“Alright, I’m ready.” Ian pulled my bag from my hands as I headed to the door.
******
We rode to the airport in relative silence. I knew this wouldn’t be an easy trip for Ian. After all, he hadn’t been back to the Order in hundreds of years. Ian was a good man, though, and I knew without a doubt he would do whatever it took to bring Izzy back. If not for my sake, then for his friend’s. Kennan had taken him in when he left the Order with no judgments. He’d tolerated him throughout the years, even with his horrible fashion sense. There was nothing Ian wouldn’t do for Kennan. Even if that meant interceding on Izzy’s behalf.
“What are you thinking?” Ian’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.
“I’m thinking that it isn’t fair. None of this.” I stared out the window, trying to come to terms with all that had transpired.
“Things seldom are in our world.” Ian reached out to lace his fingers with mine, giving me a comfort I hadn’t known I needed.
“I don’t think any of us understood what was at stake. She walked in there thinking that she would be the only one to die. She faced it, and now she is just gone. She was supposed to be freed from this world and now what? Is she stuck forever? She won’t ever see him again, Ian.”
“I know, Molly. I know.” Ian pulled me against his body. I let his strength buoy me. I couldn’t falter. I had to keep channeling the fearless Izzy. She’d stop at nothing to keep her friends safe.
We approached the airfield and paid the cab driver. Getting out, I noticed the same pilot that had flown us from the Council was here now.
“Ian," the pilot said.
“Bruce. Thanks for meeting us here, brother.” Ian embraced him.
“It is a hard time for us all. We need you now more than ever," Bruce replied.
“Let’s get going.” Ian nodded toward the helicopter.
I settled into my seat, strapping on the many harnesses. I wasn’t taking any chances. Planes were one thing, but helicopters? Well, let’s just say that my last flight had about sent me into conniptions. I tried to think of anything else as the helicopter began to take off. I allowed Ian and Bruce’s conversation from the front take my mind away from where I was. Maybe if I closed my eyes and did some of the breathing exercises I’d learned from Izzy’s left behind yoga dvd’s, I could relax.
I lay my head against the head rest, taking in deep, cleansing breaths and slowly letting them back out. I could do this, I could relax. Just as I finally found my focus, I heard it, the sobbing. I knew I needed to go, but I couldn’t find where it was. That was the worst part about my ever developing abilities, I couldn’t seem to hone them. My brain was a conduit for other Seers’ thoughts, emotions, and visions. It was disorienting and sickening simultaneously.
“Who’s there?” I called out in my mind.
“The darkness will still come.” The sobbing continued.
I couldn’t find it. Finally, I gave up and threw myself into the dreaming. At least then I could get a better grasp on everything.
“Where are you?”
“It was supposed to end. Why didn’t it end?” the voice cried out.
“Who are you?” I asked again, certain that this time, maybe they would answer. Sometimes, I should really be careful what I wished for though. Out of the fog a figure emerged and I suddenly knew exactly what Izzy must’ve felt like talking to Ren.
Standing before me was a figure with scorched, blackened skin and blood running from every orifice. It was the most horrifying sight my eyes had ever beheld and I longed to look away, to hide my face. Instead, I pressed on.
“Who are you?”
“I am you.” I looked more closely at the figure, trying to tell myself that it couldn’t be true. This scorched and tortured figure couldn’t be me. Then I saw my eyes, staring back at me.
“But how?”
“The darkness is coming.”
The figure reached out and pushed me from the dreaming.
Gulping for air, I opened my eyes. It wasn’t over. Even if the demon was gone, something was still coming. Nothing was ever easy.
The End
Epilogue
Izzy
“The darkness shall fall," the shadows whispered. I longed to ignore them, to drift in the oblivion of the dreaming. I’d found comfort there for I wasn’t sure how long. I really didn’t care, to be honest. I wanted the days to pass. I wanted the days to end. There was nothing to tempt me. Nothing to make me long to live.
The thought of Molly and Ian skirted through my mind for a moment before skittering away from my disregard. They had each other. They could be happy. Then came the thought of my aunt. She’d lived her whole life without me, she didn’t need me either. Person after person ran through my mind like some sort of torture. The memories weren’t enough to mend the gaping chasm left by Kennan.
Kennan, his memories made every other memory worth the torture. His smile, his laugh, and the way his hands would brush the hair from my face before he’d kiss me. Each moment I relived reopened the wound, assuring that I would never be whole again. Kennan had been so much more to me than even I had known. By the time I’d figured it out, it had been too late.
“The darkness shall fall," the shadows whispered again. The whispers came from I knew not where. I did my best to ignore them but they were persistent bastards. Why couldn’t I float in the darkness, alone, in peace? Hadn’t I given enough?
“The war rages on," the shadows promised.
“Yeah, the damned war never ends. That’s not news to me!” I shouted back.
“Act now or all will be lost.”
“I’ve heard that before," I mumbled, shaking off the whispers and jumping back on memory lane.
Kennan walked up behind me at the sink in our farmhouse, kissing my shoulder, pulling me back against his body. I knew what he wanted, and I could never deny him. I needed him the way I needed air.
“Weep not the lost, for more shall fall," the shadows whispered.
“I’m trying to exist in solitary confinement here. Move along," I grumbled, trying to get my mind back where it had been.
“If you do not act, all will be lost.”
“The darkness shall fall.”
“The war rages on.”
“Act now or all will be lost.”
“More shall fall.”
The whispers kept going and going, repeating the same things over and over again. I was going mad. That had to be it. Madness would be better than sanity at this point. At least in madness, I might be able to forget.
“The darkness will fall.”
“Oh my GOD! Can you not say anything else?” Stupid whispers. Why couldn’t they leave me alone?
“The war rages on.”
“Heard that one already," I grumbled.
“You know not what you must do.”
“Well at least that one is a new one.”
“You must not linger here, do not make my death mean nothing.” Kennan’s voice broke through the others.
“Kennan?” I looked around me, trying to find him. He was there, somehow. Or was it another cruel trick that pulled at my mind?
“The darkness will fall.”
“Kennan!”
“Linger not, for I am with you always.” Kennan’s voice faded as his face flashed before my eyes. What a cruel, cruel joke for my mind to play on me.
“Kennan, don’t leave me again. Please stay.” But I knew he was gone, or the phantom of him was.
“The war rages on.”
“Oh for the love of all that is holy, please just stop.”
“We can never stop.”
“Oh, so now you are answering me?” I looked around me into the inky darkness and saw flashes of movement. “Who’s there?”
As one, figures began emerging from the fog. Each one more disfigured than the last. Their skin a charred black I’d seen only days, or had it been months, before. I looked upon them in horror. These ghosts sent to taunt me, to mock what I’d giv
en.
“The darkness is coming. The darkness will fall," a female voice promised. I looked more closely at her. I had a strange feeling that I somehow knew her, and as she raised her blood caked eyes to mine, I knew exactly who she was. Molly.
I swung around to look at everyone standing there. The source of the whispers. Ian muttered, “The war rages on," while Conall circled around muttering the same thing over and over again. Sena stepped forward, warning that I knew what I must do. They circled about me like sharks, waiting to take down their prey, moving ever closer. I longed to move, to run, but I’d trapped myself here. I was lost in the dreaming, there was no escape from them.
“The darkness will fall, and you are the bringer," my aunt lunged for me, wrapping her hand around my throat. Cutting off any objection I may have made.
“Act now, Izzy, or all will be for naught." Just like that they disappeared.
Had I been here before? I couldn’t remember. Had I seen them, really, or were they just another manifestation of my mind?
I shook it all away, and returned to floating, lost in the dreaming. Far from everyone except the memories of Kennan.
See How She Falls Page 19
