Death, and the Girl He Loves

The look Cameron gave her was so full of longing, so full of what-ifs, I wanted to cry. “I’ve failed,” I said, stunned. I was actually beginning to believe all the crap flying around. All the prophecies and promises that I was magically going to figure it out. But those were not normal clouds. The gates were opening, and they were opening fast.

I grabbed my jacket. “He has to be out there,” I said, readying to leave. “He has to be out in this. It’s the only way.”

Jared and Cameron exchanged charged looks. “We’ll find him,” Jared said.

“I’m going with you.”

“No, Lorelei, I can’t let you do that.”

“Let me rephrase that,” I said, stepping close. “I’m not leaving you. And I’m not letting you leave me. If this is all the time we have left, we’re spending it together.”

Before he could reply, Cameron questioned Brooke with his eyes, his expression fierce. “Brooke?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t dream of missing this.”

“I’m in,” Glitch said, grabbing his jacket as well.

“Oh, hell yes,” Kenya said, and I decided to write her enthusiasm off as naïveté.

We piled into Cameron’s truck, but Kenya said she forgot something and ran back inside. She climbed in the bed, which thankfully had a camper shell, and we tore out of the parking lot with a vengeance. Brooke called her parents to tell them what was going on, and I tried to call my grandparents, but no one picked up. Really? At a time like this? They really were the worst with their phones.

Brooke’s mom promised to let them know; then she begged Brooke to get to the church. “I will, Mom, as soon as we get this taken care of.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for strength, for guidance, and for superpowers.

* * *

Just like in my visions, the clouds churned with an eerie darkness that reminded me of a cauldron from a witch’s brew. Fear didn’t consume me. It was there, but it didn’t consume me. Regret consumed me. The realization that we had failed consumed me. The war was starting and I didn’t stop it. The prophecies—the dozens of prophecies that promised their believers deliverance from this horror by means of a powerful descendant of Arabeth—were wrong. Plain and simple. Or they simply put their money on the wrong girl.

I wasn’t strong enough. Or perhaps I wasn’t smart enough. Whatever it was I was supposed to do to stop the war before it ever started did not come about. I’d messed up somewhere. I’d taken a wrong turn. And because of it, the world was going to pay a very high price.

Tears stung my eyes from both the emotion roiling inside me and the wind whipping my hair across my face. We found the center of the storm and assumed Dyson would be there, so that’s where we got out. Cameron and Jared took swords out of the bed of the truck. They’d clearly been prepared for my failure, not a good feeling.

A particularly strong gust of rain and wind almost brought me to my knees. I caught myself and looked up. In the middle of the cauldron, a vortex spun and swirled.

“Look!” I cried above the noise.

Everyone watched as its center opened and dark, inklike beings, fleshless shadows in the air, slithered out. Each one paused, seemed to get its bearings, then darted off in whichever direction it chose. Some headed toward Riley’s Switch. Some scurried over the landscape toward bigger and better seas. Albuquerque. Santa Fe. Las Cruces. And beyond. They would soon spread through the sky like a monumental murder of crows, attacking people as they went.

It was exactly as I’d envisioned it. I stood watching the horror unfold before my eyes. Kenya stood beside me, ever faithful, ever naïve.

I yelled to her above the stinging rain. “It’s over!” I said, my voice barely audible. “I’ve failed.”

But Kenya was in shock. Eyes wide, mouth hanging open, she’d never imagined what it would look like. She’d never imagined it would come to this, her faith so complete. She’d brought me something. In her hand was a stack of old photographs, growing wetter by the second.

That’s what she’d gone back for? Pictures?

I looked away from her, sorrow eating me from the inside out. I’d let her down so monumentally. So completely.

We watched as Jared went in search of Dyson. Cameron stayed close, shielding his eyes from the rain, waiting for a signal from Jared. But none came. Jared disappeared over the landscape, the grayness of the day making it impossible to follow him for long.

The shadows were getting closer. Anytime they got too close, Cameron would move to block them, but their numbers were growing by the second. We couldn’t do this all day.

Just then we spotted Jared jogging back to us. He motioned for us to get in the truck. They were following him, a group of the shadows, and he transformed before our eyes. He’d become something other. He’d become like them, and I stood transfixed as I watched him. Mesmerized. One moment he was as solid as I was. Broad shoulders. Solid stance. Muscles straining against the weight of the sword he wielded. The next, he was smoke. A magnificent phantom fighting ghosts, the spirits of those sent to hell. They’d been sent for a reason and they fought dirty. They came at him in droves. Nipped at him. Ripped at his smoky essence until pieces of him came off in what I could only assume was their mouths.

He faltered and they pounced like hungry jackals. My hands flew to my mouth as he disappeared beneath them.

I tried to run to him, but Cameron pushed me back. I stumbled, fell to the ground, looked up at him with a new anger bursting inside me, and screamed. “What is the use?” I yelled above the roar of the wind, freezing rain pelting my face like frozen razor blades.