I braced myself against the bathroom sink and shut my eyes. Nope. The feeling of nausea just got worse. I blindly pawed at the faucet to get it running and leaned over, trying to fight the rising need to vomit. The dirty restroom of the bar spun like a carnival ride. I shook my head and spat into the sink.
“Blyat,” I muttered.
The door opened and shut. A pair of heels clicked on the tile floor.
“Alek, right?” a pretty voice asked.
I glanced up to the mirror where I saw the reflection of a woman. She had a pretty face to match the voice. Blond curls framed a face with a long thin nose and high cheekbones. She gave me a sly smile.
“I was impressed by the song you played, so I thought I would introduce myself. Although I didn’t expect to find you in such a state after the performance.”
I eyed her up and down. She was dressed too nicely for a bar like this.
“Cheers kiska. Buy me a drink if you’re feeling appreciative.”
She proceeded to do just that. We sat at the bar and chatted for a while. I quickly grew to admire her sharp tongue and ability to cut through the bullshit that polite conversation often brought with it. Eventually the conversation moved back to my gig work.
“I don’t do it for the money.” I placed a wobbly hand on my chest while gesturing to my guitar case. At this point, with the alcohol exacerbating things, this conversation was the only thing keeping me from the brink of throwing up. “Music is my soul. From heart, to fingers, to strings, delivered fresh and raw. Some people complain that it’s too loud, but I don’t care. I’ll scream in your ear and etch myself onto your brain so you’ll never forget.”
I didn’t mention the fact that my work with the Ring made any attempt at a legal source of income seem paltry and pointless.
Helen’s fingers playfully joined my own on my chest. “Mm. I can tell. Such honest, beautiful playing. It’s a breath of fresh air to see someone actually being their true self. But why don’t you play here more often?”
I broke eye contact for what felt like the first time in hours. “Meniere’s disease. I get nauseous, dizzy. Too much movement makes it worse. My soul and my body are at odds.” I swirled the amber liquid in my glass. “Can’t even get properly drunk cause it makes the symptoms worse.”
Helen watched me silently, clearly deliberating. Then she spoke, “Do you know that I’m a witch?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Wouldn’t be the first I’ve spoken to, although they tend to be more goth.”
She smiled. “Mm. No. A real witch. With real magic.”
I huffed a laugh as she wiggled her fingers at me.
“I feel a connection with you, Alek. Stronger than anyone else. I want to help free your soul.”
“Are you saying you can cure me?”
She nodded.
I was past being skeptical. Nothing would cure me, so I let myself live in the fantasy. I did my best impression of a knightly bow while staying seated on my barstool. “I feel that connection too. If you could cure my body, it would be yours forever.”
She giggled at that and I felt like bubbles were popping lightly in my chest at the sound. Then she leaned in close. Her eyes were captivating. “Consider it a pact sealed,” she whispered as her lips brushed against mine.
A painful wrenching feeling shot through my head and I jerked backwards, feeling something pop in my ears. “What did you do?”
She smiled and touched her lips. “Your soul is unhindered, as promised. Now let’s see if you can keep up your end of the bargain.”
I shook my head, feeling strange. There were emotions there that I couldn’t understand. But what she said was true. I would never feel nauseous again. Helen had freed me. I loved her for that.
—
That memory felt so clear, as if it had happened yesterday. Meanwhile the present was blurry. I squinted at Nick’s face, distorted in a dawning realization. Richard was swearing and gesturing angrily at what they saw in the closet.
“Clones,” Nick stated quietly. “That’s a copy of Alek in there. That’s why he doesn’t remember meeting me. It was a different Alek.”
The weight of the bottle in my hand grew too great and I shakily lifted it to my lips. I needed to drown out the noise. The thoughts in my head, screaming why?
Why had Helen done this? I fell back to better times, happier times as Nick’s voice became a distant buzz.
—
I kissed Helen hungrily. Our sweaty bodies moved together on the sheets. Sex was never that interesting to me. Sure it was pleasurable, but there was no beauty to it, no music. I preferred the moments leading up to the act, the cadence of conversation as two souls grew close, the anticipation, the buildup, the exchange of little pieces of unspoken language. But with Helen, the climax was worth it. I felt her throughout my entire body and mind.
We moved in rhythm, playing music across the mattress. Helen hummed gently in my ear and it was bliss, a song from an angel. I felt what she felt and synchronizing our bodies felt right. It was the only time when I felt truly right. Like I was going through life out of tune. Helen was tuning me back to perfection.
Helen got on top and she was wearing the face of some Italian model. Funnily, it didn’t matter what face she wore, it always felt like her.
“I can be whoever you want me to be, as long as you are whatever I want you to be,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I breathed.
After we finished, we lay in each other’s arms. I kissed her head.
She had no problem with my less than legal endeavours. In fact, once she knew, she had joined in, albeit never being sworn into the Ring, always working from the shadows, allowing me to navigate tricky deals and tense moments, always coming out on top. She gave me strength and intelligence that sent me soaring up the ranks to become the Boss’ right hand man.
Until it all came crashing down.
—
I watched as the bottle was ripped from my hand and smashed on the floor. Nick’s brow was panicked and angry all at once as he seized me.
“Why? What is Helen going to do with you?”
The liquor pooled on the floor. An oasis. I could see paradise, but it was always just out of reach.
“She’s going to tear it all down,” I said. “She did it before. She’ll do it again.”
Richard seemed to clue in. He curled his lip in disgust. “The Ring. She was the one who divided us, wasn’t she?”
—
Yes. I remembered. I had walked into the Boss room. The other high ranking members were discussing something quietly. I pushed past them, going to where I sensed Helen.
And then I stopped dead in my tracks.
Helen sat in the Boss’ velvet-backed chair. The Boss lay at her feet, unmoving. His mouth gaped open, his eyes saw nothing. I believed for a moment that he was a mannequin made of wax, with how pale his skin had become.
“What did you do?” I whispered, horrified.
“I got sick of listening to him talk about change. He was a liar, Alek. He just wanted to grow fat on the rewards of his leadership instead of using his resources to actually do something. Now things will change. I promise you that.”
I glanced at the others, who seemed to not recognize that anything was amiss.
“They think I’m the Boss. And they can’t hear us talk right now.” Her mouth slid into a sneer. “I’ve gotten a lot better at this. It’s effortless at this point.”
I was sweating buckets. “You don’t realize what you’ve done,” I said.
She traced a finger along the armrest. “Oh come on, Alek. Surely you didn’t want this to be your stopping point? You promised me the world, and I intend that to be literal.”
I shook my head, not believing what I was hearing.
“You’d gotten too comfortable in this little castle. I had to topple it. Don’t you see how easy it was? Remove one pillar and the whole thing comes crumbling down? Don’t you want something that will last? Something that is real?”
“What wasn’t real about this?” I asked angrily.
“I’ve told you about my parents before, right? How we moved here and they couldn’t follow the steps that were demanded of them. Sillwood swallowed up my father and churned him to bits. It made my mother kill herself. We all have to do this song and dance, and if you trip? You’re devoured. Because if people were allowed to stop dancing, then others would notice that the whole thing is a sham, right down to the core.”
“I don’t understand,” I said numbly.
She sat up and looked deep into my eyes. “I will show you the true soul of each and every person that walks across the corpses of the failures of this society without a care in the world. All I need from you is obedience. Leave it to me.”
I nodded, unable to speak. But my ears were too well trained to miss it. Helen’s emotions were a complex piece, but I had poured over it for years. There was a discordance there. A note I had never heard before, interfering with the melody. It changed the meaning of the entire composition. And for the first time ever, I wondered if Helen had never once shown me what her true face looked like.
—
Nick’s voice breached my waking dreams once more. “Some of them are already active and moving. Some of them have yet to wake up. But how many? How many, Alek?”
I realized this last part was directed at me, but I was caught, unable to move a single muscle.
Was this real? My memories felt so present, while this felt like a bad dream. I turned away from Nick. I could almost feel Helen’s voice. It was always there, just beyond the reach of my ears. I waited for her to touch me once again, to tell me just what to do.
My line of sight showed the corner of my bed in the bedroom. The last place I had been with Helen. The reason why I couldn’t let this apartment go.
—
This memory had always been so murky. Why had Helen left me?
We laid in bed after making love. I smelled her hair and her sweat and felt at peace. She was saying something to me but I had been distracted.
There was something I had done in the closet. Helen had told me to, but I couldn’t remember what. Then her words cut through the haze, straight to my heart.
“Alek, I’m leaving you.”
A crashing halt to the music. Like a body thrown across the keys of a piano.
“For how long?” I asked with trepidation.
“Forever.”
I couldn’t rise from the bed. It felt like my heart was being crushed, squeezing every bit of joy that lingered, wringing it out like a sponge.
“What did you do to me?”
“I drugged you and made you make copies of yourself. Now there’s enough Alek for everyone to get a piece,” she giggled.
“I don’t understand.”
She sighed and traced a finger on my chest. Her fingernail felt like it was carving into me with the slightest touch. “You don’t love me like you used to. At the beginning, it was white hot, a passionate love that didn’t hold anything back. But over time, something accumulated. I can’t say exactly what it was, but I know where it came from. This city took its toll on you too. That grime became a new mask for you. One that I can’t remove easily.”
I struggled to breathe. “I do love you.”
“Oh, Alek. I know you do. Which is why I’m going to fix you. But it will take a curse for you to find the music of your soul again. That raw, unfiltered scream that I love. So that’s what I did. I put a curse on you. You will search for me and find nothing. You will hate me and long for me.”
Helen leaned down and brushed her lips against mine. “You will be left with nothing but the bitter aftertaste and still want more. It’s a poison that will bring the true you back.”
She rose from the bed, then turned back. “Become the scream that will etch itself into the city’s walls.”
Then she leaned in close and whispered, “Make them care about our broken hearts.”
—
Nick
My thoughts were going a mile a minute as I watched Alek lay listlessly on that couch. Then my phone rang. I glanced at Richard before answering it.
“Nick?”
It was Bailey. She sounded scared.
“Bailey? What is it? Has Graham contacted you?”
Her voice was hesitant. “I don’t look at work texts while I’m at school. But listen, that janitor’s closet that we heard something inside of? There’s a Shape in there. The school is on lockdown while they contact emergency services.”
My heart plunged into icy cold waters. “Bailey, listen to me. Get out of the school. The Ghost Queen is planning something with Alek’s clones.”
“What?” she asked, sounding worried. “Clones? We’re in lockdown. Are Tom and Kay in danger?”
“Shit!” I hissed. “Then hold on. I’m coming.”
I hung up and turned to Richard. “I need to get to the university.”
Richard nodded and we moved to the door.
Alek’s voice sounded from the couch. “Helen?” he asked in a broken voice. “Is that you?” Come back.”
I felt his rising desperation much like my own. We all had our own limit. At some point, we would break.