Oblivion (19 page)

“What I mean,” he said, “is that's all that's left. All we are. All we have to give.”

“That's not true.” Shaking her head, she clutched the lapels of his jacket, Varen's old green mechanic's jacket, which, like the pink ribbon, she had lost in the dreamworld—
to
the dreamworld. Pinfeathers must have found it. Did he want to hold on to it like he had the ribbon? To keep it because of what it represented?

Lost things found . . .

“You aren't
like
that.”

“Recent history would suggest the contrary,” the Noc said.

Her eyes traced over his collar, where the top two buckles of his underlying jacket lay undone. Within, an impossible network of cracks netted his chest and throat. With the exception of the large piece plating the place where his heart would have been—its jagged edges poking just above the black fabric—the jigsaw collection contained no shard bigger than a small coin.

Aware that neither Scrimshaw nor Pinfeathers could have been responsible for their own reconstruction, Isobel found herself again wondering who had performed the task.

“What happened on the cliff wasn't really you,” Isobel insisted. “You're different than that. You're both different. That's why she wanted you. That's why she—”

Snatching her by the wrist, Pinfeathers swung her around fast. The trees, his broken face, the sky and the road swam by in a colorless blur.

“She wants
you
,” he hissed.

One of his arms looped her waist, and the Noc pulled her snug against him. “But then,” he added, pressing cold lips to her ear, “don't we all?”

Isobel held her breath. She fought against a shudder, but unlike during her initial encounters with the Noc, she had no urge to pull away from him or to try to jerk free.

He wouldn't harm her. She knew that. And though she wasn't sure how she could be so certain, it didn't change the fact that on some intrinsic level, she was.

“So she knows now,” Isobel said, more to herself than to the Noc, “that I'm alive.”

“As well as she knows you were never dead.”

Isobel blinked. Frowning, she clutched the arm that encircled her waist.

“Wait,” Pinfeathers said, speaking in a monotone, feigning disbelief, “don't tell us you bought oil from that old snake
again
. Really, cheerleader, you have
no
discernment. No ability to see things the way they really are. Otherwise, you might have seen me coming. All of this. Everyone else did.”

So Reynolds
had
lied to her. About Lilith thinking she was dead. But why? Even if she hadn't fully believed him, that he was on her side, she'd wanted to. Desperately.

“What's happening?” Isobel asked. “Tell me.”

“But you
know
what's happening.”

She wanted to spin in his grip and face him. When she tried, though, he only squeezed her more tightly, forbidding the movement.

“Then tell me how to stop it,” she pleaded. “Tell me you know how.”

“First, you'd have to stop us.”

“I keep trying. But he—
you
won't believe me.”

“Oh, we want to,” he said. “We do. But then, it would destroy what's left of us to find out we were wrong. And with the pain already too much to bear, why not just go ahead and eliminate the guesswork? And everything else along with it.”

“It's not going to help, is it?” she asked, her shoulders sagging. “That's what you're saying. I can't prove
anything
to him, can I?”

“No,” he said, laughing again, “but trying sure stirred the hornet's nest, now, didn't it?”

She jerked her head toward him and, in her mind, something clicked with those words.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “Reynolds. She
sent
him to find me. She
wanted
me to go into the veil. She knew I would try to make him believe. They
both
did. She knew how Varen would react. What he would do. She
knew. She
—”

“Doesn't need you anymore, FYI,” Pinfeathers whispered in her ear, the drop in his voice causing her blood to freeze. “But how to get rid of you. How? How to lure you in close? How to hurt you inside
and
out? And keep you from fighting back?”

He nuzzled her neck, lips trailing to her shoulder.

“You . . . ,” Isobel said, her throat constricting.

“Us.”

And now she had her answer as to why Pinfeathers had returned. Lilith had brought him back to use as a weapon against her. Isobel had fulfilled her purpose, igniting the fuse that would send Varen on the rampage to destroy the veil and blend the two worlds. So the demon had deployed the Noc—Isobel's lone would-be ally—as a final trap.

Hadn't the Noc himself once confessed that he had to do whatever Lilith commanded?

“But . . . ,” Isobel murmured, her voice quavering, suddenly weak, “you wouldn't. I know you wouldn't. I know you.”

“For your sake, my dear Isobel, I very much hope you do. Because we certainly no longer recognize ourselves.”

“You're not going to hurt me,” she said, her voice channeling a resolve she didn't feel. “Even if you tried, you wouldn't be able to.”

“It's good to know you harbor so much faith in us,” he replied. “Because it's all too far gone now, including us—
especially
us. And unfortunately for you, I'm very sorry to say, aside from
this
”—slowly his hand trailed up her body, claws snagging the fabric of her T-shirt, grazing her skin through the thin material, stopping only when his crackled palm pressed over the hamsa—“believing in the best of us—that we have a best to believe in—is the only weapon you have left.”

Isobel placed a hand on his. “You don't have to do what she says. You've already proven that once. You protected me. You would do it again.”

She felt his hand twitch. “What do you suppose I'm trying to do right now?” he asked, his voice trembling. He seemed just as afraid as she did.

“You can't hurt me,” Isobel said, the conviction in her voice failing. “No matter what, you won't be able to.”

“I'm going to let you go,” he said. “And then . . . I want you to run.”

“No.”

“Run away. Like you did before. Like you should have done from the start.”

“I won't,” Isobel said, tightening her grip on him. “I
told
you. I'm not afraid of you anymore.
Either of you
.” She shut her eyes, blocking out the trees and the road and the night, hoping that would help to make her words feel true.

“Oh, don't you worry,” Pinfeathers said, loosening his arm from her waist. “Whether that's really the case or not, there's still plenty left to fear.”

Isobel spun before he could release her. She pressed her forehead to his chest.

“Don't do this,” she breathed against him, gripping his jacket.

“Issssobel,”
he hissed, drawing her name out as though to savor its sound.

Sharpened claws threaded into her hair. Her stomach clenched at the sensation, and when he leaned down, pressing his broken cheek to hers, she went rigid.

“You won't.” She repeated it like a mantra, as if to reassure them both.

“Again . . . ,” he said, stepping back from her, the movement causing the open collar of his jacket to shift. Enough to allow her a glimpse of an etching, chiseled onto the shard positioned over the center of his hollow torso, over his nonexistent heart.

Slowly he withdrew his hand, and in her periphery, Isobel saw blue claws—not red—unthread from her hair.

“Half right.”

Frozen in place, Isobel stood aghast as Pinfeathers continued to retreat from her, revealing more of himself the farther away he drew.

Horrible and heartrending, the truth left her wondering how she hadn't guessed it all along.

A zigzagging crack split the Noc's face in two. On the right half, the side that bore Pinfeathers's trademark crater—the side that mirrored her scar—a single black eye watched her.

On the other, a hollow socket appeared to do the same.

Her gut feeling about Pinfeathers, she now knew, had been right. He
wouldn't
harm her.

Of course, her gut had been right about another thing too. That she should never have entered the park. That something horrible awaited her within.

The very same something that had stalked her through its boundaries the last time.

Isobel's hands sprang to her lips. “What—what did she do to you?”

“Ah well,” Pinfeathers said, shrugging. “Apparently, it was either this or scrapbooking. You know what they say. Everyone needs a hobby. You should take up jogging. Now would be optimal timing, I think.” He tugged at his collar with one claw, as if loosening a necktie. “I'm starting to feel a little
crowded
 . . . if you catch my drift.”

Though the two Nocs apparently occupied a single shell, it was becoming more and more evident with every passing second that only one Noc could hold dominion over the shared body at any given time. What had Pinfeathers said when she'd heard his voice in the purple chamber?
We're here, and that means he's gone.

The struggle—it must be constant. But . . .

“You
can
fight him,” Isobel said, inferring through his words and by the way he flinched, his head jerking suddenly to one side, that Scrimshaw was attempting to surface. To push through and take over. “Like . . . like you did in the garden,” Isobel added more weakly, and now she sounded desperate even to her own ears.

Wrapping his arms around himself, Pinfeathers lowered his head. Claws digging into his biceps, he quivered with restrained energy.

“
Yes
, the garden,” Pinfeathers said. “While that little scrap was
so
easily won—no contest, really—we'll have to tag-team it this time, I think. Me plus he against me and you. Two against two. What do you say, cheerleader? That way the odds are more even. Can't beat that now, can we? Ha. Well, I guess we'll soon see.”

Without her telling them to, her feet began to take her in reverse.

“Don't let him through,” Isobel urged. “You're strong enough. You are. Please. You—you're all I have.”

“Touching.” Wincing, he held up a palm. “Really. Romantic even. But save it. I think we both know that's not how you would have it. Otherwise, you might have stayed in the dream. The one I made for you. For us.”

She knew he was referring to the last time the dreamworld and reality had come this close. On Halloween night. Almost as soon as Isobel had crossed from the warehouse of the Grim Facade into the masquerade ball of Poe's story, she had encountered Pinfeathers. After throwing her into a mad waltz amid the masked revelers, guiding her through steps she shouldn't have known how to execute, he'd swept them both into an alternate version of reality. Appearing to her there as Varen—blond, like in the childhood picture Isobel had glimpsed in Varen's house, normal-looking right down to his blue button-up shirt and jeans—Pinfeathers had entrapped her, lulling her senses with the promise of an ideal existence.

At first Isobel's mind had accepted the lie as easily as it would have the beginnings of any pleasant dream.

But then, there'd been something off about the other people populating the classroom setting. Most of all,
everything
had been off about Varen.

One at a time, the inconsistencies and contradictions had pushed her further and further toward the truth, until she'd had no choice but to blast through the deception. And there, on the other side of the Noc's carefully constructed mirage, Pinfeathers had been waiting for her in Varen's chair. Angry. Disappointed. And, Isobel recalled, hurt.

“Think about it,” Pinfeathers said. “We'd
still
be there if you hadn't spoiled it all. If you hadn't insisted on waking up. There, in that world where your parents loved me. Where your friends accepted us. We could have graduated and gone to college together. Anywhere you wanted to go.
Every
where you wanted to go. Everything would have been the best.
I
would have been the best. The version of us that you keep hoping exists. Everything you'd ever want and more.
Any
thing you'd want. And it might have all worked out, Isobel. It might have all been okay, if only I
was
what you wanted. But . . . we both know I'm not.”

Her eyes brimmed once more, burning with restrained tears because she couldn't deny any part of what he was saying. Pinfeathers might have been connected to Varen, but as much as she'd wanted to believe the opposite moments before, he
wasn't
Varen. Only a piece of him. And even though she and the creature had come this far, meeting and parting time and again as if they'd never quite disengaged from their crazed masquerade dance, Isobel still couldn't say what exactly—
who
—he really was. She doubted the Noc could either.

“I'm sorry,” Isobel said, because those were the only words she could offer him.

“
You're
sorry?” He threw his head back, his laughter manic until another wave of pain caused him to double over at the waist, wiping his grin away and replacing it with a grimace.

She reached toward him, wishing there were some way to stop this. To make it all okay. To make
him
okay. To take away the pain it caused him just to be. “I don't know what to say. Please, tell me what to say.”

He straightened, chin lifted. “Say that you'll keep shattering expectations. That you'll show her—and us—that you
can't
be predicted. Say that when ole Stencil Beak here gets close”—he pointed a red claw at his empty eye—“when he thinks he has you, and when I push through and hold steady, you'll prove to me that this time you
have
been listening. That you'll strike.” Pulling down the fabric of his collar with one hand, he pointed at the etching of Virginia with the other. “Here. Hard as you can.”