The Nightmare Game (77 page)

“‘There,’ she said, ‘now that’s done, I can turn
my full attention to you, Edmond and you can trust me when I say that your fate
will not be pleasant.’

“The sight that was not my sight returned quickly
to the room in which I was being held captive and I saw myself still from her
eyes, frozen in the chamber, clasping the cane tightly, my eyes closed, not
breathing, looking more like a wax figure in a museum than the living human
being I knew myself to be.

“‘Do you see what your meddling has done? You have
cost me my poor Jean. We were together for many decades, he and I. He was one
of my very favorites and now he is gone because of you. You took someone of
mine, Edmond. I suppose you think that I will now take someone of yours, but
you would be wrong. I will take everyone. I will take everyone that you have
ever loved, ever befriended, past, present, and future!’

“My vision now shifted again and instead of
myself, I now saw her, almost as if I were looking through my own eyes. While
tears had actually been running down that monster’s cheeks over her loss of
Jean, in that split second, she began to laugh at me, an cold, evil, hysterical
laugh that revealed how insane she really was and how very little hope I truly
had of ever escaping. She then began to question me and I realized that her
assertion that the second amulet had been found was nothing more than an
educated guess. As she probed my mind, I could feel her gloat over finding for
a fact that she’d been right. To my horror, I realized that she was also
correct in saying that I would tell her everything, although it was in no way
by my own will. She got into my mind and literally ripped from it everything
she wanted. She found out about Christopher and Freddie, she found out about
the Institute which we had founded. I was suddenly thankful that I had lost so
much interest in all my other involvements when I became obsessed with New
Orleans, for it meant that my information was outdated. What I did not know, she
did not know. I realize now that it was the only way that the Trust was able to
survive. Before I left England, I’d become dismissive of everything and
everyone else during my obsession with New Orleans, so much so that whenever I
was introduced to someone new, I took scant notice of them and did not remember
them. While they must have thought me terribly rude, it was this preoccupation
that saved their lives in the end.

“She first tormented me by killing everyone I
loved. She killed all of my friends, my father, my sister Elizabeth. While
everyone else thought it was sickness or natural causes, Rochere made sure that
I knew it was she who had murdered them. No one that I knew was safe. The only
reason that Virginia survived that massacre is because even she was my servant.
Rochere refused to acknowledge Virginia’s emancipation and thus thought of her
as being nothing more than my slave. As such Rochere could not be bothered with
Virginia, for her prejudice against slaves was such that she considered Virginia
to be chattel only, nothing more than my property. As a woman of immeasurable
wealth, Rochere never took any real interest in any of my money or property
except for my house on Toulouse Street, and that was merely to gain access to
the second relic. In that she failed, thank God, for when she killed
Christopher, the box and its relic joined their now-empty mate, all hiding
themselves from her and anyone she might send to find them. She had the house
on Toulouse Street ransacked many times, but she never did find the boxes. It
was their duty to keep her and her underlings ignorant of their whereabouts.
They were highly intelligent and intuitive, so much more than mere inanimate
objects. I realize now that the only reason the boxes allowed themselves to be
separated at all is because the pieces inside knew that Christopher and I were
working together and planning to reunite them soon. They knew that our motive
in separating them was to keep them safe in case one of our ships sank, for if
only one were safe on land, the other would always be able to rejoin it.

“Soon after Rochere had finished off my family and
those close to me, she became increasingly bored with her initial interest in
making what could only now jokingly be called my life miserable. Only then did
she begin to leave me alone to rot in that metallic dungeon of hers. The
complete sensory depravation was an utter nightmare, knowing I was trapped and
unable to leave. The overwhelming claustrophobia of being caged, not only in
the chamber but also within my own body, was horrific. I know I would have lost
my mind completely had it not been that I soon discovered that my mind was no
longer confined within itself. With a little effort, I could now reach out to
other minds, albeit in a very limited capacity. In an effort to keep sane, I
kept myself busy with this endeavor, finding that, with practice, it became
easier and easier, and my mind’s reach became greater and greater. At first I
was only able to connect with Rochere. Her thoughts were incredibly disturbing.
Also, I only could only keep that connection alive for short intervals before
she would discover I was linked to her and punish me for it. I soon discovered
exactly how long I could link to her without her knowing it; whenever she was
distracted or engaged in conversation, I found I could keep the connection
going longer than when she was at rest. The longest connections, however, were
when she was asleep, for she dreamed vividly and often. At the same time, I
kept trying to communicate with other minds, those of anyone else, in hopes of
finding someone who would free me. One day, it just happened. My mind linked
with that of Virginia, who was somehow still living at my house. I wondered all
this time how she’d been able to stay there following my disappearance, finding
out just now that it was because of the Trust, which stepped in to take
ownership anonymously only a short time thereafter.

“It took me several weeks not only to strengthen
the connection with her, but also to convince her that I was still alive, being
held prisoner, that I was neither dead nor a construct of her imagination. I’m
sure that I could communicate with her only because she had handled my amulet’s
box in between Arrosha’s searches many times after my disappearance, hoping for
a clue to my whereabouts. In communicating with her this way, I also found out
that the second relic had arrived inside its box as soon as Christopher was
killed. It had simply appeared one night. When her thoughts turned to me as she
wondered whether I was alive or dead, the amulet transformed itself into a
necklace for her.

“Our communication became stronger after that and
I asked her to put on the necklace amulet, which she did. Immediately
afterward, I felt a change in the energies emanating from the relic that was my
cane’s headpiece. My mental connection with her increased a hundredfold. I
feared that Rochere would surely have picked up on this change, for it was
strong, but it seemed hidden from her for awhile. I’d already figured out about
how long it would normally take for her to pick up on it, so when Virginia and
I were in mental link, I kept the communiqués short. It was during this period
I also learned how to block Rochere from my mind; I could never do it when her
full attention was on me, only when she was simply scanning, which she did
often. I told Virginia where to look for the hidden door to the building that
was the entrance to Rochere’s lair and was later to become an entranceway to
what she would come to call The Crypt. I knew my good friend would come to
rescue me. At first Virginia sought the help of others, but while she was able
to see the door, no one that ever came with her could. I realized then that it
was only the amulet which gave her that special sight. She also began to follow
Rochere and one evening she followed her to one of the gala events that my
former social set threw all too frequently and realized that this was the time
in which to act, for Rochere would be busy for quite a few hours. Virginia
walked through the door, through the tunnel and into the room where I was being
held prisoner. I thought that surely I would be free soon, but I watched in
horror as several of Rochere’s followers who had lain in wait grabbed Virginia
from behind. One of them tore the necklace from her, the other slit her throat.
It seems Arrosha had the house watched and Virginia followed. She’d given her
goons access to the essence with promises of more. It allowed them access to
the room without her.

“It seemed only seconds after the henchmen killed
Virginia that Rochere arrived. She laughed with glee and conquest, gloating
that she finally had possession of the second piece. The evil one thought that
once it was safely stowed away, she would now have her freedom, for it took
both of the pieces together to destroy her. Her laugh turned into a scream of
rage as the necklace piece disappeared, even as her follower held it up for her
to see. She killed both men for their efforts and, with a burst of rage and
fire, incinerated their bodies.

Virginia, who was now thankfully dead, Rochere
entombed in the metal wall to my right, as a warning, she said, against my ever
trying to escape again. She increased her watch on my communications at that
point and it became virtually impossible for me to talk to the people I called.
Once again she tortured me mentally until her anger waned. My mind made me feel
this torture physically, as real as if it were actually happening. At the same
time, she tormented me emotionally by forcing me to relive the deaths of
Virginia and all my other dear ones until she eventually became bored with her
sadistic pleasures once again.

“After a long time, she lost interest in me again,
leaving me alone for decades this time. I spent my time working on the powers
of my mind, so enhanced by the machine which held me captive and the talisman,
which was held prisoner with me. Slowly I became able to contact certain people
through their dreams, sometimes even drawing them to New Orleans, strangers I
had never before met. I didn’t know why I could reach some and not others.
There was little progress at first as decades slipped by and she too easily
disposed of those I’d called. Then, after the century mark passed, I was able
to contact Marcus. Virginia may have been helping me before then, but it was
only with Marcus that I realized that Virginia had been helping me all along. I
didn’t know how it was possible for her to seem to come alive again for short
periods of time, except that when she did, she was bound to my house and courtyard
and could not leave it.

“Rochere got wind that Marcus had the other
amulet, which, with him, took the form of a heavy charm, much as it did with
Max. Rochere decided that Marcus would not enter her dungeon as easily as
Virginia had. It was then that she created a crude version of a bar in the
empty room, dubbing it The Crypt, and since he had never seen her before,
Rochere set herself up as barmaid. Marcus was a young and hearty, often
boasting fellow, able to out-drink the strongest man. He’d had nothing else to
drink that night and took only a sip to bolster his courage for what was to
come. It took her fluorescent cocktail longer to hit him than it did you,
Ashley, and when it did, he had already found me in the stasis chamber. Rochere
destroyed him in the vortex, which was always strongest when it was in her
lair. The amulet grew its chain around his neck for extra support, but she had
too strong a hold on him. The dragon could not break him free as it did you and
by the time he had escaped that vortex, he was dead from its efforts. She
mounted him into the wall to my left, facing Virginia and then began her
now-predictable cycle of torture and torment until, once again, she became
bored. Long years once more passed. No one I called was very successful, for
Virginia was never able to tell a player outright much of what was going on,
what to do and what not to do. Virginia tried at first, but Arrosha always cut
her short before torturing me horribly for my friend’s efforts.

“After Virginia, it took me decades to
re-energize. It was the same with Marcus. Whenever those I called failed,
Rochere would connect with me, maliciously bragging about their failures and
inevitable demise. It took her long to realized that the deaths of those I
called who died early on did not drain me nearly as much as those who made it
till the end; for a long time, all she understood was that their deaths were
easier on and for her.

“In the meanwhile, I was getting better and better
at what I was doing, and when my energies returned to their full strength, I
called Zachary, a good man who found out the secret to her mirror and pool.
When she killed him as well, she placed him next to Marcus in the wall. I came
to realize that her ability to make me see what she wanted me to see was
limited to her lair. It was why she always brought my champions there at the
end.

“Experience eventually taught my friends and I how
to sense when the witch was not listening in very hard, which was during her
dormant time for rest or when she was feeding. That was when they learned that
they could give the new people I called clues and hints without getting me into
too much trouble.

“Then came Max and I thought the others were
familiar enough with Arrosha’s game to be able to help him. I had finally found
someone who had the athletic skill to free me before she could get to him. But
after each near-success, she would up the difficulty level of her sick game and
with Max she added her mansion with its seductions. But Max did not drink the
water or take of the essence, for she had not yet discovered how to make her
undead last long enough to use them for sabotage; his weakness, instead, was
that he fell in love with one of her followers. When she threatened him with
his lover’s life, he handed over the amulet in an attempt to save Gizelle’s
life, but Rochere, giddy with assurance that she had, this time, won, betrayed
him and killed his lover brutally anyway. Rochere’s victory was short-lived,
though, for once again, the piece disappeared back into its box and it was then
she discovered that torturing or threatening a loved one was not the same as
seduction or trickery. The amulet considered forced coercion to be on the same
par as torture of its actual wearer. Truly enraged by that revelation, Rochere
then destroyed that entire group of her followers.