Teeth in the Mist

by Dawn Kurtagich

  She almost laughs at that.

  The walk back to the house is the longest Roan has ever taken. Every inch of her wants to flee in the opposite direction. Instead, she grits her teeth and plants her feet more forcefully.

  Until at last, she can walk no more.

  “I cannot do it,” Roan says, bending to rest her palms on her knees.

  Rapley does not turn back. “You can. You must.”

  “Rapley, I—”

  He faces her abruptly. “Everything you have done was nothing more than anyone would. You defended yourself.”

  “I killed a man.”

  “A man that branded you.” His teeth clench. “He hurt you.”

  “And Emma, my friend? She who condemned me?”

  He takes hold of her hands. “You are the torch in my night, my Eve. You will be so for her, also.”

  Roan closes her eyes. “I am angry.”

  “And a little afraid.”

  “Yes,” she whispers, “and a little afraid.”

  “Be a beacon for her lost soul, and let her see that she was wrong, so very wrong, to condemn you.”

  Roan’s voice is low. “And she delivered me into his hands. He who scalded me. He who burned me with water.”

  Rapley’s eyes flash. “And we shall save her, nonetheless, for Fostos is within those walls, and she is not safe. We can be good, Roan. We can resist Fostos by doing something good, even if you are angry with Emma. We must try.”

  Roan stands upon the mountain, which so resembles the Yorkshire moors this far up, and looks down upon the terrible Mill House embedded within the mountain, and feels a vile spite and hatred welling up.

  Why should I? a rebellious voice whispers in her ear. Why should I save them at all?

  And then… there he stands. So suddenly that Roan jumps back, a cry on her lips.

  Seamus.

  His rotted ghost stands looking mournfully up.

  Will you not save me? Will you not come?

  “What is it?” Rapley asks, by her side. “What do you see?”

  Roan’s air rushes out of her and with it, the rage within. “Seamus…”

  She blinks and he is gone. So quickly. As if he had not been there at all.

  “My rage tricks me,” Roan says, swallowing. “I will return to Mill House. And I will find the heir of all this sorrow.”

  Rapley smiles. “Good.”

  “And I will kill him.”

  Mill House. Roan steels herself, glancing at the space where, only moments before, Seamus’s rotten ghost had reappeared.

  Rapley looks at her, his gaze once more the gaze of the gruff Mountain Man she had met all those weeks ago.

  She nods, and together, they fling wide the doors of Mill House—

  and freeze where they stand.

  He is standing halfway down the grand stairway, a nightmare personified.

  He is clothed in the black cassock of a priest.

  Cage.

  PART 6

  Beyond the Mountain

  FAUSTUS: Where are you damn’d?

  MEPHISTOPHELES: In hell.

  FAUSTUS: How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell?

  MEPHISTOPHELES: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.

  —CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,

  DR. FAUSTUS

  Praise be to God for my daughter is here!

  She is dead and blue and I cannot stop laughing!

  “Raise her up!” I cried. “Raise her up so God may see!”

  I held her to me for some days, but when she gave off an odor most foul, John pried her away from me.

  “Babies will smell, John!” I cried. “I must change her dressings! Babies will smell!”

  I have not seen her since.

  Perhaps the wolves took her also.

  I cannot stop laughing!

  FROM THE DIARY OF

  HERMIONE SMITH

  ZOEY

  NOW

  Chapter 36

  COME ONE, COME ALL

  I was busy showing Len the photos and video footage we’ve compiled when Poulton finally came down.

  “We’re having beans,” I said. “I’m warming them now. Want some?”

  He ignored me.

  “I’m showing Len the photos I’ve taken, and your video footage too.”

  Again, nothing. He just sat down and stirred the beans in the pot.

  “Pole… Len’s a friend, okay?”

  Finally, he looked up. “Friends would come out, introduce themselves, and ask questions, not spy on us for more than a week and steal notebooks and personal jewelry.”

  Len half smiled. “Point taken.”

  “Why did you spy?” he asked. “And what else did you steal?”

  “I wanted you gone,” Len said simply. “And some toilet paper.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. I like this girl. Like, I like her. She’s fucking awesome. I like the way she lets her hair do its own thing. She never combs it. I love how she doesn’t wear any makeup. She has this completely natural, innocent look, and then she pulls lines like that out of her ass.

  “And what’s your excuse?” Pole said, looking at me.

  I had never seen him look at me with such suspicion before.

  “Pole, when was the last time you had some water? Or food?” I asked.

  “I asked you a question,” he said sharply. “What. Is. Your. Excuse?”

  “Excuse for what?”

  “Acting like a disgusting fucking slut?”

  I couldn’t speak. Eventually I said, “What?” at the same time that Len said, “Shut your mouth.”

  Pole began to stir the beans faster so that the sauce dripped over the sides and hissed in the gaslit flames. “A disgusting slut who kisses perfect strangers right after kissing their best friends?”

  “Poulton!”

  Len was on her feet. “Take that back.”

  “I suppose you want to lick her disgusting—”

  Len was on him in a second. I literally didn’t even see her move. She hit him in the face, but he was tall and shook her off. She got up, panting, and said, “Go for a walk.”

  Neither of us was expecting that. Len looked like she regretted getting angry.

  Pole stared at her, his fists clenched.

  “Go for a goddamn walk before you do something you’ll regret.”

  He looked at me for a long while before he spun around and walked out of the room.

  “He’s been spending all his time in that room with all the skulls and weapons.”

  “Leave him there for a while,” Len said. “We have to leave soon. Pack up everything you have. We’ll go in the morning. He needs to get away from this house as soon as possible.”

  Pole won’t leave with us.

  He insists that he wants to stay. I point out that his cans of food won’t last forever. The bacon and the bread are gone, and so is the milk. He tells me he doesn’t care.

  Len insists we go, even if only to town for a couple of days, to wash the effects of the house out of us.

  I feel horrible, but I think she’s right.

  We have to get out of here.

  We’re getting out in five.

  Leaving Pole here feels wrong.

  She was right and still, we left too late.

  We set out at around eight this morning. I pleaded with Poulton through the door to the Hunting Room, but he told me to get out. I left crying. Len took my hand and we climbed out the hole in the Green Room wall together, me looking back and stumbling, her leading the way.

  It was such a dark morning that it felt like a solar eclipse. You know, that eerie, weird light that feels like you’re standing on another planet. Everything felt breezy and alien, and the wind picked up the farther from the house we got.

  And then the mists rolled in.

  They were like waves. Huge plumes of mist so thick they were like clouds tumbling down on us, and Len grabbed my hand and yelled, “Don’t let go!”

  We stumbled over the rocks and the
lichen, through heather that was barely alive—and then I fell.

  It felt like something grabbed my jeans, low down near my ankle, and pulled. I lost Len’s hand, heard her scream, and then I was tumbling, falling—

  I don’t remember landing.

  But I remember waking up in this foggy half day and hearing Len calling me. It was like she was in a wind tunnel. I couldn’t hear her properly.

  And then the pain.

  I yelled, I think. Well, I mean I must have. Len found me somehow, but I don’t remember that.

  The next thing I knew, I was back in the house and Len was pulling a jagged piece of slate from my calf. She threw it away from us like it was poisonous and it landed with a clank in a corner of the room.

  It looked like a giant wolf’s canine tooth.

  “I’m bleeding again,” I said, and my head swam in and out.

  I kept waking up and Len was doing something different

  holding something on my leg

  calling for Poulton

  cursing under her breath

  running from the room

  alone

  POULTON!

  She’s hurt!

  Poulton arriving… my heart swelling.

  Thick tongue. “Pole…”

  heavy head

  “stupid idiot”

  don’t touch her!

  something cold

  sticky

  I woke up about an hour ago. Len and Pole were both sitting near me, determinedly not looking at each other. My leg’s been superglued together. Trusty Pole with his knowledge of first aid. It looks gross, honestly, and it hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

  I licked my lips. “Too bad we drank all the alcohol already.”

  They both jumped like I’d electrocuted them.

  Len was at my side at once. “Zoey—”

  Pole inched closer too. His eyes looked dark—not his eyes, really. The shadows around his eyes.

  His lips thinned and he frowned. “Idiot.”

  I managed a smile. “Thanks.”

  He smiled back, but then he said something that made my insides freeze. “Did you really think he’d let you go?”

  Len’s head turned toward him really, really slowly. “What did you just say?”

  “Oh, please.” He rolled his eyes. “Did you really think you’d get very far in this weather?”

  I tried to sit up, but the pain in my leg was intense. “That’s not what you said…”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You said…” I shook my head. “You said he would never let us go. Who?”

  Poulton licked his lips. “I said… I said…” He frowned. “The weather is bad. You didn’t think you’d get far like this, did you?”

  Len and I exchanged looks and Poulton caught it.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  The storm pounded against the front doors and they rattled on their hinges. I was thankful they had brought me into the Red Room, rather than the Green Room, or we would have been sitting inside a mini-hurricane.

  “I don’t feel so good,” I murmured, the ache returning to my leg and my head at the same time.

  “You need sleep,” Len said. She put her hand on my forehead and I closed my eyes.

  “We’ll leave you in peace,” Pole said stiffly, and then they both left.

  I felt my eyelids grow heavy.

  I’ve been awake for a while now, and neither of them have come back. They left me with the space heater and the generator, though. My leg feels a bit better. Think I’ll go look for them.

  I’m writing this as fast as I can. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw it. I need to get it down before I stop believing that it happened.

  I heard them whispering in the hall outside. I didn’t think anything of it right away, but then Len said, “Step away.” It was such an odd thing to say, and her tone was dangerous. So I peeked through the gap in the door until I saw them a little way down the hall. Len was standing against the wall and Pole was towering over her—too close.

  He was standing so close to her that they might have been kissing, except his body language was all wrong. He was aggressive.

  “I know what you’re doing,” he hissed in her face. “Trickster, vile impersonator, whore!”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Len beat me to it.

  “Do you speak to Zoey like that?”

  And then he shoved her into the wall, his forearm pressed fully against her neck. I was so shocked I stood there gaping like a fucking fish and I didn’t do anything.

  “You’re a liar,” he said quietly. “I’m watching you. I’m fucking watching you.”

  Len stared for a moment, and then she was pressing back as though his arm wasn’t hurting her neck at all.

  “Fight it,” she whispered. “Fight this house. Fight Him.”

  Pole sort of shook, like he was vibrating, and then he roared into her face, shoved her hard into the wall, and ran away as though someone had thrown acid on him, screaming the whole way up the stairs.

  Len didn’t even rub her neck, she just looked after him and shook her head like she was disappointed.

  Chapter 37

  UPSIDE DOWN

  Roan cannot understand what is happening.

  Cage, dressed in a long black cassock, and leaning heavily on a wooden stick. Cage, staring down at her with a sneer on his face. But… Cage is dead. She killed him.

  She shakes her head, mouth gaping, when finally, something clicks into place.

  “You,” she breathes. “It’s you…”

  And it all makes sense. Everything had turned so badly wrong after Cage’s arrival. Everything had suddenly felt claustrophobic, dangerous…

  She growls, sure she will kill him this time, but before she can do anything, Rapley is charging up the stairs at Cage himself. Clearly, he has deduced what she has: Cage is Fostos.

  He has been watching them all along.

  Rapley hits Cage with his entire body and the two of them go sprawling. Roan loses sight of them, but their grunts and the muffled thumps tell her everything she needs to know.

  She hurries up the stairs after them, ready to add her own fists, nails, and teeth to the fight. In the back of her head, she is mildly surprised that Cage has not used any kind of Conjure on them—hasn’t muttered a single syllable of the Devil’s Tongue since they returned. She pushes the thought aside and kicks at Cage, who is laid flat out on the floor beneath Rapley, who delivers blow after blow with his fists.

  “Stop!” rings a shrill voice.

  Emma stands at the bottom of the stairs, Jenny clutched in her arms. The poor servant girl is shaking, but Emma looks fierce and irritated, much like she had before the fever got her—something like the Emma she had been when Roan had liked her best.

  “Stop it,” she says again, “all of ye! Just stop!”

  Roan lowers her arms and turns to face her once-friend, waiting. Beside her, Rapley grunts and lets go of Cage, getting to his feet. Cage himself coughs and rolls over, breathing heavily. He spits blood from his mouth, but does not get up.

  “Help him up,” Emma demands, gesturing to Cage’s legs, which are lolling about.

  “He’s evil,” Rapley says, scowling.

  “No, he isn’t. But I’d be tempted to think you are. If you would come and sit down and listen, then I can explain a few things to ye.”

  Roan glances at Rapley and then nods at Emma, feeling, all of a sudden, quite ashamed of herself. “I will listen if you will give me the same accord.”

  Emma nods once, stiffly, and then helps Jenny into the Red Room.

  Roan looks down at Cage grimly, watching as Rapley hauls him up.

  “You’ll have to do some of the work yourself,” he growls at the man leaning heavily on him.

  Cage nods in the most cooperative manner Roan has ever seen, and the three of them make their way down the stairs and into the Red Room as well.

  An awkward silence falls after Raple
y dumps Cage onto one of the red chairs and then sits down beside Roan on the sofa. Emma is sitting in the armchair, while Jenny stands silent in a corner.

  “Jenny,” Roan begins, leaning toward the girl, who rocks back and forth on her heels. “What has happened?”

  Emma exhales. “Much. So please listen.”

  She looks pointedly over at Cage and folds her hands in her skirt.

  Cage clears his throat. “I know what you suspected when you attacked me,” he croaks. “It gives me some heart.” He pauses and looks at Rapley. “I did not come here by accident, but by design. I am part of an… order, you might call it. A group of watchers and hunters. We aim, above all else, to find and destroy the one called Fostos. No, I am not Fostos,” he adds with a glance at Roan, “though I believe he is here.”

  “He is,” Roan says simply.

  “For a time, I believed you to be his vessel. His witch. His spy.”

  Roan laughs mirthlessly. “And so I suffered by his design, and by yours.”

  “For that, I apologize. I cannot make it right.”

  “No.” Rapley’s voice is low and dangerously quiet. “You cannot. But continue.”

  “I was sent here by the command and request of my father. He and I, by birth, are members of the order called Crucisvigil. We keep eyes open for the cursed man, that we might one day discover and destroy him. We were formed of his brethren, when he was a holy monk in the tenth century, here. On this very mountain. There were those who had seen what he did, the deal he made with Satani, and they formed Crucisvigil with a solemn oath to stop him. No matter how long it took.” He pauses. “No matter how long it takes.”

  “So this… order…” Roan says, her voice harsh. “They charge you with exorcism as well?”

  “Yes. And much, besides. Though I came here seeking out Fostos, to bring him to justice and rid the world of his evil, I had another purpose also.” He glances at Rapley as he says this. “To find my little brother, and return him to us.”