The Nightmare Game (54 page)

“She wants that necklace with its amulet more than
anything else in the world. It’s important for you to keep in mind that the
witch cannot get close to you physically, for as long as you wear the necklace,
it repels her. Those that help her can get near to you, but no one can take it
from you and be able to keep it. It’s especially important at this stage of the
game to remind you that she is unable to take possession of it by force, or by
the torture of yourself or someone you care about and still be allowed to keep
it. It will simply disappear in a few seconds and rematerialize back into the
box from whence Virginia retrieved it when she gave it to you. It will stay
there until the next person I call comes along and this game starts anew.”

“Why doesn’t she just take the box?”

“She can’t. It hides itself from her and those
that are either wittingly or unwittingly in league with her. It hides itself
even from me and from my helpers, because it knows that she could, without my
consent, get into my mind and retrieve its location. All I know is that I call
someone and if she’s not able to kill them before they come to the apartment,
Virginia returns, the box with the necklace amulet returns, and you know the
rest. The house is a beacon to it, which is why you always return here, to this
apartment. It’s why you didn’t remain in the alley after the first door, why
you didn’t wind up at The Crypt this time. Whether you had gone through the
mirror or through the pool it didn’t matter, you still would have come back
here, to this apartment, to my old house. The amulet considers it to be its
home as well, and it will always bring you home. The evil one knows this and
that is why she keeps control over the property.”

“Why is she able to control it if it’s your
house?”

“I wish I knew. She somehow seized control of the
property back at the end of the nineteenth century, although it hasn’t seemed
to have helped her.

“Your voluntary submission of the necklace to one
of her followers was the entire point of placing you at the mansion. Putting
you in a position in which you were forced to take in her drugged water made
you forget who you are. All the rest of it was nothing more than window
dressing, a con to seduce you to her side. She surrounded you with luxury, a
group of people that you would like, a best friend in the form of Ben. Without
a memory, if she could keep you there, it would have been only a matter of
hours before you took off the necklace willingly. That was the entire point of
her ‘transformation ceremony’. She never needed it to transform people. It was
nothing more than a ruse to get you to surrender willingly the necklace amulet.
The game would have been lost forever then and the world along with it.”

I shuddered when I thought back on my temptation
to join her group. Shame filled me as I realized I’d come so close to handing
over the amulet to Arrosha, to blowing this for everyone.

Sensing my mortification at what I’d almost done,
Edmond wrapped his arms around me and said, “I wish I could have helped you at
the mansion, Ashley, when you needed me so much, but I couldn’t. As I told you
before you entered the second door, the wicked one is able to keep me out of
her realm completely. During your stay there, I was absolutely ignorant of your
predicament, just now learning of what transpired there during the energy
exchange with which I was able to heal you.”

“Still, Edmond,” I said, not feeling a whole lot
better. “I almost ruined it for everybody. I mean, if I’d joined her group and
given up the amulet, even for a few seconds, that would have meant catastrophe.
You know the old saying, ‘relax, it’s not like it’s the end of the world’?
Well, that’s one expression I never could have used again, now isn’t it?”

Edmond stroked my fingers and said, “You have too
much ahead of you to worry about what might have been but wasn’t. Let’s be glad
things worked out the way they did, alright?”

“Okay. I couldn’t have gotten to the necklace
anyway, because it was buried under my skin, right?”

“Wrong. It would have seen your actions as
deliberate intent, not forced in any way. It can protect itself, but not from
its own wearer.”

“Oh, Edmond, I am so sorry,” I said, feeling
terrible.

“Ashley, listen. It didn’t happen. Almost doesn’t
count in this game. It’s all or nothing. We almost won a few times, but didn’t.
Besides, there’s too much ahead to worry about your ‘almosts’.”

“Like what?” I said, cringing as I asked it.

“Do you remember that I told you there were two
main reasons we can spend so much time together here, that we can speak so
freely, that I can reveal so much to you now?” he added.

“Yes.”

“The first reason is increased protection by the
amulet, but the second one is bad news indeed. The evil one is insanely angry
at you for being successful thus far; she is also enraged at her followers for
failing her in the best chance she’s ever had of gaining possession of the
amulet you wear about your neck.

“She’s not paying attention to you right now
because she’s busy setting up her punishments. She wants everyone to suffer, so
she’s making ready to exact her revenge. In her mind, all of her followers let
her down, not just Geoffrey, so she no longer loves them. They betrayed her and
they must be punished. She wants everyone to die horribly.”

“What’s she going to do to them?”

“It’s always different, but it’s always terrible.”

“Always? So this has happened before?”

“Yes. She had a group prior to this one that she
destroyed, one that was associated with a champion that preceded you. She’ll
torment them now, more for her own amusement than anything else and she’ll make
you watch until it’s your turn. She’s sadistic and likes, even needs, to play
with her prey before and until she kills it.”

“Wonderful,” I said. This was getting worse and
worse.

“But always remember, as Virginia told you when
you first started this endeavor, the witch can be defeated. She has her faults;
she
is
fallible. She allowed you to take
essence, even though it brought back your memory, if only temporarily. The
essence broke through her dampening field, allowing the amulet to calculate a
permanent, albeit quite slow, antidote to the water. The evil one had no idea
that this would happen. She’d never been able to use the essence on one of my
people before. The essence interacted with the amulet in a way that she never
could have predicted. The witch thought only of its benefits, hoping that those
benefits would bring you over to her side. She was short-sighted, thinking only
of the best way to seduce you into relinquishing the amulet.”

“Why did she use such an elaborate ruse to trick
me? Surely there must have been an easier way.”

“There wasn’t. She’s tried easier routes in the
past, only to have the amulet return to its box. She had to make you believe
that giving her the amulet freely was a good thing. The talisman is literally
worth the world to her, since it’s the only thing that can destroy her. It
would be akin to a vampire taking possession of the very last stake of wood
left on earth or a werewolf owning the last piece of silver. It was worth the gamble
to her and making you younger and stronger was an integral part of that
seduction.

“It’s why Arrosha would want to give you the gifts
of youth and beauty, to entice you into surrendering the necklace amulet
voluntarily. She wanted to seduce it from you. She needed you alive and healthy
for that. She needed you to believe that she was a benevolent entity. She
almost succeeded this time, before Geoffrey ruined it all for her.”

“I don’t want to frighten you any more than you
already are,” he continued, “but I have to prepare you for what lies ahead.
Once you pass through that third door, things will be bad. She thought she
could win before now and she is incensed more than ever. In her plan to beguile
you into relinquishing the necklace, she gave you gifts, gifts of youth,
health, strength, and now she wants them back. That you would use those gifts
against her absolutely enrages her.

“She needs to weaken you now, to take back as many
of her gifts as she is able to before she can feel satisfied in killing you.
You are her enemy and she needs and wants to lord her power over you.

“The good news is that you’ve successfully
conquered the first two doors and have only one more left. If you can succeed
there, it will all be over, she will be dead, I will be free and you will have
won.”

“But in almost two hundred years, no one has ever
won, right?” I said, again, not liking my chances.

“Correct. No one has ever won. You would never
have been called into this if they had. But few have ever made it this far,
Ashley. Only Virginia, Marcus and Zachary made it farther than you have now. I
had extremely strong psychic connections with each of them when they were
sucked into this conflict and that wound up making the biggest difference. My
connection with you is even stronger, which gives me great hope. Also, all
three of them were able to help you as well. We have to take full advantage of
every edge we have, Ashley, because the evil one is very strong.”

“Edmond, there was a fourth man, wasn’t there? His
photo was in the box with the other three.”

“Yes, there was,” he replied, sadness in his
voice.

“His name was Max” I said. “That’s the same name
as the bartender at The Crypt, except there was no resemblance.”

“It’s no coincidence. It was the bartender. He
failed.”

“What happened to him?”

Edmond sighed. “I had such high hopes for Max. I
really thought that he was going to be the one that would win and free me. But
at the last minute, he handed the amulet over to Arrosha.”

“But the world hasn’t ended. We’re all still
here.”

“She forced his hand. He gave it to her to stop
her torture of someone he loved.”

“I thought that wouldn’t work.” I said.

“It didn’t,” he replied. “ At the time, the evil
one didn’t know for certain, but the game had gone on for far too long as it
was and she thought it was worth the chance. Max remained strong, refusing both
essence and water, so the game went into stalemate. Max’s fatal mistake was
that he fell in love with one of her followers, and when the witch threatened
to torture the girl, Max gave in and handed the amulet over to another one of
her devotees. Oh, she couldn’t keep it under those circumstances, of course. It
returned to its box after only a few seconds, as she suspected it would, but
Max has been her unwilling servant ever since. That’s why I can’t count him
with the others.”

“Was his mistake that he played too well?”

“His mistake was that he gave into coercion. It’s
why you never, ever, can hand over the amulet. If you do, for whatever reason,
the best you can hope for is to wind up like Max.

“What happens if I don’t give up the amulet, but
fail and she kills me anyway, what happens to me then? Will I become like
Virginia and the others?”

“I hate to think that would happen, but yes, you
will have gained enough strength, absorbed enough power from the amulet to
continue on to help those that succeed you.”

“As a ghost,” I said, crestfallen.

“Not exactly,” he said.

“But close enough,” I finished for him. “Okay,
Edmond, just what exactly am I supposed to do when I go through that third door?”

“You must find me, you must be near where I am
being held prisoner. You have one of the amulets. I have the other.”

“The headpiece on your cane?”

“Yes, the one I’ve shown you in your dreams. The
two must come together. It is being held prisoner with me in her lair. You must
get it close to our cage, so close that you can ensure that you won’t miss.
Take off the amulet quickly, tear it from your neck if you have to, for the
clasp will become weak at that point, and throw it at me as if you wish to smash
the glass under which she keeps me. You have to be quite close for it to work
through the device that is my prison. Don’t worry about anything else, as long
as you can get it close enough, the amulet will take care of the rest. Do that
and you will have won.”

“What if I can’t get it close enough?”

“Then it will land on the floor and return to its
box after several seconds. You will have lost. While she will never be able
feed off of you again because the amulet has changed your energy forever,
she’ll be able to kill you by any other means.”

“Okay, then, how do I find you?”

“Just keep going. She’ll lead you through a maze
of your old nightmares until she brings you to me eventually. Let me show you
what my prison looks like, so you will be prepared. Close your eyes for a
moment.”

When I did as he asked, I saw a strange-looking
upright chamber that reminded me, more than anything else, of a coffin of metal
and crystal.

“You’re in that little box?” I asked, stunned by
its size.

“Yes, locked in one position, unable to move for
close to two hundred years. This is the prison that has kept me linked to her
for so long that I know at the very end she will do the same thing every time.
If you’ve come this far, she will bring you to me to finish you off. She wants
me to see you die.”

“Ashley, I have to tell you now as best I can as
to what you’ll be up against. Virginia, Marcus and Zachary have done all they
can do for you; you won’t see any of them again. The same holds true of me.
This is the last chance I’ll have to help you. I’ve passed onto you all the
protection that I can. You’re on your own now.”

“No, Edmond, no. I can’t do this without knowing
that somebody’s going to be there for me. I can’t do this alone. I need you.”

“You’ll have the amulet.”

“It isn’t enough.”

“I’m sorry, Ashley. It’s not my choice. My helpers
can’t help you anymore because they’ve played the roles they’ve been assigned.
When it comes to me, I can’t help you in her realm, regardless. She’s able to
block me out of there. But each time we’ve been together, I’ve passed on to you
more and more of what I have to offer you. You now have protection and healing.
You also have the strength, stamina, and courage you’ll need to continue.
Whatever you haven’t been able to soak in, the amulet has absorbed for you. It
will be able to calm and reassure you because it has an increasingly personal
connection to you. It will be there for you, although you may not actively feel
it. You see, you won’t be entirely alone.”