Empty Vessels

by Meredith Katz

  "I don't want to pass on," Lucas said finally, barely above a whisper. "I want to stay with you."

  Keith let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and squeezed Lucas's hands again, relieved, eyes stinging, throat almost too choked to get words out. "That's—I'm so glad. I really am, man. And if that changes, you have to tell me. If you're ready to go, tell me. But…"

  "But?" Lucas lifted his eyes again, dark and wet, lips still trembling. He was refusing to actually cry, but the effort made it more obvious than tears would, whites of his eyes reddened, nose darker, expression creased.

  Keith lifted a hand and daringly cupped Lucas's cheek, running a thumb over one of those fine, high cheekbones. It was so nice to touch him, to feel him, even if he knew it was all in his head.

  "But," he said hoarsely, "never try to get me to make you move on before you're ready, Lucas. Never again. Promise me."

  Lucas's shaking mouth curved upward a little. "Yeah," he said. "Sorry, man. I was a fool."

  "You were," Keith said, and leaned in.

  He moved into it slowly, forcing himself not to rush and steal the kiss like he wanted to. Better to move so that Lucas would have no choice but to realize what he was going for and stop him if he didn't want it, if he hadn't understood what Keith had meant or if he wasn't interested. It might be too weird. They'd been friends for so long, been around each other all the time. They didn't have any privacy, didn’t have any mystery. It would be easy not to want it—

  Lucas slid a hand across his jaw back into his hair, cupped the back of his head, and closed the rest of the distance himself.

  Keith had meant to kiss him lightly, chastely, just as a way to show his feelings, but as soon as Lucas leaned into it and kissed him back, it turned into something else. His lips ached, over-sensitive. Their teeth clacked together briefly as they both opened into it at once, before Keith turned his head a little, until they found the perfect angle for it.

  It was warm and hot and they pressed close together, almost clinging. He could taste Lucas's mouth, that strange not-quite-right taste of another person, and here, at least, it was like kissing any other human being, any other living person, warm and needy and wanting and hungry.

  It deepened more, shakily, until finally Keith had to pull back to draw an unsteady breath. He was too hot and too cold at the same time, and there was something about that sensation which was trying to get his attention, something about that he should be remembering.

  But it didn't matter, because he could feel Lucas in his heart again. That bond was back, that attachment, the sense of Lucas's tether to the world being him, that constant sense of presence. Keith let out a groan of relief and kissed him again, flinging arms around him and holding on tight.

  Lucas's arms tightened around him as he kissed back, and his hands began roaming, pressure and heat up and down Keith's back, pulling up at his sweater and the shirt underneath until they found skin.

  This time, when the kiss broke, Lucas leaned his forehead against Keith's, nose to nose, and swallowed. "Hey," Lucas asked, and his voice was rough, warm and hoarse and thick. "Do we need to be getting back to reality right away, or…?"

  Impossible to miss the implication. Keith ached, already hard from the passion in that kiss, cock twitching involuntarily at the thought. He had to wonder how that looked back in the real world. Was his body reacting there too, aroused or—worse—making sounds? Or was his mind was so disjointed from his body, literally out of it, that it couldn't respond at all?

  And on the heels of that thought, a dose of ice cold reality.

  "Oh. Oh shit," he said, tongue tangled. "Yeah, we do. Sorry, I want, but—"

  "But—?" Lucas's crooked smile was completely understanding, more than a little self-deprecating. He was withdrawing, even though he hadn't moved anywhere. "Nah, I get it. Too weird, right?"

  "No, you—you don't get it," Keith said, and ran his hands tremblingly down Lucas's neck to his shoulders, squeezed there. "We're in the middle of a fight."

  "Huh?"

  Keith began shaking his head, let out a horrified laugh. "I completely forgot. We're fighting. Or Hiraeth is, anyway. He's fighting off Terrors. Literally fighting them. While I try to get you back."

  Lucas's expression changed from that strange pain of expected rejection to shock, then to a sort of amused determination. "Ah."

  "Yeah. I'm sorry," Keith said. Then, heart-pounding, "Later. If we can. If I can get back here with you."

  "Later," Lucas repeated, a little stunned, and nodded. "Let's go back."

  "You have to wake us—"

  But Lucas already was, leaning in, pressing a kiss to Keith's forehead and then abruptly closing off to him completely, shutting him out.

  For a moment, darkness.

  Keith woke up with a snap and the real world came rushing back in horribly.

  He lay there, eyes closed as his mind tried to make sense of what was around him again. There was the sense of Terrors nearby, countered by the equally strong sense of Lucas there and attached to him, and beyond that…

  Something terrible.

  Keith opened his eyes, sitting up. Lucas was leaning over him, his face having returned completely, and a look on it as if everything had just gone to hell.

  He shifted his gaze from Lucas's face, let him go more transparent to his sixth sense, and gazed through him.

  It pretty much had.

  chapter eighteen

  Hiraeth had rolled him under the workbench; Keith took the scene in from there.

  The ghost, Walter Bennett, had arrived sometime while Keith was out. Faceless and stern, he floated over the scene, back straight, gazing down sightlessly, radiating an icy chill that left Keith's teeth chattering. He seemed to be lit from within, providing a strange, uncanny glow that cast the dark room in a very dim light. Beneath him, the Terrors had gathered.

  Not all of them, Keith was glad to see. Some lay in heaps, quivering but not rising. Some bottles of black smoke, too, lay on the floor. It seemed as though Hiraeth's plan had worked, and the bottles were able to hold even Terrors. On top of all that, there were fewer overall than Keith remembered, so it seemed likely that Hiraeth had taken some out completely. He must have fought hard all by himself.

  But Hiraeth wasn't in a good state now.

  The lantern was some distance away, no flame coming from it, and Hiraeth himself was held down by the weight of Terrors. Marion was as well, held so much further back that he almost didn't see her in the darkness, silent and glaring. Walter must have caught onto her plan when he noticed the fight below. Neither of them were dead yet—thank God, Keith thought fervently.

  It didn't seem that it'd be long, though, not if he didn't do something.

  The Terrors wrapped around Hiraeth were squeezing him tight, and he was already quite injured, even if Keith could only see his face. One of his eyes was blackened, the purple-red welt already beginning to show brightly on his pale skin. Blood trickled from the corner of his lips, a Terror leaning in longingly to touch it, a horrible parody of intimacy.

  But they were only tools; the real problem was the ghost. He was gesturing, communicating with the Terrors in some way Keith couldn't hear, and another one of them was approaching Hiraeth with a bottle held in its ichorous palms.

  He wanted to run out there, tackle the Terror. He wished he'd just gone ahead and smashed even the empty bottles. Hiraeth may have been able to use them against the Terrors, but it meant they could be used against him too.

  Keith swallowed, his mouth dry. It would be fine, he reminded himself. If Hiraeth were killed by the bottle, Keith could still smash the bottle and free him to find a new Vessel.

  But even as he thought it, he felt nauseated. What if he failed to break the bottle after? And even if he succeeded, how long would it take for Hiraeth to come back? Would he even see Hiraeth again if he let that happen? Would he know who Hiraeth was if he did?

  And he didn't want to see that. Didn't want to see Hirae
th hurt, dying. That lovely, strange body broken and lifeless. To know that even if everything went as well as possible, he'd allowed that to happen. He wanted Hiraeth alive, he wanted Hiraeth with him—

  But tackling the bottle out of the Terror's hands, even as poor a plan as it was, wasn't possible. Because it wasn't only the Terrors between himself and Hiraeth.

  There were also dolls.

  All child height or smaller, they nevertheless stood under their own power, silent and staring, swaying softly in an odd unison, like a horrifying game of ring around the rosie. One group of them formed a half-circle that blocked the three of them into the area around the workbench, and others were wound throughout as well, a smaller ring around Hiraeth and the Terror. They were completely silent, and jerked faintly as they swayed, like shocks were constantly running through them.

  It only took a couple of seconds for Keith to take that all in, but he hardly had any to spare. The Terror was almost there now, arm already raising the bottle. The lighting was too dim to see the details, but Keith's imagination could fill it in with the details of that premonition he'd had early on: Hiraeth's pupils narrowing to pinpricks, that bottle descending…

  He wouldn't make it to Hiraeth if he charged, not even with the element of surprise. He could try to use his telekinesis, but it was new and unreliable. He could also feel the quartz in shattered fragments in his pockets. No help there. Outnumbered, if he tried to fight, he'd lose—

  There was no time to think it through, turn it into a plan. Any longer and that was the end for Hiraeth.

  Keith stumbled out from under the table, flung himself through Lucas and to his feet.

  "Wait!" he bellowed.

  And, unbelievably, they did. Walter's hand jerked up, and the Terror stopped advancing. The bottle was just inches from Hiraeth, who let out a loud, trembling whimper, neck whipcord tense and held as far back as he could.

  You're awake again, Walter said, again in that soundless murmur that even Keith's special senses could only barely pick up. His posture seemed somewhat intrigued, though not really surprised despite the suddenness of the interruption.

  If they were that badly outnumbered, they needed more people on their side.

  So it was the dolls that Keith turned to. He flung his arms open, gesturing widely. "Dolls," he said. "Please. Please, listen."

  All at once, they turned their eyes, rolling in their sockets with an audible clatter, to face him. Their expressions were all blank, solid masks with no ability to emote. He repressed a shudder. It wasn't their fault they were like this, he reminded himself. This wasn't who or what they were.

  And as long as they listened, it was fine.

  So long as Walter was distracted too. The thought occurred to him of Walter just having the Terror attack Hiraeth while he was talking and he pushed it away. He didn't have time to focus on anything right now except making the dolls believe him.

  "I can help you," he told them, trying to push as much honesty into his tone as he could, not just the desperation he felt. "I have… I have special abilities. I helped Marion regain her memories, learn who she was. I might be able to do the same with you. Please, if you want that… if you're only listening to this ghost because he's the only person who knows what happened to you, the only one who is experimenting to get your memories back—even though he's the one who did this to you—come help me instead. I won't… I won't ask anything of you. Just help the three of us get out of here okay!"

  The dolls kept staring. None of them moved beyond that horrible sway-and-jerk, sway-and-jerk, rattling softly. Keith swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to find something else to say. "I know… I know it doesn't sound real, but I promise…"

  And Walter started to laugh.

  At first Keith wasn't sure that was the sound, that strange susurration that built from nothing into a subconscious whisper. But it kept growing from there, until he realized what it was and jerked his gaze up to Walter Bennett's empty face.

  Interesting, Walter breathed. No, they can't understand you. I'm very sorry. It was a good attempt to get them to help you. But it's impossible.

  At least if he was talking, he wasn't hurting Hiraeth. Keith refused to look at Hiraeth, refused to look around for Lucas either. Walter knew Lucas, at least, was important to him. If he could keep from drawing attention to either of them, hopefully neither would become an immediate target.

  They're failures, you see, Walter said softly.

  "Failures?" Keith echoed. He took a careful step to the side, trying to get in a better position if it did come down to charging the Terror that was holding Hiraeth. "What do you mean?"

  I tried to recover their memories, Walter explained, folding his hands together, calm and patient. As if he had all the time in the world to discuss the specifics. It was unsuccessful, you see. It turns out that after a certain number of experiments and attempts, it is not only their memories that go. The memories contain something of a structure, I believe, that holds the whole together. Each attempt that failed ate away at the structure until the whole itself disintegrated.

  There was something unassuming about him, Keith thought numbly, despite the horrible things he was saying. The distant tone, so quiet, warred with the implications that he was spelling out. The unobtrusive posture, hands folded, head cocked, contrasted absurdly with what he'd been doing, the threat Hiraeth was still held in underneath him.

  Either he was the sort of person who could, in his own nature, commit that own sort of atrocity without losing his composure, his strange mild indifference, or perhaps…

  Perhaps his own deterioration was affecting his personality. His face being gone was a loss of self—Keith knew that already, had seen it whenever Lucas's features started to blur, saw it without a doubt when he'd seen Lucas pulled out of the bottle.

  Walter was waiting for a reply, but Keith wasn't sure he'd wait much longer. He drew a breath unsteadily. "You're saying that their minds were destroyed because of what you did."

  Oh yes, Walter said, his toneless voice calm. Entirely gone. There's nothing to retrieve from those ones now—they're worse than even Terrors. Terrors at least have instincts and hunt on their own, if not controlled by a stronger spirit. But these things only obey my commands now, nothing else. If I didn't order them, they'd simply stagnate away in those vessels without a single thought of their own to do otherwise.

  Marion let out a soft curse. While it didn't seem in her usual vocabulary, Keith couldn't blame her. She'd willingly put herself back into the position to be experimented on as part of their plan, after all.

  But don't worry, Walter said, seeming to aim for reassuring and missing by several miles. Everything I do is something to learn from. As you know, I've recovered the doll I previously made, and she seems to have her own memories back again. That is well worth studying.

  "No," Marion said.

  Walter didn't seem to hear her. Soon I'll have mastered it. I'll take the spirit of your friend here, and I'll capture your ghost, and kill you and take your own if you leave one. Perhaps it will go well, and you'll be the first I don't lose.

  He gestured. The Terror began to pull back its hand again for the downward swing.

  Keith opened his mouth to protest, but Hiraeth was there first. "No. Please," he begged. "Kill me instead, do what you like, but not that. Don't subject me to that! Please—"

  Heart clenching, Keith stared at him. He wished he had a weapon, something—he would kill Hiraeth himself if it would get him out of this. Free him to find a new vessel, rather than risk losing who he was, slowly becoming just a puppet…

  I refuse, Walter said politely. I need to keep recovering memories.

  "Wait, please," Keith said again. He threw his arms up toward Walter, pleading physically, hoping something would get through. "I think I understand. I think I understand what you're doing, and I can help you. I'm sure of it."

  The bottle didn't descend. Walter's attention was caught by him again, empty face turned towards
him. Keith felt himself break into a cold sweat, mouth dry, hands shaking. There were so many false alarms on Hiraeth's death, but this couldn't last indefinitely. He was sure the next one would be the last.

  "I found out who you are," Keith said, keeping his eyes fixed on that black void instead of on the Terror with the bottle. He needed to focus if they were going to get through this. "We learned your name. Do you remember it?"

  I do not, Walter breathed. I don't remember much at all any more.

  Keith shuddered. His eyes flickered to Lucas, who had worked his way around slowly and was settling into a position behind Walter, as though that would do any good. It wasn't as if Lucas could jump him. He flicked his eyes back to Walter's face.

  "You do remember that you used to be a doll-maker."

  Yes. I remember that. The unassuming tone seemed faintly wry, almost fond. There were so many dolls in my house, my old workroom… It's the only thing I still really remember.

  Keith drew a breath and let it out unsteadily. There would probably only be one chance at this.

  "Your name is Walter Bennett," he said. "You were a doll-maker by trade. After the birth of your daughter Susan and death of your wife Merrill, you became more passionate in your doll-making, creating toys and playmates for her. Susan died young, however. She fell into a river in the woods while you were working."

  It seemed to be working. As he spoke, the darkness over Walter's face withdrew slowly, showing an old man with severe features, a strong nose, a neatly-kept small beard. It kept going until only his eyes and mouth were vague, as they'd often been with Lucas, and then seemed to stop.

  Forcing himself to keep going, Keith folded his shaking hands together. "After… after that, you made your work your life. You began collecting dolls, making dolls, doing nothing but that. I think… this isn't something I read, this is just what I believe, but I think, when you were alive, you wanted to bring her back. You studied magic; you use it now, so you must know that much about yourself too. I think you wanted to call her ghost into a doll, bring her back, remind her of who she was, so you could be together again. But then you died alone in your house, and when construction roused your ghost, you didn't remember who you were any more. You began obsessively experimenting on how to put spirits into dolls, how to bring their memories back, in that old habit… all for her sake. But she's gone, Walter, and I hope… I hope that if you remember this, if I'm right, you'll stop. Please. She wouldn't want this."