by Karina Halle
“What other place?” I repeated.
Roman went on, shouting louder and louder at the bright and terrible light. Sweat fell off him in rivets. He was losing it and losing the battle.
“Roman!” I screamed. “What other place?”
“The Thin Veil,” he snapped, his cool demeanor shot. “Where the spirits wait. She’s there now. I don’t think we can get her back.”
“You don’t think?” I asked in horror. “You don’t have a choice. You said you could fix her!”
“Actually I said I couldn’t!” he yelled back. “I can’t reach her. It won’t let me in.”
“But it’ll let me in!” I found myself saying.
He gave me an odd look, half his face whited-out by Perry’s never-ending glow.
I went on, feeling I finally knew something, that I could do the thing I set out to do. Save her. “It wants me, it practically said so. Let me reach her. Put me in a trance, do whatever you need to do to send me to her. It will let me in. Let me help. You can reach her through me. Use me.”
This time Bird spoke up. “You can’t risk it. The pathway doesn’t work like that. If you find her and free her, it may take you instead.”
“Then it’s worth it,” I said determinedly.
“There will be many times you may have to lay your life on the line for her. You must choose your battles wisely, Dex. You can only give up your life once.”
“Let him do it,” Roman said quietly. “If this is his wish, I can use him to find her. I can bring her out. I can keep both of them safe.”
“No you can’t,” Bird said.
“Dex is right,” Roman argued. “There is no other way.”
He turned away from Perry and stood above me.
“Are you sure you want to do this Dex?” he asked. He looked a million years old, a million years defeated.
I nodded. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my whole life.”
“Then may your conviction help you find her,” he said. He placed his hand on my forehead and my eyes immediately closed from the heat of his palm.
“Think of her and only her. Call for her. Look for her. Make her come back,” he said. I could feel waves of energy flowing from him to me. He moved away slightly and I knew he was grabbing Perry’s hand as she hung in the air.
The light in my head flashed white and faded.
“Find her,” Roman’s voice echoed and then was gone.
I opened my eyes. It was completely black. I couldn’t see a thing but maybe there was nothing to see.
I looked down, unsure if I had a body, unsure if I could feel. Could I move?
“Perry,” I called out, trying to focus my thoughts on her, trying to will her into my new existence. I thought about moving forward and cold wind rushed past. The black opened up to grey. My body began to take shape below me. I was translucent, like a ghost.
“Perry,” I called out again. I needed to find her. Where was she?
I wandered in the grey nothingness for who knows how long. Minutes? An eternity?
But, finally, I heard her. I felt her.
“Dex,” she said, like the sweetest word on earth.
I turned around and saw her right behind me.
She glowed like an angel, her face a radiant alabaster, her lips red and full, her eyes so vivid that they seized me, holding me breathless. My smile nearly broke my face in two.
I reached out for her hand, to bring her to me, to take her back. But it only passed through her. I really was the ghost here. Only she was solid.
“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “Why can’t I touch you?”
I went for her shoulder but the same thing happened. My hand disintegrated as it passed through her. She was there but I was not. I couldn’t feel her at all. Why couldn’t I feel her? How could I save her now?
“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes widening in panic. “What’s happening to you, how are you here?”
“Roman has got a hold on both of us. I just thought of you until I...until I saw you. Here. Wherever this is.” I looked around at the limitless grey. “But I don’t think I’m here enough.”
I reached for her face, trying to make my fingers solid, trying so desperately to touch her. Was I not enough? Would I fail in the end, leaving Perry here alone? It couldn’t end this way. It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t.
I searched her eyes, trying to connect, trying to bring us together, trying to make us real. I needed to save her. I needed to save us.
But my fingers still passed through her, as hers went through me. In the distance, wherever the distance was, something rumbled, low and evil.
“I think it’s coming,” I whispered. It saw us. It knew I was here. The monster that had her body but did not yet have her soul. I closed my eyes. “I need to take you back with me. I can’t leave you here.”
“I know,” she said. “Concentrate.”
“I am.” The desperation was ripping apart my heart. I put every thought directed toward her. I thought about the first time I saw her in the lighthouse, how I saw that fire inside of her, how it took my breath away, how I wanted her. I thought about our first slow dance to Billy Joel in Red Fox, thinking, knowing, needing her to be mine. I thought about the taste of her as we kissed in that tent on D’Arcy Island, the feel of her body. I thought about the first time I realized I loved her, the first time I made love to her, feeling her from the inside. I thought about breaking her heart and breaking my own and needing her more than I’ve ever needed anyone. I thought about all this darkness and how she’d always be my light.
“You have to get out of here,” she whispered. “Go back.”
“Not without you,” I told her.
“We both can’t stay here,” she pleaded. “You must go.”
“Roman is growing weaker,” I said. He wouldn’t be able to get you back, is what I was too afraid to say.
“So, please go!” she cried.
But I wouldn’t. I’d gladly die there with her. Always with her.
I tried to put my hand on her face. “Will you forgive me?”
She was startled. “What?”
“For all the things I’ve done to you. Will you forgive me?” It was all I needed to find peace in myself. To have the mercy in her.
“Of course,” she whispered.
I smiled as a breeze whirled around us. My soul felt like it had wings.
I kissed her, as much as I could.
Our hearts are magnets, I heard her voice come into my head, a voice she never spoke. I heard her thoughts, pure and powerful.
And with that, I felt everything. Her soft lips under mine, her tongue, her warmth. Everything that was Perry. I grabbed onto her as hard as I could, vowing to never ever let go and she returned the favor, wrapping her arms around my waist. Suddenly, we were flying back through the air, like we were pulled by a chord. But we were together, wherever we were going.
Then it stopped. The darkness melted into light. I felt Perry fall from my arms and Roman’s hand fall from my head. I was back in my body, back in the world.
And Perry was right beside me, kneeling on the carpet, alive but well, Roman connecting the two of us.
“Your soul is yours,” Roman said to both of us, his voice dropping with exhaustion.
We both slumped to the floor in peace.
***
There’s nothing like going to another dimension to make you tired as fuck. When I woke up from the aftermath a few hours later, I felt like every bone in my body had been broken and my head had been presented with the world’s largest hangover. It was worse than the time I drank a bottle of Baja Rosa and a liter of wine (hey, it was college).
Perry was still under, snoring away, which was a good sign. Her little nose was cute when she did that. It was a reminder that she was herself again. Roman said she’d be sleeping for a day but when she came to, most of her injuries from the ceremony would be healed. He said because they’d happened in another world, at least from
a being from another world, that she’d be okay. She’d certainly seen better days but at least she was whole again.
As for me, well my head still hurt a bit from the car accident and my favorite jacket was singed to shit, but I was okay. I mean, yeah there was the whole feeling like shit thing, but I’d get over that. I felt amazing deep inside, knowing I’d saved her or at least helped. I didn’t feel like I’d made anything even between us and I didn’t know if she’d even want to talk to me despite everything I did, but I didn’t care. She could spit on my face and kick me in the balls and I would still love it because she was alive and well. A world without Perry Palomino is just too fucking boring. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.
Ada was obviously over the moon but the poor kid was so shell-shocked that it was taking her a while to come around. I think she was so afraid of the entity coming back, even though she had no reason to be. It was hard to explain, but I just knew it was gone and it wouldn’t return. At least not for her.
And I knew Roman felt the same way. He’d been sleeping on and off, trying to work his way through the terrible strain he’d been under. But it had to be somewhat cathartic to know that he’d finally won. Sure, I went in there in the end like the fucking action hero I always wanted to be, but I couldn’t have saved her without Roman there. He took a chance on me, on Perry, and I would be forever in his debt for it.
That night, we put Perry on a small bed in Roman’s study. Though there was no room for me to lie with her, I did what I could. I had her back, even in her unconscious state, and we weren’t going to be apart for a minute, not if I could help it. If that made me overprotective, so be it. I was going to protect this woman—my woman—until the day I died.
I stayed up with her as long as I could keep my eyes open. It was morning when she stirred enough that I knew she was well. She muttered, “Dex,” once in her sleep, then smiled to herself and drifted off again. I felt like I was on top of the fucking world.
Before I settled down into the pillows Roman had thrown along the side of the bed, my makeshift mattress, I took Perry’s hand in mine and held it up to my lips, peering over her. She looked like an angel lying there as dawn broke somewhere on the horizon, bathing the room in an ethereal glow.
“You’re my light in all this madness, Perry,” I whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear me. “It all fades away when I’m with you. Everything fades until it’s just you and it’s just me. I’m Dex and you’re Perry and I love you. I won’t stop loving you, even when you won’t love me. I love you more than I can ever really tell you. I love you until the end.”
I felt myself choking on my tears a bit while I kissed her hand. I kissed her soft forehead. Then I peeled back the blanket and gently touched her middle, watching her serene face as sleep still held her so close.
I smiled though she couldn’t see it and placed my lips on her stomach. “I would have loved the baby too, more than you’ll ever know.”
Then I pulled away, and still holding her hand tightly, lay down on the ground beside her. I held her, even as the darkness took me away.
The End
Happy Valentine’s Day
Look for Experiment in Terror #7, Come Alive, coming in June 2013
Considered to be one of the most supernatural cities in North America, New Orleans has a wealth of history and dark secrets in its vibrant streets. So when Dex and Perry are threatened with Experiment in Terror being cancelled, they must team up with Louisiana boy, Maximus, in a last ditch effort to keep their show alive. But The Big Easy ain’t so easy for our hex-hunting duo. Not only do they have to sort through their developing relationship, but they’ve got to figure out what’s the bigger danger to them: the Cajun redhead who has always known too much or the creepy voodoo sect that seems hell-bent on destroying them all.
This full-length novel is told entirely from Dex Foray’s POV.
Also coming soon: On Every Street, An Artists Trilogy Prequel, released on March 12th, 2013
When young con artist Ellie Watt decides to call herself Eden White and go after the drug lord who ruined her as a child, she never expects to fall for one of his henchmen. But Javier Bernal is no ordinary man. Subtly dangerous and overwhelmingly seductive, Eden finds herself passionately in love with Javier, the very person she's set-up to betray. With her body and heart in a heated battle against her deep need for revenge, no one will walk away from this con a winner.
This novella takes place six years before Sins & Needles. You do not need to have read Sins & Needles to enjoy this and can be read as a stand-alone.