Dreams of Shreds and Tatters

by Amanda Downum

  THE FEVER EASED; flesh and muscle knit back into their proper shapes, itching and burning as tissues healed. Rainer still drifted, but the darkness changed. He had felt the presence of the King since he first swore his oath at sixteen, a faint spark in the back of his mind, so familiar that it went unnoticed unless he sought it out. Now that spark burned brighter, stronger than he’d ever known. It whispered to him like a siren.

  He woke drenched in cold sweat, alert for the first time in days. His vision was too sharp, colors brittle and razor-edged, and his pulse sang in his ears. Flowers of dried blood and other fluids spotted his bandages, but he could move his left arm again.

  Antja was in the kitchen. She started when he called to her, and something clattered into the sink. Her eyes were shadowed, her hair lank and tangled over her shoulders. She knelt beside the bed, pressing him down when he tried to sit and laying a cool hand against his forehead.

  “ Gott sei dank,” she whispered, and her voice was low and rough.

  “It’s all right,” he told her, folding his hands over hers. She winced; her palm was raw and pink, puffy with healing blisters. “The worst is over.”

  She laughed, short and harsh, but kissed his hands before she pulled away. “The worst is never over. You should know that by now.”

  Something was out of place in the room, but it took him a moment to recognize it: her bags were packed. Not just Antja’s luggage but his, piled in the middle of the floor.

  “You’re leaving?” Not that he could blame her, but the words took the wind out of him all the same.

  “We’re leaving. As soon as you’re well enough to travel. Vancouver isn’t safe anymore.”

  “How long have I been unconscious?”

  “Three days. It’s been quiet, but something is wrong. Something is coming.”

  “I can’t leave. I promised Blake—” He winced and she looked away. When she turned back her face was the cool mask he’d come to dread.

  “I saw Liz three days ago. Just before I came here. She took a whole vial of mania. She’s a vegetable now, just like Blake. So what else do you think you’ll be able to do?”

  Rainer closed his eyes, as if that could stop the news. His last hope. Blake’s last. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he wasn’t sure who he meant the words for.

  “Rest,” Antja said. “You’re still weak, and I need to clean up. We can talk about this later.”

  The bathroom door shut and water gurgled through the pipes. Rainer lay back, trying to take her advice. But as his eyes sagged close, a flash of red by the door caught his attention and jerked him awake again. The alarm panel. Someone was in the gallery.

  Sometimes he envied Antja her prayers.

  20

  Disintegration

  BLAKE WALKED SOUTH across Granville Bridge, hands clenched in the pockets of his borrowed coat. The street glittered with Christmas lights, but signs in the shop windows advertised Boxing Day sales. The newspapers said it was the twenty-seventh. He had lost three weeks.

  Snow drifted in lazy spirals from the dusty rose sky. Well after midnight, he guessed, from the depth of the stillness. The streets were deserted. Coffee cups piled in drifts by overflowing trashcans, and stray receipts and bits of wrapping fluttered soggy on the sidewalks. Only the lull of the holidays, but it felt as though he’d woken to find the world emptied in his absence.

  Behind the clouds, the stars brooded. The cold, inky thing inside him sensed their gaze too, and stirred. Was this what Rainer had meant when he’d spoken of his gift? It wasn’t what Blake had imagined. But he never could have imagined any of this.

  The gallery was dark and locked tight, but he saw a sliver of light in the upstairs window. The faceless angel above the door stared down at him. His hand closed on his keys, metal gouging his palm. What would he say to Rainer? He wanted the strength of anger, but all he felt was tired and lost.

  As he stood on the sidewalk searching for words, a car door shut across the street, then a second and a third. Footsteps started toward him, and he turned at the incredulous sound of his name.

  “Blake?” Stephen York’s eyes widened as he approached. “Son of a bitch. You’re alive.” Jason followed behind him, huddled against the cold, and another man Blake didn’t recognize.

  “I admit, we didn’t think you’d make it. Especially after Lions Gate blew up. Lucky you got out.”

  “Lucky,” Blake repeated, trying not to think of the nurse’s staring face. A warning sensation prickled down his back, a sensation he’d long since learned to listen to. Stephen had always set his alarms shivering, and now he was outnumbered. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just stopping in to talk to Rainer. Have you seen him yet?”

  When Blake shook his head, Stephen grinned. “Good. It will be a happy surprise.”

  All Blake’s instincts screamed at him to run. But he was too slow; Stephen’s hand slipped out of his coat pocket and the streetlamp gleamed yellow against the barrel of a gun. “Let’s go up together.” Stephen’s hand closed on Blake’s arm, steering him toward the narrow alley that led behind the gallery. Blake didn’t look at the gun, but he felt its pressure against his side. After Carcosa and the King, a gun felt like a toy, not anything that should frighten him.

  Which wasn’t enough to make him risk a hole in the gut, though. “I thought Canadians were politer than this,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “We all have our breaking points. I would have thought you’d be on my side, after what Rainer did to you. Not to mention Gemma and Robert and Alain.”

  Blake almost asked about Robert and Gemma, but decided not to give Stephen the satisfaction. Besides, he remembered the smell of blood, the screams, before Alain had dragged him to the water.

  He could use his imagination. Since Stephen hadn’t mentioned Antja, she must be alive.

  “If you thought I’d be on your side,” he said instead, “why is there a gun pointed at me?”

  “No point in taking chances.”

  Stephen’s voice was smooth as ever, but Blake heard the darker undercurrents; he was dead as soon as Rainer was. If not first. The shadow moved inside him, flaring like a cobra’s hood.

  Hinges squealed as Blake opened the back door. The blinking red light of the alarm panel broke the darkness inside; it chirped and quieted when he punched in his code.

  “Wait for me,” Stephen told his companions. Me instead of us settled Blake’s suspicions. The two men just nodded. Jason shivered, sallow in the sodium light; he didn’t meet Blake’s eyes. The other man looked through him as if he were already dead.

  Blake went first up the stairs. He could think of a dozen action movie scenarios for getting the gun away from Stephen, but he doubted any of them would survive contact with reality. A tingling itch started in his hands—like a nicotine itch, but he hadn’t had a cigarette in years and rarely missed them. It spread up his arms and throat, across his cheeks. He looked at his hand on the railing and saw a network of black veins beneath his skin. His stomach lurched, but in the next heartbeat the vision was gone, a trick of shadows and uncertain light.

  “What do you want?” he asked. Let Stephen think the fear in his voice was for the gun; he wished it were.

  “I have a lot invested in Vancouver. I thought Rainer could help me, but I was wrong. He’ll get himself killed with his crazy cultist bullshit, and a lot of other people too. It’s bad for business.”

  A thin stripe of light glowed under the door of the loft. Stephen’s eyes narrowed and the smell of ozone drifted through the air; the hair on Blake’s arms stood on end.

  “Open it,” Stephen told him.

  Static sparked under his hand as he turned the knob. Blake jerked, teeth closing on the inside of his cheek.

  He started again when he saw Rainer. The man’s sleek self possession was gone. His cheeks were pale and hollow, eyes sunken, hair matted. He leaned on the bar as though he couldn’t stand without it. Bandages wrapped his left shoulder, and ugly mot
tled bruises crept past the edge of the gauze. His jaw slackened when he saw Blake. “Blake.” Rainer’s voice broke on his name, and Blake’s chest tightened. He drew a breath, but Stephen spoke first.

  “Good evening.” The gun barrel pressed against Blake’s shoulder, pushing him gently into the room. “I’ve brought you a present.” Rainer’s eyes narrowed to electric slivers. “What have you done to him?”

  “Nothing yet, but that reminds me—”

  Stephen’s empty hand moved. Blake tensed for a blow, but instead the man grabbed his jaw and twisted his head around until their eyes met. “Don’t move.”

  The words echoed through his skull. He tried to flinch, but his muscles were locked and rigid. A shivery taste like biting aluminum foil spread through his mouth.

  “What are you doing here?” Rainer asked. He straightened, but one hand gripped the edge of the bar, white-knuckled. “I thought I should check up on you. And it looks like I was right.” Stephen flicked a finger toward Rainer’s shoulder. The gun didn’t waver. “Your friends from the cabin? I still haven’t figured out how they got in. Our philosophical differences aside, I know you can build a ward. And I’m sure you think it was me, but it wasn’t. So which of your friends sold you out, do you think?” Stephen paused, glancing around the room. Blake followed the sweep of his gaze—his eyes, at least, he still controlled—to the pile of bags on the floor. “Leaving town? Pity, if you’d thought of that a week ago I would have let you go. But now I’d rather not take that chance.”

  The smell of ozone returned and the room blurred like a heat shimmer. The air between Rainer and Stephen crackled; the hair on Blake’s nape stood on end. He looked past the suitcases, and noticed other details Stephen ignored: a woman’s coat draped across the couch, and light glowing beneath the closed bathroom door. He fought against Stephen’s compulsion, but the more he tried the more his muscles cramped and burned. The cold thing inside him could still move—he felt it coiling and uncoiling through him, testing the limits of its prison.

  Stephen’s head swung as if under a blow and he took a step back.

  Blake, still struggling, fell to his knees, biting his cheek bloody as charley horses knotted both his legs. Under the roar of his pulse he heard a distant crack, then another—like a car backfiring, but he doubted it was that innocent. Stephen steadied himself and gave a shaky laugh.

  “Is that it? I didn’t even need a hostage.”

  On his hands and knees, Blake felt a warm draft, smelled steam and shampoo. Light moved across the floor, then vanished abruptly.

  Stephen flinched again and a dark trickle oozed from one nostril.

  His mouth pressed to a white line. Rainer took a step forward and Stephen fell back. Blake’s breath caught.

  Then Rainer’s legs buckled and he slumped against the bar.

  A bottle tottered and fell, spraying glass and the sharp scent of whiskey through the room.

  “Nice try,” Stephen said, his voice strained, “but give this up before you embarrass everyone. Anyway, bullets trump magic.”

  He raised the gun.

  The cold shadow spread through him, lending him strength, and in that instant Blake could move again. He lunged at Stephen, catching him hard at the knees. They both sprawled across the floor.

  Thunder cracked, but the pressure that caught Blake in the face was an elbow, not a bullet. His head snapped back and blood filled his mouth, thick and sickly sweet. Dark spots swam across his eyes. He scrambled backward and fell, waiting for the next shot. But Stephen was empty handed.

  “Looking for this?” Antja asked.

  Stephen raised a hand, shock stripping away his slick veneer.

  “Antja—”

  Thunder roared again and his head burst in a warm red spray.

  Blood and thicker things splattered Blake’s face.

  Antja stood over them, hair dripping down the shoulders of her bathrobe, hands white-knuckled on the gun. The barrel never wavered.

  Blake stared at the wet red ruin that had been a man’s face.

  The smell of copper and raw meat filled his nose, followed by the pungent stink of urine; the taste slid down his throat as he swallowed.

  “I don’t think he’s getting up,” he finally said.

  Antja blinked and lowered the gun to her side. “No.” She looked down at Blake and her mouth twitched. “Hello.”

  He laughed once and his whole body trembled. He scrubbed a hand across his face, wincing as gore smeared. His nose throbbed, and blood trickled sluggishly from both nostrils.

  “Hi.” Muscles screamed as he stood, his calves still twitching with cramp. Goosebumps rippled down his skin. At first he thought it was shock, until he felt the icy draft. Stephen’s bullet had gone through a window.

  Blake and Antja turned to Rainer, who had regained his feet. His face was paler than ever, and a crimson stain like a Rorschach blot seeped across his bandage. Antja dropped the gun on the table and ran to him before he fell again.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not badly. No worse than before, anyway. You?”

  “I’m fine.” She helped Rainer into a chair and stepped back, straightening her damp robe.

  Blake started forward, stopped short. “What the hell happened to me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Rainer whispered. “I never meant for you to be hurt.

  For anyone—”

  “Alain is dead.” He fought a shudder; he hadn’t put the words together since Liz spoke them in Carcosa. “So are a lot of other people.”

  No one spared a glance for Stephen’s cooling body.

  “What happened to me?” Blake asked again. “That thing—your King, your angel—he put something in me. It’s still there.” He moved closer and Antja fell back, her face tight and pale. Rainer stood, leaning hard on the chair. Blake smelled blood and sweat and the crackling ozone scent that he realized must be magic.

  He met Rainer’s snow-shadow eyes and the shadow in him stirred once more, this time in recognition. Rainer’s eyes darkened, and Blake knew he felt it too.

  He reached out and cupped Rainer’s cheek. His fingers tingled at the touch, and gooseflesh rippled across Rainer’s chest. Beneath the other man’s skin, Blake felt the same darkness moving. But so much less. A noonday shadow compared to the bottom of a lightless well. Blake’s stomach tightened and he nearly leaned into the touch.

  Instead he pulled away, his pulse beating sharp in his throat.

  Rainer’s eyes were wide and nearly black.

  Before either of them could speak, the floor beneath them shuddered and a howl tore the air.

  NO ONE SPOKE as Lailah’s smoke-colored car cut through the slick streets toward downtown. Liz sat in the backseat next to Rae, clutching her seatbelt at every too-sharp turn. Alex had given up complaining after the third stomach-lurching swerve. Now he hunched in the passenger seat, his hand white-knuckled on the overhead handle.

  It wasn’t until they reached the bridge that Rae reached across the seat and caught Liz’s hand. The girl’s eyes were wide and dark—too dark, as if her pupils had swallowed her irises and were spreading across her sclera. Liz tried not to shudder.

  “What was it like?” Rae asked. Her voice was all but lost beneath the engine and hiss of the tires.

  “Awful. In every sense of the word.” During her bath she had found thin welts criss-crossing her arms and stomach. Echoes of the wounds she’d taken in Carcosa. “Terrible. But”—the admission caught in her throat—“it was beautiful too.”

  Rae made a choked little noise and turned away. She tugged the sleeves of her sweater over her hands, but not before Liz saw the darkness creeping under her skin. Lailah’s eyes flickered in the rearview mirror; her hands tightened on the wheel.

  The downtown streets were quiet, even for two days after Christmas. Did other people feel the unnatural tension in the air? Did they have the sense to avoid it?

  Light glowed in the gallery’s upstairs windows. Slush sprayed from the tires
as Lailah swung through the alley and into the narrow parking lot. Liz had her hand on the door before the car finished braking. The night air sliced through her coat and sweater, but the chill she felt went deeper than that.

  Two men stood by the back door, no one Liz recognized. One huddled unhappily against stair rail, arms folded across his chest. The other moved forward. His hands were open at his sides, but there was nothing friendly in the set of his shoulders.

  “Who are you?” Lailah asked.

  His lips moved but he didn’t answer. The light shifted around him, the yellow sodium glare gathering in his hands. He raised a hand, a glow like a dying star cradled in his palm.

  Lailah was faster. The gun spoke like thunder and the man fell. Blood trickled black across the snowy asphalt and his light flickered and died.

  “Fucking magicians,” she muttered.

  The second man shouted, his voice high and young. Hardly more than a teenager. Liz’s stomach tightened, but she was too slow. Lailah fired again and he fell to his knees.

  Rae shrieked, short and sharp, and bolted forward. “Jason?”

  The young man looked up from the wet ruin of his chest and his eyes widened. “Rae?” A dark bubble burst on his lips, leaking down his chin. “What—” He sank back against the door, while tendrils of blood snaked across the stairs. Rae knelt beside him, brushing a shaking hand against his face. Her fingers came away red and wet.

  Lailah’s face was a cold mask in the jaundiced light. “We need to go.”

  Rae’s eyes were lost in shadow. Her throat convulsed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the dead boy.

  Liz caught Alex’s hand. He trembled with cold or rage or both, but let her pull him toward the door. She heard him swallow as they stepped around the spreading puddles of blood. The cold numbed Liz’s nose, but not enough to mask the smell.