by A. R. Miller
Images of our last meeting float across the big screen of my mind, accented by the hand that strokes my arm. My pulse flitters like a captured butterfly.
The desire to touch and be touched by him is there, but different. Not the rightness of interlocking puzzle pieces that need to be together. Plain old, I’ve had a couple of drinks and want to take you home, thinking with your crotch. Nothing special. Nothing I can’t shake off, or ignore.
“Well, you found me. Now leave. I know misery supposedly loves company, but I want to enjoy it alone.”
“Nope, don’t think so.”
I open my mouth to tell him to take a hike then snap it shut. Wait.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me. I said I don’t think so.”
There’s none of the softness of our last time together in his harsh features. Or even the animal hunger he tries to keep hidden. Something twisted, not right about the set of his lips.
The speech pattern and tone, so not right. Vereinen uses proper, old fashioned English, no conjunctions, or slang. Eyes are just wrong, size, shape and color. Vereinen’s are pale like mine with just a hint of silvery grey to distinguish them from the white. These eyes are grey, too dark, too small and even though narrowed, too round.
The more I study the face in front of mine, the more I notice the wrongness. Too full and round, no prominent cheekbones, nose too broad, lips too thin. Height is next, I’m looking him right in the eye. His frame is too wide and squat. The hand that holds my arm is rough, calloused.
Not Vereinen. My first clue should have been that he didn’t try to pull me into his arms. Obviously, I don’t pay attention to clues. My second should have been him insisting we meet in The Between. Whoever this is, he’s not Einen. I don’t know what kind of cruel joke my addled mind is playing, but I’ve had enough.
“I don’t know who, or what you are, don’t care, but it’s time for you to leave.”
I try to pull away, but no luck. He only tightens his hold.
“Look, this is my dream and I told you to get out.”
He starts to laugh. “Dream? You think this is a dream?”
That laugh sends familiar shivers racing across my bare skin. I should be scared and it creeps along the edges of my mind, but I ignore that little inner warning.
“I don’t think, I know. Now get out and let me finish.”
“Too bad you weren’t faster. This might have been avoided.”
“What in hel are you talking about?”
“The walls. If you’d have finished, I wouldn’t have been able to get in.”
“Whatever. You’re a figment of my imagination, so the walls wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“If I really am a figment of your imagination, why can’t you banish me?”
“If you haven’t noticed, my brain is cracked, not exactly taking orders at the moment. If it were fully functioning, neither of us would be here.”
My hand against his chest intending to give him a push toward the opening where my last wall will stand, I feel something cold and hard. Sliding my hand to the side, the opening of his shirt widens. Glittering against his chest is a mass of twisted knot work studded with ghastly jewels.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
A slow smile stretches across his face. “Still think you’re dreaming, Keely?”
I let my hand drop, tightening my grip on the brick and look at the first of the walls. It exists only in my head. A shield guarding me from the monsters my renegade Talent can call up. I put it there, so I should know where it resides. Right?
“It has to be.”
“I told you we are in The Between.”
I shake my head, staring at his disgusting talisman. That one word keeps reverberating through the cracks in my mind, between. Finally, it dawns on me. The Between, that’s where Hel left me. I’m not dreaming. I’m stuck in The Between. Even better, I’m stuck in The Between with the asshole who’s trying to kill me.
He’s also the reason my life is total shit. Anger trumps fear. With a full body swing, the brick in my hand makes contact with the side of his head, face, whatever. I don’t wait around to find out. Letting the momentum carry me, I stumble, drop and roll away, biting back a cry of pain as I come to a stop. My makeshift splint is no match for a body weight and stone sandwich.
“Ouch.” I hear him.
He sits across from me, laughing as blood trickles into his eye and down the side of his face. My weapon lies at the half way mark, no way I can get there before he does.
“That’s the best you’ve got?”
He giggles as if I’d tickled him instead of smacking him upside the head with a brick. I may be wiry, but there was still enough force behind that swing to land him on his ass. It pisses me off that he has the nerve to sit there laughing when that should have hurt.
Pushing myself up into a crouch I stare at the reason my life is in the shitter. Throwing my energy into my anger, a familiar slow itch creeps across my flesh. The faces of those he’s hurt flashing in my mind’s eye. The lives he’s destroyed. The lives he took. Like Jenny. I kick at the metaphorical wall in my head. I couldn’t protect her when she needed it, but I can do something now. There is no way I’m going to let him use me to bring her back.
He’s on his feet now, looking nervously at the wall as it shivers, shedding dust.
The smile on my face must not hold much in the way of comfort his Adam’s apple rises and falls in quick succession. I give the mental wall another kick, delighting in how the one around us shakes.
He scrambles, digging in his pocket, pulling out what looks like silver threads.
“Your hair,” he says, brandishing a lighter in the other hand.
I hesitate, remembering my little hair loss trick. Guess it backfired. Lousy bastard kept some of it.
“So?”
“You know what will happen. You’ll be powerless just like the others.” He suspends the tuft of hair over the ignited flame.
All I have to do is get to him before he finishes the spell. I take a step toward him. He raises the flame until it licks at the bottom of the strands and the beginnings of a noxious smell coats my nostrils and tongue. Damn it! I hate the smell of burning En hair, especially mine. That slow itch now prickles with joyous pain from head to toe.
“You’ll never make it in time.”
“Seems you missed the memo,” I say, letting the power flow across my skin and outward. “I don’t need to make it at all.”
Thrusting my hands toward him, I feel the power tingle along my body. Unlike when I use my regenerative Talent on a client, it doesn’t gather in my fingertips, but flows from every pore. I release it, keeping my focus exclusively on him, and feel instant pleasure. Urge and need—like a building climax during really good sex—fill me as I manipulate the shadows cast by the walls.
They converge on him, slithering across the floor and up his legs, binding him. Panicked, he waves the lighter at them. I’m not sure if it’s the encroaching darkness, or the breeze he created, but the flame extinguishes. His frantic search for a way out only heightens my pleasure. He’s mine to do with what I want and he knows it.
Taking my time—I have all the time in the world—I walk toward him. There’s nothing, but him, me, and justice. I’m standing so close I can feel his panting, smell the stench of fear and hear the throbbing of his heart. My own pulse echoes that fear with excitement. I reach out, grabbing the twisted magic around his neck.
“It’s mine,” he cries.
“It was never yours,” I say giving a savage pull. This time it breaks like a single strand of hair. Teasingly, I dangle it before his face, snatching it away as he attempts to grab it, laughing at his childish whimpers.
Looking at the wall that holds death at bay, beckoning with my finger, a brick slips and then another. With each brick, currents of air whip my body, lashing my flesh until it becomes numb. The howling of those trapped behind becomes a glorious symphony of vengeance to my ears.
I want him punished for everything he’s done. What would be more poetic than to let his victims extract their revenge? His screaming pretty much tells me he knows what’s coming for him as the bricks slowly fall.
They move at an achingly slow pace and I watch as he struggles against the shadows that bind him. I step back as they reach their target, laughing as he begs and pleads. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that he did the same with his captives.
My little army of dead surrounds him, pulling him down until all I see is his hand above the swarm of ragged bodies. One of the dead turns toward me, body still fresh, tears streaming, a sad smile as my name tumbles from her lips. For a brief second I see the girl I knew.
Jenny fingers the blackened marks around her neck and that sad little smile disappears. She bares her teeth in a feral grin and turns her attention to the writhing mass on the floor.
A raging headache rips through me, splits me in two. One side urging me on, enjoying my victim’s tortured screams, consequences be damned. The other repulsed, ashamed that I would even think of using my Talents in such a way that makes me no better than my prey.
I stand there sobbing, grasping my head, trying to push the two halves back together. This is no time to have second thoughts. It’s too late for second thoughts.
The power reels back against me with the force of an F5 tornado, landing me flat on my back, gasping for breath. Slowly I roll over and crawl on my elbows and knees toward where he’d been standing. Nothing, not even a grease spot where he should have been. Reality slaps me. Not relief at being safe, but what have I done?
Kneeling, I wipe my brow, the grisly collection of Talent banging against my nose. Giving it my best girly throw ever, it lands in the rubble of what’s left of my wall. Doubled over clutching my stomach, wave after wave of nausea hits me until there’s nothing left, but dry heaves. I’m not sure if it’s because of that thing, or what I’ve done. Probably a combination of both.
I lay in the fetal position, whimpering, something’s broken and a splint isn’t going to make it all better. A familiar scent and touch wraps itself around me.
Keely, you must get up.
I shake my head.
You must leave.
“Einen?” Little more than a whisper.
Yes, now you must get up and leave this place.
“I can’t. Come get me.”
I cannot, they are coming.
“Who?”
Keely! Hide, they are there!
My brain is a tangled mess of regret, fear, and perverse pleasure. My sense of right and wrong is tattered and torn. My spirit, severely bruised. My body, feeling the effects of massive withdrawal and the backlash of overextended use, tempered with climatic release. To put it in a nutshell, I don’t care. About anything, living, dying, the whole shebang. I just want to sleep. Sleep and forget. Perhaps, if I sleep, I can find Einen.
Just before consciousness slips away, I feel strong familiar arms lift and cradle me against a familiar body.
“I am too late.” Whispered against the top of my head.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I don’t need to open my eyes to confirm the incessant hum and flicker behind my lids belong to fluorescent lights, but I do. Mistake number one.
Jerking my head to the side to avoid the glare. Mistake number two. The polite knocking in my head becomes a battering ram.
Bits and pieces of my adventure scatter, then come together in a nightmarish mishmash. Bile rises and I try to roll to the side. Mistake number three. Every muscle screams in protest. I can feel the sizzling zap of the restraints around my wrists and ankles lessen to a tingle as I relax against the bed.
Slowly, I lift my head, squinting against the too bright light. Not my room, obviously. I would never decorate with harsh fluorescents and dingy white. Nor do I own a mattress designed with torture in mind. From my vantage point, I can’t tell if there’s anything else in the room besides the bed, a crappy institutional chair and me. The only window, a tiny square of glass sandwiching a wire mesh in the door.
I’m definitely not in The Between, unless my cracked brain is still screwing with me. Which, in The Between, is possible. Testing the theory, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I should be able to start building my wall again. Nothing. No wall. No crazy illusions. Not even the spark of my Talent. It’s gone. Tears leak down the sides of my face with the slow build of hiccuping sobs. Instinctively moving to wipe them away, my body convulses in pain, radiating from the restraints.
There’s no way to measure how long the nasty shock treatment lasted. I passed out. It’s pretty safe to say I’m not in The Between. Now I understand why Einen told me to hide.
I’m in the Enchant Containment Unit.
About the Author
A.R. Miller lives in Iowa with her husband and feline companion, finding ways to torture characters and drive readers crazy with cliffhanger endings.
If you enjoyed Disenchanted be sure to pick up your copy of Unenchanted, book two in the Fey Creations series. Reviews are always appreciated, whether it be on a retail site, your blog, or goodreads!
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