Endlessly (Paranormalcy) (22 page)

“Yes.”

“And you’re choosing that?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head, overwhelmed. I could…maybe I could. She wanted me to. It was her choice, after all, and she knew exactly what she was doing. I was willing to potentially sacrifice myself to open this gate. I could allow her the same choice. I turned to the Dark Queen, whose black eyes regarded me with hate so powerful I took a couple of involuntary steps back.

“She doesn’t choose the same thing,” I said.

“I am making this choice for her.”

I thought of everything the Dark Queen had done, every life she was responsible for destroying or ending, what she would have done to me if she’d had the chance. But staring at her, proud and cruel and permanent, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take that choice from her. Not even for her—especially not for her—would I lose myself that completely, would I let myself become a murderer.

“I can’t do it,” I whispered. “I’ll drain you if that’s what you want, but I won’t do it to her if it’s not her decision. I’m not like her.”

“Well, good thing
I
can do it,” Vivian said, a smile on her face as she let go of Jack’s hand, darted forward, and slammed her palm against the Dark Queen’s chest.

I
lurched
forward, my mind spinning with horror. I watched Vivian get brighter and brighter as the Dark Queen dimmed. “Wait, you—”

Jack grabbed my arm, and I whipped around, furiously trying to pull it away. “What are you doing? I need to stop her!”

I’d expected Jack’s big blue eyes to be manic and evil, but he looked…calm. “Evie, this has to happen. Vivian’ll do it so you don’t have to.”

“But it’s wrong!” I jerked my arm free, only to find Reth on my other side, blocking my way. I could knock
him over, the state he was in. And then I could stop Vivian, and—

“It might be wrong,” Jack said, “but it’s the right wrong thing to do.”

Angry tears stung my eyes. I wanted to turn around and see what was happening, but I didn’t want to see it if I couldn’t stop it. “What about Vivian? What will this do to her? Was this her idea?” I wasn’t sure I could stop her again. She’d always been stronger than me, and this time she’d be expecting an attack. And the idea of putting her into another coma killed me. Then again, I couldn’t let her hurt my friends.

Jack shook his head. “No, Reth agreed that Viv and I should follow you, and if you couldn’t do what needed to be done, we’d help you.”

“You’d
help
me?”

“Yes.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “We’d help you, like you’ve helped us.”

“But…”

“It was an impossible decision for you, Evie. We made it so that you can concentrate on the things you need to do. In case you haven’t noticed, your delightful sister and I are a bit more ruthless than you.” He grinned, that impish, dimpled grin I knew better than I wanted to.

“But you don’t know Vivian.” I was scared down to my toes not only for what she could do but also at the thought of losing her to the monster she had been. “You have
no idea
what she was like before I stopped her.”

A soft thud sounded behind us, and then I heard Vivian’s voice, altered, both higher and lower than it had been before. “Whew! Don’t you all look so pretty.”

When I saw Vivian for the first time back when she attacked the Center, she’d looked like a sun goddess thrown down to earth. I turned to find her not quite so bright that I couldn’t make out her features, but it would definitely have been more comfortable to look at her through a pair of sunglasses. I could barely see the thin hospital gown over her body. If she’d gotten almost as much soul from one faerie as she had from the hundreds of paranormals she’d drained, I hated to think what this taste would do to her. At her feet was the dim and infinitely lessened shell of the Dark Queen, now only a body. I jerked my eyes upward to avoid looking at her; it was too wrong to see her ended. She had been cruel and evil, but destroying her was taking something from the universe we had no right to.

“Vivian?”

She giggled, not looking at me but at the Light Queen. “That was a rush, Ev.”

“Why did you do it? I thought you were different. I thought you’d found your own soul.”

She had her hand half raised toward the Light Queen, who was kneeling next to the body of her sister. Vivian looked up slowly, as though she couldn’t tear herself from staring at the Light Queen’s soul. “Hmmm?”

“You said you weren’t going to drain anyone else, because you had your own soul now. Because I love you, and you love me. What about your soul?” I wasn’t mad or scared anymore, just so very, very sad. The faeries and their stupid plots had finally succeeded in destroying Vivian’s soul once and for all.

“I—Oh, Evie.” She jumped off the gleaming silver throne platform and walked to me, putting her hands on both my shoulders, her fingers burning my skin. “I’m sorry. I did this
because
of my soul. Because of you. I didn’t want you to cross that line. The line and I are best friends by now, but you don’t need to go there. You made the hard choice to free the souls I had taken, so I made the choice to take one last one. I will
not
let you spend your own soul to open a gate for these idiot faeries.”

“You aren’t going to…you know, go crazy?”

She laughed, and the sound was a little unhinged. “Oh, I’m there, stupid. But I’m not going to go crazier. I’m here to help.”

I nodded numbly. “Do you think—Should you—Do you want to—” I looked helplessly toward the Light Queen. She bent and kissed the Dark Queen’s cold forehead, then stood.

“I guess I can do her, too,” Vivian said, but her voice was hesitant. “It’s just…this is a lot of soul, Evie. Like, whoa, a lot. I shouldn’t. I don’t want to give this one up already, and I don’t know if I can figure out the gate on my own. You’re the only one who’s ever actually used the souls’ energy to
make something. But I don’t want…We need to hurry. Hurry, please?” Her confidence was quickly shifting, and I saw her hands curl into fists at her side—a gesture I knew well from when I was overwhelmed with wanting to taste souls, to make them mine.

“This is your task,” the Light Queen said. “The two of you together, sisters. It is a lovely parallel, a healing balance.”

She held both arms out to me, and I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to.”

“I know, child. But I am asking you to. You will need me to accomplish this.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, putting my hand on her chest, hating my stupid, empty shell of a body for being able to take her out of eternity. I steeled myself to ask the channel to open, but instead of having to pull it out, her soul rushed forward, a torrent of light and heat and time and agelessness and regret and hope, swirling and filling me until I was full from my toes to my head, and then filling me even more, not stopping, more and more warmth and energy and light and burning, and I never wanted it to end, I wanted to be connected to this, to feel this forever, just like I knew the soul could. I could feel myself stretching, changing, becoming more than I had been before, being taken out of the tiny stream flow of my time and thrust into
the tidal oceans of immortality.

“Thank you,” she whispered, snapping me back to reality as the last of her soul drained out into me and her eyes changed from the color of life to plain brown, then went dim and cold forever.

“Hey look! We match!”

I turned to Vivian, feeling fast and slow and warm and cold, like everything that had ever happened and ever would happen was happening right now, like nothing mattered and everything mattered and I was at the center of it all—

“You are totally tripping, aren’t you?” Vivian asked.

I shook my head, looking down at my bare arms that glowed brilliant blue-white. A hand settled on my arm, and though the touch registered I didn’t feel it the same way I knew I should, that I knew I had. It was simply there. I looked up at Reth, seeing straight through to his quickly fading soul and knowing him in a way I never could have. Surpassing him. Finally understanding what he wanted us to be, together.

“Say your name.” His eyes were serious and oddly sad. Why was he sad? I was eternal now. The girl I’d been, capricious and angry and scared, tossed and turned on the currents and whims of time, that girl was gone. I stood straighter, flexing my fingers, luxuriating in the power that infused my whole body, burning away what had been before, purifying me.

“Say your name,” Reth said again, his voice insistent.

I narrowed my eyes, then formed the word; it felt foreign and strange on my tongue, the lip movements forced. “Evie.”

“No, your real name.”

“Neamh.” I gasped and closed my eyes, breathing deep to hold on to the flare of my own soul, lost amid the power of the Light Queen’s. “Oh, gosh, Neamh, Neamh, Neamh. Me.” And Lend. The image of him popped up in my brain, the memory of his touch, his laugh, the way he made me feel. I clung to it, our relationship as much a part of me as my own soul.

“You okay, baby sister?” Vivian asked, putting her arm around me. It didn’t burn anymore—it felt the same as my skin. “I should have figured it’d affect you more since you’ve never built up a tolerance. They can take over pretty fast.”

“I’m good. I think. I know who I am, at least.” It hadn’t stopped the other feelings, but I could separate from them. I could feel the weight of the faeries’ stares on me, and I wondered how they felt about what I’d done. I dared to look out at them, and was met with equal parts sadness and peace in their faces. I hoped we’d be able to pull this off; otherwise I doubted they’d be so chill with the fact that we’d ended the lives of their queens. “Okay. We need to get to the pond and make this bleeping gate.” Not only were we almost out of time, but I wasn’t sure how long I could keep the Light Queen’s soul from overwhelming mine and making these changes permanent.

Vivian leaned close, so close I could see her real eyes underneath the brilliant light of the soul inside her. “We could maybe keep them? Just you and me, forever?”

“Vivian,” I said, despairing.

“Kidding! Totally kidding.” I sincerely doubted it, but she took my hand. “Let’s make a gate!”

Reth took my other hand, and I moved his hand into the crook of my elbow, letting him put all his weight on me. Jack took Vivian’s, then immediately let it go with a hiss. “Ouch!” he said, shaking his burned hand. “I’ll go get all the people left in the meadow to Lend’s house and then meet you. Don’t start until I’m there, though. If this place implodes or something while I’m in it, I’ll be very upset.” He disappeared, and the entire clearing around us lit up as door after door was opened, and all the faeries left behind their carefully crafted world.

“Evelyn,” a voice that felt familiar said. I turned to see a faerie whose soul was ragged and dim, tarnished among the pristine brilliance of the others. Worse even than Reth’s. I didn’t know that soul. “I can’t go back unless you tell me I can.”

I frowned, and then I realized how I knew the voice. My faerie father. The one I’d banished to the Faerie Realms forever. The part of me that held onto my soul had an instant and harsh desire to leave him here. He’d be alone and lost until the end of time—the same way he left my mother and then me. He deserved it.

But I was better than he was. More proof that he had no claim to the soul I’d made in spite of him. “Melinthros, you may enter the mortal realms for the sole purpose of leaving through the gate.” He stood straighter, but I hadn’t finished yet. “And while there you absolutely cannot have any carbonation whatsoever.”

Okay, maybe I was a bit petty after all. But the way his shoulders slumped back down as he stumbled off was highly gratifying.

“That was good of you, Evelyn,” Reth said. I shrugged and, for the last time ever, we walked through a door and into the darkness, my own light filling my vision so not even the Faerie Paths could darken it.

T
he
night was clear and sharp in a way only winter nights with a bright moon can be, every leaf and twig and rock brought into colorless contrast by the pale white light. Or maybe I could see them all for the same reason I could sense the borders of this world pressing in all around, hinting and dancing at the paths and possibilities of other realities.

“Evie!”

Lend’s voice rang through me, a welcome reminder of who I really was. I smiled and turned around, nearly knocked over when he ran into me and grabbed me up in a hug. “I was so worried! You should have taken me with
you. I—” He stopped dead, his arms tightening around me even more as he looked over my shoulder. “Umm, you do know Vivian’s here, right?”

“Oh, is she? I hadn’t noticed.” He looked at me, scared, then rolled his eyes when he saw my smile. “It’s okay. She’s here to help me.”

“That’s me, helpful Vivian. And, flaming souls, Ev, your boyfriend is beautiful.”

I smiled even bigger, soaking up this way of seeing him, his soul blue like reflected light off rippling water, alive and shimmering and dancing, his and his alone. Unlike the last time I’d been overwhelmed with other souls inside me, I wasn’t even a little bit tempted to take his.

“What is it?” Lend asked, noticing my stare as he wrapped his scarf around my neck. I was far, far from cold right now, but it was sweet of him. “And why is your voice different?”

“You really are beautiful. And I really want to kiss your brains out. But I’ve got to make a gate and save the world and stuff first.”

“Kiss my brains out after?”

I bit my lip. “Are you going to…will there be an after?”

“Hurry, please,” Reth said.

Lend ignored him and pulled me in closer, his lips touching my ear. “The only world for me is the one you’re in. Let’s make the best life we can here and not worry about
what comes after. I want to grow old with you.”

“Really? We’ll get rocking chairs and be all cute and wrinkly!”

“You’ll be wrinkly. I’ll just pretend to be.”

I punched him lightly in the stomach, but closed my eyes, my own soul once again singing out louder than the others in me. “Best plan I’ve heard this week. And, trust me, I’ve heard a lot.”

“I love you forever, Evie.”

I pulled back and kissed him, all the energy and light in me springing up in joy and passion and happiness. “I love you forever, too, my Lend.”

“Wow, your lips are really hot. Literally and metaphorically. But mostly literally.”

I laughed, stepping back from him. “Yeah, comes with the bursting-with-eternal-souls territory.”

Reth collapsed to the ground next to me, his breathing shallow and frantic. “Lend?” I said, my immortal voice still managing panic.

Lend reached down and picked Reth up, carrying him to the edge of the gathering. I turned to the group, suddenly aware of our very, very large audience, a collection of souls in every color of the rainbow (as well as some definitely not in the rainbow I knew) and the bodies that held them standing, waiting, watching. It was a good thing David’s property was on the edge of a state forest, because there were a
lot
of paranormals here.

I took a deep breath, my eyes trained on Reth’s chest to make sure it was still moving. To my relief he lifted his head and pushed out of Lend’s grasp with a disgusted sound, choosing to sit on the ground instead. He was still okay. But for how long…

“We’ve got to do this
now
.” I lifted up my hand, and—

“Stop,” a woman shouted. Everyone turned to see someone in a power suit and sensible pumps stomping out of the trees toward me. It was not Raquel. Raquel was running after her, swearing rapidly in Spanish and trying to grab Anne-Whatever Whatever.

“Wow, you are so not invited,” I said. She was a lot less threatening now that I could see straight through to her soul, a pale, quivering, barely there thing.

“Stupid girl, you have no idea what you’re doing!”

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure
you
have no idea what I’m doing.”

She stood directly in front of me, huffing with exertion and anger. Lend loomed protectively beside me, but I wasn’t exactly worried she’d whip out a Taser and try to take me in. All her faerie cronies were on my side now, and I didn’t see a single paranormal or even another human backing her up.

“What do you think will happen to IPCA if you take all these creatures out of the world?”

“Hmm. I believe the answer falls somewhere under the categories of Don’t Know and Don’t Care. Take your pick.”

“Oh? You don’t care? You may think you’re helping by banishing this group, but how many vampires and werewolves are leaving? Hmm?”

I looked around. The only vampire I could see was Arianna, standing next to David, and a couple of werewolves who had come out of the woods after Raquel. I shrugged. “They don’t belong in that other world.”

“They don’t belong in ours, either, but here they are! How exactly do you propose IPCA continue to keep people safe from paranormal menaces that will still be alive and well among us when you take away the faerie magic we depend on?”

I remembered the werewolf guard who had been turned against his will. And there was poor Arianna, innocent of anything other than falling for the wrong boy. As bad as IPCA had been—and, whoo boy, it had its bad points—it did fill a necessary role in the world to address problems that the average person had no idea existed.

“But you’re doing it wrong.” I frowned. “I mean, you’re all about capture and control. Look at my friend.” I pointed to Arianna, easy for me to pick out of the darkness next to mortal Raquel and David. “She’s never hurt anyone in her life. She’s done nothing but try to make the best out of the crap hand she’s been dealt. In fact, she and David have devoted their lives to doing what IPCA should have been doing all along: helping and guiding the people who need it most instead of automatically treating
them like criminals and killers.”

“Evie, if I may?” Raquel stepped forward, regarding Anne-Whatever Whatever with cool, professional detachment. “I’m afraid your brief and disastrous reign as head of IPCA has come to an end. As has IPCA as a functioning international body. Which is why I’ve already set in motion everything necessary to form the United Paranormal Aid and Rehabilitation Group. Each geographical area will act with cooperative autonomy, and the focus will shift from containment to education and aid, with minimal policing only when necessary.” Only Raquel could talk like an official memo. I glanced at Lend, shocked to see him smiling at Raquel.

“You have no right!” Anne sputtered.

“Oh, I think you’ll find your most powerful contacts immediately came out of an inexplicable fog once the Unseelie faeries stopped working with you. They want answers. I have them. So while you have been running around, desperately trying to grasp at power, the rest of us have been finding solutions.”

“I won’t let this happen! I’ll—” Her shrill voice cut off, although her mouth kept moving. I turned to Reth, who raised an eyebrow at me from his seat on the ground.

“I am not going to miss humanity,” he said.

I laughed. “Humanity’s not going to miss you, either.”

Raquel smiled, then motioned to the werewolves, who were only too happy to come and bodily haul away a now
rapidly flailing Anne-Whatever Whatever.

“Will she get her voice back when you leave?” I asked Reth.

“I may have accidentally made that permanent.”

“Well darn. Too late now!”

Raquel moved to give me a hug but then jerked back. “You’re burning up!”

“Yup. So I’m told.”

“I want you to know how proud I am. You’re doing the right thing, and I don’t want you to worry about what’s going to happen after. We’ll figure it out.” She looked back at David and beamed, as happy as I’d ever seen her.

“I have no doubt of that. Although I do have one serious concern.”

“Yes?”

“UPARG? It doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way IPCA did.”

Raquel heaved a
why must you joke at inappropriate times
sigh, then lifted her chin haughtily. “Well, maybe we won’t invite you to be a part of it, then.”

I laughed. “Please, by all means, leave me out. I think it’s high time I retire.”

“Even if we issue you your own custom companion Taser for Tasey?”

I pursed my lips thoughtfully. “We’ll talk when I’m done here.”

“Umm, Evie?” Vivian said behind me, her voice
strained. “This is…really not a good place for me to be right now. We need to hurry.”

I turned to her, worried. If I could feel the pull of the souls, how much worse must it be for her? “Okay, we’re only waiting on—”

“Hey-oh.” Jack skipped up next to Arianna with Carlee. They were holding hands, and I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t because they’d just come out of the Faerie Paths. He waved and shouted, “All clear on our front! Also, to my fabulous faerie friends, good-bye and good riddance!” He let go of Carlee’s hand, turned around, and dropped his pants.

Jack’s brilliantly white, moonlit mooning of the unearthly crowd was strangely beautiful. Lend was less amused, rolling his eyes and muttering, “My mom’s
right there
. Can’t we send Jack, too?”

“Not today. Raquel, go to the house and take everyone not going through the gate with you. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I want you all where I know you’ll be safe.” She nodded and ran back to the others, who waved and, when Jack had pulled up his pants, disappeared back toward the house. “Vivian? You ready?”

She nodded, but she seemed distinctly nervous.

“Okay,” I said, looking up to find the gate in the stars. I lifted a hand, only to have it jerked violently down.

“What are you doing?” Reth hissed.

“I’m making the gate!”

“Not that one.” His eyes were wide with—fear?

“Why are you so scared of that gate?”

He looked to the side, deliberately avoiding staring at the stars. “Because that is…that is another part of eternity. It’s not ours.”

I frowned. “But I sent the other souls there.”

“Yes, and without bodies they were ready to go there. But I am not, nor will I ever be.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Ooh, poor little Reth, are you scared of what happens after you die?”

His voice and face were shockingly sincere, his skin pallid and his lips nearly blue. “More than anything. I have no desire to discover that realm of eternity. None of us do, which is why we need that gate. Myself most desperately. Now, please.”

I looked back up at the stars, trying to figure out if I was scared of that gate or not. And, strangely enough, I discovered I wasn’t. It was like Lend and I had talked about—no one could say when they were going to die. You did the best with the time you had, filled it with people and things you loved, and hoped that whatever came after was as good or better. I was finally okay with this whole finite mortality thing.

“Alright, you big pansy. I’ll figure out the other one.”

Frowning, I tried to sense the area around me, knowing that beyond the surface of the world were other worlds, the distance between almost paper-thin. But I didn’t know what I was looking for, didn’t know how to find it. I turned
to Vivian, but she shrugged.

I closed my eyes. The only things I knew about why Empty Ones worked the way we did was that we had room for extra souls because we started out with less, and that we could make gates because of our innately human sense of home. But my home was
here
. How on earth was I supposed to find another one?

“The gate needs to be opened and closed before dawn,” Cresseda said, a hint of strain flowing through her voice.

“YES. THANKS FOR THAT. VERY HELPFUL RIGHT NOW.” I glared at her, but a splash drew my attention to another part of the pond, where I saw the head of the fossegrim I’d partially drained watching me, his murky eyes narrowed, whether in hatred or anticipation I couldn’t tell. Then I looked up and saw the sylph nervously swooping around, and an idea clicked. I was still holding on as tightly as I could to my own soul, and my own soul belonged right here. But the others…

Taking a deep breath, I released control, letting the other souls well up and overwhelm me, changing and shifting my senses, making this world feel cold and old, the dirt and decay clogging my sinuses, the very air hastening my death even as it prolonged my life. I shuddered, knowing that I didn’t belong here, this wasn’t my world. My world was—

There. Just beyond my fingertips. I could even feel the rough edges of the tear that had brought them here, nearly
healed, almost past the point where it could receive them back.

I blindly held out a hand and felt Vivian take it, squeezing reassuringly. “Here,” I whispered, guiding her hand forward. “Their home. Can you feel it?”

“I…yeah, I think I can. I definitely can. It feels—Oh, Evie, I want to go there.” Her voice was low with longing.

“Let’s open the gate, then.” We pushed against the air together, and I willed everything in me, all the souls there that belonged elsewhere, to push through.

Then the world exploded.