2.11 Mortal Enemy

A look of utter shock filled Priscilla’s face, a look that was quickly replaced by one of quiet rage. Priscilla did not like it when she was confronted about anything, especially when she was at fault, and while I was usually content to let her have her way, it was not going to happen today.

I needed to know the truth.

“You’ll pay for this,” she said quietly, venomously.

“Oh, I fully intend to,” I replied.

Esther had been listening intently all this time. She had shifted her gaze from Priscilla to me. She looked intently in my direction as if she was seeing something she wasn’t supposed to. She hobbled across the third step of the altar until she was standing directly in front of me, almost at an arm’s reach away. I held my breath instinctively, even though it was clear now that she couldn’t reach me so long as I held unto the altar’s horn, or so I hoped.

“Hello,” I said nervously.

She didn’t respond. It was then that I realized that she was staring not at me but at the blade in my hand. When I raised Kairos toward her, she shifted her gaze up toward me, then toward Priscilla, then back to me again. She took a deep breath, walked down the altar, and took a seat at the first pew to the right, the only pew that had been spared from destruction. The six javelins encircling her vanished the moment they came into contact with the back of the wooden seat.

Esther leaned her remaining javelin up against her left shoulder before removing her brown tricorn hat and placing it on her right knee.

Her long dark hair spilled out from underneath. Her brown eyes were troubled and contrite. Her pale lips pressed into a thin line. She leaned back into the pew and relaxed as if it was the first chance she had gotten to sit down all day long. Her eyes were trained on the altar in between the two of us, her mind lost in thought.

She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, but the sorrow that filled her eyes spoke of a long and weary life. Her eyes weren't dead, far from it, but I could feel the weight of her troubled past from a passing glance. She moved with the controlled grace of a seasoned warrior, every movement efficient and purposeful. I found myself taking notes on how to better move as a human being just from watching how she carried herself. She sat upright even as she relaxed, ready for a fight at the drop of a pin. Her eyes were constantly scanning the room even though she was probably the most dangerous one here. The very fact that she had volunteered to stay behind to hold the line so the others could escape and yet lived to see another told me that she was a warrior of renown, not to be trifled with.

Esther said nothing for a few moments. I dared not take my eyes off of her for fear of what she would do. After all, her eyes were glowing orange not too long ago and she was singing a terrifying lullaby I would probably hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

Then, just as I was about to say something, she looked over to me and motioned for me to come down from the altar.

I shook my head.

“No thank you!”

“Your lord is gone,” she sighed, speaking at last. Her voice was that of someone who had never known a good night of sleep. “Come down here! We have much to talk about.”

I turned around and saw that Priscilla was indeed gone, as was the pocket dimension on my back.

Oh no, Priscilla was telling the truth! I thought in alarm. Esther's going to kill me. I'm going to die.

This was the very thing Iris had warned me about.

Don’t leave the altar, even if she speaks to you in my voice, she had warned.

I clung onto the altar even tighter, hoping desperately the Night Terror wouldn't hurt me.

“I’m staying right here!” I said. “I’m at wit’s end. I really don’t need the nightmare to mess with my mind more than it already is.”

Esther laughed warmly.

“Very well, then,” she said. “I will come to you.”

Esther stood up from the pew and walked up the stairs of the altar. When she stepped onto the fourth step, she climbed unhindered. She stepped past the fifth and sixth steps and made her way over to the golden altar. She looked up at the stained glass window in reverence before she took hold of the horn that Priscilla had been holding onto moments before.

I looked up in horror as the Night Terror stood beside the altar meant to keep me safe from her.

Iris! I yelped. Help!

There was a loud thwack! followed by the high-pitched screech of some unknown monster falling into a large body of water. Thunder boomed like war drums directly overhead. The wind howled like a pack of ravenous wolves. For a second I thought that Esther had tried to attack me, but a quick look in her direction told me that was not the case.

Then it hit me.

We were on a boat traversing an ocean in Tartarus.

We were in the middle of a storm.

The boat was under attack.

And I was still stuck here in the private dream, unable to do anything to help fight back.

I need to wake up! I thought miserably.

Hang tight, Titus! Iris said curtly, as if she was busy doing something. I got Priscilla and Gordon out. I’ll get you in a bit--get your scaly hands off of him, you fiend!

An explosion filled the filled the air before just before the wind and the thunder and the sound of Iris's voice fell silent all at once, like a call being dropped.

I hope we're still alive, I thought grimly, not wanting to imagine what was going on in the overworld.

"Fraysser," Esther said.

"I'm not him," I said quickly.

"Is he alive?" she said calmly.

I remembered in time that Fraysser was Esther's husband. I realized I had no idea if he had been erased along with everything else outside the city. Priscilla had seemed confidant that he was dead. Then again, she didn't seem to particularly like him.

"I'm not sure," I said. "He wasn't with us when we entered Tartarus."

Esther looked upset but not surprised.

"First, she gets rid of me so she can be with him," she said slowly. "Then she leaves him behind to die? You would think she would treasure that which she worked so hard to steal from me."

My eyes shot wide open.

"Wait, wait, wait, Priscilla did what?"

Esther looked at me dead in the eyes.

"Jealousy is a powerful and dangerous sentiment," she said. "It drives mortals to do the unthinkable in the name of love, if it can be even called that."

"You're saying Priscilla tried to kill you so she could be with your husband?"

Esther smiled humorlessly.

"Is it beneath a lionness to take what she wants by force?" she said.

I didn't respond, because frankly, I didn't know how to.

I wanted to believe it was beneath Priscilla to do such a thing, that she knew better than to hurt others to get what she wanted. But seeing how hard she had worked to silence Esther, how she did not hesitate to shoot a former friend out of fear for her own safety, I was no longer certain of what to believe about my friend. If she really was guilty of this awful sin, it would make sense why she didn't want me to hear what Esther had to say.

How much had the nightmare changed her? I thought in dismay.

"I see the doubt in your eyes," Esther said, "And I do not blame you, servant of the One-Winged Seraph. I am the Night Terror after all, deservingly so."

She said Night Terror with such disdain it almost sounded like it was an unwanted mantle placed upon her shoulders.

"Our time is short, so I will say this," she said. "Do not confront the guilty about something she has worked so hard to conceal. 'The enemies of a Seraph do not long walk the land.'"

An ancient proverb, one I was familiar with, one I never thought would apply to me.

It was a warning, a warning about crossing my lord, one I was going to take seriously.

"Thank you," I replied.

Then as if on cue, the all-encompassing sensation of drowning returned, making it impossible for me to breathe once again. I counted to ten as I held my breath, hoping that it would go away within a few seconds as it did last time. When I reached ten, the drowning sensation didn’t go away but actually grew worse with every passing second.

When I counted to fifteen, I knew that I was going to die if I didn’t get air soon.

I collapsed onto my knees, which prompted the Night Terror to rush to my side. She knelt on the ground beside me and placed a hand on my forehead. Her hand was cold but not cruel.

“Can you speak?” she asked.

I shook my head.

I'm dying here! I wanted to say.

“Before you go, take this.”

The Night Terror produced a wristwatch from within her duster and secured it around my right wrist. It was a humble watch, sporting nothing more than a segmented steel strap and an unadorned face. There were no markings nor hands on the face, just a single glass orb in the center of the face. An ominous purple light lit the orb.

“No one can see the Shi-gan but you,” she said. “No one but Iris and the cat must know about it. Do you understand? Do not tell your lord. Do not tell the other Hosts, especially Morpheus. Our success depends on its secrecy.”

I gasped in pain and managed a nod. I didn't trust her entirely, but I was open to keeping it a secret until I found out why Priscilla had been hiding things from me.

I wanted to ask Esther why Priscilla was so intent on killing her. I wanted to ask her what had really happened in the years before I arrived in the nightmare. I wanted to ask her if I was going to be okay.

But alas, I could not because I was drowning on dry land.

Esther gingerly placed her hand on my face as mother once did. Her cold hands brought some semblance of clarity to my panicked heart.

The touch was human, there was no mistaking it.

“It is good to finally see you with my own eyes," she said.

There it is! I exclaimed. She knows something!

"I will find you as soon as I can," she promised. "Once I have found my husband.”

Fraysser's alive! I thought.

And like a screen being unplugged, everything went dark.

Yet instead of being able to breathe again, I continued to be unable to draw air.

Maybe it’ll take a second, I thought hopefully.

I was hit by a coldness I had never known before in my life, draining me of what little feeling I had left. And with my feelings vanished any hopes I had of being able to breathe again. The shock of the cold forced me to release what little air I had left.

No, I thought, fear creeping into my spine. Not like this!

I opened my eyes but shut them again immediately because of the sharp sting of salt water. In the brief moment I had opened them, I saw and felt and breathed nothing but thick darkness, an endless void that demanded everything from me, yet giving nothing in return.

My worst fears had been confirmed.

I had fallen overboard in my sleep.