Dust to Dust

by Karina Halle

  “We need to go,” I said. “We need to find the door.”

  Dex sat up, carefully getting to his feet. “What door?”

  He grabbed me by my arms and brought me to my feet just as the ground beneath us began to shake. From the lighthouse a crack formed, shooting toward us. The earth was beginning to split.

  We exchanged a glance. Fuck.

  We turned and started running in the opposite direction, toward the trees. I glanced over my shoulder to see flames starting to reach up from the open fissure and in the distance the lighthouse went down, swallowed whole. My eyes caught a stray beam of golden light as it escaped, jetting off into the ocean, and then I was tripping over a log and falling to the ground.

  Dex hauled me up, pulling me along as I could feel the heat of Hell at my back, the flames racing faster and faster, the ground continued to split and shake. The millions of eyes in the sky were now red embers falling to the ground and settling into ash and dust.

  “Is this it?” Dex yelled as the earth in front of us carved up into a cliff. It was sheer, rising up for fifty feet and impossible to climb.

  I looked around for a door carved in the side, for anything, but there was nothing. Flaming embers landed on our arms, burning our skin and we whirled around to see the ground completely torn open, a jagged, gaping wound of fire. Black beasts were starting to appear in the depths, their horns rising first, then their eyes.

  We had seconds left.

  I grabbed Dex’s hand and kissed it hard and we stared into each other’s eyes, quick but deep. The look said it all. We were going down and we were going together. We didn’t win in the end, but together, we couldn’t lose.

  “I love you!” I yelled at him, the growl of the demons and the thunder of the flames growing louder.

  “I love you!” he yelled back. “Always have, always will. Always.”

  I managed the saddest smile. He returned it.

  We turned back to face our fate.

  And the air in front of us shimmered and waved like a brilliant sea.

  The door.

  To walk through it would mean falling right into Hell. But we were half-way there anyway. The flames licked at our feet.

  I looked at Dex and squeezed his hand. He squeezed it back.

  Together we stepped forward.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I felt like I was burning alive. All I felt was the impossible pain of fire and numerous hands that grabbed at my ankles, calves, waist and wrists. I must have screamed and I only took in dust. The air around us began to warp and swirl and all sound was sucked away.

  Suddenly my brain was squeezed into painful oblivion and my lungs and heart felt like they were being wrung out like a dirty dishcloth. There was a loud pop, like the cork off a bottle of champagne and I stumbled forward into the basement of his Dex’s old house.

  The shimmer evaporated and everything came into color. Dex was no longer at my side but at my feet, slowly blinking life into his physical body, one hand at his throat, face twisted in pain. I wanted to drop to my knees, to help him, but I couldn’t.

  We had come into the middle of a battle. While I couldn’t tell what had been going on from the other side, it was easy to see now.

  I wished I didn’t.

  There were giant spiders, at least a dozen of them, scattered through out of the room, some of them sliced in half, others just missing legs or heads.

  And lying on his back at Dex’s feet was the large body of Maximus. In one hand was Dex’s sword. His other hand was missing. A slaughtered spider bleeding black goo was sprawled on his chest.

  Maximus’s throat was absolutely ripped out, his head nearly severed.

  I cried out and turned away as the contents of my stomach rushed out of me and onto the ground, unable to handle the sight of him, dead.

  I didn’t know if Maximus would have been here when we got back, but I had hoped he would have been. He did his duty. He protected Dex until the end. And now Dex was alive and Maximus was dead.

  I was tired of people dying. So fucking tired.

  I heard a high-pitched cough from beside me and I quickly wiped my mouth and composed myself. This was no time to lose it, not now after everything. I had Dex back and I had to keep it that way.

  Dex was trying to sit up, having difficulty breathing. I could see the bubbles of blood coming out from the slice on his throat, though to my surprise, it looked better than when I had left him. Maybe Dex was already healing. Maybe we would be okay.

  But Maximus was not and now Dex was realizing what had happened. He gave out a pitiful cry, his eyes glued to the horrific remains of who once was his best friend. My heart cracked for him. When I found out that Dex had sacrificed himself for me, it almost made his death more painful. Now, he was grappling with that over Maximus. The guilt was heavy as sin.

  “Shhh,” I said, even though I could feel myself wanting to cry again. “He knew what he was doing.” I hunched down beside Dex and tried to be there for him. I grabbed his hand, my eyes trained to his body instead of the other one.

  Dex turned his head to look at me with hurt eyes, wincing as he did so. He couldn’t speak, not yet, not with that throat, but I could hear him in my head.

  He died for me. You almost died for me.

  I gave him a quick, sympathetic smile. “You died for us. And now you’re here. Dex, we have to go.”

  We can’t leave him.

  I gripped his hand harder. “Dex, you need to go to the hospital. This wound killed you before, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be able to do the same now.”

  He died protecting me! he yelled and his eyes began to fill with tears.

  I sniffed and tried to breathe in deep. “I know he did. But it’s what he wanted.”

  You think death is what any of us wants? He said, his eyes blazing. I fucking died for you and I would do it again and again, but it’s not what I want. It’s not what he wanted. I want you forever. I want to live. He had Rose, Perry, just as I have you. To know you’re losing that…

  He closed his eyes tight and a tear rolled down his cheek. I wanted to comfort him, to be there for him, to take all of this away. Lord knows I was just going through the same thing ten-fold.

  But I couldn’t do anything until we were safe. And until we were out of that house, we weren’t safe. I don’t know what Pippa did to Michael in there. It worked, but who knew for how long. Who knew if he was gone for good? We couldn’t stick around to find out. If we did, it had to be on our own turf, in our own world, not this crazy slice of hell.

  I pulled lightly on his arm before straightening up, wiping tears away on my sleeve. “Please, Dex. Please, I can’t handle this anymore. Let’s just go. We have to go,” I pleaded.

  He shook his head and muttered. I can’t leave him here, he deserved more than this. But he still let me help him to his feet. Neither of us wanted to leave him here. It wasn’t right. He was our friend.

  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  He nodded reluctantly, his hand rubbing lightly at his throat. I let go of his hand and headed for the stairs.

  A spider launched itself out of the darkness, hitting me square in the chest and knocking me on my back.

  I screamed as its claws sank into my side, its snapping pincers grazing my chest. I stuck my hands under its furry underbelly, trying to push it off of me, to keep its teeth from sinking into my skin.

  Perry! Dex was bellowing but I could barely hear him above my own cries that seemed to drown the whole room. The spider was too heavy, too strong, its legs vying for violent purchase on my torso. With each stab of its legs, I felt blood being drawn and my body growing weaker.

  Just as the pincers snapped an inch from my face, old blood and gore being spat onto my cheek, there was a flurry of movement and the spider suddenly stiffened, letting out a horrible human-like scream.

  The weight was lifted from my stomach and Dex was standing over me, the sword in his hand. He took one glance at me to make sure I was all
right then went back to the spider, who had been stabbed right through the middle. With skill I didn’t know he possessed, Dex expertly sliced and diced it into many pieces.

  “Arachnophobia, my ass,” he said, spitting on the body parts and we were both stunned at the fact that the words came out of his mouth. He anxiously felt along his throat again and when he took his hand away, it was no longer covered in blood. He was literally healing before our eyes, much more rapid than he ever had before. I guess going back into the Veil and coming out again only helped in this case.

  He helped me to my feet, holding my arm tight. He put both hands on either side of my face and stared at me with feverish intensity, his eyes sparking.

  “We’re going to make it out of here,” he said, urgency in his voice. “We’re going to go back to our lives. We’re going to get married and live a long and happy life. Do you believe me?”

  I nodded, my throat feeling thick with shock and sadness. “I believe you.”

  “I love you.” He closed his eyes and ran his thumb over my lips, his breath deepening. “I love you, beyond death.” His words reminded me of my dreams.

  He kissed me quickly on the lips and then, with a final, brutally forlorn glance at his friend, he took my hand and pulled me up the stairs into the rest of the house.

  We went up them as fast as we could but the moment we hit the hallway, everything started to change. The air was full of smoke, smelling of charred wood and burnt hair. The kitchen was on fire, flames shooting out of the room and into the hall.

  A crackle came from behind us and when we turned around to look down the stairs, we saw flames starting to spread where we just were. The house was burning itself and while it felt right for Maximus’s body to be laid to rest in such a way, it also meant we would be next if we didn’t get out of there. Fire was starting to come up the stairs.

  “Come on,” Dex yelled over the growing roar and we started running down the hallway toward the front door. We were almost there when the Christmas tree in the living room keeled over, shooting wild flames into the space in front of us. Dex grabbed me and rotated me away from the flame, using his body as a shield to make sure his back got the brunt of it.

  He let out an agonizing cry as the flames licked him but in moments I had my hand on the door knob and it was turning. Together we burst out of the house and into the dark of night. We stumbled down the stairs, running out into the street, Dex ripping off his burning shirt and throwing it to the ground.

  We collapsed on the opposite sidewalk and turned around to watch the house go up in flames. People were already coming out of their houses to look, the flames now bursting through the first floor window, black smoke billowing into the sky.

  No one was paying us any attention, not yet. We couldn’t press our luck – I knew how this would look to a passerby.

  I quickly got to my feet and Dex followed. I ran my fingers over his side and back, inspecting him for burns but what redness there was, was vanishing by the second, turning a rosy shade of pink, then disappearing. His throat seemed to be almost fully healed, like he’d never been stabbed at all, like he’d never died.

  But we knew the truth. That would be something neither of us would ever forget.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered to me and I nodded. We slowly walked down the street, as if we had come to the house because we smelled something burning. While sirens went off in the distance, he was just another New Yorker, shirtless because of the early summer heat and I was his hipster girlfriend in artfully dirty clothes. Luckily, my body didn’t seem to have any of my wounds from the Veil anymore either.

  We walked calmly around the corner, then as soon as there was no one around, we both started running.

  We ran all the way back to the hotel. I tried to call my mom along the way but I didn’t have my iPhone anymore. Hopefully this was the last time I’d lose a phone to something supernatural. I was getting really sick of giving Apple my money. They needed some sort of ghost warranty on it.

  The thought nearly made me smile. But for the giddy joy that came from being alive, that came from skirting death, that came from being reunited with the only person who ever made me feel like it was okay to be Perry Palomino, there was still loss. Maximus had gone up with the house and that was going to haunt the both of us for a very long time.

  It seemed like it took forever, but finally the lights of Broadway and the rush of cars appeared at the end of the street, the light at the end of a tunnel of brownstones. The hotel loomed a block away and when we got close, I could see Ada pacing outside the building, talking to someone on her cell.

  When she saw us, she burst into tears and started running for us. She went right into my arms and Dex held onto both of us. I didn’t think I had any more tears left in me but I did. I’d never been so happy to see her before.

  Seconds later, my mom and dad were coming out of the building and the crying happened all over again.

  When we were finally done, Ada looked at us and asked, “Where is Maximus?”

  I couldn’t even say the words. To say them would make it real, would mean he was truly gone. I just couldn’t.

  I glanced at Dex and the devastated expression on his face told Ada everything that she needed to know. She put her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide.

  “Oh no. Oh no. What happened?” she asked breathlessly. “Please, don’t tell me…”

  I looked over at my parents. While my mother looked just as shocked as Ada did, my father was watching us with one finely-tuned suspicious eye. I had to wonder what he knew. What had my mother and sister told him? What could he possibly believe?

  But before I could say anything, he cleared his throat and said, “I think we all need to have a good long talk. I need to hear this story from you both, not just them,” he said, jerking his head to Ada and his wife. “And then we’ll see what our next steps are.”

  A fire truck roared down Broadway, bathing our faces in red light. Dex reached for my hand and squeezed it. Small comfort, but it was there. I was going to need it. For this and for everything we still had to go through.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We all gathered in our hotel room. For the briefest, strangest moment, I thought we should ask Maximus if he wanted to join us. The realization that he couldn’t made me break down in tears again.

  Dex wasn’t doing much better but he put his arm around me and took the reins, trying to explain to my father exactly what happened, from the start. Of course, my dad didn’t understand and didn’t want to. He kept interjecting the story with exasperated exhales and rolls of the eyes and the occasional, “Please, be serious now.”

  I thought my mom would have backpedaled and retreated to her old ways. I thought she would have ignored everything that had happened. I thought she would have sided with my dad because that’s what she’s always done, for as long as I could remember.

  But she didn’t. She even told my father to be quiet and just listen and when Dex looked to me, her and Ada for approval on the story, she was nodding in agreement. I had to say, I was proud of her. I would have never thought this would happen.

  “And you said the house burned down?” my father asked incredulously when Dex started to wrap things up. Dex did have the insight to leave out the part of him dying and me having to go into the Thin Veil to get him. It wouldn’t matter to him, in the end. Everything was so unbelievable as it was.

  Sirens wailed in the background, as if on cue. I jerked my head in their direction. “Or it’s currently burning down.”

  My father sighed and put his head in his hands and slowly rocked back and forth in his seat. “You could be held for arson charges,” he mumbled.

  “We didn’t do anything!” I spat out defensively.

  “You broke into a house.”

  “It was abandoned, Daniel,” my mother said, her tone just as harsh as his. Ada raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  “Abandoned or not,” he looked to Dex sharply, “and from the way you described
it, it didn’t sound abandoned at all, you can’t just trespass. If you they find any hint that you were there.”

  “They won’t,” I told him.

  “And how do you know that? You may have dropped some little clue. The NYPD are pretty smart, they can piece it together just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  I sighed. I didn’t know how I knew, I guess because I wasn’t even sure how much of that house was real. I was certain that if we looked into records of it, we’d find it totally empty and unlived in. The furniture, the Christmas tree, the appliances – those only existed to us, in whatever little hell we stumbled upon. Just like the lighthouse burned down on Uncle Al’s property, this place would do the same and there wouldn’t be a trace of anything.

  “I just know,” I told him with finality.

  “And your friend, your damn friend,” he swore, suddenly getting to his feet. “You left him there?”

  “The fire got him,” I said, also glad that Dex skirted the cat-sized spider thing. “We couldn’t…” And I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  My father walked over to the window, staring out at the cityscape. “No. No, I can’t believe any of this. Maximus is going to walk in through that door at any moment.”

  “No!” Dex cried out, his voice rough and impassioned. “He won’t.” His eyes began to well up and he looked away. My heart kept breaking again and again. I held on to him tight. My anchor I almost lost. My anchor in this storm.

  “Honey, please,” my mom said, getting up and going to my father.

  “No, no, no,” he said, stepping away from her touch and keeping his gaze focused on anywhere but the people in this room. “You’ve all gone mad. You’ve been drugged. LSD. That’s all there is to it. You all had a bad trip and in a few days you’re going to realize that. This trip has gone to shit. We need to get out of here immediately.”

  I couldn’t argue with the last part and I knew there was no point in arguing the rest. My dad, always staunchly religious, stubborn to a fault, used to dealing with faculty and theology students, he would never ever see it our way. His beliefs only stretched so far.