by Lee Dignam
Isaac’s eyes were welling up with tears now. His heart was beating to the rhythm of a fast-paced rock anthem, his vision was starting to blacken at the edges, and breathing deeply had become impossible. He wanted to get back in there and help, to offer Cameron the helping hand Isaac knew he could give. Only, could he? There wasn’t a man on this roof who didn’t know CPR, but Cameron had magic to go with his actions. He couldn’t say the same for himself, and neither could Silver or Jim.
It made sense to let Cameron do his thing, but Isaac’s mind was racing at a pace to match his heart.
Cameron pressed his hands against Alice’s chest and he started to pump, counting as he went. After a number of thrusts, he wrapped his mouth around hers and blew air into her lungs. Isaac saw, at the moment of contact, a transfer of green energy from Cameron’s mouth into Alice’s, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. Cameron went back to pumping her chest, but she was making no sign of returning to the world of the living.
Silver approached, circling around Cameron to give him more room, and stood next to Isaac and Jim. By the look on his face, he, too, hadn’t thought this was going to happen—that Alice was going to die. But she wasn’t dead yet. Isaac chastised himself for thinking it and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes to wipe the tears away. He sniffed hard and held firm.
A minute passed, then another, and then another. Cameron stopped pumping. Isaac threw himself to the floor and took over, pressing hard against her chest and blowing air into her lungs. Her skin was cold beneath his fingers, her lips were blue, and her pulse was nonexistent. Her heart wasn’t beating. Cameron put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder, squeezed, and Isaac stopped trying to revive Alice.
He was weeping, now, his eyes wet and red. Jim came up behind him and put another hand on his shoulder. The presence of his friend was comforting, but the potential reality of what was taking place had an almost numbing effect, making the affection he was receiving seem distant—like an implied hug from someone over a phone.
“She’s gone,” Jim said.
“No,” Isaac said, his voice harsh and furious. “She is not gone. I won’t allow it.”
“Isaac… I know what this is like. I know what you’re feeling.”
“You don’t know what this is.”
“I do, and if you were thinking straight you would know that I do. But we need to get off this roof, and we need to get rid of those bodies, too. We can’t wait.”
“I refuse to accept this.”
“You have to, Isaac… it’s the only way.”
Isaac looked up at Jim. He wanted to clock Jim and send him toppling to the floor. This wasn’t a good feeling to have, but it was the one coming most clearly to him. “I—”
Hands reached up and grabbed Isaac’s collar. At first he wasn’t sure what was going on, thought maybe he was being attacked, but when he heard Alice call his name, he found himself able to let go of the anger and think. When he looked into her wide, wild eyes, he knew it was her. There was strength in her hands, too. He took them and squeezed.
“Alice, it’s me,” he said, “It’s me.”
She looked up at him, still wide-eyed and alert, but her grip on his collar relaxed. “Isaac,” she said.
“It’s all of us. Are you alright?”
Alice let go of his collar. “I… think so”
“You don’t know what happened to you?”
Alice shook her head. Her memory of what had happened to her up there was fuzzy now, but it would return later in a dream that would come back for the next couple months of her life. “I did it, though, right?” she asked. “We closed it?”
“Yeah,” Jim said, “Yeah we did.”
Alice got to her feet with Isaac’s help and patted herself down. “I really am alive?” she asked.
“I can assure you, you are,” Isaac said. “But we thought you had died. You were dead for some time. Minutes. Maybe as many as seven or eight. We aren’t sure.”
“I thought I was dead,” she said, “It was dark where I was. I thought I could hear you, and Cam… but there was someone else with me, too.” Alice looked at Isaac. “I think Nyx was there.”
“Nyx?” Isaac asked. “Did she say something?”
“She was saying… before I killed her with Silver’s sword, she told us she couldn’t die. Remember?”
“Maybe she was lying?” Silver said.
“I don’t’ think she was,” Alice said, “I think your sword is just special. She touched it, and so it could kill her; went right through her. Something happened to me that should have killed me, and I’m still here.”
“What are you saying?” Isaac asked, “That you think you can’t die?”
“Is it possible?” Alice asked.
“None of us know your physiology better than you do,” Cameron said. “You absorbed her. Maybe you absorbed the rest of her power, too.”
Jim glanced over the edge of the skyscraper. “Want to test the theory?” he asked.
Alice joined him, looked down the length of the building, and immediately pulled away from the ledge, shaking her head. “Nope,” she said, “Maybe some other time.”
Isaac watched the banter with a smile on his face, but his smile faded when a spot of light sprang up in the sea of darkness that was Ashwood. Isaac approached the ledge of the building, his mouth wide, and he pointed across the way to where, he suspected, the city’s primary generating station stood, now lit up against the darkness.
“The power station,” Isaac said, “Look.”
The others all turned their attention toward the single beacon of light in the distance. They waited in silence until the generating station’s smokestacks began spewing smoke into the air. A moment later, entire city grids were starting to come back online, each coming alive after the other in a cascade of orange light. Finally, the financial district came up, and the night became bright again as the low hanging clouds went from deep gray to their usual orange.
The rain and the wind had started to die down, too, going from gust to breeze in a matter of seconds. A cheer rang out along the Century Tower’s rooftop as Ashwood began to breathe again. Jim clasped Cameron’s hand, and Isaac and Silver shared an embrace. Alice then turned to Isaac, cupped his face in her hands, and kissed him.
Ashwood, finally, was safe of the Night, and of Chaos.
Epilogue
Three Days Later…
Alice stepped out of the tiny kitchenette in her office with a cup of tea in each hand. She handed one to Isaac and stood next to him. In front of them was an open doorway into a small closet that had never existed there before, and according to the laws of reality, had no right existing there at all. Isaac took a sip of his warm cup of tea and cocked his head to the side.
“Do you think the interior should be red?” he asked.
“What’s wrong with red?” Alice said, “In any case, it’s scarlet, not red.”
“I just think, maybe, violet would have been a more fitting color, don’t you?”
“If I had, I would have figured that color into the spell I wove. I thought you’d be impressed.”
“I am impressed. All this magic, and without a Guardian, too. Should I be worried of your new power?”
Alice pressed her lips against the cup of tea and took a sip. She looked up at him from the rim of her cup as she drank, and smiled. “Only if you piss me off,” she said.
Isaac returned the smile, set his cup down on her office desk, and headed to the other side of the room. He picked up a tough, wooden box with a rack of cylindrical, metal film reel cases in it and brought it into the closet, setting them down on a high shelf. Alice set her cup down too and went for another, identical box. These were the boxes they had come across at the Cinema Royale, and they were the first real inclination that there were more of Alice’s kind roaming the planet. Naturally, she had kept them; and now she had a place to put them.
Once the film reels were safely tucked into the closet, Isaac and Alice each grabbed a handle
on the Chest of Haunts and they hauled it inside too. Alice pushed it right up against the far wall, then took a step back, and looked around inside. The walls were already marked with Void Weaver sigils, as was the back of the door—this was Isaac’s handiwork, not hers. Alice shut the door from the inside and the sigils began to glow, providing just enough orange illumination for her to see what she was doing in there. She had learned the hard way that magic rooms couldn’t be connected to main power supplies.
Isaac opened the door and let her out. She then closed the door, pressed the palm of her hand against the lock, and turned it with magic. The lock clicked, and the door was secure.
“That’s good,” Isaac said, clapping softly. “Very good.”
“Yes, well,” she said, slipping her hands over his shoulders and smiling up at him. “I have a good teacher.”
“We… won’t tell Silver. He’ll only get—”
“Jealous? I think he’ll be okay. We are living together after all; that has to have some perks.”
“That’s the first time you’ve said it.”
“Said what?”
“That we’re living together.”
Alice rolled her eyes and smiled. “Congratulations, you pushed me into submission.”
“Hardly. That wasn’t my decision to make.”
“No, you’re right; it was Elvira’s. She’d made herself quite comfortable.”
“As cats do.”
She planted a gentle kiss on his lips and let her hands slide off his shoulders again. He was wearing a soft silk shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. He smelled wealthy, and powerful. It was hard to believe they had almost missed out on this, hard to believe it had taken a she-demon from another realm for them to have a second chance at happiness. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t. Alice didn’t believe in happily ever afters. But happy for now was good too, right?
Alice smiled and moved around her desk. She sat down, opened her laptop, and took another sip of her cup of tea.
Isaac looked around, confused. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Alice asked, keeping her eyes on the laptop screen.
“I thought we were leaving.”
She looked up at him now, and grinned. “You can leave if you want,” she said, “But I’ve got a client coming in fifteen minutes.”
Author’s Note: Lee Dignam & Katerina Martinez
This is it! We really hope you’ve enjoyed the third and final book in our Half-Lich series. It’s hard to believe Dark Siren was first thought up in May of 2016 and now, here we are, October 31st of 2016 and the entire series is published and finished - a bestseller, and our one way ticket to full-time writing! If you’re reading this, you’re one of the people we really would like to thank, because without you we would not have made it this far. That’s an incredible feeling.
You’re probably wondering what happens next, well, Alice will not be having another book - at least, we haven’t planned another book in this Half-Lich series, but Ashwood will continue on with a new set of characters, new conflicts, and new monsters. If you want to find out what we’re going to be doing next, sign up to our newsletter and we’ll keep you up to date with what we’re doing and how we’re doing it!
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As always, before I go, I would love to ask you to please leave a review of this book wherever you found it! Whether you have something good to say or not, I and other readers want to hear it. Without reviews no one would trust a new author to entertain them, so if you have a couple of moments to spare, I would really appreciate it if you could help me out.
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Thanks again!
Kat and Lee
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