Lair of Dreams

“I want to tell you not to be noble, but I’m terrified,” Evie said.

“Me, too.”

Instead, Evie came around and stood beside Memphis, holding his hand.

“I really wanted to be somebody,” Evie said, her voice catching.

The wraiths were closing in. The little girl had reached the top of the steps. She was a foot away. Evie could smell the rot on her and see the deep, dark gashes in her glowing skin. She wanted to shut her eyes but was too afraid. Memphis squeezed her hand.

The thing that had once been a little girl stepped very close to Memphis and inhaled deeply. She shrank back, hissing. She let loose a spine-chilling howl. The others answered. Memphis and Evie stood perfectly still. The girl slunk back down the steps, down into the dark, sniffing for other prey.

“Why did it do that?” Evie whispered.

“I don’t know,” Memphis whispered back. He glanced down the corridor, left and right. “They’re not moving. Let’s run while we can,” Memphis said, and Evie didn’t have to be asked twice. They kept alert as they inched up the next set of steps, not making a sound until they broke out onto the rain-soaked streets, and then, as the pounding rain washed over them, they let loose the screams they’d held back. People passing by under the cover of umbrellas stared at them as if they were lunatics. One woman covered her mouth with a gloved hand. “Dear me,” she said, and it was only then that Evie realized she still held Wai-Mae’s skull in the crook of her arm.

“We’re performing Hamlet,” Evie said, tucking the skull inside her coat. “Every evening at eight, and a matinee on Sunday.”

“Do you see Theta?” Memphis asked, whipping around in circles.

“Perhaps they got out first, and they’re already on their way to the graveyard,” Evie answered.

“I don’t want to leave without Theta.”

“I’m not going back down there,” Evie said. “We said we were going to Trinity Church. They’ll know to meet us there. The sooner we bury these bones, the safer we’ll all be.”

Rain coursed over Memphis’s worried face. “You certain about that?”

“I’m not certain about anything anymore, Memphis.”

Memphis gave the underground one last, woeful glance. He held the bones tightly to his chest. “It’s about six blocks to Trinity. We’d better hurry.”

“Time for your second act, Yorick,” Evie said, holding fast to the skull as she trotted after Memphis in the rain.

Sam and Theta had run north, coming out in a tunnel under construction, and the way ahead was a dead end, blocked by debris, steel and wood scraps, pipes, giant drills, and digging equipment. Sewer water and runoff from the storm streamed into the tunnel via a pipe. Already the water was up to their knees.

“Sam, stop!” Theta called, doubled over. “Where are Memphis and Evie?”

“I-I don’t know,” Sam gasped, holding a hand to his side where it ached. “But we gotta get outta here.”

“How? It’s a dead end, and those things are behind us!” Theta said. Her eyes searched the claustrophobic space for a weapon, and she decided on a section of pipe, which she wielded like a bat.

Sam pushed through the fetid water to a set of rungs jutting out from the concrete wall. He peered up. “I think this ladder leads to a manhole and the street!”

Theta pushed against the water, moving toward the wall. She stopped suddenly.

“Theta, hurry!”

Theta shook her head. She gripped the pipe tightly. “Something moved. Under the water.”

Sam held perfectly still. He swept his flashlight beam across the murky brown water. “Nothing. It’s okay. Just keep moving.”

Theta took another step and stopped again. The water’s surface buckled; a glow came up from underneath, rippling out in waves. And then the wraith broke through, rising up in front of Theta, blocking any hope she had of reaching Sam and the ladder. It was big, well over six feet, and broad, with the build of a bricklayer or ironworker. Its eyes were milky, as if it had not seen light for a very long time, but its teeth were needle-sharp, and that mouth… that mouth opened with an unnatural elasticity, dark, viscous drool coursing down over a chalky jaw. And that sound—as if all the demons of hell were singing.

Theta’s throat constricted, forcing her breath out in short, shallow puffs. Fear tightened its grip on her, and a sense memory arose—nights spent listening for Roy’s boots banging up the steps, Theta staring at the turning doorknob, stiffening her body in anticipation of the blows.