“I’ll never forget either of you,” I whispered.
“We won’t either,” Granddad said, bringing me into a hug so they could both hold me close one last time. “You make us very proud, Sierra. Don’t ever forget how special you are. You can do anything you set your mind to.”
“Accept what you are, and don’t ever doubt what you can do,” Grandma added. “And trust Seere. He’s your conduit to Hecate.”
“What?”
“Seere might be a demon, but you can trust him with your life.”
She’s talking about Saul.
Tears pushed past my eyelids because the brightness burned my corneas. My grandparents’ arms slowly slipped from my shoulders, followed by their fingertips, until all that was left was their silhouettes.
“They’ll be okay,” Lavie said, squeezing my hand. “This is what you wanted for them, right?”
I nodded, watching the radiance narrow into a small dot. “Let’s get these kids out of here. You got the imps?” I rubbed the tears away with my sleeve, trying to blink the effects of the light from my eyes as much as the sadness.
“They’re safe and sound, back in their new home.”
I didn’t want to know what that meant, so I turned around and headed for the imprisoned kids. Lavie had already released a bunch of them, and they were standing around in a group like lost sheep. As we went about releasing the others, I noticed the clear tubes had dropped away on their own—hopefully after the vise-branch contraption stopped working.
A popping sound snapped inside my head and I knew the pathway to the Afterlife was sealed. What I didn’t expect was the pain that struck, making me feel like my skull was going to crack. Every single one of my limbs trembled and ached like crazy, but I couldn’t afford to waste time thinking about the pain. We still had to get home.
The buzzing beneath our feet shifted to shaking like an earthquake. As if a switch had been hit, all of the shadows were suddenly there, writhing above and around us—every single one of them screeching.
“What’s happening?” Lavie asked, stepping closer to the children.
“I think the patch is unraveling.” I took a deep breath, trying to keep my head intact by pressing both hands against my temples. “Come on, we need to get moving.
Now!
”
“Are you sure you can?” Lavie asked.
I waved her away, but the words I wanted to say refused to spill out of my mouth.
The kids were all wide-eyed, their fear emanating off their small bodies like waves and stirring the shadows into a frenzied mob. Crashing sounded in the distance, like the worst sort of thunder.
“Some of these kids can’t walk,” Lavie said.
“We’ll have to carry them.” I made a move to do just that, but was stopped in my tracks by the rush of shadows. A whirlwind stirred around me like a tornado trying to whisk me away. I remembered seeing this happen to Travis Slevani when he’d used the shadows to try and defeat me, but they weren’t doing that now. These creatures weren’t trying to help—they wanted to suffocate me. The closer they got, the less air I had left to breathe and the harder my heart pounded. My pulse echoed inside my ears so fast my skull felt like it was fractured.
The pain intensified and I stumbled forward. The shadows whipped my face with their limbs—burning me. So much for receiving ultimate power after my grandmother crossed over. I couldn’t take this pain. I was about to pass out…
Someone screamed my name from the other side of the wall of shifting shadows but I didn’t know who or why. I was on my knees ready to shrivel up on the ground with both hands pushing so hard against my head I expected it to explode. This was the worst panic attack I’d ever had and if I didn’t calm the fuck down, I wouldn’t make it.
I took short breaths, until the anxiety trickled out of me. I wasn’t scared of these things, wasn’t afraid to die. As long as Lavie and the innocent kids got out alive, I could go peacefully. There was no need to fight.
I had to let go of everything. All emotion spilled from my body and soul, slid out through my pores and into the cloud of shadows. My body became hollow, giving these monsters enough space to fill me up from the inside.
They buzzed with excitement, too smug to care about the consequences because they were slipping in through my nose and mouth, forcing their filthy shapes into me. I couldn’t help but smile because I’d expected their invasion to tear me apart. Instead, it fueled my hatred for everything they represented—corrupt, selfish entities hell-bent on destruction.
I pressed my right palm over the back of my left hand and felt the heat buzzing below my skin. It took all the energy I had left to get to my feet, to uncoil every single one of my atrophied muscles so I could lash out and spread my arms wide. The motion sent the shadow monsters exploding out of me. Every single one rushed out from within and dissipated into mounds of ash left staining the air.
Suddenly, I understood exactly what Saul and my grandmother meant about this power. I even understood why those
Obscurus
freaks were so determined to control it. The rush was amazing. Obliterating these monsters made adrenaline pump through my body until all the helplessness and exhaustion was replaced with strength and energy.
This power is mine now.
“Sierra!”
I glared at my surroundings to confirm there were no shadows left. Actually, there weren’t any roots, cages or trunks either. There was nothing left in this patch but Lavie and the horrified children standing inside a barren landscape.
Lavie hurried over, both of her bare arms in front of her. “Look what you did!”
“What’s wrong?” I squinted, trying to figure out what she was talking about.
“Nothing’s wrong. Sierra, you removed the demonic seeds!”
That was when I realized what she was trying to show me. The snake-like things living inside her were gone, replaced with smooth, pale skin.
She looked so happy. “And your face is clear, all the bruising is gone.”
“Really?” I had to admit that my face didn’t hurt. Actually, all of my previous aches and pains seemed to be gone.
“Yeah—”
The cracking sound that had been in the distance was now beside us. I dared to look and found the ground crumbling into a void.
“Come on, let’s go.” I grabbed a hold of the tallest boy I could find and handed him an unconscious one. “I need you to carry him, okay?”
Lavie already had two toddlers—juggling one on each hip—while Charlie was awake and holding the hand of a little girl. I grabbed a few kids by the hand and yelled for the others to get moving. Lavie took up the rear because I knew the way back. If any of the doorways had closed along the way, I still had the Hand hanging from my hip.
But we didn’t need to worry. The pink neon cord became brighter the closer we got to home, and every single door opened as we approached. It took a lot less time to reach our destination than when we’d first arrived. I rushed through the final pathway, dumping the kids on the bed and heading back in to help the others, as well as Lavie. Once she was through, I examined what was left—a vast crumbling pit.
I couldn’t believe I’d been responsible for such destruction.
Turning my back on the annihilated shadow patch, I was about to drag my foot through the wall when I was flung out, and landed across the room Burr had constructed. My back hit the opposite wall—the one we’d come through had cracked, but at least we were back.
Burr helped me up, his waxy skin slipping along my sweaty palm. “Did you do what you set out to do?” he asked.
“Where are the kids? Are they okay?” I looked around. “Where’s Lavie?”
He raised a hand and swiped it in front of my face. The bedroom he’d so carefully constructed vanished, replaced with the crossroads and all the kids we’d rescued. They milled around, confused and hovering near Lavie like she was their schoolteacher. Well, every kid except for Charlie and his sister, who were now reunited with their parents. They caught my eye, smiled and mouthed, “Thank you”, before walking away from their worst nightmare.
“Don’t worry about the children,” Burr said with a smile. “We have a register with all their names and will return them to their parents. I need to know how it went. Did your grandmother move on?”
I nodded.
His eyes glistened. “Then it’s done. We can all breathe a little easier.”
I nodded because I knew what he meant.
“And it started with you obliterating the shadow patch,” he said proudly. “I can’t wait to tell the other Tailors that my neophyte was responsible for getting rid of those soul suckers.”
“Your neophyte?”
He waved my question away with a chubby hand. “That’s a story for another day.”
“I think you should explain what you mean now.”
He shook his head. “No, you should concentrate on your victory. Thanks to you, the shadow patch no longer exists. Those monsters will never take another innocent from this world again.”
“Is that something she’ll be able to do now?” Lavie asked, coming up behind us.
Burr turned to face her. “What’s that?”
“Now that she’s inherited the power, she can walk between patches and destroy them, can’t she?” She looked serious. “It’s what Jacinta is worried about, why she wants Sierra dead.”
“No one can kill her now,” Burr said, cackling. “You both need to go home. Get some rest because this isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.” He made his way towards the kids and spoke in a loud and overexcited voice. “Children, it’s time for all of you to be going home, but first we are going on an adventure. So stand in a circle. Yes, that’s it! Good boys and girls, hold hands.”
“Are you Santa?” a little redheaded girl asked.
Burr laughed, taking the hands of the two kids on either side of him so they closed the circle. He glanced over his shoulder, flashed us a wide smile and they all vanished.
A flash of electricity snapped through my body and I trembled.
I looked up at the power lines and noticed a shimmer in the air. Was that bastard Mace watching me? Did he know what I’d just done and what had happened to me?
“So, Lavie, after what you’ve seen, are
you
going to try to kill me for the Alliance?”
She shook her head. “I don’t kill my friends. I’m just glad we made it out of there alive. For a moment, when all those shadows engulfed you, I was worried you wouldn’t survive.”
I shrugged, offering a half-hearted grin. “You heard what Burr said, I’m hard to kill now.” I looked at her. “So, are they really gone?”
She held up her arm, lifted the sleeve and showed me the familiar demonic seeds still squirming beneath her skin. “No.”
I felt bad for giving her false hope. “But they
were
gone, right? We didn’t imagine it?”
“It really happened, inside a demonic patch. Obviously it doesn’t work out here.”
“Do you know why?”
“Not yet.”
I rubbed my temple because the thumping inside my brain had returned. It felt like my head was going to explode.
This isn’t what I imagined it would feel like to become the vessel of some ultimate power.
Everything had a price, I supposed.
“Hey!” Lavie pulled my hand from my head and glared at it.
“What?”
“You’ve got a Strophalos symbol on your hand.”
“What?” I pulled out of her grasp and stared at the back of my hand, where I now had a tattoo. The skin was slightly raised but it was easy to see the tattoo design, the same one I had on my boline—Hecate’s Wheel. “What the hell is this?”
“Wow,
this
is amazing,” she whispered. She pulled my hand closer to her eyes, inspecting it like it was the most curious thing in the world. She ran a finger over the design. Her eyes widened, alternating between looking at me and gawking at my newly tattooed skin.
“Yeah, it is, considering I didn’t have a tattoo before.”
But she wasn’t affected by my attempted humor. “Do you know what this means?”
“That I’ve been marked by the divine?”
Lavie looked up, her eyes shiny with wonder. “That’s exactly what it means. Your power must come from the Goddess Hecate. Everything makes so much sense now.”
“What?
Wait!
I was joking.” I might know a bit about the ancient Goddess Hecate, but no way did I believe she’d actually marked me.
“This isn’t a joke,” she said. “Wait until he sees this.”
I was about to ask who
he
was but got distracted when she released my hand. The same symbol on my tattoo flashed pink on the back of Lavie’s left hand, fading so quickly she didn’t notice, and I wondered if I’d imagined it.
Epilogue
So, I now had ultimate power at my disposal. I could obliterate demonic patches and wipe away every living demonic being inside it. Demons should fear me, all creatures should be wary, but I was still powerless to take care of the one person who needed me the most.
A few days later, Papan was still unconscious. Actually, he’d had three blood transfusions but slipped into a coma anyway. No amount of compatible blood—even from fellow wolves—was going to repair the damage done to his internal organs. Only one blood type would do that, but before resorting to such a drastic option I wanted to give his body a chance to repair itself.