by Platt, Sean
“Shut up and walk, or I’ll kill you both right here.”
“No, I don’t think you will,” Hope said. “I don’t think you can.”
Jacob laughed, his voice shaky, “I don’t think this bitch likes you too much, Brother. Or likes living, for that matter. You want to tell her to shut her mouth or should I shut it for her, permanently?”
Did Hope have a plan? Or had she decided that it was better to die than let Jacob win? If Hope thought she could agitate him enough to toss John aside and pursue her and that John could grab him from behind and save the day, she was misreading Jacob’s volatility, and how close he was to losing his shit and killing them both.
“Please, Hope,” John said, “just stop.”
Suddenly, a voice spoke in John’s head — Abigail’s.
“John, let her keep going. Judith is guiding her.”
Judith? What?
“Trust us,” Abigail said.
Hope stood her ground. “No, I refuse to be quiet! What kind of man needs to force people into loving him? What kind of pathetic excuse for a man? Boo-hoo, Daddy didn’t love me. I’m gonna take it out on the world. You. Are. Pathetic!”
Hope spit toward them.
Jacob pressed the knife harder against John’s neck.
“Another word, and he dies.”
Hope’s eyes locked onto Jacob’s.
“Go ahead. You’re gonna do it anyway.”
Jacob stuck the blade into John’s throat.
Seventy-Seven
Hope
Hope watched Jacob snap, thrust the blade into John’s neck, and toss him to the black sands.
John fell, clutching at the blade, unable to pull it out, twitching wildly as poison spread through his body. Judith had said they could save him but only after retrieving the amulet.
Jacob’s eyes, dark and full of rage, narrowed on her.
“Look what you made me do!”
All humor was gone from his voice, replaced by an ugly mottled rage. He seemed to believe that she had made him stab John.
And now she would pay.
He rushed forward, hands reaching out to end her life.
Behind him, he never saw the blurs approaching.
Abigail and Talani pounced on Jacob from behind.
He gasped in shock on his way to the ground.
Abigail slid her blade toward his neck.
But instead of cutting him, she sliced the necklace, and the amulet, free.
It fell into the black sands, instantly buried by all the dirt kicked up in their quarrel.
Jacob growled, likely realizing what they were trying to do. He swung his arm, knocking Abigail twenty feet back.
Talani plunged her blade into Jacob’s chest, but it made a terrible scraping against the light armor under his shirt.
He grabbed Talani by the throat and started to choke her.
Hope used the distraction to drop to the ground, and scrambled on hands and knees, hands digging, searching for the necklace.
Jacob tossed Talani into the air like a doll.
Hope didn’t have time to see if Talani landed safely, or where Abigail was. She was fishing through the sands, trying to locate the amulet.
Jacob turned on her, opened his palm, and sent a wave of energy that sent Hope hurtling backward.
She fell hard on her back then scrambled to her feet.
Abigail was up beside her, eying Hope for guidance.
But Judith gave it instead.
“Attack!”
Abigail and Talani rushed him again, though both were unarmed.
Jacob became a blur, grabbing Talani, swinging her by the arm with a sickening crunch of something breaking, before sending her straight into Abigail, causing them both to collide in a painful heap.
Hope saw a glimmer of gold, about five feet in front of Jacob.
She was only three feet away, scrambling forward, diving, hands outstretched.
Jacob thrust his hand upward, and the necklace vaulted into the air before Hope’s fingers could close around it.
She gasped and hit the ground hard, black sand kicking up into her mouth.
Jacob looked down at her, smiling as she spit the sand out.
The necklace floated before him as if he were taunting her, keeping it just out of reach.
Hope felt something tighten around her neck.
Jacob wasn’t touching Hope, but was somehow choking her anyway, lifting her into the air with his mind. She kicked and tried to grab at invisible hands, but couldn’t feel anything to pry away.
Jacob’s smile widened, growing darker as he levitated her.
She tried to claw at him, but the monster was just out of reach.
The grip on her neck tightened.
Behind her, she heard one of the girls running to launch another attack.
Jacob raised another hand, and the movement stopped.
Hope turned to see that Jacob had Abigail in a floating choke hold as well.
He brought the girls together then looked at them both, shaking his head. “Never have I met two bigger pains in the ass. I don’t know if I should kill you or make you my thralls.”
“Fuck you,” Hope gasped, the grip around her neck still getting tighter.
He stepped closer, necklace floating beside him, mocking her and Abigail both.
He looked at Abigail and smiled. “I think I’ll keep you.” Then he turned to Hope. “But you, my dear, must go.”
He reached out to choke her himself, and drain her life.
Hope looked down at John, still idle on the ground.
I’m sorry I failed.
Someone shouted, “Hey, Captain Fuckface, make that three pains in the ass!”
Jacob turned to see Larry standing about ten feet behind him, trying to draw his attention. “Oh, you want to play, too, fat boy? Hold on, just after I kill this bitch.” He reached out and grabbed Hope’s throat, his skin touching hers.
She flinched, preparing to burn alive.
A flood of childhood memories surged through her mind. Among them was VVessolff casting a spell that made her invulnerable to the Valkoer who had often threatened her as a stable girl.
Jacob’s eyes widened as if to ask why she wasn’t dying.
She smiled.
He never saw the flash behind him — Larry racing faster than he had any right to be running.
Larry stabbed Jacob in the back.
Jacob screamed, managing to send an energy blast into the ground that knocked them all about ten feet away from the impact site.
Abigail and Hope landed next to one another.
Jacob was still standing, reaching back and pulling the blade from his back. “You’re all going to die,” he said, walking toward the still-floating necklace.
Hope remembered one other thing. She reached out and compelled the necklace toward her.
Jacob’s eyes widened as the amulet landed in her hand.
“Give me that!”
Warmth spread through Hope’s hand as the amulet glowed bright blue. With the warmth came more memories, too many to corral, most of them pleasant.
She felt as if she were reunited with an old friend.
“Esmee?” she heard VVessolff’s voice in her head.
“My name is Hope now.”
“Welcome home.”
“Thank you. Can you please take care of this pathetic King?”
“Gladly.”
She felt the amulet’s warmth spread through her entire being.
She’d never felt more alive, more powerful.
Jacob stood shaking.
“No. What are you doing?”
“What your mother should’ve done before she left,” Hope said, approaching Jacob.
He tried to move but was met by Larry, Abigail, and Talani behind him, blades in their hands.
Hope used her newfound powers to raise him up in the air in a choke hold.
He turned back to Hope, gasping. “Please,” he begged, eyes crying, “all I wa
nted was to be with my family again.”
“Hold tight. You’ll be with family again real soon … your parents.”
Her right hand glowed orange, bright as the sun, if not as hot, though Hope felt no pain.
Jacob flinched when he saw it, tried to break free.
He was as helpless as she was.
Hope raised her glowing hand. “This is what you get for fucking with my family.”
She placed her radiating palm on his face.
Jacob screamed as his flesh melted, then turned to ashes.
As his body fell to the ground in clumps of ash, Hope ran over to John.
He was still shaking, black webs like corrupted veins spreading under his skin.
Her hand no longer glowing, she reached down and pulled the blade from his throat, then rested her hand on his neck to heal him.
Seventy-Eight
John
John woke to a warm sensation spreading throughout his upper body.
His eyes opened, and he saw a figure standing above him, basked in light coming from the flying monstrosities above, hair flowing out. And, with his blurred eyes, he would’ve sworn he saw angel wings.
He remembered the painting that Hope had made of him as some sort of gothic angel or something more than a decade ago.
Except he wasn’t the angel, now.
She was.
Hope kneeled down beside him, reaching for the blade on his throat, then removed it.
Then she put a warm hand on his neck.
He jerked away, trying to protect her. “What are you doing? You can’t t-touch me.”
“Yes, I can,” she said, smiling.
“What?”
Behind her stood Larry, Abigail, and Talani.
“Where’s Jacob?”
“Dead,” Hope said.
“What? Who killed him?”
Larry smiled. “You’ve got yourself one badass chick here, dude.”
John looked at Hope confused. “You killed Jacob?”
Then he saw the amulet around her neck and put two and two together. That still didn’t explain how she could touch him.
Unless …
“You’re not a vampire, are you?”
“No,” she laughed. “Turns out that I’ve always been invulnerable to Valkoer touch.”
“No shit? Really?”
“Really,” she said, leaning down to kiss him.
It had been more than ten years since he’d kissed, let alone touched, her, but it was as sweet and perfect as he remembered. The sort of kiss that can only come from your soul mate.
He pulled her into the sand, never wanting it to end.
Larry cleared his throat, trying to get their attention.
John broke away from the kiss. “What?”
“If you think that’s something, wait until you hear what happened to me!”

EPILOGUES
JUDITH
Again, Judith found herself alone in the void.
But she no longer felt like her long life had been a total waste. Yes, she had done many terrible things, but in death she had a chance to atone and right some of her wrongs.
She had managed to save Talani, Abigail, John, Hope, and Larry. Perhaps she had helped to save two worlds.
Not that she expected The Gods to reward her. She was stuck here, forever it seemed, to live with the consequences of her sins.
Part of her wished that Talani and Abigail could stay in the In-Between with her, or that she could return to her world, if only to see how their lives fared from here.
They were with good people now — John, Hope, and Larry — people with good souls, who risked their lives to save those that they loved.
But for Judith there was no going back.
No way through the portal, no body to return to even if she could. And asking the girls to give up their lives to keep her company in eternity was selfish.
She gave a reluctant farewell, wished them well, and told them both that she loved them.
Back to an eternity of loneliness.
She thought of Talani’s question, asking if Judith had run into any other souls in this Limbo.
She hadn’t.
But she couldn’t be the only one here. It didn’t seem right that it would only be her and a bevy of monsters.
She remembered though that the monsters were once souls like her. She wondered how long it would take her to become another of their number.
Please don’t let me become one of them.
Judith continued to wander the void without a body, or souls to keep her company, for what felt like forever.
After a while, she forgot what Talani and Abigail looked like.
A while after that, who knew how long with time so different, Judith forgot their names.
One day, as if such a thing existed in Purgatory, she heard a voice.
“Judith?” a man said behind her, somehow familiar.
It took a moment, but the name found her like a lost song lyric.
“Solomon?”
“You’re almost here.”
“Where?”
“Just follow my voice, and you’ll find me.”
Judith followed his voice until she saw a dim white light ahead.
“What is it?”
“Just follow.”
She gathered speed until the light took form.
“Is that —” she asked, unable to finish, too much in awe of the giant glowing white tree, floating in the middle of the nothingness like a planet. Surrounding the tree were millions, if not billions of tiny lights, gold and white, floating like petals in the wind.
“What is it?”
“The After,” Solomon said.
As Judith moved closer, the tree grew even larger, its branches twisted and full of leaves and flowers, glowing in countless hues.
Closer, she saw they weren’t flowers but miniature worlds, hanging by branches.
Impossible.
“Here,” Solomon said, directing her toward a planet flower with a purple hue. “I’m here.”
“What do I do?” Judith floated in front of an apple-sized world.
Then again, it was hard to tell size with no form of her own. Perhaps in her current incarnation of nothingness, she was giant.
“Touch the world,” Solomon said.
“I don’t have hands.”
“Don’t let that stop you,” he said with a friendly laugh.
Judith floated closer to the world, could see clouds on the surface, green fields and streams below. Like an ornament on the world’s largest Christmas tree, with a world inside it.
Impossible.
She floated closer, then imagined herself reaching out.
As she did, the floating light petals formed an arm for her.
She looked down, feeling tears of joy, if not actually crying them.
She moved her fingers made of tiny light petals, and laughed. “All I do is touch the world?”
“It’s all you do. Then we’ll be together again.”
“What is this? Where are we?”
“That’s for you to find out.”
She reached out and touched the world, and as she did an explosion of light rushed her from every direction.
Judith screamed, certain that the light was consuming her, that this was some sort of cruel trick.
Then darkness.
Not just darkness, but cold water.
I can feel. I have a body!
And the sound of sloshing waves.
And then she heard Solomon. “Judith.”
She opened her eyes.
Solomon stood there. He was in a different body, as was she, but it was him all the same.
And though this wasn’t her home, she was home nonetheless.
CALEB
“You really want to do this?” John asked Caleb as they, along with Hope, Larry, Abigail, and Talani stood at the top of The Citadel tower under the waning moons, watching the burning pyre of the mass funeral in the cen
ter of Golden Cove.
“Yes,” Caleb said. “These people need a new leader. Someone without the dogma of their Gods.”
It had been a week since John saved him from the dungeon. A week since they’d tried to revive Raina, and the others, but even Hope’s miracle amulet couldn’t raise someone who had been dead for as long as Raina had been lying there on the ground.
“Are you sure you trust me with this?” Caleb patted the amulet now beneath his shirt.
Hope said, “The wizard chose you. Said he saw into your soul, and that you can do the most good with it.”
Caleb hated having the responsibility. “What if I fuck up? What if it corrupts me?”
John joked, “Then we’ll come back and kick your ass.”
Larry hit John’s shoulder, “I think you mean Hope will come back and kick his ass.”
Hope laughed, flexing her muscles.
Caleb laughed, then asked John. “Are you sure you all don’t want to stay and help me? I could grant you seats on the New Council.”
Larry said, “Hmmm, I’ve always wanted to be a politician.”
“Oh God,” Hope said, laughing.
“Hey, I’d be a good politician. At least you’d know I’m gonna tell it like it is!”
Abigail raised her hand, “I’d vote for you!”
“See, Abigail’s got my back!”
John said, “She’s not old enough.”
She threw her arms across her chest pretending to sulk.
Caleb laughed, but found it hard to enjoy their victory with so much work to do. With alliances to make and mend. With an entire North he knew nothing about to deal with. Then he had to figure out what to do with Jacob’s Forgotten Kingdom or Under Harbor for that matter. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes that The Guardians made on Earth, hunting down and criminalizing people for simply existing. He’d need to find a way to integrate them back into society, then deal with the blowback.
The more Caleb considered it, the less he thought himself up to the task. But the people of Golden Cove begged him to lead, especially when they learned that he’d killed King Jacob — a small lie perpetuated by John, but needed to forge a new history.
