Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Because Lucia was right.
Ryet needs to die.
Even if I have to kill myself to do it, he must die.
Maybe the Darkness wins. Maybe the Darkness takes over the world. Maybe some woman really does pop out a bunch of evil demon babies. Maybe that’s really how all this ends.
But I swear to that good-for-nothing God above, it’s not gonna happen that way because of me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN – RYET
Absolutely nothing.
One moment I am drinking, Paul’s blood flooding my mouth, and the next there is nothing. Not even the taste of him on my tongue.
What the fuck? I turn, trying to open my eyes, but when I finally manage that, I’m not lying down on the bed with Syrsee and Paul, I’m in a church.
All the pain is gone now. All the burning is cool. And I’m not a new devil in progress, but a man. The original me. Before there were children, or a fire, or funerals, or a life of blood lust.
On the altar, standing in front of the lectern that holds the Good Book, is Jane.
She’s wearing a dress I remember. One of those flirty, tight-waisted things that were so popular with the new middle-class housewives of the late fifties. It’s yellow and the skirt is perfectly pressed so each and every pleat flares out in just the right way. She’s got a little sweater on, light blue with white pearl buttons, and there’s a rosebud pinned to her breast. She liked to grow roses in the front garden, and every Friday in the spring and summer, when I came home from work, I would snap one off and take it inside to make her smile.
The way she would look at me when I did that—like that rosebud was the biggest diamond in the world—it was true love.
It was.
And the monster called Paul killed her, and our children, because… she was in the way, I guess.
No. That’s not why.
He killed them because I loved them. And the vampire Paul is a jealous son of a bitch.
I get it now. I was always his. I was his project. And my life—the one came before this one—was just a temporary thing.
But he killed them. And then erased them because I couldn’t take it.
Jane lifts up her hand in a small wave. “Hi.”
Immediately, I am crying. Not sobbing like an idiot, but tears are streaming down my face when I lift my hand back. “Hi.”
My heart is shrinking in this moment. Shriveling into ashes. And a new kind of dark emptiness fills that space back up.
Jane and I just stand there for a moment, looking at each other. Then she glances over her shoulder and points to the cross hanging on the wall above the altar. “I only have a minute.”
I take a few steps forward, but stop when she takes a few steps back. “Jane.”
She shakes her head and then she’s crying too. Again, not sobbing. Just tears streaming down her cheeks. It’s a sadness like no other. A loss of a lifetime that cannot be described with words. It takes her several moments to gather up enough strength to blurt out, “You need to let us go now.”
I’m shaking my head. “No. Please don’t do this. No, no—”
She puts up a hand to shut me up, sniffles, stops her crying and her tears, and with a very firm voice she makes everything clear. “It’s over, Zechariah. You had a choice. You chose this. And there’s nothing I can do. It’s not up to me. I’m only here to set you straight. It’s over. And we will never know each other again.”
My crying has stopped now too. Because there’s no point.
She’s not even there anymore. There’s just the slightest shimmer of lavender mist where she once stood. She was given one small moment of her pure and blessed eternal life to break me, and that’s exactly what she did.
Then the church is gone too.
And there is no Paul.
There is just nothing.
This is what making deals with the Devil gets you.
Absolutely nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT – SYRSEE
Just… driving.
My eyes fly open and for a moment I can’t move. I can’t even breathe. This goes on for enough seconds that I almost give in to panic. But then I gasp for breath and sit upright in the bed. I look to my left and and let out a relieved sob when the space is empty.
Paul is gone. I did it. I banished him to the other side of the dreamwalk just like those ancient people Lucia was telling me about.
But my mind is sharp right now. And it’s racing in full-on survival mode. What if he woke up before me?
I look around, almost certain that I will find Paul leaning against the wall, arms crossed smugly, smiling at me.
But I don’t. There’s no one here but me and Ryet and when I glance at the thick, wooden door it’s bolted from the inside.