I push myself up, reeling with realization, with empowerment. I’ve always run from this feeling. I ran in my nightmares. I ran while talking to Piper and Todd, desperate to press my back against whatever was closest. For protection. For safety.
But not now.
“I’m not running,” I say, making it to my feet and leaving my back completely exposed, welcoming the sensation that’s been building. “I accept it,” I shout to the crows, not sure if they hear me or not.
The spot on my back pulsates. It grows wider, encompassing my body. Something sprouts from it, cracking from my bones like branches. My limbs shorten, my mouth elongates.
My vision shifts, allowing me to see in the darkness, and the sight of a magnificent bird with an emerald sheen on her black feathers reflects in the astonishment of Andrei’s eyes.
The two men in the room stagger backward, mouths open in a cocktail of wonder and stupefaction. I dive for the book and then I’m rising, pumping, lifting into the air and spearing above their heads and through the door.
I fly across the marble, above the stacks and through the open stairway tucked beneath the balcony. And down, down, down, to where the others remain with worry stripping their faces of whatever determination they had left.
At the top of the room, nearest the shelves, Nikolay paces within the space of a few feet. “She’ll find it,” he mutters, raking hands through his hair. “The spell is ruined if we leave. It has to be now if we want Layla back.”
His presence tugs at the base of my stomach, steering me toward him. Reassurance crosses as his ice blue eyes find mine, and I fly to him, dropping something at his feet before gaining more air, pulsing my wings and rising to his height.
The book lands with a thud.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asks, staring at me both perplexed and awed. “Where is Everly? You’re her crow, aren’t you?”
My beak snaps.
“Is she all right?” a girl behind me asks. I think it’s Piper. “Everly. Is she okay?”
It’s me, I want to say. But the words won’t form.
I meet Nikolay’s solicitous, fervent gaze, hoping he’ll read them anyway. I know those bold eyes, that mindful, handsome face. Familiarity tingles, and I lower toward the ground.
Again, I try to speak. Again, my beak releases a low squawk, accompanied by frustration and a jet of panic.
Release me, I plead inwardly. Let me return to my own form. Desperation builds, filling every inch of me, fighting this smaller body.
Please, I plead. Please.
My mouth presses into itself painfully. I cry out, an awful, wretching sound. Pain spears in my back and I want to fight it, to escape, to never feel this again.
But Nikolay’s eyes, and the others’ pleading looks, call to me. I can’t disappoint them. I can’t stay like this.
I give in to the pain, feeling it stretch me out like chewed gum. My limbs lengthen. Bones crack, joints ache and scream, and then finally, finally, it stops.
My arms and legs are right where they should be. Blood pumps through my veins, and my hands rush to my face, finding the small jut of my nose, my smooth cheeks and the soft pout of my lips. My hair is tangled, and the same jeans and pink t-shirt I was wearing cover my body once more.
“Everly?”
“Nikolay?” I attempt to stand, but vertigo nearly knocks me over.
“That was you?”
“Don’t do this!” Andrei shouts before I can answer, thundering down the stairs.
Panic chokes at the sound of his voice.
Nikolay is lost in a stare, no doubt wondering exactly what just happened to me.
“Nikolay!” I hiss.
He blinks, bending for his mother’s book. “We must act now!” Book in hand, he repeats that Russian phrase a final time.
Energy sweeps through the room, and this time, flames burst to life in the center of our circle, receiving a round of shrieks from Piper, Sierra, and myself. The flames flurry, ribbons of orange, purple, and black, shimmering heat against my body.
“No!” Andrei calls. He charges toward his son, but Nikolay turns. Energy pulses from Nikolay’s fists, and he shoves them in his father’s direction. Andrei and Jerry rear back as surely as if they’ve been rammed with something solid.
“Now!” Nikolay commands.
In turn, we pass our knobs and their coinciding books to the ghosts. One by one, the ghosts toss their knobs and tomes into the flames. The knobs explode, crackling like rockets and emitting sparks amidst the orange.
“No—no!” Andrei shouts. Jerry breaks into the circle, smashing a fist against Nikolay’s jaw. Nikolay falters, and the flames flicker, dwindling in response. The ghosts flock in, warding Jerry away, until he screams all the way back up the stairs.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Nikolay rubs his sore jaw and reaches for her hand. Despite her apparent insubstantiality, she takes his hand.
“So am I, my son, so am I.”
Mother and son begin speaking in Russian, a chant of some kind. The flames in the center of the circle respond and shift colors, purple, streaked with green, a poisoned fire tinted with the power to destroy. Heat swells from the center, pressing into me. The others flinch as well.
With Todd in my spot, I join Nikolay at the top of the star. The flames build, filled with the exclamations of souls being set free, and last of all his mother tosses her knob and book into the fire.
“Lucya!” Andrei shouts, crumpling to his knees.
Other people appear—Meiser in his suit and cane, a woman with dark hair and ancient glasses, another man with large teeth, perhaps the proprietor of the abandoned college in Albion, Idaho, two others: people I don’t recognize, though their names are scratched into one of the books currently burning in the center of our circle.
Hands outstretched as if in some kind of homage, the ghosts rise and fade, free to go now that they’ve offered their aid. Piper and Todd give Ada a wave. Andrei and Nikolay, still clutching my book to his chest, disappear at the same time Layla flickers into being in the star’s center, in place of the rabid flames. The power surges, leaving us all in darkness.
twenty
nine
Only smoke and ashes remain. I blink, unable to sift my way through or catch sign of much of anything besides the light squaring off from Todd’s phone. Several coughs break out among our group, and I shake, realizing I’ve somehow ended up on the floor.
Todd shines his phone light at each of us in turn.
“You okay?” he asks, crossing to help Joel and Layla to their feet.
My heart skips. “Layla!”
She’s on all fours, lost in a daze. A cut on her throat leers at me; it’s circled with blood and similar to the scar on Piper’s neck. Blonde hair mats to her forehead, and she rises shakily with one hand in Joel’s. I rush over, pulling her into a hug.
“Are you okay?” I ask, relief washing in torrents down my shoulders. The ghosts, the doorknobs, it worked. We got her back.
“Yeah,” she says in exhaustion. “I’m okay.”
So many questions ram for precedence—where she’s been, if she’s been hurt—but they can wait. It worked. She’s here.
Several more phone lights trigger on, highlighting the particles of ash floating in the air. Jordan’s arm slings around a scowling Sierra. They’ve added the light of their phones to Todd’s as well.
Ada, Rosemary, and the other ghosts have all vanished. A pile of ashes tufts on the concrete floor where the books once sat. Where the flames began once Nikolay and his mother began chanting.
“Everly, want to tell us what that was all about?” says Todd. “You—turning into a crow?”
“She did?” Layla’s lips part.
I reach for the spot on my back, right between my shoulder blades. “It happened in my nightmares,” I say. “I
thought they were attacking me, but they must have known what I’d need to do. They must have made it possible.”
“Whatever it was, it was wicked awesome,” says Joel. “We couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t gotten that last book.”
“Did it work?” Sierra asks.
Todd offers a hand to Piper, helping her to her feet. “The books are gone,” he says. The collection Nikolay was so proud of has also disappeared, turned to ash on the shelves. I glance around for him, waiting for his reaction. Is he okay after seeing his mother? After finding out his father betrayed his trust?
“So are the doorknobs,” Joel adds, dusting ash from his pants. He puts an arm around Layla, bending low to speak to her. After she nods in answer to a question he pulls her close to his side.
“That was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jordan says.
“Lucky you,” Piper says snidely.
The seven of us stand around. My heart rocks into my ribs. Any minute now he will step out. Any minute now he will say something, he’ll add his word as a confirmation.
“Where’s Nikolay?” Piper asks, voicing what I can’t bear to say.
The others glance around, lifting their phone lights higher for a better view. Joel strides over, checking corners and behind the carpentry table. My throat stuffs with saltines the longer I watch. I deny what my heart already knows.
Without a word, I trundle up the stairs, then up to the balcony and past the once-romance section.
A bare, brick wall has taken the door’s place.
I inhale, hating the tightness, the tears that threaten.
“I think it’s done,” I say, hearing the others scuffle up behind me.
“The door is gone,” Piper says, leaning in relief against Todd’s chest. “I hope that means my house is gone.”
“Probably,” says Joel. “We’ll check, just to be certain.”
But their words are distant. Gravitating, my hand fans out on the brick, and I stare at the place where I saw him go, the place I used to travel back to 1917, the place that has caused so much heartache and loss for so many years, that now stabs into my heart because it’s no longer here.
This is a good thing, I try to tell myself. This is what needed to happen. It’s done. There will be no more doors now, no more murders because of those doors. No more Andrei.
The access to the alternate plane has been closed. It’s no longer giving some of its power to our side of time, which means he doesn’t have access to that anymore. Which means he’s one hundred and twenty-two years old.
The sorrow spills from me, bowing my spine and withering out any vestiges of hope I had left. A warm hand slips around my shoulders, and I turn and bury my face into Todd’s chest. He holds me for several minutes, Layla coming to rub a hand over my arm too.
Nikolay is gone.
Somehow they get me home. I don’t live the moments, the transitions from store to car, from car to apartment, from door to couch or cold to warm. I’m just here. Sitting.
Layla brings me hot cocoa. I drink, but don’t taste it. I sleep, eat, and sleep again. And finally, I manage to peel myself back to existence long enough to walk from my room to the couch.
“Everly!” Layla plants herself beside me and crushes me in a hug. The closeness melts away a bit of the ice around my heart, and I sink into it, into her.
“How are you?” she asks, patting my back.
“I’ll manage,” I say. “What about you?”
Layla explained how she was being held in the ostium nexu, that she saw people on all walks of life from 1700s France to 1500 BC to even just a few years ago, but it was as though it was happening all at once. She was scared, she was confused. She was trapped.
I remember seeing something similar, before Nikolay grabbed a hold of me and pulled me back to Piper’s old house. I probably would have been trapped there as well, if not for him.
She chews on her lip. “I don’t know,” she says.
I lower my head. “I’m sorry it happened. It was my fault.”
She taps a finger against the pillow. “You didn’t tell Jerry to lure me outside and throw a bag over my head.”
The thought of it all makes me ill. As many times as I was alone with him, I never thought he was capable of anything like that.
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
She sucks in a long breath. “Me too, thanks to you. Still no word from Nikolay?”
The same empty pang resonates like a gong, shrill and lasting. I shake my head.
“I miss him, Layla,” I say. The words don’t even brush what’s raging inside of me.
She adjusts to her knees. “Are you sure he’s gone?”
Her words ask a question I need an answer to. I snatch my purse and dash out the door after giving her a quick kiss. I pause for only a second at Piper’s door. We haven’t spoken since it happened. I figured I’d give her time, or maybe she’s giving me time too.
I drive back to the store. Its appeal still lures me in, drawing me to its stacked windows, its detailed brick architecture, its awnings and tarnished sign in a different way than that first snowy day. I know it intimately now. I need it differently now.
Duct tape holds plastic over the shattered main door, but it’s not enough to keep me out. I kick through it, eagerness fueling my steps.
The checkout counter greets me, a muted welcome, and I walk to it, stirring up memories like rose petals. Papers sit below the counter, and I glance around, noticing discarded boxes and scattered debris on the shelves. I wonder if they appeared when Nikolay restored the books, back in the basement.
He permeates the space, his blue eyes, his accent, his composed threats to Jerry in this very spot, and especially the kiss that almost happened beforehand. Our actual kisses charge through my thoughts, and I can almost feel his hands slipping around my waist, his eyelashes fluttering near my cheek, his breath stroking my skin…
Tentatively, I open my eyes, willing him to appear before me the way he did outside Todd’s house. But he isn’t here. It’s only this restlessness inside, a restlessness I can’t fight.
Something warm curls around my ankles and I jerk in surprise. It’s Sherlock, rubbing his fluffy white head on my leg.
A laugh escapes. “You’re still here?”
The cat continues nuzzling my ankles, rubbing his head in an affectionate display. I bend down and pick up the soft, fluff ball, who instantly begins to purr against my chest.
Warmth trickles in at the cat’s reception, and I hold him close, craving the nearness, the affection. I glance around the empty bookstore.
“This is no place for you anymore,” I tell the cat. “You’re too fat to live on your own.” Andrei was destroyed. They’re both gone. For good.
Resolution streams through me all the way back to my apartment. Even if I can’t be with him, having Sherlock here is a comfort all on its own. I carry the cat in my arms all the way back to the door, ready to hide in my room for a good long snuggle.
Layla is curled under a blanket, watching another movie I can’t stand, but this one because of its terrible ending. She really has the worst taste in movies.
She blinks a few times at the sign of the cat. “Sorry, Ev, lease says no pets.”
Sherlock leaps from my arms and pads his way across the carpet to her.
“Don’t even think about it,” she tells the cat, but he leaps beside her, curls on the couch near where her feet are tucked at her backside, and begins purring. Layla glares down at the cat until her resolve melts. She sighs and gives in, petting him. He lifts his head, a look of utter pleasure on his face.
I laugh and sit on the opposite side. Sherlock instantly leaves Layla and plops in my lap.
“What the lease doesn’t know won’t hurt it,” I say, smiling at his need for attention. I get it, cat. I know. I scratch behind his e
ars, something nagging at me, not letting me be still.
A knock sounds on the door, and Joel opens it without waiting for an answer. Piper follows in after, positively beaming.
“Hey, babe,” Layla says, patting the couch beside her.
“You made a new friend,” Joel says, taking the invitation. He reaches over and pets the cat.
“How’ve you been?” I ask as Piper sits in Layla’s chair by the computer.
“We’re both relieved,” he says, exhaling and stretching his long legs before him. Layla readjusts herself to lean on his shoulder.
“Our house is gone!” Piper belts out, as though it’s been eating at her. She’s giddier than I’ve ever seen her. Her feet bounce on the carpet.
“For good this time,” says Joel. “We’ve commissioned the city—”
“And paid them a little extra,” Piper adds.
“—and bribed them to scrape that rubble off the face of the earth,” Joel finishes. “It’s just dirt now. Dirt and snow.”
“Dirt!” Piper says excitedly. She grips the armrests, looking right at me. “It’s over. It’s really over. They’re all gone.”
“They are,” I say, overwhelmed. Her happiness only makes my misery that much more prominent, but I force a smile.
Piper leans forward, concern threading her face for the first time since she arrived. “Oh, Everly, I’m sorry. You going to be okay?”
I sniff and glance up, willing the tears to vanish. “Yeah. Eventually.”
“And you?” Joel asks, rubbing Layla’s knee.
Layla shrugs. “I’m not in some paranormal, alternate world, and no one is going to chop me up and use me to make a door. Everly on the other hand…” She gestures to me.
My throat tightens the way it always does whenever I think about Nikolay. Sherlock nips up and nuzzles his wet nose against my chin. I pet him and push him down. “I miss him. I really cared about him. I think …”
“You loved him,” says Piper.
“I don’t know,” I say, staring at the motions on the TV but not really seeing them. “And now I never will.”
The Forbidden Doors Box Set Page 50