My phone buzzes softly from the dresser, and I scoop it up as we walk out the door. It’s a text from Coop.
If you need me just say my name. I will be there. Anywhere, anytime. I promise.
Anywhere, anytime. Coop knows where I’m about to go, what I’m about to do. I push out a bleak smile. I know Coop means well, but I seriously doubt he’ll be able to find me in that room of fire later this evening. I seriously doubt that once Wes pins me down with his hormone-driven honorable intent that Coop will be able to extract me from Wesley, not tonight, not ever.
I shake my head, despondent while looking at the text. This is definitely one of those rare instances when even the amazing Cooper Flanders can’t save me. Perhaps this had been my destiny all along? Becoming Wesley’s Essential. Maybe that’s why fate had Skyla find me in the Transfer and try to breathe life into me. Little did she know she was preserving my memory, making me impervious to the desires of the Counts. If she hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here in a white dress ready to consummate an eternal union with Wes just to save my family. And then there’s Coop. If fate and destiny do exist, it makes me wonder why the hell they brought Coop into the mix. Why did they make me fall so fast, so hard for an amazing soul that I can never have? It’s not fair. A girl should only fall in love once. I should have held strong for Wes, and now, on the eve of what amounts to my wedding day, I’ll have a broken heart to deal with, and so will Coop. But just as Skyla saved me, Coop was the very next person to do so. If he hadn’t killed that Spectator in the woods the first day I arrived, it would have been my final hour. I can’t help but believe destiny and fate put him in my path just like they did Skyla. But then I’m not crying over the fact I’m never going to be with Skyla again. It’s Coop that my body wants. And I wish it didn’t. I wish Wes were enough just like before. I wish Wes was who he used to be. But it’s Cooper who set fire to my heart and landed himself as my eternal flame. Loving Cooper Flanders was a blaze that no one or anything could ever put out. I already know that.
Jen leads us downstairs where several girls, including Fallon, Jax, Grayson, and Kres wait in their little black dresses, each one shorter than the last.
Kres steps up to me, her eyes reduced to nothing, her cheeks blotchy from tears. “So this is really happening?” She shakes her head with a fury. “You don’t even love him.” She cries out in anguish as she lunges toward me.
Jax pulls her back by the elbow. “Let it go.” She glares at me with her dark, muddy eyes, anger percolating just beneath the surface. “Both you and your sister better watch your backs.”
“Out!” Jen barks, and we’re quick to follow her into the still of the night with the stars pulsating in and out of the fog like hazard lights from the throne of God.
The chanting begins. Our voices drift soft and airy, spiraling up toward heaven, light as snow. The darkness, the fog, the ever increasing fervor of this high-pitched choir, demons pretending to be angels, it all disorients me on some level. This is nothing more than a nightmare robed in the thin veil of this alternate realty.
We head north toward the woods and enter Sleepy Hollow one by one. Our heels dig into the mulch, Fallon trips over one of the vines slithering over the forest floor like a snake and is quick to right herself, her voice never warbles out of tune. The Counts sing their twisted Halleluiah, higher and higher, far more beautiful and enchanting than I could have ever expected. It’s an orgasmic a cappella that rides the edge of night like a newly-sharpened blade.
The forest gives off a wild sour stench but for the most part, we choose to ignore it.
The sky cracks in seizures of lighting that fracture the night unapologetically. A tree ignites, stiff and upright, like an oversized birthday candle, and Jen is the first to walk through the blue ethereal flame. I watch as the girls walk into the fire, one by one, but I pause, glancing around the forest, a wild panic bucking inside me like a bull to the slaughterhouse. My breathing grows erratic, and I blind myself from the halo of my own making as plumes of fog shoot from my mouth. But it’s not the origin of this stench that lights up the forest I’m looking for. I know full well this vomitus odor means a Spectator is nearby. It’s Coop I’m hoping to see—hoping he’ll play hero one last time and save me from another kind of death.
“Let’s move it before Jen calls out the cavalry.” Carter nudges me. “It’s time to get royally laid.” She giggles into the night, and a part of me is thankful for her wild cackle. Maybe if Coop hears, he’ll know where to find me.
His text comes to mind. Just call his name.
I believe with all my heart, Coop would be here in a heartbeat if I wanted him to.
“Now.” Carter pushes me toward the haunting blue flame, licking at me with its strange cool tongue.
I step boldly into the portal, and the only thought that crosses my mind is loving Cooper is like fire—all consuming, blessedly beautiful, scalding to the touch, immeasurably impossible to understand. And, now, forever after this, our love will be what it has always been from the beginning—dangerous.
Walls of fire, orange, and red, and every fall color animated, alarming and deadly spread around with wings of flames. We walk single file over to Jen who drapes each of the girls with dark navy robes.
“And for you.” She reaches back and pulls out a crimson velvet wrap that drips to the floor like the blood of my enemies. Ironic, since I’m about to cross over and become an eternal member of the Counts and join their nefarious rank. In the end, it doesn’t matter. They will never have my allegiance. They will never have my heart. This is all a lie, I tell myself as an uncountable number of girls gather around me in a circle.
A line of hooded men head into the room. It’s only then I note I’m standing over a large pearl square, an altar, my marriage bed. The flames shoot higher. The ferocity of their roars lifts several octaves, and every person in the room turns toward the fiery corridor in anticipation of my groom. In the real world, the guests would venerate the bride. She would be the focal point, the piéce de résistance, the nexus of the gathering, but, here, with the Counts in charge, I’m little more than an accessory who ambled in with the crowd.
A tall, stately man marches in wearing a plain navy robe. He smiles over at me, and I can easily make out his familiar features—Jones. He strides over and picks up both my hands. There’s something genuine about the love he holds for me in his smile, the tears that moisten his pale, blue eyes.
He lands a gentle kiss on my cheek before stepping to the side.
A whistle goes off, high and piercing, and it takes everything in me not to cover my ears. The blaze thunders around us, creating its own dark brand of music. The flames rise higher, a darker shade of demon, as a choir emits from their frightening aggression.
Cooper. He spins through my mind like the fire, brilliant and beautiful, commanding the attention of every last part of me.
The flames flicker on and off like a light switch before screaming to life with all the ferocity of a nuclear explosion.
A hooded figure presses against the expanse of the dancing fire, dressed in black, his hood pulled low leaving only his luminescent eyes to reveal his identity like two jade stones glowing in the flames—Wesley. He begins his slow, steady march toward me, and the entire congregation follows his every move.
Nothing is certain. Not one of us is promised tomorrow. The life of any man is a mere breath to God. We are but a mist, here one moment, and then we vanish quick as a vapor. Ours is but a moment in the wind, green grass that withers pale as straw. Last night in Coop’s arms, I was green grass, a fertile field, succulent and verdant. And now the Counts are singing their inglorious hymn as my beautiful Wesley approaches with a dark smile, his eyes filled with unfamiliar wicked intent, and I’m shriveling on the inside, pale as straw, quickly becoming one with my nothingness, a vapor in the wind.
Wes steps onto the iridescent altar, and it illuminates beneath us, rousing as it glows, shining as the sun—a sparkling expanse for us to call
our own.
A curtain of flames erect themselves, giving the illusion that the rest of the room, the people in it have all faded away to nothing.
“This is it,” I whisper, interlacing my hands with his.
A round pillar pushes up behind us, a bed made of pearl, soft and brilliant, the exact location where our lives will change forever. My heart pounds erratic, blood pulsates in front of my eyes like a heartbeat.
Wes takes off his hood, his features serious, his lips tight and curling at the tips. He gently opens my robe, his hand gliding up my bare thigh. Wes never takes his eyes off mine with his curt gaze, hard and piercing, nothing at all like the Wesley I once knew.
He lays me back onto the makeshift bed, my robe falling over the expanse like a blanket.
“Shouldn’t we say something first?” The words speed from me while my heart oscillates in my chest, turning and spinning itself into my throat.
Wes looks into my eyes with his blank stare, a hooded evil lurking in the background.
“In the name of the Countenance and all that is holy above and below the earth, I dedicate our souls to the one and only true divinity. We are about to become one with the league of deities of which we will be the highest order, the masters of our own providence. There shall be no one under this earth that we cannot crush with our heels.” He nods into me. “Repeat after me, I, Laken Anderson…”
My heart thumps. My muscles seize as he lays his body over mine.
“I, Laken Anderson...” But I’m not Laken Anderson, and Wes knows that. I want to say that it’s all a part of this game that we’re playing to get my family back, but something heavy and sinister is pressing over me, far more horrific than I can ever imagine. Wes is gone. He’s a shell, a man possessed, and it’s only now at the intersection of losing my religion and selling my soul to the devil do I realize this is going to lead to every bad place. I have fallen into a bed of thistles and thorns. Hell has opened its mouth wide to swallow me—I think it’s already swallowed Wesley.
“I’m going to lay with you now.” He forces my hands up by my shoulders as his face flickers in tune with the flames, his eyes the color of demonic desire.
Lay? Who the hell has Wes become? I thought I knew him—that I knew what I was doing.
Wes crashes his lips to mine, hard and forceful, his tongue plunging in and roaming around like a gator trying to wrestle down its prey. He parts my legs with his knee, gliding his hands down my body, pulling and tugging at my clothes, at his. I can feel him against my thigh, obstructive and piercing. I turn my head to catch my breath and observe the flames braiding themselves together over and over as if they, too, were struggling to survive.
It’s happening.
Wes pushes my knees back to my hips as he lays his full weight over me.
A blackness so consuming clouds my heart. The dark days were coming, meeting me right here with their necrotic hand.
Wes rises over me ready to press in and make me his for all eternity.
We’re to recite the holy creed, adjusted for this occasion. His dimple ignites soft on his cheek. Then I’ll make you mine, now and forever.
“We are the Countenance,” Wes starts in, his face inches from mine, stone cold and fierce. Wes has become wholly unrecognizable both inside and out. “We are immortal. Flesh and bones and such are not tethered to our flesh. In this world and outside its bounds…” Wes goes on, but my mind fractures under the duress of his words. All I hear is in this world and outside its bounds, I lose my mortal soul.
And all the while a blond-haired boy with eyes of a stone grey sky spins through my mind with the ferocity of molten flames. Loving him is like dancing in a fire.
“Cooper.” No sooner does his name leave my lips than the room claps to darkness, Wes and all of his holy words disappear right along with it.
It’s done.
The only one getting saved tonight is me.
Cooper
I lie over the sacred stone and wait just like the devil told me—Edinger. I can’t help but wonder if I’m not a bigger idiot for believing his bullshit. But, deep down, I’m hoping he was telling the truth. He has to be. Right now that crooked bastard is my only hope.
“Cooper,” my name whispers through the breeze, and the stone beneath me loosens. It disintegrates into a vat of fire. A room filled with flames appears. I spot Wes writhing over Laken and reach down, pulling her up from under Wesley’s body with all my strength.
Laken and I land back on that overgrown stone with a roar still locked in my throat. A flash of lightning goes off overhead, and the skies open up in a jealous rage as if Wesley were raining down all his fury over the two of us, over all of Ephemeral as a punishment.
“Cooper!” Laken wraps her arms around my waist, and I press hard over her, pushing both our bodies into the unforgivable stone.
“Is it too late?” My chest pounds against hers as I struggle to catch my breath. “Did he—are you?” Shit. I can’t get the words out. I don’t want to.
“No.” She shakes her head as a mile wide smile spreads over her face. “You were right on time.” Laken glows a sublime shade of pale against the black stone as the rain beads down her face. She reaches up and cups the side of my cheek with her hand. “You saved me, Coop. You always save me.”
My chest loosens. It’s as if every event that’s transpired over these last few weeks has culminated. I lean in, my lips hopeful for a kiss. Laken pulls up until our mouths are less than a breath away. The sky explodes in a fantastic show of bravado as a bolt of lightning crashes down to the boulders and evicts us to the ground with a terrifying jolt.
“Coop!” Laken holds on for dear life as we straddle the edge of the cliff that leads to a rocky crag about thirty feet down.
“Don’t move,” I say it steady, in a calm even tone. One wrong move in this muddy slick we’re balancing on, and we could both break our necks in the most painful way possible. “I’ve got you.” I sidestep us around the boulder, and my left foot slips. I grind in with my right foot until we’re steady again, and neither one of us dares to breathe.
“Cooper?” It comes out ragged. “How did you get into that room tonight?” The wind picks up. It whistles and howls around the boulders as the rain continues to bear down its misery.
“Supervising spirit.”
“You think he’d mind getting us out of here?” Laken squeezes her eyes shut tight as I take another step to the right. She knows who my supervising spirit is. She surmised it for herself a few weeks back.
The soil gives way beneath my foot. Laken slips from my arm, and I catch her by the hand as she falls into the granite pit. I sail right behind her as we free fall toward the jagged rocks below.
Laken thinks I saved her.
And now I’m hoping I didn’t bring her back just to kill her out of sheer stupidity.
A white, glossy floor expands at our feet as Laken and I tumble out of the water-slicked world and into the Transfer.
“Laken.” I pull her toward me as her lips curl on the sides.
“You saved me again.” She bubbles with a silent laugh. “You’re getting really good at that.”
Or very lucky, but I don’t say a word as I pull her to her feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
“No.” She grips me. Laken’s face smooths out as she takes in my features. She looks stunning in her tight white dress, her matching lace heels, and my stomach churns because it happens to closely resemble a wedding gown. “Let’s hang out for a minute.” Her forehead breaks out in worry lines. “I think we should check in on Richard and Kara and see how they’re doing. It must be hard for them. This place is like a graveyard.”
A graveyard. Laken couldn’t have pinned it any better.
Her eyes enlarge. “Pinned what any better?”
I give a little laugh. All thoughts are fair game in the Transfer.
“Crap.” I let out a breath. “I meant to tell you this sooner, but I paid a little visit to Ezrina about a week ago an
d”—I brace her by the shoulders and shake my head—“I’m sorry, Laken. Something went wrong with the antidote, both Richard and Kara are dead.”
“No!” She covers her mouth in horror. “They never asked for any of this.” She wraps her arms around me and lands her head on my chest. “It’s those damn Counts. They take and they kill without any regard to who they might hurt.” Laken looks up and hooks her finger over my chin. “Thank you for pulling me out of there. It would have killed me to be one of them forever. Although, I guess, in a way, I sort of am.”
“You are who you choose to be.”
Laken closes her eyes for a moment and nods. “I choose to be Laken Stewart, and, unfortunately, Laken Stewart is a Count.”
A putrid stench emits from behind, and I turn to find the old hag staring us down, Ezrina.
“Come.” Her voice echoes through the bright-lit hall as we follow her down to the Count conservatory. The glass coffins stand upright, each filled to the brim with blue fluid while long-dead Counts float inside to complete the insanity. “Life after life.”
Ezrina gives a whole new meaning to brevity.
“Life after life?” I ask as I tighten my arm around Laken’s waist.
“Here.” Ezrina hobbles her hunched back over to a smaller room in the rear of the facility, and we enter to find two children playing with a deck of cards on the floor.
“Laken!” The girl springs to her feet with her short blonde hair, her upturned nose. She can’t be much older than Marky.
“Kara?” Laken looks to me puzzled.
“Holy shit.” I stagger for a moment. “You did it!” I shake the old hag by the shoulders. “You healed them. You can heal the Spectators—all of them.”