Oblivion (34 page)

“They can't hurt you or me,” Isobel said. Huddling nearer to Gwen, she hoped her words—the only remotely comforting ones she could think to offer—were indeed still true.

Varen opened his arms wide and splayed both hands, as if that might somehow force the creatures to retreat.

The action only drew them nearer.

Gwen clung to her harder as Isobel fought a rising tide of helplessness. Then her racing thoughts latched on to what she'd just told Gwen. About their being protected.

“Varen,” Isobel said, pressing her back flush to his. “The Nocs. They couldn't harm me before. Even when they tried. None of them could. Because of you. Because they come
from
you, and in your mind, you wouldn't
let
them. Because you cared for me. About me.”

“Don't take this the wrong way,” he said, “but if you have a point—”

“They can't get to you unless you let them. Like you wouldn't let them get to me.”

“Weak,”
whispered one of the snarling Nocs.

“Worthless,”
snapped another.

“Surprising as you may find it,” Varen replied, his voice as doleful as it was dry, “I somehow doubt they share the same affinity for me.”

Isobel's heart stammered a beat at this response and she scowled, arrested by how much Varen had just sounded like . . .

Breaking free from Gwen, Isobel rushed to stand in front of him. Though she saw no sign of Pinfeathers's presence, no evidence that the Noc could have somehow rejoined with Varen, she now found herself wondering if the two had ever truly been separate to begin with.

“Don't you see?” she said, gripping him by the arms. “That's what I'm trying to tell you.”

“Screwup,”
came another hiss.

“Waste.”

“Ignore them,” Isobel urged. “Tune them out. Focus on me. On what I know you know in
here
.” She pressed a hand against his chest—his heart.

“I can't fight them.” He shook his head without looking at her. “And I can't send them away with a thought. Believe me, I've tried.”

“You don't have to fight,” Isobel said. “Not when they only have as much power as you give them. These things answer to
you
. To your deepest thoughts. Your unconscious desires. Please, say you understand.”

“I'm afraid I do,” she heard him mutter, his eyes at last shifting to hers.

“I need you,” Isobel said through gritted teeth. “She is losing and she knows it. Why else would she send them?”

“Oh, I don't know,” he said. “Trouble letting go?”

“Hey.”
She gave him a stiff shake. “You are
mine.
So don't you dare let her win. Do you hear me?”

“If anything will help,” he said with a sad smile, touching her cheek, her scar, “that might.”

Panic clenched a cold fist around Isobel's heart. She started to speak again, to remind him once more how much she loved him. But she didn't get the chance.

The Nocs converged on him.

Cut off and thrown back, Isobel plowed into Gwen, who caught her and held her tightly.

“Varen!”
Isobel screeched, struggling to free herself as the Nocs tore into their prey.

Though Isobel continued to fight against Gwen, her actions grew weaker with every passing second, enabling Gwen to pull her away from the carnage that, by this time, had already accomplished the worst.

Dying as quickly as it had begun, the chaos of noise and movement, of shrieking and slashing, subsided to nothing.

Stillness took the place of the mayhem and, not daring to breathe or blink, Isobel ceased her struggles.

Gwen's grip on her eased. They both remained in place, staring into the clouds of white that had risen thick enough to hide the onslaught—and now, its outcome.

The curtain of soot thinned. Hours seemed to pass while Isobel scanned the haze, searching for something—
anything
—to make sense of.

She stiffened when, from nowhere, more dark forms emerged in her periphery.

Reluctantly Isobel broke her gaze from the dissipating fog, her eyes catching those of the towering figure who now stood beside her.

Confused by his sudden presence, Isobel frowned, trying to place the stranger's sallow face, his rigid features. She'd seen him before, she thought dimly. He'd seen her, too.

In the Gothic cathedral of Varen's palace.

This man had been one of the two shrouded figures standing in the shadows, whispering about her. The man who had removed his hood. One of the Lost Souls?

“Isobel, who are these people?” Gwen asked.

Tearing her gaze from the man's black stare, Isobel glanced all around to see that the forest now held as many shrouded forms as it did trees.

Robed and hooded, grim-faced and onyx-eyed, each held a weapon at the ready, their assortment of arms ranging from swords to axes to spiked clubs, maces, and even scythes.

How long had they been there? Where had they come from, and why were they—

Crash!

Isobel and Gwen started in unison. The noise, like the shattering of porcelain plates, was one Isobel knew well.

The same sound—that of a shattering Noc—came yet again, louder than before, closer.

Then, as though he'd been thrown, a Noc flew out of the mist. Striking a tree, his hollow body exploded on impact.

A second Noc stumbled from the smog, and, choosing that moment to move, the Lost Soul beside Isobel rushed forward. Seizing the creature by the throat with an enormous hand, he knelt and quickly slammed the Noc down, smashing him to pieces against the ashen ground.

From the clearing vapors, violet smoke spirals shot into the air, zooming in every direction.

Dust mixed with smoke. Snarling faces appeared in the gloom.

Re-forming, the Nocs diverted their attacks to the Lost Souls as they dashed into battle.

A myriad of clashes and clangs, shouts and screeches, crashes and splintering noises rose, building into a crescendo.

Charging straight ahead, Isobel ran headlong into the heart of the riot.

“Isobel!” Gwen cried. “Wait!”

Though Gwen caught her by the arm, Isobel didn't slow down. Not until she spotted two silhouettes standing opposite each other in the densest portion of the mist.

One of the figures, gangly and long-limbed, belonged to that of a Noc. The other, Isobel saw with a surge of relief, belonged to Varen.

He stood tall, alert, whole, and, aside from a few scrapes and a deep gash that marred the center of his right cheek, unscathed.

The Noc opposite him sought to change that, though, and he lashed out as Varen raised his arms to shield himself. But he couldn't block the claws from raking clean across his body.

Reeling from the blow, Varen staggered backward.

Isobel halted with a gasp, and when Gwen crashed into her from behind, she fell to her knees in the dust. She looked on helplessly as Varen curled into himself.

As the battle between the countless dreamworld ghouls and Lost Souls continued to rage all around them, both Isobel and the Noc watched Varen, waiting and hoping, she knew, for opposite outcomes.

Slowly Varen lowered his arms.

Then he raised his head and straightened.

Isobel saw no blood—no more, at least—and she tasted relief a second time. Varen had listened. He'd heard her, and had been able to protect
himself
from the Noc this time.

The Noc's face contorted with fury.

“You
asked
for this!” growled the monster.

“I've changed my mind,” Varen said.

“Turncoat!”
roared the Noc.

“Your name,” Varen replied with a stiff shake of his head, blood trailing to his chin, “not mine.”

The Noc's glower deepened, and for an instant, Isobel was sure he would attack again. The creature held off, though, seeming to deliberate. And then, without warning, his expression shifted from malice to delight.

“Our name is always the same,” said the ghoul, grinning widely as he aimed a curved red claw at Varen, “whether or not you care to admit it.”

As the Noc spoke, his outstretched hand began to change, claws receding, porcelain shell morphing into pale flesh. “
We
are the same,” the monster added, his voice shedding its caustic tone for a more familiar one.

A duplicate to the long coat Varen wore unfurled over the Noc's figure. His dark, bloodstained feather-and-quill hair went soft and black.

“No,” Isobel muttered, and slamming hands into the ash, she pushed herself onto her feet.

Then she broke into a run, arms pumping at her sides.

But the creature had already completed his conversion, taking on the same shape that Pinfeathers, too, had shown the ability to adopt—one that mimicked Varen's exactly. Right down to his crimson-smeared cheek, his ashy clothes, his lip ring and dirt-caked boots. Even his cool stare of derision.

“You should know by now,” Isobel heard the Noc shout as she closed in on them, his voice a perfect match to Varen's, “that, try as you might, you can
never
escape the things that lie within. No matter how strong your cheering section.”

“Watch out!” Isobel screamed as the doppelgänger dove at him.

But her warning came too late.

The two Varens collided.

Falling into the ash, they rolled away, one over the other, until it was impossible to tell them apart.

The grappling doubles flipped to a halt as they tumbled into a clearing.

Isobel dodged through the trees after them.

“You don't control me anymore,” she heard the victor growl as he slammed the other one hard into the dirt.

“And you don't control me,” grunted the grounded Varen before inserting a knee between them, kicking his opponent with enough force to send him wheeling backward.

Seizing her chance, Isobel dashed into the clearing. She lurched to a halt between them and threw her arms wide, as if that could keep them separated.

To her right, the Varen who had been flung back regained his balance. At her left, the other duplicate climbed from the ash to his feet.

“Varen, whichever is you, just stop!” Isobel whipped her head back and forth, addressing them both. “Don't you see that he
wants
you to fight? That
she
wants you to?”

Ignoring her, the doubles started toward each other again—toward her—and Isobel knew her Varen wasn't listening. Not anymore. That left her with only one other option, and though she doubted she could appeal to the Noc, she knew she had to try.

“I said stop!” Isobel shouted. “
Both
of you. You'll destroy each other.”

“Isobel, move,” said the Varen to her right.

“No!” she shouted, her gaze snapping toward him.

“Do what he says,” came the duplicate voice to her left.

Taking in their identical glowers, their replicated stances, Isobel tried to comprehend why the real Varen, whichever he was, would
choose
to enter this battle that was so obviously a trap. Especially when there was so much at stake, and so little time left.

She didn't have a sure answer to her question, but one thing was certain: As long as she stood in the way, as long as she kept herself between them, neither would attack the other.

“Which one of you is which?” Isobel demanded. “Tell me.”

“He's the monster,” said the Varen on her right.

“Don't listen to him,” replied the Varen to her left. “He is.”

Isobel's panic mounted as she looked from one to the other. No matter how fast her thoughts spun, she couldn't think of a single way to defuse the situation. No more than she could conceive of a way to tell them apart. What was worse, she felt the tension between them building, poised to boil over regardless of what she did or said. And though the Noc had not been able to harm Varen moments ago, Isobel worried that the ghoul's new appearance had changed the rules again.

With the rest of the Nocs preoccupied with the Lost Souls, and with Varen's internal strength renewed to at least some degree,
this
Noc—the new front-runner who seemed eager to claim Pinfeathers's place—must have sensed he was losing. Losing both Lilith's fight, and his own grip on his host and source. Morphing into Varen's form, Isobel guessed, had been the ghoul's final resort, his last-ditch effort to shatter Varen's resolve.

The Noc's plan was working, too. Isobel could tell by the way each Varen glared straight through her, as if she was made of glass.

She'd seen this look on Varen's face before. Only a little while ago, in the dreamworld version of Mr. Swanson's classroom. When Varen had leveled the gun at her.

It was the same glare of hatred she'd seen that day at Trenton, when she'd found Brad hovering over Varen, threatening him for writing his number on her hand. For talking to her.

The same look of dark recklessness he'd worn after the explosive encounter with his father, when he'd taken off in the Cougar with Isobel in the passenger seat.

Ripping through the streets with total abandon, tearing around corners and through lights, revving the engine, Varen had not cared in that moment about what might happen to either of them. He hadn't stopped or slowed down, even when she'd begged him to. Not until Isobel had compared his behavior to Brad's.

But now there was no mirror to hold up to him.

Not when he faced one already.

He hates himself,
Gwen had told Isobel that morning at the cemetery, and even then, Isobel had known she was right. Now here she was again, caught in the middle of a cross fire. Because, in Varen's mind, he was no longer fighting down the shadow of his darker side.