Make Willing the Prey (Dreams by Streetlight) (18 page)

S.A. would be here soon, and she
would be ready for him.  She found the railroad spike where it had fallen by
the door.  She slipped it into her pocket. 

Lewis had the ‘scope, and didn’t
look like he was willing to give it up.  Before she could attempt to take it
from him, Sandy appeared on the stairs.  A strapless long white dress form fit
her body and she held a bouquet of white roses.

“Sandy!  Where were you?  Why are
your shoulders so red?  What did he do to you?”

But Sandy ignored her, staring
straight ahead, not even looking at her feet as she descended.  She had paused
at the bottom of the stairs, the long train of her dress trailing all the way
up the steps.  But then she began walking again, the hem of the dress hissing
along the floor.  Each of her footsteps was deliberately placed.  A wedding
march.

“Sandy, what the hell is going
on?!”

Sandy’s gazed blankly toward the
other end of the room, where a dais rested under a brightly lit window.  The
simplistic beauty of her dress stood out.  It was long and straight,
unembellished white, unblemished with any lace or flowers.  A crown of daisies
encircled her hair, which was darker auburn than Jina remembered it, as if her
hair were in nighttime. 

Sandy approached the dais.  Faint
choral singing faded in slowly.  She climbed up onto the first step and
stopped.  Jina could see no one in the room other than Sandy and Lewis, but she
seemed to be listening intently.  She nodded from time to time and smiled
distantly.

Jina turned to Lewis, who still
shivered and clung tightly to the kaleidoscope. 

“Lewis,” she said calmly, “could
you please give that to me?”

To him, she wasn’t there.  She
knelt down and reached for his fingers to pry them off.  Lewis growled at her
and took up a defensive stance, crouching into the corner between the couch and
the wall.  He didn’t seem to recognize her.

“Lewis, it’s Jina.  I have to get
that kaleidoscope so I can save Sandy.  Please?”

He merely stared and trembled. 
His knuckles grew whiter.

“If you don’t give it to me, I’ll
take it from you.”

He inhaled fearfully as though
she had just threatened to gouge out his eyes.  But he did not move.

Reasoning with him wasn’t going
to work.  Fighting with him might.  She would have to try, to save Sandy.

She distracted him by pointing
away and saying, “Look, it’s a crocodile!”  Lewis did as she had expected, and
looked where she pointed.  She seized the opportunity and grabbed the
kaleidoscope. 

Getting it out of his hands was
going to be a different matter.  Lewis was stronger than her, and he fought.

She pulled as hard as she could. 
It finally slipped out of his grasp when she put her foot against his stomach
and leaned back.  It gave her the leverage she needed.

Without his safety blanket, Lewis
fell to his side and began kicking and screaming.  Jina jumped out of his way.  She
felt sincerely sorry for him.  When they got out of the house, she could get
help for him, and he’d be all right.

But now, she had to defeat S.A.
in his game.  She pointed the kaleidoscope at Sandy and peered through it.

Her fingers almost lost their grip
on the kaleidoscope when she saw S.A. inside, smiling wickedly.  Somehow she
managed to hold on to it.  But now it seemed that all hope was gone.

“Sandy is all mine now.  She
wants me.  Her power is mine, so your little toy isn’t going to work.” 

“Fuck off, fairy face!”

“Now, now, let’s not resort to
strong language.  The game is nearly over.  For being such a good sport
earlier, I’ve given you a few extra turns.

But Jina didn’t want any more
turns, and she said as much.

“You know you can’t resist me. 
You’ve tried before.  Horrible things will happen if you do.”

“And horrible things will happen
if I don’t,” she said.

S.A. chuckled.  “All I ask is you
play along.  Sing to us our wedding song.”

Jina smirked.  What he asked her
to do
seemed
easy enough, but could she really let him continue to have
his way?

“Consider the alternative,” he
said.  Lewis’s screams had quieted to whimpering.  Jina looked over at him.  He
rocked back and forth chewing on his hands.  Blood fell in streamlets from his
wrists to the floor.

The alternative was insanity,
dealt by S.A.’s hand, and she knew it.  But somehow it seemed she would be
driven insane regardless.  It was like playing a game of tic-tac-toe using a
knife on a bare patch of skin.  Every game would end up a cat’s eye, but even a
tie meant someone would get hurt.

Jina stuffed all of her emotions
into a little box and locked it tightly.  At least if she played the song, she
might have a little time to think of something.

She put the kaleidoscope into her
pocket and sat at the piano.  The song she had written the night before had
never been played, and because of this, it took most of her concentration to
arrange it as she played.  Nevertheless, she tried to think.  She needed to get
S.A. out of the ‘scope and into the room.  She wondered at what S.A. had said
about taking Sandy’s power.  Why did Sandy have power when Jina didn’t?

She finished playing.  Lewis
continued to whimper, and Sandy continued to stand at the dais.  Jina left the ‘scope
in her pocket and took as much time as she could.

The kaleidoscope worked because
it was S.A.’s personal item.  Or did it?  How did Sandy know it was his,
anyway?  Had she lied?

A crow called from somewhere in
the house, and suddenly Jina thought of a movie she’d seen as a child.  A
clever mouse had given Dumbo a black feather.  But it wasn’t magic.  It was
just a crutch.

Sandy’s power came from her
confidence.

A small spark of emotion crept
out of the box she had stuffed them into.  Hope. 

Hope pushed open the lid.  Now a
hundred feelings came pouring out like Pandora’s demons.  Anger, hatred,
determination, spunk, fury, defiance, and rebellion blinded and motivated her. 
There was no room left for futility.

Just then she heard Sandy say, “I
do.”  Was it too late?

The kaleidoscope vibrated, like
her phone.  She pulled it out of her pocket, and at the same time, removed the
rail spike and sat it on the stool next to her.

“Is that what you wanted?” she
asked into the kaleidoscope.

S.A. crouched within.  He looked
sad, and a tear rolled slowly down his face.

“Beautiful song.  Good move.” 
Then his face snapped into an evil gleam in an instant, as though he had never
cried before in his life. 

“Aren’t you going to congratulate
me?” he asked.

“No.”

“Fine,” he growled.  “Your turn
again!”

“No.  Just let us go.”

“Nope, nope, nope.”  He shook his
head like he was shaking water from his hair.

“So what do you want?” she
snapped.

“Don’t take that tone with me,
young lady.  I can do anything to you.”  S.A. held his chin and twisted
seductively.

“Yes, sir.  Is that all, sir?”
Jina sarcastically retorted.

“No.  You still have two turns
left.”

“What’s next?”

“There is a knife inside the
piano.  Take it out, and give Lewis a scar tattoo, of your own design.”

“You’ve got to be... kidding.” 
She had almost said crazy, but that was better left unspoken.

“I’m not kidding, but I
am
crazy...”

She would not, could not, let him
use her like a puppet.  She sat up straight and pulled together all the courage
she could muster.  Ignoring the fact that S.A. had managed to marry Sandy, she
reached into her box of emotions, and pulled out defiance.

“I’m not going to do it,” she
said firmly.

“Yes you are,” he countered.

“No, I’m not.  Because you are
not inside this kaleidoscope.  That’s impossible.  No one can be
inside
a toy.  You’re right here in this room, standing in front of me, and I’m just
looking at you through it.”

S.A. winced.  She lowered the
scope to see him standing before her.  She lunged at him with the spike, aiming
for his heart.  In spite of his surprise, he whirled away.  The spike merely
touched him on the hand.  It made a sizzling sound and steam rose up from a
black gash in his pale blue skin.

S.A. laughed.  “A stake?  I’m not
a vampire!” he shouted.

With a determined growl, Jina
lunged again, and this time she finally caught him off guard.  The spike
plunged into his chest, just above his collarbone.  With a shriek he stumbled
back.

Sandy started screaming.  Jina
rushed to her side.

“Shh... calm down.”  She gently
eased her friend to the floor.  She tried not to touch any of her bright red
skin.  It looked like light burns covered most of her exposed flesh.

“It hurts,” she whimpered. 

“What did he do to you?” 

“I let him do these things to
me.  I liked it,” she sobbed.

Jina glanced over, and S.A. was
writhing on the floor, the spike sticking out of his shoulder.  Assured that he
was still incapacitated, she turned back to Sandy.

“It’s not your fault, Sandy. 
Whatever it was, he made you do it.  He’s insane.”

“No.  He’s not insane.  He’s
beautiful.  Fuck, I don’t know what I’m saying.  I was inside his head.  I knew
everything he knew.  I liked what he did to me as much as he did.  It’s so...
gross.  But I still remember.”

“It’s ok Sandy.  He’s can’t do
anything to you right now.  He’s hurt.”

“I know.  I felt it.  Iron, it
hurts him more than you can imagine.  His step mother used it on him.”  Sandy
glanced over at him.  “I want to pity him now.  I almost want... to help him.”

“Now you’re talking insanity.”

“The iron broke his spell.  He
made me want to be inside of him.  I could have left at any time, but... I didn’t
want to.  Not until the pain.  I didn’t want to be in there anymore, not with
that thing burning a hole in me.”

“Anything to help a friend.  Can
you walk?”

“Listen closely, Jina.  I know
his true name.  It’s Perrihaunisplaun.”

“How am I supposed to remember
that?  What am I supposed to do with it?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Sandy, I know you’re hurt but I
need to know if you can walk.  I need to get you and Lewis out of here in case
Perrih... In case S.A. recovers.”

Jina heard something behind her
that sounded like a mix between a gurgle, a growl, and a scream.  Turning, she
saw Lewis standing there, with the spike in his hand.  He looked at Jina
apologetically.  Parahana-whatever-his-name-was rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Perrihaunisplaun,” Sandy
whispered.  Jina repeated it over and over in her mind, like lyrics of a song
she didn’t have time to write down.  She gave it a little melody to help her
retain it.

He glared at her.

“You shouldn’t have done that,”
he said calmly. 

He seemed to be gathering
strength from the room.  She watched his flesh knit back together.  “I have
more power now than ever.  Healing is trivial.  I fed from the song you wrote. 
So creative.  So lyrical and rhythmic.  And Sandy...”  He gave her a
possessive, loving look.  “You gave me so much of your will.  I feel like I
could tear this house down around me.  Like I could mesmerize every living
creature in this town.  Like I could make every person in the world think they
were in love.  Or in peril.”

“He’s right, Jina,” Sandy
whispered.  “I’ve got nothing left.”

“Speak up, my love.  I very much
want to hear your lovely voice.”

“I’m empty,” she said. 

“Like peanut shell, a dried corn
husk, a dead flower?”

“Yes,” Sandy whispered.

“So, Jina.  It’s all up to you. 
What will you do?”

“Perrihaunisplaun!”

He winced.  Waited.  Nothing
happened.  Then he started to grin.

“Perrihaunisplaun!  I banish you!”

Now he laughed.  “You hold the
most powerful weapon that could ever be used against me, but you really have no
idea how to use it, do you?”

Frustrated, she tried again.  “Perrihaunisplaun,
your magic is not real.  You have no power, Perrihaunisplaun!”  Then for luck,
she said it a third time.

He simply chuckled and grinned in
glee.  Sandy stirred beside her, then she shuddered.  “God, I know how he
feels.  I still know how he feels.  I
remember
.  I still
want it
. 
I want him to win.”  Jina looked to her for help but realized just how alone
she was.

Her skin tingled.  She looked at
her arm, and green fuzz oozed out of her.  It spread as she watched, from her
elbow to her wrist to her fingers.  Mold grew out of every pore.  Tingling
turned to stinging pain as the fungus ate away her flesh.  She rubbed at it,
trying to remove it from her skin, but it only pulled away bits of her own
body.  It felt like she was decaying.  She reached out and held on to Sandy
with all her might.