Jane fell to the stone floor, feeling nothing but searing pain rip through her head. All at once she felt it…her…pull away from her like a bandage being ripped mercilessly fast. Jane screamed in agony and collapsed into her father’s arms. There before them stood a woman who was Jane’s exact twin in every way, except she was transparent. She knelt by Vasan’s side, looked up and said, “Thank you,” before disappearing completely.
As soon as Rilgith’s words had been uttered, Vasan’s world had gone black. He lay there unmoving as Jal’gonnoth, expelled from his body for the last time, hurled herself across the room into what was left of Xyza’s body. Bits of flesh and bones flew through the air on impact, and the howling, shrieking cries of pain, of agony, of defeat and of betrayal died with the wind.
The chamber was so dark none could see their hands in front of them.
“Father,” she said weakly, her voice unsteady.
An arm encircled her. “I am here.”
“Is…is he dead?” When he didn’t answer, she turned and grabbed the front of his robe.
“I am afraid he is, for he has gone to be with his Jane, free at last.”
She shivered as a small glow appeared near her. It grew in size and brightness until she looked up and realized that it was coming from Ibrahim’s upturned palm. Spinning, she took in Vasan’s dead body at their feet and clapped a hand over her mouth. “My God, Tao,” she whispered, dropping to the floor.
“I am sorry, my child,” Ibrahim said, tears filling his eyes. “It seems in the end he had changed, but it was not enough to save him.”
“But why?” she wailed, laying her head on Vasan’s abdomen and wrapping her arms around him. “Why wouldn’t you help him?”
“If I had tried, the demon would have taken me, and you would have been killed. He would have…I shall say only that his torture would then have been eternal. None of us truly wants that.”
At last Ibrahim reached down and pulled her to her feet, but her eyes never left the man who’d given his life for hers. “I didn’t even get the chance to thank him.” Then she stilled. “Remember the binding he performed?” Her father nodded.
“Because he used a strand of your hair, it was a binding for soulmates, Jane. A binding not for lovers in this life, but for lovers in every life. A binding met for his true soulmate, his twin flame…for his Jane, not for you.”
“Every life?”
He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “That binding seals their souls until at last they have achieved all they are meant to.”
“So they are bound forever.”
Her father nodded.
“What of me?”
He smiled. “You are not bound in such a way to him.”
She shook her head. “I still don’t understand how that binding got rid of Jal’gonnoth or the other demon.”
“She made a pact with him. In exchange for not harming you she agreed to take his soul for all of time,” he explained, gesturing down to where Vasan still lay at their feet. “But because he truly believed you were already bound to him, it was a gift he was unable to give, and therefore one she can never receive. So she killed him.”
She stared down at him. He looked so peaceful now; so free. “Did he know that?”
Ibrahim frowned. “My cousin is knowledgeable of magick, but he may not have understood the ramifications of the binding he performed. You see, that was done with white magick, and my brother has always practiced the dark arts. He would not have been as fully versed in that particular spell.”
“You mean…he offered himself to the demon…believing that it would be the end of him.”
He nodded. “Tao knew she would accept his terms; he has belonged to her for so long she would do anything to have him permanently. Even give up coming after her rival.” He looked into her eyes. “Who she mistakenly thought was you.”
She knelt again next to his prone figure, the concrete floor as cold as ice. Slowly she began to stroke his smooth bald head and was surprised when his hand jerked open. Something fell out, and she reached down to pick it up. “Oh, no,” she breathed.
“What is it?” Ibrahim asked, leaning down to get a better look.
Her hand opened and held it out for him to see. It was the cooled mass of wax, string and parchment. “He dug it up. Why?”
Ibrahim swallowed hard. “To release you,” he said, bending down and touching a hand to his cousin’s head. “So that you wouldn’t have to go through this in another life.” He helped her back to her feet and led her out of the chamber, only to find the Tanners standing right there waiting.
Without warning, Jane suddenly felt herself being pulled away from them all…the last thing she saw was the shock, horror and desperation on Vincent Tanner’s face.
EPILOGUE
The Void was familiar. Indeed, more than familiar; now she found it a source of great comfort. It was dark at first, but in her own mind she imagined a soft light appearing and when she opened her eyes, she was bathed in its glow.
She next imagined a large overstuffed chair. In her mind it was covered in red silk and gently it appeared next to her. Seating herself, she relaxed into the cushions and closed her eyes. It seemed like a hundred years ago she had been finishing a book and taking it to Marge. That she had seen a mysterious man appearing and disappearing and thought herself to be crazy.
But then she had learned of her past, of the Tanners, of her father and Vasan. She knew and loved and remembered it all.
But it seemed they had not. Or perhaps that they could not.
Jane was old now, and she knew this would be her last visit to this place; at least, in this life. The last time she’d seen anyone from the other dimension had been fifty years ago in her measure of time. As soon as she’d seen the Tanners, she’d been rubber-banded back to her apartment. No one in her dimension that she could find knew anything about the kinds of portals she would need to understand and use to get her back there. On the cusp of having everything she could ever have wanted, Jane had lost it all.
She never forgot her father, or Vincent. She had loved both men and had lost them both, but they had all lived on through her words. The Lightning series of books had grown from three to forty-two, the last one having hit bookstore shelves five years earlier. She had married Marge’s son, Sam, which had been unfair to him, really. She never had been able to give him all of her, but he’d loved her in spite of it.
Now, struck with the ravages of Time and the consequences of having taken up smoking right after returning to her dimension, Jane Marsh was lying in a hospital bed dying. Her two children and three grandchildren were there with varying spouses and boyfriends, but blessedly all had left for the hospital cafeteria. She’d taken the opportunity to visit the Void, because somehow she knew Time was one thing she no longer had much of.
Jane looked forward to dying, though that might have sounded odd to her family. Indeed, she knew that somehow she’d find the Tanners again, and her father, and was eager to move on to the next place where that might be able to happen.
Sighing softly as she rose from her overstuffed chair for the last time, Jane gave the Void a whispered good-bye and allowed herself to return to the hospital bed. She hated it because she was in a lot of pain. But she knew it was almost over.
She opened her eyes to find her youngest granddaughter, fourteen years of age, sitting next to the bed, her hand carefully wrapped around Jane’s frail old fingers. This was the one member of her family who’d never read any of her books, much to her consternation. They smiled at one another. “Chrissy, why aren’t you eating with your family?”
The girl shrugged. “Not hungry, Grandma.”
Jane looked…really looked…into Chrissy’s eyes. What she saw made her gasp.
“What? What is it, Grandma, what?”
“My beautiful little girl, you look so much like me, but your eyes…they look like…like his.”
“Whose?”
“Vincent’s,” she breathed, clos
ing her eyes.
“Vincent? Oh, from the books.”
Jane reopened her eyes and reached over to take both Chrissy’s hands in hers. “No, no, my girl, I mean the real Vincent.”
“Say what?”
She nodded. “They’re real, Chrissy. The Tanners, Vasan, all of them. They’re real.” She caught the look the girl was giving her and laughed, though it sent her into a coughing fit. “No, I’m not senile,” she croaked.
“Explain, Grandma. You know I’m not into that paranormal stuff. What do you mean they’re real?”
“Oh, my darling, if only I had time to tell you,” she breathed, leaning back into the pillows. “But I don’t have to. Read the books, my young Chrissy,” she whispered. “Read the books and you’ll know.”
Chrissy looked all around to make sure they were alone in the room. She leaned closer to Jane’s face. “Grandma, if they’re real, how do I find them?”
Jane swallowed the saliva in her throat and looked beyond her granddaughter. A big smile lit up her face when she saw who was standing behind her. “They’ll find you.” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and was gone.
Chrissy felt tears sting her eyes. “Grandma,” she whispered, laying her head on her chest. “Oh, Grandma.”
* * *
It was two in the morning, but Chrissy Stockton hadn’t been able to put the book down. This was the third in her grandmother’s series, and ever since the funeral two weeks prior she’d been reading them like mad, looking for anything and everything she could to tell her about these characters Grandma had claimed were real.
She was sitting up against the wall using a flashlight to be able to see. She knew her mom would kill her but didn’t care. The novel was riveting, and she couldn’t get her grandmother’s last words to her out of her head.
“They’ll find you.”
Suddenly there was a noise from across the room. She figured it was probably her cat Shizzle and swung the flashlight’s beam over to where she’d heard him. Chrissy’s eyes widened. That was no cat.
The man standing beside the bed looked at her and smiled.
“Who are you?” she asked, stunned to discover she didn’t feel at all frightened. Then her eyes widened when she realized exactly who she was looking at. “Vincent,” she breathed.
He nodded once. And Chrissy realized in a stark moment of clarity as Vincent suddenly vanished, that everything her grandmother had written – and said – was true.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for sharing this adventure with me. I hope you enjoyed reading it and taking Jane’s amazing journey with her! Vasan sort of hijacked the thing, but necessarily, I think. Or he thinks. One never can really control these characters at times. With any luck, now, Chrissy won’t decide to demand a sequel…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Krystyne Price has been writing stories since she was ten years old...and that was a loooooong time ago! She enjoys creating new worlds and new life forms, and twisting what people think they know of reality until it’s almost unrecognizable! Krystyne enjoys hiking, reading and of course, getting lost in other dimensions. Equally aided and hampered by a crazy imp-in-cat’s-fur, a pot-bellied pig masquerading as a black cat and her loving (non-cat) daughter, Krystyne's goal is to take you away from where you are now, to a place you never knew you were longing to see.
WEBSITE
If you’d like to keep up-to-date with the Mer series, or drop Krystyne a line, please head to her website at www.KrystynePrice.com. You can also reach her directly by email: [email protected]
PLEASE REVIEW
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