Running with the Pack

“No, my dear. Your whole name. And I’ll know if you lie.”

“Don’t,” Caleb says, louder. He moves toward the stairs. “Leave her alone.”

The man raises the lantern higher. The light blazes, and Caleb falls back with a groan. “The name, if you please. Or I can send your friends back to the ground where they belong.”

“Sephronia Anne Matthews.”

“Excellent. Very well, Sephronia—” She winces at the sound of her name in his mouth. “—you and your friends may go down.”

He descends the rest of the stairs and the ghosts flinch from the light as he passes. He unlocks a door in the far wall; it looks like a closet, but when it opens a shiver runs through Sephie’s bones. His lantern can’t touch the blackness inside. One of the ghosts moans.

“This is it?” But she can smell it, warm and summer-sweet.

“That is the way.”

She glances at the man, her eyes narrowing. “And we can come back this way?”

“You can. We still have your debt to settle.”

“What now?” Caleb murmurs.

“We go down.” The steadiness of her voice amazes her. Her good hand gropes for Caleb’s as they step into the dark.

Down and down and down. Caleb’s hand tightens painfully on hers, and she remembers the last time they went below, the trip into the darkness that started all of this. The gravemeat, the secrets of the dead. When they first became monsters, between-things.

But this road doesn’t smell like death.

The ghosts make no sound behind them; Sephie doesn’t look back.

She brushes her wounded hand against the wall, leaving a trail of blood—better than breadcrumbs. It feels like cement at first, cold and rough, but the texture changes, becomes sleeker, slicker, ridged and curving.

She doesn’t know how long they walk, or how far. Step after step, one foot after another. The dark swallows sound, swallows time.

Eventually the wall falls away, and the smothering sensation eases. A moment later the stairs end, become a gentle slope; earth and rocks skitter beneath her boots. The air warms, and a humid breeze carries the smell of green things. The ghosts whisper among themselves. Sephie’s hand is falling asleep in Caleb’s, but she doesn’t let go.

The darkness changes ahead, lessens. The mouth of a cave—they’re almost out.

Something moves in the shadows, rasping breath and scraping claws. Three pairs of eyes burn against the black.

“What’s this now?” A rough guttural voice. Nothing that comes from a human mouth.

“Little feet trip-trapping down our stairs,” another hisses. “Is that you, merchant?”

“No, sisters. It’s the little dreamer.” And this a woman’s voice, deep and rich.

“Ahh, so it is. I knew she’d find the way eventually.”

“And she brought her friends.”

“What do you want, little ghoul?”

Sephie swallows, trying to moisten her tongue. “We want to find the garden.”

“Well, that’s easy, isn’t it sisters?”

“All you do is follow the path.”

“But you must pay the toll, to leave the cavern.”

“Yes. Passage is not free.”

“Not again.” Sephie tugs her hand free of Caleb’s, flexes tingling fingers. “What do you want?”

Even as her eyes adjust, she can’t make out the speakers. Only vague shadows and glowing eyes, gold and silver and poison green. They smell like fur, like musk and blood and autumn leaves.

One of them laughs, a chuffing animal noise. “Come closer, child.”

Caleb tries to hold her back, but she shakes off his grip and steps forward. Shadows lap over her, thicker and cooler than the air, and she shivers. Something crunches under her foot, dry and hollow; she doesn’t look down.

“What’s the price?” She searches her pockets. Coins on the eyes of the dead, but she can’t remember where she read that.

“Not that,” says one of the women—or whatever they are—as change rattles in Sephie’s pocket. “We have no use for money.”

“And I doubt you have enough for everyone you’ve brought.”

The sisters move closer, surrounding her. Hot breath tickles the back of her neck.

“Orpheus sang his way in,” hisses the shadow on her left, the green-eyed. “Do you have a song for us?”

Sephie shakes her head. Even if she could carry a tune, her voice is caught in her throat and she can’t remember the words to any song she knows.

“She’s bleeding,” the golden-eyed beast whispers.

Sephie flexes her right hand; crusted blood cracks on her skin.

“So she is.” The silver eyes lean in. “Living blood. It’s been a long time since we’ve tasted that.”

She holds up her hand. “Is this enough? Will this pay our way?”

The green-eyed sister hisses. “Ghoul blood is cold and dusty. I want something sweeter. Perhaps . . . ” Something cool and scaly touches Sephie’s cheek and she fights a flinch. “A young girl’s tears. Yes.”

“Sephie—” Caleb’s voice drifts through the dark.

“Be silent, little ghost. This is her bargain to make.”

Long clawed fingers catch her right hand, pull it down. Hot breath stings the cuts. She clenches her fist, reopening the wounds. The pain of tearing scabs makes her gasp, makes her eyes water.

“Blood and tears, fine. Take them.”

Serpents writhe against her face, tongues flickering toward her eyes.

“If we all may name a price,” the silver-eyed woman says, “then I want a kiss.”

Sephie closes her eyes. Moisture beads on her lashes, and the snakes lick it away. The beast’s tongue laps her hand, hot and rough, rasping against the cuts. “Fine,” she whispers. “Just do it.”

A hand cups her cheek, cold and lifeless, tilts her chin up. The woman’s mouth closes on hers. Silk-dry lips, icy tongue, teeth like icicles. She tries to breathe, but the kiss steals the air from her lungs, steals the heat from her veins.

We can take it all, the woman’s voice whispers deep in the whorls of her brain. All your pain, all your fear. Even your debt. We can take everything, and you’ll be free.

She’s truly crying now, crying and bleeding and gasping for air. Snakes in her eyes, teeth piercing her hand, and that tongue in her mouth, leeching her dry.

What does that leave for me?

Nothing. You’ll have nothing, be nothing, want nothing. And nothing will ever hurt you again.

She can’t answer, can’t feel her limbs or her tongue. Caleb is shouting somewhere far away, calling her name. But she can’t answer, because she’s falling into the dark.

But the dark doesn’t want her, spits her out again, and she wakes with a gasp. Cold, so cold, and she can’t stop shivering. Caleb holds her; he’s warmer than she is.

“What happened?” she whispers.

“They’re gone. I thought you were, too.”

She sits up, rubs her stinging eyes. Her right hand is shredded, like she was mauled by a dog, but none of the wounds are bleeding. Her chest aches, and it’s hard to get enough breath.

“Where are the ghosts?” she asks, glancing around the empty cavern.

“They went on, into the forest.”

Carefully she stands, leaning on Caleb. He feels more solid now, more real. Or maybe she’s less.

“Come on. Let’s find the garden.”