Stacia Kane: Close to You

“We’ll let you finish getting ready,” Chess said again, grabbing Terrible’s hand as she reached him, and pulling him—or letting him pull her, since he obviously understood what was going on—back into the hall and toward the front door.

Eliza Hudson followed. Closely. “Oh, yes, I’ve got a busy evening ahead of me. I can’t wait to see Vincent. He’s going to love his presents. We’re going to be so happy. Nothing will stop that.”

Terrible opened the door and pushed Chess through. Her skin crawled with the need to move.

“You watch your step,” Eliza called after them. “The ground’s real uneven.”

No more uneven than it had been, Chess thought, but even as she thought it she felt Terrible tense up beside her, heard the shot, felt him start moving.

Another shot. Terrible threw himself at her. Too late. A stab of pain in her neck, hard sharp pain. She hit the frozen ground with a bone-crunching thud she almost didn’t feel. Her vision blurred.

“Shit,” Terrible said. He lifted himself off her, but too slowly. It sounded like he was talking through water. She reached up and felt her neck, expecting blood and torn skin.

Instead she found a dart. Like the one poking out of Terrible’s neck. What the fuck? What was—why was that there, what was happening? It felt like she knew, like she should know, but she couldn’t seem to make the connection. Like her brain had been replaced by a sock full of pudding. Terrible’s hand rose to the dart protruding from his skin and yanked at it; his other hand grabbed hers and tugged, trying to lift her from the ground, but another dart appeared an inch or so away from the hole left by the first.

He fell. Chess watched him fall. Her own body had evaporated. She didn’t have a body, and she was so tired... Some part of her screamed and tried to move, knew that she couldn’t sleep there outside on the ground, but there was nothing else she could do. The sky grew hazy and narrowed to a slit, and in that slit Eliza Hudson’s face appeared, surrounded by a whitish corona.

“I am not letting you ruin my Christmas,” she snarled, and everything went black.

Fuck, her neck hurt. Well, her whole body hurt, but her neck seemed especially sore, like someone had bitten her really, really hard. Harder than even Terrible had ever bitten her neck.

Terrible. Where was he? Opening her eyes didn’t help; it was too dark in whatever room she was in. Her wrists and ankles were tied, which made it rather difficult to sit up, and her mouth was so dry that when she tried to call his name, all she managed to produce was a sort of wheeze.

Shit. Turning her head made stars dance in front of her eyes and sent waves of fresh pain radiating from her neck. Pain she could take. Panic, though... panic wasn’t as easy to deal with, and she could feel it threatening as her eyes started to adjust to the darkness and she didn’t see him.

“Terrible?” It still sounded like a wheeze, but at least it was audible. She licked her lips with her too-dry tongue, swallowed, and tried again. “Terrible? Are you in here?”

He’d been hit twice, she remembered. That bitch Eliza had plugged two darts into his neck. Animal tranquilizers, she’d bet; like the ones Mr. Hudson had probably used on the sleeping tiger in the photograph, like the ones any vet would have. Hudson Veterinary Clinic, and the Hudsons standing there grinning. Motherfucker.

At least the fear and anger were helping her wake up. She wriggled along the floor—eew, she pictured sliding across germs and bacteria like a box on a rolling conveyer belt—until she’d moved her head away from the wall so she could see more of the room.

A dark shape against the wall. A big dark shape, a Terrible-shaped shape. Mrs. Hudson had managed to drag him into the house somehow, then. She hadn’t left him unconscious in the freezing cold. It would have been a relief except she still didn’t know if he was alive. She assumed she would have felt it if he wasn’t, that she would know, but she honestly couldn’t be sure.

Time to make sure. More maneuvering across the sticky, nasty carpet, until she was close enough to hear Terrible’s breathing. He was breathing. Thank fuck. “Terrible. Terrible, wake up.”

Nothing. Shit. She probably could have woken him if she’d had access to her bag—some of those herbs were pretty pungent—but her bag hadn’t been at her side when she woke up. Bending her legs told her that her knife wasn’t in her pocket, either. Great. No knife, no—no bag . Not only was she tied up, not only did she not have a weapon or any of her magical supplies, and not only did she suspect a crazy old woman was going to try to use her like a battery, but if she didn’t end up killed by Vincent’s ghost, she’d end up withdrawing there in a filthy room in a house that seemed held together only by mold and delusions.

She took a deep breath, pulled her tied-together ankles back, and kicked Terrible as hard as she could.

He stirred a little, but didn’t lift his head or otherwise indicate he was awake. Fuck.

“Sorry,” she whispered, and kicked him again. The force of the movement knocked her onto her back, which hurt her hands, but whatever.

He shifted position. “Ow.”

“Terrible, wake up. You need to wake up, okay? We have to get out of here.”

Pause. “We on the floor?”

“Yes. And we have to get up. So you need to be awake.”

“Fuck.” Another pause. “How long we been out?”

“I don’t know. But it’s dark out and she’s probably getting started soon, and if we don’t get out of here, we’re going to be the presents Vincent unwraps. Do you have your phone?”

His arms moved. His shadowy form shifted. “Naw, guessin’ she take it. Only... hold on.” More movement; he sat up, leaned forward, half-lifted himself from the floor, leaned back. Checking to see if the smaller folding knife he kept in his boot was still there, she guessed, which was confirmed when he spoke again. “Took my big knife, dig, but not this one. Here. You sit up?”

“Yeah.” She pushed herself up and turned her back to him. “Can you see me?”

“Aye.” Rustles and shifts behind her, and the touch of cold steel on the inside of her wrist. “I holding it steady, aye? You cut the rope.”

And possibly a couple of veins, she thought, but didn’t say it. Wasn’t like she had a choice, anyway. Especially not when magic pulsed over her skin, a thick nauseating wash of it that made her shiver. “Shit. She’s really going now.”

“What plan you got?”

“I don’t know.” Her muscles screamed at her—they weren’t meant to move that way, she didn’t think—but she managed to lift her wrists against the blade and find what she hoped was an angle where she wouldn’t slice herself open. “I want to stop her before she summons him, if we can. I don’t think I have enough salt to put a ring around the whole house to hold them in until the Squad gets here, even if I can find my bag. And I doubt she’s actually made a circle herself, so…”

“Nothin to hold the ghost in, aye? Can go anywhere he’s wanting.”

“They can go anywhere, yeah, after he kills her. Which he will.” There! The rope gave; she yanked her wrists apart and grabbed the knife to start cutting him free. So much faster and easier when she could see what she was doing. “If she thinks she’s going to get some happy fucking holiday, she’s in for a real surprise.”

Terrible started to reply, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by her gasp. She rested her head on his back for a second. “Can you feel that?”

“Feel something, aye.” He must have felt the rope weakening, too, because he jerked his arms outward. It broke. “She brought him up yet?”