Dreams of Shreds and Tatters

by Amanda Downum

  “Ah.” His lips curled. “Not a stranger, then, but I think you have a kind heart nonetheless.” His voice was deep and rich, carefully measured as a stage actor’s.

  “What do you mean, these dark times?”

  He shrugged, and a golden brooch flashed on his breast. “Travelers bring rumors of monsters on the roads, rumors of slavers. Caravans from Carcosa ride through towns and people vanish in the night.”

  “Carcosa?” It wasn’t a name she’d heard before, dreaming or awake.

  “The city of Carcosa. Lost Carcosa, some call it. The roads that lead there have long been sealed, but there are always ways around such obstacles.”

  Liz hugged herself. “Why does a lost city need slaves? And who is this King everyone keeps talking about?” And what did any of it have to do with Blake?

  “He is a very old power,” the man said, “whose star is rising again. His shadow is darkest here in the land of dreams, but your world is not untouched by it.”

  “Who are you? A priest?” He looked the part, but none of the priests she’d met smiled like that, so sleek and knowing and dangerous.

  “Not exactly. You may call me Seker.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Are you a god?”

  Pearl-black eyes narrowed in amusement. “Conventional wisdom encourages me to say yes, doesn’t it? But I’m only borrowing the name.”

  “Do you guide souls through the underworld?”

  “I prefer to guide the living. The priests of the Ancients may offer comfort, but stronger measures will be needed as the shadow grows.” His gaze held hers, and she felt her heart being weighed and measured. “What about you, dreamer? Will you fight for what you hold dear?”

  She swallowed, her mouth gone dry. Her reflection in his eyes was so small. A little rabbit of a girl. “If I have to.”

  With that the dream dissolved around her, and she opened her eyes to the hotel ceiling and watery light rippling down the walls.

  “If you have to what?” Alex asked. Liz turned her head to see him leaning against the doorway, holding a damp paper bag. “I brought breakfast.”

  RAIN WASHED THE windows while they ate. Liz spread cream cheese across a bagel and watched water sluice past the balcony. Clouds hung low, enfolding the city in grey wings. Through the mist and sifting rain Vancouver was as unreal as any dream city, and less familiar.

  “What would you like to do today?” Alex asked. She turned the idea over in her head. She ought to think of something distracting, a movie or a museum to take her mind off Blake. But even if the weather had been less bleak, the thought of sightseeing made her neck muscles tighten. It’s not as though she would enjoy it anyway.

  “I want to go back to the hospital.” Alex nodded, but his lips thinned. She couldn’t blame him—grief wasn’t a spectator sport. “You don’t have to go with me.”

  He took his glasses off to clean them, frowning down at the frames. The sideways light gilded the tips of his eyelashes, turned his irises pale and silvery as water. “I should find something to wear to this gallery opening. Other than that, I wouldn’t mind staying in today.”

  Liz nodded. She’d heard the strain in his breathing as she fell asleep the night before, and his voice was rough around the edges. “Of course.”

  He looked up and smiled, lenses flashing as he slid his glasses back on. “Don’t worry. This is still better than being home for the holidays.”

  LIZ’S VOICE HELD through the first two chapters of the novel she’d picked up in the gift shop—a time traveling romance, full of questionable anatomy and even more dubious historical accuracy, on the off chance she could annoy Blake into waking up—but a lump kept forming in her throat. If he would just open his eyes, make a joke about Geneva conventions...

  She finally let the book fall shut, breathing in the comforting scent of new paper and ink. It couldn’t ease the helplessness gnawing at her stomach.

  At least she wasn’t making anyone else suffer; Blake had been moved to a private room. Was Rainer paying for that? She doubted the province would be so generous to a wayward American indigent.

  For all its privacy, the room wasn’t much cheerier than the ICU. It smelled the same: plastic, bleach, floor polish, something sour and organic she couldn’t identify. At least it had a window. She’d dragged the single chair next to the bed, out of the square of weak sunlight.

  She took Blake’s cold hand in hers, abandoning the book. Had the staff guessed which hand was dominant? Had they looked at the calluses and ink stains? He could sketch left-handed, too, had taught himself after his father broke his right wrist when he was fifteen.

  She tried to take comfort in the steady rhythm of the heart monitor, its constant peaks and valleys, but the hum and whine of machinery set her teeth on edge. His skin was grey as paste, crawling with bluegreen veins.

  There had to be something she could do, no matter what Alex said. Anything. Why the dreams, if she couldn’t use them?

  “I won’t sit here and watch you waste away.” A childish promise— what choice did she have? If she’d come sooner, would it have made a difference? She forced her thoughts away from that thorny path.

  Liz scrubbed her clammy palms on her jeans; the ring slid loose on her right thumb. She brushed a strand of oily hair out of Blake’s face. His earrings were gone, a row of empty indentations along the curve of his ear. It made her think of all the strangers who must touch him here, how much he’d hate it if he knew.

  Where was the spirit while the flesh lay still? His eyes twitched softly beneath closed lids—did he dream? The thought didn’t comfort her much.

  “I’d kiss you awake, but I’m not qualified. Where’s a handsome prince when we need one? Or a strapping highlander.”

  Drowned.

  She closed her eyes against the heat of tears, lowering her head to edge of his pillow. Beneath starchy soap and unwashed hair and the sour tang of poor health she smelled his familiar autumn-leaf musk.

  Where are you? The ring pinched her finger as she squeezed his hand. If he was dreaming, she could find him. She just had to dream the same dream.

  The light dimmed through her closed eyes, like a cloud passing over the sun. The room tilted, vanished, and she was falling—

  Into black and icy water. Blake’s hand slipped from hers as liquid flooded her mouth and nose, bitter and rank. Salt burned her eyes. Darkness above and darkness below, with no hope of light or air.

  For a moment they floated side by side. Then Blake began to sink. Beneath him, at the heart of the abyss, something waited. Something vast and dark and hungry.

  Liz stretched and kicked. The ring glowed incandescent through the murk as she reached for him. Her lungs burned and pressure closed around her, pushing at her eyes, constricting her ribs. No matter how she fought, she couldn’t close the distance, and the black thing in the depths grew closer and closer.

  This is no place for you, dreamer, a familiar voice whispered inside her head. Go.

  She ignored it, kicking harder. For an instant she touched Blake’s outstretched fingers. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly.

  He is beyond your grasp. Go now!

  With an awful wrench she was back in the hospital room, clutching Blake’s hand hard enough to bruise. The book slid off her lap and thumped to the floor as she recoiled. Her head throbbed; her lungs ached; the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth.

  Her hand burned—she slipped the ring off her thumb and stared at the red mark it left on her skin. Liquid rolled down her lip, splattered thick and crimson against her sweater. She leaned back with a shudder, pinching her nose shut.

  Bile seared the back of her throat and she choked, swallowing sour spit. The ceiling swam in and out of focus and her heart pounded against her ribs. It was going to eat him. Whatever it was.

  The doorknob turned and Liz startled again, scraping the chair back as she turned.

  “Oh.” Antja froze in the doorway and Liz thought she might bolt. “I didn’t think anyo
ne was here. I just wanted to see—”

  “There—” Liz swallowed the taste of salt and metal, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “There’s no change.”

  “Oh.” Antja lingered on the threshold, hands shoved in the pockets of her black leather coat.

  “Come in,” Liz said, stepping back from the bed. She slipped the ring—cool again now—into her pocket.

  Antja eased the door shut behind her, mauve lips pursing. “Your nose...” She pulled a tissue out of her purse and handed it to Liz. Her accent was thicker than Rainer’s.

  They both looked down at Blake; Antja broke first. “It’s terrible, seeing him like that. Almost worse than Alain.” She flinched as she said it. Liz knew better—bad as this was, it could be worse.

  “I wish I knew what to do,” Liz said, words muffled in tissue. If she’d been alone she might have sobbed. Instead she drew a deep breath, waiting for her heart to slow, for her stomach to stop its nauseous sway.

  “Me too.” Antja’s eyes closed, a weight of fear and fatigue visible for an instant beneath her careful poise.

  Liz lowered the tissue. The dizziness had passed, but the smell of blood and air freshener threatened her uneasy equilibrium. Something between fear and jealousy settled heavy in her stomach. She didn’t want anyone else to see Blake like this, didn’t want anyone else to risk that black abyss.

  “We can’t do much here but worry. Would— Would you like to get some coffee, or something to eat?”

  Antja hesitated, dark eyes veiling. Then she smiled. “Yes. I’d like that.”

  RAIN DRUMMED AGAINST Café Al Azrad’s red awnings and fell in shining ribbons to the sidewalk. On the patio, Rae huddled against the wind, but it crept in between the buttons of her coat, through the weave of her scarves, ran icy hands up her legs. But even freezing, she was glad to be out of the apartment.

  She shuffled her cards, concentrating on the bright colors of the suits, the flutter of glossy cardstock. The familiar motions soothed her, help clear the lingering cobwebs of paranoia. All week she’d startled at shadows, seen faceless strangers in crowds, felt people staring wherever she went. If she was going to go crazy cooped up in the apartment, she didn’t need to be crazy outside, too. But today the only thing giving her goosebumps was the cold.

  Shuffling kept her fingers warm, but she’d long given up on making any money today. No one wanted their fortune told in this weather. Even the inside of the café was nearly empty. The owner let her give readings on the patio, and sometimes Rabia or Noor gave her free coffee and baklava. The idea of something hot and sweet was tempting now, but her appetite still hadn’t returned.

  Cards slapped cold and slick between her fingers. The Tower and the Hanged Man surfaced every time she paused, but she couldn’t make sense of either of them.

  No one would tell her what happened at the cabin that night, only that Alain was dead and Blake was in the hospital and someone had warded their apartment to keep people from snooping. Something was spinning around her, circling in, but she didn’t know what it was. She glanced up, eastward, but saw only the sharp lines of skyscrapers and condos blurring in the haze.

  The door opened, shaking light across the glass, and a tall, darkhaired woman stepped out. “Tell your fortune?” Rae called, more on principle than out of any real hope. The woman turned and Rae flinched: angry, roiling colors surrounded her, crackling around her hands and jaw. The auras were worse than ever. Stephen was probably cutting the mania.

  The colors faded as the woman took a step closer, leaving only a cranky-looking stranger. Rae had seen her before, coming and going, talking to Rabia and Noor, but didn’t know her name.

  The woman frowned down at the cards. Her hair was cut in a blunt bob around a square jaw, baring the strong lines of her neck. Coat and sweater muffled her shoulders and folded arms, but her hands were hard and scarred. Not pretty, far too strong and arresting for pretty, but striking all the same; Rae wished she could ever look that strong.

  “Do you really believe in this stuff?” the woman asked, tapping one short, thick nail against the table.

  Rae had heard that question often enough. By now it was easy to smile instead of sighing or rolling her eyes. “It’s symbolism. You apply the meaning of the cards to your questions, and maybe they help you see things you wouldn’t have thought of. It’s not real magic.”

  “No. Real magic is nothing to fuck around with.”

  Rae had heard that before, too. Either from concerned churchgoers worried about her soul, or from wannabe sorcerers convinced that they knew secrets no one else could fathom. Now she did sigh. “So I hear.” She glanced at the window and saw Rabia staring at them from behind the counter.

  The woman bared her teeth in what might have been a smile. “But you haven’t listened yet. I wouldn’t try too hard to look beneath the skin of the world. It’s ugly down there.” She turned away before Rae finished flinching.

  Rae grabbed for her cards like a security blanket, but her hands were shaking and she fumbled the deck. Cards sprayed across the damp table and sidewalk and she cursed. By the time she knelt to retrieve them, the woman had vanished down the sidewalk.

  Footsteps clicked on the pavement as she groped under the table for the Five of Cups, paused beside her. “Rae?”

  “Antja?” Rae caught her elbow on the metal chair as she straightened. Antja Schäfer always left her feeling awkward and clumsy—too much grace and poise and not enough left for anyone else.

  “Hello.” Antja paused by the table, a shorter girl beside her, shiny boutique shopping bags hanging from both their arms. For an instant Rae’s vision swam and there was a third shape beside Antja, a shadow where no shadow should be, but she blinked and it was gone.

  An awkward silence settled between them. “How have you been?” Antja finally asked.

  Confused, she wanted to say. Scared. She swallowed it for the stranger’s sake and settled for “Okay.” An unspoken considering hung in the air.

  “Will you be at the service?”

  “Of course.”

  The other woman shifted her weight and Antja blinked. “Excuse me. Rae, this is Liz. She’s a friend of Blake’s.”

  The woman stepped forward, raising a hand in greeting. Her cheeks were red, ash-blonde hair damp and wind-tangled beneath her stocking cap. Her eyes flickered toward the scattered cards and her chapped lips tightened. The Tower and the Hanged Man lay face up again.

  “Do you want your fortune told?” Rae asked, trying for a smile. It felt crooked on her face. Their eyes met and she felt that spinning sensation again.

  Liz’s answering smile looked just as strained. “Maybe some other time.”

  Antja waved, and the two of them stepped into the warmth and light of the café.

  Rae gathered her cards and wrapped them haphazardly in a silk scarf. Clouds scraped the rooftops, thick and swirling. Shadows lengthened. Time to go home. Behind the lowering sky the star was rising; its pull surged sharp in her blood.

  As she rose movement drew her eye, a flutter of black in the corner of her vision. Darkness gathered in a doorway across the street, thicker than the afternoon gloom. It flickered as she watched, from a low crouching shape to a tall gaunt figure leaning in the alcove. She couldn’t see its face, but she felt its attention.

  The deck carved lines in her palm as her hands clenched. She couldn’t see its face because it had none: no eyes, no nose, no mouth, just slick blackness. It had no aura, either. Or at least no colors—a nimbus of emptiness surrounded it, devouring any light that got too close.

  Rae stared, frozen, unable to move or look away until a cluster of office people emerged from the next building and broke her line of sight. When they passed, the shadow-thing was gone.

  She almost bolted for the café, for the safety of light and company. But if she went in, she’d have to come out again, and it would only get darker and colder.

  She shoved her cards into her pocket and wound her scarf around her neck. Her
umbrella unfolded with a snap. Keep to the light, catch a bus home—she could do that. All of a sudden her stuffy apartment didn’t seem so bad.

  WITH HIS SARTORIAL obligations fulfilled, Alex lingered in the shelter of a bus stop studying the map. The Museum of Anthropology sounded like a good way to pass a few hours, but Liz’s misgivings had started to spread—he couldn’t shake the sensation that someone was watching him. A black-coated figure had moved in the corner of his eye one too many times, never mind that half the people he’d seen in Vancouver fit that description.

  The darkening sky and lingering ache in his chest made the decision for him. After a detour at a liquor store, he made it back to the hotel with a bank of clouds spitting sleet at his heels. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet, but a glass of Chartreuse remedied that. The green fire also chased away the headache that had followed him since yesterday. He nursed a second glass while he waited for Liz, the muted television casting flickering shadows against the walls.

  Something was bothering him besides contagious paranoia, but he couldn’t decide what it was. No, he decided, he did know: he didn’t trust Morgenstern. The man’s charisma might work on Liz and hospital staff—and maybe on Blake, to judge from the sketches— but Rainer reminded him of people he’d known years ago, who he’d left behind and tried hard to forget. The magnetism, the attraction that even Alex couldn’t dismiss, though it raised his hackles.

  Rainer reminded him of Samantha.

  His hand closed on the cool plastic of his inhaler. His chest had ached since they’d visited Blake’s apartment—the pain reminded him of Samantha, too. Every attack, every albuterol hit, every round of pneumonia. The weakness in his lungs was congenital, but ever since that disastrous night in Boston seven years ago, it had been close to crippling. Or would be, if he let it.

  He let go of the inhaler and fished a two dollar coin out of his pocket. It winked in the lamplight as he walked it across his knuckles.

  He tried not to think about Samantha, normally, or to think of her only in the simplest terms. Sometimes that worked. He’d been young and stupid, reckless, gotten involved in a relationship that only a seventeen-year-old could have fallen for and ended up hurt. These things happened.