“Ted? Wake up, honey. Breakfast is ready.”
I’d already started waking up before she spoke, but I made a point of getting up slowly at the sound of the lilting, female voice. Stretching, I rubbed my face before opening my eyes to see a version of Rebecca in front of me. I had last seen her was more than thirty years ago, and this version could have aged that much, though she looked closer to forty years than my fifty-five. We had already broken up before I left town to pursue my idiotic dreams of becoming the hottest new artist on the west coast, and I never contacted her again, even after I became the most successful dollmaker in the world.
Some of that was because my success as a dollmaker made me very dangerous to be around—the people I worked for wanted to keep me separate from any personal connections or potential Jimmy the Cricket consciences on my shoulder, and I had learned that people I got close to had a tendency of disappearing. But most of it was because I knew that Rebecca had died of ovarian cancer when we were 37.
“Hi there, Becks. You’re looking well. Very well indeed.” I tipped a wink at whatever this thing in front of me actually was, trying to keep the hurt and anger out of my voice. “So what’s the deal here, huh?”
Rebecca was wearing a nightgown that was sheer enough to show the outlines of her body as she sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned towards me with the bright, mischievious smile I had always loved so much. “Well, I fixed us a big breakfast, but beyond that, the deal is whatever you want it to be, Teddy.”
I noticed that she had no smell. That was interesting, because that meant that wherever they got their information to make this version of Rebecca, it hadn’t come from my memories. Smell is always a strong part of memory, and that was especially true for my memories of Rebecca. We had both grown up on the poor side of middle class, and while neither of us could afford fancy clothes or cars, I remember she always smelled like the perfect combination of soap, this lavender-scented perfume she liked, and another sweet smell that was just her. But when they constructed this thing, they decided to err on the side of caution and not get the wrong smell because they couldn’t access my memories of what would be right.
That meant the tumerin were doing their job. Good.
I sat up in bed and eased past her to stand up. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got for breakfast then.”
I found myself being led through a generically beautiful house that was well-furnished and had windows looking out onto a rolling green lawn that appeared to be bordered by a road of dark earth leading off to somewhere out of sight. There was no way of knowing if any of that was actually real or just essentially a fancy magical screensaver, but time would tell.
We had reached a breakfast nook at the edge of what appeared to be a large kitchen, and the table was filled with a variety of eggs, bacon, waffles and tater-tots. It was the tots that got me. Giving the abomination that looked like Rebecca a smile, I sat down and started digging in.
After I was through my second plate, I sat back with a contented sigh. “That was a very tasty meal. Much appreciated.” I picked up my glass of orange juice and took a large swig. “But can we get down to it now? Because honestly, this ‘you have a perfect life’ schtick is kind of sad. I feel like I’m in a bottle episode of…well, pretty much any sci-fi or supernatural show made in the last fifty years. What’s next? I wake up in an insane asylum and you try to convince me that my life in the occult was all just a delusion. You’re better than this.”
Rebecca smiled at me. “We are. But that’s not what this is. We know you won’t be fooled by any of this. That’s not the intention.”
Suddenly she was gone. Everything was gone, replaced by a large courtyard lined with columns and partial stone walls that lead out into endless night. Thirty yards in front of me were a line of robed figures sitting in a semi-circle of stone chairs and regarding me from behind intricately carved wooden masks. I recognized the wood as the same kind I used for the dolls, and I knew from reputation that the inside of the masks contained long spikes driven deep into the eye sockets of the wearers. I was finally before the Blind Court. God help me.
“Hey guys. Or girls. It’s hard to tell with the…” I gestured to my face. “You know. So what’s the intention then?”
One of the figures spoke, but sound carried weird in the courtyard, so it was hard to say who. The voice was feminine, but different than the mimicry of Rebecca. “To show you what you can have here if you cooperate. We don’t want to kill you or torture you. We can do those things, of course, but you are much more useful to us alive and cooperative. And in exchange for your cooperation, we will grant you a wonderful life far better than the lonely and dangerous existence you’ve known up to this point.”
The kitchen chair I was sitting on hadn’t disappeared with the rest, but when I stood up now I saw it fade away swiftly. Interesting. “The problem is, I don’t believe you. Not just because you’re super-evil abras of the cadabras, but because you’re already lying to me. Not the best first impression, ya’ll.”
A different, male voice spoke up this time. “Why do you say that?”
I smiled at them, trying to keep my voice steady. “Because you can’t torture or kill me, can you? Because of my…implants, your magic doesn’t work on me. You can shape things around me like the fake house or this courtyard, but nothing can actually affect me because of the way your magic is designed. Can’t have it touching outside infernal magic, huh?”
There was a heavy silence before the first voice spoke again. “You sewing tumerin coins under your skin was very clever, but ultimately pointless. While it does offer you some level of protection against us, what stops us from beating you, drugging you, ripping you apart slowly? More traditional means of harm are still available to us. You aren’t as safe as you believe, dollmaker.”
I stuck my hands in my pajama pants…I have to say, I really do enjoy pajama pants with pockets, and out of everything, I had to tip my hat to them on that. There are just so many uses for a pocket on sleepwear. And these weren’t the little shitty pockets that you could put a couple of dimes in. You could put all kinds of stuff in it. Cellphones, remotes, the fork I had swiped from the table during breakfast…so many uses.
I pulled out the fork and held it up to them. “Let’s just see.” I drove the tines of the fork down into my leg, feeling relief as it crumbled apart upon hitting my leg. I looked back up at them. “That’s what I figured. I can interact with things here, but nothing can actually penetrate me or harm me because it’s all based on your magic. It’s the same reason I felt safe eating your fake food…which was pretty fucking tasty, by the way. Compliments to the evil chef. The drugs they gave me before sending me over, those were normal, terrestrial drugs. But you don’t have normal drugs here, do you? You don’t have anything from other realms here, do you?”
“No, because you have to keep everything hermetically sealed here in your little panic room. Nothing new comes in except for people like me, I suppose, and even that is a big risk. Keeping this place going is a lot of work, isn’t it? And if you introduce foreign elements, it makes it even harder to keep stable. I can’t imagine what having multiple coins of Hell here must be like for you.”
The male voice was back now. “You overstep, Westgate. You are before the Blind Court, in our own private realm. Our power was unparalelled on what you call the terrestrial realm, but here? Here we are God.”
I could tell where the voice was coming from now because the masked figure third from the left was waving his fist as he boasted. It made it easier to direct my response as I smirked at him. “Are you now? Because to me you look like a bunch of frustrated, scared occultists that created a blood tesseract powered by enslaved demons to try and hide from the Hunter and the Hell that is waiting for you. Not a bad plan, all things considered. Until you were dumb enough to bring objects laden with outside infernal magic into your little sandbox. I wonder if the demons you have chained up in the basement can already smell the coins? I wonder what they would do if they got just one of them?”
Several members of the court were looking at each other, which seemed odd since they all were physically blind. Still, even magic sight falls back on mundane habits I suppose. Mr. Shaky Fist leaned forward in his chair.
“We are the rulers of this realm. You will submit or you and everything you hold dear will be destroyed.”
I let the anger show in my voice this time. “To paraphrase a favorite movie of mine, it looks to me like you’re rulers of Jack and Shit, and Jack’s left town. As for threats, let’s talk about who can take what from whom.”
“Wait. So what’s a blood tesseract?”
Abraham stopped and frowned at me. He was being helpful now, giving me information that might help me save Teddy, but he made a point with every word and movement of letting me know how much he resented it. We were sitting in a tidy living room on opposite ends of a large sofa, and I kept glancing around, trying to seem casual as I looked for any signs of danger. I knew Teddy trusted him, but I didn’t, and the fact that he had demanded Heckle stay outside only made me more suspicious.
Still, so far so good. He had told me that the Blind Court was a Circle of very powerful occultists that had been at the top of the food chain when the Hunter had appeared in Hell. Once they saw the way the infernal wind was blowing, they had set to work putting an insurance policy in place by creating what Abraham called a blood tesseract.
“Basically it’s a magical pocket dimension. It’s not a Realm like Hell or Incarnata, but instead its more like a soap bubble sustained by the magic and wills of those that create it. Inside there, they control everything. They can’t die, they can alter reality, you name it. But that takes a lot of power. It is theorized it can be done with large-scale human sacrifice, but that is very inefficient, and constantly bringing new elements into the soap bubble can make it less stable. So this group figured out a way to enslave nine demons through special masks. The masks allow them to use the blood of the weakened demons to power the tesseract perpetually, or at least for several centuries at this point.”
I nodded. “Ok. That makes sense, I guess. So you think that’s where they took Teddy?”
He took another swig of the beer he had been nursing since I arrived. “Oh sure. No doubt. They won’t risk leaving their special place and they’ll want to deal with him personally I’d imagine. Problem is, there’s very few ways of getting there unless they want to let you in.”
“But there is a way?”
Abraham grimaced. “If you want to call something that will almost certainly kill you ‘a way’, then yeah.” He leaned forward. “There are these contraptions called boxes of shadow. There are only a few of them, and they’re all different in what they look like and how they work. They’re very dangerous, but they can be useful in finding out certain information, like where Ted is.” He puffed out a breath and caught my eyes. “I’m telling you though, he isn’t worth this. Threats to me aside, you seem like a nice girl. You go fucking around with one of those boxes, it will probably kill you. If it doesn’t, the next step or the Court will. Just leave all this behind. If you are inheriting all your uncle’s shit, you can have yourself a real nice life somewhere far from all this stuff that you don’t understand.”
I felt my fists clenching on my lap but I just gave him a smile. “Noted. But I’m not leaving him. So where can I find one of these boxes? And what’s the next step after that?”
He sighed. “Well, I’ve never been fool enough to actually mess with one of the boxes of shadow, but I know a lady who used to have one. Runs a pawnshop last I heard. I can get you the address. As for the next step, you need to find an Incarnata.”
I frowned. “That’s a Realm, right?”
“It is, but it’s also what you call things from that realm. Some creatures from Incarnata can travel between Realms and can come to our world as well. That can be for a variety of reasons, but its not uncommon for them to set themselves up as brokers of a sort. They will trade goods and services for a price. But again, that price isn’t something you’re going to want to pay, whatever it might be.”
I waved my hand, unable to hide my irritation and impatience any longer. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Gloom and doom. Foreboding with a side of I told you so. So I can get one of these Incarnata to get me to where they’re keeping Teddy?”
Abraham’s expression was angry as he nodded. “In theory, yeah.”
“Okay, cool. Where do I find one?”
“You don’t.”
The voice was coming from my right, and I let out a little scream as a figure suddenly appeared in front of us. It was Peter, Dilly’s monstrous brother who hadn’t attended the party where Teddy killed his sister and all her friends. He seemed more stooped than before, and I had the thought that his back must have healed back poorly in the time since Milly had flung him against that wall. But poor posture was the least of his problems. As before, he was a twisted ruin of a human being, the red worms that lived in his flesh working constantly across the shattered landscape of his face as he gave me his version of a smile.
“Long time no see, Cora. I was hoping to find Teddy myself, make him pay for all he’s done, but this all sounds like too much work.” The human side of his face gave a lopsided pout. “I guess you’ll have to do.”
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Credits
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