Beautiful nightmares, p.47
Beautiful Nightmares, page 47
This is taking forever, I thought with an irritated frown. I was the one who’d made this world, so why couldn’t I cross it with a snap of my fingers or a simple impulse?
If I’d been secretly hoping for some kind of answer, I didn’t get one. There was just the moaning wind and the miles of raging snow. I scowled and bent my face toward the ground again.
We were five or six hours into the hike, by my guess, the gray sky beginning to go black, when something did appear through the snow—a thin bit of darkness that didn’t move or disappear. My heart quickened and I squinted my eyes. It was a river, I realized with disappointment. Part of me had hoped it was another memory. I followed the river’s length as far as I could see in this whiteout, and it seemed to lead directly into the mountains we were aiming for.
“Fortuna,” Oliver said, his voice hard and urgent.
We’d been in danger enough times now that I’d learned to recognize that tone. My stomach sank as I turned, following Oliver’s grim stare. For an instant, I could only gape at the sight and think, We are so royally fucked.
It was a massive horde. Not quite the size of an army, but close enough.
Minotaurs.
They’d started to surround us, using the storm for cover. With the head of a bull and the body of a man, they looked like something that belonged in Hell. Every one of them held a double-bladed ax in its bare fists, and their corded, muscular torsos were barely protected from the snow by scraps of threadbare-looking clothes, like something from the Stone Age.
Oliver and I reached for our weapons at the same time. Each of us now held a handgun and a knife, but the knife felt woefully inadequate as I eyed the massive size of the beasts coming toward us. Two minotaurs marched several yards ahead of the others, and I suspected it was because they were slightly smaller, and therefore, faster.
“Bet those lightsabers are looking pretty great now, huh?” I said under my breath.
“If we survive this, I’ll make you a green one, and I’ll also get a tattoo that says Fortuna was right on my ass. What do we know about minotaurs?” Oliver added, keeping his eyes on the one closest to him.
I smiled humorlessly. “We know they’re carnivores.”
“Great.”
My mind raced, driven by the hard edge of desperation. These things may have been carnivores, but they were still shaped like men—maybe there was enough of a human psyche for me to use. Hardly daring to hope, I gave my power an experimental flex. But I couldn’t feel a single mind or consciousness, and there were no flavors on my tongue. Hope shriveled as quickly as it had grown.
Just like the ceti, these creatures were immune to my abilities.
I had enough time to swear before one of the smaller minotaurs was on me, swinging its enormous head. I leaped back to avoid both the ax and its horns, aiming my gun at its face, but I didn’t see the creature’s gigantic fist coming around until an instant before it hit me. The strength of it was staggering. I flew backward, air rushing from my lungs in a painful wheeze. Oliver’s gun sounded as I slammed into the ice, landing on my hip and shoulder. Pain shot through me, but I was only aware of it for an instant. Then the adrenaline took over and I rolled to my feet, snow clinging to half of my face. Burning like white fire.
Oliver had already caught up with me, carrying all of our weapons. The two smaller minotaurs both lay dead where they’d first caught up with us. I couldn’t help but be impressed. Go, Ollie. As I took my knife and gun back, I darted an automatic glance toward him, assuming he’d be fine—we trained together often, and I had taught Oliver everything I knew from Adam and my father. But the other small minotaur must’ve nicked him, because there was blood covering the back of his hand. Running out of his coat sleeve from a wound I couldn’t see. His coat was too dark, too thick.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“We need to retreat,” Oliver said through his teeth, walking backward to keep his sights on the army of minotaurs still coming. “We might have a chance if we can get the river at our backs.”
My eyes dropped to his hands, which were plastered against his side and covered in blood. “Can you run?”
As an answer, Oliver launched in the direction of the river.
The minotaurs bellowed, and thunder shook the air as I bolted after him, my lungs prickling with every frantic inhale. I scanned the river and tried not to focus on the futility of Oliver’s plan. But we both knew that getting to a stretch of water wouldn’t save us. Swimming across it wasn’t an option, either—there could be lethal currents, or one of us might succumb to hypothermia, depending on how cold it was.
Wait a minute, I thought, frowning against the torrent of snow. Why were we running for our lives? Why were we in any danger at all?
This was my fucking dream.
Power and resolve blazed through me. I skidded to a halt and spun back around, facing the oncoming swarm. As I turned, I pocketed the knife and the gun—I wouldn’t be needing them. My hands formed into fists. I had one of those moments, again, when time slowed down and every sense heightened. Oliver’s voice sounded far away as he demanded, “Fortuna, what are you doing?”
I ignored him. Just as I’d done when I was fighting Oliver’s shadow, I squeezed my eyes shut and channeled everything I felt into a chant. Open. Open. Open. I imagined the ground beneath the minotaurs exploding with a world-shaking sound, snow and dirt flying in every direction. I pictured the creatures falling into a shuddering crevice of darkness and lava. Open. Open. Open. I envisioned the place where the army had once stood as a smoldering hole of snow and silence.
Nothing happened.
My eyes snapped open, refocusing on the dark line of approaching minotaurs. I wanted to release a scream of frustration.
At that moment, I knew. I knew we couldn’t win this. They were too strong, and we were outnumbered. That didn’t mean I was about to go down without a fight, though. We’d stick with Oliver’s feeble plan. I glanced over my shoulder to gauge our distance from the river, but there was something else behind us now. I frowned, struggling to make out details through the storm. An instant later, my eyes widened.
Was that… a ship?
It was. There was a ship, or more accurately, a ferry floating along the river.
I didn’t question it. That could come later. A new plan formed, swift and sloppy. My head swiveled from the ferry to the creatures surrounding us on every other side. Could minotaurs swim?
We were about to find out. This was the only option left, save for letting them eat us.
Uttering a silent scrap of a prayer, I snatched Oliver’s hand and ran again, ignoring it when he almost lost his footing. He recovered and matched my speed. I knew when Oliver spotted the ferry, because he made a sound of surprise. We sprinted, full-out, toward the night-blackened water. Our backpacks slammed against our spines.
Then we were flying, our arms swinging. The river was too wide—we didn’t even come close to the ferry. For that split second we were mid-air, I braced myself for the shock of agonizing cold. But when the water closed over my head, surrounding me on all sides, I felt my eyes widen again at the unexpected warmth.
Nothing about this place made sense.
What if the ceti are here, too? I thought with mounting panic. What if this is the Styx?
I broke through the surface with a gasp, kicking instantly for the ferry. Oliver was right beside me. As we swam, my mind buzzed with fear and voices. One of them was my mother’s, her passion-filled words rising and falling with the cadence of a story. In Greek mythology, the Styx River separated the living from the dead. Maybe this water wasn’t full of murderous seal hybrids, but some delightful souls instead, trapped in limbo and doomed to float these dark currents for eternity.
Just as I finished that fun thought, Oliver and I reached the boat. It was easy enough to haul ourselves on board, since the sides were strangely shallow, scooped like a cardboard box gone soft. I looked for any sign of the ferryman, Charon, but we were alone. There was nothing else within the space, not even a coil of rope.
In the time it had taken to jump into the river and climb aboard, the blizzard had slowed. Snowflakes flitted past and the wind plucked at strands of my hair like a curious child. Oliver and I got to our feet, wanting to keep the minotaurs within sight. Water dripped from the hems of our coats and off our sleeves, some of it pink from Oliver’s blood. I darted a glance at his torso again, already thinking of what I could use to wrap it and staunch the bleeding. Movement on shore drew my gaze back outward—one of the thick-chested beasts stood closer to the water than the others. It watched us float away, its head cocked, as though it were considering something.
Then it took a running leap.
I recoiled instinctively, and the minotaur’s momentum got it all the way to the ferry’s edge. Before I could recover or dart forward, Oliver was there, hacking at its hands. His knife left deep gouges in the creature’s flesh. It bellowed and released the boat without thinking. Not very intelligent, apparently, I thought faintly. When the minotaur began to sink, it realized its mistake and desperately scrabbled at a shelf of ice that extended partway over the rushing water. But the ice broke, and the bawling creature sank beneath the dark surface within seconds. The current wiped away any ripples in an instant.
I supposed that answered the question of whether or not minotaurs could swim.
None of the beasts on shore moved to save their comrade, and something told me there wouldn’t be any more attempts to reach us. I heaved a sigh and lowered myself to the deck, resting my back against the shallow wall. My entire body ached. The ferry creaked and moaned onward.
Though the threat of the minotaurs had passed, Oliver stayed where he was, his forearm resting on one propped knee. There was blood sprayed across his throat and chin, and he still held his knife. With the moon rising behind him, the pale light bouncing off ice and water, the moment felt like a dream of a dream.
Feeling my gaze, Oliver twisted slightly. “Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes scanning me.
“I could ask you the same thing. Also, who are you?” I joked.
It didn’t sound like a joke, though, and Oliver knew me too well. “I’m finally figuring that out,” he said.
His tone, along with the way he was looking at me, made my smile fade. I looked back at Oliver, noting the changes in him for the hundredth time since we’d been reunited. The faint bridge of freckles was the same, the blueness of his eyes, too, but there was a hardness to his features that—
Something strange appeared in my peripheral vision, a splash of color that didn’t belong. Expecting to see another terrifying creature trying to kill us, I jerked my head up. In the same breath, I reached into my pocket for the gun. But then I faltered, and I stared at the scene with a puzzled frown.
It was a… door. It stood near the shore, with no walls on either side or anything else to hold it upright. As if the door had come out of the ground, fully formed, a piece of wood that had been painted red.
And my parents were walking toward it.
A memory, I thought with a dim sense of shock, jumping to my feet. I was looking at a memory. But my parents looked so solid. So real. If I were to wrap my arms around them, would I feel it? Would I relive the scents that had once clung to their skin, their clothes?
The younger version of me was there, too. She walked next to Dad, on his left. It must’ve been warm, wherever they were, because the other Fortuna wore a pretty white sundress, the cotton dotted with blue flowers. Her small features were curious and alert. She didn’t matter, though, not compared to the people she walked alongside. I gave my father a wistful, yearning glance before I turned my complete focus on Christine Sworn. I drank her in like a person dying of thirst.
My mother had been tall for a woman—nearly six feet. But she didn’t try to make herself appear smaller, or anything less than what she was. Her chestnut hair, my hair, was secured at the back of her head with a clip. She wore a dress with a buckle cinched around her generous waist, and stylish black boots on her feet. She knocked on the red door firmly, her head held high, eyes clear.
The sound of that knock jarred me from the spell I’d been under. My breathing lurched. Frantic, I searched for a way to stop the ferry. But, as I’d noticed when we first climbed on, there was nothing but the smooth wooden bottom and the bowed walls. Jumping out wasn’t an option—the minotaurs were still following on that side of the river. We could swim to the other side, but then we’d lose the advantage of the ferry. The river was so wide that I probably wouldn’t be able to make out a word they said, anyway. Standing there, I felt my stomach drop as I came to the inevitable conclusion.
We had to stay on board, and I’d only get one chance to watch this memory play out.
Oliver moved to stand next to me. He didn’t make a sound, as if he’d figured it out, too. The ferry drew close enough to the door that I could see the knob now, glinting gold in the moonlight. The red door opened, and a dark-haired woman stepped into view. A man appeared beside her. Dad greeted them, and I stopped breathing, unwilling to let it threaten my ability to hear. My parents’ voices floated across the water, and it felt like my heart was in my throat.
“…has to be a way to stop it,” Matthew Sworn was saying, his voice tinged with a desperation I’d never heard from him before. “Here you are, standing in front of us. Please, Tamar. We need your help.”
The woman had started shaking her head before he finished speaking. “No, the price is too high. You don’t know what you’re asking. I won’t deny that there is a way, but it requires pain. The sort of pain that can never be forgotten. Worse than childbirth, or amputation, or burns. He can attest to it better than anyone.”
“Her power grows by the day,” my mother put in. Hearing her familiar, husky voice after so many years was such a distraction that I almost missed it when she added, “We wouldn’t have come if there were any other way. But… this is life or death, Tamar. No price is too high.”
Silence swelled between the adults. Slowly, the woman’s dark eyes dropped to me. The other me, who stood in front of my father. His hands rested on her skinny shoulders, and our parents must not have explained anything to her, because younger Fortuna’s eyebrows were knitted with confusion. The fact that she didn’t ask any questions was a testament to the tension in the air.
“How old is she?” Tamar asked finally, her voice soft.
Dad’s fingers curled around young Fortuna’s shoulders. It was a reflexive, protective gesture. “Seven.”
The woman stared at me for several more seconds, as if she could learn who I was just by peering into my eyes. The man at her side didn’t say a word through any of this, and I was about to examine him more closely when Tamar spoke again. Her voice was heavy with resignation as she said, “I may know a coven that will help you. I can give you a phone number. They don’t deal in texts or calls—you’ll have to leave a voicemail. Don’t give your name, and don’t ask for theirs. Ever. Speaking a name out loud gives it power, and we don’t need to make it easier for him.”
Easier for him? I echoed silently, frowning. What did she mean? What did any of this mean? Was Tamar a witch? My parents were thanking her, relief shining from their faces. I rushed to the other end of the ferry, never taking my eyes off their distant figures. I was desperate for answers. But we were too far away now, and I couldn’t hear anything beyond the whistling wind.
Even though they hadn’t been real, it felt like I was losing my parents all over again. I stared toward that red door, holding the railing in a painfully tight grip, and Oliver filled the space beside me. I didn’t acknowledge him. An ache started in the center of my chest and spread outward. I’d forgotten, I thought, how beautiful my mother was.
Blinking the pain back, I looked down. My gaze flicked to Oliver’s hand, where I’d seen blood earlier. The water had washed it away, leaving the skin smooth and clean. His wound couldn’t be too deep, then, if it had already stopped bleeding. I took a shuddering breath and peered up at his face, thinking to ask Oliver for his perspective on the memory we’d just witnessed. But his attention was fixed farther downshore, a line deepening between his thick brows. I followed his gaze.
In the distance, the minotaurs had come to a complete stop. The storm was thickening again, and the sight they made through the snow was eerie and unnerving, somehow. Maybe it was their utter stillness, or how their expressions had gone blank, as if the absence of a quarry had switched something off inside them. I frowned at the minotaurs for another moment, now tiny figures in the distance. Then, slowly, my hands fell away from the railing. I let out a long sigh, and some of the tension left my shoulders. God, it had been a long day. A frustrating day.
“This seems like as good a place as any to get some sleep,” Oliver said, probably because he’d heard my sigh. “We’re not going to see anything else until this snow clears and we have a little light.”
“It doesn’t make sense, feeling tired in a dream,” I mumbled. But I took off my backpack in unspoken agreement.
Oliver didn’t respond. We began putting up the tent, removing the pieces from our bags one by one. As I snapped the metal rods into place, I mentally reviewed the fight with the minotaurs. I should’ve been thinking about the scene with my parents, and yet, I didn’t want to.
I was afraid to.
So I thought about the minotaurs. Why had they attacked us? Why were they even in the dreamscape? You’re missing something, my instincts insisted. There was an obvious detail I was missing. A pattern I wasn’t seeing.
Another piece of the tent snapped into place within my hands. I stared down at it, frowning in thought. When I finally made the connection, it felt like I was in a roller coaster car, plunging into the first freefall.
They were guarding something.
“Fuck. This is going to be harder than we thought. Fuck,” I repeated, feeling like I could fall asleep the moment I stretched out in my sleeping bag. I lifted my head and caught Oliver’s questioning look. He hadn’t put it together, I realized. He’d probably been so focused on keeping me safe that he hadn’t been able to think about much else.
