The Eternal

by Bianca Hunter

  “Ev?” Gwenn’s voice made me jump about ten minutes into the flight. She lifted the blindfold.

  “You remember me—did someone tell you about what’s happening?” I smiled, tears welling in my eyes. Blake gave her back to me.

  Oh God, why are you crying?

  “God, don’t cry, you’re going to make me cry,” she said, squeezing into the seat next to me.

  “Hey, Ev,” Bastian said as he walked past the chair and sat down across from us. I grinned.

  “Hey, Bastian.” I was suddenly overwhelmed with joy that they were both with me.

  “If we ever go to a party together again, I’m handcuffing you to me.” He smirked.

  “That probably isn’t the worst idea in the world,” I giggled.

  “Hello, love,” Ravenna said, sitting down on Bastian’s armrest.

  I smiled. “I’m cloaked and cloned.”

  “Let’s just hope that little runaway witch sticks to her end of the bargain.” Ravenna scowled.

  “She will,” Blake replied, walking to us from the cockpit. “We should be there in exactly two hours now.” I turned to watch him sit across from Victoria, who seemed to be staring out of the window into the darkness.

  Why is she with us?

  I turned to Ravenna and shrugged as I jerked my head toward Victoria.

  She shook her head, apparently also in the dark as to why Victoria was on this jet with the rest of us.

  “So, does anyone know where we’re actually going?” Gwenn asked, breaking the silence.

  “Well, we’re definitely not going to tell you in front of Evelyn, are we?” Bastian joked.

  “It feels weird not to know where I’m going,” I whispered as I glanced out of the small window. Gwenn wiggled further into the chair.

  I guessed we were going to find Nero. Blake had hinted as much in the car, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on, something that Serena was planning. It was clearly to bring Astara back to life, but if the reasons for returning her friend weren’t dark, why would she feel the need to be so deceitful? She could have simply asked me for help in the States. She was powerful enough to convince me.

  “What’s on your mind, love?” Ravenna asked after a few moments of silence went by.

  “It’s just, something doesn’t make sense,” I whispered. “Serena had all that time with me—a full year. She could have asked me to help her as a friend, but she didn’t. Why would she construct all of this if she didn’t have to?”

  “Would you have believed her if she asked you to help resurrect a dead immortal?” Gwenn asked, turning her face to me.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t have believed her at first, but it’s not like she doesn’t have abilities that she could have shown me to convince me that she was telling the truth.”

  “I think the answer is that you need Astara’s body, and that, my dear, is sitting six feet deep in Greyhaven cemetery,” Ravenna replied.

  “So, what,” Bastian said, leaning forward, “she had to make sure Evelyn and Kate didn’t have a choice for Evelyn to come into Greyhaven?”

  “Precisely,” Ravenna said, glancing down at Bastian.

  “But she’s been in Greyhaven this entire—” Gwenn started.

  “She hasn’t. Serena has been conjuring her impression into Greyhaven, her physical body would not be able to cross the town borders,” Ravenna interrupted.

  “How does that even work?” Gwenn and I asked at the same time.

  Ravenna grinned. “It’s a spell. Only Blake, John, and Viktor can admit people into Greyhaven, and they can also banish them. Nero and Servilia, for example, are technically not allowed into Greyhaven.”

  “So, we have to dig up Astara and take her across the border?” Gwenn grimaced.

  “Nothing like digging up your five-hundred-year-old dead mother to get the endorphins going,” Ravenna replied, rolling her eyes.

  I wondered if this actually bothered her. Five hundred years was a long time. Would I even remember Grace?

  Gwenn and Bastian launched into a conversation about how people would be buried with a bell because of scratches found on coffins when they were exhumed, but all I could concentrate on were the low tones of Blake and Victoria, who were also launched into a conversation. I couldn’t hear anything and was about to rejoin the conversation the other three were having when every hair on my body stood on end, and a feeling like someone had cracked a cold egg over my head made its way down to my toes. I tried to take a deep breath, but it was as if someone had sealed my throat with cotton pads. I lifted my hand to my throat and heaved, trying to breathe.

  “Evelyn,” Ravenna’s sharp tone echoed across the jet.

  Stand up. Oh God, I can’t breathe.

  I stood and stumbled forward as Ravenna reached out to catch me.

  I can’t breathe, I’m going to die, I can’t breathe.

  Small black dots swam into my view as Blake took me from Ravenna.

  “Evelyn,” his distant voice sounded, “breathe.”

  Blake’s entire face turned into a blur just before the entire world went black.

  -

  Blake stood in the bright-green pine forest, the sunlight shining on his perfect face. He was watching something I couldn’t see from where I was standing, and he smiled. He was just as beautiful in this dream as he always was.

  I walked toward him, my bare feet padding on the soft pine needles and moss as I walked along. He looked so calm and peaceful, and the same peace swept over me. I grinned as I watched the rays of sunlight piercing the trees, and the scent of cherry blossoms and pine filled my lungs from the soft breeze.

  “Blake,” I called, my voice disappearing on the breeze.

  Why can’t he hear me? What is he staring at?

  As I reached him, I finally made out what he was staring at. I raised my hands to cover my mouth as my stomach lurched. Astara, barefoot and wearing her white dress, hung by her neck from a tree branch, her feet dangling five feet above the ground. Leaves and dirt riddled her hair, her hands full of mud and dripping blood. Her face was turned toward the floor and completely covered with her silver locks. I slowly turned my gaze to Blake, who wore the same frozen smile. When I looked back at Astara, her head had lifted slightly, and her dead blue eyes were fixed on mine.

  My eyes flew open, and I gasped. I took a deep, steadying breath when I realized I was in the jet on my own, the lights flickering and Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow” playing from the cockpit.

  “Hello?” I stammered, standing up.

  “Evelyn?” a woman’s voice whispered from behind me. It felt like a thousand stones had dropped into my stomach, and the adrenaline raced through my veins.

  “Ravenna?” I asked, turning onto my back.

  Please let this be Ravenna.

  But as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the long silver hair and the slim outline of Astara standing near the wooden panel division in the jet. She had scratched the words Save Me into the wooden panel with her nails, her fingertips still dripping blood.

  “Astara?” I mouthed, my throat completely dry.

  She opened her mouth and screeched. I shut my eyes and clapped my hands over my ears.

  Please let this be over.

  -

  “Evelyn?”

  “I think she’s coming around,” another voice sounded.

  “I told you to keep her from dreaming.” I made out Blake’s voice a bit farther away.

  “These are not dreams,” Victoria snapped. “It’s magic. You need a witch, not me.”

  “Blake, I think she’s waking up,” Ravenna said as I opened my eyes. I wasn’t on the floor anymore. I seemed to be on the bed that I had seen the last time I was in the jet when I took a shower.

  “What happened?” I mumbled, trying to sit up.


  Gwenn and Bastian were pressed against the wall, both their eyes wide with concern. Ravenna, who was perched on the edge of the bed next to me, gently pushed me back down.

  “Take your pick between an undead immortal or a witch,” she said darkly.

  “What did you dream?” Gwenn asked, stepping forward now. “Ev, you were screaming.”

  I stared at the ceiling for a moment.

  I dreamed about Blake staring at his dead mother. Why would she show me that?

  “Astara was in the plane screaming for me to help her,” I replied, closing my eyes and lifting my hands to my face.

  “Do you think Serena will know where we are now?” Bastian asked, his voice laced with concern.

  “I think she’ll know we’re on our way somewhere, which is very, very bad for Hella,” Ravenna whispered. “Blake.” She turned to her brother, who was standing in the doorway with Victoria.

  “I’ve sent John to get her. He’ll take her to Markus. She managed to cast the spell, so keeping her alive is paramount,” he replied.

  “Evelyn, why don’t you just stay here for a bit. When you feel ready—”

  “I’m okay,” I said, sitting up. “How long was I out?”

  “About an hour,” Gwenn replied before Ravenna could.

  “What? It felt like a minute,” I groaned, my shoulders slumping.

  “Ravenna,” Blake called as he walked away from the door. She stroked my hair before leaving the room to follow him.

  Gwenn immediately launched herself on the bed followed by Bastian. “Why the heck were we sitting on those leather monstrosities when we could have been lounging on this?” she said, lying back as Bastian grinned at me.

  “Don’t worry, Ev, everything will be okay one way or another,” he said.

  All three of us turned our heads toward the door when we heard Ravenna groaning. “Let me get this straight, you want me to stay on this jet, travel all the way to Dare County, North Bloody Carolina, and babysit a witch for the next three days?”

  “You can’t protect Evelyn against Serena,” he replied.

  “Oh, but somehow I’m okay to protect Hella against Serena?”

  “You’ll have Lyle; he’s fond of you.”

  “Lyle is a narcissistic, decrepit, morally inept leader of a ludicrous parcel of driveling morons that I don’t want to even be associated with, never mind strike up a bargain or allegiance with.”

  “The Dark Soldiers can keep you safe, Sister. They will not do the same for Evelyn as long as she is mortal.”

  “Send Tristan.”

  “I need Tristan to take down Nero.”

  “Send Victoria.”

  “Victoria doesn’t leave Evelyn’s side.”

  “Oh my God, are the shades of immortality thus polluted?” she moaned.

  “Things are hardly dramatic enough to start misquoting Austen,” Blake replied, clearly trying to keep his tone level.

  “For the sake of your own safety, try to dial down your delight,” Ravenna said as she walked back into the room and shut the door after her. “Well, love, it seems that we are going to be separated for a while.” She sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Are you going to make it back for the masquerade?” I asked, thinking about facing that without her.

  “I had better bloody hope so.” She grimaced. “I cannot believe I’m going to be trapped in that house alone with that witch,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose and shaking her head.

  “I can come with you,” Bastian offered.

  Gwenn and I both turned our heads to stare at him.

  “Have you ever been to The Enlightened?” Ravenna asked, her brows raised.

  Bastian shook his head. “No, but I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “All right then, you’ve got yourself a deal and a road trip.” Ravenna grinned.

  Bastian smiled and turned to us. “You guys don’t mind, right?”

  “Yeah, I mean, Lyle and the gang sound amazing,” Gwenn said. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  Before he could reply, the captain’s voice echoed through the intercom. “Please prepare for descent. We will be landing in about thirty minutes.”

  “Time to get you blindfolded again,” Ravenna said, looking at me. “And we’ll have to get you listening to music with headphones.”

  Ten minutes later, I was blindfolded and listening to Ravenna’s favorite playlist. I hated the feeling of not knowing what was going on around me, what was being said. It was the same feeling I would get when I closed my eyes in the shower and imagined something creepy standing next to me. My nerve endings felt constricted for the duration of the flight and then jumped as the plane finally landed with a jolt. I clenched my jaw as the jet rushed forward on the landing way and then when it came to a halt.

  I jumped yet again when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I inhaled Blake’s smell as he scooped me up and carried me through the jet. We descended the stairs and began to walk on the tarmac, and then he slid me into what felt like the back seat of a car. I felt someone moving next to me and taking my hand. It must have been Gwenn because the hand was much smaller and much cooler to the touch than Ravenna’s.

  I forgot to say goodbye to Ravenna and Bastian!

  Not being able to remove my headphones or blindfold, I slumped in the seat.

  You can call them later, it’s okay.

  We began to drive, and another pang of uncertainty mixed with anxiety hit me, and I gripped Gwenn’s hand tighter, glad that at least she was there. I could tell by the speed and movements of the car that it was Blake driving. I tried to concentrate on the Jay Z and Kanye West song currently on the playlist and kept my eyes shut even though the curiosity of where we were was starting to grate on me. It was only when the playlist finally reached Rihanna that the car came to a stop. Gwenn gently pulled the headphones out of my ears.

  “It’s safe to open your eyes now, Ev,” she said in a quiet undertone.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was dark; only the car lights illuminated the scene. We were parked in front of a massive lake. I could just make out the small shadows of pine trees about two miles away on the opposite side of the water. I got out of the car and walked over to Blake, who was standing next to the other Porsche Cayenne that Victoria had followed us in. Tristan stood next to an Audi R8, his arms folded across his chest. Tristan and Victoria seemed to ignore each other completely.

  “Okay, everyone, please remember, not a word about where we are from now on,” Blake said as he shut his door. I looked over my shoulder from the road we must have come from and noticed a German sign. I grinned. Clever. We could be in Austria, Germany, or Switzerland. I would never figure it out, and by extension, neither would Serena.

  I watched as Tristan walked toward the outline of a massive house and disappeared. A few seconds later, bright lights glared from massive glass windows that illuminated a spanning second-floor lounge area. The house was entirely constructed from brown logs and stone. The dark-gray slate tiles on the roof gave it the appearance of a luxury hunting lodge.

  “Whose house is this?” I asked as Blake, Gwenn, and I made our way to it. Victoria followed silently behind us.

  God, I actually feel bad that she has to be here.

  “Tristan’s,” he replied as we reached some stone steps and made our way up.

  “Holiday house?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. This contemporary lakeside villa must have cost someone their entire lifetime’s salary.

  “Barely. I think he’s been here twice in the past seven years,” Blake said, giving the age of the villa away. We walked through the lacquered wooden door and into the most beautiful house I had ever seen. The light wooden floors and wooden beam ceilings created an intimate feeling even though the lounge was as big as the one in Greyson Manor. A massive stone fireplace sat at the end
of the room, and the crackling fire’s heat radiated throughout.

  “How much money does your family have?” I asked, suddenly thinking about the cars, houses, and the jet, and Blake’s relatively carefree attitude toward it all.

  “Viktor’s been collecting it for two thousand years. A lot,” he replied.

  “How does he explain that to the bank?” I asked, wondering why no one had become suspicious.

  “Investments under aliases, companies under different names, bank accounts in a range of different countries—most of us have been building these things up for a long time. Also, we own a small private bank,” he replied as we walked toward a passageway. Victoria followed us into the house and immediately took a right turn and disappeared.

  “Right,” I said, nodding, like somehow owning a bank was the most normal thing possible.

  “Gwenn, Evelyn, you’ll take the master bedroom,” Tristan said. “Come on, let me show you where it is.”

  We followed him into a bedroom that was just as beautiful as the rest of the house. It had a fake silver stag’s head over the simple wooden bed, which was covered in tartan and brown faux fur blankets. The green cotton armchair rested near the glass door, which presumably led to a balcony overlooking the lake.

  “We are never leaving,” I whispered in a daze as Gwenn’s eyes darted around the room.

  “You’ll find it a bit boring here after, I don’t know, five minutes,” Tristan replied.

  “It’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever been in,” I whispered.

  “Try not to tell Viktor that. He personally designed and oversaw the building of Greyson Manor.” Blake snorted as he walked into the master bedroom. “We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. The faster we track Nero down, the better.”

  “Ravenna has some spare clothing she keeps here,” Tristan explained, opening the wardrobe. “We’ll leave for Sin in five.”

  “Sin?” Gwenn frowned.

  “The only immortal club in the world,” Tristan said, pausing at the door. “Now hurry, Nero doesn’t tend to linger in one place for long.”

  “Wait, we know for sure he’s here?” I gaped, my heart skipping a beat.