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)
But it’s not.
It’s not attacking Paul, either, it’s just… I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s doing.
Paul swipes a claw across Josep’s face and Josep responds by slamming Paul against the side of the cave so hard, a sickening gasp comes roaring out from his chest. I’m so stunned by the realization that Paul is losing, I can’t move.
I can’t even think.
This is when the earth rumbles again, but this time scions come up from the abyss Paul created. Scions I recognize as the ones who wanted me to feed them the last time we met.
They rush Josep, but he swats them away like they’re flies.
They get up, rush him again, and Josep starts tearing off their limbs.
It’s a distraction, I realize. A way for Paul to recover.
But when I look over there, he’s not moving. He’s still slumped against the wall, retching, blood seeping out of his mouth. He catches the blood in his open palms, greedily drinking it back down.
“What are you doing?” I yell. “Get up! Get up!”
Paul looks me straight in the eyes and laughs. “It’s up to you now, Ryet. I poured it all into you.”
“Me? I can’t do anything! Get up! Get the fuck up!”
Suddenly Josep has me by the neck. He squeezes it so hard, I immediately start choking. Using every last bit of energy, I look around, hoping that Paul has recovered.
But he’s still slumped on the ground, his head lolling back against the cave wall, smiling.
I crash against some rocks on the other side of the cave, and Josep stares down at me for a moment, trying to see if I’m still a threat. When I don’t try and get up, he smiles at me. But nothing like the one I just saw on Paul.
It’s evil.
“I am the Darkness,” he says. “And you are my son now.” He bares his teeth at me. “I’m going to take you into the endless infinity and torture you until the end of time. You will watch as I drink your blood lover dry and I will keep him forever, just like I will keep you, locked up in eternal emptiness. And while the two of you are suffering in the pits of Hell of my making, I will be drinking your little Black witch until she is old and smells of death and decay.”
Then he turns and flies across the cave to Paul. He grabs him by the hair, lifts him up, and then sinks his teeth into his neck and drinks.
Paul’s head lolls to the side, but his eyes are open and he’s staring up at the ceiling, laughing.
I look up and see that sand serpent again, twisting and winding above Josep’s head.
It’s not trying to attack him, I realize. It’s… part of him.
It’s the Darkness. Not a little bit of Darkness, either, like what we get out of the blood, but an actual incarnation of it.
Time stops for me here. Because I am thinking. I’m thinking about that snake thing, and Josep, and how he’s the Darkness.
But if that thing above his head is the actual Darkness, the incarnation of Darkness, then… it’s not inside Josep right now.
It’s trying to get back in.
Paul is making terrible noises across the cave, but I tune him out and slowly get to my feet.
It’s trying to get back in.
I limp my way across the cave, past moaning and dying scions who have been scattered across the ground, and stand right behind Josep, looking up at the monster.
All you have to do is shine, Ryet.
Find your shine.
I open my mouth as wide as it can go, just like Josep did right before Paul attacked him, and this thing—this evil, horrible, revolting thing—accepts my invitation and the next thing I know, it’s sliding down my throat.
I explode.
I explode with bright, red light and it seeps out of the hundreds of wounds on my body like blood-colored sunshine exploding through clouds.
This red light illuminates the whole cave and I levitate and begin to spin in mid-air as the shine pours out of my body.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Everything really does slow down now because all kinds of things are happening at once.
Josep lets go of Paul, Paul slumps to the ground, laughing, Syrsee appears as a purple mist, her eyes wide and mouth open, aghast. And then… Josep begins to retch.
He bends over, looking at me, as I levitate above him.
“No!” he bellows, his deep voice making the whole cave rumble. And then he and I both look at Paul at the same time. Him because this had to have been planned, and that plan came from the vampire Paul.
And me because I know without even checking that Paul is dead.
Really, really dead.
His eyes are black pits, but they are utterly and completely empty.