Ether (17 page)

            His eyes
plead with me to say no, to turn away. I want to but I can’t. “I can do it,” I
say resolutely, which is how I end up walking by myself across the damp grass
of the football field, heading for the little woods that border our property.
It’s broad daylight out but the sky is overcast and hung low, like a gun metal
curtain spread between me and the warming sun.

            Behind me I
feel the connection that stretches between Ephraim and me and the thin
brightness that is his essence. His light is all but blotted out by the
oppressive coldness ahead of me. The woods, usually so fresh and clean in the
late fall, have a dark, murky chill to them. It is the kind of cold that bites
into your lungs going down, making it harder to breathe with each breath.

            Walking
into the woods feels a little like drowning all over again. My lungs tighten
and I fight to stay calm. I sense the Numina before me. They are points of
turmoil, unnatural swirls of energy churning endlessly. And in the center of that
roiling mass of wrongness is Matt. He’s standing still, arms wide open and laughing.
“I think Derrick might be right after all. The more they die, they crazier they
get. Look at you, just walking up to me, all alone and willing. How would you
like me to kill you this time? I really prefer strangulation; it’s so slow and
personal. But we’re not really equipped for that here are we?”

            His eyes are
empty pools of darkness. I search them for any sign of Matt struggling through.
Shouldn’t he still be sweating and slack skinned. Shouldn’t he still be
fighting to hold on to his body? I feel my palms itch with the energy crawling
just under my skin. I long to press them against Inteus and drive the monster
out of Matt, but Ephraim has told me to stay still, to wait for the right
moment to strike. We’ll only get one chance at this.

            Matt hefts
half of a fallen tree like it’s a twig, swirling it in his hands in wide
swooshing arcs. He chuckles to himself, and this time it sounds eerily warm and
human. “You have no idea how great it is to
feel
again. It’s been a thousand
years since I’ve had a real human body to call my own. To see with, touch with,
kill with. You probably don’t appreciate what a gift it is, just to see and
taste and feel.”

            His empty
eyes trail over me in a way that sends terrible prickles down my spine. “And
what a waste it is just to kill a body like yours when it could have been put
to so much better uses. All for the greater good, I suppose.” He swings the
branch again, this time sending it whirling towards me as he advances. The
branch whistles perilously close to my head. He doesn’t need to touch me, or
come within arm’s reach to kill me, he can do it right now. But he won’t.
Ephraim’s sure he won’t and the more I hear, the more I believe it too. He
won’t kill me right away, because he’s savouring this.

            “It is a
pity,” I say keeping my voice as calm as I can. He wants me terrorized, but I’m
not going to give him that. “Trying to kill me over and over only to fail. And
with all your bat shit crazy friends watching from the ether. It’s got to be
murder on your reputation.”

            Matt checks
himself in mid step, eyes closing to slits. “Was that a joke Rebecca? Your grisly
deaths are amusing to you? Then you’re going to find what happens next just
hilarious.”

The
branch swings up again, almost taking off my ear as it hisses around my head. I
stand stalk still, I swear I don’t even flinch. Annoyance ticks across Matt’s
icy features.  Good, I’m getting to him. “It is funny, when you think about it.
Come on, you planned this whole macabre, virgin sacrifice blood ritual and
then, accidentally leave me alive, and powerful, and pissed. You kind of suck
at the evil villain thing.”

The
branch droops in his hands and he leans it against the ground. “I suck? That’s
your epiphany as you approach your final moment? But maybe you’re not seeing
the really big picture yet. I didn’t fail to kill you, little human bitch, I
killed you just enough. Just dead enough for your Ethereal stalker to save you,
just dead enough for you to need ethereal healing, just hurt enough to return
to the ether, again and again. See the kicker is, a dead human isn’t good for
anything. No useful body, no gateway, just a passing of the spirit into the Nether
world and a hunk of meat. But a dead hybrid, something not quite human, not
quite ethereal,
that
breaks all kinds of natural laws. Laws
they
broke, not us. And the really delicious bit of it all; it’s those damned self-righteous
ethereals that broke the bonds of nature. Four million millennia of calling us
unnatural abominations and it’s them that break the rules, again. It’s sweet
really.” His eyes focuse on my face again. “Not that I expect you to appreciate
the supreme justice of it all. You’re probably too caught up in the
insignificance of your own useless existence coming to an end, again. But on
the way out you can give your ethereal friend a nice big thank you from us, he’ll
have all eternity to enjoy it.”

His
eyes glitter with delight and he swings the branch up over his head whirling it
like a lasso. I lunge for him, taking my moment. All I have to do is graze him,
even the tiniest contact and I’m ready to pour all of my power, all of
Ephraim’s power into him. I only need the smallest of contact points. My hands
sail through a thick mist, and close on nothing. My body pitches forward,
momentum carrying me. My knees hit the ground, jarring pain along my body. I
look up just in time to see the branch spinning, spinning overhead. Round and
round, closer and closer until it comes crashing down against my skull. The
bones shatter and thick wetness sprays out. My body slumps lifeless and empty
to the ground.

He
throws back his head, crowing with the glory of it. His cold laughter fills the
forest as he stands over my crumpled body. His shoulders shake and he bends
down to dip his fingers in my blood. The echoing sound of a baseball bat cracking
against a skull ricochets off the trees, chasing the laughter. Matt’s fine,
tall body collapses against the blood soaked earth of the forest floor, pinning
my body beneath him. Justin stands over him, eyes full of fire. He kneels
beside Matt, checks his pulse and ignores my body altogether. Justin lets out a
long breath and lets the bat fall from his hands.

“Becka,”
he calls into the dimness of the forest. Slowly, stiffly I peel myself away
from the tree trunk, just inches away from the image of my broken body. I wrench
my gaze away, wishing that Ephraim would dismiss the image. Real or not, it’s
disturbingly familiar.

I
put my hand on Justin’s shoulder and he startles. He whirls around and sweeps
me into his arms, holding me tightly. His touch burns some of the numbness
away. I savour his touch and then force myself to push him away so I can kneel
beside Matt. According to Ephraim, it won’t be long before he heals, even from
a severe head wound. It’s virtually impossible to permanently hurt ethereal
influenced bodies, wasn’t I proof enough of that?

I
have to kneel in pools of my own illusionary blood to touch him. Shutting out
the horror of it, I push both hands around his throat, closing on his pulse
point. This is the best place to disrupt the contact, according to my one and
only guide.

I
wrap my fingers around his throat, squeezing slightly, like I’m strangling him.
Pressure builds up inside my arms, scalding along my tender new skin until it
burst forth, gushing out of me and into him. The power rushes into him and
where my fingers touch his neck there’s a brilliant blue line of electric fire,
like someone’s holding a welding torch against him. His eyes fly open and roll
up in their sockets. His jaw drop opens and he screams in agony. The sound is
half human, half other worldly and so shrill it makes my teeth ache. There’s
enough of Matt’s voice in the scream that I loosen my fingers, just a little,
uncertainty filling me. How much is enough? I don’t want to kill him.

Matt’s
body bucks against me, his arms smash against mine almost knocking my hands off
of him. I jam my palms against him, clutching with all my strength. He almost
had me, he almost tricked me into letting go. His dark eyes bore into mine,
making my mind feel empty and glassy. I hold onto one thought, one purpose. I
have to keep him down. His body bucks, punches, strains, fights against me, but
still I hold on. I sense Justin near, helping to hold him, pinning his arms so
that he can’t throw me off of him but I don’t dare look up.

The
keen catches me off guard when it comes. An unearthly yowl echoes off the
trees, filling all the space around and between my ears. It resonates in my
bones, shaking my arms until they are jarred loose from his throat. Sitting
back on my heals I watch the final back breaking arch of his body, the keening
dying away and leaving his body sweating and limp.

            “Becca?”
Matt whispers hoarsely, staring up at me from the ground.

            “Matt?” I
close my eyes, reaching for him with the otherness that comes from Ephraim, but
there’s nothing left to draw on. I’ve burned myself out. “Ephraim? Is he,
him
?”

            “He is,”
Ephraim affirms, crouching next to us. His eyes met mine, a heavy weight of
unsaid things hanging between us; how weak Matt is, how much we need to move
him, how easy it would be for a Numina to retake him, how vulnerable I am right
now without a drop of his power left in me.

            But while
we’re having our little moment Justin’s already helping Matt to sit up. Matt is
trembling all over and his skin is as cold and colorless as death, but he’s
alive, and trying to move. Justin puts an arm around him, levering him up to
his feet. Matt’s standing but I can see from the strain in Justin’s face that
he’s taking most of the weight. “I think it’s time to get the hell out of here,
don’t you Becka?”

            I nod,
still numb, still slow to move. Ephraim’s arm circles my waist, lifting me much
the same way Justin’s supporting Matt. I lean into his warmth. After touching
so much darkness, the warmth of being close to him is like pure joy. His arm
tightens around me, feeling as real as any other man’s arms ever will. I let my
head fall against his chest as he guides us out of the woods and towards the
football field. I belong with him. Just now, having faced down death yet again
there doesn’t seem to be any point in lying to myself. When I’m with Ephraim I
felt complete, like my soul is whole and the lost, confusing experiences of my
life melt away into happiness. I don’t know if that means love, but I know I can’t
live without it, not now that I’ve found him.

            As if he can
read my thoughts Ephraim pauses, shifting his body so he can look me in the
eyes. His eyes are very bright, very intense, very focused on me. He leans
closer, just a little and my breath catches in my throat. “Ephraim,” I warn
him, before he can do what it looks like he’d about to do. “You know, I’m sort
of, with Justin. Not officially, but-”

            Ephraim
presses one soft finger against my lips, “I know. And that makes sense. He’s
human. You’re human.” I start to shake my head but he hasn’t moved his finger
and that slight pressure is enough to still me. “You
are
human and young
and this, between us, is really new and uncertain. For now, he really is better
for you. Which is why I’m
not
going to kiss you, yet. But I’m yours,
whenever, however you need me. Forever. So someday…” His thumb caresses the
side of my face, very lightly and he draws his hand away. My lips still feel
warm where he touched them.

            My whole
body strains toward him, aching for his warmth, his touch. I know without a
doubt that if he had tried to kiss me, right then, I would have thrown myself
into his arms without hesitation. I sneak a guilty look over at Matt and
Justin, who are both oblivious as they strain towards the parking lot, maybe a
hundred feet away from us. I’m feeling faint and giddy in Ephraim’s arms, from
the ordeal or from his closeness I can’t tell. Ephraim’s still looking at me
intently, watching my reaction. It feels strange for him to offer himself to me
and at the same time give me permission to pursue things with Justin. Yet
another way in which he isn’t quite real. I sigh. “It could be a long wait,” I
say, surprising myself.

            “That’s
okay. I’m a very patient eternal being,” He says it lightly, but he sounds
happy. I smile up at him. Maybe he has a right to be happy, maybe we both do. I’m
not dead. Matt’s not dead and considering what we were up against, that’s not
nothing.

            At the edge
of the parking lot Justin looks over his shoulder, realizes how far behind we’ve
dropped and turns to wait for us. Our eyes meet over the green, and the space
between us seems to yawn larger and more impassable. It feels like a rift is
forming between us, cutting us off from each other.

            I shake
myself, trying to snap out of my melodrama, and realize that it isn’t just
figurative thinking, Justin’s growing smaller, more distant, further away. I
clutch Ephraim as the world tilts and squeezes, “Ephraim!”

            His arms
tighten around me, and then pass through me, wispy and transparent. I stagger,
falling through his image and struggling to stay on my feet as the colour wash
out of the world not in whiteness but in deepening grey until the scene shifts and
I feel asphalt harden under my feet. I smell oil, burning rubber, blood; a
sickening combination that brings me back to one very specific moment in time.
Unwillingly, my head turns until the twisted metal and the broken body on the
ground fill my vision.