Page 93 of Nocte
I’m too busy running, panting, and pulling Caspian along to a door with a golden metal eye.
I pound on it. I beg.
“Please! Please help me! Please!”
Silence answers back. Silence and a weighty presence tinged with sweet perfume who hisses at me in utter disgust. “Go away,” he commands from behind the closed door. “You aren’t welcome here. Go!”
Go.
“No!” I form a fist and bang and bang like Caspian did upon the same door earlier. I pound and pound and pound away. I beg. I scream.
“Help me! PLEASE! Please help me!”
Because I can feel him slipping away. I can feel his mind shattering and hear the pieces scattering all around us. I will never find them all if I don’t help him. I can never put him back together again.
“Help me!” I pound and pound and pound.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Finally, the door opens, and the strange male vamryre appears. “Will you stop with the ruckus? What on earth is wrong with you?”
“Caspian is wrong with me,” I blurt out, my hands sore and throbbing. Bleeding. I’ve left bloody marks on his door. Bloody marks he eyes in disgust. “He’s dying. Help me help him!”
He’s standing behind me in the shadow of the hall. His head is bowed, his expression vacant, pink lips silent, eyes far away. Gone. He is nearly gone.
“I can’t help him,” I sob. Tears spill down my face, but they don’t affect this vamryre the way they do Caspian. He is unmoved, watching me with cold, unfeeling eyes. “Please help me help him. I can’t lose him. I can’t.”
Because whatever Caspian is suffering from now, this vamryre has at one point. An affliction that must affect them all—those who dare to run away to the mortal realm.
The man looks at the vamryre behind me and sniffs. “Oh dear. Did you really walk all this way looking like that? Bloody hell! If the boneys aren’t on your tail already, they’re probably about to bust in my goddamn door. Poppy! Scythe!”
Two figures appear as if from nowhere behind him. But not nowhere. Somewhere deeper in this home, this huge, winding home. I can sense them all. Others, some awake and some not, lurking out of sight and out of reach. In fear, they hide behind this tall, dark-haired monster, only emerging when he calls them.
But now two snap to attention: a girl with bright red hair and a boy with blue.
“Yes?” they question in a disjointed unison. Not quite the way the other vamryre in the motel spoke. As though they have practiced to stay in sync but can’t. Not quite. They are the same yet apart. Not one and the same as they should be.
“Scythe, you take this one inside. Show him to a room.” He points to Caspian. My Caspian. “Poppy, you take this one—” He grimaces at me. “Take this one and clean up their mess. They tracked blood and gore all the way here, to our door. Ruffians! Clean their messes up, my darling. With gentle words and kind smiles, before the boneys come a calling. Go.”
Poppy, the red-haired one, steps forward, her smile sickeningly sweet. “Come with me, dear one,” she trills, a hand outstretched.
Any other time, I would. I’d rush to grab her hand. I would relish any hint of kindness.
But now…
They aim to take my Caspian away. Away from me. To help him. Heal him.
But I can’t. I can’t…
“I can’t leave him,” I rasp. “I won’t leave him alone.”
The tall one scoffs, his irritation exaggerated. “Well, you should have thought of that before, darling. Before you cut a bloody fucking trail to my door. Go with Poppy to clean up your mess while I take care of the other one. Go!”
I stare at Poppy’s outstretched hand.
“I can’t leave him,” I croak. “I can’t.” Then. “What’s happening to him? What is wrong with him?”
“Wrong?” The man frowns as if offended by my term. “Nothing is wrong. He has been severed from the collective is all. His mind has been made whole again.”