“You need to wait here until I come back.”
“Okay.”
Beyond the shadow of his head stretches vast, murky depths of undulating darkness. Both his hands are clasped tight in mine.
“Just stay here and wait, okay?”
His head bobs in an agreeable nod. He should be trying to talk me out of this, but instead he says, “Sure.”
Still I won’t let go of his hand, won’t stop saying all these stupid things. I tried taking him with me into the surrounding pool of smoky-black nothing, I thought maybe we could look for Cain together. I won’t do that again. I can’t.
“You have to be here when I get back,” I say. “Okay?”
He’s starting to sound a bit confused, maybe a little concerned. “Yeah, Ethan. I’ll wait here.”
I can’t think about how scared I am that if I let go of his hand, I’ll never find him again. That I won’t know where to find him, without him to guide me. I don’t know his name to call for him, and I’m too scared if I ask he won’t know the answer to tell me. Considering what a nightmare my life has become, this is the most scared I’ve been.
“Okay,” I hush. I’m in my body, but there’s no heartbeat for this. No tears, no ragged breathing. Just the whisper of all my pleas for him to be here when I’m done finding Cain.
The shadows beneath us firm enough to stand on, this spot that I guess is solid ground, it’s the wooden boat dock of my parent’s lake house. My father’s boat isn’t here on the Otherside. Actually I think he sold it, after my accident, after all those arguments with my mother about what to do about me. Certainly not take me and my friend out on the lake, no more Memorial Day weekend barbeques with business partners and country club friends. All that ended the day I fell. All this started instead. I haven’t been back since. Unless this counts, I guess.
I’m wasting time. I don’t know how long it took to get here. I’ve lost track of time entirely and have no idea where I am beyond this particular spot. I could guess by feel to find the end of the dock in either direction, but beyond that is nothing. Black eternal everything, my whole world gone silent, dark and sterile.
I release one of my best friend’s hands. He stands there, probably smiling, unaware of why I’m terrified to let him go. Slowly I release his other hand. The constant held warmth fades from my palm to leave a cold, empty longing.
“You’ll be here when I get back, right?” I wish I could cry. Now that I’m not holding his hand, I can let myself think all these terrible things. I can remember the blood-streaked slump of him against the steering wheel. I can be scared now that I’ve lost him forever, despite him being right here in front of me.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll wait here for you.”
“Okay.” I take a step closer and put my arms around the strange, solid feel of him. I close my eyes, and it’s less like hugging a shadow, more like what I remember. I have so many memories of him, all these memories of him, most of my life spent with him.
He wasn’t there that day I hit my head and fell into the water, he wasn’t there to see me flopped unbreathing on the deck of my father’s boat. He only heard about it later, rode his bike all the way to the hospital to visit me. He took notes for me, brought me my homework, did everything he could to help because that’s just who he is, just the type of loyal best friend I don’t deserve. I said we’d stick together, but I have to leave him here if I want to find Cain.
I wish I could cry for this, even though I’m sure that would scare him. He squeezes warmth and happiness into me with the force of the hug, a nice long hug like we’re two dumb little kids. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says. “I’ll wait for you. Okay?” Concerned, because I’m upset, I won’t let go of him again or stop making these strange whines that are all I have to shape my sorrow. He should be trying to stop me from doing this, should be trying to talk me into just going home, but I’m not sure if he remembers where home is, that he has a home.
I brush my lips into the soft shadow of his cheek. I pull from him, he lets me, our hands slid into a twinned hold between us before dropping. It’s a long, lingering goodbye that I won’t think of as such.
“Okay. Yeah, okay,” I whisper.
It’s not okay. I wonder if he knows that, I wonder if he’s scared. I hope he isn’t scared. I don’t want him scared to be left here alone.
I turn to face the edge of the dock, although I try not to think of it like that. I look forward into the darkness and then walk forward. I make the easy transition from what’s the dock to what’s the murky-soft density of the supposed lake. My friend sunk into the darkness, when I tried to take him with me, but I find it difficult but not impossible to walk over it. The grasping depths reminds me of walking through heavy snow. I try not to listen to what I know isn’t the murmuring of choppy water. I’m hearing voices, whispers, the breezy call of ambitious unknowns in the stretching distance.
None of them are Cain. None are my friend, or even friendly, so I won’t listen. I struggle to keep moving even as I sink deeper. I know from memory it’s possible to run and cannonball off the edge of the dock, the water’s deep enough for that. The fact I’m wading through smoke-thick strangeness of the Otherside a bit past my knees is concerning for many reasons. I try not to think about it, same as I try not to think about all the summers my friend and I spent doing those running balled-up jumps.
I’m equally trying not to think about how impossible it’s going to be to find Cain. This is a big lake. I don’t know where the boat was, where I fell, how close I fell to wherever Cain is, and if I need to find him by feel — if I need to shape Cain from darkness like I did my friend, then I have no idea how I’m going to do that. Am I to feel blind into the shadows forever, until I’m so lost I don’t know where I am?
No. Not that. That’s not what I’ll do. I’ll find Cain. I run my tongue over my lips to feel at the scar he gave me. With my fingers I feel at my back of my head, I feel through my hair to find the scar there as well. Unlike Cain’s jagged bite, the cut of the boat rail into my scalp needed stitches and time to heal.
Chill brushes along my ankles. It’s the spine-tingling panic of clingy algae or moss, a buried twig or maybe some small fish. It’s not that, but I’m not going to think what else it might be. Probably not Cain. Probably whatever’s whispering and moaning on the carried sound of windless, open dead air.
Another touch tugs at my feet as I move. I keep moving, try to move faster in fact, even though I have no idea what I’m moving toward. Finding Cain, that’s what I need to think about, I need to ignore everything that isn’t finding Cain. I don’t know how else to find him, except by trying to find him. That makes as much sense as anything, and it’s the best plan I’ve got.
Eventually the effort really is a bit like swimming. It takes a whole-body effort to move through the dense darkness and clutching, grabbing ambitions of things that aren’t Cain. I bite my lip and think only of trying to find Cain, and then I see him. I see something, at least, something bright and getting nearer.
The brightness shapes into winding coils of shimmering creamy-rose rope. The binding, wrapping him head-to-toe. I want to shout, scream, run closer but it’s struggling instead. Desperation like I remember before from half-drowning in a different lake, a real lake, surrounded by a sleeping city but so much more real than this nightmare.
Cords of that pinkish-gold light constrict Cain’s ankles, thighs, his wrists held together behind his back, arms bound to his chest. The glow forms a gag and blindfold as well, it’s a visceral too-real binding just like Phobos described. He’s blind, deaf, mute, unable to move, totally helpless and trapped here in this dark, foreboding hell.
But I found him, I’ve found Cain. I strain through the last few inches of separation. I don’t know what I’ll do if I wisp through him, but my fingers fall into the heated warmth of his hair. I fumble to grab for the binding over his eyes, the first of those glowing horrors I need to remove. Electric-shock agony bursts with sudden reprimand.
With a sharp cry I yank my fingers back. Throbbing pain radiates from the reddish round bite. Frustration builds in me like a slow drip from a faucet. All this cold terror within me, how much I don’t know what I’m doing, it’s too much. I can feel the pressure all around me, the murky darkness squeezing close. Those whispered ambitions surge closer, become louder, but I won’t listen. I won’t give up, not when I’ve found Cain.
All I need to do is remove the binding. I’ve found him, that was the hard part, this must be the easy part, even if it hurts. I sweep my fingers into Cain’s hair, the dark heated warmth I remember. My touch brushes away the constricting light . Harsh sting numbs my fingers into leaden torment.
I grit my teeth and cup Cain’s cheek with my other hand. I caress aside the wisps of light to clear his closed eyes, slacked lips. “Cain,” I whisper. “Cain, wake up.”
Faster I attack the binding, all this flurry of sweeping touches and trying not to whimper and flinch when bitten. Yanking the cords free of Cain’s wrists is when my hands start to bleed. I bite back sobs and keep going, work even faster to free him.
The drops of blood suspend oddly in the darkness around us. Glistening crimson shines and shimmers with a dulled, shadowed light all of its own. That too-bright hot glow of my own blood, it lifts a baying howl from the surrounding darkness. Blood in the water, a scent being caught by what I wish were just sharks. Terror crawls down my back as the cry is lifted into a hundred voices surrounding me. I see nothing except Cain, eerily illuminated in the fast-fading light that I’m trying to extinguish faster.
“Cain!” His legs and feet are still wrapped tight, but I wrap myself tight around him instead. I crush my arms around his chest, bury my face into his neck and shoulder. “Cain, please, wake up, wake up –”
Something grabs at my ankle, and I scream. I’m pulled from Cain a measure of inches before it happens, he jolts into motion. The most beautiful rumbling snarl accompanies the fast, bruising snatch of Cain grabbing me back from the unknown.
His hands tighten into my arms, my shoulders — the surrounding chaos silences. The grip on my ankle is gone, as is the struggle to move, the creamy-rose light. None of that. Just Cain, grabbing hold of me, the snarl fading.
His dark gleaming eyes are wide, his tightly furrowed brows lifted for once, he’s as shocked to see me as I am thrilled to have him see me. The widest bright smile consumes my face. I can’t even stop smiling to kiss him, though I try as I smash excitedly into him. I’m all over Cain shrieking once more, this time with laughter.
He’s just standing there too stunned to hardly move. Solid ground beneath us now, the moment Cain snapped awake everything stabilized. I’m not sure what that means about the lake, where I am, what’s happening but who cares. I woke up Cain, I found him. He’s here with me.
Cain’s fingers dig bruises as he shoves me off him. He’s scowling now, looking furious even though I think the harsh, feral gleam of his teeth is a smile. He’s got something sarcastic and snaky ready for me, but then he looks down at my bitten and bleeding hands. His eyes widen at the sight of the smeared scarlet shine.
He hisses, growls, pulls me in close and looks around into the black nothing. My laughter stops, the smile fades. My stomach tightens, a strange heaviness builds through me. I press close to Cain and get under the tight protection of his arm.
I’m frightened by how quiet he is, how serious this just got. Cain’s scanning the darkness around us like whatever grabbed my ankle might come back. I only see and hear Cain. I intend to keep it that way. I’ve started shaking, trembling up against Cain. Around us is a suffocating heaviness that’s making me feel breathless and tight despite the way I can’t breathe.
“Cain,” I whisper to him. His eyes flick down to me immediately. “Cain.” Pleading, aching — terrified, and he ducks his head down to kiss me.
The devouring gasp of his lips flares through the scar. My mouth opens willingly to the invasion of his tongue, same as I spread my legs for the press of his thigh between them. I only want Cain’s touch, his husky growl. No other voices or hands in the dark. Only him.
Shivering moans bring me closer against Cain, the solid, real feel of his body beneath the wool, cotton, and denim of his clothes. Cain lifts my arm in an odd, cradling gesture. The hot rasp of his tongue runs along the soft underside of my forearm and flicks over my wrist.
I’m transfixed by his expression, the strange close-eyed rapture of it, the tender way Cain does such a demonic thing as drink my blood. I’m tight against Cain, tight everywhere, hard arousal throbbing through me in tempo to the heartbeat I’m missing. So many alarming, dangerous things I could be thinking about, when all I’m focused on is watching Cain lick the blood from my wounds.
Heat suffuses the sharp cuts and stinging bites, a hot whip of sensation that turns cold, becomes trickles of icy numb. As Cain collects the spilled blood, the peaches-and-cream skin clears into scarless normalcy. Sweet ache lingers as memory over the wounds. Questions lodge in my throat, thick as tears.
Cain’s eyes open in a slow daze. Luminescent and radiant, his dark-gleaming eyes shine bright as my blood did. Bright like the shining corded light of the binding. Bright enough that it’s breathtaking, even in the breathless impossibility of the Otherside. The onyx brilliance forms a vast eternity, a bottomless depth to get lost within searching.
I stared once before to find the shaded difference between iris and pupil. I remember the vibrant gloom of a car’s backseat and sloping bands of streetlights passing over Cain’s face. I remember as well a cloudy sky, bright sunshine, the rippling waters and wind in my hair on that beautiful summer day I fell into the watery depths of the lake. Deep oblivion, eternal night, gleaming dark eyes — a moment between heartbeats in the absence of breath, such an insignificant small gap of time to serve as a beacon for Cain’s ambitions. I should have died that day, I should be stuck on the Otherside, but the gleaming forever of a demon’s eyes assures me of unknown possibilities.
I realize what’s happening much too late to stop it, much too late to work the lump of uncertainty in my throat into a desperate plea. I’m not sure who I’d beg to stop this, considering I’m the necromancer doing it. I don’t need anyone to call me back, I don’t need my name to remind me who I am, where I belong. Not when I can see the way home in the endless darkness.