Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“So what is the other one?” Ryet finishes that question for her. “A zombie, or something?”
“No.” I laugh. It’s absurd. “It’s you.” I point at both of them individually, but mean the word in a collective way. “Just… minus a soul.”
“OK.” Syrsee is back again. “The soul part of me is the one who gets to go to the Guild?”
She’s so hopeful, it’s sad. But she already knows this is not how it will happen.
I shake my head.
“So you expect us to live as soulless creatures?” Ryet is snarling now. “Something evil. That’s what you’re saying, right? Something forsaken.”
“Ryet. I’m trying to be gentle here. But here’s the reality for you, my love. You are already a soulless creature. Your soul was sold to me.”
“That’s a lie. You lied about all of it. You made me think that I chose this back in that alley when I was second-born, but it’s a lie. You made me, Paul. From beginning to end.” He’s pointing at himself, eyes flashing red. “I didn’t choose to be born.”
“It’s a complicated argument, Ryet. One we don’t have time for now. So. For the sake of moving things along, I will just agree with you. It wasn’t your choice and you bear no responsibility for any of this. How’s that? Feel better now?”
Syrsee scoffs. “You don’t have to be a dick, Paul. We just need to understand what’s happening.”
“Here’s what’s happening. Both of you have already split. And”—I look Ryet in the eyes for this—“I had nothing to do with that. You brought her here, Ryet. You did this.”
“Because a demon took over my body and was about to rape her!”
“Don’t forget the part where he got me pregnant,” Syrsee adds.
I roll my eyes. Children. “Regardless. Half of you is here, half of you is there. It has been done. It is done. You are split. And here’s what happens next. I’m going to leave you for a short while, during which time neither of you will come up with any stupid ideas to… escape, or whatever.” I pause to give them both a stern I-will-fucking-kill-you-both look. “I need to go bury Ryet’s soul-body in the earth under the house. Then I will come back here.” I point at Syrsee now. “You will release me from the spell you put on me. I will leave again, because my spirit is back in the compound tower bedroom where Ryet was third-born, and then I will finish up some other important work out west. After which I will return to the cabin, collect your soul-body, Syrsee, and take it back with me to Montana.”
“What’s going on in Montana?” This is Ryet. “Where the hell is Josep?”
“He’s taking care of other things. In Montana.”
“He doesn’t know about this, does he? You didn’t tell him, did you? Whatever you did tell him, it was an empty promise, wasn’t it?”
“Ryet, I’m trying my best here. And it wasn’t an empty promise. It was—”
Syrsee interrupts. “What was the promise?”
“We’re in the middle of a rather long and complicated revenge scheme. The baby is part of it. The Darkness is part of it.”
“And me?” Ryet points to himself. This is when it all hits home for me. Because we’ve done it. And I’m sorry we’ve done it. “What’s gonna happen to me, Paul?”
“The part of you that goes to the Guild with Syrsee will… find a way to save us all.” He scoffs. “But the part of you that goes into the ground, Ryet…” I shrug. “I’m doing my best. That’s all I can say. I’m trying to save it.”
“His soul, you mean?” Syrsee’s face has gone ghost white. “That’s what you’re talking about here. You’re trying to save his soul, right? Because if it’s yours, and you just admitted it was, then you were going to use it to bargain. What did you get for it, Paul? Something good, I hope.” All her words come out dripping with rage, and contempt, and loathing.
“He’s the first of a new breed of vampire. It was… a long, complicated process that I’ve been working on with Josep for more than two hundred years.”
“You didn’t answer my question. You’re using his soul as… payment?”
“No, Syrsee. It’s really got nothing to do with the soul in Ryet’s case.” I don’t want to look at him, but I can’t help myself. And the instant I do, I regret everything. Even allowing him to be born.
“What are you doing to me, Paul?”
And this is it. The moment I’ve been dreading. The moment when he learns the truth. But I’ve told so many lies, he needs the truth for this one. “I’m turning you into the Darkness. A perfect copy of it. Something that can live outside the vessel. Something I can control, unlike the one that we use now.”
“So I will never be back in that body again. I will spend eternity as a soulless thing. Is that what you’re saying?”