But if I hadn’t taken the souls, Lish still would have been trapped, never set free. I hated this. Why couldn’t I ever love someone and not have to worry about all the other ways they made me feel?
I took Vivian’s icy hand in my own, careful not to disturb the IV. “Hey, Viv.” I tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear, but her eyes stayed closed, the only evidence of life the rhythmic beeping of one of the monitors. Her breathing barely even disturbed the blankets.
“So.” I choked back tears, trying to keep my voice even. “Turns out you were right all along. We really don’t belong anywhere, do we? I tried to. I tried so hard, but—” The sobs came then, and I leaned my head over onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I cried, my words muffled by her still body. “I’m so sorry.”
After a few minutes I felt a hand on my back. I stood up, wiping at my face. Great, now I’d gone and gotten her shirt wet, after everything else.
“It’s not your fault,” Jack said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.
“Tell that to her.”
“Evie. You didn’t do any of this. The faeries did. It’s their fault. All of it.”
I closed my eyes. He was just trying to make me feel better. I’d done this to her.
But then again, he had a point. If the faeries hadn’t raised her the way they did, tried to pit her against me, we wouldn’t have had that confrontation. They were the ones who broke her, twisted her until she thought nothing of stealing the life energy of every paranormal she could find.
Bleep, they were the ones who made us in the first place.
It was their fault I was this thing, this cold, empty husk that didn’t belong anywhere. It was their fault that Vivian was lying there, that she’d never wake up again. It was even their fault that Arianna was doomed to an eternal life she never wanted. All the people who had been killed or turned by vampires across the centuries. All the kids like Jack who’d gone missing, forced to live among the faeries as pets—or worse. My mother, missing or dead, but gone, never to be mine.
All their fault.
“I hate them,” I whispered.
“Of course you do.” Jack put his arm around my shoulder. “Come on, we should go before Raquel figures out you’re with me.”
I nodded and squeezed Vivian’s hand one last time.
We walked back out through the hall, passing the open cells I’d ignored before, most of which were empty. I jumped, startled, at a voice.
“Liebchen.” Standing behind an electric-field guarded doorway was Uber-vamp. He smiled, one corner of his mouth turned up, his eyes languorously half closed. He didn’t stand as straight as before, and even his glamour had a sick, unhealthy pallor to it now. “You look unhappy. Come in to me, let me take you from this world, my little monster.”
I stared blankly at him. So this was where Raquel put him to make sure he wouldn’t get out again. Jack rolled his eyes and flipped the vampire off, taking my hand in his and pulling me down the hall. I watched the vampire as long as I could, chilled by the look in his eyes, the memory of how it had felt to drain some of him.
His words rang in my ears. Little monster. It was true.
Jack found the nearest hallway that wasn’t lined with iron and made a door. I didn’t look back as we walked through. I was never going to the Center again. I suppressed a shudder at the Paths’ darkness and closed my eyes.
“You really hate it here, don’t you?” he asked.
“This is how I imagine hell. No fire and brimstone, just black and empty and alone forever.”
He laughed. “Hell, huh? Well, hopefully we’ll be able to disprove that theory soon. Besides, if it were hell, would I be here with you?”
“I don’t know, if hell called for an eternity of annoyance instead of torment, maybe.”
“I like you more every day. But neither of us qualifies for hell. We’re victims.” He smiled, the last word laced with venom. “And if we’re occasionally wicked, well, certainly we’d be justified.”
I wondered if he was trying to comfort me about Vivian, but he stared into the distance as though anticipating future wickedness. What did he want me to light on fire this time? I didn’t think I was up for more destruction.
He opened a door into his Faerie Realms room. I collapsed onto a deep green velvet couch. “Can I please go to sleep and never wake up?”
“I believe your sister has that covered.” I glared at him, and he held up his hands. “Sorry. Touchy subject. How about I go get you something to eat?”
I wasn’t hungry, but I needed a while to be by myself and disconnect. Jack was so kinetic, always talking, always in motion. He exhausted me even when I didn’t feel like this. Still, he felt like my only friend left in the world, and I was grateful to him. We understood each other. “Real food, please. This is the last place I want to be tied to for the rest of my pathetic life.”
“Your wish is my command.” He disappeared through the wall and I lay back, closing my eyes and willing myself not to think of anything, ever again. If I could only sleep, sleep and not have to think about the future without Lend, the emptiness inside me, that would be enough.
I was nearly out when a pair of hands with razor nails grabbed my shoulders and threw me across the room.
My arm hit the corner of a side table with a sickening crack, and I stayed on the floor, dazed. I could feel blood seeping from the fingernail cuts in my shoulders. What was happening?
“Get up,” Fehl’s horrible voice rasped at me. “I want to see how badly I can hurt you without killing you.” I looked into her feverish eyes as she smiled at me. “How many of your limbs can you live without?”
She wrapped her hand in my hair, pulling me off the ground. I cried out, my arm burning with agony from the movement. I clutched at it, and Fehl’s face lit up with cruel delight. She grabbed right where it was broken, and I screamed, lights swimming in my vision. I couldn’t handle this much pain; I was going to pass out. I wanted to pass out.
“Evie!” Jack shouted. “Don’t let her do this! Fight back!”
Fehl’s face was right in front of mine, her breath hot and feral. Rage flared past the pain, rage at this faerie and all she had done to me, to Vivian. What her kind had done to the world. I shoved my good hand against her chest. It was time to finish what Viv started.
I opened the floodgates, and Fehl’s eyes widened in shock and fear. A thrill went through me, seeing her face. She deserved to look like that.
Her soul connected with mine in a rush of energy and familiarity, my sparks and currents flooding up to meet it, welcoming it, wanting me to draw it in. Her soul was a dark thing, a wild and rushing thing, the wind howling eternally through a black canyon. I could taste its darkness, what it would feel like to own it.
And in that moment I knew I didn’t want any part of Fehl inside me.
I shoved her away and she shuddered, crouching on the ground and wrapping her arms around herself.
“What are you doing?” Jack cried.
I trembled, drained from the effort it had taken to close the connection before I took any of Fehl’s soul. Exhausted beyond belief, my arm in so much pain I could barely see straight, I shook my head. “I don’t want anything to do with her. Denfehlath,” I said, and her head snapped to attention. “Go away and never come near me or Jack again.”
She jerked up, her movements stiff and forced like a living marionette, and disappeared through a door in the wall.
I sank to the floor, shivering.
“Why didn’t you kill her?” Jack looked at me, incredulous and angry. “After everything she’s done?”
“You don’t understand. I was going to take her soul. But I don’t want any part of her in me, Jack. A faerie soul would be worse than nothing at all.”
He looked as though he was about to burst, then let out a deep breath. “Fine, then.” Sitting on the floor next to me, he took my good hand in his. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Not after what we’re going to do.”
A beatific smile spread across his face, transforming his impish face into an angelic one. “We’re going to save the world, Evie. We’re going to make sure that faeries don’t hurt anyone, ever again.”
Dimpled Terror
I shook my head at Jack, confused. “What do you mean? How are we going to stop the faeries? I won’t drain them. Any of them. Besides which, even if I wanted to, I’d never be able to get them all.”
“It’s simpler than that. Simple, and obvious. They don’t belong here; we’re going to send them somewhere else.”
“Wouldn’t they come right back? They can make doors.”
“We won’t use a door. You’re going to make a gate. They can only access the Faerie Realms and Earth with their doors. If you were to open a gate to somewhere else, they wouldn’t be able to get back.”
How did he know about the gates? I couldn’t remember whether or not I’d told him. Maybe Raquel had. Whatever the case, he obviously didn’t understand how they worked.
Well, of course he didn’t. I had no idea how they worked, and I’d made one.
“I can’t really do that, I don’t think. Besides, isn’t that what they wanted? Reth was always talking about me sending them back where they came from. I’m guessing that meant making a gate. I don’t especially want to work with any faeries right now, or ever. And I’m not in the mood to make them happy by giving them a shiny new gate to wherever it is they want to go.”
“There are other places to send them.” Jack’s smile was still firmly in place, but his tone was cold, menacing.
I shook my head. He wasn’t getting it. “But how would we even get them to go through the gate? And where would I open it to? And how would I open it in the first place? I’ve only ever done one, and that just sort of happened.” The night I’d released all the souls Vivian had taken, the gate in the stars called out to me. The souls of all the paranormals that Viv stole changed me, helped me see things I couldn’t before and hadn’t since. I doubted I could find that gate—or any others, if there were others—again.
“Relax, Ev. I’ve got everything figured out. There’s only one door into the Faerie Realms from the Paths. Remember?”
I nodded, recalling how it had felt when Jack showed me.
“Very good. That door opens up to any area, but it’s still the same door. So if you were to open a gate in that same spot . . .”
“The faeries would go through without meaning to.” I stared, finally understanding. It would be like a trapdoor. Trap gate.
“Exactly! No need for confrontation. They’d slip through before they knew what was happening.”
“I guess that could work.” I frowned. “But even if I could figure out how to do it again, I don’t have enough energy to open a gate. I had all those souls from Vivian before.”
He raised his eyebrows. “And you’re telling me you don’t have any extra floating around in you?”
The vampire, the sylph, and the fossegrim: fragments of their souls coursed through me. Shrugging nervously, I shook my head. “Maybe a little, but not on purpose. Well, I mean, I had to. And it’s not enough.”
“How do you know if you haven’t tried?”
“I guess I could give it a shot.”
“There’s a good girl! And if it isn’t enough, we can get some more. Too bad about sending Fehl away, though. We could have used her.”
“It’s not like that.” I narrowed my eyes, uncomfortable with how casually he treated stealing souls.
“Come on!” He grabbed my good hand and pulled me through the wall and into the Paths, practically skipping. I stumbled along, too tired, too overwhelmed to protest. “Here we are.” He smiled at the blackness in front of us; I recognized the feeling of the door.
“So I’m gonna send them home?” I was torn. On the one hand, it was what they wanted. But on the other hand, they’d be gone. That couldn’t be a bad thing. “How will I know what gate to use? I don’t think I can find one.”
Jack turned toward me, his eyes feverish. Something in his face reminded me of Fehl, and my stomach turned nervously.
“You’re not sending them home. I’ve read everything there is on gates and portals, and there’s a much better destination for them.”
“Which is?”
“Hell, of course.” I blanched, and he squeezed my hand. “Think about it, Evie. Why should they get what they want, after all they’ve done? They created vampires. They destroyed Vivian. They ruined your life, and they stole mine. ‘Too bad for heaven and too good for hell’ no longer applies—if any creatures alive deserve eternal torment, they do. They’ve earned it. They made you, forced you into this life, just so you could open a gate for them. So go ahead—open a gate!”
“I don’t know.” It was one thing to get rid of them, but to doom all of them to this hell Jack thought I could find?
“Of course you know! You have to know! Do you have any idea what it was like, growing up with them? Desperate for love, for attention, for anything? Adored, then discarded on a whim? The things they did to me . . . the things I was willing to do for them. And still I was nothing—not even a pet. You can’t tell me they don’t deserve this! You saw the Dark Queen, what she does! Do you think those humans deserve the hell they’re living in? And you won’t help me fix this?”
The looks on those people’s faces flashed in front of my eyes, haunting me, eating at me. They’d been stripped of everything—even their free will—by the faeries. And wasn’t that what faeries always did? Took away choices, forced us to play their sick little games?
“And what about Reth?” Jack’s voice was softer now, insistent. “After everything he did to you, the way he tried to make you his? Can you really see your scar and not want him gone forever?”
I nodded slowly, looking down at my wrist. Faeries were evil. The nauseating pain in my broken arm was further testament to that. I was done thinking of them as amoral. They might not have the same ideas about life as humans, but they were in the human world. We weren’t the ones screwing with their laws, their lives, their rights. And if they were gone, I’d finally be safe. No more worrying about what they had planned, what they were trying to do, how they would attack me next. Jack was right.
Come to think of it, though, I couldn’t remember telling Jack about my scar. Or any details about Reth. Or that faeries had made vampires. And I was sure now that I’d never mentioned gates.
“How do you know about all this?” I asked.
“I already told you—I’ve spent a lot of time studying. IPCA records, faerie lore.”
“Wait, you were studying me?”
“It’s like the Paths. I learned how to use them because it meant freedom. And I learned about you because you meant—mean—the same thing. Freedom from faeries, forever.”
His hand on mine was tight, desperate. How long had he been leading me here? He might be right, I didn’t know, I couldn’t know anymore, but I couldn’t do this right now. “I need—I need to think.” I was in too much pain to figure this out on the spot.
“No. We need to do this now. Don’t let the faeries hurt anyone else. Look for the gate. Feel for it. It’ll come to you, I know it will.”
A growing sense of the possibilities around me had been nagging since Jack suggested opening a portal. I knew that with a little nudging I could find a gate.
Gates.
Hundreds and thousands, infinite possibilities, and they were all around me. It felt like the Dark Queen’s pull, inevitable, heavy, drowning. I could open any of these gates and lose myself forever.
Or lose an entire race forever.
Whereas that night with Vivian only the right gate had called to me, now it seemed that the wrong gates were clamoring, pulling at my senses, begging to be opened. Maybe the gates I found were a reflection of the turmoil in me. Maybe the flux of the Paths, their very nature, supported gates to . . . darkness.
“Think about Arianna,” Jack whispered.
“Think about Vivian. Think about your mother. What that faerie did to her, using her, abandoning her, then forgetting about you. She’s lost forever because of them, and you never even knew her.”
I closed my eyes. How did Jack know about that? Did it matter? The faeries deserved this; they needed to be stopped. And I’d be helping, protecting so many innocent people. The chaos tugging at my fingertips scared me, though. What if I didn’t have the energy to close what I opened? I might not know anything about gates, but I knew I was messing with forces much bigger and stronger than me. I didn’t want to leave something like that open.
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
Jack sighed, annoyed. “Fine, you need more power? How about that crazy vampire? He should do it, right?”
“What, we’re going to use him like some sort of living battery?”
“Doesn’t he deserve it?”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to think. Sure, the vampire had killed poor, defenseless troll children and tried to kill me, but . . . Well, but what? Why shouldn’t I? It wasn’t like I hadn’t already taken some. And besides, all my life I’d been used—by IPCA, by the faeries. Surely the vampire’s life would be better put to use in ridding the world of the faerie menace. He certainly hadn’t earned his immortal soul. He’d done nothing with it, no good at all. Like the faeries, he was a monster. What had his words been? “I will kill them all.” He was mindlessly bent on destroying other immortal paranormals just for being what they were.
“Oh,” I said, softly. Monster indeed, for hating other creatures based on their existence. The clamor of gates unseen swirled around me, buzzing behind my eyes and making my fingers tingle, but instead of alluring, it made me feel sick. How could I consider this? Who was I to decide what fate faeries should have? I couldn’t condemn an entire race of creatures to hell for being what they were.
I had a choice, and I wouldn’t turn myself into a monster in the name of protecting the innocent. I’d lost so much of myself these last few weeks, chipped away slowly but surely. I’d lost my past, my future, my home, but this last little bit—this sense of right and wrong—that was human. Human, and no one could take it away from me.
Supernaturally (Paranormalcy) Page 21