Ephemeral (The Countenance) (57 page)

I try to struggle out of his grasp as he continues to bash me over the skull.

Fuck.

He’s in hot pursuit of the life-healing delicacy that resides in my cranium and won’t give up until he’s feasted on my grey matter.

He pinches my shoulders together, fast and hard—pissed and hungry for a complete resurrection. He compresses my bones as if trying to get my brain to ooze out of my ears.

Shit—can’t breathe.

Here I am, a supposed angel with the powers of both strength and speed, and I’m about to die at the hands of a lethargic Spectator of all creatures.

An image of Tucker pops in my mind. I picture him laughing while getting it on with the entire volleyball team in the background, and something in me reverts.  

I knee the cadaverous bastard in the balls, in hopes it’s an undead of the male variety.

He lets out a strangled
oof,
so I embark on another bionic blow, then another and another until I’m clearly doing it just for fun.

The Spectator falls in a heap at my feet, and I reach down and snatch up a stick ready and willing to offer some serious damage to the ocular region.

“Laken,
no!
” Coop races toward me, and I run to meet him. He collapses his arms around me and gives a wild spin. Coop buries his face into my neck before pulling me to safety. “We can’t hurt them. We can’t risk killing the Tobias family.”

“Edinger lost his head in the kitchen.” The entire story speeds out of me in jags. “What’s happening?”

He squints into the forest, lost by what he sees. “Laken,” he whispers, frozen in his concern, “they’re everywhere.”

Cooper walks me back slowly as if he knew the lay of the land even in this dismal light.

Then I see them, first a couple of staggering bodies, then ten, then easily twenty as they tread their way deeper into the woods.

“This place goes on for miles,” he whispers. “If they’re smart, they can keep away from danger.”

“They want brain food.”

I trip over an errant branch and land square on my bottom, pulling Coop on top of me in the process. The errant
branch
just so happens to hold a terrible stench and groans beneath the weight of us.

It reaches up and attaches its face to Cooper’s eye with the reflexes of a ninja.

“Shit!” I try to pummel the creature in the chest with my fists, but it simply rolls Coop over, pinning him down like a ragdoll.

An arm pulls me backward. I land on the ground as a putrid mouth seals itself over my eye, and my skin burns like fire. It has long stringy hair and a petite frame that lends me to believe it’s a woman.

I give a shrill cry in its ear.

A scuffle breaks out behind me, nothing but kicking and grunting and the disturbance of leaves.

I try to think of the things that infuriate me like Tucker, Grayson, or Kresley, but nothing in me is capable of moving this female version of the undead off me.

“
Laken
.” My name booms from the street.

The loud pop of the Ruger discharges.

The body gnawing on my eyebrow jerks before collapsing over me with its full weight.

“Thank God,” I groan, rolling out from beneath it.

The gun goes off three more times, and I can’t help but wonder if that last dart was meant for Coop.

Wesley helps me up, pulls me into a vice-like embrace.

“Are you okay?” He whispers it hot over my ear, still out of breath.

Coop dusts himself off and gives a hard look toward Wes and me. Cooper and I lock eyes for a brief moment. The look of hurt on his face sears through me like an incision.

“I’m fine. If it wasn’t for Coop…” I shake my head unable to finish.

“Let’s get out of here.” Cooper ticks his head toward the street. He navigates us out in less than a minute, and we end up in Ms. Paxton’s driveway, panting—my lungs burning from the effort.

The forest across the street drapes thick and heavy like a velvet curtain. The evergreens spindle out into darkness, holding a deeper shade of ebony than the night itself. From this angle the forest looks harmless, nothing at all like a haunt for the unsuccessfully resurrected.

Coop wraps his arms around me and presses his lips over the top of my head like a habit.
Thank God you’re okay.

“Hey,” Wes barks. It takes two seconds for him to grab Coop by the collar and slam him against his brand new Range Rover.

“Keep the fuck away from her.” He gives a hard knee to the balls before ending his tirade with a solid kick to the gut.

“Cooper!” I fall to my knees, and interlace my fingers with his.

Say I’m an asshole, and I deserved it.
He takes in a sharp breath still writhing from the pain.

No
.
I’m not going to let Wes do this to you.

It’s done, Laken, and so are your odds of getting in the inner circle if you don’t declare your loyalty
.

I jump to my feet and wrap my arms around Wesley.

I’ll give one inch and no more.

Wes touches his cheek to mine and interlaces our fingers.

If Flanders likes the forest so much, I’ve got one I can take him to. And I’ll damn well make sure he never gets out
.

I dart a glance to Wes. It takes everything in me not to replicate the bodily assault he just pulled off on Cooper.

Mr. Edinger comes out of the house with his head clearly attached, and this startles me even more than the Spectators did.

“What’s going on?” He looks mildly concerned, but something in his eyes gleams—lets me know he’s simply amused.

“Everything’s okay.” Wes blinks a smile. “Laken thought she’d join Coop for a midnight run.”

Mr. Edinger gives a devilish grin. The moon casts a sickly glow over his skin, and his teeth glitter like shards. “I guess you can’t keep young love down.”

I shoot a quick glance over to Coop.

The three of us sit there locked in the awkwardness Mr. Edinger deposited us in.

“You’re right,” Wes says, landing a kiss on my cheek. He gives a hard look over to Coop. “You can’t.”

57

Lucid as the Day is Long

The next day, Ephemeral takes a battering from a freak electrical storm that vomits out monsoon-like rains. One growl of thunder after another detonates testing the resolve of the windows at the Ephemeral library. The sky ignites bright as a nuclear blast, quick and spastic, as if someone is turning on and off the sun like a light switch. Winds that promise to snap branches and power lines, unleash their merciless fury over our corner of the world.

I sit in the library with Wes after school and watch as he teaches me how to code new items into the system. The scent of books has always intoxicated me. I loved the library back in Cider Plains. I loved walking through the rich-perfumed aisles, handling the Mylar-wrapped hardbacks, the cotton-soft paperbacks with pages that have turned to cloth.  

Wesley’s hand rubs against mine, subtle as a feather, as he whispers from behind. His breath tickles my cheek, his soft cologne permeates my sweater and I roll my head into him for a moment believing I have old Wes back.

He coils my hair around his fingers before dropping a kiss onto my forehead.

“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice emits from the counter.

We turn to find Coop sopping wet with his backpack cinched over his shoulder.

“I think we accidentally swapped lit books.” He blinks a manufactured smile at Wes. “Mine is filled with notes.”

Wes tenses up. His entire body goes rigid at the sight of Cooper.

“Oh, sure.” I get up and grab my backpack from under the counter.

“Also,” Coop calls to me softly, his eyes speak in code, “I found that website with the outline of Bovary—the charts help break it down into scenes.” He shrugs. “It’s a little complicated.”

“Would you show me? I’m lousy at navigating those kinds of things.” I turn to Wes and gently tug at his collar. “You mind?”

“No, go ahead. I’ll man the fort,” he says as a group of students flock to the counter, each sliding forward a small mountain of books.

I follow Coop over to a private table near the back and wait as he plucks out his laptop.

In the distance I spot Jax coming in with Kresley and Grayson. She’s wearing a plum-colored beret, disguising the fact her hair is singed off at the scalp. Jen really does know how to serve up revenge, despite the fact she tried force-feeding her geriatric medicinal products. Jen thought laxatives would do someone like Jax a little good, not realizing that an inferno might result from the craptastic effort. I tried convincing her that neither arson nor bowel cleansing were amicable solutions, but she was proud of her descent into illicit activities, so I gave up the effort.  

“There is no Flaubert cheat site.” Cooper gives sly grin that disarms me in so many ways.

“Didn’t think so.” I look up in time to see Kresley trying to worm her way back into Wesley’s heart. She leans over the counter seductively and tries desperately to engage Wes in conversation. I turn a little, so I don’t have to subject myself to the show. “You find out anything about Edinger?” It took everything in me not to ditch first period. Coop said he’d do a little digging.

“Outside of the fact he keeps a house in L.A. and his grandfather is sick—nothing really. My dad thinks there’s a good chance he might be a Fem.”

“A Fem?” I gasp. “Those things hate me.” No wonder he lost his head in the kitchen. If he is a Fem, I’m sure I can count on many more interesting limb detachments in the future—hopefully none of my own.   

“I don’t think they hate you.” He gives a brief smile into his laptop. “They’re just doing their job. Someone wants them to torment you.”

“Like the Tobias sisters?”

“I’m not sure.” He pulls his lips into a line.

Cooper logs into Facebook and twists the monitor, so I can have a better look.

“What’s this?”

“I thought you might know her,” Coop says it low as if he had just handed me a loaded gun.

Laken Stewart.

My name, my effigy, they stare back at me as though they had never left.

“Oh my, God,” I breathe it out in a strangled whisper. A surge of tears filter to the surface at the sight of my face—my familiar name—that up until now were nothing but a warped dream.

Cooper leans in. “I knew with everything in me you were telling the truth.” His eyes light up sharp as flint.

It’s me. My old name, my avatar unchanged—a picture of me in my old room with my fingers splayed out in a peace sign.

“How did you do this?” What if it’s just another trick—another way to manipulate my emotions.  

“I had a run in with Hattie and Amelia last night in the Transfer.” Cooper resonates the light from above like a savior. “I asked them to do this as a good will offering, to get us started on the right foot—told them you might be willing to help if you had some answers.”

“But how? I tried…”

“Our codes are being hijacked. They use the same end code to derail every web link right back to an approved site.”

“And you removed the codes.” I blink back tears and stare at the screen in wonder.

There it is. Every person I ever knew in Cider Plains has left a good-bye, one after the other—a mile-long eulogy all in my honor.

“There’s one more thing.” Cooper grips my hand under the table. “I asked about your mom and sister.” His features harden as if the news were grim.

“No.” I shake my head at the implication. “They’re not down there.”

He pauses a very long time. I can feel him rooting into me, loving me with a thousand tendrils of his affection.

“I’m sorry, Laken. They say they are.” His eyes swell up with tears. “According to them, your mother had enough Celestra in her to qualify, so did your sister, Lacey.” He gives a gentle squeeze. “I read an article from your local paper. It said the two of them picked up after your death and never came home.”

The room spins. The chair beneath me feels as though it’s about to give way.

“I didn’t go to the tunnels. They brought me here instead.” The words quiver out of me, numb from the idea of anyone hurting Lacey or my mother. “We have to find them, Coop. We have to find the Tobias sisters right now. I have to get to Lacey.”

“They’re emphatic with the terms. No Tobias Spectator revival, no roadmap to our families.”

“Coop.” I bleed his name in despair.

“There’s one more thing.” He rubs his thumb over my palm in a slow deliberate circle. “I’m almost positive there’s a person right here at Ephemeral who knows exactly how to get into those tunnels.”

“Let’s go.” I jump to my feet and try to pull him with me.

“It’s not that easy.” He reels back gently. “We need to be careful, or we can get our families and ourselves killed—permanently.”

I open my mouth to ask the question, but I already know the answer.

“It’s Wesley.” His name streams from my lips like a necrotic poem.

Cooper gives a long blink, affirming my worst nightmare.   

Wes appears and presses out a deep warm smile as he wraps an arm around my shoulders.