The Three Fates of Ryan Love (28 page)

S
abelle reached for Joel's collar, wedging the spoon's handle inside a link and using it as a lever to pry the link open. Joel looked older, beaten.

“She means to torture the ones we love,” she said, giving him a shake.

“I know.”

“That negates our consent.”

“I'm with you.”

“These things she has around our necks will help her track us. Nona, the youngest sister, used them on her seers. She was very suspicious. In the days when we were allowed to run free, she would collar them so she'd know everything they did. Blood, crystal, copper. It's powerful.”

“Beyond's version of GPS?”

“Something like that.”

The links didn't give. Fighting the feeling of futility, she jammed the spoon handle through a different spot and tried again. “Am I hurting you?”

“Nope.”

The spoon bent. The collar stayed intact.

“Let me try.” Joel took a fresh spoon and worked on hers, bent that spoon, and grabbed another.

They took turns trying to break the links on each other's collars, then on their own, but nothing gave. Finally, in frustration, Sabelle threw the bent spoon across the room, where it clattered into the corner. She stared at the misshapen thing and froze.

Joel was cussing creatively when he noticed. “What? You see something?”

Sabelle turned her wide eyes on him. “He could bend spoons with his mind.”

“Who?”

“Ryan said it.”

“Ryan can bend spoons? Bully for him. How's that going to help us?”

“No, no. He said a guy had come into the bar who could do it. Bend spoons with his mind.”

“Why does that matter?”

“These chains—in the human world they were necklaces. Delicate, breakable.”

Joel nodded, but he didn't understand.

“I knew she wouldn't put such a flimsy thing around my neck unless it became something
more
when we got here.”

Joel was still nodding, still not understanding. “Looks like you were right.”

“It's what she wanted me to think. She could have put steel around our necks in your world and I wouldn't have been as afraid of them as I was of this small thing she expected to have such power. She did that because she knew
we'd
make them strong. With our minds, Joel. She knew our fear would give them all the power we didn't see.”

He stopped nodding. “You think?”

“I do. We are bound to her by blood because of our birth. That means we might be just as powerful as she. Right now she's weak—that's why she looks old—but she's drawing from us already. I watched her hair turn dark right before our eyes.”

“Okay. So what do we do?”

“Take it back. Own our own power instead of letting her steal it. Bend the spoons, Joel.”

With that, she gently reached up and lifted the collar. Its weight had become overwhelming, but as she cleared her mind and pictured what it had looked like when Aisa settled it around her neck, it began to feel lighter. Thinner. Breakable. She smiled triumphantly as she began to pull the weakest links apart with her fingers.

S
abelle wasn't behind any of the doors in the first hall or second. Ryan came up empty in the third and panic set in. He skidded down another hall and saw a door that was cracked open a few inches. Cautiously, he approached it. Standing to the side, he used his fingertips to swing it back enough that he could look in. On the other side was a dining hall loaded with dishes and food. A roasted pig, complete with apple in its mouth, lay on a gold platter next to loaves of crusty bread, soufflés, puddings, cakes, and candies. A feast fit for gods.

His stomach rolled. He turned to see the rest of the room and someone tackled him from behind. Even though he was dressed in mail, his attacker had the element of surprise and knocked Ryan off balance. He came down hard and skidded across the slick floor. A man flipped him over and drew back with a clenched fist. In the same instant, they recognized each other.

Joel jumped off him. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded, helping Ryan up.

Before he could answer, Ryan's searching gaze found Sabelle. She stood to the right of the table, dressed in a simple gown that couldn't hide all of her curves. She had shadows under her eyes and scratches and scrapes on her arms, chest, and throat.

She stared at him with those baby blues that glistened with tears. Then she clenched her eyes tight and shook her head.

He approached like he had that first night, murmuring soft hushing noises as he drew close. Gently he cupped her faced and kissed her.

Sabelle's sob tore his heart. He gathered her in his arms and made his body the anchor she needed.

“It's really you,” she cried, pressing her face into the hollow of his throat and breathing in his scent. “It's really you.”

He did the same, his nose at her temple, her scent filling him. Calming him. It took more than one try to speak but at last he managed. “I'm here to take you home, snowflake.”

Suddenly a shriek echoed from deep in the castle, rolling down the corridor like thunder. An alarm, pealing stridently. Aisa had found the naked squire.

Ryan turned to Joel, keeping Sabelle tucked against his body. “Your ride is coming, Joel. When it gets here, you get on and get out. You and Sabelle both. Understand?”

Joel narrowed his eyes, reading the message on Ryan's face. The determined look in his eye.

“You and Sabelle both,” Ryan repeated. “Don't look back.”

“What about you? Shouldn't we go together?” Sabelle asked. “Stick together? I'm not afraid of Aisa anymore. I can bend spoons.”

Ryan looked at her in surprise. “That's good. You'll have to show me how, when I get home.”

He kissed her again while in his head he called for the reaper. Santo answered in seconds. Ryan hadn't been sure he would.

Ryan saw Santo coming this time, seeping through the door and onto the floor. It was all happening so fast. It needed to happen fast, but now that the time had come, he felt the pain of it. Ryan pressed his mouth to Sabelle's, then held her away. He met Joel's eyes over her head. Joel nodded reluctantly.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

Ryan nodded. “Every bit of me.”

In the next moment, Aisa rushed into the room, followed by what seemed a world of swirling black.
Her
reapers. But Santo was quicker. He pooled at Joel's and Sabelle's feet and covered them in an instant. Ryan's last sight was of Sabelle as realization came over her. “No,” she cried, reaching out to him.

Then she was gone, leaving Ryan alone with Aisa.

He faced the fury that had once been a goddess. Her appearance decomposed as he stared, becoming light, dark, then a swirling mass that resembled nightmares and smoke. Her reapers glommed on to her, hungry and desperate but too well trained to attack without her signal.

“Looks like we've got a problem,” he said.

He held the penny tight in his hand, and as he watched the horror show in front of him, thoughts played through his mind. Bits and pieces of conversations with significance he'd somehow missed. The room seemed to be getting brighter.

A death in the Beyond is always noticed.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the powerful light he'd seen in the beginning gleaming through the French doors that opened onto a balcony. Everything inside him turned like a flower to the sun, seeking its warmth. The light called to him and he wanted to answer.

The light of life was always brighter than the one of the afterlife. That's the one I followed.

Penny in one hand, he drew the sword from its sheath with the other.

In our world, she's only an illusion.

But in this one, she could be hurt.

Her reapers recoiled from the brightness, fighting with each other in their ravenous hunger. His soul was still fresh, and as much as they feared it, they wanted it. They distracted Aisa.

Ryan moved fast, before she realized that he was armed. He swung at her and she managed to dodge, sucking items into her whirlwind of rage as she spun. She churned the banquet on the table into missiles, hurling plates and spoons and heavy goblets at him. One struck his head like a hammer and he staggered back, the unwieldy sword falling from his hand before he'd even found a target.

She'll die if she comes to the human world.

Blood gushed from the wound at his temple. He fell to his knees among the scattered debris on the floor. An apple rolled from beneath the table and banged against his leg. He stared at it as Aisa moved in for the kill.

Roxanne whispered in his head, her voice clear.
Does she have poisoned apples?

Aisa's shape was slowly coming back into focus now that she had him on his knees, but her terrible visage had lost all relation to humanity. She looked like a two-legged monster in gym shorts.

Copper is a blood metal. Your blood is special.

Santo this time, with that amused note in his voice that couldn't hide how much he cared. A thick drop of blood rolled down Ryan's face and onto the red skin of the apple.

Copper. Blood. Power.

He scooped up the apple, jammed the penny into its meat, and rammed his body into Aisa's. He hit her hard and low, shoulder to her belly. Monster or no, it knocked the breath out of her. She doubled over, mouth open as she fought to draw in air. Ryan didn't hesitate. He shoved the apple in, wedging it between her pointy teeth at the same time he brought a left hook hard and up to her chin.

From a speedy blur to a painful drag, time warped, then stopped altogether. The writhing creature Aisa had become staggered away from him. The apple was still jammed in her open mouth just like it had been in the pig's. Poetic justice he hoped he'd one day have a chance to appreciate.

She reached for the apple and tried to pull it out, but it was lodged tight.

Ryan smiled. “Good luck with that.”

Panic flashed across her face as she struggled, muffled screams making the black cloud of reapers recoil.

Shocked that he'd stopped her—or at least slowed her down—Ryan scrambled to his feet and darted through the open doors of the veranda. He glanced back as she bit off the hunk of apple wedged in her mouth and threw the rest away. Furious, she tried to spit the rest out, but the bite was lodged behind her teeth and she began to choke on it. Fury and fear filled her eyes, but she was too stubborn to let either win—and she'd yet to realize the significance of what he'd put in her mouth. Glaring at Ryan with demented triumph, she swallowed hard.

Ryan could almost see the fruit's flesh sliding down her throat, copper penny embedded in its flesh, his own blood part of the sweet mix. With a cry of rage, Aisa came after him.

Exactly as he'd hoped.

He jumped over the balcony to the ground floor and raced away.

The mail was heavy, his steps labored, and his head light, but he ran for all he was worth, making sure she kept pace with him. He tore through the palace gates, out of the perpetual twilight and into the gloom, with Aisa gaining on him at every turn. Good. He kept going, blind in the dark, until a bright light shone above. Ryan felt it calling to him and he stopped, turning to catch Aisa in his arms.

He held her tight, owning her through blood and strength as she screeched and scratched, trying to get free. The light above called him, but that was not the light he wanted. Like a tow beam, it pulled him and dragged him toward the end he couldn't avoid, though. He fought for as long as he could, looking away, down, up—everywhere. Searching. Seeking the light that Roxanne had always seen.

The only thing he found was more darkness clustered around that one blinding beacon.

Unlike his remarkable sister, there was no other light to bring Ryan home. He closed his eyes, accepting his fate. At least it would be the last that Aisa would ever control.

He pictured Sabelle, safe with his sister and Joel. They would take care of her. In time, she'd move on. Fate may have brought them together, but in the end, destiny had forced them apart.

The light felt warm on his face. Aisa's struggles weakened as they moved closer. He didn't know if it calmed her, too, or if she understood that he'd meant to expel her from the Beyond and failed. The will to care drained as the light inexorably drew him closer.

He was almost there when something winked in the corner of his vision. Before he could turn, Aisa gave a bloodcurdling scream and began to fight anew.