Sen touched my shoulder gently and whispered in my ear. "It's not fake. It's him."
My eyes sprang open to find Zach staring at me, now. He beckoned me closer to Gina.
"How is this happening?" I demanded of Sen. Zach's ghostly face had no answer for me. He looked at me pleadingly. I took a step toward him, but my movement was cautious. I knew what seeing Lanzon had done to Dorian. I wanted it to be true so badly, but it being true might make it worse. I wouldn’t want him to ever leave. Sen had said it was him, but… my wants swallowed me.
"This has never happened before, but… I think it's the meld. He's not able to move on with the planes like this," Sen explained behind me. "Or I suspect that's the reason, at least." I nodded numbly, but I needed more reassurance than that. If this was really Zach, then he should know me.
I looked at Zach's spirit. "Tell me something nobody else knows." My body shook as I stared into the phantom's eyes. To my surprise, his lips quirked into a lopsided smile.
"You broke my action figure when you were five years old, and you thought you were going to prison." He snorted and shook his head, sounding too human in his wispy state. "You always had strong convictions, even as a kid. When I told you it wasn't your fault, you insisted that we should at least call the police to make sure, since you committed a crime. Mom was so proud, and Dad laughed harder than I'd ever seen him laugh before. You were so convinced that you were a guilty criminal. They had to explain that prison wasn't for little girls who broke their brother's action figures by accident. They even bought me a better one, so it worked out great for me."
The tear that slid down my face was real. And so was Zach, it seemed.
“It’s you,” I croaked. “It’s really you.”
"I don't know why I'm here," he said, faltering. "I don't remember what happened… I was floating in a big dark place that I can't remember well. My body, or whatever this ghost form is, was drawn here like a magnet. I was half conscious, but totally aware of everything. I can't really explain it. And then I heard your crying, Gina, and then Lyra's voice. It was all I needed to come find you."
I pawed at my face, brushing the tears away as Gina fumbled for words. I had no idea how long he would be here. We both had to share his time.
"Does it feel strange?" Gina asked, and then dropped her voice lower to add, "You never had to say sorry, you know. I loved you. I still love you. I just wish you’d let me take the shot."
Zach's smile cracked his face. "We both know I would never have let that happen." His eyes slid to me. Even in death, he radiated life. "The Sloane siblings are too stubborn for that. We like to be the heroes."
"Too stubborn to die," I said through a hiccupping sob. The wall had fallen with my brother’s presence. "I don’t want to be ungrateful, but why are all these spirits here? Was everyone called to us?”
"Everyone is blocked from the afterlife, but they were being pulled too. Sen's on the money, I think. The others whispered to me, told me some things, but it's hard to grasp what they mean." He scratched his ghostly head with a puzzled look. "It seems like souls take a long time to pass over. I don't know how it all works, but some of these people have been dead far longer than me." The spirits around us appeared to grow in numbers, but it could’ve been a trick of the light.
Laini's gasp ripped through our discussion. I turned to see her with a disbelieving smile on her heart-shaped face.
"Lanzon." She said his name like a prayer. My head jerked up to see another spirit floating down. He was far more transparent than the others, but I recognized him easily from my dreams and the incident in the Higher Plane. He smiled at her. Behind her, Juneau's eyes widened. She had told him stories, from what I gathered. He kept himself back, the dramatic flair of his entire persona going flat. This was a part of her life that Juneau could never be a part of, except to help with her grief. He averted his eyes politely, giving the couple space.
Lanzon gently lifted his hand to Laini. “I’m so sorry that I had to go.”
“You left both of us,” Laini cried, pointing to Dorian. “I know it’s not your fault… I just…”
Lanzon bent his head in apology. “I know.” Laini burst into tears.
Dorian opened and closed his mouth, his eyes darting to me and then to Sen.
"It's real," Dorian said, but it came out more like a question.
Sen nodded her head and gave a frustrated shrug. "I don't know what to say." The arbiters weren't often lost. She must have hated not understanding why the fabric of the planes allowed for things they never imagined. It bent all the rules.
Ruk grunted. "Just enjoy it. This moment is precious." I wondered if he was thinking of Aurora right now. I hoped the camp was still okay. “We can’t bring him back, though… his soul has been unattached too long from his body.”
Ruk didn't have to tell us twice. Laini and Dorian bunched around Lanzon. Laini cried, but more softly than Gina's sobbing. Lanzon had been dead for years, but this must've come as a shock. If Zach hadn't been in front of me, I would've paid more attention to their interaction, but I only had my brother for these fleeting moments.
But Lanzon wasn't the last one to find us. A ghostly figure of an older man joined Sonia. Her eyes went wide for a moment, but she merely tipped her head toward the man in a gesture of respect. She whispered something about her father, but she and the spirit fell into a hushed conversation that seemed too private to listen in on.
Nobody came for Inkarri. She crossed her arms and stared up at the sky, glaring at the stars as if they could offer an explanation.
"You know, I have to say that it's not all bad," Zach said with a shrug. He pointed down to his leg. Although he was dressed in what he’d died in, he somehow created a perfect hole in his fatigue pants to show us his completely unscarred thigh. "I don't have any wounds on me anymore." The bullet wound Gina and I had spent so much time worrying over was gone for good.
The light of the souls around us grew brighter, but my eyes were only for Zach. I shook my head, laughing through the tears. It was incredible to hear his humor once again. This was likely the last I would ever see of my brother. I wanted to be selfish and hold on to him, but Gina needed this moment, too.
"I never wanted you to be a hero," Gina muttered. "How am I supposed to go on living, knowing that you died for me?" She spoke with such anger through her grief that all the discussions around us went quiet for a minute. She rubbed her arm, shooting me a guilty look. "You two don't own the rights to holding tight to something." My skin pricked over witnessing this private moment between them, but I couldn’t bring myself to waste my last few moments with my brother by stepping away.
Zach's eyes softened. "I'm sorry, Gina. I never wanted to leave you, but I couldn’t have lived if I let you die."
Her voice broke as she spoke. "Then, how are we supposed to do it without you?" Her voice was dry and reedy.
There was no answer for that. None of us, not even Zach in his death, had the answer for that. He just lowered his head in a show of apology, and Gina bit her lip, unable to find any words after this. We both had our struggles. There were many things I wanted to say to my brother, but first I needed to tell him about our parents.
"They're in danger," I explained, and detailed our phone call. I roughly brushed away another tear. "I didn't get to tell them about you, yet… I miss you already. It doesn't seem fair to see you before us, and not have you actually here.”
Across the clearing, Laini buried her face in her hands to hide a fresh bout of tears. Everyone in our group had lost someone. Our wounds were just fresher. I caught Zach's eye, and he gave me a sad smile.
"I miss you, too," he said. "I don't regret it, though. I just wanted you to be safe. Alan pointed, and my legs just sprang into action. Maybe my diplomacy skills weren't enough."
"No," Gina added sharply. "Alan is a monster." With that, I agreed wholeheartedly. Alan was a monster who had just murdered his own nephew without hesitation, who would’ve murdered his futur
e wife in front of him if Zach hadn’t interfered. And now, they were separated forever. My hands trembled. I wanted Alan to be dead like I wanted Zach to be alive.
"We're still looking for him," I said to Zach. Although he’d followed us, I doubted he knew what we were doing here. "We think he’s somewhere nearby. There’s a lot of dark energy in the mountain.”
In the circle, Inkarri snarled impatiently and stomped her foot. "We don't have time for all these emotions. The tear is still expanding. You can't stay and reminisce forever." Her sharp words landed like a whip.
"You wouldn't understand," I snapped at her, furious.
Inkarri dropped her stare. "No, I can't. My father's soul would probably be pulled right to that machine if not for the vampires. He was darker than anyone before the cleansing." Her tone was bitter and mournful. It almost sounded human. I straightened as Ruk gently interrupted the fraught tension.
"She is right, actually," he said. He was kind, but his eyes were sharp and serious. "We need to start moving."
"I agree," Zach voiced. I whirled around, panicking. He’d just gotten here, and I didn't want to let him leave.
"Not yet," I said desperately. Zach shook his head, raising in his hands in defense.
"No, it's not like that… I think I'm supposed to help you stop Alan." A silence settled over our entire group. Lanzon stared at Zach, an unknowable mask on his face. "Look, I'm telling you that I'm here for a reason. I can sense things differently now. I don't really understand all my new senses, but I was drawn here for a reason. I could feel the world melding around you. Something is pulling me away from all this. My spirit wants to go there, but it's like there's something in the way. I don’t think any of these spirits can go anywhere until we help you fix things, or…”
Or until it all ends in fire and darkness.
Something was in the way… It sounded like Sen was right. The afterlife was blocked off, just like we saw in the Higher Plane. My brother would never know peace. None of these spirits would. Just as I thought that, the spirits converged. Their light multiplied. They formed their own tiny, sun-bright ring around us.
The spirits spoke all at once, save for Zach and Lanzon.
"We cannot go forward. We must end the melding." I stepped back instinctually. Their voices together sounded like the roar of a lion. It was the power of the dead, still left in this plane and unable to move on. I stared at Zach, amazed. He grinned wildly.
"What can I say? The spirits seem to be attracted to you guys, too." He gestured to Lanzon, who gave a stoic nod.
"We must help you," Lanzon said. His voice was higher than Dorian's, but it was almost a whisper. He was one of the most faded spirits, but he radiated a determination that immediately struck a chord within me. Dorian gave a proud but broken smile.
Lanzon shifted, and the souls grew even brighter with light. All around us, they cast their amber lights on our faces. "I can feel the dark souls in the mountain. They are being tormented by Irrikus's machine. It's not the same as a soul being cleansed by a harvester. I feel great pain in those souls. We can sense the plane dissolving. Things are fundamentally out of balance. I'm equally unsure why we've been brought to you all specifically, but all these spirits can't be wrong. We all know that this must end."
I swallowed the grief in my throat. Slowly but surely, warmth flooded me with the talk of battle. If they could help us, it would make things easier, but the abilities of spirits were lost on me.
"Can you help?" I asked him, not trying to be cruel. Perhaps his time as a spirit gave him more insight than the others.
"I believe so. We all want to," Lanzon confirmed. At this, the souls gave nods of affirmation. "Perhaps your friends can confirm whether we can." His clever stare landed on Ruk, who smirked. It was likely that the spirit sensed how different Sen and Ruk were from the rest of us.
"I think you may be right about being called here," Ruk said simply. And who are we to deny help at this moment? We needed all the help we could get.
"Then let's plan," I said determinedly. "What’s your idea?"
Zach batted a ghostly arm through my shoulder. "Well, I can't touch anything." It made my skin break into unsettled goosebumps. Okay, physical touch was off the table.
"We only float,” Lanzon explained, “but I believe our asset lies in what your brother discussed: senses. We can sense a lot of different things. We can see into the souls, thoughts, and emotions of the living beings around us." The spirits around him agreed.
"We felt your pain," said one.
Another added, "We heard the dark souls screaming… and then we heard your grief."
A swell of hope rose within me. I had thought we were at the end of our rope, but there was a glimmer of renewed possibility in the air alongside the spirits. It was beautiful enough to earn another tear from me.
"And what exactly can you sense in the mountain?" Dorian asked. “We only have a vague idea of a machine down there.”
Lanzon frowned worriedly. "The one you call Alan and the machine inside that mountain caused this. They’ll continue making things worse if the machine isn’t stopped.” So, Alan's relying on the machine to cinch his victory. He must have wanted to act quickly, before we could catch up. I sucked in a breath, knowing that we needed to act fast. We couldn't let him bring the worlds past the point of no return.
"I believe the revenants are down there, too," Sen said abruptly. She closed her eyes. "There's something besides the machine. I can sense them, tiny moving figures filled with darkness that they never asked for."
"I sense them too," Zach said. "They feel like ants inside this mountain, and there's a lot of them. They’re… in a frenzy. It might be every single revenant they created."
Thinking back on Reshi's message, I believed that. "Anything else?" I probed.
"Powerful rulers," Zach said. "Those council members who were so quick to change their loyalty." At that, Inkarri let out a bitter growl. I counted on my hands each group. He would have his maker guards around too, ensuring that his magical body stayed stable and that the machine was running well. I wondered if Alan had any true idea what he was doing. He wanted to rule everything, but if he continued, there would be nothing left for him to rule over. I scowled at the thought of him in control. Hatred and the will to save the world were some fine motivators.
"There's something else," Lanzon added hopefully. "Alan and the council members are unstable. I can see the fear and desperation in their souls. They have lost control of the situation."
I started. Had Lanzon heard my thoughts using his spiritual senses? Alan wasn’t in control at all, like I assumed. He’d bet on himself and lost.
"We should move on them," I blurted. "This is our chance. Alan is dealing with chaos, and he won't be able to take all of us." I swung my gaze over the spirits, feeling emboldened by their numbers.
"We don't have time to make a grand plan," Dorian said, nodding along with me. "It's going to be simple. We're desperate."
Zach and Lanzon locked eyes. My own brother and Dorian’s brother were united in death, ready to help us.
"We'll help you get in and survive long enough to get close to Alan," Zach said.
"I'll deal with the council," Lanzon said. "Lyra and Dorian, your group will have to disable the machine." It sounded like a basic plan. If we could just leverage the chaos to our advantage and utilize the spirits on our side, then we might have a chance. The machine would have to be left up to Ruk, but we could figure that out. If we could stop it, along with the revenants, then we could potentially avert this awful ending.
"What about Alan?" I asked.
Zach turned to me with a fierce look, his eyes sparking with the amber light of his spirit. "Leave Alan to me. I have an idea."
34
Lyra
We found the entrance to the hideaway at the peak of the mountain. Nestled into the jagged black rock, a rough doorway of twenty feet was chiseled out of the mountainside. The doors were left open, carelessly, as if t
he person inside hadn't thought there was any need to hide them. I examined them as we entered and realized that something had blasted the lock clean off. Ruk gave the shattered lock a passing glance as we moved through the shadowy corridor.
"Alan didn't have a key, it seems," he remarked. Inkarri grunted in agreement. If even she didn't know the location or have a key, it was natural that Alan had to blast his way inside. With Irrikus's armor, he was powerful enough to easily throw the doors apart. If there were any traps or concealing spells, though… they weren't working now. The entire area seemed wrong and empty. Sen wiped her hands on the side of the rock with a contemplative frown.
"Whatever traps were here aren't working now," she confirmed before we forged ahead. "Something took out everything and left only residue behind. Perhaps the energy coming from the machine?" A slight breeze whistled through the passageway.
The spirits lit our way with their amber light. It was bizarre to see Zach scouting ahead of me along with Lanzon. We had to stall Alan so they could get close to him. I hoped our plan would work. I glanced up at the top of the passage, seeing Mortal Plane stars through the partially ruined stone ceiling. A sudden gust of heavier wind made everyone slam against the walls as a wave of dark souls passed by us like a stream of bats. Their darkness was evident from their color, but their speed was shocking. The machine was so powerful that it could pull them into this cavern when they should be sinking into the ground. I peeled myself off the wall and rushed to follow Zach and Lanzon, with Dorian at my side. The world groaned beneath our feet, but Alan had left no guards to hear it. He hadn't expected to be followed.
We came out at the top of a cavernous chamber inside the mountain. I gasped at the chaotic scene before us, nearly careening into the madness below. A spiral ramp, partially deteriorated, led down into the steep-walled chamber of the peak. Strewn in the ramp's wake were floating pieces of rock. They reminded me of the floating islands in the Higher Plane from the Games. A swirling vortex of floating particles, rocks, and souls revealed itself just below us. The rocks—black, gray, brown—shifted and creaked as they came back together to form the stairs. Their form was unstable. I took a tentative half-step to get a feel for it, sensing the stair shake beneath my feet. Dorian shook his head, searching for Alan. The stairs were trying hard to keep their shape, but something was forcing them apart.
Darklight 7: Darkfall Page 30