by Tom Mohan
The light drew nearer and with it a foreboding that settled in Liza’s veins like ice water. She could no longer pretend she had power here, no longer pretend things would be all right if she just went along. Her body trembled as the fear settled in. Sweat broke out across her brow, and her mouth went dry.
Never in her life had she been so terrified.
The air around them filled with a chittering sound as the light neared, not voices exactly, yet she had a certain impression of understanding.
Can it be her?
The Princess…
Ugly creature . . .
…smell its blood.
Liza turned her attention from the voices to the light. She could see now that it was more blue than white and hung from a stick carried by a short figure that looked as though its joints were trying to poke from its flesh. Its eyes were large and dark in the blue hue. It smiled at her, exposing sharp teeth. The wound on her leg pulsed with every beat of her heart. This was the creature from her dream, the one that had scratched her.
As this recognition came to her, she heard a dry sound of something moving through the grass behind the thing. The sound was as familiar as the light-bearing creature, and she felt her panic rise. There was movement in the dim light, and the head of a huge snake rose from the confines of the grass and tasted the air with its tongue. The invisible audience tightened its circle around them.
Liza fought to keep her gaze from that of the snake, but her eyes kept moving toward it. She searched for the power that had exploded from her that night in front of the bar, but if it was there, it remained hidden. Again, her eyes drifted toward the snake. Again, she managed to look away.
The snake started to grow, to rise before her as it had in her dreams. No, not dreams—she had been in the Mist, or it had been in her. There was a connection that she was somehow missing. Within moments, the creature that Paulie had called Darius hovered before her.
“Welcome, Princess,” the creature said. Its voice was like a raspy whisper, much like the sound of his scales on the grass. Its eyes shifted to Jacob and just as quickly dismissed him. “It is good to finally see you here. We have waited many of your years.” Its reptile lips curled up in a grotesque smile. “Step forward.”
Liza stumbled as Jacob released her arm, unaware of how much she had been relying on him to remain upright. She crossed her arms over her chest in a reflexive yet futile form of protection.
“I said, step forward.”
Its tone drew her, and this time she could not stop her gaze from meeting it. With no memory of moving, she stood inches from the creature. Up close, it emitted a husky scent, a combination of old body odor and wet leaves. It raised a hand before her, and in the hand dangled a pendant on a silver chain. The pendant was similar to the one she already wore. Its head leaned close, forked tongue tasting her ear. It placed the chain around her neck and clasped it in the back. “From the Prince.”
Heat filled Liza’s chest where the two pendants came together. She grabbed them and was startled to see that the two had become one, molded together to create a new symbol.
“The symbol of the joining,” said Darius. Around them, the forest filled once again with the chittering of the crowd of creatures.
Liza felt something shift as the two pendants completed their transformation, something internal as well as external. The world tilted to the left and then to the right. At the same time, it was as though something inside of her were pushing her aside, forcing itself into her soul.
She blinked and found herself staring up at the night sky, lying on her back in the damp grass. Darius hovered over her, the grotesque smile still on its thin lips. It reached out a hand to her, and she took it without thought. The rough, dry feel of its hand did not cause her to recoil as she had thought it might, nor did the smell seem quite so bad.
She saw that Jacob was gone. That didn’t surprise her. Hadn’t all of the humans abandoned her? Only Darius and the light bearer remained.
“Come,” Darius said. It shrank to the grass and resumed its serpent form. The light bearer turned and started deeper into the woods with the snake at his heels. Liza paused only a moment before following them to whatever fate awaited her.
Brianna clutched Paulie’s shoulders as he led her along. She remained directly behind him, stepping where he stepped, terrified of the dreadful fall that threatened them on either side of the path.
Once, she had risked another glance behind, but the complete blackness spun her gaze back to the dim path. Time seemed to have no meaning here. How could it when there was absolutely nothing to see, nothing to hear or smell or touch? The Great Nothing. Nothing but the path. She focused on the path. It was something in the Nothing, something that no one had known about before. It had to lead somewhere.
“You’re hurting my arms, Brianna.”
Brianna forced herself to loosen her grip but did not release it completely. “I’m sorry, Paulie. I’m just scared.”
“It’s okay, Brianna. Really, it is.”
“I wish I had your confidence. Do you know where we’re going?”
“To see my friend. I told you that already.”
Brianna sighed. “Yes, you did tell me that. I’m looking forward to meeting your friend.”
She was not so sure of that statement. She had been trying to figure out who this mysterious friend could be. She had come to the conclusion that someone must exist—someone had told Paulie about the path through the Great Nothing.
As they continued through the darkness, Brianna noticed a subtle change. She stilled her breathing and listened. There it was again. A sound, quiet and distant.
She could not tell from which direction the sound came nor what the sound was. She was not even certain that hearing something in the Great Nothing was a good thing. She felt Paulie’s shoulders tense and knew that he heard it as well. Her own breath came in short gasps as she fought to control her fear.
The sound grew louder. It began as a keening but grew into more of a wail, louder and more desperate by the moment. Is it growing closer or just more powerful?
Too soon, the sound became clearer. Wailing, crying, hissing, and other noises of misery and despair. Brianna’s eyes darted in all directions, but the darkness was complete and kept its secrets well hidden.
“Do you hear them, Brianna?” Paulie’s voice was tense, but she did not hear any of the signs of fear that she was so familiar with. What had happened to the Paulie who was afraid of almost everything?
“I do hear them, Paulie. Do you know what they are?” He was silent a moment, and she could imagine his scrunched face as he decided on his answer.
“They don’t want us here. They don’t like us.” She felt a shiver run through him. “My friend says they can’t hurt us if we don’t let them.”
Brianna didn’t like the if we don’t let them part. That meant whatever was crying out in the dark could hurt them.
“When did your friend tell you this?”
“He told me when the noises started. I was scared, but he told me not to be scared, so I’m not scared.”
“Is he talking to you now?”
“No, silly Brianna. He isn’t even here now.”
Brianna had so many questions she wanted to ask but knew that getting the answers she needed from Paulie was futile. She felt so vulnerable in this place. Her whole life she had been the one who people came to for answers, and now she was at the mercy of a young man with the mind of a seven-year-old. If it wasn’t all so crazy, she might actually laugh. First time in my life I have left my house, and there is nothing to see. I don’t think I can stand much more irony.
Brianna found herself unable to concentrate with the din of cries and moans around her. She tried to focus on something else, something internal. The mournful voices tugged at her consciousness. The sound grew louder. It forced its way into her head. She felt claustrophobic. Trapped between the darkness and the noise.
She wanted to run, to escape the horrible se
nse of being crushed by that which surrounded her. She closed her eyes and held tight to Paulie. If they did not escape this madness soon, it would drive her insane. She already felt the cracks of broken reality.
“Paulie, I can’t take much more of this.”
If he responded, she did not hear it. She squeezed his shoulders with her fingers, but they felt strange, soft and willowy, barely there. She opened her eyes and would have screamed if she had been able to take a breath. She no longer walked the light path with Paulie. She stood in darkness so absolute it was as a physical entity. Frantically, she stretched her arms in front of her, but they felt only empty air.
“Paulie?” Then louder, “Paulie!”
The screams intensified, mocking her own terrified voice. Though she could not see them, she knew the screaming, crying things were darting around her in the darkness, toying with her, daring her to so much as move and tumble into the abyss from which they came.
“Paulie! Paulie, please don’t leave me!” She turned around, her feet feeling for each inch of the path, hands outstretched. “Please, Paulie…please.”
Brianna sagged to her knees as the last of her courage faded. A sobbing voice separated itself from the others. It moved closer until she was certain whoever it was stood directly over her. She dared not open her eyes, dared not look up at whatever horror awaited. The stench of death wafted over her.
Did you truly think you could escape your fate, Brianna Finn? Did you think you could escape death?
The speaker’s hot, putrid breath washed over her as he spoke. The voice was hard and cruel.
Listen to the sorrow of death that surrounds you. Listen to the wails of those you once called friend. Listen and feel the torment of the fate you thought to escape.
Hot tears streamed down Brianna’s face. The screams became the voices of those she had once loved, those who had passed on and been all but forgotten. She had kept pictures of them to remind her of the friendship they had once offered a lonely woman, and yet she had let most of the once-cherished memories go. She, after all, must go on. Vicious sobs wracked her body as her mind struggled with the guilt of those she had left behind.
No one escapes death, Brianna Finn. All come to me in their time. All come for eternal torment at my hand. I already have your parents and your brother, and now I have you.
Laughter echoed among the wails and cries of the dead. Her parents were dead, too?
Brianna curled into a ball and allowed the painful memories of all those who had passed through her life before passing on from life flood her mind. She had always felt guilty of her lifespan, guilty that others died while she lived on, her duty so important that she did not have to suffer the same fate as the rest of mankind. Her body shook with grief as her own wails of pain joined those of the spirits around her.
“Brianna? What are you doing, Brianna?”
This was not the same voice. This one was softer, gentler. Paulie? Brianna dared to open her eyes. She was still curled in a ball on the ground, but now a faint light gleamed around her. Paulie stood over her.
“Why are you laying down? Are you tired?”
Brianna sat up, ever mindful of the edge of the path. The silence that filled the void was eerily wonderful after the dreadful sounds that had assaulted her. But the guilt that it had dredged up was still a sharp dagger in her chest. She wiped tears from her face and took a deep breath. “Where did you go, Paulie? I was alone and scared. Why did you leave me alone?”
“I didn’t leave you alone, silly Brianna. I was right here.”
“The voices didn’t hurt you?”
“I told you they couldn’t hurt us if we didn’t let them.”
Brianna scanned the darkness for any sign of the spirits that had assailed her, but the Great Nothing was as empty as it had been before. She grabbed Paulie’s arm and pulled herself to her feet. “Where did they go?”
Paulie looked at her with such tenderness that, for a moment, she forgot who he was. His eyes shone with intelligence and love. “They were never here.” He touched a finger to her forehead. “They were you.” Then he laughed, and he was all Paulie once again. “Silly Brianna.”
Fresh tears broke over her eyelashes. With them came a sense of oneness with humanity that she had never before known.
Are you sure you’re okay?”
Fallon held a cloth over the cut on her face that Black Annis had inflicted on her. It stung like crazy. She could already imagine the gross infection from Annis’s filthy nails. “I’m as okay as I can be, considering.” She looked away as fresh tears threatened to flow. “Conall can’t be dead. I heard him in the hospital. He warned me to get out.”
Marcas’s face was lit by the dashboard lights of his truck. “I thought you dead as well as hard as he hit you. It wasn’t him, though. In the end, it wasn’t him.”
Fallon stared out the windshield. There was little traffic on the highway this time of night, and the world felt dark and empty. “Mom and Dad?”
He shook his head. “No change.”
Fallon closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat. Her head hurt like hell. She just wanted her mom to take care of her. The tears threatened again, and this time she let them fall. What was happening to her family? What was happening to her? All her life she’d been the happy one, the Finn who looked on the bright side of everything. It had been easy because, to her at least, everything had always been bright. She didn’t know how to deal with the feelings of darkness and death that now flooded her consciousness. The world as she had known it for so long was forever changed, and she had no idea how to cope.
She must have dozed. Suddenly, the truck lurched and bounced as though it had hit something and came to a stop. She opened her eyes. They were sitting just inside the Halden’s Mill town limits.
“What happened?”
Marcas was trying to get the truck to start. “I don’t know. I turned off the highway, and it was like we hit something, but there wasn’t anything there. Then the truck died and won’t start.” Fallon looked into the side-view mirror on the passenger door but saw nothing in the road behind them.
Marcas hit the steering wheel. “Dammit, can’t anything go right these days?” He sighed. “Slide over here and steer while I push this piece of crap out of the road.”
Without waiting for her to answer, Marcas jumped out of the truck and slammed the door. Fallon steered the truck to the side of the road, which was difficult without the power steering. She climbed from the truck and swayed as a wave of dizziness washed over her.
“Hey, you all right?”
Fallon put a hand on the truck to steady herself. “Yeah, just waiting for the world to slow down so I can catch up.” She tried to smile, but it felt like more of a grimace. “I’ll be fine. What now?”
“I’ll call the house. Ruth should be around.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed, then pulled it away from his head and looked at the screen. “It says I have no signal. There’s always a signal in the Mill.”
Fallon took her own phone out. “Mine says the same thing, and it’s almost dead. It also says I have six messages, but when I check, there’s nothing there.”
“Nothing about this feels right.”
Fallon shivered in the cool night air. “No, it doesn’t.”
“It’s only about a half mile to City Hall. Night dispatch should be there. I’m pretty sure Kerry Hall still has that job. We can get you something to clean that cut up when we get there. Can you make it that far?”
Fallon nodded. “I can make it as far as I have to.” Another flash of pain jolted through her head, and she grimaced. “Just don’t go too fast.”
The two started up the road into town. They climbed a short rise that seemed like a mountain to Fallon and crossed a bridge over the Santa Fe train railroad tracks. Not far on the other side was Cal Douglas’s gas station/liquor store/gun shop, a combination one could only find in the Mill and maybe Texas, Fallon thought for about the thousandth time. The shop was com
pletely dark.
“That’s not right,” Marcas said.
“It’s dark,” Fallon agreed. She looked out over the town. “The whole town’s dark.”
“What the hell’s going on around here?”
Fallon heard what sounded like the steady flapping of giant wings. She looked up and saw a huge shadow glide through the night sky. “What’s that?”
Marcas looked to where she pointed. “Oh crap. That’s not good.”
“What?”
“Get to cover.”
They skittered to the edge of the gas station out of sight of the flying beast.
“You were saying?” Fallon said.
“A fae monster. It shouldn’t be here. Things are breaking down faster than I thought. We must have lost another Old One.”
Fallon felt another crack in her heart at his comment. The Old Ones had been their primary support as long as anyone could remember. Some could be cranky and rude, but they all had loving hearts. Fallon felt a special bond with each one of them. She wondered if the damage had now gone beyond what could be repaired.
“Quiet,” Marcas hissed.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Shhh…”
Fallon hushed and strained her senses to pick up whatever it was Marcas was concerned with. Marcas and Conall had spent so much time in the forest that they were much more attuned to the faint trails that the fae left as they passed on their side of the Mist. She no longer heard the beating wings. The night was still and quiet. Then she saw what he was looking at. A flash of light in the tall grasses behind the gas station. It looked much like a lightning bug but bigger. Another light flashed a short distance from the first.
“Pixies,” Marcas whispered.
Fallon raised her eyebrows. “Really…pixies?”
“What? You don’t believe in pixies? You’re a Finn for god’s sake.”
“I’m the normal one, remember. Can they see us?”
