Time stopped meaning anything for the next little while. I had brief moments of lucidity, where I tried to remember where I am and what I was doing. But they fled swiftly. Other times a kind person would try to get me to eat, and get water down my throat.

Mostly, I dreamed.

I dreamed of being chased, a monster behind every exit. I could go no where but I still had to flee. Occasionally the dreams would become hyper-realistic, the surreal quality of dreams fading away into razor-sharp memory.

I stood over a scene from my past, the portrait of a disaster in the making. No one moved as I walked amongst the dead. Ryan, tall and skinny like me, but with a movie star face. Patricia, sullen eyes locked on the center of the room. Jennifer, her normally omnipresent cardigan replaced with cultist robes she no doubt purchased from a Spirit Halloween. John, trying to look bored and failing, eyes widening as something appeared in the center of the room. Kathy, Mary’s girlfriend and runner up as my best friend. She had a big grin on her face, like this was the best night of her life. And there’s me, eight years younger and forty pounds lighter. I looked like a stick figure someone hung clothes on.

And finally, Mary. She hadn’t been my first crush, and it wasn’t like I had held the torch for long before she let me down gently—but even still, something about her had captured my heart like no one else had. Maybe it was her fire-red hair. I had a thing for redheads, I have to admit. No, in all likelihood, it was the fact that she was the first person to show me kindness after escaping the cage that had become my life. The first person to interact with me with no goal beyond conversation, who wasn’t trying to mold me into something for their own end.

I studied her face in the dream, slightly alarmed to find that it wasn’t completely accurate. She was… idealized, in this snapshot. Her nose was a little different, not as upturned. The angles of her face softer. The lines around her eyes and mouth, evidence of her hard laughter and harder life, weren’t as prominent. Her green eyes were more vibrant, with none of the brown flecks that I remember.

I suddenly pulled my eyes away from her. I didn’t want this version of her to replace the true Mary in my memories. Instead, I turned to the horror about to unfold in the middle of the room.

The seven college kids were each standing at the point of a seven pointed star, drawn with sheep's blood mixed with powdered silver. We were so poor, John and I had ended up stealing catalytic converters from a junkyard at the edge of town to scrap together enough silver for the spell, almost getting shot one night from the irate owner.

The room itself wasn’t much to look at. Dusty even after extensive cleaning, we were in the loft storage space of a factory. The floor was old wood that wasn’t rotting by virtue of being being in California where it only rained 3 months out of the year. Old boxes and supplies had been shoved into the corner of the room. Candles lit the scene, from the small ones you usually put inside a pumpkin on Halloween to the scented candles some of the ladies had lying around in their room. It made the place smell like a perfume stall at the mall, with an undercurrent of dust and old wood.

I crossed over to the center of the heptagram, looking at the black thing in its center with tired eyes. This moment marked where my life lost any chance at happiness. At normalcy. This thing they were arrogant enough to summon. In one terrible night, this thing had taken everything from me and set me on the path to become… whatever the fuck I am. A fucking—

It was moving.

My thoughts slammed to a stop as I watched the blackness undulate and unfold, like some terrible reverse origami made from tar and fear. I took a step back as the black substance resolved into an empty suit. Or rather, a suit being worn by an invisible… thing. A gray, pinstriped, three piece suit with a white shirt and black tie. A gold pocket watch chain completed the outfit.

The only thing out of place on the suit was the right arm. Just where the cuff would be, the arm ended abruptly, like it had been sliced off neatly with a sword. The empty suit turned toward me.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

***

I woke up with a convulsive jerk, shoving myself away and awake with no thought to my actions. My sudden motion was brought to a stop by the wall colliding with my head and shoulders. I half groaned, half yelped as I hunched over and cradled my head.

Someone was shushing me. “Shhh, shshshsh,” they—she said. I focused my eyes and saw her with her hands out toward me, like you do with a scared animal. Recognition flashed across my brain and I remembered her: Ida, the Interpol lady. “You are safe here, but you must be quiet. Every time you make noise you risk…” She noted me looking at her. “Are you awake? Finally?”

I winced and rubbed my head. That might leave a goose egg. “Finally,” I confirmed. “How long was I out?”

She relaxed her posture and sat back on her heels, blowing a breath out through her cheeks. “Most of two days,” she said.

“Jesus,” I muttered. I took a moment to take stock of myself. I felt like shit, but the wound/rash on my chest was bandaged well and the pain had drastically decreased. The room still smelled like shit, but—

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

My eyes looked over Ida and noticed her right hand was bandaged, as was her forearms. Closer examination showed bandages not quite hidden by the collar of her shirt, on her shoulder.

“What happened?” I asked, adjusting my position so I sat leaning against the wall.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “But it is good you are awake. I have learned a few things that I think you should know.”

I didn’t reply, studying her silently. I replayed how she reacted to me upon my awakening. I took a long, slow breath. “Did I do that to you?” I asked, gesturing at her arms.

She avoided my gaze for a few moments before turning to look at me again. “Yes,” she said. “But it is fine, it’s okay,” she quickly continued upon seeing my horrified expression. “It is not the first time I have helped someone through fever convulsions—but maybe it is the first time I helped someone with claws.”

I looked at her bandages, my expression barely changing as it dawned on me what she had to deal with over the last two days. “I am so sorry—“ I began.

“No, no, no,” she said, waving away my apology. “It was not altruism. Though you are… I shall not mince words; you are a bit of a fuck up.” My abrupt laughter caught her off guard, but she continued. “But I do not think you are evil like the men who lead these criminals. You are the only one I can go to for magical help.”

I suddenly panicked, looking around for my amulet. I patted myself and started looking around the small room. “Did you see—?!”

“Your tin medallion is around your neck,” Ida supplied, her expression puzzled.

I blinked and felt around my neck. Now that I had a moment to calm down my hand touched my makeshift amulet. The spell was holding up well, despite my being unconscious and unable to adjust it for the past two days. I breathed a sigh of relief. Someone—Ida being the likely culprit—had wrapped string around its sides in a loose net, turning the amulet into a necklace.

“You panicked and thrashed whenever you thought you lost that,” Ida explained. “Even though you refused to let it go. You were making so much noise I had to tie it around your neck and keep explaining to you you were safe.” She glanced at the hatch, which I noted was closed. I looked around and found the only source of light was a couple of glow sticks hanging from a rack.

“I could never get you to explain what it is, though,” she continued, looking back at me.

“The pirates—“ she made a face at the word. What? They took over a ship! They’re pirates! “—have a way to track me magically. The amulet prevents that.”

Her eyes went wide. “Could you make something like that for me? Could you make something that would allow me to pierce the—the mental spell you spoke of?”

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it, thinking. Incognito Mode had made my wards attack me, even though they were keyed to both my physical signature and mental. My wards don’t target people specifically though, they just emit waves of effects in an area around them, avoiding people and areas designated by the spell.

In fact, I had designated my room to be a safe area from my own wards. When I had crafted them the first day of the trip (Jesus that seems like a long time ago.) I had been slightly hopeful that I might be bringing someone back to my room for sexy times and didn’t want to have to make adjustments to the wards and make awkward excuses to my date.

So why had my wards affected me? The only thing I can think of is that Incognito Mode prevented all types of detection, and my wards had kind of… assumed I had been a new space. I had become something outside their parameters. If so, then how would it affect someone under the affects of the wards Ida described?

“Not this one,” I said. “From the way it works, I think it’d make the spells you described to me earlier not recognize you, assume you were an enemy and attack you immediately. Until we know the range they affect, I don’t want to chance it.”

Her expression fell. “I knew it was a long shot—“

“But,” I interrupted. “I can think of several other spells and rituals that would cut you off from the wards and protect you from them. They’re just a pain in the ass and I’d need a space to prepare them.” I glanced at the small room we were in. There was just enough room for two people to lay side by side on the floor, if you shoved the equipment in the back (Which I had.). “We’ll need one of the cabins, or maybe one of the workrooms downstairs, a working cell, satellite or WiFi capable phone and a butt load of salt.”

“Salt?” She asked. “Like they use in witch movies?”

“Some truth leaks out of Hollywood every now and then,” I said. “I’d prefer pigs blood or a solution of ground silver or gold, but I doubt there’s a pig on this ship and I don’t have my tools to properly refine silver or gold dust. Salt is a pain in the ass to measure but it’s freely available almost everywhere.”

Ida was nodding along, her eyes alight. “This is doable. And it needs to be soon. We will reach our destination tonight or tomorrow morning.”

I felt a chill go down my spine. “Where is that?”

“Their island,” Ida said, in the same tone one says ‘Mt. Doom.’ “I have only been there once, and I have since jumped at every chance to stay with the main mission group.”

“...What makes it bad?” I asked.

Ida was a long time in replying. He body language was closed, knees drawn up to her chest and one hand rubbing her bicep. “It is… I guess if you are a bandit king, it is a great place. But for anyone but the leaders and their flunkies, it is hell. You are forced to treat them like gods, to accept their every demand. I watched one casually ask a man to cut off his hand. He did. Because the price of refusal is so… it is terrible.”

People use the word ‘terrible’ to mean something bad. I had the feeling Ida was using the second, less popular definition, meaning something that causes terror. My imagination filled in what such a place would be like. How an attractive woman might be treated in such a place. I found myself agreeing with Ida that haste was needed.

“We need a way to communicate,” I said. “Do you have a spare walkie-talkie?”

She shook her head. “No, and it only has one channel. They do not want to chance us contact anyone outside the group.”

I sighed. “Guess we’ll do it the hard way,” I said, reaching over and grabbing my bindle of cans. Surprisingly, only two cans of peas remained. I made a face as I began to open one.

“What is the hard way?” Ida asked.

“Magic,” I replied, scooping a handful of peas into my mouth. My expression soured as I ate. I dislike peas. Why did I even grab them? Oh, right; panic. “Magic is good for a lot of things, but communication isn’t one of them. Transmitting sound should be super easy for some of the spells I’ve seen, but anything farther than a few dozen yards and everything goes to shit.”

“So what do you suggest?” She asked.

“I have a few ideas,” I said. “But first: We both need a shower.”

Ida groaned in agreement.