by Ponce, Jen
“What if they hurt you?”
He scoffed. “Sweetheart, they need me, for all that they’ll be upset.”
And then I felt it, the magic he had at his command. He was powerful, certainly more powerful than Arsinua or Marantha. I didn’t even remember that much strength from Kenda, though I hadn’t stuck around long enough to truly take her measure. “I’ll come see you, check on you. Make sure you’re safe.”
He pulled me into a bear hug that popped my back. “I love you, Devany.”
“I love you too.”
“We’ll figure out the soul thing. I promise. Just give me time to see what I can do here.”
“Okay.”
“Now scoot, they’re almost here.”
I gathered my kids and formed the hook, stepping through with Arsinua trailing reluctantly behind.
We appeared in the living room and nearly scared Travis to death.
“What the ever-loving fuck?”
“You owe the swear jar.” To the kids, I said, “You guys still feeling okay?” I checked their arms despite their protests, checked their necks, their faces. I didn’t see any evidence of engorgement. It was odd. Good, but odd.
“Is Grandpa going to be okay?” Bethy asked me.
“Of course. He’s a tough guy.”
Travis cleared his throat. “Where is Dad?”
“He’s renewing old acquaintances.” I eyed my brother. If he was a product of a witch and Wydling like me, he would have no trouble surviving Midia either. Of course, he hadn’t been fiddled with and he’d been conceived and born on Earth. Would that make a difference?
Storm clouds gathered on his brow but Arsinua pulled him away, downstairs, presumably to talk bad about me in private.
“I want to go back,” Liam said, his eyes gleaming.
“Are there fairies?” Bethy asked, and I grinned. She was my daughter, all right. I remembered the first time I’d seen fairies. I’d been over the moon.
“We will and there are.”
“Who was that guy, Mom? That creepy guy?”
I huffed a breath. My well-reasoned thought of keeping the kids from everything had gone up in a puff of smoke. “He was a Skriven. Like a demon,” I said, before they could ask. Their eyes got big. “I’m one too. Only his boss.” Even bigger. If they kept widening, their eyeballs would pop right out of their heads. “He has a parasite in his head and he can get into people’s Dreams. When he does, he leaves potential. Seeds, I guess, for another parasite.” I touched Liam on the head and he cursed. I didn’t chide him. “I have less than a Midian month to fix things or the parasite will grow in your head.”
He opened his mouth, probably to ask what would happen then, and saw the answer in my eyes. Bethy did too and she threw her arms around him. “No!”
“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is always hope. Even if I don’t find Ellison, there’s hope. You hear me? So no giving up. We’re going to kick butt and take names, right?”
Liam awkwardly patted Bethy on the shoulder, then gave up and hugged her back. I felt removed from it, cushioned against their pain, and that meant I should be doing something. I put my arms around them and squeezed, hoping that there was a way to get my soul back. I didn’t want to miss out on this stuff, didn’t want this curiously detached feeling as I held my kids.
Even if it did make for great battlefield calm.
“Everything will be okay.”
“What about Grandpa?”
“He can take care of himself. He’s got magic of his own.”
Bethy sagged and moved away from her brother. “I’m tired.”
“School tomorrow, too.”
She looked at me in horror, they both did. “You want us to go to school?”
“Yep.” I wished again I knew some way to win the lottery or actually benefit monetarily from all the power I had. Did that make me an evil person? Probably. “We can’t let our obligations here go because there are things we have to do. We have to keep on, keeping on. Your dad would want that, wouldn’t he? And didn’t we all do that after he died? Now we must keep going, keep working hard to hold things together.” I hugged them again, desperate to feel something, anything from it, and disappointed when I didn’t.
They exchanged looks then they were making their very slow way upstairs. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth,” I called up after them.
At least I didn’t have work tomorrow. Saving the world while working eight hour days and taking care of kids was hard to do. My mind went to Ty, wondering what he was up to, remembering the feel of his touch on my skin. Then I remembered I’d left Jasper behind in his new body, in the care of Vasili, and decided I’d better check on them both before I did anything else.
***
Vasili wasn’t home. I searched his place inside and out and found no sign of either him or Jasper. No note, nothing. Annoyed, I hooked to Tytan’s manse next, in case they’d gone there for any reason. I walked into Ty’s living room to find the place once again packed full with Skriven. The room groaned under their presence and I realized it wasn’t mere spawn this time but Originators.
Oh shit.
As I contemplated whether or not I should slam down a bubble, one of the Originators said, “You would kill us all?”
I fastened my eyes on the one who spoke, though I addressed them all. “I killed Ravana because she threatened to kill my kids. Because she forced the confrontation. I killed Amara for similar reasons.”
“No spawn have stepped in to take her place,” said another Originator, this one a mass of flesh without discernible form.
“You have taken her burden,” said yet another, this one rather piratical looking, except for the whipping vines that protruded from its nether regions.
I forced my gaze away from it. “Burden?” Tytan had already told me what I could do, but since he sometimes embellished the truth, left out important bits or outright lied, I thought it prudent to verify his claims.
“We hold open the space between worlds. We hold them in line to keep them from collapsing one on another,” said the first. The words were hissed, snake-like, from a lizard’s inflexible mouth.
The pirate-tentacle thing added, “No one Originator can hold the burden for another. This is why there must be balance.”
All eyes—or whatever they used to gather sensory input—were on me, picking at me, wondering what made me tick. “Which is why you guys insisted I take Ravana’s place.”
“Yes,” said one.
“Yet you also took Amara’s place and the Slip is still whole.”
“Yes.” I felt their uncertainty and so I continued, “I don’t plan on killing you all. As long as you leave me and my kids alone.”
“You speak of your spawn so affectionately?”
“My human spawn. And my Skriven spawn as well,” I decided in that moment. “Just leave me and mine alone and I will do the same for all of you. We’ll all go on our merry ways, balancing and carrying the burden forever and ever amen.”
The mass of flesh spoke. How the hell it spoke, I had no clue, but it did. “Perhaps I wish you to take my burden. It has been long and long since the yoke was placed upon me. You could release me from this flesh.”
He wasn’t serious. It had to be a trap of some sort. A clever Originator trap that would suck me in, chop me up, and spit me out dead. “I suppose I could.”
A low murmur filled the room and another Originator, one who hadn’t yet spoken, said, “It is truth. Our burden has been a long one. I don’t wish to make a choice now but this is something we’ve long since stopped considering possible. We hid away our spawns’ souls, fearful they would find them and kill us. We worried they would fail in their responsibilities. And now we are here, confronted with another choice. It isn’t wise to make rash decisions. We do not know if she can hold the burden. If she can filter the Source properly. I, for one, will not give up so easily.”
This caused general mayhem, mayhem I didn’t particularly want to list
en to. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t feeling any ill effects from holding up Ravana’s and Amara’s responsibilities. Then again, I’d only just ended Amara’s existence. Would the weight of all the worlds come crashing down on me?
Could I bring Ravana back and kill her all over again for sticking me into this mess in the first place?
I held up my hands. When the noise died down, I said, “I shouldn’t be part of this discussion. You might think I have an agenda or something. I don’t. I meant what I said: you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. End of story. As for you wanting me to murder you on purpose, well, perhaps you should talk to that tree guy in the stadium. Maybe you should all figure out what would happen if you just disappear from existence. Maybe I can hold it all, whatever it is, or maybe I can’t. It would help to have more information.” I paused a moment, feeling itchy with their eyes on me. “I have to go, uh, do stuff. So, I’ll leave you all to chat amongst yourselves.”
I left the room via hook, concentrating on Jasper as I stepped through.
He was flailing about in the Akashic River, the orange water soaking him through. Ty was sitting on the bank watching him with a cynical eye and Nex floated nearby.
“What are you doing?”
“Tempering him. The skin hasn’t settled over him yet and it should have. He’s fighting it for some reason.”
I watched him splash and gasp, trying to control his gross motor movements enough to push himself free of the water. It wasn’t working. “Maybe I need to take his soul into me.”
Ty raised his brows. “He’s a pain in the ass.”
“I really should have a soul,” I said, not enthusiastically. As time went by, I was finding it less and less urgent to remedy my soulless state. “Maybe having him inside me would draw out Ellison.”
“Why? You banished him. And good riddance.”
Right. He didn’t know about the Rider. “Leon wasn’t the carrier.”
He caught my drift right away and cursed, loud and long.
Nex bobbed over to me, his entrails dragging on the ground, picking up bits of dried grass. “The ringmaster wasn’t the carrier?”
“No. And now he’s dead.” Speaking of the Rider, to Neutria, I asked, ‘Why was it you could smell the Rider there? Because Leon was infected with potential?’
I do not know.
Great.
Nex floated toward me. “Quorra?”
I frowned at him. “Is alive. I didn’t go on a rampage, Nex.” Then I remembered why he would be concerned. “Everyone else survived his death. Leon’s heart acted like a vessel to hold his magic. I gave it to Sharps. She wasn’t happy with me but took it, since it held enough magic to stop the Carnicus from imploding.”
“So you wish to take Jasper’s soul, hoping Ellison will want it enough to come looking for it.”
“Right. And then I’ll kill his ass and give Jasper to the Source or stick him back into a Formless One, whichever he wishes me to do.”
The form in the river wasn’t rocking back and forth anymore, merely lying there staring with eyes that burned into me despite the cool grey color. He nodded, a jerking, halting movement with none of the gracefulness I’d seen in him before Ellison killed his previous body.
Tytan said, “Don’t do it. It will make you vulnerable.”
I cast my thoughts to the Originators in his home, who were debating whether or not to let me kill them. “Perhaps. But I was vulnerable before. And I need to find and kill Ellison.”
“So take Jasper and dangle him in the water. You don’t need him inside you to lure Ellison.” He sounded jealous. Hell, he looked jealous, his entire body tense even as he sat still on the hill by the river.
“I can’t haul him around like that.” I gestured to the clumsy wet lump. “He can’t even sit up, let alone traipse around Midia.” I slid down the hill, managing to keep my balance through Neutria’s help. Jasper looked at me out of a mask of flesh. It was eerie, like looking at a real life Michael Myers. “Are you sure?” I asked him.
Another jerk of his head. Before I could talk myself out of it, I hooked into him and yanked, pulling his soul into me. He filled me with excruciating pinpricks of pain that quickly faded. He faded too, until I worried his life force had guttered in the darkness inside me. “Jasper?” My hand went to my stomach. I heard nothing. Felt nothing. “I don’t think it worked,” I said, frowning.
Tytan rose and crossed to me, circling me as he often did. “Think about your children. What do you feel?”
Liam and Bethy rose in my mind. They were my kids. I cared for them. But... “I think I swallowed him or something. Lost him. Shit.”
“No. I see his aura. Why isn’t he talking to you? Tormenting you with your misdeeds as he did me?”
“You sound disappointed.”
He grunted.
Inside, but deep. He cannot see past your power.
Great. Did that mean my soul would be lost inside me too? Was it only because he wasn’t my soul? I sunk down into my mind and went searching, batting away my imagination’s idea of what my memories looked like inside my brain. It was eerie. “Jasper!” I called, searching for his unique signature and finding him in the grip of something black and looming. Amara’s power or Ravana’s? Didn’t matter. I took him and yanked, pulling him forward, making him more substantial in my head until ...
I gasped. Opened my eyes. Felt Jasper close at hand. Felt his memories, his thoughts, all tangled up with those of his previous host.
Anger. Lust. Pain. Love.
My eyes went to Ty.
Love?
FIFTEEN
“What is it?”
He knew, I thought. Had known what it would mean if I took Jasper inside me. Had known I would find out his feelings for me.
This couldn’t be a lie, could it?
Devany, he might love you, but he doesn’t know what it means in the true sense of the word.
It was strange to hear Jasper talk inside my head like Arsinua used to. It made me miss her for the briefest of moments. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘I won’t let it turn my head.’
I was silent then, waiting for the guilt to hit me over what I’d done to Marco, Harrison and Leon. When it didn’t come, I asked, ‘Well?’
He was thinking on it, I felt it. Puzzlement came next. I cannot see your deeds.
Which meant what, exactly? ‘I can’t just be off the hook.’
His confusion was clear. And while I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being suffocated with guilt, I didn’t want to live my life in the muffled state I’d been in. Right?
Right?
You feel limitless. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
I pushed it to the back burner because frankly, there was a lot of other shit I had to get done first. “I need to go. I have to get the kids to school and then hunt for Ellison. Do you think you can start the search? You and whoever else wants to join in?”
Tytan laughed. “You want us to work in groups, like school kids?”
“Whatever you have to do to find him. There isn’t much time left and I’m not letting that thing hatch in my kid’s head.” Now that I’d taken Liam and Bethy to Midia once, the fear for them wasn’t as sharp and bright. To be honest, it didn’t seem as important to keep them away now that I knew what I knew about my origins. If I had to, I’d take him to the goddess and have her burn away the taint. Then I’d find Ellison and relieve him of his life ...
‘It doesn’t have to be his own soul, Jasper.”
His sadness made me sad, the emotion flooding through me, feeling foreign and yet familiar. I do not wish for another to be harmed so that I may live. If it comes down to ending his existence, I wish to go with him.
‘Jasper,’ I said, but he interrupted.
You said earlier that it would be as I wished. This is what I wish. Please.
I nodded, tears threatening. Maybe it took a while for the emotions to come back with the return of a soul. Maybe I wasn’t broken after
all.
Ty stood and walked to me, looking like sex on a stick—as usual. “Whatever he tells you about me ...”
“I won’t believe a word of it,” I assured him.
His eyes darkened. “Whatever he tells you about me, trust this one thing.” He drew a finger down my jaw and it took all my willpower not to lean into his touch. “I cared about you before I had a soul inside me and I care about you still.”
My breath caught. I thought he’d kiss me, but he didn’t and finally I forced myself to leave before I made the biggest mistake of my life.
***
The kids came down together, oddly, ready for the day but looking none too thrilled. Bethy was clutching Cheeseweed to her chest, the kitty looking as sleepy as my daughter. I asked, “You guys okay?”
Bethy snorted. “How can we go to school knowing there’s a whole other world and not being able to say a word? How?” She set the kitten on the floor and watched as she scampered to her food dish.
Liam said nothing, just shoveled half the stack of pancakes onto his plate along with a spoonful of eggs and a ton of syrup. I eyed him but he kept his eyes firmly on his food.
“It sucks. But talking about it will get you sent to the counselor for a ‘talk’ before you get half the words out.”
Bethy muttered things under her breath that I chose not to hear.
“Liam? What’s up?”
“She won’t let me in the Dream. Says she’s angry. Mourning. Can you believe that? Her psycho brother is dead and she’s mad. What the heck, Mom?”
I leaned a hip against the counter. “She didn’t get closure. She wanted to end things on her own terms and I took that away from her. She’s angry and rightly so.”
“You saved her!”
“It looks like I did. But she doesn’t think so. So is she really saved?”
He didn’t answer but I saw the gears turning. I felt bad about Sharps but not bad at all about killing Leon. He’d deserved it long since and I was glad I’d been the one to pull his still-beating heart from his body. Viciously so. Still, I wanted to tell her sorry for taking that from her. If it hadn’t been for my mistake in thinking he was the Rider’s primary host, I wouldn’t have interfered quite so ... spectacularly. Truth be told, I only felt guilty that I hadn’t murdered him sooner.
