by A. P. Wayne
“May I, uh, be excused?” he said. He didn’t know who he was addressing. Not really. He was clearly in charge here. As if to affirm this, he shouted, “I’m in charge here!”
He parted the group of confused onlookers and stormed out of the church.
Sixty
Walker stood in Jordan’s bedroom in the Neverly house feeling like he’d really fucked up. Maybe he’d kept Ilya from accomplishing what she wanted to accomplish but, really, what was the point. The Fangs had existed probably as long as humankind. Their spirits had probably been contacting humans since then. So what if the doorway was opened? Walker was a Fang. Wouldn’t that benefit him?
It would. That was the short answer.
But it wasn’t just about him.
This was about being human.
It was what he’d been at one time.
After seeing Elliot, he knew Ilya had been wrong. Walker was not the only way to unite the worlds. Elliot could also travel between them. He’d come to Jordan before and Walker had rationalized it away as a vision.
He looked out the black and broken window.
A jagged hand of lightning flashed outside, almost hurting his eyes.
From behind him, Walker heard a soft voice say, “Now we finish.”
Sixty-one
Hunter felt amazingly stoned.
Stoned and invincible.
He was barely aware of the decaying town around him or even where he was going. He would know when he got there. As far as he was concerned, his life began right now.
A thunderstorm seemed to be about ready to happen.
He liked storms.
Violent lightning streaked the sky and thunder rumbled deep and hungry.
Maybe he’d start a new book. That sounded like a really good idea. He could go back home and get a job at a bookstore or a bar or something.
A bar. That sounded like a great idea.
Rain began pouring down. He expected it to be cold but it felt warm. He liked it. He liked ... everything.
He became suddenly aware that he was smiling.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled in a way that was not mocking or sarcastic.
Smiling like some kind of idiot lunatic, he wandered through the cemetery and the woods until he stood in that clearing.
It seemed like a good spot. A comfortable spot.
He felt like he’d made some big decisions in the last few minutes.
He was an atheist but he looked toward the sky and told the god he was almost certain wasn’t there to strike him down if he was wrong.
The sky lit up with a skeleton of lightning so bright it made Hunter close his eyes.
When he opened them again he was in that creepy abandoned house.
Melanie stood in front of him looking at the dead girl Hunter had pulled from the ambulance.
She noticed Hunter and blinked her eyes. She looked dazed or maybe like she was in shock.
Hunter approached her, took her hand, and said, “Will you marry me?”
“I ... think I need to sort some things out. And I’m not sure I really know you.”
“Fair enough,” Hunter said. “I’m willing to wait.”
Sixty-two
Ilya stood in the room, looking like she had the first time he’d seen her. She approached him. He considered lashing out or running away but didn’t. He recognized something vulnerable in Ilya. Maybe it was some part of himself.
She put a cool hand on his cheek.
“Why do you fight something that could be so beautiful?”
“It’s too late now anyway.”
“But a time will come again.”
“Is that what you want? Do you want to wait for that time to come again? Over and over? How much of your life has been spent waiting?”
She pulled back her hand. Walker felt like he’d spoken a truth and the truth made her flinch.
Now he put his hand on her cheek, slowly moved it down to her neck, and said, “Everyone I love is human. I’ll do anything I can to protect them.” He slowly wrapped his hand around her thin neck, almost expecting to find nothing substantial. Or that his own spirit hand would pass through. But it felt very real. They both felt very real. She continued to look at him, tears now streaming down her eyes, her pale face turning red.
A huge clap of thunder rattled through the old house.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she choked out.
Walker nodded and continued to squeeze.
The room lit up and flashed like a strobe light.
She began to weaken in his hand.
Wind hit the house, flinging warm rain into the room.
He smelled the tang of ozone from outside and wondered, “What am I doing?”
He held this woman in his hand and, for the first time, saw her as something other than a woman, something other than an evil being. Maybe she was a force of great destruction but she was also a force of great creativity. He remembered reading Vampires Drink Blood on the farm, making Jordan read it. He had fooled himself into thinking Ilya’s story started there. But it went back further. Maybe even to the beginning of time.
And she was lonely.
He loosened his grip.
She coughed. Just a reaction. She didn’t really need to.
Suddenly she was on him and he was accepting her and they fell to the bed and their archetypal bodies fell away.
The lightning reached for them, reached through them, became part of them.
Walker had no idea what was happening but he loved the feeling. He’d never felt anything like it.
Maybe it was sex but, without any bodies, it was hard to tell.
They swirled together and punched through one another like heavy oil paints fighting and combining.
At what was something like a climax, Walker lost all sense of himself. He could no longer tell where he was and where Ilya was. There was an explosion of thunder or something more chaotic and he opened his eyes to blackness.
Blackness and a stream of sorrow and heartbreak that reached back to the void.
And understanding.
He and Ilya were the same now.
And, together, they were Neverly.