Dreams of Shreds and Tatters (28 page)

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.

As they stepped over the boy’s body slumped on the threshold, a shot echoed upstairs. Liz started, slipping in a smear of melted snow and thicker fluids. Alex caught her before she could fall. A few heartbeats later the sound repeated.

Lailah held her back again when Liz wanted to run. The other woman took the stairs cautiously, scanning the shadows all around them. They reached the second floor landing without any more shots.

But as they stood before the door into the gallery, Liz heard something else. Something worse. A high, ululating wail that stood her hair on end. The cry of the bacchante.

“The door,” she whispered. “Blake’s door. It’s in there.”

A crash reverberated through the stairwell and they all jumped, but it was only the upstairs door flying open. Lailah spun and aimed; Liz grabbed for her arm, but her fingers closed on air.

Blake froze at the top of the stairs, his face pale beneath smeared blood. Liz’s breath rushed out at the sight of him.

“Christ,” Alex breathed. Then, louder, “Put the fucking gun down.”

Lailah’s eyes narrowed, but she lowered the pistol. Rainer and Antja followed Blake onto the landing. Rainer was shirtless, bloody and bandaged, and Antja wore a coat pulled over a bathrobe and a bag slung over one shoulder. She slipped one hand into her pocket, and Liz caught the now-familiar shape of a gun.

Blake took the steps two at a time and pulled up short in front of Liz. Beneath the blood his face was even thinner than when she’d last seen him in the hospital. But his eyes were open. His grin crinkled the gore drying on his face. Her sinuses prickled as Liz stepped into his arms and hugged him until he grunted. The pressure set her left hand burning again, but she ignored it.

Lailah shoved past them to glare at Rainer. “Open that door.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t shot it open already,” Antja said dryly.

“I didn’t bring a shotgun. Do it and hurry. Something bad is happening in there.”

Antja’s hand closed on Rainer’s arm. “We need to get out of here.”

“Not until you clean up your fucking mess,” Lailah snapped.

Rainer’s shoulders sagged. “She’s right.” He shrugged off Antja’s hand, leaning hard on the railing. The door opened at his touch.

A draft exhaled from the gallery, warmer than the night and damp, smelling of blood and wine and sap. And beneath that, a bitter chemical reek that was all too familiar; the wind off the black sea. Light rippled across the walls, and the cries of the bacchante carried through the twisting corridors of the exhibit.

Liz’s good hand clenched on the cold stair rail, her palm slippery with sweat. Panic seared the veins in her throat. But she had faced Carcosa once already, alone. She could do it again.

Lailah shoved Rainer through the door first and followed close behind. Antja hesitated, one hand trembling on the strap of her bag.

Alex’s hand closed on Liz’s sleeve, but he looked at Antja when he spoke. “This isn’t your problem anymore.”

“No,” Blake answered. “It’s mine. I made the door. I have to close it.”

He stepped through the door. Liz followed, leaving Alex and Antja cursing softly behind her.

The outline of the gallery remained, but it was already changing around them. Vines snaked across the walls, dripped quivering from the light fixtures. The walls pulsed, and the floor shivered. What should have been firm tile beneath Liz’s boots was softer, yielding. Where paintings had hung the walls now opened into windows, each one looking into a different nightmare view. Liz kept her eyes straight ahead. Rainer and Lailah had already vanished into the maze.

“I am never letting you plan a vacation again,” Alex muttered as he fell in beside her. She pretended her watering eyes were the fault of the draft.

The air grew warmer and wetter the deeper they went, stinging Liz’s throat with every breath. Alex began to cough. They balked when they reached the arches. What had been plaster now glistened slick as wet bone. Red tendrils writhed across their surface, meshing to form a pulsing web of tissue. The walls expanded and contracted with the rhythm of the draft, and fluid seeped across the floor. Behind them, the ivy had devoured the lights, leaving only the sulfurous glow ahead to guide them.

From the other end of the tunnel, someone shouted. A woman’s laughter answered. Beside her, Liz felt Blake shudder.

“Keep going.” Antja shouldered ahead. “It will only get worse.”

Moisture squelched beneath Liz’s feet as she followed; mephitic fumes seared her lungs. Alex gagged, but kept moving.

Antja’s breath caught as they turned the last corner, an instant’s warning. Then Liz looked up and saw the door.

It was still a painting, barely, but the canvas had stretched to fill the room. The great stone door stood all the way open now, framing a view of towers and black water, and the gathered horde of the bacchante.

R
AE FELT STRONGER
with every breath of the damp, acrid air. The smell of Jason’s blood lingered in her nose; it had sickened her at first, but now saliva pooled on her tongue. Soon, the voices promised. Soon she would have all the blood she wanted.

She was a danger to everyone. Lailah had to know it, too. Was a bullet waiting for her at the end of the hall? The part of her that cared was growing weaker and quieter with every step into the labyrinth.

Then they reached the heart of the maze, and the vista waiting there, and Rae nearly threw back her head and screamed with joy. She didn’t need the stars anymore—Carcosa was coming here.

Rainer knelt before the threshold, and Lailah sprawled on the floor, struggling against the vines that ensnared her. But Rae could only stare at the woman standing over them.

Tall and voluptuous, cinched and corseted by plum-black leather. Ivy threaded her wild dark hair, a crown of leaves tangled in the coils. Move vines inked the chalk-white flesh of her arms and shoulders. Her eyes were wide and black and starlit. Rae shuddered as she recognized the maenad from her visions, the leader of the hunt.

“Look, Chosen,” the woman said to Rainer. One white hand cupped his chin and tilted his head back. Vines slithered down her arm to brush his face. “Look at what you’ve helped accomplish. You’ve earned your place in the King’s court.”

Her eyes rose and met Rae’s. “And you, little bird. I’ve been waiting for you.” She held out a hand and Rae went. Lailah screamed her name. “My sister and I have been arguing over you, but I know what you want.”

Her hand closed on the back of Rae’s neck, pulling her into a bittersweet cyanide kiss. Rae’s fists closed in the vines of the woman’s hair; her lips tore on sharp teeth. The heat of it was stronger than anything she’d ever felt, stronger than mania. She pressed herself against the taller woman, aching for the scrape of teeth, the touch of taloned hands. If the maenad had torn her apart, she would have screamed encouragement.

Instead the woman let her go with a bloody, teasing smile. “Soon,” she promised. “You’ll join the revels, and all the flesh and blood you’ve ever wanted will be yours for the taking. Just as soon as I’m finished here. For now, entertain yourself.”

Rae shuddered and licked her lips, tasting her blood and the maenad’s, black and bitter. Her teeth shivered as they sharpened. She followed the casual sweep of the woman’s hand, to where Lailah still writhed against her prison of vines. Blood from a split lip streaked her chin, shining in the flickering light.

Rae dropped to her knees beside Lailah and took the woman’s face in her hands. Shuddering, she licked the blood from Lailah’s mouth. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “You knew it would come to this.”

Lailah snarled, but the more she struggled, the tighter the vines wound around her. The black gun lay on the floor beside her, just out of reach. The sight of her helpless sent a queasy thrill of lust through Rae.

My sister’s way is not the only way.

Rae leaned close, pressing her face into the crook of Lailah’s neck. The woman’s pulse jumped against her lips. The smell of salt and blood dizzied her. “This isn’t what I wanted,” she whispered. She ran her tongue down Lailah’s throat, and heard the bacchante cheering her on. Her hand closed on the gun.

She rocked back on her heels and raised the gun. “There’s another way.”

The sight clacked against her teeth, gouged the roof of her mouth. The taste of bitter oil and metal filled her mouth. Lailah’s eyes widened and her mouth opened on a cry.

Thunder set her free.

Rae flew.

A
S
R
AE CROUCHED
beside Lailah, the ivy-crowned woman turned to Blake. Liz shuddered at her sharp-toothed smile.

“And here’s the artist himself. I misjudged you, I admit. I thought you were another pretty pet, but you’re worth more than that. Not that I wouldn’t keep you on a leash all the same.”

Blake stood stiff and trembling. Flesh sank against bone, and the veins in his cheeks darkened to ink. Liz recoiled before she could stop herself.

“Neither do you, anymore. You belong with us now.” She held out her hand. “Come home. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The woman laughed. “Come and help me. I’ll wear his face again if you want me to.” Her features rippled with vine shadows, and Alain stood framed in the light of the doorway. Blake flinched; behind them, Antja’s breath hissed through clenched teeth. Rainer opened his mouth, but a tendril of ivy curled between his teeth to gag him.

“Come with me,” the false Alain said. “If you do, I’ll close the door behind us and your friends will be safe.”

No
, Liz tried to say, but all that came out was a silent breath. Her hand closed on Blake’s sleeve, and she felt the tension shivering through him.

“Do you mean that?” he asked.

“Cross my heart and hope to die. This”—a wave of his—her— hand encompassed the door, the room, the gallery—“is a rare opportunity, but I’ll give it up for you. Come home, come willing, and your friends and this city can keep their illusion of safety a while longer.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Liz saw Rae lean back on her heels, Lailah’s gun in her hand. Her breath caught as she realized what was happening; she tried to shout, but all that came out was a squeak.

The shot shook the room. Rae jerked once as her blood sprayed the painted door, then toppled slowly at Lailah’s side. The false Alain’s lips peeled back in a snarl.

“Pathetic,” she hissed. For an instant her true face showed, but the mask was in place when she turned back to Blake. “But a perfect example of what will happen to your friends if you refuse me.” Behind her, the hunters clawed at the fabric of the door. Canvas stretched. Changed. Behind them, Carcosa’s painted sky had begun to brighten. “Decide. My friends won’t wait forever.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Liz saw Lailah move. One hand was free and reaching for her gun. Liz glanced away. In time to see Alex grab Antja’s arm and drag her close. Liz couldn’t hear the words he whispered in the woman’s ear, but she read the shape of them on his grey-tinged lips.

Oils burn
.

“I’ll go,” Blake said. His chest deflated with the words, as if the cost of them left him hollow.

The maenad’s stolen face stretched in a smile and she held out her hand. Lailah’s hand closed on her gun. Even expecting it, the sound was deafening. The false Alain’s knee burst in a spray of black blood. As she staggered, Rainer caught her other leg and sent her sprawling. Fire crackled around Antja’s fingertips, sputtered and popped as she pressed her burning hand against the canvas. For an instant nothing happened—then a wave of flame swept the room. Liz gasped, and regretted it as heat rushed into her lungs.

The woman shrieked, and in the light of the burning painting her face was her own again. Vines writhed and crisped and the smell of seared vegetation joined the chemical reek of oil paints. The surface of the canvas bubbled and seethed, and the bacchante drew back from the fire.

Lailah fired again but the shot went wild. Antja’s aim was better; blood blossomed across the maenad’s shoulder. Then Rainer was in the way, grappling with her on the threshold. They shouted, but Liz couldn’t understand the words over the echo of the gun.

Vines burst from the woman’s skin to ensnare the room. Liz spun in front of Blake, hooking her ankle through his and knocking him down. The tendril aimed for him coiled around her throat instead, sharp as a whip. Dark spots swam in front of her eyes as it tugged her backward. Then Alex was there, tearing the strand away, and Liz sagged breathlessly against his shoulder.