Take Me To Your Reader: An Otherworld Anthology (8 page)

May
's garbled voice yells from just outside the house, "Ellis?" The entire interior is illuminated behind her. She limps further out onto the patio, looking toward the dock. Tellico and Joplin are still inside, tearing the rooms apart looking for Mattie's ashes. Clyde remains slumped in the chair just by the door, unconscious.

My eyes shift to the dock; I can just make out the silhouette of Mattie
's urn beneath the white of my t-shirt. She'll find him, I think as I struggle to keep my head above water. "She's not getting him," I murmur aloud.

As quietly as possible, I swim back to the dock. When I make it to the ladder, I ease myself out of the water.

"Ellis?" May's harsh voice drifts to me from somewhere near the other end.

I creep to the post that hides the urn. Chilled to the marrow of my bones, my hands shake as I uncover it. It
's smooth to the touch like a river stone. I fumble to unscrew the lid. The planks creak on the dock as May nears me. I back to the ladder and hold the urn out over the water.

"
Stop!" May makes a harrowing screeching sound when she sees me and realizes what I'm doing. She extends her hand; it begins to glow with red light. I tilt the opening of the urn toward the water threateningly. She immediately drops her hands and takes a step back. "Wait!" She gives me a glare that would turn my bones to dust if it could.

"
Let Clyde go," I order with venom.

"
Do you have feelings for Matt's slave? That's priceless!" May tries to smile, but her burnt skin pulls; soot cracks and falls from it. Her smile turns rancid and becomes a wince. She calls over her shoulder, "Bring Clyde here!"

Tellico and Joplin spill out onto the porch. When they see us, Tellico goes back inside for a moment. He must have flipped a switch in the house because lights turn on and glow from each post along the dock, defining our features with a soft haze.

"What did you do to Ellis?" May asks as she looks around.

"
He couldn't swim," I lie. "He drowned."

The webs of new flesh on May
's cheek get thicker; tiny, dust-speck spiders crawl in and out of it. May's scowl is one of unease. "You're lying! He doesn't need to swim! What did you do to him?"

"
I didn't do anything to him," I answer honestly.

Fear enters May
's eyes as she asks, "He's here, isn't he?"

"
Who?" I counter, wanting her to say his name.

"
This is where he has collected. His spirit is in the lake, isn't it?"

"
What are you talking about?" I ask with a shiver.

"
It doesn't matter if he's here. He still needs his remains and an energy source to reunite," she murmurs.

Tellico emerges again from the house, this time with Clyde. He and Joplin drag Clyde down to the dock. They drop him near May
's feet. He curls up and groans, clutching his head.

May looks deeply concerned now. She extends her hand to me once more and motions me with her fingers.
"Give me the urn, Violet, or I'll kill him," she threatens.

My knees strike together in fear. I want to run senseless into the night.

Clyde stirs. "Don't give him to them, Violet!" he groans. "They're gonna kill us anyway!"

My eyes connect with Clyde
's and I know he's right. "I'm sorry," I murmur to him. "A toast then, to the dying and the dead." I tip the urn.

May
's hand comes up again, her sharp nails scratch the air. An anguished sound drones from her as Mattie's ashes cascade from the cold vessel. They fall down to drown in black water. The lake takes them over and hisses like I touched a hot iron to it. A blue glow emerges on the surface. Cerulean mist rises up, swirling and billowing. It entwines as it reaches toward the sky, growing and climbing over itself like a winding beanstalk of water and light. It illuminates the night in a fiery blue aurora, connecting with the storm clouds above.

Deep rumblings of thunder fall down on us; they ripple the water below. My hand weakens in fear and the urn slips from it, hitting the lake with a splash. An instant later, an enormous shaft of white lightning spews downward from the sky. It encompasses the stalk of blue light, turning it bright white and tearing the night in two. I flinch as electricity hits the black water, branching out in a roadmap of fiery veins. I
'm knocked off my feet, blown back from the exploding current.

We lay on the dock like pearls from a broken necklace. The smell of burnt fish is everywhere; it sticks in my lungs as would tar to a rooftop. Certain that I
'm dead, I close my eyes to wait for everything to fade away and my pain to end.

I open my eyes to find it
's darker again. All but one of the lights has extinguished. My cheek rests against a wooden plank. The lightning and rain have disappeared, but an unearthly crack of thunder shears the air around me, causing me to grimace and scrunch my face up tight. The dock trembles at the sound, threatening to plunge us into the lake. I gather my limbs to me, curling up in pain. My eyes open again just as a man-shaped silhouette of fire rises straight up from the water. I blink hard, and then stare at his flickering flames as he walks forward over the lake towards us.

The man of fire pauses and bends down, lifting Ellis
's clothing from the water. The fire begins to change to flesh as the flames extinguish. He shrugs on Ellis's dress pants; they hang loosely over his flat stomach and hips. Strolling barefoot on the surface again, he grows nearer.

"
Mattie," I murmur as my heart races. He's bare-chested; my eyes drink in his flawless skin, noticing how it pulls taut against his lean-muscled abdomen, accentuating the perfection of his physique. His black hair is made even more so, wet and slicked back from his handsome face. It's longer, too, than it had been a few months ago when I last saw him alive. Bristles of a beard cover his strong jawline, making him look different because he always maintained a close shave...and his eyes...his eyes glow blue like captured moonbeams.

When he reaches the dock, Mattie doesn
't hesitate, but comes right to me. I feel him before he even touches me. He's electric and when his skin meets mine the current within him jumps to me. It's painful at first and I grimace, but then the energy subsides. He scoops me up in his arms and I relax against his warm chest. With his finger, he brushes my hair back from my eyes. "Violet," he says my name softly.

His voice is Mattie
's. It causes my throat to tighten instantly. "Mattie?" I croak again, unable to say anything more.

Joplin stirs to life near us and climbs to his feet. He looks as surprised to be alive as I am and even more shocked to see Mattie. Mattie
's eyes leave me for a moment and his expression changes in an instant from adoring to vengeful.

Mattie continues to hold me effortlessly with one arm while he lifts his other. In his palm, a marble-size ball of blue light forms and grows. It
's looks like a perfect sphere of blown glass. As it gets bigger, I see inside the circle. White clouds swirl along with silvery shimmering bursts of energy.

Joplin sees it, too; he raises his hands out in front of him.
"I was ordered to be here. It's not my fault!" The light in Mattie's hand continues to grow bigger and brighter, making Joplin more desperate. Panting, Joplin points at May. "She had you killed! It wasn't me! She wanted your girl dead, but you were hit instead!"

A snarl rips from Mattie, like something wild abides inside of him. Without a word, he winds his arm back and throws the orb at Joplin. It strikes him in the head, exploding his brains all over Tellico next to him. Joplin
's body falls to the dock in a puddle of blood. Tellico sinks to his knees in supplication, but it does no good. Mattie throws another blue ball of light at him and he's nearly torn in half; pieces of him fall everywhere.

May pushes herself up from her sprawled position on the planks. She rises to her knees and bows her head to Mattie in surrender.
"Matteyo, I'm the one who came to help you—" When light begins to form in Mattie's hand once more, May screeches, "You can't kill me, Matteyo! It'll be war." Fear and desperation drip from May as she wrings her hands, unsure of what he'll do.

Mattie growls in frustration before he grits his teeth.
"Run, Maybelle," Mattie says with a look of pure malice, "run far away and hide until I forget about you."

May gets to her feet and does as he ordered. She runs past us, out over the water at a speed I can
't even fathom. Her feet make small splashing sounds as rippling rings billow out in her path over the lake, but they quickly fade and disappear as if they were never there at all. It only takes her a few seconds to fade into the night.

"
Are you hurt?" Mattie asks while his hands travel over my limbs in an assessing way.

I shake my head no, but my lips answer,
"I don't know."

He buries his face in my neck, holding me like we
're the only two here. "Violet," he says with his lips, nuzzling me. My body becomes alive in an instant, craving his touch. "You came for me."

"
You can't be real," I murmur, my hand traces the muscular curve of his shoulder. My tears blind me.

"
This is real. I'm real," Mattie assures me with a look of concern that melts my heart. "You saved me."

"
How did I do that?" I ask.

"
You reunited my spirit with my body when you poured my ashes into the lake."

His eyes are losing their glow, settling back to a normal hue. It reminds me that he
's not the Mattie I know; he may be the same person, but he never showed me this side of himself before. He never trusted me with his secrets. "I missed you so much...but I've been missing a lie. I've been in love with a lie," I murmur. I'm trembling all over and I can't stop.

"
Shhh, you're going into shock, Vi. You're safe now—everything will be okay—I'll take care of you. I'll fix everything. I promise." He kisses my temple, and strokes my hair.

I want to believe him.
"You took all those bullets for me," I whisper.

His lips turn down in a grim line.
"That should never have happened. I was blind. I underestimated my enemies. It won't happen again. From now on, you'll always be protected."

Clyde groans and tries to sit up, but he clutches his head and lays back down on the dock.

"Stay there, Clyde," Mattie orders with concern in his tone. "I'll be back shortly to help you. I'm just going to take Violet to the house." He moves at a speed that makes me dizzy. In an instant, we're on the porch. The glass door opens for us and he carries me over the threshold. Mattie places me gingerly on a leather chair with a matching ottoman. Taking the blanket from the arm of it, he lays it across my knees. He sinks down to my eye level and uses his finger to tuck my hair behind my ear.

"
You're safe here, Vi. I won't let anyone hurt you. Do you understand?" he asks me gravely. I nod because my throat is so tight I can't speak. He places a kiss on my forehead, "Don't be afraid. I'll be right back."

I nod again. He immediately rises and is gone before I can blink. As soon as I realize that I
'm alone, I put my hands to my face. It takes me a second to realize I'm crying. I pull my hands from my eyes and look around, spotting a box of tissues on the side table next to me. Reaching for it, my arm shakes so much I knock over a picture on the table. I pick it up to set it back where it had been until I notice it's a black and white picture of Mattie. I wipe my tears on my sleeve. He's standing in a field in front of an enormous zeppelin. Next to him is a bald man with spectacles and a white handlebar mustache. The caption reads, "With Ferdinand, 1910." My finger traces Mattie's young face, his three-piece suit, the chain of his watch fob that hangs from his vest pocket...the frame slips from my fingers and shatters on the floor.

Rising from the chair, I stumble toward the front door. A groan slips from me when Floyd
's dismembered body in the foyer blocks my path. I look away from him as I skirt his blood and flee from the house.

I walk numbly by the open passenger door of the Escalade. When I realize my wallet is lying on the seat, I go back and pick it up. Looking in the back seat, the bottle of white wine peeks out at me from the brown bag. I take that, too. Moving away from Mattie
's car, I unscrew the cap to the wine and take a deep sip. The headlights of May's Mercedes SUV blind me. I walk toward them.

When I get to May
's car, I open the door and climb in. The keys are in the ignition. Starting the engine, I turn the truck around and miss Milligan's charred body by inches as I pull away from the house.

I should probably tell Mattie where I
'm going, but he might try to talk me out of leaving, or stop me...and I have to go because, what do you say to someone who has lied to you about who he is? What do you say to that same person when he comes back from the dead and slaughters his enemies? Or, better yet, what do you say to an alien? Words fail me right now; I'll say the wrong thing.