The Dreamtrap - 9. Chapter 9

- IX -

“Emma, get the painting,” Henry said several minutes later, after his companion lowered herself into one of the big chairs in the living room, throwing her slender legs over the arm of the chair. “Leave him alone! Just get the...”

“Leave him alone?” Emma repeated incredulously. “Are you kidding me? Oh, hell, no!” She looked at the blond who stood frozen in the middle of the living room, and smiled. “I am going to have some fun first. Seriously, just look at him...!”

“I’d rather not,” Henry said tightly.

“Suit yourself,” Emma shrugged. “But I am not leaving until I eat this cookie...” She snorted to herself. “Actually, I am going to make this cookie eat me...”

“Emma...”

“Just relax and enjoy yourself, Henry,” she sighed again. “For once in your life... By the way,” she looked at her companion seriously. “I’ll need you eventually...” She nodded when she caught Henry’s wary look. “I don’t think he ever bottomed before; he doesn’t seem like the type... So yeah, I’ll need you... For obvious reasons,” she shrugged.

Henry stared at her without blinking.

“Are you out of your mind?” he said finally. “I am not going anywhere near him, let alone fucking him!”

Emma’s expression darkened somewhat.

“Yeah,” Henry nodded energetically. “If I were you, I wouldn’t try and get two puppets right now... Not with him,” he glanced at the frozen blond. “I know that you can force me, but you would have to split your attention, and you don’t want that!”

Emma let out an irritated sigh, knowing that he was right – even though Salamander was under her complete control right now, she didn’t want to risk it and release even a fraction of her hold on him just so she could break Henry as well.

“Fine,” she muttered and sat up, lowering her legs on the floor. “Shut up and watch then. I am sure I can find something in his kitchen that will suffice nicely.”

“Emma...”

“I said, shut up!” she raised her voice just a notch, and Henry gritted his teeth in helpless frustration.

Emma was incredibly stubborn – he knew that. He knew that ever since he got together with her. Henry wasn’t fond of the memory of their first time together. He wasn’t sure back then whether he even liked this girl enough to have a drink together, let alone sleep with her. However, Emma had different ideas, and before Henry knew it, he was following her to her apartment like an obedient dog, his free will nothing but a memory right then. Emma was a will-tamer, as he learned later. Will-tamers (or puppeteers, as they were called more often) were the individuals who possessed this obscure and unpleasant ability to crush someone’s free will, turning them into nothing but empty shells who would do anything the puppeteer desired. It was a variation of mind-controlling ability; except, the puppeteers were only able to force someone into doing their bidding by shutting off their will, instead of influencing the mind or projecting their desires.

Henry’s first initial reaction, after he regained control of himself that first night, was pure hatred. However, he had to admit, forced or not, but sex was incredible. Henry’s will was on somewhat weak side to begin with, so after some sweet talk and even sweeter mouth-magic from Emma, his hatred traded places with something quite the opposite. Soon enough, they were together.

Then, a couple of months ago, he was shaving in front of the bathroom mirror, when suddenly, the smooth surface of the glass slightly trembled, as if it was trying to shiver, and then the bewildered Henry stared at some unknown to him woman, whose reflection was right there, next to his.

“Hey,” the woman said quietly and gave him a toothy smile. “God, it took me a while to figure out how to do this,” she squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “But it’s all right,” she opened her eyes and gave Henry another toothy smile. “Here I am, and here you are.”

“Who the hell are you?” Henry stared at her, his razor forgotten.

“Who are you talking to?” Emma walked into the bathroom, frowning quizzically at Henry, whose face was half-covered in shaving cream.

“Her!” Henry all but poked the mirror with a sharp gesture.

Emma blinked at that and looked in the mirror.

“Hey,” the woman said again energetically, and Emma’s eyes immediately narrowed. Henry knew that she was trying to break this strange, pesky reflection, which was wearing the same toothy smile. “Oh, don’t bother,” the reflection sighed with boredom. “You can’t do anything to me; I am not corporeal...Well,” the woman shrugged. “Not yet, anyway.”

Emma’s shoulders tensed up a little bit when she realized that the woman was right.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded sharply.

“A mirror ghost,” the reflection replied gloomily. “For now, that is.”

“What do you want?” Emma’s voice remained the same – sharp and demanding.

“I need you to do something for me,” the reflection leaned onto something Henry failed to see, with one of her shoulders. “First of all, I need you...” She looked at Henry pointedly. “To paint something...”

“How do you know I can paint?” Henry muttered, ignoring an unpleasant feeling of shaving cream drying off on his skin.

“I am right here, next to you,” the woman hugged Henry’s reflected self briefly. “And since I am nothing but a ghost...” She grimaced at that. “...I can get into your head quite easily. I know all about you, Henry. You too, by the way,” she glanced at gloomy Emma. “So yeah,” she nodded. “I need you to paint something for me. I will tell you exactly what I want...”

“Get lost,” Emma snapped, her eyes two dark-brown slits by now. “I am not taking orders from some idiotic ghost! There is absolutely nothing you can do, so get lost! Go haunt someone else’s mirror!”

“Feisty,” the woman muttered with a half-smile. “Very nice... I am not going to haunt anyone else’s mirror; it took me a while to get to this one, and I am not wasting any more time...”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass!” Emma laughed at that.

“Therefore,” the woman continued, completely ignoring Emma’s comment. “I am sorry to inform you, but you two are going to help me to get the hell out of here. I have some dues to pay...” Here, her expression darkened immensely.

“Go screw yourself,” Emma said lightly and turned away from the mirror, clearly intending on leaving the bathroom.

She tried moving, and to her own astonishment, she realized that she couldn’t take a single step. She whirled around, staring into the mirror once again, her eyes huge and disbelieving. The woman was watching her with genuine interest, one of her arms draped around reflected Henry’s shoulders, while the other wrapped itself around mirrored Emma’s waist.

“You can’t leave, darling,” the woman said after Emma stared at her. “I can keep you here until you die of starvation if I want to; that’s not my intention, however... Oh,” she added after a few seconds. “By the way, don’t even think of getting rid of the mirrors or some other nonsense like that after I let you go...” She reached out to Emma’s reflection and swiftly yanked several hairs out of the dark, untamed mane.

Real Emma winced at that, even though she felt nothing.

“With this,” the woman demonstrated the hairs. “I don’t need a mirror to be able to get to you. So yeah,” she sighed and nodded slowly. “Listen up, kids! This is what I need you to do...”

****

After that morning, both – Henry and Emma – became unwilling tools for the pesky ghost’s revenge. Henry started painting the picture that the ghost kept describing in smallest details. He was gritting his teeth every time he reached for his paintbrush, but there was nothing he could do to avoid it, and he knew that.

“I don’t care what the woman looks like,” the ghost told him after he asked her about the appearance of the girl in the picture.

Now the ghost looked completely different from the first time she invaded their mirror. That first time, she wasn’t too tall, was somewhat broad-shouldered even though her entire frame was rather slim, and her hair was short and dark. Now, however, she was tall, perfectly shaped, and her hair was long and blonde. She explained her sudden transformation with the fact that since she was anything but corporeal, she didn't have to hold onto one single appearance.

“I don’t have a face or a body,” she said solemnly. “I am nothing but spirit; therefore, I can look any way I choose to... It’s fun, really,” she nodded with a small smile.

She would make endless demands and changes in the painting she desired so much, and Henry would curse nonstop while she would make him to re-do yet another damn mirror on the canvas. Finally, the corridor (that’s what Henry called it) was complete, and every single mirror seemed to satisfy the annoying ghost. The only thing left was the girl.

“I don’t care what she looks like or what she is wearing,” the ghost told him. “Appearance is irrelevant. As long as it’s a female, I am good.”

Henry thought about it for a couple of minutes. Then he smiled to himself and got to work, this time with somewhat bright inspiration. He made the girl in the painting to stand with her back towards the viewer while she hugged herself tightly. The image in his mind was the one of his first art teacher; he started taking art classes when he was sixteen, after his mother realized that he was quite decent when it came to drawing. The teacher was a twenty-something woman whose reputation as an art expert was almost legendary in their small town.

She was good indeed; her paintings made Henry’s look like toddler’s doodling. She was his first teacher in a few subjects, and art wasn’t Henry’s favorite one after a while. Things she did to his body... Henry sighed wistfully while his paintbrush carefully touched the dark, wavy hair – he remembered how much he loved getting lost in that hair.

After a while, she informed Henry that she had had enough of the small-town-living, and that she wanted to try and make her way up in a big city. She left soon after, and Henry was quite heart-broken for a while after that happened.

He sighed again and lowered his paintbrush, taking a small step back and critically looking at the painting. Finally, he nodded, satisfied.

“Show me!” the pesky ghost demanded, and he turned the canvas towards the mirror. “Hmm...” the ghost pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Not bad,” she nodded finally, to Henry’s relief. He was afraid that the woman would find something else wrong with the damn painting thus making him fixing one thing or the other.

The next day, Henry and Emma made a trip to a pawnshop, which was not too far from their apartment. They couldn't care less how much the owner would give them for the painting; all they needed was for someone to buy it. “What if nobody ever buys it?” Henry remembered asking the ghost. “Don’t worry,” the woman nodded back then. “Someone will; the painting will call out to them. It’s just a question of time.”

The ghost in the mirror told them how to tag the painting – it seemed like the woman knew quite a few things about various subjects. Emma obediently followed every single step, tagging the damn painting before they got rid of it. Now they would be able to keep an eye on it without actually going to the pawnshop – the ghost needed to know who bought it, so she could do whatever the hell it was that she needed to do.

Then, after a month or so, the painting had finally left that pawnshop, to Henry’s greatest relief. The plan set itself in motion, which meant that the pesky ghost would leave them alone rather soon. After he realized that none other than Julian Salamander’s mate purchased the painting, he became cold. The ghost, however, stared at him for a few seconds with huge eyes after he told her that, and then she started laughing in bewildered disbelief.

“How’s that for divine justice?” she said finally after her laughing fit, ignoring Henry’s puzzled expression. “Holy hell... I did not see this coming...! This is great,” she started laughing again. “Fan-fucking-tastic!”

After a week or so, the ghost started to become more and more frustrated, which wasn’t a good thing for Henry and Emma, since the woman would take her frustration out on them. She would rant something about being unable to create some portal in reality, and that was bugging the hell out of her. That was when Emma carefully suggested trying doing the same thing in dreams instead, and the ghost fell silent for several long minutes, staring at Emma without blinking. Finally, she let out short laughter and nodded.

“Smart cookie,” she said to Emma, her mood noticeably improved.

Then a week or so ago, she appeared in their mirror yet again, and this time, she was furious.

“I can’t believe this!” she raged while making Henry to mercilessly twist his own nipple. He couldn’t resist her outraged silent orders, unwilling tears escaping his eyelashes when his fingers tightened their grip even more, kicking the level of pain up several more torturous degrees. “Goddammit...!” The ghost seemed completely oblivious to Henry’s painful grimace. “I almost had him...! Just one more call... That asshole...! How in the bloody hell did he even get there? When I get my hands on him...” She gritted her teeth without finishing her sentence, making Henry’s left hand fly up to his other nipple.

“Please, stop...” he hissed through his clenched teeth. “Fucking hell...! I did everything you wanted... It’s not my fault... Stop...!”

The ghost looked at him silently without saying anything, and then she turned around and disappeared in the mirror, releasing her hold on Henry, to his indescribable relief. Then, later that day (which was Saturday), he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Salamander storm into the hospital where both, Henry and Emma, worked, with the unconscious brunet in his arms.

“Holy hell,” he thought in astonishment. “It worked? She did it...?”

It seemed to be the case, because apparently, brunet’s condition was not something that could be cured by medicine, since Salamander left the hospital around eleven in the evening, taking the still unconscious brunet with him.

When Henry and Emma returned home that night, the ghost was all but purring in satisfaction, making Henry think of a cat.

“Okay,” Emma told her darkly. “You got him; leave us alone now!”

Henry agreed with that wholeheartedly.

“I will,” the ghost purred. “Not yet, however...” She smiled, ignoring their identical expressions. “In a week,” she promised with a slight nod. “I want to have some fun first... Mmm...” she closed her eyes and licked her lips, reminding Henry of a cat once again. “I am going to get rid of that asshole for good finally... He owes me more than anyone else; even more than that psychotic blond...!” She opened her eyes and looked at the silent, gloomy couple. “I’ll see you next Thursday, kids,” she flashed them a familiar toothy smile, and disappeared from their view.

She came back next Thursday night, which was yesterday, just as she promised. This time, she needed the original painting to complete whatever it was that she needed to do.

“When you have the painting,” she was saying somewhat impatiently, as if she couldn’t wait to finish the entire ordeal, which was probably the case. “You will need to say this incantation...” She looked at Emma intently. “Write it down,” she commanded.

She waited for Emma to come back with a piece of paper and a pen, and then she slowly dictated the incantation, making sure Emma got it correctly.

“When you are done with the incantation...” she said after she was satisfied with the final inspection, making Emma repeat the entire thing slowly several times. “...which by the way, you will have to say in front of the mirror...” she slightly narrowed her eyes.

“Of course,” Emma muttered darkly.

“When you are done with the incantation,” the ghost continued. “The painting will take care of the rest, getting me out of here and granting me a physical body finally...!”

“Charming,” Emma said gloomily. “We are not getting the damn thing right now though...” She returned the ghost’s stare. “It’s night, for God’s sake!” she said sharply. “We will do it tomorrow evening!”

“Fine,” the ghost snapped with great irritation. “See you then!” and she disappeared yet again.

When they got to Salamander’s house fifteen minutes ago, Henry had no idea that Emma had something else on her mind besides simply getting the painting, therefore, he was shocked when she announced that she was going to ‘...make this cookie eat her.’ “Is she completely out of her mind?” Henry thought with helpless panic, not trusting the blond a single bit. He had heard plenty of stories and rumors about Julian, and he knew that Salamander was not an easy target. He didn’t care how good of a puppeteer Emma was (she was rather excellent, he knew that) -- he was sure that Julian’s will was stronger than she thought, and the blond scared the crap out of him. All he wanted to do was to get that damn painting, go back to the apartment, finish this entire ordeal, and to get rid of the pesky ghost for good finally.

However, here he was, gritting his teeth in helpless frustration while Emma was all but drooling over Salamander, who seemed to be under her complete control, his body frozen in one spot, eyes empty. “Goddammit,” Henry thought warily when Emma got out of that big chair, taking several slow, almost dancing steps towards the blond. “Emma, you are so bloody cocky...! Confidence is a good thing, but you are more than that...! Leave him alone!”

He didn’t say any of that out loud, knowing that it would be futile – whenever Emma got something stuck in that stubborn head of hers, she would go through with it, ignoring everything else, common sense included. He thought of what she said to him a couple of minutes ago, and slightly shuddered. He would not even touch Salamander, let alone fuck him; never mind that he was broken right now (that was the term Emma would always use – ‘broken.’ She loved this particular word; it would always make her feel superior), Henry would never go anywhere near him. The blond made him shiver, and not in a good way.

“Hmmm,” Emma stopped a couple of steps away from motionless Julian, running her eyes over his rigid form. “Let’s not rush this...” she murmured and licked her lips, immediately reminding Henry of the ghost in their mirror. “Take off your shirt, pet,” she murmured, and the blond didn’t even blink.

“Yes,” he said in the same lifeless voice as before, and his hands slowly started undoing buttons on his silk shirt.

It took him several minutes to do that, and then he pulled off his shirt and dropped it onto the floor. Henry had to admit – the blond’s body looked exquisite, but it did not make him any less frightening.

“Mmm,” Emma said appreciatively, and slowly ran her fingers down Julian’s chest. “Very nice... Your mate is a lucky man,” she nodded with a small smile, and then shrugged. “Was, whatever... He is not going to last much longer, I suspect... Anyway,” she smiled once again. “Sit in the chair, pet...”

“Yes,” Julian said unemotionally and slowly walked towards the big chair.

He sat down, his back straight, eyes blink-free, hands on his knees. Emma glanced at Henry.

“No,” he said firmly before she even said anything, and she sighed.

“Fine, fine,” she rolled her eyes and turned towards the frozen blond once again. “Be that way,” she stepped closer to the chair. “You are going to kick yourself later,” she muttered and lightly petted Julian’s cheek. “Because we are going to have fun...” She ran her fingers through Salamander’s long blond hair. “Aren’t we, Julian?” she tightened her grip on those silky blond strands, forcing him to look up.

His head jerked upwards and he looked at her, his eyes empty and emotion-free. Henry let himself to relax ever so slightly. It seemed like Emma was right – the blond was broken, otherwise, he would’ve done something by now. Henry took a deep breath and was about to say something about her getting it on already, when Julian’s mouth stretched in a small, rubber smile.

“Yes,” he agreed with Emma in a low voice, and suddenly, his eyes weren’t empty anymore.

Emma gasped and jerked backwards, clearly about to unleash another attack on the blond, but she was too late. Before she could even frown, she froze in her spot, motionless and silent, her eyes huge, disbelieving, and pleading. Henry blinked rapidly at the brutally sudden change of events, and reached for the gun he had underneath his shirt (to his own frustration, Henry never possessed any ability), but before he even touched the material of his shirt, Julian jerked one of his wrists, and Henry flew backwards, slamming into the wall with full force, his gun dropping on the parquet with a brightly-dull sound. Instead of sliding down and collapsing onto the floor, he stayed pinned to that wall, his ears ringing from the hard impact his head made with it a second earlier, wild fear and panic making him hyperventilate.

The blond turned his head, looked at helpless Henry, and gave him a small smile.

“Yes,” he repeated once again. “We are going to have fun,” he nodded, and picked up his shirt from the floor.