Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [32]
I stop struggling. I hang there. I try not to move; not to breathe. Everything I breathe would be Tch’muchgar; everything I touch. And still the thoughts wash around me, the bored, bitter, mordent thoughts of the trapped Vampire Lord.
Out.
How long. Much longer? How long. How.
God I hate it. God I hate.
There is defeat so deep.
I hate. Damn you. All.
Once I stood with Paul in early spring and heard the reservoir’s ice crack, heard the reverberations tick and moan through the black wet branches of the trees. Those were like Tch’muchgar’s thoughts — vast voiced sounds that echoed on the hills, scolded the woods, called to the empty pines.
A lifetime spent with nothing — he thinks.
Circle and circle and circle. God when how long. How long? God when.
Hate it. Hate it. Hate.
Circle and circle.
Oh, hello.
I stiffen.
Oh, hello, boy. Oh, hello.
Who are you? Who are you? I am trapped. Will you release me?
Will you?
I am trapped. Will you?
Do you know what it is like?
I am desperate for Chet. I start to kick again. I start to kick and struggle in the darkness.
You cannot struggle. That is what it is like. Cannot move. Here. Here.
And the substance all around me thickens, and it is like I am locked in a glacier, a tiny thing locked in a glacier, and so far away from anyone. And somewhere life is going on with trees, but I am frozen, lost, miles deep and so far north it is a north that is never seen, howling storms, silence, and I will be there always —
Like being buried alive — buried alive in a coffin so narrow I can’t even fold my arms; I can’t lift my hands without banging my wrists. I can’t shift my hips. I can’t move my head from side to side. I can’t move my toes, though they’re stubbed against the lid, some up, some down. And I can smell all around me, dark and immovable, thick dirt, crowding — but know I’ll never rise or sleep or die. Staring straight. Can’t budge. Itching. Feel the earth spread out, foot by foot, so many feet up to the surface, so many, foot after foot after foot, the grass — never hear — never —
Stay boy —
Ha! Stay!
— never hear —
Down!
— trapped —
Stay!
And then Chet sends for me.
I feel the sigil on my arm pulsing with light.
I feel the red glow of the portal all around me.
It seeps into my bones, the sweet air of earth, and warms my muscles, draws me out —
— away from the dark —
— across time and space I fly, shooting, wafting, away from the laughter of Tch’muchgar, the confinement, through ages I tumble —
— and fall down on my knees
— before the well-shined brogues of Chet the Celestial Being.
“Ahhh . . . ,” he says, and smiles. He stops gesturing with his hands. He lets them drop to his sides, and the portal stops snapping and popping and dwindles. “How was the other world?” asks Chet.
“Oh, god,” I gasp unresponsively. “Oh, god.”
“You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs,” says Chet.
“Thank you for the cooking tip,” I say. “It was a nightmare.”
I’m huddled on the floor. My clothes aren’t even wet, which is strange, and I am no longer feeling trapped in a glacier; and Chet pulled me out, so it looks like he really is a celestial being, and I’m so happy I could just sit down and write a show tune about it all. “How much time’s passed?” I ask.
Chet looks at his watch and says, “About two minutes. Jet lag?”
“God,” I say, shaking myself. I can’t get up. “It was awful. Really awful.”
“When you’re ready, they’re waiting for us outside.”
“Who?”
Chet puts his hands in his pockets, so his jacket bunches above his wrists. “Dr. Chasuble and his vampiric sorcerers,” he explains. “They’re here preparing the spells of interruption to disrupt the spells of imprisonment your mayor and local clergy will be casting at the Sad Festival of Vampires. But now, thanks to you, Tch’muchgar can’t make a move. Even if the vampires do succeed in opening a dimensional gate large