The no-eyed man turned his attention back to the obsidian road that stretched out before them.

Lori’s detached calm was beginning to give way to nervousness. All of this – her nakedness, the road, the car, the driver – had seemed like a dream, or perhaps a hallucination brought on by some powerful drug. But her mind was starting to clear now, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, this was real. She tried to remember how she’d gotten here, but nothing came to her. She remembered being on the soccer field, running toward the goal that Aashrita protected, remembered how they’d crashed into each other…. She frowned. That had happened in high school, seventeen years ago. How…. She realized then that she had been dreaming. That day on the practice field had changed her entire life. She’d torn her anterior cruciate ligament – her ACL – the tissue that connected the thighbone to the shinbone. She’d needed surgery, followed by months of physical therapy. It was nine months before she was able to return to full physical activity. By then she was in her senior year, and although the doctor had given her the green light to return to playing soccer, she was no longer interested in it. Partially because she wanted to avoid another serious injury, but also because she had a new passion. After going through physical therapy and experiencing firsthand what it could do to help someone heal, she’d decided to enter the profession. She eventually graduated with her bachelor’s in PT, then went on to get her master’s in the discipline. As for Aashrita…. She didn’t want to think about her right then, and so she turned her mind back to the problem at hand.

She had dreamed about her soccer injury, but that dream had ended with her lying on her back on the grass, knee hurting like a motherfucker. Now she was here, with no apparent transition between. That meant this was a dream. She’d simply transitioned from one scenario – a realistic one drawn from her own life – to a more unrealistic one, where a man with no eyes chauffeured her down a black road in a sunless, starless world. And where she was wearing a see-through robe to boot. This scenario had all the hallmarks of a dream that was rapidly sliding into nightmare territory. So why didn’t it feel like a dream?

She rubbed her right hand across the leather of the seat to test its reality. She jerked her hand back when she felt the leather ripple beneath her fingers, as if her touch excited it. Her bare ass was on this leather, or whatever it was, separated only by sheer cloth. She imagined the seat rippling beneath her butt, as if caressing her, and the thought turned her stomach. She resolved to sit very, very still. Aside from the radio, the car was quiet, and she wondered if the vehicle had an engine or was propelled by other means. The ride was smooth, too, as if the obsidian surface of the Nightway was perfectly flat and highly polished.

She began to tremble, as much from fear as from cold. She wanted to ask the driver to stop and let her out, but she said nothing. Not only did she think the eyeless man would refuse her request, if he did allow her to leave the vehicle, where could she go? The car’s lights were the only source of illumination she’d seen in this place so far. Once she was standing on the side of the road alone, and the driver had put enough distance between them, she would be swallowed by darkness as complete as that in a cavern far beneath the surface of the earth or at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean; places light had never touched and never would. Where could she go? How would she find her way? And what if there were other things out there in the darkness with her, things she couldn’t see, but which could detect her by sound or smell, things that were hungry?

No, better to remain where she was. If this was a dream, it didn’t matter what she did. Nothing could harm her here. And if this was real – even if only partially – the longer she remained inside the car, the safer she’d be. She hoped.

She sat back and felt a wave of revulsion as the leather behind her shuddered upon her contact with it. She told herself to keep still, ignore the obscene sensation, and focus on the world outside the window, but that didn’t help. There were no landmarks to see, nothing to indicate the passage of time or the vehicle’s movement. The blackness was eerie and absolute, but sometimes she had the impression of things moving on either side of the road, shadows within shadows, and more than moving – they were watching as well. Watching and waiting and hoping that the car edged a little too close to the side of the road, close enough to reach out and grab it.

Occasionally they passed vehicles going in the opposite direction. Some were four-wheeled machines that more or less resembled cars she was familiar with, but others looked like nothing she’d ever seen before. One looked as if it had been built from the hollowed-out exoskeleton of a praying mantis the size of a semi-truck. Another was an amorphous mass of sparkling fog, in the center of which crouched the silhouette of a figure that held only the most rudimentary resemblance to a human form. The strangest was something that resembled a carriage made from raw meat, pulled by a pair of creatures that resembled horses that had been turned inside out.

She wasn’t certain how much time passed. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours. But eventually she became aware of a faint red glow in the distance ahead of them. She fixed her gaze upon it and watched it grow larger as they approached. Eventually, they were close enough for her to begin to make out details. It was a gigantic spire, although without any objects around it for comparison, its size was difficult to judge. It felt big, though. Skyscraper-big. A curling organic-looking spiral, it reminded her of a narwhal’s jutting horn, only it was wider at the bottom and continued getting narrower until it came to a point at the top. It was clear to see how the Vermilion Tower had gotten its name. The spiral gave off its own crimson light, which seemed to smolder amidst the darkness, like the coals of a fire that hadn’t quite burned out yet. The light pulsed slowly, as if in time to the beat of an enormous heart. She wondered then if the spiral truly was a horn, and if so, if it was attached to some unfathomably large creature buried vertically beneath the ground. Maybe the behemoth was long dead and only its skeleton remained, or perhaps it still lived and was only slumbering, waiting for the right moment to wake and burst free from the ground that imprisoned it.

The driver slowed as they approached the tower. He activated his right turn signal – an action Lori found so absurd she nearly laughed – and pulled off the road. The surface they now drove on wasn’t as smooth as the Nightway, and the car juddered as the driver pulled up to the tower. He stopped, parked, and turned off the car. The headlights flicked off, but the pulsing scarlet light emanating from the tower provided enough illumination for Lori to see. Her skin looked blood-red in the tower’s light, and she was surprised to find the effect beautiful in its way.

The driver got out of the car and opened one of the passenger doors for her to disembark.

What if I refused? she wondered. Would the eyeless man grab her by the arm and pull her out of the car? Or would he stand there and wait until she chose to come out, regardless of how long it took? Either way, she’d end up leaving the car, so she saw no point in putting it off. She climbed out, acutely aware that her naked body was fully visible through the thin fabric of her robe. Once outside, she crossed her arms over her chest again, even though the man who’d brought her had no eyes with which to examine her body. She covered herself more for psychological comfort than anything else.

The ground felt rough and pebbly beneath her bare feet, and when she looked down, she saw the area around the tower’s base looked more like animal hide than soil, the thick, tough skin of some large mammal like a rhino or elephant. This reinforced her impression that the tower was in truth the horn of some buried creature, and she shuddered at the thought that she stood upon the skin of some unimaginably vast horror.

The driver closed the passenger door then faced Lori.

“Follow me,” he said, and then he walked toward the tower. After a moment’s hesitation – perhaps solely to give herself the illusion that she had a choice in the matter – she followed. A sound emerged from beneath the car’s hood, a soft, high-pitched tone that made Lori think of an unhappy dog’s whine. It was crazy, but she thought the car was expressing sadness over her departure.

The air was chilly, like a late fall morning in Ohio, and it had a curious stale quality, like a room that had been closed for years. Dead air, she thought, and the description seemed apt.

The eyeless man led her to the tower’s base. Now that she was close to it, she could see the tower was smooth and shiny, as if it were made of pearl, or a substance very much like it. She felt an urge to reach out and run her hand along its surface, but she resisted. She sensed touching the tower’s outer surface would be bad, although she had no idea why it should be so. Still, she heeded her instinct and kept her arms crossed over her chest.

There was no apparent door in the tower’s base, but when the eyeless man waved his hand in the air inches from its surface, the pearl-like substance flowed away like liquid, forming a semi-circular opening large enough for both of them to enter.

She thought he might turn to her, smile with his too-white teeth, say After you, then gesture for her to precede him. But he didn’t. Instead he walked into the tower without waiting to see if she would follow.

This was it – her chance to escape.

She could run off into the darkness, take her chances with whatever might be out there waiting for her. She heard a quiet chorus of whispers then, like a sudden strong breeze, but she felt no stirring in the dead air. She could make out what sounded like words.

Yes, yes! Come to us, come! We will welcome you with our claws and mouths and our sharp-sharp teeth!

She looked back at the car that had brought her here. It looked something like a cross between a limo and a hearse, and while its surface appeared dark crimson in the light pulsing from the Vermilion Tower, she thought the vehicle was likely painted black – the blackest black that had ever been created, darker than night, despair, hopelessness, and sin. Could she steal it – get in, slide behind the wheel, and drive away from the tower, and try her luck on the Nightway? If this was a dream, she’d wake up eventually, and if it wasn’t, at least she’d be away from this place and whatever awaited her within.

She didn’t know if the vehicle needed a key to activate its engine. She hadn’t heard the eyeless man remove a key from the ignition and slip it into a pocket of his robe as he got out of the car. But maybe the car only needed a keyless remote to turn it on, in which case, the eyeless man probably still had the remote on him. But this car wasn’t an ordinary vehicle. It seemed to possess some kind of independent life of its own – and she thought it liked her. If she got in, maybe it would activate its engine for her, only too happy to assist its newfound friend.

She thought then of the way the car’s back seat had rippled under her hand, and she wondered what the car might do once she was alone inside it.

What can it do? she thought. It’s just a machine, for Christ’s sake.

She took a step toward it, the driver’s-side door swung open, and a low thrumming sound like the purr of a large cat filled the air.

She stopped, stood for a moment, reconsidering. Her grandmother had loved to dispense bits of homespun wisdom via folksy sayings. Lori had come to loathe them as a child, but as an adult, her grandmother’s words came back to her now and again, and she often found them pertinent to her life. Once of those sayings was, Dance with the one that brung you. In this case, she thought that was excellent advice.

She turned and entered the tower, the semicircular door flowing closed behind her.

The eyeless man was nowhere in sight.

She expected the inside of the tower to resemble the outside, walls, floors, and ceiling made of the same pearl-like substance, all of it pulsing with burning-coal light. But the interior was made of gray stone blocks, with illumination provided by burning wooden torches, set into rusty iron sconces at periodic intervals. The fire that blazed from the torches seemed perfectly ordinary at first, but it took her only a few moments to realize the flames gave off no heat or smoke. Frowning in puzzlement, she walked up to the closest torch and reached toward the dancing fire burning at its tip. When her fingers were within an inch of the flames – and feeling no warmth at all – the fire bent toward her hand and engulfed the flesh. She screamed as pain erupted in her hand, and she jerked it away from the flames, taking a couple steps back for good measure, as if she feared the fire might stretch out and attempt to burn her once more. It stayed where it was, though she could almost hear the crackling sound of laughter, as if the torch flame was amused by what it had done.

She cradled her injured hand to her abdomen and looked down to examine it. She expected to find her skin red and blistered, but her flesh was smooth and undamaged. But if that was the case, why did her hand hurt so goddamn bad?

“The Flames of the Intercessor burn from the inside out.”

She spun toward the speaker of these words and saw the eyeless man facing her. His tone had been one of amusement and his mouth formed a crooked smile.

An instant ago, the corridor had been empty, with no sign of the man. Now here he was again, as if he’d materialized before her. Who knows? Maybe he had.

“You entered the tower willingly,” the eyeless man said. “That is a point in your favor. Come with me.”

He turned and began moving down the corridor in a strange gliding motion. The hem of his crimson robe extended all the way to the stone floor, concealing his feet. Although given the odd way he moved, and the fact that she heard no sound of shoes touching the floor as he traveled, she wasn’t certain he had feet.

She might’ve shivered at this thought, but her hand hurt too much for her to feel anything else. Still cradling her hand to her abdomen, and no longer caring that she wasn’t concealing her breasts, she followed after the eyeless man.

Chapter Three

She opened her eyes to darkness, instantly alert, but not knowing why. She felt her mattress beneath her, the comforter over her, and she realized she was in her bed, in her apartment. It was night, and she had been sleeping. Dreaming, too. She thought of the drive to the Vermilion Tower, thought of the Nightway, the eyeless man, the fire that burned her from the inside out. It had seemed so real, but now she was awake, and the nightmare was over. She felt too wired to return to sleep right away, but she didn’t care if she’d be up the rest of the night. A little sleep deprivation was a small price to pay to escape that awful—

Her thought was cut off by the sound of a thump coming from somewhere in her apartment. The living room, maybe. She understood that she hadn’t woken because her dream-slash-nightmare had become too disturbing. She’d woken because she’d heard a noise, probably a previous thump. She was a light sleeper, had been since her parents had brought her home from the hospital, at least to hear them tell it. She always woke when Larry got home after a night gig. He was usually drunk, or close to it, and while he wasn’t known for being ninja-quiet in the best of situations, he was even louder when he had alcohol in his system.

Ordinarily, she’d have been irritated by his clumsy noisiness, might’ve called out for him to keep it down. He’d call back, saying Okay, and he’d be quiet for a couple minutes, and then he’d start being noisy again, as if she’d never said anything at all. But tonight she was glad he was home. After the nightmare she’d had, she was grateful that she wasn’t alone in the apartment any longer.

I’ll go out, say hi, see how the gig went, she thought. And if Larry was in a talkative mood, if he wanted to stay up and regale her with stories of how many good-looking men and women had attended the show, and laugh about all the ways he and the band had screwed up their performance, she’d listen to every word, ask questions, encourage him to add more details until the sun came up and her nightmare became a distant – if unpleasant – memory.

She threw off the comforter, moved into a sitting position, then put her feet on the floor and stood. After dreaming of being semi-nude, she was self-conscious about how much of her bare legs were visible below the T-shirt – not to mention that she only had a pair of panties on underneath – but Larry had seen her naked more times than she could count. Since they’d ceased being a couple, he had never tried to make a move on her, not once. She had no reason not to trust him. Still, she was tempted to grab a pair of sweatpants from the dresser and slip them on before leaving her bedroom. She decided against it. Larry knew she didn’t sleep in sweats, and he’d know something was wrong if he saw her in them. She didn’t want to tell him about her dream, wanted to let the memory of it fade in the way dreams did. So, bare-legged and braless, she walked to the bedroom door, opened it, and stepped out into the short, narrow hallway.

The hallway housed a small linen closet as well as a half-bath, but that was all. From here, she normally could see into the living room – when the lights were on, that is. They were off now, and the apartment was pitch black. Larry never went to bed right away after coming home from a gig. Even if he’d had a few drinks – or more than a few – he was too wired from performing to sleep. He’d stay up two, three hours, texting friends and watching YouTube videos on his phone, listening with earbuds so he wouldn’t wake her. Maybe he’d drunk more than usual and had passed out on the couch moments after entering. He snored, though lightly, when he slept sober, louder when he fell asleep drunk. But she heard no breathing, let alone any snoring.

Maybe the noise she’d heard had come from another apartment. It wasn’t as if the walls and floors were soundproof. She could often make out conversations taking place in the adjoining apartments, especially when said conversations devolved into shouting matches. If Larry was zonked out, she didn’t want to bother him, and if the thumps had come from another apartment, they didn’t concern her. She started to turn and head back into her bedroom when she thought of something. When Larry came in late, he sometimes forgot to lock the door. One time, he’d been so drunk and exhausted that he’d left the damn door open all night while he slept belly-down on the living room floor. They’d been lucky someone hadn’t tried to rob them – or worse.

If Larry had collapsed on the couch – or fallen to the floor – he might have passed out before closing the door. She should go out into the living room and check to make certain the door was closed, and if it wasn’t, she’d close and lock it herself. If she didn’t check, she knew she’d keep obsessing over the door, and there would be no way she’d get back to sleep tonight. Without realizing it, she crossed her arms over her breasts as she’d done in the nightmare, and started toward the living room, moving slowly so as not to trip in the darkness.

There were lampposts behind the apartment building, the same kind as the ones out front. Both the first- and second-floor units had sliding-glass patio doors close to the kitchen. Lori used hers as a dining area, keeping a small round table with a pair of chairs in front of the patio door. The ground-floor apartments had individual fenced-in patios, while the upper apartments had wooden decks they shared with the unit next door. They each had a small space where residents could sit and hang out, the spaces bisected by a single set of wooden stairs that led down to the ground. Vertical blinds covered Lori’s patio door at night, but slivers of light usually managed to sneak through the spaces between the slats, illuminating the living room and kitchen, at least a little. There was no light now, though, which was weird because the blinds were old and some of the slats didn’t close all the way. Maybe there was something outside the patio door, blocking the light. She wanted to tell herself the thought was ridiculous, but after what she’d experienced tonight at FoodSaver the idea didn’t seem foolish at all.

She took several steps into the living room, stopped, and whispered, “Larry? Are you home?”

No response.