His amber eyes dance before mine, and the roar drops away. The swirling noise, the churning conversations and, most importantly, Matt’s voice all drop away from me. I’m standing stuffed in the janitors closest with Ephraim and Justin. Justin’s face is flushed and tight. Ephraim is serene, as always. “Damn,” I curse. “I almost had him.”
Ephraim tilts his head slightly, like a dog listening to a far off sound. “You,” he says with the kind of slowly clear emphasis one uses with children. “Are not ready to have anyone. You need to stay out of the ether and let your mind and body recover.”
I nod agreement, but I must not look like I mean it because he scowls at me, the first unpleasant expression I’ve seen on his face. “I mean it Becks. You’re using power you have no concept of. You could have burnt yourself alive last night, or worse.” I try not to wonder what could be worse.
They’re standing weirdly close to each other and it strikes me how incredibly awkward this situation has become. “You’re going to lecture me? Really? Maybe if you’d started off by telling me about the Numina hunting me, or about Derrick being able to just summon me to him I wouldn’t have almost died, again, last night.” Ephraim’s face goes blank, draining of all colour so he looks more like a perfect, inhuman sculpture than a guy. “I don’t know how the Ethereals do things, be we humans, don’t keep secrets from our soul mates,” I rip into Ephraim. A small part of me is appalled that I’m speaking to him this way, but I can’t stop myself. “So, the truth is, if I can hear Matt, than you obviously know where he is, and what he’s doing. How about sharing?”
A pained look crosses Ephraim’s face. I can already tell he doesn’t intend to help me with this. He probably never has. “Thought so. You weren’t ever going to help us save Matt were you? This was all about wearing down the clock.”
Justin crosses his arms against his chest. “Great soul mate you’ve got here Becka. Let’s go.” He turns the door knob and opens the door, letting in a refreshing breeze of hallway air and light.
“Becks,” Ephraim says softly as we walk away. He’s whispering but I can still hear him clearly. “There’s no saving him. Inteus is far stronger than the rest of the Numina you’ve encountered. You’re putting yourself in danger for nothing.”
“Not for nothing,” I whisper back. “For Matt.” I don’t know if he hears me, but I really didn’t care just now. We’re stepping into an empty hallway and Justin’s hurrying us along, toward my first class. Initially he’d been intending to just slip into a desk in the corner of my class and keep his head down but arriving fifteen minutes late destroys the fly under the radar plan.
Either Ephraim did something to me back in the closest, which I wouldn’t put past him, or I’m getting a grip on my expanded perceptions because my eyes and ears feel normal again. Well, maybe not normal exactly. Things are sharper and more vivid still, but not overwhelming so.
Still, Matt’s voice nags at my mind. Not what he had said exactly but the hollow, echoing quality of his words. “End them,” he said, and then the words had hung in the air, the way they would in a large, empty space. “The gym,” I exclaim. “He was in the gym.”
“What?” Justin asks. “Who? Oh, Matt.”
I’m already pulling him along the hallway. Fifteen minutes ago we could have caught him by surprise, if only I’d recognized it sooner.
When we come to the large double doors of the gym we both pull up short. There’s no reason to think he’s still in here, but an icy kind of dread fills me from the bottom up. It’s too quiet here. I strain, listening for any slight sound ahead of us. All I hear is an odd, intermittent swaying squeak, like a rusty tire swing being blown by the breeze. I shake my head slightly at Justin and he pushes the doors open an inch, gazing in cautiously.
The gym is dark, black and silent. I slide my hand around the door, easing it up against the light panel and sending the lights hissing and flickering. The lighting is industrial, the kind that takes a few minutes to warm up enough to cast really bright light. So when the lights come on they cast weirdly long, brown shadows over the gym, which is creepy at the best of times.
We stay rooted in the doorway, waiting for the lights to come on full. My eyes flick about, afraid to stay too long in one direction, in case something creeps out from another part of the gloom. Justin see’s it first, the shifting movement in the shadows.
My breath freezes in my throat when he points. The shadows are moving. But my eyes can see something he can’t; the shadows are human shaped. Where are the people casting these shadows? I look around wildly, until finally, I look up. There, swaying from the rafters, are the bodies of three girls, all hung in the climbing ropes.
I stiffen, feeling myself go taut against Justin and leaning into his body for support. He hasn’t seen it yet, but he will soon. The lights brighten a little and Justin goes rigid against me.
His arms wrap around me, tightly. I don’t know if it’s for comfort, protection or to keep me from going into the gym. I doesn’t matter anyway, because I need to go into the gym. Matt’s words echo back to me. “End them. They’re drawing too much attention.” This just happened. If I’d realized sooner, if we’d come straight here, those girls would still be alive. I have to find out who they are. I owe them at least that much.
I take a step forward trying to walk into the gym. Justin’s arms tighten around me. “No Becka. No. You don’t want to go in there.”
For a second, I savour the feeling of his arms around me, the warmth of his body pressed against mine. “You’re right, I don’t want to go in there, but I have to. I have to know if he killed them because they were resisting the possession. I need to know if I did this by driving out the Numina. I need to see who they are, or were.”
He doesn’t exactly let me go, he keeps one arm around my shoulders and lets me take a few hesitant steps forward. As the lights brighten I can see them more clearly. They’re all young, very young, freshmen who probably weren’t even thirteen yet and they all have awful welts covering their arms and deep scratches crisscrossing their faces. One girl has drawn blood from her own eyes and it’s oozing down her cheek, still.
Vomit rises into my mouth, but I won’t let myself throw up. Next to me I can hear Justin gagging. I turn quickly away, “Let’s go.” I say, tugging him with me. I pull him toward the outside doors, hurrying, like the sunlight can wash away what we’ve seen.
I can feel the trembling in Justin’s arm where it touches mine, but I feel eerily calm. Maybe I’ve experienced enough of death first hand that it doesn’t shock me anymore, or maybe I am just in shock. Either way I know we have to act. By my count those bodies mean there are at least three spirits looking for new hosts and that means that there are about to be three more victims or three more enemies to face, unless we act quickly.
Ephraim appears in the air before us, just a shimmering image. I can see through him, as he walks backward before me. There’s strain in his voice as he speaks. “Becks please. Please don’t deliver yourself to them. It’s you they want. It’s you they need.”
I step into his space, feeling my skin pass through the edges of him, like it did when we first met, it’s like moving through thick steam. “And it’s me that can stop them isn’t it? They used me to cross into his world. My blood, my body and so I can seal it, can’t I?”
Ephraim’s image blurs around the edges, “If you fail then they’ll kill you, blow the gateway open and pour over the Earth. You’re going to risk your entire species for Matt? How can that be the right thing to do?”
Justin tugs on my arm, “What’s going on Becka? Are you talking to Ephraim?” He pitches his voice so he’s addressing the space in front of me, approximately where Ephraim’s standing. “Either help us or get the hell out of her way.”
Ephraim sighs. “You know I’m helping. I shouldn’t be, because you’re endangering your entire world.” His voice is just a whisper and his image is watered down and faint. “But without my help, you’ll get yourself kille
d.” I open my mouth to protest but he shakes his head, “I’m not going to let you die. You’ll just have to trust me Becks. I would never, ever endanger your life.”
The breeze shifts. Ephraim stiffens, his head pivoting towards the woods beyond the football field. I squint and then I feel it too, a coldness. Something dark that doesn’t belong to my world is out there. Ephraim holds up a hand to stop me from rushing forward. “You’re right, it’s you he wants, which means he’ll let you get close to him. He wants to kill you but he doesn’t want it to be quick, the pool proved that. So there’s an opportunity. You’ll have to face him alone, keep him occupied.”
His eyes plead with me to say no, to turn away. I want to but I can’t. “I can do it,” I say resolutely, which is how I end up walking by myself across the damp grass of the football field, heading for the little woods that border our property. It’s broad daylight out but the sky is overcast and hung low, like a gun metal curtain spread between me and the warming sun.
Behind me I feel the connection that stretches between Ephraim and me and the thin brightness that is his essence. His light is all but blotted out by the oppressive coldness ahead of me. The woods, usually so fresh and clean in the late fall, have a dark, murky chill to them. It is the kind of cold that bites into your lungs going down, making it harder to breathe with each breath.
Walking into the woods feels a little like drowning all over again. My lungs tighten and I fight to stay calm. I sense the Numina before me. They are points of turmoil, unnatural swirls of energy churning endlessly. And in the center of that roiling mass of wrongness is Matt. He’s standing still, arms wide open and laughing. “I think Derrick might be right after all. The more they die, they crazier they get. Look at you, just walking up to me, all alone and willing. How would you like me to kill you this time? I really prefer strangulation; it’s so slow and personal. But we’re not really equipped for that here are we?”
His eyes are empty pools of darkness. I search them for any sign of Matt struggling through. Shouldn’t he still be sweating and slack skinned. Shouldn’t he still be fighting to hold on to his body? I feel my palms itch with the energy crawling just under my skin. I long to press them against Inteus and drive the monster out of Matt, but Ephraim has told me to stay still, to wait for the right moment to strike. We’ll only get one chance at this.
Matt hefts half of a fallen tree like it’s a twig, swirling it in his hands in wide swooshing arcs. He chuckles to himself, and this time it sounds eerily warm and human. “You have no idea how great it is to feel again. It’s been a thousand years since I’ve had a real human body to call my own. To see with, touch with, kill with. You probably don’t appreciate what a gift it is, just to see and taste and feel.”
His empty eyes trail over me in a way that sends terrible prickles down my spine. “And what a waste it is just to kill a body like yours when it could have been put to so much better uses. All for the greater good, I suppose.” He swings the branch again, this time sending it whirling towards me as he advances. The branch whistles perilously close to my head. He doesn’t need to touch me, or come within arm’s reach to kill me, he can do it right now. But he won’t. Ephraim’s sure he won’t and the more I hear, the more I believe it too. He won’t kill me right away, because he’s savouring this.
“It is a pity,” I say keeping my voice as calm as I can. He wants me terrorized, but I’m not going to give him that. “Trying to kill me over and over only to fail. And with all your bat shit crazy friends watching from the ether. It’s got to be murder on your reputation.”
Matt checks himself in mid step, eyes closing to slits. “Was that a joke Rebecca? Your grisly deaths are amusing to you? Then you’re going to find what happens next just hilarious.”
The branch swings up again, almost taking off my ear as it hisses around my head. I stand stalk still, I swear I don’t even flinch. Annoyance ticks across Matt’s icy features. Good, I’m getting to him. “It is funny, when you think about it. Come on, you planned this whole macabre, virgin sacrifice blood ritual and then, accidentally leave me alive, and powerful, and pissed. You kind of suck at the evil villain thing.”
The branch droops in his hands and he leans it against the ground. “I suck? That’s your epiphany as you approach your final moment? But maybe you’re not seeing the really big picture yet. I didn’t fail to kill you, little human bitch, I killed you just enough. Just dead enough for your Ethereal stalker to save you, just dead enough for you to need ethereal healing, just hurt enough to return to the ether, again and again. See the kicker is, a dead human isn’t good for anything. No useful body, no gateway, just a passing of the spirit into the Nether world and a hunk of meat. But a dead hybrid, something not quite human, not quite ethereal, that breaks all kinds of natural laws. Laws they broke, not us. And the really delicious bit of it all; it’s those damned self-righteous ethereals that broke the bonds of nature. Four million millennia of calling us unnatural abominations and it’s them that break the rules, again. It’s sweet really.” His eyes focuse on my face again. “Not that I expect you to appreciate the supreme justice of it all. You’re probably too caught up in the insignificance of your own useless existence coming to an end, again. But on the way out you can give your ethereal friend a nice big thank you from us, he’ll have all eternity to enjoy it.”
His eyes glitter with delight and he swings the branch up over his head whirling it like a lasso. I lunge for him, taking my moment. All I have to do is graze him, even the tiniest contact and I’m ready to pour all of my power, all of Ephraim’s power into him. I only need the smallest of contact points. My hands sail through a thick mist, and close on nothing. My body pitches forward, momentum carrying me. My knees hit the ground, jarring pain along my body. I look up just in time to see the branch spinning, spinning overhead. Round and round, closer and closer until it comes crashing down against my skull. The bones shatter and thick wetness sprays out. My body slumps lifeless and empty to the ground.
He throws back his head, crowing with the glory of it. His cold laughter fills the forest as he stands over my crumpled body. His shoulders shake and he bends down to dip his fingers in my blood. The echoing sound of a baseball bat cracking against a skull ricochets off the trees, chasing the laughter. Matt’s fine, tall body collapses against the blood soaked earth of the forest floor, pinning my body beneath him. Justin stands over him, eyes full of fire. He kneels beside Matt, checks his pulse and ignores my body altogether. Justin lets out a long breath and lets the bat fall from his hands.
“Becka,” he calls into the dimness of the forest. Slowly, stiffly I peel myself away from the tree trunk, just inches away from the image of my broken body. I wrench my gaze away, wishing that Ephraim would dismiss the image. Real or not, it’s disturbingly familiar.
I put my hand on Justin’s shoulder and he startles. He whirls around and sweeps me into his arms, holding me tightly. His touch burns some of the numbness away. I savour his touch and then force myself to push him away so I can kneel beside Matt. According to Ephraim, it won’t be long before he heals, even from a severe head wound. It’s virtually impossible to permanently hurt ethereal influenced bodies, wasn’t I proof enough of that?
I have to kneel in pools of my own illusionary blood to touch him. Shutting out the horror of it, I push both hands around his throat, closing on his pulse point. This is the best place to disrupt the contact, according to my one and only guide.
I wrap my fingers around his throat, squeezing slightly, like I’m strangling him. Pressure builds up inside my arms, scalding along my tender new skin until it burst forth, gushing out of me and into him. The power rushes into him and where my fingers touch his neck there’s a brilliant blue line of electric fire, like someone’s holding a welding torch against him. His eyes fly open and roll up in their sockets. His jaw drop opens and he screams in agony. The sound is half human, half other worldly and so shrill it makes my teeth ache. There’s enough of Matt’s voice in the scream
that I loosen my fingers, just a little, uncertainty filling me. How much is enough? I don’t want to kill him.
Matt’s body bucks against me, his arms smash against mine almost knocking my hands off of him. I jam my palms against him, clutching with all my strength. He almost had me, he almost tricked me into letting go. His dark eyes bore into mine, making my mind feel empty and glassy. I hold onto one thought, one purpose. I have to keep him down. His body bucks, punches, strains, fights against me, but still I hold on. I sense Justin near, helping to hold him, pinning his arms so that he can’t throw me off of him but I don’t dare look up.
The keen catches me off guard when it comes. An unearthly yowl echoes off the trees, filling all the space around and between my ears. It resonates in my bones, shaking my arms until they are jarred loose from his throat. Sitting back on my heals I watch the final back breaking arch of his body, the keening dying away and leaving his body sweating and limp.
“Becca?” Matt whispers hoarsely, staring up at me from the ground.
“Matt?” I close my eyes, reaching for him with the otherness that comes from Ephraim, but there’s nothing left to draw on. I’ve burned myself out. “Ephraim? Is he, him?”
“He is,” Ephraim affirms, crouching next to us. His eyes met mine, a heavy weight of unsaid things hanging between us; how weak Matt is, how much we need to move him, how easy it would be for a Numina to retake him, how vulnerable I am right now without a drop of his power left in me.
But while we’re having our little moment Justin’s already helping Matt to sit up. Matt is trembling all over and his skin is as cold and colorless as death, but he’s alive, and trying to move. Justin puts an arm around him, levering him up to his feet. Matt’s standing but I can see from the strain in Justin’s face that he’s taking most of the weight. “I think it’s time to get the hell out of here, don’t you Becka?”
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