by Jon Jacks
‘Panthia can ensnare another target, so it’s not so painful for you to watch.’
She bends down, lifts Iain’s head up by his chin.
‘As for your precious Iain, well, he’s a good-looking man, isn’t he? Plans can change, and we can use him in other ways.’
I can no longer see Lamia.
Freed from her mother’s fixating gaze, Panthia has turned around, watching as a door at the darkened rear of the room opens.
At first, I think I’m seeing a plume of shimmering smoke slip into the room, as if the door opens up onto a busy kitchen.
But the misty cloud moves closer towards us, letting the door snap shut behind it.
It writhes.
It snakes sinuously through the air.
It wails quietly.
Happily.
I sense Panthia smiling in greeting.
As the wraith draws closer, I realise there’s a mix of fluctuating forms to it; part human, part serpentine, part unrecognisable beast.
It closes in and hovers over Iain’s sleeping body.
‘Oh, Stephanie dear,’ Lamia says, glancing Panthia’s way once more, ‘I should warn you that you may not want to watch this.’
*
Chapter 24
‘Incubi! Succubae! That’s what we’re dealing with here!’ Jassy exclaims excitedly, urgently grabbing me by my arm.
‘No, we’re dealing with drea–’
‘No, no, we’re not!’ Jassy angrily insists, interrupting Dave’s nonchalant dismissal of her observation.
She whirls back on me.
‘Steph, you have to help Iain! This isn’t a dream – this is happening right now!’
*
‘Let him go,’ Panthia commands sternly.
‘What?’
Lamia looks up at Panthia in surprise.
Even the wraith halts in its whirling, eddying motion around Iain’s slumped body.
‘I’m sorry mother; that wasn’t me – obviously,’ Panthia says.
‘That’s right – I said it,’ I say, using Panthia’s mouth.
Lamia’s mouth briefly hangs open in surprise.
Then she laughs.
‘Remarkable! Truly remarkable!’ she exclaims happily, moving closer towards me, her eyes locked on mine once more.
A shiver runs down through my entire body.
‘How strange! I’ve never seen this before!’
‘Let him go,’ I say. ‘You’ve already got me.’
‘Hmn, have we now?’
She draws back a little, swiftly running her eyes up and down my body.
‘Panthia; I take it you’re still in control of everything else?’
‘Of course!’ Panthia declares. ‘I could regain full control if you wish; stop her using my mouth like this!’
‘My mouth actually.’
‘Yes, yes; your mouth,’ Lamia says. ‘But that’s all you’re controlling, I think you’ll find.’
I try to prove her wrong by slapping her face.
My arm doesn’t move.
‘Panthia’s a succubus; she’s taken over your body,’ Jassy hisses. ‘That thing hovering over Iain is an incubus; the male equivalent.’
This time, Dave keeps quiet. He’s awestruck.
Both Lamia and Panthia laugh derisively, as if they’re fully aware of my futile attempt to wrest some form of control back.
‘As you can see, my dear Stephanie, whenever anyone comes here for my help, I can’t bear to see such gorgeous young bodies going to waste when my hungry sons and daughters can make so much better use of them. It’s so much more efficient than working through dreams, as we used to. Not that we’re so cruel as to completely eradicate you, of course; we just complete the process of helping you move into that little compartment of your mind you’d withdraw into to live a life of wishful thinking.’
‘You trapped me here?’ I say.
‘Oh no, not me – my dear Panthia really deserves the credit for that, when she so easily accomplished what you’d struggled so long to achieve. Your wish had been realised, you weren’t required anymore; you were free to take up permanent residence where you’d always retired to whenever you’d felt hurt by life’s unfairness.’
‘It wasn’t my wish to live like this!’
She shrugs.
‘Lovers! Are they never satisfied?’
*
The incubus writhes.
It curls around Iain.
It’s thickening, gaining in substance.
I can’t move.
I can’t help him.
All Panthia is allowing me to do is to watch.
*
Chapter 25
All this is happening because I’d withdrawn from the life around me.
I’d more or less ignored my friends, Cherry and Mary, preferring to spend most of my time dreaming of or pining over Iain.
Even at home, I was a misery, going about the house as if in a debilitating daze.
Cherry and Mary were both such great friends too.
Fun to be with.
Girls with a very similar mind to mine. Chatting and laughing over everything from movies we used to go and see to music we used to listen together.
Mum and dad, too, were wonderful, in their over-bearing, over-caring way.
Every effort they’d made to help me get over Iain, I’d shrugged off. Saying they didn’t understand. Saying they were too old to know what I was going through.
Yeah, like they’d never, ever been young, right?
They’d never, ever suffered unrequited love like me, yeah?
‘Steph, I don’t know what it is you’re doing; but keep doing it!’
What?
What’s Dave mean?
Keep doing what?
‘You’re opening up your mind!’ Jassy explains. ‘You’re breaking out of the little compartment you’d retreated into.’
How?
How do you know?
‘Because you’ll never guess who we’ve got here with us!’
I drop out of my reverie.
While I’ve been giving Jassy and Dave a running commentary of my meeting with Lamia, other intrigued students have gathered around us on the lawn.
And amongst them all, struggling to break free of their many scrabbling, clinging arms and hands, is a stunningly beautiful, incredibly angry girl.
‘Who’s she?’ I ask.
Jassy smiles up at me triumphantly.
‘We reckon she’s the delightful Panthia.’
*
‘How’s that possible?’ I ask, bewildered. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘Well, we’re getting some idea of how all this Heartache High thing works now, thanks to you!’
Jassy says it like she’s figured out an easy way to sneak into the movies for free, rather than sitting amongst a group of boys and girls struggling to hold down a wailing banshee of a woman who’s wildly lashing out at anyone nearby.
‘See, we’re each trapped in a little corner of our minds left to us by an occupying succubus.’
‘But we’re all emotionally the same,’ Dave says excitedly, ‘all focused on thinking about nothing but the same thing; so we’ve created an incredibly strong, sort of telepathic connection.’
‘When you started breaking out of your little compartment though, Steph, you were spreading into areas of your mind Panthia had believed were hers for the keeping.’
‘You forced enough of her out of those areas so that a part of her was briefly visible here; just alongside you, though you didn’t know it. So we made a grab f
or her, and dragged her in here with us!’
‘Is that possible?’ It still doesn’t make any sense to me. ‘For her to be in here?’
‘No, of course it isn’t!’
‘What do you mean? But she is here!’
‘Well, even the you standing here, Steph,’ Jassy explains, ‘isn’t the complete you, is it?’
‘Your body’s still out there, for instance,’ Dave adds helpfully. ‘But what’s here is just enough of you to fully represent the whole you.’
‘And this is just a small part of Panthia; but enough of her to control her. The same way a brain surgeon can manipulate the whole body by tweaking a minute part of the brain.’
‘When a hologram smashes, each fragment still contains a picture of the whole thing.’
‘Try it, Steph!’ Jassy urges. ‘See if you can get back control of your body!’
I look through my eyes into the room once more.
Iain has his head tipped back.
The incubus is crouched over him, its hands holding him firmly as it gradually forces its writhing, serpentine tail into his mouth.
‘Stop it! Let him go!’ I say yet again.
Lamia laughs.
I tense my muscles, feeling them reacting to my thoughts at last.
Then I throw myself across the floor towards Iain.
*
Chapter 26
I crash hard into Iain’s seated, sleeping body.
It’s enough to send him flying from the chair.
I follow after him, the chair tumbling across the floor with us.
The lighter, more insubstantial incubus hangs behind us in the air. Great lengths of its immensely long tail come spiralling out of Iain’s gagging mouth, but its end is still deeply embedded within him.
Iain wakes up. His eyes widen in horror as he sees and feels the ghostly monstrosity snaking from his mouth.
I grasp the strangely wet coils, pulling hard at them to pull the tail free of Iain’s mouth.
The wraith leaps on me from behind, wrapping its arms around me in an attempt to pull me away.
Iain’s still shocked, terrified. But he also begins to wrench the winding coils from his mouth, until at last the tail’s thinner ends are spooling out.
With a spluttering, gagging retch, Iain coughs the evilly barbed end free.
I’ve ignored the clawing hands of the incubus clasped around my shoulders long enough.
I try and reach up to pull him off, but he bats my arms away and shuffles to one side.
Unbalanced, I begin to topple over until Iain rushes to my aid, grabbing the writhing demon by what passes for its waist and fiercely tugging on it.
It screeches. It lashes out.
With a final, vigorous wrench, Iain pulls the demon away from me. Whirling around, drawing on the momentum of his hard wrench, Iain throws the incubus off to one side.
Almost weightless, it flies through the air. It crashes against an elaborate display of yard-long arrows, the shafts scattering, snapping, interlocking and entangling.
The incubus wails as the massed arrows pierce it, pinning it amongst the shattered display.
‘Fortunately for you, my son can’t be killed so easily.’
Lamia is calmly making her way back from the potion cabinet.
She’s carrying a stoppered bottle of urine-coloured liquid, as if she’s been coolly mixing a new potion as we fought the incubus.
‘The amusements over, I think,’ she declares firmly, pulling her arm back in readiness to throw the potion at us.
‘No, stop!’ I shout, raising a hand. ‘Stop if you care for your daughter!’
‘Panthia? Obviously, dear, you’ve managed to briefly wrest control off her; but she’s a big girl now, and perfectly capable of looking after herself.’
She says it all completely nonchalantly, like she doesn’t care.
But she hasn’t just held back from throwing the potion; she’s lowered her arm, giving me the impression that she’s prepared to talk.
That she’s not quite as confident about her daughter’s wellbeing as she’s trying to make out.
‘We’re holding her; back at Heartache High, we’re holding her.’
Iain glances my way with a puzzled frown. Even so, he’s had the sense to begin moving away from me, just as I’m moving away from him.
We’re putting distance between us, slowly circling Lamia.
Lamia will have to choose who she targets with her potion if she ever gets around to throwing it.
‘Unless you let us go,’ I continue, ‘she’s staying there.’
‘Hah! She’s only inside one of you, don’t forget!’
I’d guessed that, knowing Panthia is inside me, not Iain, she’d be more likely to target him.
So even as she spins on her heels to throw the potion at him, I’m reaching for a huge pike held in the flimsy hand of a suit of samurai armour.
There’s no resistance from a hand that’s only formed from the armour itself.
I don’t waste time grabbing the long shaft; I simply pull down hard on it, bringing the blade scything down on Lamia’s head.
The blade slices through her hair, her skin, her skull.
Her legs buckle.
Her arms go limp, the stoppered bottle dropping from her hand only a few inches off the floor.
She collapses, her body splaying ungainly across the red carpet.
I rush to Iain’s side, glancing down at Lamia.
Her eyes are still wide, still like deep, green pools.
Still sparkling.
‘She’s still looking at us!’ Iain says, clasping me tightly against his body. ‘She isn’t dead!’
Cautiously, we draw nearer to her.
Giving her a swift kick, I immediately pull my foot back, expecting her to suddenly reach out and grab it.
There’s no movement from her.
‘Her eyes always remain open,’ I say blankly to Iain. ‘A punishment of the gods.’
*
Chapter 27
Understandably, Iain’s confused.
‘The gods?’
He looks at me like I might be a little crazed.
Then, glancing over at the incubus still trying to struggle free of the pinioning arrows, he shakes his head, like he’s wondering if he’s caught up in a bad dream.
‘No, it’s not a nightmare you’re having,’ I chuckle, drawing him close.
Wow!
I’ve just realised; this is the first time I’ve held him like this.
The first time, too, I’ve been held by him.
I wonder – what is it like to kiss him?
Why wonder anymore?
*
It’s only as we finishing kissing that I remember I’ve got an audience back in Heartache High.
Later, they’ll want me to fill in the details of the fight I’ve been way too busy to describe as it happened.
‘Wow!’ Iain says as we finally pull apart. ‘That’s just as I’d always imagined it would be with you Steph!’
‘That’s became it is me, Iain; the real me!’
How will it happen for me now?
With Panthia as a prisoner, will I continue to exist in both worlds?
Can I say here, with Iain?
Will I also have to continue attending Heartache High?
Or have I achieved the impossible?
Have I left Heartache High?
*
As I hold Iain’s hand, he begins to rise into the air.
‘What? Iain?’
But he can’t reply.
His mouth is gagged with the end of a barbed tail.
; Serpentine coils loop around his body, holding him fast.
He’s rising higher into the air, his struggling useless.
‘I did warn you my son wouldn’t be killed so easily,’ Lamia declares proudly.
*
Chapter 28
Lamia looms over me.
Or rather, what had been Lamia.
In part, she’s still recognisable.
The beautiful face, untouched by the blade that had sliced the back of her head open.
The upper body, graceful and toned.
Below this, however, the body broadens, elongates immeasurably, transformed into the writhing coils of an impossibly large serpent that takes up the entire room.
Her arms, too, are long and lizard-like, as if taken from a dragon.
I glance over towards the shattered arrow display.
The incubus is no longer pinioned there.
‘He’s enjoined with me, Stephanie dear; to give my body the energy surge it needed to swiftly recover. Not that I was dead, of course.’
I haven’t got time to listen to her.
I rush across the floor, half rolling, half ducking beneath Iain as he continues in his useless struggle to break free of Lamia’s entrapping coils.
I grab the pike I’d used to split Lamia’s head open, swinging it hard around in a sweeping arch towards her broad, unmissable torso.
The blade swishes through the air, directly on target – and clangs violently against scales as hard as stone.
‘This is the bit where I should cackle wickedly,’ Lamia casually declares.
Languidly slithering across the floor towards me, she effortlessly shifts the entrapped Iain behind her, moving him farther out of my reach.
‘There’s no need for me to chase you; if you don’t stop now, I’ll squeeze the life out of your precious Iain.’
Iain’s eyes bulge as she tightens her entwining coils. He can’t scream; the tail end still gags his mouth.
‘No, no; please,’ I plead – then remember we still hold her own precious Panthia back in Heartache High. ‘Let’s not forget poor little Panthia; I wouldn’t hurt Iain if I were you.’
‘If you were me? But you aren’t me, are you Stephanie dear? In fact, you’re not even you, are you? Panthia will soon see to that once more.’
Suddenly, Lamia lurches down towards me, reaching out with an elongated, scaly arm.
I duck once more, throwing myself to one side yet again.
I almost somersault, almost tumble towards where the potion bottle had fallen to the floor.
Lifting the bottle up high, I hurl it with all my strength towards Lamia’s upper, more human body.
It shatters with a tinkling crackle against skin every bit as hard as the tile-like scales.
I’ve no idea what kind of potion is in the bottle.
No idea what it might do.
But what choice do I have?
As soon as the glass cracks, the liquid inside instantly turns gaseous.
It spreads in a rapidly growing cloud, rising high up towards Lamia’s face. It swiftly eddies throughout the room.
