Dreams of Shreds and Tatters (21 page)

Alex turned toward the window, stumbling over the edge of a carpet in the dark, and pulled aside the drapes. Light streamed in, weak and pale as skimmed milk between the shadows of snowdusted evergreens, but still enough to make him wince. Slanting afternoon light—they’d been here at least a day. At least a day, and Liz still slept like some spindle-pricked princess.

“I hope you’re not planning to sleep a hundred years,” he murmured, bending down to brush her dry lips with his. Not prince enough.

Their luggage lay piled beside the door, and that was some comfort at least. Whatever new vicissitudes the day had in store, he could face them with clean teeth and clothes.

The door opened into a corridor, and he realized why so many things seemed familiar. The floor plan was nearly identical to Rainer’s cabin. And that was where they must be, if he hadn’t hallucinated what he could remember of the drive yesterday—back at Carroll Cove. The realization did very little to comfort him.

Smells drifted through the chilly air: smoke, coffee, toast. His stomach rumbled. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten; the space between his ribs and spine felt hollowed out. But the foul taste in his mouth was worse than hunger, and he followed his memory of Rainer’s cabin down the hall to the bathroom.

The hot water gave out too soon, but the steam lasted long enough to loosen ropes of slime in his lungs. He brushed his teeth, coughed up ribbons of dark phlegm, and brushed them again. His chest felt as if he’d been kicked and sat on and kicked some more. His face was stripped to skin and bone, eyes sunken and cheeks mottled with fever. His hands shook as he turned off the taps.

Maybe it was for the best that Liz was unconscious; he could never convince her that he wasn’t as sick as he looked.

When he emerged, cleaner and warmer and layered in scarves and sweaters, music drifted from the front of the house. Something bright and poppy, incongruous against the grey chill and yesterday’s half-remembered horrors. He followed the sound and smell of food down the hall.

A fire burned in the front room, and the blinds were open to a view of the cove. Lailah stood in the little kitchen, cracking eggs into a skillet. She’d abandoned the trench coat, and wore a black tank top and faded cargo pants, her hair twisted up in a sloppy clip. An ancient portable CD player sat on the counter, and she hummed along with the song. For a moment she seemed like a different person than the woman Alex had met in the cemetery; then she turned and he saw the outline of the holster at the small of her back. Her humming stopped when she saw him, and she reached out to turn down the music.

“Do you want breakfast?” she asked, scrambling the sizzling eggs.

Alex squinted at his watch. “At two in the afternoon?”

“It’s the first meal of the day, isn’t it? There’s coffee.” She gestured with one sharp elbow to a metal carafe on the counter while sliding chopped vegetables into the eggs.

“Thank you.” The domesticity of it all was nearly as unnerving as guns and monsters.

He poured a mug and sat down at the table, letting the heat of the cup soak through his hands. A moment later Lailah slid a plate of toast and omelette in front of him.

“How’s your friend?”

Alex frowned as he reached for the butter. “The same. What happened to the—” He broke off. There were no words that didn’t sound ridiculous in the light of day.

“To the monsters?”

He started as a shadow stirred on the couch, sat up and resolved itself into a young woman. Blurry as a Degas sketch across the room, long black hair and sallow olive skin that would brown in the sun, dark clothes that didn’t fit her. He remembered her vaguely from the funeral, and from their flight from the hotel. He thought her name was Rae.

“They’re still out there,” she continued, gesturing vaguely toward the windows. “Waiting.” She sat down, but didn’t touch the food Lailah passed her.

“Waiting for what?” Alex scraped butter over bread. The smell of peppers and mushrooms made his mouth water, until he looked an instant too long at a glistening thread of white veining the eggs. He reached for his coffee and tried not to cough. “What are they?”

“Hunters.” Lailah sat next to Rae. “They’re after maniacs. And now, apparently, you.”

Alex ignored her expectantly cocked eyebrow. “Why haven’t they come in?” He blinked against the memory of the black shapes bursting into the hotel, reached for the salt to cover his flinch.

“They can’t. Not without an invitation. Hotels are too public— the rules don’t apply there. And I know a few wards.” Her eyes narrowed and flickered toward Rae. “You should eat. Both of you.”

“I’m not hungry,” Rae said, while Alex took a bite of toast. Her fingers fretted ceaselessly at the weave of her sweater.

“Food keeps your body working. The better your body works, the closer it keeps your soul.”

They exchanged a conversation in a shadowed glance. Finally Rae snatched a piece of toast off Lailah’s plate and took a deliberate bite.

Alex picked at his food, but the texture of anything but dry toast threatened nausea. He knew the fatigue and dizziness that weighed on him, knew them all too well. He needed sensible things like rest and fluids and warmth if he didn’t want a hospital visit of his own. But he had left sense far behind.

The CD ended and silence settled over them once more. Lailah stacked her empty dishes in the sink. Alex caught her glancing more than once at the windows, and the still expanse of trees and water beyond.

“What are we doing out here?” he asked.

“It’s remote,” she said, drying her hands on a towel. “Not as many innocent bystanders if there’s trouble. I sure as hell wasn’t crowding all of you into my apartment.” She flashed a lopsided smile. “Don’t worry—we made sure the owners are out of town. Let’s check on your friend.”

Alex followed her down the hall, Rae padding behind them on silent bare feet. Liz hadn’t moved. The rise and fall of her chest was invisible beneath the blankets; only the faint, infrequent twitch of her eyelids showed she lived. He bit back a protest as Rae sat on the edge of the bed and touched her face.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked instead.

“She’s gone,” Rae said softly. “She opened the door and now she’s on the other side.” Quiet envy filled her voice, and he thought of the maenad and shuddered.

“Can you do anything?”

“I tried to do what she’s done, but it didn’t work.” Rae glanced at Lailah; the other woman shook her head sharply. “Without that... I don’t know.”

“I’m so bloody sick of hearing that lately.” Alex raked his hands through his still-damp hair, wincing at the tender pain in his skull. “She can’t last like this. She needs fluids, IVs...”

Lailah nodded, her thin mouth hooking down. “You’ll do what you have to. But a hospital won’t be any safer than that hotel room—invitation doesn’t apply there, either.”

She turned away before Alex could think of a reply. Rae trailed behind her, quiet as a shadow.

A
LEX SAT BESIDE
Liz for the rest of the afternoon. He wet her lips and triple-checked the warmth of the blankets and applied fresh ointment and bandages to her swollen hand, in between flipping through his thumb-worn copy of
Foucault’s Pendulum
without reading a word.

The light died and the chill deepened. He knew he ought to turn on the lamp, find a blanket, find a place to sleep that wouldn’t murder his neck, but the longer he sat the stronger his lassitude grew. If he kept perfectly still he could breathe—any movement might wake the terrible, tearing cough. The book slipped from numb fingers and he let it lie. Just a short rest, and then he would move...

He woke to voices and icy hands. Or maybe it was only that he was burning. He startled, and the spasm he’d feared threatened to rip his chest apart.

“Wake up,” Lailah said, for what might have been the second or third time. She brushed the hair back from his face and pried one eyelid back. In his feverish confusion, Alex thought her eyes gleamed in the shadows, pupils glowing like an animal’s.

“He’s sick,” Rae said, leaning close behind her. “I can see it inside him.”

“Wonderful.”

Lailah looped an arm around Alex’s waist and hauled him out of the chair. His head lolled against her shoulder, but he had no strength to spend on dignity. She half dragged, half carried him into the living room and laid him out on the couch, then shoved them both closer to the fire. The dying flames washed the room red and hellish, cast capering shadows across the ceiling. He closed his eyes against the sight, and opened them again to find Rae piling him with blankets while Lailah forced his head up and pressed a cup to his lips. The warmth of tea was welcome, but the first sip made him cough again. This time the salt-slime taste of phlegm was tinged with sour metal.

“Do you still think we don’t need a hospital?” he asked, and regretted the effort.

Lailah snorted. “I didn’t think you’d go so far to prove me wrong.” She slid a pillow under his head and set the cup on the floor in easy reach. Not that he had the strength to lift it. “Just remember—if I take you to a doctor, it will mean leaving Liz alone.”

It was a guilt trip worthy of his mother. He would have laughed, but all that came up was more mucus. “Well played,” he whispered, and let his head fall.

If she replied, he wasn’t awake to hear it.

R
AE FOUND
L
AILAH
in the bedroom late that night, sitting crosslegged on the bed and frowning at her phone. The light from the tiny screen washed her face cold and grey. She didn’t look up as Rae eased the door shut behind her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Besides the terrible service out here?” Lailah raised her head, her face twisted into an inhuman grimace in the shadows and pixel-light. “Rabia is reading me the riot act. There’s trouble in the city, the kind I’m supposed to clean up.”

“But you’re stuck here with the strays.” She sank onto the edge of the bed.

Another grimace. This one might have been a smile in a former life. “Someone has to look after you. Them.” She encompassed the rest of the house in a gesture. “And it won’t hurt Rabia to do her own damned wetwork for a change.”

“Why do you do it?”

Lailah sighed, her broad shoulders slumping. “I joined a war because I thought it was the right thing to do. I nearly died.” Her fingers brushed her scarred cheek and fell again. “When I didn’t, I ended up drafted into another war.”

“Is this one the right thing?”

“I wish I knew. But I’ll keep fighting. It’s all I’m good for anymore.”

“Then why did you save me? Why rescue them?” Rae waved toward the far rooms, toward Alex and Liz.

“I was bleeding to death when Noor found me. She could have let me die. It might have been better if she had, but I wanted to live. So did you. How are your stitches?” she asked after a moment’s silence.

“They’re fine. I’ve been careful. Were they right? Rabia and Noor? That I’d bring you no joy?”

Lailah pressed a button and the phone went black. Darkness filled the room. “I’m not sorry I didn’t shoot you, if that’s what you mean. Not yet. How do you feel?”

“Weird,” Rae admitted. “Restless. I feel... echoes.” Laughter, dancing, firelight. The constant bacchanal chorus, waiting for her to join them. She leaned closer into Lailah’s warmth.

“Do you understand it?” the other woman asked. Her breath drifted across Rae’s cheek.

“It’s mostly noise,” she lied, grateful for the darkness that hid her expression.
The way is opening
. Rescuing Alex and Antja had distracted Lailah from her search for the door. Rae wasn’t sure she wanted to remind her of it.

“Mostly?”

The mattress shifted with Lailah’s weight. Rae caught a suggestion of movement as her eyes adjusted to the dark. “What’s the matter? Do you think I’m dangerous?” Her smile felt like a stranger’s. “You can always use the handcuffs again, if it will make you feel better.”

Lailah’s breath caught, held, left on a harsh sigh. “Rae—”

“Lailah.” She crawled forward, pressing Lailah back, pinning her knees against the bed. The woman could have broken free in an instant, but for that moment Rae felt strong. Dangerous. “I’m cold.”

This wasn’t her. She didn’t know who this was. But—as she dragged the borrowed sweater over her head and tossed it aside, as she moved forward to straddle Lailah’s thighs, as she caught the other woman’s hands and pressed them to her waist—she thought she wouldn’t mind being this person for a while.

L
ATER
,
WHILE
L
AILAH
slept, Rae slipped out of bed and eased the curtains aside. Her side throbbed; they hadn’t been careful. Nail marks burned her back, and fresh bruises ached down the inside of her thighs.

The stars were louder than ever.

Beyond the window the wind rushed wild and cold. She could almost feel it tugging at her hair, sliding over her bare skin. Her reflection in the glass rippled like water. Rae raised a hand, but the ghost girl didn’t. Instead she turned, lips moving soundlessly as she glanced over her shoulder.

Not her reflection at all. A taller woman, hooded and blindfolded. Her white dress fluttered in the breeze. Behind her a man sat cross-legged on a stone floor, shirtless in the cold. Gaunt and dark-haired, his arms and chest covered in swirling scars, the graceful looping script Rae still couldn’t read.

The woman looked back at Rae, looked through her with bound eyes. Dark stains soaked the blindfold. From the cheekbones down she shared the maenad’s face, but her smile was less cruel.

My sister’s way is not the only way.
Her lips moved, and the words shivered deep inside Rae’s head.
There are other roads besides that of flesh and blood.

“The road of needles,” Rae whispered, “or the road of pins.” Her breath fogged the glass.

Exactly. Which one do you choose?

Rae reached out in wonder, but her hand touched the icy windowpane and the vision shattered. She stood there, staring into the darkness, until her teeth began to chatter. Finally she crawled back into bed, huddling into Lailah’s warmth until the starsong faded enough to let her sleep.