Nightmare Ink

by Marcella Burnard

  In the distance, a pleading howl filled with fright sliced through her chest. That wail had haunted her every day of her life since she’d heard it as a child.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  She was in a different desert, one that was sere and yellow and malevolent. Tumbleweed and scraggly, sparse sage clung to the earth like bleached bones. She stood up.

  She was tiny, filthy, and dressed in rags. Her black hair hung in dusty, snarled mats.

  No.

  Not this.

  “MURMUR!” Isa screamed. Terror and denial shook her voice. Her heart banged against her ribs. A bolt of pure gold lightning cracked from her to the black sky above.

  The ebony clouds churned. Deep uneasiness drizzled from them, but they refused to part.

  She was trapped in her six-year-old self. She couldn’t escape the quagmire sucking her into reliving her past.

  Her sixteen-year-old cousin Charlie had her puppy, Echula, pinned on her back. The puppy screamed, her brown eyes pleading for rescue, the whites rolling as Charlie cut her open with his hunting knife. Isa’s child’s mouth was open, her throat raw as she and the puppy screamed as one until it was only her voice hanging in the scorched air.

  Rage, loathing—both for Charlie and for her inability to save the one creature who’d loved her—and guilt swallowed her whole.

  Black-tinged gold slammed into her center in answer to her despairing call. Isa blasted the memory of her cousin out of existence at the same moment that a superheated explosion of black lightning struck Charlie’s image.

  The combination shredded him the way he’d shredded her puppy and her innocence all at once.

  Isa wished that she’d drawn a picture of her vivisecting him. She ached with regret because it was possible he’d died not knowing that the little six-year-old he’d tortured for her entire life had killed him with magic. By drawing a picture that had come true.

  But it was too late. This was a memory, even if the impact was as fresh as it had been twenty years earlier.

  She refused to relive it over and over again. Not for Murmur’s fucking temper tantrum. If he meant to destroy her, he could pick another method. Because this one made her into something more than herself, something he hadn’t bargained for.

  Powered with the full force of grief and the magic she hadn’t understood as a child, Isa thrust energy through her consciousness, molding it to match the demon inked on her skin.

  She changed shape.

  Wings of shimmering gold laced with ebony, lifted her out of the morass of her past and sharpened her fingers into golden, razor-edged talons.

  She took aim at the sky of her internal landscape.

  She slashed through Murmur’s black thunder clouds. Brilliant flashes of amber sunlight streamed through the rents.

  He’d frozen. No flashes of lightning opposed her.

  Growling, she surged through the tears into the glow of her awareness. A well-aimed surge of magic heaved him out of the driver’s seat of her motor control and booted him off her visual cortex. She took over both.

  And on the physical plane, Isa barreled straight into Daniel’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Isa choked on a shriek.

  Black-tinged regret sloshed into the pit of her stomach.

  Her magic collapsed. She dwindled to the impotent, panicked child she’d been trying to run away from all her life.

  Daniel laughed.

  Rational thought fled. She fought like the animal he’d tried to make her, kicking, biting, anything to break that hated grasp.

  Swearing, he wrestled her to the ground, one knee pinning her hips and his hand in the middle of her chest.

  Daniel wore his knife in a sheath at his hip, like Charlie had.

  Now she was the puppy.

  She swung and connected.

  So did he. Pain exploded up her jaw. She saw a flash of silver.

  Within her, Murmur watched the bolt fly to the center of her head. Grim resignation and a hint of burning hatred flooded from him.

  Too late, she rallied magic to her defense.

  The bolt exploded and knocked her into free fall. She lost consciousness.

  ***

  Her arms stretched painfully above her head. She tried to put them down. Something wrapped tight around her wrists prevented it. Hurt lanced through her shoulders. She might be upright, but she wasn’t on her feet. Her arms and shoulders held her entire body weight.

  Greasy nausea, tasting of panic, slid into her middle.

  Did she recognize this because she’d awakened like this once before? Or because she’d dreamed escaping from it in the first place?

  She couldn’t catch her shuddering breath.

  Yellow-red magic walked in prickles over her skin. It sounded sour.

  That was new. Different.

  She opened her eyes.

  Her hair hung around her face, framing the flaking, rusted metal floor beneath her. She didn’t bother hauling herself to her feet. What difference did pain make now?

  Murmur could have killed her, could have locked her away inside her own head so she didn’t have to know what was going on. Instead, in a stroke of masterful cruelty, he’d dipped her in the poison of her past failure and then handed her over to Daniel.

  I want to shelter you. I don’t know how. Murmur’s voice shook. I can only show you.

  He pulled her into the depths of his memory. A man with sky blue eyes, a patrician nose, a chiseled jawline, and a broad sweep of forehead held a tiny, snarling winged demon in his hands. His glorious face shone with silver but utterly cold light. No hint of compassion or humanity warmed his beauty.

  A female demon with pendulous breasts and fine, sly features the color of wrought iron stood at the angelic man’s shoulder. A malicious smile twisted her lips.

  Behind Isa, Murmur bellowed in fury and unimaginable pain, but she couldn’t turn to him. She heard his bones snapping.

  This had to be Murmur’s prison nightmare. Except he’d left out the most horrifying aspect. For as Murmur’s prison compressed him into something far too small for his form, the female laughed.

  And the inhuman, angelic man tore the tiny demon in his hands limb from limb.

  When the first piece hit the ground of Murmur’s memory, Isa understood.

  It was an infant.

  Murmur’s infant.

  She didn’t waste time or effort screaming. Magic boiled into her center. She blasted Angel Face and the laughing female into messy globs on the back wall.

  Too bad it was only memory she’d blasted.

  She tumbled into consciousness sick and shaking. Her eyes stung. She didn’t know what to say.

  Murmur’s leathery wings rustled as he shifted within her.

  “Boy or girl?” she asked internally, not knowing why it mattered.

  He flinched and retreated. Something stopped him. Within the confines of her body and soul, he stared down as if caught and held by the sight of a dead puppy.

  Son.

  “I’m sorry. What was his name?”

  It doesn’t matter.

  “It does,” she said.

  Ascediphus.

  He returned fully to her awareness. Too late, I see that my freedom bought with your blood isn’t freedom worth having.

  Isa closed her eyes on the replay of his son’s murder.

  Do you mean for us to die of exposure? he finally rasped when she didn’t respond. He’d pressed his tone flat. No accusation. No recrimination. No discernible emotion at all.

  The cold registered. Her toes ached. Her icy fingers throbbed. Reflexive shivers ran through her body. With her attention on the cold, her teeth began to chatter.

  She lifted her head. She still had clothes, including her coat, and she was this cold? Manacles encircled h
er wrists again. The chain dangled from a jungle of painted pipes and conduits a few feet over her head. Flickering florescent bulbs lit the echoing space.

  Rust stains bled down the metal walls painted greenish-white. Daniel, his back to her, worked to cast a circle that took up most of the vast, dim area.

  Glimmers of magic shifted and shimmered in the shadows outside of the circle Daniel inscribed on the floor. Isa counted five rogue tattoos, including Bishop’s python.

  She struggled to her feet, her sneakers raising a hollow thump from the metal floor. When she straightened, she could almost put her hands down at her sides.

  Daniel turned and smiled. “Déjà vu, little lamb. You weren’t meant to defy me this long.” He sauntered close, his grin sly. He rapped his knuckles on her breastbone. “There’s more magic in there than anyone knew. Beautiful. I love the idea that you’ll be an aware, unwilling participant.”

  Her lips curled. She caught a whiff of sulfur.

  “Do you imagine you’re my equal now?” He chuckled.

  The laugh died as if chopped off. His features smoothed into perfect, cold serenity.

  The bottom dropped out of her stomach.

  Someone else regarded her from Daniel’s pale eyes.

  And she knew him.

  “Hello, my old enemy,” he said. It was Daniel’s voice, but purer, without the warmth of humanity to soften it. “Did you imagine you could escape me?”

  The ice-cold monster that had murdered Murmur’s son.

  For a split second, black rage took her sight, then Murmur clenched her fists as if gathering his temper in her fingers.

  She could see again.

  “I’ve found your replacement,” the thing in possession of Daniel said. He waved a hand to indicate Daniel’s body. “Already he amasses an army to bend this world to my will. Your life is all that’s needed for them to become manifest in this world.

  He nodded at the rogue Ink haunting the shadows beyond the circle.

  “Why?” Isa whispered, horrified.

  “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” he said.

  She jolted backward at hearing the words she’d said to Murmur returned to her in that pure, inhuman timbre. Her chains jangled.

  “I cannot abide harm to the innocent,” he said, running a finger down her cheek. “But then you aren’t, are you? It won’t be painless, I’m afraid. Nor quick. Some portals have to be forced open. Unfortunate, but necessary, that we must pry you apart to do so.”

  He turned away and returned to circling the room, chanting a spell in a language that made her skin crawl.

  Yellow-red magic outlined in sharp-edged silver jabbed pain up her right instep.

  We aren’t strong enough to fight them.

  “How do we get strong enough?”

  I don’t know.

  Deal with the cold first, then. A small enough task, but one she could manage.

  Isa drew upon the magic flowing deep in her interior. Amber poured into her hands. She shaped it with a thought. It twisted to her whim. She turned glowing hands so the palms faced her center mass, because that was as low as she could get them, and released the charge.

  Heat washed over them. It was the caress of summer warm sun, bringing life and blood back to her frigid extremities.

  Murmur reacted to the surge of her magic used for their mutual benefit as something far more potent. He clenched her teeth. The breath he drew into her lungs hissed. He arched hard against the inside of her skin as if the sensation of her magic brushing the Ink of his making fired every nerve in a body she didn’t have access to.

  Inside her mind, he groaned.

  Longing flooded her.

  His.

  Isa gasped and shivered. Not from cold.

  Don’t you dare apologize, he growled. Don’t.

  She swallowed the words he didn’t want her to say. Turning her power upon him was far more potent than anything water had done, akin to his manipulation of her hormones the night before.

  “Do I shut it off?”

  She didn’t want to. Now that her magic had warmed them, she liked being able to feel her toes.

  No. His voice had gone smoky.

  She nodded.

  The draw of power running through Murmur’s Ink made him shudder inside her skin. He made no sound even though she sensed him teetering on some kind of sensory edge.

  You aren’t going to ask why I did this.

  “Does it matter? We’re here. You never wanted your freedom, did you? You wanted revenge. You’re close enough to that monster now to take it. If my death means you avenge your son, then okay.”

  He coated her insides with his sticky, black discontent.

  Why didn’t you destroy me?

  She shook off hesitation. She had nothing more to lose by telling him the truth. “You are an exquisite work of art. And I am not talking about Ink on my skin.”

  He drew a slow breath but didn’t respond.

  “Had I sacrificed you to save myself, I’d be no better than Daniel.”

  Silence, then the rustle of shadowy wings.

  Where does this leave us? he demanded, his rumbling voice in her head trembling with derision. With me crying mercy and begging for truce?

  “Stop whining and help me work out how to stop this portal thing and then free you without killing us both!” she flared, her hands balled into fists.

  After everything I have done, you still wouldn’t destroy me?

  Was that shame writhing in her gut? She sighed.

  The circle around them had taken on a sickly glow. Daniel’s Ink drew symbols around the inside of the circle. They rippled and ran with silver.

  Pressure built against her body as if the atmosphere inside the circle grew denser with each symbol drawn. Another jab of pain hit. Her left arch this time.

  She flinched. The chains rattled.

  “Murmur, before Daniel forced you into my frame, I was binding Live Ink. I had become my cousin, destroying living creatures simply because I didn’t know what else to do. You put a stop to that. You taught me to heal, and you helped me discover pieces of my magic I never dreamed existed. No. I wouldn’t kill you. I need you.”

  Her chest expanded as he drew himself upright within her. Iron resolve solidified within him. It wasn’t quite happiness. But that was the closest analogue.

  Then shield.

  Isa didn’t know what good it would do, but she dipped into the river of shadowed gold. Power followed the line of her will into her center.

  “You asked me why I hadn’t destroyed you,” she said.

  Murmur’s night-dark magic, sparkling with amber stars, gathered at his center—a part of her and yet separate. Their energy didn’t comingle.

  Yes, he said.

  “Why haven’t you destroyed me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  They expanded their power out into two interwoven shields.

  You, too, are a masterpiece, Murmur finally said. And we are stronger together.

  Daniel straightened, drew his knife, turned to face her, and chided, “None of that. Didn’t I teach you the cost of turning your magic against me?”

  She quelled. Sharp stabs lanced both of her hands even though he stood feet away.

  Twisting his filleting knife as if he yearned for some evidence of her fear, Daniel and the creature sharing his skin stalked her.

  Murmur’s “stronger together” played over and over in her brain.

  Do you understand?

  “Yes.” She breathed it aloud.

  Do you accept?

  An earsplitting whistle arced through the physical world and through the etheric. It sounded like a hornet. Or a missile lobbed into the battlefield. Behind it, Isa thought she heard the thud of a footfall on metal.

  A shi
ning silver arrow slammed into their shield. The arrow trembled, half buried in the glow, as if still trying to reach her physical body.

  “I do,” Isa said aloud.

  Daniel’s eyes narrowed.

  She opened to Murmur without hesitation, without reservation. Every part of her on every plane of her existence. No more secrets. No more hiding.

  Murmur expanded. His wonder and exhilaration trailed through her awareness like a deliberate caress.

  As she sank deeper into the cool, midnight black sea of him, marveling at the strength and pain in him, she hoped her presence warmed him.

  They merged.

  Shadow and light.

  She became him. She knew his form; wings, and talons, and powerful muscles honed for battle.

  He became her. The lines she imagined delineated her concept of herself blurred and receded. It should have been terrifying. Wasn’t that what the ego thought of as death?

  It was exhilarating.

  Awe unfolded within her chest.

  She felt like she could fly.

  Daniel’s arrow in their shield exploded.

  Their shield shattered in a million razor-sharp pieces.

  Daniel flinched. Blood smeared his cheek.

  “Gotcha,” Isa said.

  Rage suffused Daniel’s face. He hemorrhaged magic that crawled along the floor and sidled up her legs, reaching for her beating heart as if it meant to crush it.

  A flash of silver seared her eyes and slapped Daniel’s sticky barbs from her body.

  “Control yourself,” Daniel’s voice said in that heartless, hard tone. “If you allow your slut to goad you into killing her and my prisoner incorrectly, the gates will never open.”

  “You can’t have him, monster. Murmur is mine,” she said.

  The thing sharing Daniel’s body snorted and gestured. “Divide and conquer.”

  Icy silver magic slammed into her, knocking her out of her body. She fell through the etheric. She spiraled through the river of magic flowing through her and landed spread-eagled in the sand.

  Isa watched, stunned, as the gold and white dust cloud raised by her impact drifted on the desert breeze. The sky was blue. Not sun-bleached old bones. Blue. Glittering yellow sunlight warmed her face.

  She climbed to her feet, shoulders heavy and aching. The scent of sweet, fresh sage surrounded her. So did evidence of Murmur’s presence. There were shadows. Honest to goodness, ink black shadows being cast by brush, rocks, and trees.