Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
A chorus of screams makes me pause and look down. It’s a mistake. And a moment later Paul attacks, biting me in the neck.
I morph out of the body of Josep and become the cloud of Darkness. Something he can’t get a hold of. Something he can’t get inside of. Something he can’t take unless I give.
But he’s not even trying now, he’s laughing. He’s hovering in the air, backlit by a crack of lightning, laughing at me.
The screams. They are the wailings of something dying. And it’s not coming from Ryet.
It’s coming from the scions. They are stumbling away, passing out as they go. Falling face first and—
“Dead,” Paul says. But he’s not laughing now. “You fucked with me first, old man. You wanted more than your share.”
I don’t even wait for the explanation. Clearly, Paul has poisoned Ryet’s blood in such a way that it kills my scions when they ingest his blood. And my only chance now is to get Ryet, if only so Paul can’t save him.
I swoop down in the shape of Darkness, scoop Ryet up in my arms, and then retreat into the lodge, expecting a fight.
Morphing back into Josep, I hold Ryet in my arms like a baby, waiting for Paul’s attack.
But Paul doesn’t follow me.
And when I look outside, he’s gone.
22 - Echo
Bad Little Baby
I’m looking down into the pool of water in Josep’s cave, watching Syrsee as she thinks about what Lucia just said. None of it made any sense to me. Dreamwalk? I mean, I guess I can draw a conclusion. It’s what we’ve been doing ever since I woke up. I’m not sure a real moment of reality has passed, that’s how dreamlike this whole experience feels.
But I don’t understand the technical details of this dream stuff, and Syrsee obviously does, because she’s frowning. “What?” Her word comes out as a hiss.
Lucia doesn’t skip a beat. “We’re going to dreamwalk there, Syrsee. The mirror is—”
“The mirror,” Syrsee interrupts, “is what got me into this mess in the first place.” And now she’s growling. “Ryet and I looked into it and it took me straight to Paul. The next thing I knew I was in a bedroom being raped by evil.”
I shudder when these last few words come out of her mouth. Not for her, but for me. Because that’s how I feel too. Since the night Paul came back on New Year’s Eve, everything has changed. All of it for the worse. All my friends are gone. And I get it, they were just halfbreeds. Homeless drug addicts and worthless throwaways. But they were still my friends. We were like a family.
And then Josep poisoned my blood and fed me to them so they would die.
Lucia, unlike me, has not been deterred by Syrsee’s bluntness because she chuckles. “Come on, Syrsee. You’re not really blaming the mirror for your lack of knowledge on how to use it? That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, you know what’s not ridiculous?” Syrsee retorts. “The power of that thing.”
“I’ll show you what to do,” Lucia counters.
“Why would I trust you, Lucia? You told me to kill myself when this all started.”
I gasp. “Oh, my God.” Then I look up at Lucia, who is standing behind me in the cave—if she’s really here at all—and meet her eyes in the pool of water. “Lucia, that’s despicable. That’s like… I dunno. It’s just… the worst thing ever.”
Lucia rolls her eyes at me. “The worst thing ever? Please. Look at yourselves. The two of you are living examples of worst-case scenarios. You’re a dead remnant wraith and she’s a…” It takes her a moment to find a word for Syrsee. “An… evil baby maker, to put it gently.”
Syrsee and I both pull a face. But she’s the one who asks. “To put it gently?”
Lucia shrugs up a shoulder. “Trust me, Syrsee, it can get far worse than this. Now are the two of you done complaining? Because the war has begun.” She points upward and even though Syrsee isn’t here in the cave with us, she looks up when I do. “Do you hear that? That’s Paul and Josep fighting. Ryet has already been taken out of the game.”
Syrsee gasps. “What?”
“Don’t worry,” Lucia says, putting a hand up as if to preemptively ward off an overreaction. “He’s not dead. I doubt he can ever die now. But Josep has him and soon as he can get away from Paul, he’s going to bring him back down here to do… something horrible, I’m sure. Milk him for magic, probably.”
Again, Syrsee and I make the same face into the pool of water, both of us grossed out by that prospect. Even though I doubt either of us know exactly what it entails, we can take a good guess.
And this, I think, is what pushes Syrsee over the edge. “Fine.” She sighs. “What do I have to do?”