26. Chapter Twenty-Six The Devil’s Dance
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Devil’s Dance
Tess
Pressing the blade into dead, cooling flesh, I sawed back and forth. My stomach turned. Blood welled up through the perforation at first, then flowed to the floor. A spurt of crimson shot out in all directions, speckling my face, Reaper, the walls, and the carpet. I gritted my teeth. “This better be fucking worth it,” I mumbled. Hitting cartilage, a stronger wave of nausea hit. I pushed down harder, sawing through a bit more flesh, but the knife wasn’t making progress anymore. I grunted in frustration.
Reaper’s voice came through, cold and gentle. Soothing and temperate. “Find the spot between the vertebrae, monstre.” He was so many conflicting pieces of a puzzle, helping me through this nightmare of a challenge .
I pressed my lips together and exhaled through my nose. “Great…” Easing off the pressure, I let the blade float back and forth, searching for the right spot. When I found it, I pressed down. Nothing.
Harder.
“Put all your weight into it.”
I leaned in, pressing hard, and when it broke with a sickening crack, I fell onto the bloody corpse. My hand caught me in a pool of gore on the floor. Reaper grabbed my elbow and helped me back up. I swallowed and pressed the blade back into the dead guy’s neck, ripping through the last of the connective tissue.
As soon as it tore free, I held the head up with a grunt, only for it to disappear from my grasp, along with the spirit itself. With a gust of wind, the double doors blew open, the faint light from inside sputtering. The gentle ambiance contrasted with the blood splatter on my hands and face, leaving me feeling a sense of dissociation. The air carried a chill, combining the odors of aged wood and dust, heightening the eeriness of the scene.
Reaper handed me a clean handkerchief, the crisp fabric incongruous against the disorder around us. I didn’t bother asking where he’d gotten it; with the mind-boggling amount of freaky things going on, there were more pressing concerns. The soft material felt oddly comforting as I wiped the blood from my face, though it did little to calm my nerves.
We crept forward toward the open doors, the faint light scattering through the shadows. The room beyond was vast, its dimensions swallowed except where the light touched. It could have been a banquet hall or ballroom, its grandeur now cloaked in decay. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors lined the walls, their reflective surfaces catching the light and multiplying the dark outlines, creating an illusion of endless space .
When we crossed the threshold, the doors slammed shut with a deafening bang. I spun around, my hand flying to my chest as my heart pounded. The noise reverberated through the hall, the echoes joining with the distant creaks and groans of the old building.
“Of course we’re trapped,” I muttered, edging away from Reaper. The room seemed to close in around us, the mirrors reflecting my own anxious face from every angle.
“If this room has everything we need, as we were told, we’ll be able to get out.”
The inky darkness seemed to move and shift before my eyes. Whispers slithered through the silence. I’d believe the room itself was alive and aware of our presence if you'd told me so.
I scrunched my mouth to one side skeptically, scanning the room for another exit, my eyes straining to see. “Uh huh. What are the chances it wasn’t a trick?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why’d you go through with it then?”
The heavy, musty air weighed on my lungs, and the chill seeped into my bones. The elegant decorations, now covered in a thick layer of dust, stood as silent witnesses to the passage of time and the secrets the hotel held. Still backing away from him, putting space between us, I shrugged. “What other plan did we have?” But the ease I felt with him was at war with the vision I’d seen.
Reaper’s expression was unreadable, his eyes fixed on me as if searching for something. The unbearable atmosphere pressed down on us, making each breath a conscious effort. Despite the fear gnawing at my insides, I had to press on.
He barked out a laugh. Then, noticing my retreat, he cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”
“Huh?” I squeaked, high-pitched and not at all nonchalant like I’d been going for. “Nothing.” I turned around to face the mirrors. “We should search around for the matches since that's what we need.” My voice echoed slightly in the vast room, and the end of my sentence raised as if declaring our request to whatever entity might be listening.
He huffed but seemed to agree, his silhouette a dark figure against the sputtering glow. The mirrors seemed to watch us, reflecting our every move in strange, discordant ways as we took opposite sides, inspecting the room. Each step disturbed the thick layer of dust on the floor, sending up small clouds that suffused the stale air, tearing at my throat and making my eyes water.
There was nothing in here but dusty mirrors and random items dotting the floor. A tattered hat lay discarded near the wall, its brim coated in grime. An empty, dusty bottle of water sat forlornly beside a broken chair leg, its plastic surface dulled by time. A bloody denim jacket was draped carelessly over a cracked footstool, the dark stains contrasting sharply with the faded blue fabric. It occurred to me we hadn’t seen any dead bodies except for the ones we’d watched die.
One section of the mirror had been shattered, the jagged pieces scattered across the floor like the remnants of a broken dream. The shards glinted ominously in the light, birthing grotesque, disjointed reflections that made the room feel even more surreal.
As I moved closer to the broken mirror, I felt my blood run cold. The reflections in the shards were fragmented and twisted, creating a macabre illusion. The air pulsed, and I could feel the presence of something unseen, watching us from beyond the reflections.
I knelt down carefully, avoiding the sharp edges of the glass, and examined the area around the shattered mirror. The light glimmered through the shards in an almost hypnotic dance. My fingers brushed against something small and metallic amidst the debris—but it disappeared at the same moment .
“What the fuck,” I mumbled. But in the stillness of the room, it echoed, bouncing against the walls like a pinball. Reaper scrutinized me, his expression unreadable, and started making his way toward me.
As he approached, the air grew heavier, my heartbeat picked up, and the sense of unease intensified. The mirrors, now more like silent sentinels, reflected our every move, creating an endless loop of our actions. I stood up, and we exchanged a look that spoke volumes. The stifling atmosphere of the room, the eerie reflections, and the strange, random items disappearing on contact all pointed to the presence of something much more sinister at play.
Reaper clutched my arm and turned to do a quick sweep of the room, peering up at the ceiling.
“We know you’re here. Just come tell us what the fuck you want,” he announced.
The sense of being watched, of not being alone in this decaying ballroom, was overwhelming. The next step was uncertain, but I knew what the result would be. Still, I had to keep searching for a way out of my haunted nightmare of a life. It couldn’t get any worse, even if that vision played out exactly as it did.