I wrapped my hand around my naked wrist. It felt strange to leave my watch behind with everything else. There would be little to link us to the human world and nothing to help us orient ourselves.
Kane smirked beside him and shook his head, casting pity on all of us gathered humans. “What he’s trying to say is that the landscape can shift sometimes. If you do get lost, stay exactly where you are. A vampire will come and find you.”
Laini jumped in. “And don’t listen to voices from people you can’t see.”
“Well, that’s not ominous in the slightest,” Roxy muttered.
It all sounded so alien. Anxiety and excitement filled me.
Bryce scoffed. “Come on, now. We’re soldiers, not babies.”
“You should heed their warnings,” Arlonne said with a tiny smirk. “In the Immortal Plane, you are indeed little more than babies.”
Bryce gave no reply but a slight nod of respect at her words. I noticed he often seemed impressed by Arlonne. Interesting.
We waited until Clemmins joined us on the hill, his eyes concealed behind aviator sunglasses.
“I can’t say I’m entirely happy about this,” he said grumpily, going down the line to shake our hands. “But if anyone has a chance to make this madcap mission work, it’s this group.”
“I appreciate your belief in us, Captain Clemmins,” Dorian said, inclining his head in thanks. “I hope the board and Congress don’t give you too much hassle for this.”
Clemmins shrugged his lean shoulders. “They need me too much to fire me again. Perhaps a bold move is what’s needed to fix this problem.” He looked up at the flickering, pulsing tear, the lightning reflecting in the mirrored surface of his sunglasses. “Remember, though, this is a surveillance mission. I know you all have something of a hero complex, since you volunteered for this. But please try not to be too reckless. We need you back alive.”
Bryce took his time shaking the captain’s hand. “I’d promise to bring them all home safe,” he said, his brogue thickening with emotion, “but I can’t guarantee that. And I don’t want my final action on this plane to be a lie.”
Clemmins nodded in understanding. “Just do your best, Bryce. I’ll make sure I keep your sister in the loop.”
I hugged Zach one last time, then hugged Gina just as firmly. “Look after each other,” I said, wiping away a stray tear but not letting the rest fall. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Our redbills soared through the sky, their powerful dark wings propelling them swiftly upward. The military encampment shrank away, and the Canyonlands unfolded beneath us, riddled with chasms and silvery lines of water, dusted with patches of scrub. Far below, the partially ruined city of Moab was just beginning to awaken, tiny specks of soldiers scurrying through the streets on various tasks. I waved a silent goodbye to what could be my final glimpse of humanity and looked ahead to where the tear crackled with energy, roiling with bruised clouds.
I can’t believe we’re willingly headed into this thing.
I leaned on Laini’s small but sturdy frame as the redbill increased its speed. To my right, Dorian flew on Drigar, Bryce sitting behind him. I was envious because I didn’t get to fly on the big, sassy redbill myself, but I smiled at the sight of him and Dorian reunited.
“Brace yourself,” Laini said, her voice tight with caution. “We’re heading into the storm. It will be uncomfortable.”
I tensed for freezing wind and lightning. Instead, syrupy darkness and heaviness enveloped us. I couldn’t see even an inch in front of me. The sound from the redbills’ flapping wings disappeared. There was… nothing. A complete absence of all the tiny things our senses would usually latch onto to assure us that we were alive and well. It was as if we’d stumbled into a vacuum. The sharp smell of ozone struck my nostrils, followed by the scent of decaying leaves and damp copper. I shivered. These clouds weren’t like clouds from the human world—these were of the Immortal Plane. They weren’t bound by the physical constraints of the human atmosphere. Who knew what I was breathing in?
My vision increased to a smoky haze. As if from far away, I heard a whooping sound from someone. Bryce? Kane’s loud, distinctive cackle followed.
Blinding light exploded in front of me. Static electricity in vibrant greens and purples and blues crackled wildly in the air. I shielded my eyes. This was it. We were passing through to the Immortal Plane.
I’m not sure what I expected.
Past the intense illumination of the tear, it was dim. I could barely see, only able to make out the vague silhouette of Laini’s head and the black wings of the redbill propelling us through the empty foreign sky. Humid air wrapped around us. It smelled of scorched cedar, an ashy, harsher version of Dorian’s scent.
As my eyes adjusted, a flash of movement drew my gaze upward. Above us, the sky swirled and rippled like charcoal dropped into water. It blended with faint highlights of glowing amber. On the horizon, barely visible in the jaundiced light, was a smattering of green, yellow, and purple smudges, but I couldn’t see much more.
“What’s up with the sky?” I asked Laini, unable to keep my curiosity at bay. “It wasn’t like this before, when I came through with Dorian.”
“This is the darkening,” she explained calmly, sending our redbill drifting up toward the swirling clouds. “In a way, it’s the equivalent to your human twilight, but when it falls here is dependent on the weather. The sky changes often, with little rhyme or reason. Everything here does.”
She turned, and I could make out her delicate profile as I watched her stare at the passing flecks of amber.
“The soul-lights get blown across the sky by powerful winds that affect only them,” she said. “It’s like a spiritual push in the sky. The light changes as the winds move the soul currents. Everything depends on the number of souls in the sky. Sometimes areas stay light for what you would consider several days or even weeks. If there aren’t many around, it can be dim at any time and last just as long. When the sky is at its darkest, even vampires have a hard time seeing. We’re not sure why it happens. It’s just the way it is.” She sighed, almost wistfully.
“What?” I asked, curious.
A small smile came to her lips. “When I was a little girl, I used to make wishes on them. The way mortal children do on stars,” she said with a soft laugh.
“Is it always so erratic? Is there any kind of cycle?” I wondered. “Like a timeframe?”
She hummed and reflected. “Yes, it’s very erratic. When it’s calm, I would say the light can stay the same for maybe… twelve to thirty-six hours. Then it transitions to the next stage, often very quickly. The currents are quite strong right now, so it’s likely to get dark in a few hours. Who knows how long the souls will stay?”
Last time I came here, it was plenty bright enough to see the devastatingly bizarre area. I sucked in an awed breath as the amber currents twirled above us, buffeted by the wind to move across the sky. I could easily see how Laini could’ve taken them for magical, wish-granting oddities. The light brightened the area slightly. I couldn’t tell if it was actually growing brighter, or if my eyes were merely adjusting.
Then I processed what she’d said. “Wait, these are literally souls?” I asked. Souls were a big deal. I had one inside me, presumably, but I felt nothing more than an odd admiration for the pretty lights above me. Nothing called out inside me as I looked at the amber lights. Could I touch the souls if they got close enough?
In the dim light, I felt rather than saw Laini nod.
“They really are souls,” she said. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Whose souls are they?” A million questions tumbled into my head. “How do they get here? Are they just human souls? Or are there vampire souls there too? What about the Immortals? Do they have souls?”
Laini took a breath to reply but then stiffened. “Hold on. I sense something.” The controlled alarm in her voice made me tense up.
From t
he shadowy surroundings, I saw Dorian and Bryce swoop nearby on Drigar. Bryce saluted me with a tight smile. Drigar flew strong. His wing had healed nicely.
“You sensed it, too?” Dorian asked Laini with a knowing gaze.
“I did,” she replied. “But whatever it is, it’s too far away to get a good read on it.”
Dorian nodded. “Too far to bother us, I hope. Still, we should hide sooner rather than later.”
Scanning the horizon, I noticed the green, yellow, and purple lights swelling larger. They were now a defined streak that flashed with white lightning in the distance. They continued to grow at an alarming rate.
“Dive,” Dorian said abruptly.
Laini nodded. She yanked my arms around her waist. “Hold on, Lyra. Don’t worry about hurting me. Just don’t let go.”
Suddenly, the redbill tipped into a dive with the rest of the flock. My stomach flipped from the motion, and I obediently clutched Laini for dear life as we rapidly lost altitude. I’d been on many redbill rides, but diving maneuvers had been blissfully uncommon. The force stung my face like it had during my first trips on Drigar with Dorian.
We plunged down, and the light faded as we left the souls high above. Closer to the ground was an inky fog—I could barely make out the lines of some dilapidated ruin in front of us. The redbills weaved back and forth, so low to the ground that I could sense the solid surface below us, even if I couldn’t see it. Nausea clawed at my throat as we twisted between and around structures that were little more than looming shapes in the gloom. I didn’t know how long we dashed around like that, but eventually we landed. Laini grabbed my hand, pulling me off the redbill, and in a gap in the fog I caught a brief glimpse of the rest of the team slithering off their own redbills.
“Let’s go,” Kane said, his voice cutting through the darkness.
I couldn’t see him, my eyes still adjusting. Laini kept hold of my hand so I wouldn’t get lost in the fog. The ground was uneven and rocky, sending me stumbling every few steps. The thick air tasted different in my mouth—sour and hot like our first day in Moab. If I’d been alone in this fog, I would have immediately become lost. Or worse. I now understood Dorian’s insistence that we didn’t go off without a vampire companion. It was incredible that they could see through this darkness.
“Don’t shove me, I can walk,” Roxy snapped somewhere ahead.
“You’d wish I’d done it more if an Immortal found you trailing behind,” Kane argued.
“Quiet,” Dorian demanded.
The fog was thinner here. My vision adjusted slowly, and Laini released my hand. We stood under the shelter of a leaning wall in the remains of an old building.
Dorian, his cloak bunched up around his neck, dropped his voice. “Get down and stay there.”
We obeyed, flattening ourselves into damp, ashy mud. My anxious pulse hammered inside my ear. Roxy crouched next to me on my left, Laini on my right. I could hear their soft breathing as we tried to stay quiet.
Overhead, I heard something like the hum of a jet cutting through the air high above. What were they? More soul-scourgers, the mist-based creature we’d tangled with near the ski resort hideout? No, that couldn’t be right. Dorian had ordered an emergency nose-dive for a reason, but the alarm in his voice sent a wave of worry through me. We’d handled a creature like that before, so it must be something else. Whatever this was, it was even more dangerous.
Roxy nudged me and pointed upward. I followed her line of sight. The wall we had taken cover under had several destroyed windows, the wooden frames still clinging to slivers of an amber, glass-like material. I adjusted my position slightly to look out at the barest hint of the swirling sky through the narrow spaces. Then, something cut through the murk.
Intermittent green and violet lights flashed, followed by a blink of yellow. The edge of a pair of leathery wings stirred the fog. Something, a dark green shape in the fog, twisted sinuously. There came a cry—a horrifying, gurgling wheeze.
The sound sent a dreadful shiver of recognition through me. In an instant, I envisioned Grayson’s body tumbling to the ground. I saw the shrieking decay and Finley’s melted body. Every muscle in my body tensed as I willed myself to take steady breaths. Something, not just the shrieking decay, was up there. Any movement could cost us our safety.
I counted my slow breaths and reached eighty before the terrible shape began to fade away. Something passed overhead and came back, over and over. If they suspected we were in the area, they didn’t seem to know where. If an Immortal was up there, I wondered how heightened their senses were. How had they known we’d crossed through the tear? There was more flapping of wings and another wheeze, this one much more distant than before, but I still didn’t dare to move or even risk letting out a relieved sigh.
In the dim light, Dorian held a finger to his lips. No talking. Minutes ticked by. The sound of wings faded. Whoever it was, they took their sweet time leaving.
Finally, Laini let out a ragged exhale.
“They’re out of range,” she said, her voice still in a whisper. “If we can’t sense them, they can’t hear us.”
“Do you think our little convoy caught someone’s eye?” Arlonne asked, wedged into a corner beside Sike. “Or that they just routinely patrol near the tear?”
“I think just patrolling,” Kane said, peering through the broken window at the soul-lights, which had been blown into new patterns by the passing monster. “But I’m concerned by the fact that they seem to have a shrieking decay as part of their defenses now.”
We slowly made our way out from under the overhang. After I became acclimated to the light in our hiding spot, it was easier to see our small group… and the anger on the vampires’ faces.
Dorian scowled at the sky as if his glare might strike his enemies down. Whoever it was, he hated them.
Which means I’d probably hate them, too.
“What was that?” Bryce asked. “An army of angry souls?” He rubbed his face as his eyes glanced from the hideout to the sky. I could see him trying to work out his own theories. Our period of terrible quiet and stillness meant we’d had more than enough time to dream up terrifying conclusions.
“Those lights weren’t souls,” Dorian breathed. He sounded like a furious dragon, the words rumbling low in his chest. I half expected flames to burst from his mouth. “We sensed the presence of monsters, but that wasn’t all. I felt wildlings and… an Immortal ruler.”
Roxy blinked twice. “So, that was like your Immortal president coming to find us?” she asked. “Should we be flattered?”
“Not the president,” Laini corrected gently before Kane could say something mean. “Everything in the Immortal Plane has a purpose. The Immortal rulers are a species, like vampires. We usually refer to the Immortals as being of a different caste.”
A specific purpose for everything in the Immortal Plane. “What’s their purpose, then?” I asked. Dorian had danced around my inquires during our time in Scotland, but his reticence hadn’t seemed malicious. More that he wasn’t ready to explain the Immortal rulers—they were obviously difficult for him to talk about. But now we had to know the situation. It could be the difference between life and death for us.
“The Immortals are designed to rule the Immortal Plane. They have no other name or purpose. They hate vampires,” Dorian said darkly. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging it slightly as he thought. “And it looks like they’re herding immortal creatures through the tear.”
My hands went numb. “You mean… they’re purposefully sending the monsters through?”
His deadly serious gaze landed on me. Normally, his glacial eyes sparked some kind of comfort inside me, but not this time. We shared the cold realization that our situation was more sinister than we’d ever imagined.
“If they’ve organized creatures to patrol the tear, it’s likely that they’ve had a plan in place for a while. They knew something came through, and they were on us in moments.” Dorian shook his head in frustration.
“Not only do they know about the tear, but they’re actively attacking the Mortal Plane.”
Laini hummed. “That explains how the empty swarm came through. It bothered me how the bugs had managed to fly high enough to reach the tear on their own. You saw their flimsy wings. That kind of physiology only allows short gliding at best. But the Immortals could have taken the swarm to the tear and pushed them through, letting them glide down to Moab.”
Roxy grunted irritably. “These guys sound like the worst. Are they the ones who initiated contact with the Bureau and told them about the Immortal Plane?”
Alan’s smug face flashed in my mind, his cryptic mentions of allies sending a new surge of adrenaline through me.
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Dorian said firmly. “We won’t stop until we do.”
Chapter Fourteen
The Immortals had gone, but they left a heavy tension in their wake. We had to get moving.
Laini’s grip tightened on my hand. The vampires pulled us humans along through the thick fog, which grew denser in some areas than others. Sike led Roxy beside me, while Arlonne helped Bryce. Dorian and Kane took point and scouted just ahead.
It was hard to describe the Immortal Plane, or what I saw around me. The fog moved like a living entity, forcing my eyes to continually readjust.
I had never taken recreational drugs, but I’d spent my fair share of time hopped up on painkillers in a medical bay, and they’d sometimes given me the slight sense that reality was temporary. This was a hundred times worse. Every time I felt my vision stabilize, the yellowish shadows shifted, and I was off balance once again. My stomach rolled with nausea. There was a tinny ringing in my ears. Worse, the fog was heavy. The air brushed against me with slimy fingers. Every molecule seemed designed to drag my body down.
Laini’s pale skin glowed in the darkness like a beacon, beckoning me. I tried not to stare at her hand in mine. The shadows beneath her skin flickered and shifted and swirled more rapidly here, almost taunting me. It made her figure appear to shift in the darkness. I shook my head and tried to focus my eyes. Sike’s skin, though not as pale, shifted in the same way. My eyes found Roxy’s queasy face, the only normal thing in this primordial fog. She looked as green as I felt. Or was that yet another trick of the light?
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