The Gravest Girl of All Page 20

  “But what if you die?” Anna asks, clearly starting to panic.

  “Well...”

  Sam pauses for a moment.

  “Then you'll have to use it, won't you?” she says finally.

  “Me?”

  “Maybe I was just a holding vessel,” Sam continues. “Like one of those blocks people use to store knives in a kitchen. Maybe you're the real hero of this story.”

  “Oh no,” Anna says, shaking her head, “I'm no hero.”

  “If I die, you have to be,” Sam says firmly, and now she grips the dagger's handle properly as she prepares to start pulling it out. “This is no time for weak hearts, Anna. Anything I can do, you can do too.”

  “But...”

  “And I am going to do this, Anna,” Sam continues, fixing her with a determined stare. “It's the only way. The dagger's no use in my head, so I don't have any other choice. And just so you know, just in case this goes badly and I end up dead, I want to say that I have absolute faith in you.”

  “I'm just an idiot,” Anna replies, with tears in her eyes.

  “You're far more than that,” Sam says. “When I met you, you were alive. Then you became a zombie. Then you became a ghost. Now you've got that weird glowy-eye thing going on, so I have no idea what you are. But I know that you're Anna Marsh, my friend, and I know that you'll be able to do whatever's necessary. After all, I never would have made it back from Hell without your help.”

  “I did my best,” Anna says demurely.

  “So here goes,” Sam continues, before taking a deep breath. “Man, I hope this doesn't hurt too much.”

  With that, she starts slowly sliding the knife out of her head. As she does so, she lets out a faint, tense gasp. Her vision flickers for a moment, as a ripple of light runs across her sight.

  “What do you see?” she asks once the blade is about halfway out.

  “It's shiny,” Anna says, wincing slightly. “There's, like, some goo on it but not too much.”

  “What kind of goo?”

  “I'm not really sure.”

  “What color? Is it blood?”

  “It looks more gray. Or yellow. Maybe yellow.”

  “Grey or yellow goo,” Sam says, taking a deep breath. “Lovely.”

  She clenches her teeth as she continues to remove the knife, and now the blade grinds slightly against an edge of bone. But then, finally, the blade's tip comes free and rises into the air, with just a few dribbles of liquid falling from the end and landing back down in Sam's hair.

  “Is it free?” Sam asks.

  “It's free.”

  “And I...” After pausing for a few seconds, Sam swallows hard. “I'm still alive, right? I'm still here.”

  “I think so.”

  “Well,” Sam says cautiously after a moment, as if she's still worried she might drop dead at any moment, “that was a lot of build-up to nothing, wasn't it?”

  Anna nods.

  “Now,” Sam continues, as she lowers the knife and looks at the metal, seeing her own reflection through the smears of goo, “onto stage two of this ridiculous plan. We need to get Abberoth back here.”

  ***

  “Remember,” Sam says as she flicks through another book, “you're looking for any section with typos. Anything at all. The typos are a sign that you might be onto something.”

  “Are you sure you have to bring Abberoth back?” Anna asks. “That seems kinda like the last thing we should be doing. What if he causes more damage?”

  “More than canceling death itself?” Sam asks. “The world can't go on the way it is right now. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but we need to face Abberoth.”

  “Why can't we go to him instead?”

  “You mean kill ourselves and go down to Hell?” She turns to Anna. “I thought of it, but remember how the dagger stayed in my physical body, in the body you buried? I didn't have it when I was down there. So I'm pretty sure we need him to come to us.” She pauses for a moment, trying to lasso all her crazy, conflicting ideas and pull them together to form a single cohesive plan. “We need the dagger, and the dagger's in this world. Therefore we need Abberoth to come back, and then we need to -”

  “Found it!” Anna says suddenly, before hurrying over to Sam and showing her a page from one of the books. “Read that part!”

  “There is one sure way of summoning the Devil,” Sam reads out loud, trying to ignore the typos. “Read the lines below, and say the Devil's name three times, and he shall have no choice but to appear.”

  “Ah, damn it,” Anna says with a sigh, “sorry, that's for summoning the Devil. It's Abberoth we need.”

  “But the Devil will be with Abberoth,” Sam points out. “Get the Devil, and Abberoth should be right behind.”

  “Again,” Anna says, “I have to wonder whether that's exactly what we want.”

  “I think it's our best shot right now,” Sam continues, quickly taking a look at the lines that are printed in a single block at the foot of the page. “You know, some of this stuff feels awfully convenient. It's almost as if we really are trapped in some kind of prophecy, with pieces moving into place all around us.”

  “I always figured prophecies were kind of not real,” Anna says.

  “Me too, but you can't deny that we're having some remarkable luck.”

  “What if it's a trap?”

  “Oh, it's definitely a trap,” Sam says. “The question is, for who? For Abberoth, or for us? Either way, there's no point waiting. We've got to find out for ourselves, so let's go.”

  She turns to hurry out of the room, but suddenly Anna grabs her hand.

  “No, Sam.”

  “No?”

  “We can't do this.” She pauses. “I mean... I'm scared. Can't we just... make the best of what we've got here?”

  “Make the best of it?” Sam asks incredulously.

  “It's not so bad, is it?” Anna continues. “I mean, sure, it's not quite how it used to be, but it's good to be adaptable. We've still got the cottage, and the cemetery, and that's kinda enough, isn't it? We can get by and be fine, and the rest of the world can take care of itself. And if people aren't dying, there'll be less work for us.” She waits for an answer. “Right?”

  “You heard Scott's aunt,” Sam replies. “You heard her cries of pain.”

  “That's just one person. Are we going to destroy the world for one person?”

  “It's not just one person,” Sam points out. “It's people all over the world. And that number will only grow. We can't close our eyes and pretend that everything's okay. We have to act now, while we still can.”

  Anna hesitates, before slowly letting go of Sam's arm.

  “Okay?” Sam asks.

  Anna swallows hard. “Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “It seems neat. Almost too neat, but... Let's go do this.”

  “I guess here's as good a place as any,” Sam says, heading outside and then looking out across the cemetery as the evening sun continues to dip behind the clouds, and as the cool shades of sunset begin to color the darkening sky. “I've got to admit, trying to summon Abberoth back for a chat feels wrong on so many levels, but we can't let the world go on the way it is. We can't keep pretending that everything's alright. I mean...”

  She pauses, watching the sunset for a moment.

  “It looks pretty, doesn't it?” she continues finally. “It looks beautiful. And from here, we can't hear the screams of people like Scott's aunt, so we could almost pretend that they're not in pain. We could forget about Abberoth and we could just get on with our lives.” She pauses again, and in that moment she swears she sees the sun set just a little lower in the sky. “But it'd get to us eventually,” she adds, with a wistful tone in her voice. “All the pain and suffering would creep through the people nearest to us, and then to us, and eventually we'd be the ones sobbing and begging for a death that never comes. So you see, Anna, it's best if we act now, even if we'd rather take the easy way out. It's best for everyone and, hell, it's best for us too.”


  She looks down at the text in the book.

  Her hands are shaking.

  Her throat is dry.

  Everything in the world seems beautiful, but she knows that it's not.

  “Hear me now,” she reads out loud, from the italicized text at the bottom of the page, “and come to me, O Devil. Show your face to... to one whose face you've seen before. For we are old friends, you and I, from listless nights and thoughts not put to action. And some, in fact, that were. So come to me, you have no choice. My words draw you across all of reality. Even though you stand outside of this reality, you have no choice but to -”

  “Sam! Look!”

  Glancing up from the page, Sam's shocked to see that somehow the setting sun has begun to flare, as if its heart has opened and a crack is spreading across the sky from east to west. Light is streaming through, and a cold wind has begun once again to whip through the cemetery.

  “You have no choice but to come to me now,” Sam continues, looking back down at the book. The wind tries to turn the pages, as if it wants to keep her from reading, but she holds them flat. “Even if all the shackles in the world hold you back, you shall be torn from your chains and drawn here and -”

  She lets out a cry as a blast of wind knocks her back against the wall. For a moment, the wind snatches the breath from her mouth, and it takes a few seconds before she's able to fill her lungs again.

  “Something's fighting back!” Anna yells, as the cottage's windows begin to rattle. “It's like something's pulling from the other side!”

  “Maybe Abberoth doesn't want the Devil coming back up here right now,” Sam says, before starting to read again. “No force in existence can deny me, O Devil, once I have said your name three times. Twice now, so far, and soon the third. But know that I shall have you here, and that nobody but I could speak these words or...”

  She stops for a moment, as tiles start falling from the cottage's roof.

  Nobody but I could speak these words? she thinks to herself. Maybe there's something to that prophecy nonsense after all. Maybe these lines were written for me to say out loud.

  “Nobody but I could speak these words,” she continues, raising her voice so she can be heard over the increasing rustling sound coming from the trees and bushes all around. “Nobody but I could bring you here.”

  She pauses.

  “Really?”

  She opens her mouth to read the final lines, but suddenly she's grabbed from behind. Before she can react, Anna pulls her aside, saving her as just as a piece of wood smashes into cottage's side.

  The book slips from her fingers, and Sam quickly drops down onto her knees as she picks it up and squints, trying to see the final lines as flecks of dirt fly through the air.

  “Nobody but I could bring you here,” she says firmly, through gritted teeth. Her hair is blowing wildly in the wind. “So hear your name for the third time, O Devil. Your presence is commanded!”

  With that, she slams the book shut and looks toward the horizon.

  At that moment, the cottage shatters behind her, sending huge chunks of stone slamming into her back and knocking her against the ground. Screaming, she turns and tries to reach out for Anna, but there's too much dirt flying through the air and she can barely see a thing. More pieces of the cottage are ripped away, with one of the stones hitting the side of her head as it's drawn through the air.

  And then, in an instant, the force seems to change direction.

  Suddenly the pieces of stone are sent flying the other way, which causes them to once again hit Sam. She's sent tumbling across the grass, until she slams into what's left of the cottage's foundations. Clinging onto one of the edges, she turns and sees that Anna is sheltering behind what remains of the old staircase.

  “What's happening?” Anna shouts as more pieces of soil and rock fly through the air between them.

  “You were right!” Sam yells at her. “The words are pulling the Devil here, but Abberoth must be pulling from the other side, trying to keep him in Hell! I guess that's a good sign, it means he doesn't like what we're doing, but there's no -”

  In that instant, the force changes direction again, and Sam screams as she holds her arms up, trying to protect herself as more and more rocks are flung through the air. Several large chunks slam into her side, and she cries out as she feels her ribs shattering under the force of the impact. At the same time, the cottage's foundations are starting to get drawn through the soil and ripped up, causing the ground to shake so violently that Sam's almost knocked loose.

  Digging her fingers into the ground, she cries out as she tries to stay firm.

  And then, suddenly, the force changes direction one final time, sending the rocks flying once more through the air in a burst of energy that ends as quickly as it began.

  Sam continues to scream for a few more seconds, before realizing that the ground is no longer shaking.

  She hesitates, and then slowly she opens her eyes.

  The first thing she sees, straight ahead, is Anna sheltering in the ruins of the cottage with a terrified expression on her face.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asks finally, her voice trembling with shock.

  She waits, but Anna doesn't say anything. Her face is filled with fear, however, and she looks as if she's completely frozen in place.

  And then, a moment later, Sam realizes she can hear a deep, snarling sound coming from over her shoulder. She begins to turn, but then she stops as she sees Anna's eyes widen even further.

  “What is it?” Sam asks, not quite daring to look. “What do you see?”

  Again she waits, and again she sees nothing but Anna's fearful expression.

  Slowly, with aching limbs and cracked ribs, Sam gets to her feet. She still has the dagger in her hand, but she can feel blood soaking through the side of her shirt after all the impacts with the flying pieces of rock, and there's more blood running down the side of her face. She's still staring at Anna, still not daring to turn and look at the source of the snarling sound.

  “Is it him?” she asks. “Anna, tell me! What do you see?”

  Anna continues to stare past her, before finally shaking her head as if she can't quite believe what she's seeing.

  Sam opens her mouth to ask again, but then she realizes that there's no point. Finally, as the hairs start to stand up on the back of her neck, she turns to see for herself.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “There must be some mistake,” Abberoth growls, seated on a tall stone throne that towers above the cemetery, with smoke rising all around. “If I didn't know better, Ms. Marker, I'd be tempted to think that you deliberately drew me back here.”

  “Not you,” Sam stammers, taking a step back. “I -”

  And then she sees him.

  At the foot of the throne – burned and shackled, with thick chains wrapped tight all around his naked and bleeding body – the Devil is hunched and shivering. His skin is split all over, revealing ragged strips of bloodied muscle, and his left foot is almost hanging from the ankle. In his injured state, he looks almost... human.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asks, stepping forward but then stopping again as she feels a wall of heat starting to push her back. “What has he done to you?”

  The Devil begins to raise his head, just enough to let Sam see the side of his burned face, and then he slumps back down with a pained groan.

  “Do you like my new foot-rest?” Abberoth asks with a grin. As he leans forward in his throne, it's clear that he has grown larger and stronger since his previous appearance. “Although sometimes I use him for other purposes. His screams, Ms. Marker, often ring through all of Hell. I imagine you have never heard the Devil scream, or at least not properly. Perhaps you would allow me to give you a demonstration.”

  With that, he reaches down and takes hold of one of the chains, before pulling with such force that the Devil grunts as he falls back.

  “No!” Sam snaps. “Don't hurt him!”

  “Don't hurt hi
m?” Abberoth says with a grin, still holding the chain. “Why-ever would I not do that?”

  “Because I have this!” she says firmly, holding up the dagger for him to see. “Recognize anything?”

  “You have removed the butter-knife from your own skull,” Abberoth purrs. “How lovely. Does that make it easier for you to think? If so, think long and hard before you take another step forward.”

  “This is no butter-knife,” Sam continues. “Are you seriously telling me you've never heard of the Dagger of Rahl Amon?”

  “The dagger of -”

  At this, Abberoth hesitates for a moment, and his smile seems to fade just a little as he squints and peers more closely at the weapon in Sam's hand. As he furrows his brow, his painfully thin skin stretches tight and almost tears around his temples.

  Next to him, the Vassal steps out of the shadows and creeps past the Devil, making his way slowly toward Sam. He seems almost drawn to the dagger.

  “Stay back, both of you!” Sam yells. “I'm not afraid to use this!”

  “I think it is the Dagger of Rahl Amon,” the Vassal says, his voice filled with intrigue as he tilts his head slightly to get a better look. After a moment, he turns back to Abberoth. “It's been missing for thousands of years, but somehow she's found it!”

  “So?” Abberoth replies, keeping his eyes fixed on the dagger. “Are you under the impression, Ms. Marker, that your little trinket can be used against me?”

  “I know about the prophecy!” she says firmly.

  “And you believe in such things?”

  “I believe in this one!”

  “I see.” He chuckles. “I have a prophecy for you. You're about to die. How does that strike you, do you believe that particular prophecy? Would you like to put it to the test?”

  “I believe what I read in an ancient text,” Sam says firmly, adjusting her grip on the dagger's hilt and noticing for the first time that her hands are very sweaty. “So to answer your question... No, I don't believe in prophecies as a rule. But I sure as hell believe in this one. The Dagger of Rahl Amon can be used to destroy you, and the prophecy dictates that it'll work. So your fate is sealed, unless you give me what I want.”