendall. Kendall Corliss. I’m sure I know that name, I most certainly do. My injury is acting up a little, though; it does that, makes it hard to think.”
This is the point where I’m supposed to offer him something. Something to soothe his pain, so his poor, muddled brain can come up with the answers I’m looking for. I remember the little dance we went through well, how I dangled the possibility of conjugal visits with his celebrity-stalker girlfriend or maybe even early parole, while he tried to sound sincere and figure out how far he could con me.
I remember it all too well—even though it hasn’t happened yet. Because here I am, with Gibby sitting right in front of me; it’s happening right now. And even though I know every lying word that’s about to come out of his mouth, I also know something else.
I know I’m sick of it.
“—I think a nice cup of tea would help me think,” I say, at exactly the same moment he does. He stops and stares at me, puzzled.
“You know what would help me think?” I ask him. “Getting you out of my head.”
“Have you been thinking about me, Agent Valchek?” he asks with a little smile.
“I have. I don’t like to admit that, not to anyone—and especially not to you. But it’s the truth.”
His smile gets wider. “Do tell.”
“I switched weapons because of you. Maybe I went a little overboard, but I didn’t want to risk bouncing another slug off some deviant’s skull. If I’d been carrying the Ruger instead of the Glock, you’d be the one underground right now.”
“You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar, Agent—”
“I can’t believe I held back with you.”
“I wouldn’t call shooting someone in the head holding back—”
“Not then. Now. This interview, right here. I was actually polite. Me. I told myself I was working you, playing on your ego, but that was more lies. Truth is, I’m afraid of you, Gibby.”
He stares at me, smiling but not saying anything. What I’ve just told him is every psychopath’s dream come true: The cop who caught him has just admitted he has power over her.
“Everybody has their buttons,” I say. “You hit mine. What you did to those women—cutting off their lips, their tongues—you were taking away their ability to criticize you, mock you, reject you. You took away their power.”
“That’s right,” he says softly. “Took yours away, too, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. You did. You shut me up. And I let you.”
“Well, that’s—”
“Shut the fuck up. I’m talking.”
I knock the files onto the floor with a sweep of my hand. “You sad, broken little man. You’re more scared than I am—that’s why you killed those women in the first place. They were strong, smart, and mouthy. Just like me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” He gets to his feet. There’s not a lot to do in prison but work out, and he’s got the build. “I can kill you just as easy as any of those whores—”
I stand up. “No. You can’t.”
Tables in prison interview rooms are bolted down. He doesn’t let that stop him; he grabs the edge and flips it to the right, tearing it right out of the floor.
Good. It was in my way.
SIXTEEN
I put the heel of my foot in his belly with a side-kick. He doubles up, all the air going out o
f him with a whoosh. I straighten him back out with an uppercut, using my elbow instead of my fist. He staggers backward, blood pouring from his nose.
Then I really go to work.
This isn’t a fight, not really. This is me letting go of all the frustration and anger I’ve felt toward this piece of garbage for years. Even though it’s technically not real, it feels like it is; every punch, every kick hits with as much force and fury as any scrap I’ve ever been in.
It’s not completely one-sided, either. I guess I’m also fighting a manifestation of the curse Ahaseurus laid on me, one that’s trying to drag me back into the pit of horror and fear it represents. Gibby gets in a few good punches; I’m bleeding myself before too long.
Doesn’t mean he stands a chance.
How many people get a chance to do what I’m doing? Beat the crap out of a bogeyman straight from their subconscious? Gibby isn’t just someone I tracked and caught, he’s every person I ever wanted to tell off and didn’t, every person who’s ever scared me just by existing.
I don’t know how long it goes on, but I know when it’s over; Gibby lies at my feet, unmoving. I’m breathing hard, but not tired; in fact, I feel great.
“You know what?” I say, wiping blood off my mouth with the back of my sleeve. “You were a lousy gardener, too.”
* * *
I come back to reality a little slower than I left it, all my senses fading into a gray nothing then gradually returning; I feel the warmth of the water, Azura’s hands cradling my head. I open my eyes.
“Wooo,” I say softly. “How long was I out?”
“About an hour,” she says. Her voice sounds a little funny, kind of stuffed up. “How do you feel?”
