Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I understand what Josep is offering. An eternal dreamwalk where all the things I could ever want are mine. Where all my desires become real.
What I don’t understand is what he’s getting out of it.
Because it’s not my soul. If I ever had one, that’s not it.
It’s something else.
Suddenly, there is a fluttering in my stomach. And for a moment I think it’s fear.
But then I know it’s not.
And this is what Josep wants.
The baby.
The new Darkness.
Something real. Not a cloud of black sand, or nanoparticles, or whatever the hell this creature is, but something with a body.
Which, circular thinking proves, is the essence of me and him. This thing standing in front of me. I hold a piece of it. If he could take it for himself, he would, and he hasn’t, so he can’t.
It’s mine.
The horse and rider.
Eating its own tail.
Power infinite.
That’s what I would be trading for his magnificent promise.
I hold up a hand and then slowly raise my middle finger. “Fuck. You.”
Josep swipes a clawed hand through the water, breaking the image into nothing but an endless series of ripples. And at the same time, he screeches at us. This noise is not anything I’ve ever heard before. It’s some kind of frequency and suddenly the mirror we are looking through shatters, exploding all around us.
Lucia and I recoil backwards, hands over our faces even though we both know this isn’t real and she’s not even alive. It’s just instinct. We end up on the ground, nearly drowning in the mist, as the glass settles around us.
Echo is gone and so is the doorway to Josep’s lair.
We just sit there for a few moments, breathing hard, trying to come to terms with what just happened. But even Lucia is at a loss. Because when she looks at me, she’s frightened.
I shake my head. “No. No, no, no, Lucia. You do not get to be the scared one here. You’re already dead!” I point at the empty frame that used to be a mirror. “That thing has Ryet! And he just ripped Echo’s arm right off her body! So, no! Fuck you! You do not get to be the scared one here! You’re the one who’s been calling me to this moment! You better have a fucking plan or I swear to God, I will… I will… follow you into the mist, or wherever the fuck you’re going, and I will ruin your happily ever after! Do you hear me! Tell me the fucking plan!”
24 - Ryet
Let it shine
“You’re OK, blood lover. You can open your eyes now.”
But I don’t believe Paul. Because I am dead, or in some fantasy dreamwalk place so I don’t have to face the horror of what’s actually happening to me. I’m alive, and conscious, and have been torn to pieces by scions.
And anyway, why should I believe him? All he’s ever done is lie to me.
“Come on now, Ryet. It was for your own good.”
“I’m an adult, Paul. Have been this entire time. You don’t get to say what’s good for me.”
Paul’s response is a sigh of relief. Because I’m talking to him. Well, not talking out loud. He’s not actually here in this cave where I’m existing as a half-eaten, half-dead monster because that’s how he rolls. Be somewhere safe while all the bad shit happens. Show up in some misty cloud of magic where you know none of it can touch you.
Paul scoffs. “Is that really what you think I’m doing? Hiding?”
“Yes. That’s what I think. I think you’re a fucking coward who has been using me for almost a hundred years. But the kicker is, it wasn’t what I thought. It wasn’t to make me in your own image. It was to use me to make others in your image.” I open my eyes. Look straight at him. Loathe the fact that he’s beautiful and hate myself for loving him.
His smile is small as he pans a hand around the empty, dreamwalk cave. There are no scions eating me here.
“It doesn’t matter, Paul. Back there, it’s already been done. I’ve been eaten.” I pause to glare at him, daring him to contradict me when the next part comes out. “And it isn’t the first time, is it?”
That small smile disappears. “I’m playing a very complicated game.”
I nearly guffaw. “I bet you are.”
“I’ve taken every precaution.”
“No, you haven’t. If you’d taken every precaution, I would not be a half-eaten, half-dead monster.”
“It was necessary. You’ll see. One day, I’ll have a chance to explain and—”
“Fuck you. Fuck. You, Paul. There is no ‘one day.’ This is it. You’re not here, so you don’t know. They ripped chunks of flesh off my bones!”
He winces. Then takes a breath. Then tries again. “It’s not permanent. You’re immortal.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing! It’s not, Paul. ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’ This is what you did to me! I am nothing but a punishment in Revelation! I am stuck in this nightmare for all eternity and you, the man who claims to love me, the one who claims to think of me as a son, did this to me!”