I started to feel something pick up around me. I knew what it was long before I turned. This black dot was opening up right underneath my feet. I tried to jerk back, but the dot expanded. No matter where I ran to, it simply grew to encompass that position too. I soon fell down to my knees. I watched as Hilliker pulled himself up out of the floor. He was now completely covered in this dripping black smoke. I could see slices of his face. They were bone white. He still had no eyes – just hollows that looked as if they’d been absorbed by black holes. Right now in their depths I could see these momentary sparks. It wasn’t calming – like seeing a flare on a dark night. It was the exact opposite. It was like seeing a spark fall down into a dry forest. It was an imminent explosion – one I could do nothing about.
Hilliker no longer wore robes. In a way, they wore him. They were made out of dripping black energy. It fizzled and vibrated, and wherever it splashed onto, it consumed everything in its path.
He reached out a hand toward me. As the bony fingers protruded from that dripping sleeve, I saw that there was virtually no flesh left on them. It’d turned into that wispy black smoke. A spurt of chaos flame wrapped around his knuckles then shot out. It locked around my throat and dragged me forward by the tips of my toes.
“Eve,” Sonos cried, so much desperation shaking through his voice, I thought he’d break.
The chaos flames’ grip on my throat was complete. There wasn’t a thing I could do to fight it. As it circled faster and faster, I knew this was it. No magic... with no magic I was done for.
Hilliker brought me right up close. He stared into my eyes. Or at least, he gazed on with those two black pits of never-ending nothingness. As I stared into them, I caught a few of those glimpses again. Those sparks that signified destruction, not creation. They affected me on some basic, deep level. But there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t grab hold of that emotion. I couldn’t follow it and use it to dredge up more power from the Deep. For I was nothing but a human now.
“Eve,” Sonos cried. He sounded weakened.
... Had I really brought him back only for him to die like this?
Had I really gone this far only to die like this myself?
Maybe Hilliker could read minds now, because as he brought me close enough that I could feel his fetid breath on my cheek, I saw his lips crack into a smile. “Yes. It is time. It is over. You have run far enough. But you did not run fast enough. For there is no way to outpace the Banished. He is everywhere and everything, waiting,” Hilliker’s voice dropped down low, “waiting for your end. For that is how he creates beginnings.”
“He is an abomination,” Sonos cried as he continued to grapple with that priest.
I could tell that Hilliker could, at any time, take on Sonos and win. But he would concentrate on me for now. He was playing. He had me right where he needed me. There was no more escape. There was no more fight.
There was no more... there was no more hope.
I didn’t want to see this. I couldn’t actually witness Sonos’s end. I sure as heck didn’t want to see my own neck being snapped for the last time. And as I stared at Hilliker, I didn’t want to see that spark blast over his face and consume everything in its path.
So I closed my eyes.
“That’s right. There is no point in fighting anymore.”
The chaos flames squeezed my neck. I couldn’t breathe anymore. As I started to asphyxiate, blackness encroached my vision. It made my hearing muffled, even as Sonos called my name with all his might.
I started to see my life again. The events were a jumbled, chaotic mess. I couldn’t see my life flashing before my eyes in some coherent pattern. Instead I saw chunks of broken memories. I saw Sonos’s hand, the side of his lip, the tip of his broken wing. I saw the crank on the side of the music box. I saw a section of my beaded blue dress. I saw Barney reaching over the bar to hand me that lethal alcohol. I saw Sato smoking on his cigar. Everything just pounded into me. The fractious recollections felt far more damaging than the chaos flames. It was as if my memories had decided to turn against me.
... And fair enough. For I had abandoned them. I’d abandoned everything. I’d kept holding onto hope until the last damn moment. But I could not clutch onto it anymore.
The chaos flame encircled me harder. It pushed in. It clearly wasn’t enough for Hilliker to just strangle me this time. He had to rip me apart. As I felt the chaos flame sink into my body and try to divide my cells and the frigging molecules within, those memories only became sharper and stronger. They pounded into me more violently than anything I had ever experienced before. As they tried to rip me asunder, they sped up and up and up. I saw a flash of the Deep. I was standing there in the dust. I watched it pick up and start to whirl around me. I could no longer tell what was underneath me or above. I could not tell what was around or within. For there was no distinction. I was being broken down.
I screamed. I didn’t just scream in the real world as Hilliker’s chaos flame pushed further into my body. I screamed in every single memory. I could recall the moment Sato had handed me over that parchment with Hilliker’s picture on it. In the memory, I yanked my head back, and I screamed with all my might. I could recall the moment I’d sat with my rune knuckles. I jerked my head back, and I shrieked until my throat could’ve ripped itself asunder.
I was back in the light bar with Sister Mary and Sonos. I fell down to my knees, and I shrieked and shrieked and shrieked.
Every memory that had brought me here – as they were torn out of me along with every cell – turned into a nightmare.
The chaos flame pushed further in. It crushed up every damn source of hope I had.
I started to forget things. For as the memories were broken up and changed underneath me, they were no longer mine anymore. They belonged to the Banished, to his pernicious power, to his unstoppable rage and greed. For I was nothing more than his food. I never had been anything more. I was a cow that had tricked itself into thinking that it was free when all it was was a number on a farmer’s paycheck.
My memories became faster and faster. But they were more and more jumbled as I forgot the underlying life beneath them.
I thought... I thought I heard Sonos screaming my name. But there was no point in listening to it, for there was no point in saving myself.
Hope was gone. It had been crushed up. It had been burned. It had been fed to the Banished. And now there was no coming back.
Chapter 12
At the last moment, just as the chaos flame tried to claim me completely, something happened. I felt something vibrate on my finger. I didn’t know if it was Lilly’s ring or my engagement ring. It didn’t really matter. It was real. It felt solid whereas everything else around me was turned into this chaotic mess. I couldn’t distinguish anything – not where Hilliker began, not where I ended. I had no clue if we were still in the cavern or if we were wafting through deep space. But the point was, as that ring vibrated, it centered me. It acted as an anchor as I was set adrift.
It was the slightest of sensations. It was like someone was reaching out a hand to grab mine. I couldn’t feel Sonos’s wings or arms around my back. Lilly hadn’t suddenly cradled my head. But the point was, it was something. And I held onto it in my last moment with all my might.
Maybe Hilliker was screaming at me to give up. Maybe I already had given up and the Banished had consumed the world. I didn’t know. I could discern nothing but that slight sensation.
I clutched onto it with all my might. Nothing – I mean nothing – would have been able to drag me away from it. For it was my last salvation.
As I grabbed it, as I locked my arms around it, anchoring my body to it as if I was a seed and it was the last scrap of dirt in the universe, I thought I heard something.
It wasn’t someone calling my name. It was... a heartbeat. This steady rhythmic thump, thump, thump. It seemed to be unending. Even as chaos swept around me, it continued.
I was scared of it, but the more it cont
inued, the more it naturally pulled me closer.
I held onto it. At first it was hard. It was like clutching a bird – one who simply wanted to fly. The more I wrapped myself around it, the more I centered my mind.
The fear... it was there, but it wasn’t within me anymore.
I... I started to remember little scraps. I had to force my mind to do it. It was so hard, it felt like someone had chained up my memories. To navigate them was like heading through the world’s worst maze. But I did it. The last week, slowly but surely, came together again. And the more it did, the more that heart beat stronger. Every steady thump, thump, thump started to draw me out of myself. No. It started to draw me out of chaos. The confusing mix of overpowering sensations could no longer flow within me.
I’d already discovered that to stop Hilliker from killing me, I had to hold on to hope. And I thought I’d understood how to do that. Clearly I had not. For when it had mattered most, my hope had departed me. And if one truly has hope, it can never depart them. It is a state of being beyond one’s situation. It is a recognition of the fundamental uncertainty of reality. And if you think uncertainty is chaos, you are right, but you are wrong. For in chaos there is indeterminism, but it is in that hope rests. For when things can change, you can change them if you can find a way.
I... thought I was floating. In some kind of expanse. Some kind of black void. I could slowly feel my hands and arms, my face and cheeks, my body and torso. I was naked. My arms were locked around my knees, my head buried against the tops of my thighs. Tears ran down my cheeks. I could feel my hair floating around me.
I had no magic – just a body. Wasn’t that magical enough? Considering where my mind had been and what I had just put up with, having an actual form was the most miraculous thing in the world.
Even as the tears continued to trail down my cheeks, I managed to loosen my grip. I brought up a hand. It wasn’t like I could see – there was no illumination here whatsoever. But I still brought up a hand, because I could. And I still opened my eyes to stare at it, despite the fact I could not see – because I could.
Don’t ask me how long I indulged in that moment. Don’t ask me how long I let it anchor me further. For time was completely irrelevant.
I thought I could hear someone calling my name. Maybe it was my imagination – maybe it was something more. But it was so distant that even as I tried to clutch hold of it, it only became weaker and further off.
But even if I could not hear someone calling my name that did not mean I could not call someone’s name. “Sonos,” I whispered. I could hear no sound. Though I could move my lips, that was it. That didn’t stop me from moving them again. I opened them wide. “Sonos,” I cried. Again, there was no sound. But again, that did not matter.
“Sonos,” I called once more. I put my whole heart into it. And as I did, as I channeled all of that hope, something appeared around my throat. I looked down to see the first thing with illumination in this otherwise completely black expanse. It was my cross.
As it floated there, I swore I saw my mother’s hand interspersed over it.
I clutched it, wrapping my fingers all the way around it.
“Sonos,” I whispered again. This time I could actually hear myself. And the more I threw myself into that fact – the more I believed that my voice had force – the more force it had. “Sonos,” I called again, and this time I screamed it.
The black void around me began to shake.
“Sonos,” I cried once more. I used my voice – and my hope – like a weapon. Now I knew that it could anchor me, I forced it to go out there and break this black void.
Everything started to shake. Waves of power blasted through everything. I began to see just glimpses of reality behind this veil. I thought I could see some crushed stones. I caught a glimpse of an undulating roof. Then there was a foot. I could see its sweat-lined, glistening skin. I could see the Hell symbols over it.
Then there was a face. Sonos.
I threw myself at him, with all my damn hope, with all my damn heart. I had no magic, but my trip into that black void had told me that no longer mattered. For the greatest magic of all can never be pulled from your soul.
When Lilly had told me that I would have to fall back to my last life in order to truly fight Hilliker, I had tried to believe her, but I hadn’t truly understood. For I had never actually glimpsed the heart of hope.
Blind hope ignores reality. It tries to convince you that if you fantasize hard enough, anything can happen.
But blind hope will not change the world.
Only true hope will. And what is true hope but a recognition of the chaos at the heart of reality and yet the order in one’s mind? What is true hope but a recognition that everything can change – but you must be the one to change it?
I became more aware of the cavern.
I could see Sonos’s face. He was right there in front of me. Just before my heart could leap and tell me that he’d saved me, I realized he was chained down. Magical ore was pinning him from every direction. He was right in front of me. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
I was down on my side.
I tried to reach out to him, but that’s when I realized that the floor underneath me was not solid. It was more of that black undulating liquid.
I tried to move, but I couldn’t. Instead I had to stare into Sonos’s reflective eyes to note that Hilliker was right behind me.
Something... something appeared behind him. This massive force was manifesting in the room. It crackled in spurts of chaos flame that gave way to this deep darkness that shouldn’t exist in reality. For it was the true coldness of nothingness. It wasn’t the void of space – it was a recognition that creation was an abomination that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
I watched in the reflection of Sonos’s eyes as Hilliker thrust his arms all the way out. He jerked his jaw back, he opened his eyes, and he accepted the Banished within.
Sonos tried to reach a hand out to me, but he couldn’t thrust past the stones keeping him down.
I... had to move. I had to do something.
I had no magic. I didn’t need it. I had a mind, and that would do fine, thank you very much.
Though it was the hardest thing in the entire world, I placed a hand down in front of me. I shouldn’t have the ability to move. It honestly felt as if the Banished had gone through every single one of my cells with scissors. But I still forced that hand down. I still spread it over the stone, and I still pushed up.
I watched Sonos’s eyes open both in fear and hope. I chose to take hold of the hope as I pushed myself up to my knees. My sweaty, blood-caked hair fanned around me. It slapped against my face as I forced myself to stand.
I turned.
The Banished was starting to possess Hilliker. His whole body was vibrating. As he was lifted up off his feet, this acrid smoke filled the air. It smelled like burned flesh, crushed bones, and sulfur.
I had no weapon. I still had the tennis bracelet and the dragons circling my wrists, but I had no clue how to use them.
I had my subspace pocket, but I couldn’t access it.
There was magic ore all around me, but I couldn’t call to it. It was just me and my hands.
I took a step forward. “Hilliker,” I hissed.
I didn’t expect that he would be able to hear me – the Banished almost completely possessed him now. But he managed to jerk his head down. His eyes opened wide. “How... are you alive?”
“I held onto hope.” Instinctively, I clutched my cross. I thought I saw it glinting under my grip.
My rings began to react to it, too. It wasn’t a showy affair. Magic didn’t suddenly spring around them, but I was certain I saw both my engagement ring and Lilly’s ring glisten.
If the only way to defeat Hilliker and the Banished was with hope, it was time to shove it down their throats.
No one had been able to remove my cross. No one else was meant to be able to remove my engagement ring. But it was tim
e.
I grabbed the engagement ring first. Sonos could still see me. Terror gripped him. “What are you—”
“Just trust me,” I said in an enduringly soft voice.
I’d asked people to trust me in the past, but now I trusted myself, and that made all the difference. Hilliker was still being possessed. It was clear that he couldn’t fight me right now. But when the Banished consumed him, it was just as clear that there would be no point in fighting anymore at all.
As I placed Sonos’s ring in my palm, I felt its power. I smiled at its promise. Then I removed Lilly’s ring. Meanwhile, the cavern shook. Chaos power blasted through it in every direction. It should have destroyed me. It didn’t.
I held onto hope. Literally. I collapsed my hand around both of those rings. Then I clutched my cross. I pulled it off my neck. “You were always destined to fail, Hilliker,” I said in the calmest voice possible that completely ignored the end of the world around me.
“It’s over,” he said. The Banished almost completely possessed him now.
“Yes, it is. The Banished cannot exist in this world. I finally understand what you were doing to me. Every time you killed me, you were trying to break my connection to the Deep. But you can’t.” I patted my chest with both of the rings still in hand. They jangled in my grip. “It’s always inside me. As is my mind and as is my hope. You cannot remove one without destroying the other. You cannot remove one without killing me. As long as I am alive,” I let my gaze drop to his feet then I slowly, slowly ticked it up his warping form, “then the others exist.”
“It’s over,” he screamed. The Banished was within him now. His face extended. It pushed out like a damn punch. His jaw opened wide, flame blasting all the way around him.
I didn’t even flinch back. “Yeah, it’s over.” I thrust forward. I pushed into the chaos flame. I didn’t think about how it could burn me. I didn’t care that this could be it. I embraced everything it meant to fight, and I damn well fought with all my heart and soul.
Better off Dead Book Four Page 14