Defy the Dark (24 page)

“Stop messing around.” I fight a full-body shiver. “It's not funny anymore.”

He smiles.

As we get closer to the action, I see that the monster's skin colors range from moonlight to crimson to ebony. They all have glowing yellow eyes. They're adorned in clothing made of animal pelts, and claws extend from their fingers and toes.

Kit lets me go and I'm sucked into the center of the action. Their furs stink of death and rot. Most all of the figures have thick limbs and yellow nails in the beginning stages of curling into claws. If these are the fakes, I don't want to get anywhere near the real thing.

I'm losing my mind. Monsters aren't real.

They form a ring around me, and I lose track of Kit.

The slamming of the chains against the cobblestones becomes a song, and their movements become a dance. I can hear low grunts issuing from their throats. I am jostled and shaken and almost knocked down, and my heart beats with desperation. I want out. And I can't get out.

I'm halfway to a panic attack when I bounce off Henry's shoulder.

I grab the front of his coat. “Henry! What the hell is going on?”

Around us, the Krampus continue their dance. The circle closes, tighter and tighter.

“Elke disappeared.” He takes my hand and holds it tightly, as if he's making sure he won't lose me. “I think they're playing a joke on the gullible tourists.”

I take stock of our surroundings. The crowd has surged away from the pub, and I've been too busy looking for rescue to notice which direction. “Where are we?”

“Look!” Henry waves his free arm. “Over there.”

Relief is sweet. Kit and Elke.

As we push through the crowd of monsters, I realize how incredibly fast they move. Their horns are razor sharp, and every beast holds a wicked-looking stick in addition to the rusty chains.

I look toward Kit again and see that he and Elke have their arms wrapped around each other. And not in a friendly way.

“Henry.”

We've fallen into a ridiculous trap. Whether the monsters we see are real or the plot of ill-intentioned humans, we're in trouble.

“I see them.” He grunts in frustration. “We can switch dates and kick ass when we get out of here. But let's just concentrate on actually getting out.”

Miraculously, he finds a way through the chaos.

We run hand in hand, and Henry jerks me into an alley. I try to catch my breath and figure out where we are. I don't think we're in the town center anymore.

“Why would they do that to us?” Henry looks up and down the street while I lean over to relace my boots. “Just for a sick joke? Is this how they treat tourists? Henry?”

I turn around.

Krampus.

What I would've thought was a mask five seconds ago has become skin. Strings of saliva pool around teeth attached to red gums. A long tongue leads to a wide-open mouth and gullet.

The smell is like being locked in a hot car with pounds of rotted meat packed around you. And he's holding an empty sack.

“We're going to die,” I say, grabbing Henry's arm and backing up. The monster does nothing. Just stares.

“Don't say that.” I've never heard Henry so scared.

“You're my best friend.”

“Don't do the whole last-words thing, Bex.” Henry pulls me behind him, putting himself between the monster and me. “We could be hallucinating.”

The monster roars so loud, it blows our hair back.

“Listen to me.” Tears form, but I swipe them away before they roll down my cheeks. “I have to say this. I've played so many stupid games.”

“We both have.”

The monster is starting toward us now.

“I love you, Henry. I'm in love with you.”

“I love you back. Even after you peed in your pants.” He stumbles over a piece of trash. Krampus stills and tilts his head to the side.

I steady Henry. The end of the alley is so dark. Stacks of wooden crates lean perilously against the wall. No one can see us from the street. Krampus just has to knock us out, stuff us in his sack, and then blend in with the crowd until it's time to go home.

If a lair is considered a home, rather than a place to cook
people
for Christmas dinner.

“The next time we want to fight our feelings for each other, let's do it in our own backyard instead of crossing several time zones and into the
Twilight Zone
?” Henry sounds hopeful.

“The next time?” I bark a harsh laugh. “In case you haven't noticed, we're about to be dinner.”

Krampus takes two huge steps forward.

“Bex.” Henry grabs my wrist so hard my fingers go numb. “Look.”

There's a door in the building to our left, and a thin slit of light shines through. A tiny prickle of a memory of something I've read pulls at the corner of my brain.

“Get his sack,” I say between my teeth.

Henry does a double take. “Say what?”

“Just do it.”

Moving in tandem as only two people who've known each other for a lifetime can do, Henry jerks the sack out of the monster's hand. I jump behind the crates and push them over on Krampus just as Henry clears the space. Henry slams his hand against the door to open it, and we run inside the building.

The smell of rot is replaced by the smell of baked goods.

“Yes!” I slam the door behind us and fist pump. “Geek research for the win! If Krampus loses his sack, he loses his power. We did—”

Before I get the words out, Henry takes my face in his hands. His kiss is serious, scared, and full of all kinds of promises. When he pulls away, I'm dizzy.

There's a roar and a crash, and claws begin to scratch relentlessly at the closed door.

“If you want to do that again—”

“I do,” I interrupt. “Many, many times.”

“Then run.”

 

W
hen I was seventeen and he was eighteen, Henry Bishop and I went to Bavaria, stole a sack, escaped a monster, and fell in love.

Christine Johnson

Shadowed

T
he clash of swords rang across the field. The sound climbed the stone walls of the tower and danced through Esme's window, accompanied by a chorus of cheers. She pressed against the tapestries that lined the walls, the parchment window covering she'd ripped down clutched in her hands. Carefully, slowly, she peered through the narrow window like a thief.

Why did it have to be sunny on a Tournament day? After a week of gray skies, when she'd been able to stand at the window and watch the pages set up the benches and decorate them with standards, she'd been heartbroken to wake today to such shining weather. She'd harbored no hope of leaving her rooms, but it would have been nice to see the mock battle without the sweating fear that the light would shift and her shadow would spring to life behind her.

From the field below the tower, the chime of steel against steel came faster and the crowd roared. Two knights staggered to the edge of the field and into Esme's view. Their armor gleamed, still new enough to shine. The hair at the back of her neck stood on end as she watched them fight. One was significantly larger—a bear of a man with a stomach built to accommodate long nights of too much food and drink. He should have overpowered his opponent with little trouble. But the other knight, with a brass cap across each shoulder of his armor, ducked and danced as though the metal skin that he wore weighed nothing at all. His sword flickered through the air, the sun glinting off the blade as it swung.

The light hit the gleaming steel and shattered into a thousand rays. Esme caught her breath. She had never seen anything so bright. The mirrored flat of his sword turned the pollen-yellow glow into a white-hot beam that lanced painfully across her vision. After seventeen years of nothing but the dimmest and darkest, it was too much to bear. Her eyelids flew shut and she raised a hand to cover them, pitching forward as her knees turned weak beneath her.

Hers was not the only hand that brushed her skin, and the other was not so gentle. Her eyes sprang open, and in the mirror across the room, she saw her shadow pressed in close behind her. Panicked, Esme clawed at the inky hand that gripped her throat. She'd swayed too close to the window, too close to the sunlight.

With her voice crushed beneath the obsidian palm, she struggled toward the darkness in the room, but her shadow shoved her closer to the window. Stars exploded across her vision, a rainbow of lights that would have been beautiful if she weren't so terrified.

For one instant, her gaze fell on the field below her, and she saw the more nimble knight crouch and spin, avoiding the clumsy arc of his opponent's sword. Instinctively, Esme copied him, her skirts pooling on the floor as she bent her knees and swept in a half circle. The weight of her own shadow crashed against her back, its feet momentarily lifted from the floor. She fell, her knees cracking painfully against the cold, dark stone. But the crushing pressure disappeared from her neck.

She'd made it out of the sunlight.

Her shadow was gone and she was safe. For now.

Unsteadily, she got to her feet, stumbling over the hem of her skirt. As her breaths ripped through her battered throat, she realized that the only ringing she heard was in her own ears.

The tournament was over? Could that be?

Curiosity beat at her, forcing Esme closer to the window in spite of the patter of her heart. She gripped the edge of the nearest tapestry, ready to duck behind it if needed, and peered down. The two knights were still at the far edge of the field, but the larger one was on his hands and knees, his sword abandoned in the grass.

A cheer rose from the crowd, startling a few birds that rose in unison and flapped off into the distance. The smaller knight removed his helmet, revealing waves of auburn hair that nearly brushed his shoulders. From the horizon, a bank of clouds swept in, bringing with them the sort of rumble that promised a sudden storm. As the sunlight faded, Esme dared step directly in front of the window.

The knight turned and waved his helmet, acknowledging the crowd. Esme caught sight of his profile. A square jaw framed a smile that gleamed almost as brightly as his sword. Esme's heart galloped yet more unevenly. He was so handsome. It was as though his face had been shaped to satisfy the particular hunger of her gaze.

He started to step toward his opponent, but a trumpet sounded at the base of the tower, reminding the knight that he hadn't acknowledged her, and the knight stopped.

Slowly, he turned and faced the tower where she stood. His eyes scaled the walls and his smile faded as he stared at Esme. She didn't dare breathe. Behind him, the clouds roiled in the sky like a dark blessing.

She stood there, protected by nothing but the clouds. The knight dipped his head to her, and she wondered if his acknowledgment was anything more than a nearly forgotten politeness.

But then he straightened. And the look he gave her glowed so brightly that, for a moment, she couldn't see anything else. Unbidden by custom, he dropped to one knee. The crowd murmured loudly enough for Esme to hear it. Their surprise mirrored her own.

Dizzy with the lingering effects of her own battle and the sweetness of this unexpected attention, Esme pulled out the wide blue ribbon that twined through the gold net that held her hair. She let one end flutter through the window, accepting his tribute. She was grateful that he couldn't see that it wasn't the breeze, but rather her trembling that shook the length of satin in her hand.

The crowd began to rustle and point, relishing a rare glimpse of the girl who terrified and entranced them at the same time. The gasp that came from behind Esme startled her so badly that she spun away from the window, half expecting to see her shadow reaching for her again.

“What are you doing?” Margaret came rushing in with her arms full of fresh linen sheets.

“Just—they were announcing the winner, and the clouds had come. I was only at the window for a moment, I swear.” Esme started to cross the room, intending to pick up her needlework and stitch tiny red flowers until the blood quit galloping through her veins.

Margaret caught her by the sleeve. “A moment at a cloudy window doesn't leave marks like that on your neck.” Her usually ruddy cheeks were nearly as pale as Esme's snow-white skin. “You got shadowed.”

Though Margaret was supposed to be her lady's maid, she often seemed to Esme more like a jailer who was good with hairpins and small buttons.

With a sigh, Esme nodded. There was no use trying to pretend she hadn't been attacked. In a few hours, the marks on her neck would darken into ugly purple bruises that would be impossible to hide. “You're going to tell my father, aren't you?”

“I don't see how I can avoid it. Have you seen your neck?”

Esme walked over to the polished brass mirror. She'd expected to see red marks. Maybe the violet beginnings of a bruise. But the finger marks striped across her neck were black as tar.

Esme tried to hide her grimace. “You'll be in as much trouble as I will if you tell him. You were supposed to stay with me, remember?” She didn't want to put Margaret in a bad spot, but the last time she'd been shadowed, her father had ordered her to be removed to one of the interior rooms of the tower. A room with no windows at all. It had taken her half a year's begging to convince him to let her back into her room. She couldn't bear that again.

As it was, she hadn't been out of the tower since her shadow had attacked her last. Not that she'd been out more than a scant handful of times before that—and always in the dark of the moon—but after that last incident, the tower felt less like a protection and more like a prison.

Margaret bit her lip. “Perhaps a wimple, instead of the gold net. If we wrapped it around your neck and pinned it . . . ?”

“We could leave my hair down,” Esme suggested.

Margaret sighed. “We'll do both, I expect. I'll go see Old Anne. She may have something to lessen the marking.”

The idea of Margaret walking through the feasting and revelry, walking so close to the knight—
her
knight—was more than Esme could bear. She tugged at Margaret's sleeves.

“Please,” she begged, not caring that it was unbecoming, “wait until after dark. Let me go with you. Surely no one will notice one more body in the crowd on a night like tonight. I'll take my dinner in my room, say I have a headache. No one will know. It will be better if Anne can see the bruises for herself, anyway.” The last was a lie. She neither knew nor cared whether Anne could serve her better after seeing the bruises.

She just wanted one taste of the revelry below. One sip.

It wasn't an outrageous request. Of the few times she'd been out of the tower, most of those had been to see Old Anne about her shadowy curse.

“That is an outrageous request!” Margaret announced, her hand flying to her chest. “Anyone could recognize you. You could stumble into firelight or lamplight. Your father would have my head.”

“Surely I could be well disguised,” Esme argued. “And I'm not careless enough to wander close to a fire.”

“The only thing we'll be disguising are those bruises on your neck.
I
will go see Old Anne.
You
will stay in your room until I get back. Now let me go get that wimple. You're lucky I don't tell your father what happened. Risking your life, just to watch a silly tournament.” She clucked, putting down the sheets. Margaret walked through the archway into the adjoining dressing room and bent to rummage through the cupboard.

Esme turned back to the window, watching as the standards snapped and sagged beneath the howling storm.

“How much is this sort of life worth, anyway?”

The wind snatched her whispered words and swept them out the window. Behind her, oblivious, Margaret began to hum as she readied Esme's head covering.

 

A
fter a lonely dinner, Esme lay across her bed, watching through the far window as the lingering clouds turned a crimson-tinged pink with the setting sun. The sounds of feasting—raucous laughter and ragged bits of music—rolled across the field.

The tightly pinned wimple chafed the fresh bruises on Esme's skin. But for those marks—but for the curse of her shadow—she could have at least been downstairs with her family. It would have been a more restrained gathering, of course. The thought of it didn't make her blood bubble the way the thought of skirting around the bonfires in the field did, but anything would be better than lying alone in her room, as far as she could get from the lamplight, embroidering flowers in the dark.

Margaret had disappeared shortly after dinner, looking at Esme severely as she went, making her promise to be good. If anyone could help, it would be Anne. With all her salves and poultices, her uncanny ability to see a person's problems in the dregs of their tea—she was better than any of the doctors. It was the only reason no one outright said the word
witch
around her. They'd all needed her in one way or another.

Esme tugged at her wimple. If Margaret hurried, if Anne was in a quick and giving mood, she might even be rid of the bruises by tomorrow. There would be a second feast. A second celebratory dinner. It wouldn't be as much, but at least she wouldn't miss everything.

She was so tired of missing everything.

The stars began winking in the purple sky, like eyes struggling to open after a long night's sleep. When no more light stained the floor beneath her window, Esme went to watch the celebration. The king had planned the tournament for a moonless night, which meant she could watch the revelers, at least. Even if her father would never allow her outside to join them.

Just because it was night, that didn't mean she was safe. There were a thousand ways to cast a shadow in the dark. Her father looked sad when he reminded her of the dangers, but not sad enough to relent.

From her tower vantage point, she could see the whole field. Fire dotted the grass. She watched the little gems of torches and lamps bobble in between the bonfires. Closing her eyes, she breathed as deeply as her bodice would allow.

Mostly, the cool, storm-washed air was all that she could smell. But faintly, just underneath it, was the scent of wood smoke and the mouthwatering tang of meat being roasted on a spit somewhere. Her stomach rumbled, complaining about the thin soup and airy bread that she'd eaten. It was a delicate dinner that had been sent up for her delicate constitution, but what she really wanted was a flagon of the small beer that filled the barrels, and a plate of the fire-blackened boar meat.

She sighed and tapped her foot in time to the music, watching as the dancers turned and bowed and spun, smiling in the firelight. While her feet beat out a jig on the floor, she pushed her head as far out the narrow window as she could, relishing every finger's width closer she could get to the beating heart of the celebration.

Something below her caught her eye—a sudden stillness in the seething motion of the party.

Esme's feet ceased their tapping and her hands curled around the stone of the sill. The bonfire behind the knight turned his auburn hair into a flame all its own. Even without his armor, she recognized him. Even in the dark, she knew the twin lights of his sword and his smile.

The knight bowed to her, then put a hand on his chest. Esme hung from the windowsill, her toes barely touching the floor beneath her, suspended like a fly in amber. She wasn't allowed to go down there. She was unable to go down there. But she couldn't bring herself to turn away from him, either.

Margaret appeared next to her.

With a squeak, Esme let go of the windowsill and dropped to the floor.

“Hanging from the windowsill?” Margaret started. “Of all the—”

“Never mind that,” Esme interrupted. “What about Anne?”

Margaret held up her empty hands. “She said you must come to her. That she'd read the tea leaves and they said, this time, she cannot treat your injuries without seeing them for herself. She said she would not cross the wisdom of the leaves.” Her voice was quiet, but frustration poisoned her speech.