The Demon's Grave

by E. M. MacCallum

  “Robin?” Read took a cautious step forward.

  Phoebe’s arms dropped, her compassionate expression hardening. “What message?” Her eyes rolled up to find me.

  Shrugging, I held up my hands as if to say, “How should I know?”

  Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, Robin edged away from the cold voice. “Cody told me about a message that he got last night,” she said stiffly. “It was the same one that was on the wall. I thought it was a prank.”

  “Which one?” Phoebe growled. There were two black stains on her sweater where Robin had leaned.

  Still refusing to look over at her, Robin replied, “The torture one.”

  Railing torment lies within.

  Aidan cursed under his breath.

  Robin seemed to remember her makeup and wiped at her face.

  “Who else got a message?” Aidan demanded.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and stepped away from him. Phoebe’s pointed stare targeted me, and everyone’s attention shifted.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Robin’s voice hit a shriek that made me wince.

  “Why didn’t you?” I shot back, “or Cody for that matter?” The moment I snapped I realized I shouldn’t have. Robin’s wounded expression had me refocusing my attack. Taking a deep breath through my nose I tried to catch the reins of my emotions. I felt a weight in the pit of my stomach. It twisted like a boulder suspended by a string, ready to drop.

  “I had my reasons,” I said at last. “It’s not like this is real anyway. Right, Phoebe? Remember when I told you?”

  “You both knew?” Robin squealed.

  Phoebe’s eyebrows pinched. “You knew about Cody’s message,” she accused.

  Read was shaking his head, ignoring the girls’ back and forth. To me he said firmly, “This is all real, Nora.”

  His grey eyes were the most intense I’d ever seen them. He was staring at me as if I might shatter and he could keep that from happening. No wonder the girls crawled over each other to get him.

  “This isn’t happening,” I said to him. “Right now, in the real world, I’m having a nervous breakdown and you are all probably worried half to death.”

  Phoebe and Robin were still toe to toe, screaming at each other. “It’s your fault!” Phoebe jabbed a finger at Robin. “If you didn’t tell him what to do all the time, he might have said something to one of us.”

  Robin recoiled. “I don’t tell him what to do all the time and you didn’t say anything either.” Then she struck like a snake and shoved at Phoebe to push her back. Taken off guard, Phoebe stumbled.

  Read grabbed my shoulders, snapping my attention back to him. Frustration lined his handsome face. “Nora, this is happening.”

  I jolted and saw Aidan jump past us and between Phoebe and Robin. “Don’t do this now. She didn’t know.”

  Read shook my shoulders for my attention. “We’re stuck in some grave thing with a fucking demon.”

  I tried to wriggle free as his fingers dug into my shoulder. “Read, stop it.” I spoke, but couldn’t hear myself over the fight. Read’s fingertips pressed against bone and I bit back the panic. Do I yell at him? I had never seen him like this before.

  Read’s wild eyes focused when Aidan grabbed his wrist.

  “She didn’t know either,” Aidan jerked on the arm holding me.

  At first I didn’t think Read would let go, until something in his hardened expression cracked. He flung his arms away, the finger impressions leaving a bruise-like throbbing. Backing away from me, he shouted. “If you’re going crazy, maybe I am too.” Snapping his head toward Phoebe and Robin he shouted, “Will you two shut the fuck up?”

  The jarring sound silenced everyone. Read often spoke in smooth, even tones, never this.

  Phoebe stalked away from Robin in the bitter silence, arms crossed and back rigid. Robin’s fists were white knuckled and she looked ready to sputter an insult, but trembled instead. The room thrummed with emotions and was too small to get away from them.

  “The messages,” Aidan held up his hands in a truce for everyone to see. “They must be connected somehow.”

  “You’re right.” The foreign voice penetrated the room.

  We all twisted in the same instant. He was standing in the middle of the room, amid us all.

  “The messages are connected.” Damien’s smirk was both seductive and sardonic.

  Robin voice cracked in its shrillness, interrupting my confusion.

  “Where is he? Where is he you, bastard?”

  The sudden outburst startled us all.

  I jumped, bumping into Aidan just as Phoebe caught Robin from behind.

  Wrapping an arm around Robin’s narrow waist, Phoebe pulled back before she could barrel into the demon at our center.

  Robin is normally a pretty and primped girl, but with streaking make-up and the hostile twist of her full mouth she was a frightening sight. Baring her teeth at Damien she began to wiggle and twist, her sundress riding up to dangerous heights.

  Phoebe tried to hold her tighter and Robin fought harder. I knew I should help her, but I couldn’t move. Not because I couldn’t, but because I was scared.

  Damien stared at Robin stone-faced.

  She didn’t crumble under the gaze as I would have. “Cody! I’m talking about, Cody, you idiot,” she screamed, mistaking his blank stare for ignorance. She burst free of Phoebe’s weakened grip and raced at him. Petite, frail Robin was diving at someone twice her size with a blind determination. Phoebe stumbled, swinging her arms only once. She didn’t follow too closely before slinking back to her corner.

  Damien deftly caught both of Robin’s wrists in one hand.

  Crying out, Robin twisted like a wild animal, kicking and shrieking.

  It was Aidan who stepped forward first, grabbing Robin around the waist to pull her away.

  Damien tilted his head to the side studying the tiny girl for a moment. He spoke calmly, though somehow his voice echoed inside my skull over Robin’s booming words. “Don’t attack me again.” I’m not sure what he did to make her drop to her knees, but Robin’s bare, shaking legs buckled, almost dragging Aidan down with her.

  Releasing her, he took a step back as Phoebe helped Robin to her feet and back against the wall, the farthest they could get away from the demon.

  Chewing on my lower lip I felt helplessness threatening to creep in. How the hell were we supposed to win a game against a demon? The messages. It all had to do with the messages, like Aidan had said. They held a key to our escape, they had to. “I want a piece of paper and a pen.”

  I looked up at Damien, his hands were curling up into fists, on the brink of losing his temper. He reluctantly tore his attention away from Robin, who was creating quite the show now that she started clawing at Aidan, begging for him to get her out. Surprise flickered across Damien’s surreal features when I repeated my request.

  “Well, can I?” I shouted. Under his stare, I managed to keep my feet firm beneath me and tried not to show how scared I felt.

  He nodded, his original stoicism replacing the surprise in an instant as dark eyes drifted to the floor.

  I looked down at my feet to see the white pad of paper the size of my palm. Laid neatly across it was a black ball-point pen. I recognized them both from my Dad’s study at home. Mona had recently taken up doodling, leaving little notes to our father until he told her to stop and locked the pad and pens away in the top drawer.

  I picked up both items, feeling their weight in my hands. Maybe Damien did see into my mind after all. This minor detail from my dad’s study at home made me wonder what big details he might have gleaned.

  Aidan moved closer, passing Robin to Read who didn’t appear very pleased. “Do you remember them?” Aidan asked me.

  Phoebe sidled along the wall to join us.

  I nodded to them both and began scribbling them down.

  Dismal is the Demon’s Grave. The first message on the wall. Dismal and dark, the words drif
ted back into my mind before I could stop them.

  One soul of blackened sin. Offered death for once the brave. I grimaced at the familiar words.

  Railing torment lies within. Cody’s little contribution. I wish he had spoken up sooner, but that wouldn’t have been like Cody at all.

  Robin’s voice was like nails down a chalkboard and I caught Phoebe’s eye. Somehow she got the message and snapped. “Shut up, Robin. We have to think and you’re not helping.”

  Reducing the squeals to breathy sobs, Robin held back the curses for a moment. Lips quivering, she collapsed into Read and covered her face with her hands.

  “Did anyone else get any messages that weren’t on the wall?” I asked.

  Everyone shook their heads, including Robin.

  I stared down at the pad of paper in my hand, turning it around for some clue. A message within the message and yet, I couldn’t see it. I tried squinting, counting the letters, using every other letter to form words.

  “Anything?” Phoebe asked, casting an impatient glance over her shoulder at the demon.

  Damien’s eyes met hers and she quickly looked back to us.

  Aidan looked over my shoulder at the words I had written down. “Hey,” he said softly and reached for the pen.

  I didn’t stop him as he crossed out what I had written and began anew.

  Dismal is the Demon’s grave,

  One soul of blackened sin,

  Offered death for once the brave,

  Railing torment lies within.

  Shaking my head, I glanced up at Aidan. Instead of writing them across the page, he had written it like a poem. Which made sense, it all rhymed but…‌

  I gaped at the discovery the moment I saw it.

  Aidan was already beaming. “This is it. The messages are a message.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Phoebe crowded close. “What message?”

  “Door,” I said.

  Phoebe’s barking laugh held a maddening edge. “And that tells us what?”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Read asked softer now that Robin was in his arms.

  “It’s like an acrostic poem,” I explained. “The first letter when positioned vertically spells: Door.” I didn’t take English Literature for nothin’. I smirked.

  Aidan held up the piece of paper, eyes bright and hopeful. “Does it really matter? I figured out the message in the messages,”

  You? I thought. You mean we?

  Aidan turned to Damien. “Was that one of the Challenges? One of the six?”

  Even I knew that it couldn’t possibly be the Challenge. It was too easy. There was something about a demon in a magical realm that didn’t ooze freebies.

  Damien’s lips curled unpleasantly. “That was not even the beginning of the Challenge. Now that you’ve figured out what you must go through.”

  Aidan deflated. “Doors? This has to be a joke.”

  Damien pointed toward the wall behind Robin and Read.

  Without warning it caved in.

  All five of us scattered to escape the dusty debris. Plaster, drywall and splintered wood crumbled in a U-pattern revealing the same heart-shriveling darkness that had been beyond the marble door. I wasn’t sure I wanted to walk through it again. Who else would we lose if we did?

  In his low baritone, Damien explained. “Within each door is a Challenge. Face it until you find the black door, which will lead to the next Challenge. If you survive them all you’re free. But, if you fail or die, you’re trapped.”

  Or die…‌we could die. I didn’t exactly enjoy the idea of being in this part of my brain, but to die? What if, for a moment, I could believe that this was all real? What were my last words to my mother? My sisters? Mona was still mad at me about the mirror when I left.

  Would they think I was kidnapped or would Damien throw my body back out into my own world?

  “What’s in the last door?” Read asked, eyes snapping to Aidan and me, then the demon as if one of us would reveal something.

  “Your world. You’ll be free,” Damien said.

  I asked, “And where is Cody? You took him somewhere.”

  “I never touched your Cody. He wandered off into the darkness.”

  Robin wiped at the running mascara, her voice cracking and meek. “Will I ever see him again?”

  “If he makes it. It’s really up to him.” Damien waved a dismissive hand. He might as well have said. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  Sneering, Phoebe said low. “Let’s get this over with.” As we turned toward the opening, the darkness within the vacant hole began to evaporate into smoke, the black tendrils fading and twisting upward in a mass, clouding the ceiling from view. The walls beyond the hole began to take shape.

  Damien ducked inside a long hallway and Phoebe followed, though she kept a watchful distance, hands up and legs bent as if she expected him to turn around and grab her. The hazy walls around her vibrated as if they weren’t quite solid or real, but she stepped within the hallway and didn’t fall through the floor.

  Phoebe was the only one to follow Damien. The thin layer of snaking mist was disturbed by her steps.

  I held my breath as Phoebe slipped closer to one of the walls to touch it. The fuzzy surface reacted as if she had poked her finger into stagnant water. Thickened ripples expanded outward, getting bigger until they hit a corner and stop short, smoothing out the walls surface once more.

  “Whoa,” I heard Aidan breathe.

  It was like nothing that I have ever seen before.

  Read joined Phoebe through the doorway, signaling for the rest of us to follow.

  Without arguing, we stepped through the gap. Robin was the only one who didn’t have to duck through. Our feet kicked up the rest of the mist on the floor.

  The same grey walls and green carpet stretched down the narrow corridor. Phoebe’s finger poked a solid wall this time. She patted it as if to reassure herself that it was real. Mimicking her, I patted it as well. It was cool to the touch, not heated like those in the tower.

  One side of the hallway was bare with cracks and dents in the dry wall. The other side however, held dozens of doors. Each was painted black with strange markings. Some of the carved symbols took up the entire door; however, most were smaller patterns that I’d have to get closer to see.

  Moving to the other side of the hallway, I pressed my shoulders to the wall and reached out. The door in front of me was so close, my fingertips could almost touch it.

  The feeling of being watched had me looking to Aidan but he was pressing his face close to one of the numerous symbols. His distinct jawline was sharper as he jutted his chin forward in concentration.

  There had to be forty or more doors staggered down the long hallway. Were we supposed to choose?

  No one made an attempt to open one. Most of us were trying to set each symbol to memory.

  Past Aidan I caught the unblinking obsidian eyes narrowed in on me. My stomach dropped and I crossed my arms tight to suppress the shiver.

  His square jaw set into a thrilling smile and despite my better judgment, I broke eye contact first. It was either that or run, and there was nowhere to run. “Which door do we pick?” I asked, happy that my voice didn’t crack.

  Damien said. “One of you has the key.”

  “The key?” Aidan demanded. “What kind of cryptic bullshit is this?”

  “Are all the doors locked?” Phoebe asked.

  “Don’t open them,” I hissed when she reached for one. Her hand snapped back like she’d been stung before she glared at me.

  “How else are we going to find out who’s got the key?” She demanded.

  Read pulled the weight of those eyes away. “Well, I guess we’re going to have to split up. Six Challenges and five people, right?”

  “Split up?” Robin gasped. “We can’t split up. What if one of us disappears just the way Cody did?”

  I wanted to say to her “Cody is alright,” but I didn’t know for sure. Instead,
I held out a hand to calm her, but she took it as an invitation. I almost lost my balance when she wrapped her narrow arms around me and began to shudder like a leaf. Eyes round, I glanced up to see Phoebe shaking her head in distaste. “It’ll be okay, Robin,” I said, licking my lips. “It’s just a suggestion.”

  Damien shook a finger at us as if we were troubled young children. “No tricks. You try to betray this Challenge you will betray one of your friends. Perhaps you should split up, find your way faster.” He said, his body statue still. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  How the hell could we betray the Challenge? If this were in my head, had I created a loophole in my fantasy? And if it were real…‌ “You mean there’s a way to escape?”

  Aidan’s eyes widened. “Whoa, whoa, what? How will we even know if we’re cheating?”

  We all glanced at each other, fear and apprehension dancing between gazes. There was a way to get out early? It seemed impossible at this point and even if I figured it out, I’d be putting someone in jeopardy. I didn’t think I could live with myself if I did that. Fantasy or not.

  I shook my head. “If we split up, how would we find each other?” If there was a way to escape, we needed to do it together.

  Phoebe sighed through her nose. “We stay in groups, of course. It makes sense that we’d meet back here to pick another door. Read can come with me. Aidan, you and Fuller are together. Maybe we’ll have a better chance of finding something. And Robin,” Phoebe looked at the little, weeping girl.

  It hurt to look at Robin when she untangled herself from the hug. Her face was swollen from tears, her head lowered. A thought struck me like a sledgehammer. She had let the fear in, it’s in her eyes.

  What if this was real, just like Read said? Would I imagine Robin like this? Seeing her panicked expression reminded me of being a scared kid. I hadn’t let my own fears in, yet. One look at Robin told me that I shouldn’t, I couldn’t.

  Robin’s tears soaked through the shoulder strap of my camisole, wetting my shoulder. I inconspicuously wiped it away. I didn’t need a reminder of fear other than Robin, not now.