by Laura Kirwan
But V’hren, now on his feet, had one last trick to show them. He conjured a magical barrier. Before John could grab V’hren, a bright light flashed and John was thrown through the air. Meaghan screamed and ran to him, her heart pounding.
John was stunned but otherwise unhurt. She helped him up. He wrapped her in a crushing hug for a moment. “Stay with Jamie,” he said before letting her go and running toward V’hren. She ran to Jamie, who was huddled over Sid, and she threw herself on top of both of them.
John shouted something at V’hren in Fahrayan. V’hren grinned back, his mouth stretched in a horrible rictus across his bloody face.
V’hren’s head lay on his shoulder at an impossible angle and Meaghan realized his neck was broken. Yet he still stood. He slashed one hand through the air.
Meaghan didn’t want to believe her eyes. It looked like V’hren had ripped a tear in the space in front of him. Meaghan saw a wavering, black vertical line several feet long. V’hren made a pulling motion and the line widened into a gaping hole. With a last ravenous look, he stepped through the gap and was gone.
The ground shook beneath their feet. With a roar, the gap widened. She felt a sudden wind rush past her. Dust and small stones were carried up in the flow and pulled into the gap. Within moments, the wind increased to a gale and, in a rush of panic, Meaghan realized what V’hren had done. Melanie had described Fahraya as a bubble of space time, but Meaghan saw now that it was more like a balloon, and V’hren had torn a hole in it. Fahraya was collapsing.
Meaghan, gripping Jamie and Sid, shouted to John. “We have to go! Now!”
John stared at the gap, the blood drained from his face. She knew he saw the same thing she did and understood what it meant. If V’hren couldn’t have Fahraya, no one could.
John shouted something to Jhoro, Finn, and the rest of Jhoro’s followers. Finn, already airborne, scooped up Meaghan. Jhoro grabbed Jamie, and launched into the air, followed by another Fahrayan who had Sid’s body. She heard more shouting and over Finn’s shoulder saw the assembled Fahrayans arise en masse and fly in different directions toward the various gateways.
“John? Where’s John?” she shouted at Finn. He pointed behind them. One of Jhoro’s men carried John through the air.
They were headed for the Eldrich gateway, flying hard against the headwind caused by the atmosphere rushing into the gap. It was like flying into a hurricane.
It had taken Sid and Meaghan hours to get from the gateway to the settlement. At the rate Fahraya was ripping itself apart, they had mere minutes to make the return trip.
Meaghan could feel Finn struggle against the roaring wind, his heart pounding as he sprinted for the gateway. She clung to him. Fahrayans were all around them, those without passengers moving much faster. Meaghan felt a hand reach for her arm. She resisted, then looked over at Jhoro and saw that he now shared Jamie with another Fahrayan, each tightly gripping one of Jamie’s arms.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” she cried as she squeezed her eyes shut and let the hand take her arm. Scared beyond rational thought, Meaghan now dangled between two Fahrayans as they flew.
By the time they got to the gateway, it was all the Fahrayans could do to hold course in face of the howling, roaring wind. Large rocks flew through the air and she heard screams and knew that someone had been hit.
John grabbed her and shouted in her ear. “Go. You go now.”
“No,” she shouted back. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“You’re the only one big enough to take Sid through. You go now. I’ll be there soon. Once my people are through.”
A leaf the size of a comforter blew through the gateway and nearly hit them. The gap was starting to pull debris from the other side. She nodded.
But before she could go, he pulled her close and kissed her hard, as if trying to compress his passion into a moment. He pulled away.
“Don’t you die,” she shouted. “I want to do that again.”
“That’s what I hope,” he shouted back. He helped drape Sid’s body across her shoulders in a fireman carry and shoved her toward the stone pillars that marked the gateway. Struggling against the wind and Sid’s weight, she staggered through. She stumbled as she felt Sid grow suddenly lighter and smaller.
She and Sid fell into the clearing. Lynette and Natalie were waiting, swaying in the growing wind, mouths hanging open in shock.
“What the hell’s going on?” Natalie shouted over the roar of the trees as she ran to Meaghan.
“End of the world,” Meaghan shouted back. “Fahraya’s collapsing. Once everybody’s through, we have to close the gateways.”
“Everybody?” Lynette shouted. “What do you mean?”
“Everybody. The whole damn population’s coming through the gateways. Then we need to shut them. All of them. Soon. How do we do that?’
Natalie shook her head. “There’s no way to do it.” Then her face fell. “Except, maybe . . . but you can’t.”
“Can’t what? If we don’t stop this, it’s taking this world with it.” Out of the corner of her eye, Meaghan saw a steady stream of Fahrayans, now tiny, zoom past.
Natalie stared in shock at the tiny Fahrayans flowing through the gateway.
“Natalie, goddammit, how do we shut the gateways?”
Natalie turned back to her, a dazed look on her face and tears in her eyes. “There’s only one way I can think of. You do it. You shut them. You go back in and right before the end, you take off your amulet.”
Chapter 53
So, Meaghan thought. It is up to me to the save the goddamn world. I knew it.
She stared at Natalie for a long moment, saw the tears streaming down her face, and then nodded. “Okay.”
What else could Meaghan say? She was dead anyway. They all were if she couldn’t get those gateways shut.
I’m about to die and I’m too tired to care, Meaghan thought. She couldn’t even summon up tears to match Natalie’s. I should be scared, she thought. But maybe her emotional flatness was for the best. It had to be done. She had to do it. All the tears in the world wouldn’t change it.
Meaghan had always assumed that when death was imminent, she’d be afraid. But now that she no longer had to rely on hope, now that she actually knew there was an existence after death, she discovered the fear was gone.
Her only regret was John, what her death might do to him. Jamie needed him, his people needed him, and Meaghan hoped that losing her wouldn’t throw him back into his self-destructive spiral.
And then there was Russ. He’d lose his father and sister within two days. She knew he’d have plenty of support, but it would still be heartbreaking. She wished she had more time to prepare, more time to say her goodbyes. But there was no time.
At least she wouldn’t have to face Melanie.
Meaghan sent Natalie off to fetch amulets for John and Jamie, and to contact the local witches to start making more. She also ordered Natalie to send out word to the covens near the European gateways to warn them about the Fahrayan diaspora coming their way.
Meaghan grabbed Lynette’s arm before she could follow Natalie. Pulling her close, she said, “Sid didn’t make it. Get him somewhere out of the way for now. I don’t want Melanie to find out this way, in the middle of all this panic.”
Lynette nodded, pulled her into a tight hug, and then stepped back. “Jamie?”
“Alive but in very bad shape. They took his wings.” She heard Lynette gasp. “Are Patrice and the kids here?”
“No. At your house.”
“Good. They shouldn’t see him until you can clean him up a little. Dealing with all this will be hard enough on him without . . .” She felt her throat tighten with tears. “Lynette, he’s so broken. He needs a little room to remember who he is. He won’t want Patrice to see him like this.”
Lynette nodded. “Meaghan, I have bad news.”
“I know. My dad died.”
Lynette jerked back like Meaghan had punched her. “How did you know t
hat?”
“He came to see me. Long story—a giant bug bit me, the antidote includes a lot of funny mushrooms, and Dad was able to talk to me while I was high. Tell Russ he’s okay. He’s glad to be himself again.”
Lynette nodded, tears rolling down her face. “Russ is here. Tell him yourself.”
“He’s here? Oh, shit. He’s going to fight me on the amulet. And he can’t. I have to do this.”
Too late. Russ was running for her at top speed. Before she could say anything, he’d wrapped her in a huge bear hug. He was weeping. “Meg. You did it. Meg.”
Meaghan pushed him away enough so she could see his face. “I know about Dad. He came to see me after he died and was with me for a lot of it. He’s young again, and happy. Will you do me a favor and help Lynette with some stuff? I have to go back through and check on John.”
She saw Lynette make a face like she was about to protest. As Meaghan pulled Russ back in for another hug, she gave Lynette her fiercest glare and shook her head. Then she pulled away and ran for the gateway without a backward glance.
Waiting for a slight lull in the stream of Fahrayans pouring through the gateway, Meaghan ducked as low as she could and crawled through. When she stood it took her a moment to register what she saw.
Over half the sky was empty and black. Not the black of space, because no stars were visible. It was simply empty. A void. The dim sun still hung in what was left of the sky, but it looked stretched. The whole scene looked stretched, like a surrealist painting.
John stood a few feet away, working hard to maintain his balance in the roaring wind. The stream of Fahrayans was becoming a trickle with Jhoro and Finn pushing, dragging, and carrying people through the gateway.
There wasn’t much time left.
Trying not to be blown off her feet, Meaghan stumbled over to John. She wrapped her arms around him and put her mouth next to his ear so he could hear her. “You need to go,” she shouted. “They need you on the other side.”
“Not till these are through.” He gestured at the handful of Fahrayans working their way through the gateway. “You go back and wait for me.”
“No.” Meaghan swallowed hard. Now that it was time, the fear and loss rose up in her throat. In that moment, she realized how much she didn’t want to die. She couldn’t tell John the truth because he’d want to stay and she wasn’t strong enough to force him to go. She wasn’t sure she could let him go at all. “I have to be the last. I can close all the gateways by taking off my amulet as I go through.”
“No! You’ll die,” John shouted, gripping her closer.
Time to lie. “No, I won’t. Not if I time it right. The explosion will push me through as it closes.” Meaghan forced back the tears rising in her eyes. “I’ll be fine. But I have to be the last one through. So, you have to go. Now.”
She heard a muffled shout behind them. The only Fahrayans left were Jhoro and Finn. Jhoro, Finn wrapped in his arms and buffeted hard by the wind, flew through the gateway.
“They’re through. Go!” She shoved him toward the stone pillars.
His eyes not leaving her face, John walked slowly backward and then he was gone.
Meaghan was alone.
Chapter 54
With one arm wrapped around a stone pillar, Meaghan gripped the amulet tightly in her hand and waited for the end, Fahraya dissolving before her eyes.
The ground shook and groaned. The black empty sky now stretched down to consume the land itself. What remained of the sun looked like a star painted by Van Gogh. Streamers of light whirled around it and rushed toward the vast emptiness. Debris from her world flowed like a stream through the gateway. Leaves the size of bed sheets and twigs the size of logs blew past.
If she didn’t close the gateways, soon trees and people and cars and buildings and then the whole planet would be sucked into the void consuming Fahraya. She wondered if, unchecked, the destruction would then spread to other dimensions through their gateways. If so, she wasn’t saving only the human world but possibly multiple universes.
At least I’m dying for a good reason, she thought. Now that she didn’t have to put on a brave face, the tears fell. She didn’t want to die alone. She wanted her father to come back and guide her through death and into wherever it was he now existed.
At that moment, her wish granted, she saw Matthew approach her across the disintegrating ground. Like her mother and Lou, her father appeared to be walking across a desert from a far distance. Wherever it was he walked, it was sunny and still. There was a shimmer like heat rising from asphalt and now he stood before her, still not affected by the roaring gale that blew around him.
“Are you here to take me to the other side?” she shouted.
“No, Meg. I’m here to shove you back through when you pull off the amulet. Vivian flipped when she heard Natalie tell you to blow the gateways with you still inside.”
“You mean I’m not going to die?”
“Not today, kiddo. It’s not your time. There’s too much for you to do back home.” He pointed at the gateway. “But we have to time it exactly right.”
“Won’t you get blown up if you stay?” Meaghan shouted.
“Nope. I’m dead, remember? I can’t get any deader.” Matthew stepped closer to her. “This takes some big juju for me to get corporeal enough to do this. We only get one shot at it.”
“Mom was corporeal when I saw her in my dream.”
“No, she wasn’t. You only dreamed that. You’re awake this time and not tripping. The only reason I can be here at all is because reality is falling apart.”
Matthew shut his eyes, concentrated, then reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. “I can steady you while we do this. Let go of the pillar.”
Meaghan did as he told her. The wind still blew around her, but she was steady on her feet. “I’m good. Now what?”
“When it’s time, you snap that cord around your neck and I give you a big push backwards.”
“What was that thing controlling V’hren? Is it coming back?”
“I don’t know. It’s gone for now, but I don’t think for good.”
Meaghan nodded. “How much longer?”
“Any second.”
“When will I see you again?”
“I’m pulling in some big favors to be here, so probably not for a while. I’ll send Mom along later to check in. You ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, wait . . . wait . . . now!”
Meaghan yanked the amulet and felt the thong snap. Matthew gave her a mighty push as he pulled the amulet from her hand. Then pressure and darkness, followed by the sensation of movement, of flying backwards very fast, until she felt herself hit the ground.
A flash of light. Hands touching her. Arms around her.
Somebody kissing her.
Her eyes flew open and there was John, crying and laughing at the same time. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him on top of her.
She didn’t come up for air for a long moment.
Then she registered the voices all around her. Wailing and shouting. It sounded like a bus station. But weren’t they in the woods?
John helped her up. Still dazed, Meaghan looked around. The clearing was full of filthy, naked people. Not Fahrayan but human. “How’d Natalie get those amulets together so fast?” she asked.
“No amulets,” John said. “We’re human.”
“You’re what?” She gazed at his throat. He wasn’t wearing an amulet. “What happened?”
“You flew backwards out of the gateway, big boom, bright light, and here we are. Don’t know why.”
She heard Russ scream her name. He shoved John aside and grabbed her into another monstrous bear hug. He was sobbing so hard he couldn’t speak.
Natalie followed hard on his heels. Then Lynette. They both threw themselves on top of Russ and joined the hug.
Then Meaghan heard a keening wail cut through the rumbling of the crowd. A howl of pain and grief.
; Melanie, she thought. She knows about Sid. Meaghan pulled herself out of the hug and looked around for Melanie. But the cries were coming from someone else.
She saw Jhoro cradling Finn’s limp body in his arms, tears streaming down his face, wailing in a tear-choked voice. Blood covered Finn’s chest, pouring from a gaping wound near his heart. His eyes were still open, staring blankly at the sky.
“Oh, no,” Meaghan murmured. “Not Finn. Poor Jhoro.” She didn’t add her insight into how deep Jhoro’s grief must go. She vowed to keep his secret.
Which, it turned out, wasn’t really all that secret.
“He’s singing Finn’s death song, as his mate,” John said, in a quiet voice, standing at her side. “The song I never had a chance to sing for Zhara.”
Meaghan tore her eyes off Jhoro and Finn. “You know about them?”
John shrugged. “I talked to his people. Everyone knew.”
“Everyone knew? Then why were they hiding it?”
John shook his head. “I know what you think. We don’t see it like humans. It’s okay. It means some of us get to have a second baby. I don’t know why they hid it.”
Meaghan felt a small hand slip into hers. She looked to see who it was. Melanie smiled up at her.
Guilt rising in her throat, Meaghan said, “Melanie, I’m so sorry. He was so brave. You need to know how brave he was.”
“Was? He still is brave, my little Sid. He’s in Lynette’s camper. He wants to see you when you get a moment.”
“Wait. He’s . . . Sid’s not dead? He’s still alive?” Meaghan started to cry. “I thought he was dead when he got hexed and then he got back up and then he took a knife to the chest and he said goodbye and how is he still alive?”
“He’s one tough Troon, that’s how. We heal very quickly. It takes a lot more than a knife to the chest to kill a Troon.”
“But,” Meaghan said, “he was dying. He said he was circling the drain and that V’hren was stealing his death scene.”
Melanie smiled and shook her head. “That Sid. He does have a flair for the dramatic. Note that he called it a scene.”
Relief washed over Meaghan. “He was faking? I’m so glad he’s alive, but when I get my hands on him I’m going to kick his rotten little butt.”