The Nightmare Game (16 page)

Yet drift I did, despite my very best efforts.
Within me I felt a lightness that defied gravity. It was pure pleasure,
containing no tinge of death as did my last sleep. I rose upward again,
weightless for a moment, toward union with the oneness with all that most of us
feel only in the first fleeting stages of a truly splendid sleep. Hovering
rapturously for a few seconds, I then came crashing down and the sensation I
felt changed from one of bliss to one of menace. Black was the pit into which I
fell, black and fearful. I did not know where I was or how to escape. I
wandered down a hallway dark and barely navigable, fearful that each step might
send me tumbling down a flight of stairs or plummeting into yet another, deeper
pit. With trepidation, I continued down this corridor because I could do
nothing else. I could go neither left nor right, for it never branched. I could
not even turn around and go back the way I came, for the tunnel immediately closed
itself behind me as I walked. It merely kept twisting in upon itself, a hellish
treadmill with no destination. Finally, after what seemed like hours, I saw a
tiny, dim light in the far distance. My heart leapt and I began to walk toward
it with intense anticipation, for it was my only hope of escape. The floor
beneath my feet was cold, the walls even colder to the touch. Despite that
extreme iciness, the air itself suddenly became excessively hot. The longer I
walked toward the light, the hotter the air became and the colder the walls and
floor grew. The winding hallway was becoming stuffy, lack of oxygen making it
harder and harder to breathe. I broke out in the same cold sweat as I had in
Rochere’s office, the layer of filth once again wrapping itself around my body
like a nasty second skin. Fear enveloped me and I began to panic. I burst into
a run, racing as fast as I could to reach the source of the light before it
disappeared. The faster I ran, however, the slower I actually went and the
further away the light became. Out of breath, I slowed to a stop, knelt against
the icy wall which chilled me without cooling me, and collected myself. I
forced my mind to realize that I was in a dream. None of this was real. I
didn’t have to be at its mercy, I could control it. So I closed my eyes and
with great effort, willed myself to the end of the path. It worked, for when I
opened my eyes, I stood at the tunnel’s mouth where a white room, a room that
had existed as a mere pinpoint of light only an instant before, unveiled itself
to me. It was so bright after the dark tunnel that even in my dream I was
blinded and disoriented for a few seconds.

 When I was finally able to examine what stood
before me, I realized that it was not a room at all, for I could see no floor,
walls nor ceiling. It was simply a nebulous area of pure, brilliant whiteness.
I stayed in the shadows, lurking, hugging the entrance of the dark tunnel in
which I stood, transfixed. I longed to enter into the formless space, but I was
far too apprehensive to step out. Suddenly I heard footsteps in the distance,
low and far away, but soon they began to come closer to my hiding place inside
the mouth of the tunnel. As they grew louder, I recoiled further into the
tunnel, terrified that the footsteps were signaling Rochere’s return. Was she
coming back to extract her punishments upon me once again? I held my breath as
the figure belonging to the footsteps slowly, gradually, began to materialize
within the whiteness and walked toward me steadily, becoming more solid with
each step.

I exhaled loudly with relief when I saw at last
that it was Edmond, moving across the whiteness in a fluid manner, in slow
motion. He stopped before the tunnel’s mouth and held out his hand to me. I was
ecstatic to see him, but still I could not make myself walk out to him.

“It’s okay, you can come out now,” he said to me
as if he were coaxing a kitten from under a bed.

“I can’t. The light will burn me.”

“No, it won’t. The poison is completely out of you
now; the infection is gone. She’s no longer in your mind and she no longer has
direct access to you. You’re completely clean and you can enter at your own
will.”

The warmth of his eyes entranced me and I wanted
so much to run up to him, to throw my arms around him. I wanted him to make me
feel safe, to feel protected, but I held back because what I really needed was
for him to tell me that I could go home. I desperately yearned to hear him say
that I didn’t have to continue this horrible endeavor, that I could just quit;
but I knew he wouldn’t tell me that, because I knew without asking that it was
not possible. Instead, I merely took his hand and stepped out into the
brightness.

As we stood encircled by the incredible whiteness
of our surroundings, I simply asked him, “What is this place? Where are we?”

“We are nowhere,” he answered. “This is just a
sector within my mind from which I can block out the evil one. I found this
haven a long time ago and it’s the only place that I can hide where she can’t
find me when she is actively looking for me. I can speak freely to you here,
but we can’t stay long because the effort is extremely taxing to me. It takes
an enormous amount of exertion for me to block her thoughts to this extent, but
there’s a lot that I need to tell you before you proceed, a lot you need to
know.”

“Okay.”

“First of all, I wish I could let you know
everything that’s going to happen from this point forward, everything you need
to expect. I wish I could tell you every move you need to make, but I can’t
because I never know all the details. It is only at the very beginning that the
witch’s methods of operation are predictable because she knows that my
abilities to warn those I call are, at that time, extremely limited. Even then,
most people are either completely scared off and leave or don’t believe
Virginia, Marcus and the dreams in the slightest, preferring to think it all a
hoax. In both cases, their fates are terminally sealed. So you see, there’s
absolutely nothing causing her to go to the trouble of changing her initial
moves.

“However, you are past that stage now and entering
a point at which her actions are no longer as predictable. Her plans begin to
evolve because she knows that here I can warn you. Once you go through the
second door at The Crypt tonight, which will be your next move, you’ll be
entering into a realm that is her domain; there she rules absolutely and there
she will try to beguile you into surrendering the necklace and its amulet. I
can never help you in her world; she does not allow me into it. I can tell you
only that her strategies are never exactly the same every time. She repeats
some elements, discards others, and I have no way of knowing which is which.
She may change everything this time. I don’t know. I do know one thing for
certain, for she’s taunted me with shadowy hints that reveal nothing, hints
that she has changed at least one crucial element from the last time the battle
progressed this far. It’s due to the fact that I don’t know what it is that I
can’t tell you exactly what to do or expect, because I don’t want to lead you
down a wrong path by giving you outdated information. I made that mistake with
Marcus and it still haunts me. I can only inform you about the elements that
remain constant within this struggle, to let you know as best I can what you
will be up against. I am so sorry, Ashley, that I had to bring you into this
battle, this war, even. Marcus and some of the others found it helpful to think
of it as a game. It made it less intimidating to them, less frightening. I hope
thinking of it in that way will help you as well.

“I can’t emphasis enough the need for you to be on
your guard. I don’t want you ever to be susceptible to that witch again. I know
what you’ve just been through has been horrible and once more, I am truly sorry.”

“Oh, Edmond, it was hideous. That shower, the
vortex, it was all so terrifying. I honestly thought I was going to die.” Just
thinking about it now made me want to burst into tears.

“You almost did die. You came very, very close to
it. I am so sorry she hurt you. However, at least now you’ve seen her true face
in full. No matter how she tries to charm you, no matter how she tries to court
you later on, and she will, you have experienced first hand how undeniably evil
she really is.”

“What I don’t understand is, how did she even get
to me? All your friends told me that this necklace would protect me from her,
that I’d be safe from her as long as I wore it. I’ve never taken it off but it
certainly hasn’t helped me much up to now.”

“It helped you tremendously. You’re still alive,
aren’t you? The evil one got to you in the shower only because you partook of
her poison at The Crypt. That’s how her influence got inside of you. She used
it to get hold of you, to gain control over you. That’s why Virginia and Marcus
warned you not to drink anything that originated from the evil one. Not even a
drop.”

“And I kept that in mind. Of what memories I have
of last night, drinking that bizarre looking concoction they served at The
Crypt is not among them.”

“True, you did not drink it willingly, but think
back. There was more to last night than you currently recall.”

I did think back, going over last night’s events
once more. But a nagging in my mind led me further. It led me into the tiny
black room with its blood-red doors. It led me into the door I’d chosen and the
fall. It led me into the glowing, blue, iridescent puddle of sweet liquid that
had splashed into my mouth and tasted so much like oranges and liquorice.

“Oh, crap!” was my knee-jerk response to this new
memory.

“Yes, that’s it. That’s the memory,” he said.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one ever to have uttered a profanity at recalling
the previous night’s events.

“How do you know?” I asked him anyway. “Can you
read my mind?”

“In here, I can to a limited degree. But I didn’t
have to. The witch got to you in the same way she did with most of those I
call. Unfortunately, I’m generally not able to revive them as I did you. Most
of them are already dead by this point. In all these years, only one man I’ve
ever called had the strength and reflexes not to react instinctively and to
escape that first poison.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Edmond answered. “Despite a
very promising beginning, he never made it to the end.”

“But what I don’t understand is, Virginia and I
spent awhile talking and she never mentioned it except very briefly at the end.
Then she didn’t have time to explain it properly. If she’d explained it more
thoroughly, it might have helped, you know.”

“Yes, I do. But she couldn’t go into it further
because no matter what the evil one is doing, when she hears one of my helpers
warning one of my called about her little ‘surprise’, she comes running. The
very mention of the subject calls her. That’s why Virginia had explain
everything else first and why she was forced to leave before she was able to go
any further into that subject.

“Oh, Ashley, this has been so frustrating all
these years. It’s so hard to convince anyone to believe that this insanity is
even real, much less that they have to stay and fight such a powerful opponent,
especially considering how fettered we are in our ability to pass on the
information that our fledglings need in order to survive the beginning of this
undertaking.”

“I still can’t help but wonder, though, why didn’t
you help me when she attacked me in the shower?” I asked.

“I couldn’t. It’s only when you sleep that I can
come to you. I can’t reach you when you’re conscious.”

“Then you could have helped me before I woke up
today.” Tears welled up in my eyes from the hurt I felt. My voice sounded far
more accusatory than I’d actually intended, but I was still quite traumatized.
“I really needed you then.”

“I tried to help you, tried so hard to reach you,
but I couldn’t,” he explained, sounding as hurt as I felt. “I told you that she
used her poison to gain control of you from the inside. Because of that, she
was able to block all my efforts to rescue you. The best thing I could possibly
do this morning was to impart some level of healing into the food you ate. It
was weak, I know, and not nearly enough to counter-act the evil one’s power.
While I cannot do much secondhand, it was my only option to help you in any way
at all.”

“That was your doing? That was why the food made
me feel so much better?”

“Yes. I’m so sorry I could do no more.”

“No, Edmond. I’m sorry. I’m still shaky and that
came across as ungrateful. I didn’t mean it to seem that way.”

“My dear, it is I who should apologize for having
to place you in this situation. Your suffering was not in vain, though. I know
that after the hell you’ve just been through, this may sound like very little
consolation, but besides allowing you to see her true face, something else
beneficial resulted from that attack.”

“How on earth could anything beneficial possibly
come out of that?” The use of the word “beneficial” in that context tasted like
ashes on my tongue.

“It may not sound like much to you now, but you
should know that you’re much stronger from being forced to fight her. You may
not notice it right away, but when you need it, you’ll find that your endurance
has been greatly enhanced. It will continue to grow as you continue in the
game. It’s a gift to you from the amulet, for it wants you to triumph. That
amulet is the key to everything. It’s what this battle is all about. The evil
one wants desperately to possess it because it contains is a powerful force
that is the only means of her destruction. The amulet doesn’t want her as its
owner, so from the moment you first put it on, it has been slowly merging its
energy with your own to help you win. The longer you wear it, the more it joins
with you, the more it strengthens you. The attack in the shower accelerated
that merging, so you’re much stronger now than you would have been otherwise.”