Chapter 20: One Spiteful Dame

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“Your little friend is going to get herself killed.”

I peer at the back of Samantha’s head. She’s led us back down the corridor, picked a door seemingly at random (a small, circular wooden thing that I had to crouch through to enter,) and carried on with such surety I hadn’t even bothered to ask where we were going.

“…What?” I say, caught off guard.

She turns briefly to fix me with a stare. I’ve grown accustomed to her strange semi-translucence, but I can’t help the feeling that I’m following a ghost.

Ironic, that.

“Your friend. It’s bad enough that she’s here at all of course - but I can feel her. She’s making ripples around her like a stone tossed in a pond.” Her voice is decidedly displeased, and I have a feeling Lydia is going to receive a tongue lashing once we find her.

“Does it have something to do with the eldritch creature, perhaps?”

She doesn’t answer the question. I get the sense that she’s concentrating, so I don’t bother pushing her further. A Navigator she may be, but the Aether does not easily give up its secrets. Best to let her concentrate.

The door we opened leads us down another corridor. Thankfully, we’ve abandoned the mud behind us. Now we walk over hard wood flooring, with oaken walls that lead up towards a fathomless night sky. In the distance, high above our heads, I see an aurora borealis, a dancing line of brilliant blues and greens. I stop for a moment, staring up at it, my lips parted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so lovely in the Aether - so clear and certain.

The longer I look, the more certain I become that Samantha isn’t following it so much as it’s following her.

“Lucas,” Sam says, her voice sharp enough to snap me back to attention. “I will not tell you again: do not fall behind.”

I heed her warning and continue to follow.

The corridor stretches long before us. I see no more doors, just a single path that twists and turns this way and that. I do not know whether that is better. It makes me feel trapped - vulnerable. Fighting in the Aether is much different than fighting on the material plane. There are beings here that would just as readily consume me as anything else, living or not, demon or not. The echoes of ghouls and gods not yet forgotten.

“So how did you learn to navigate the Aether?” I venture, if only to flee from my own thoughts.

She hesitates for a moment, obviously considering whether she’ll tell me. When she does speak, there’s a tenderness to her words that wasn’t there before. “My mother was also able to walk through the Aether, and when I showed signs of doing the same, she taught me how.” A pause. “It was the only way to keep me safe.”

“It runs in the family, then?”

She hesitates a beat more before she replies. “I think so. I’m not sure.” She pauses before the continues. “My mother was Cree. She fell head over heels for my father when she came down to the states for college. Long story short, she left Canada behind to raise a family with him.” There’s a shrug. “She left a lot behind, but their love for one another was legendary stuff. When she died, he followed her a week later.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I murmur. The lights above us gleam brighter for a moment, and at first I think it’s just a trick of my eyes. But Samantha briefly tips her chin up, smiling faintly to herself.

“She’s still with me,” she says. “We shared this with one another. Every time I walk through this place, I feel her with me.” She draws in a breath, letting it out in a sigh. “She told me many stories she learned as a girl. Stories that date back millennia, passed from generation to generation. It was through that lens that she saw herself. Saw her power. This spiritual essence that binds all things together, that moves through everything we say and do.”

Perhaps it is her openness, but I feel an impulse to share something with her in turn. I hesitate only a moment before I offer: “We called it Tír na nÓg. The Otherland. It was a paradise, a place where our gods dwelt. Later, it was the land of the Faefolk.”

“I knew you were Irish,” she says brightly. “It’s the accent. It’s heavier here than it was before.”

I chuckle. “I suppose I’ve never been able to shake it.”

“Why would you want to?” she asks. “It’s important to remember who you are and where you come from. Keep it. It’s part of you.”

We’re silent for a while after that, but the silence feels much more companionable. Which is a good thing. Even dire as our straits currently are, I’ve not forgotten about Elan. When everything isn’t in a state of chaos, I intend to track this woman down again and beg for her aid. Borrow and steal too, if I am forced to.

I hope it does not come to more than that, but for my sister…

Anything. I would do anything.

Yes, murmurs a voice in my head. You would, wouldn’t you?

Samantha abruptly stops walking. I nearly bump into her. I open my mouth to ask something, but she seems to sense my pending question and lifts a fist into the air again, signaling for silence.

I expected better, you know, Dorothy continues. You’ve never been dense, William. What’s happened to you?

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“Something is here,” Samantha says, her words low. I watch her eyes scan the tunnel, both forward and back, but we’re like cattle in a chute. There’s only so many places to run towards or away from.

“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to focus.

It’s the girl, isn’t it? She’s far too soft for you. She’s already buffing out all those edges I worked so very hard to cultivate. You don’t want to lose those, William. It will only make you vulnerable.

Samantha’s eyes lock on mine. I watch them widen slowly, and she takes a step back from me, one hand brushing against the wall at her side. She slowly raises the other, as if warding something off.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. Uncertainty worms its way into my gut.

“Who,” Sam says, her voice low. “Who is that?”

Slowly, with mounting horror, I force myself to turn my head.

Dorothy Cain does not look as she did when I killed her. She was old then - the lines had become graven in her face, the cruelty embedded in her eyes. This image is Dorothy in the prime of her life. Young and deceptively beautiful, with a bob of yellow hair. She wears a flapper dress with a tracery of beads down the front, a fringe of delicate tassels dangling along the hem. The longer I look at her, the more certain I am that this is the outfit she wore on the day she summoned me and bound me to her service.

Casually, languidly, Dorothy stretches her arms. I can hear the movement of her clothing, the subtle whisper of satin creasing. Stretching out a hand, she makes to press her palm to the curve of my face.

My my. You were quite young when you fell into the Aether, weren’t you, dear boy? What a pity. I…

My mind goes blank with rage.

The first strike falls without my prompting it. In the Aether, every blow is to the essence. It is a direct attack on the spirit. On the soul. Dorothy is flung away from me, her figure slammed by the burst of energy that surges from my own core. I’m still carrying the power that Lydia poured into me to fight the eldritch creature, and when I strike, I do so with more ferocity than I’ve ever managed in the Aether before.

She flies through the air, but rather than scream or show pain, I hear her laughter echoing in my skull. Mocking. Spiteful.

“Lucas,” Sam breathes somewhere behind me. I ignore her.

I ignore her because my vision has tunneled itself down to Dorothy Cain and nothing else.

So much anger, Doherty. So much rage. You should be more grateful! Look at what I’ve turned you into! I even made sure you’d be able to get out again, even after you killed me. Her eyes sharpen with anger, and her voice becomes condescending, every word dripping with contempt. Show me some respect.

When I’m close enough, I punch her in the face.

I don’t have to, of course. As I mentioned, technically I don’t even have to touch her to hurt her, not here. But I want to. In fact, I want to do so much more. When she falls against the wall, I wrap my hands around her throat and begin to squeeze. Summoning more of the power still thrumming through my essence, I begin to pour it into her, filling her. I will burn her away. I will scrub everything she is from existence until there is nothing left - not in the Aether. Not in the mortal plane. Nowhere.

I can still hear her laughter in my head. Even with my hands at her throat, even with her skin flaking from her face, she continues laughing. Like she knows something I don’t. Some great secret, one last ace hidden up her sleeve to cut me with.

“Lucas,” Samantha says again. Her voice is closer now, but I still pay her no mind. It hardly even registers that she’s addressing me. After all, that’s not my name. My name is William Doherty, and I am going to kill this viper. I am going to crush this parasite beneath my heel, grind her into the dust. I am going to…

“LUCAS, STOP!”

I feel hands on my shoulders, Samantha pulling me back. For one precarious moment, I consider turning on her. I won’t hurt her badly, I reason. I’ll just get her away from me. Get her away so that I can finish the job. She just doesn’t understand. She calls me demon? This woman suits the word far better than I ever could.

“Let go,” I snarl, “I-”

“Lucas,” Sam hisses. “Look at yourself.”

I pause. Dorothy sneers at me, half of her face sloughed off, her form losing its color, becoming less human. Dying.

And when I look down at myself, I realize my own form is doing the same.

The colors that had seemed so solid before have blurred together. I can see the ground through my feet, the walls through my hands. As realization clicks into place, I begin to tremble. I know then who has been behind all of this. Who somehow arranged for my book to be stolen from the Archive. Why Dorothy’s voice has been coming out of the amalgam - the creature that leeches some energy from me.

Dorothy Cain has bound her soul to mine.

I consider killing her anyway. Destroying us both. It would be worth it, I think. To obliterate her. To drag her into oblivion with me. That’s her gambit, of course - that I will choose self-preservation over malice. But she does not understand how truly deep my hatred runs. She does not know…

Ah, comes the thought. A wheeze, pressed into my mind, and now that I know that it is truly her voice and not a relic from my own psyche, revulsion ripples through my core. But then you would never be able to find her, would you? Poor, sweet Elan. Tell me, which is stronger? Your love for her? Or your hate for me?

Samantha’s hands are still on my shoulders. She’s trying to pull me away from Dorothy’s withered specter, trying to drag me back.

You know what happens to people like her, William Doherty. Why, the little syphilitic creature killed herself, don’t you remember? What is it they told you? Doomed to wander purgatory forever. So many believe it, and you know what happens then. She smiles, running her tongue along her lips - now cracked and bleeding from my blows. Oh, how she must suffer. And it has taken you so very, very long to find her…

“Lucas.” Sam has her arms around my shoulders. She can barely touch me - I don’t think I’d be tangible to her if it weren’t for her power. She begins pulling me back by sheer brute force, and even though she’s shorter than I, she’s strong. “Lucas, whatever she’s saying to you, don’t listen to her.”

At least I’ve left some mark on you, Dorothy purrs. At least you still won’t speak your own name.

I let out a roar. Wrenching myself from Samantha’s grip, I grasp Dorothy’s ephemeral figure. Rather than try to destroy her, I simply reach out and absorb her. It is akin to drinking poison - I can feel her slithering about within me, feel the way she’s tangled her webs into every corner of my being. I am an ouroboros devouring my own venomous tail.

But if she is already here, there is no way I can expel her. Not yet. All I know is that I want her gone, want her silenced. So I continue to drink that poison, stomaching the bitterness, until there’s nothing left but the faint memory of her laughter in my skull.

I stand for a moment, weaving in place. I notice that my form has solidified again, and the knowledge sickens me. I stagger to the side, plant a hand against the wall, and retch.

Nothing happens, but I wish I could feel the bile in my throat. I deserve that much. To feel the effect of how much she disgusts me.

“…Lucas,” Sam murmurs. “What the fuck is going on? Who was that?”

I feel her fingers on my shoulder again, but I jerk away from her, straightening out my spine.

“It isn’t important,” I say.

“Like hell it isn’t important,” she shoots back. “Listen, if you’re going to be a liability in here…”

“I won’t.” I meet her eyes. “I promise you I will not. She’s weaker than I. If she becomes a problem, I will kill us both.”

She falls silent, watching me. I can see hints of something in her gaze, some realization. Traces of empathy. Of…

“Do not,” I whisper, my words hoarse, “Dare to pity me.”

The gentleness dissolves from her features. She sets her jaw, nodding once. “Fine. Then don’t slow me down, demon. Let’s pick up the pace. We don’t have much time.”

Even as she speaks, I feel something ripple through the bond between Lydia and I. A tug. Pulling, as if trying to figure out if the other end of the rope is still tethered.

‘We are coming, Lydia Grace,’ I think. ‘Hold on. Just hold on a while longer.’