Afterlife (16 page)

“She hates Black Cross a lot, and I get that she feels sorry
for you because of what happened with them,
but …
the traps, Lucas. She’s out to get ghosts like me. One of those traps nearly
killed me.”

“Maybe she’s just scared of what she doesn
‘ t
understand,” he protested as he stripped off his sweater
and shirt, dumping them on the floor atop the wet towels no doubt left over
from Balthazar’s shower. Guys never seemed to realize that doing laundry was an
option. “Bianca, You’re still frightened of the wraiths, and you are one. So it’s
not an unreasonable reaction.”

I had trouble imagining Mrs. Bethany being scared of much of
anything. But Lucas Wasn’t totally wrong about her either; she’d come through
for him when none of his friends could, not even me.

just
the same, I couldn’t have any
real faith in her. Not yet. “You won’t tell her about me, will you? That I’ve
become a wraith, and that I’m here with you?”

Lucas got a weird look on his face. “Are you kidding? Of
course not.” Relief washed through me. “So you don’t trust her.”

“I don’t know ifl tntst her or not. But when it comes to
you, I’m not taking any more risks than we have to. Your secrets are my
secrets, Bianca. Never doubt that.”

I brushed against his cheek, a soft breeze, and he closed
his eyes and smiled.

He was so strong right now. So happy. I suggested, “You
know, I realize we can’t
actually …
be together…” Lucas opened his eyes, his smile dimming.

Before he could apologize. I said, “But I could watch you
shower.”

He laughed out loud.

The next ten minutes were awesome, in terms of the view.
However, the whole time, I couldn’t totally concentrate — not even with
gorgeous, wet, naked Lucas to focus on. One thought had lodged itself in my
mind, and I couldn’t shake it.

I kept thinking, It’s like eve1yone else in the world can
help him a little bit — but not me. Never me.

WATCHING LUCAS SHOWER DID THINGS TO MY brain.

I let him go to class, but seeing him again, with his
muscled chest and legs, and water streaming through his dark gold hair and over
his full lips — remembering everything we’ d had together during the short
weeks we’d shared in Philadelphia — awakened my hunger to be with him again.

Desire was different for me now that I didn’t have a living
body, but that didn’t mean I wanted Lucas any less.

And I wanted that closeness between us again. I knew that I
helped tether Lucas to the world as much as he helped me; surely we didn’t have
to be celibate forever, did we? We could find a way. As long as I had my
bracelet on, I didn’t see why it would even have to be difficult.

Lucas hadn’t made any moves in that direction since our
first terrible attempt. Given how traumatizing that whole time had been, I’d
respected the fact that he needed some distance; I knew he loved me just as
much. Maybe I’d taken it too far, though. Maybe I was the one who needed to
make the first move.

As
darkness
fell, I slipped down
the side of the guys’ tower and into Vic and Ranulf’s room. They were sharing a
companionably silent dinner, Ranulf sipping blood from an Eagles mug, Vic
wolfing down a Hot Pocket. When I appeared in their room, Vic grinned and
waved. “Yo, Bianca! It’s good you dropped by. We were just gonna watch jackie
Chan movies. The old ones, where he’s badass, not the American stuff where he’s
funny.”

“His ass remains bad in all incarnations,” Ranulf
interjected. “In the laudatory sense of the word bad and a rather nebulous
sense of the word ass.”

“Ever and always badass,” Vic agreed. “just more badass in
the Drunken Master days. You want to join us, Bianca? See for yourself?”

“Actually,” I began, “I was hoping you guys might ask
Balthazar to join you. For a couple of hours or so.”

Vic nodded sagely. “A little necktie — on — the — doorknob
time is called for, I see.” When Ranulf frowned, he added, “Bianca and Lucas
want to be alone.”

“I see at once the symbolism of the doorknob and the
necktie,”
Ranulf :said
.

“Wait — no,” Vic said. “That is not what that means. At
least, I don’t think so
— ”

This conversation was about to derail. “Could you maybe go
ahead and ask him? It would mean a lot.” Vic grinned. “Consider it done.”

About ten minutes later, when I went up to Lucas’s room, I
found him alone; Vic and Ranulf had already collected Balthazar. Lucas sat amid
a pile of schoolbooks, like he was cramming for all his exams at once. “Wow,” I
said as I took shape. “Did you get hit with a homework tsunami or something?”

“Studying helps,” Lucas said quietly. “When I study, I can
focus on something outside my head for a little while.”

The books and papers and laptop in front of him looked
different now; at once I was reminded of him in his Black Cross cell,
surrounded by his hunter’s weapons. His newfound drive for his schoolwork was
one more way for him to defend himself — this time, against the demons within.

I hoped I had another way. “Do you think you could take a
little time away?”

Lucas looked up at me, his green eyes so warm and liquid
that I felt myself melt. “For you? Always.”

“We’re alone.” I brushed my hand through his hair; he shut
his eyes, clearly relishing the touch. “You’ve got my jewelry, so I could be
solid for a while. Maybe we
could .
..
give
being together anotl1er try?”

He remained silent for a long moment. His hand closed around
mine, and I felt again the sparkly sensation of connecting when I wasn’t 100
percent solid — deliciously cool, sending ripples of pleasure through me. I
bent to kiss Lucas, but just before our lips met, he said, “We shouldn ‘t.”

“Lucas — why not?” I didn’t feel rejected; his longing and
love for me radiated from him. So I didn’t understand what kept us apart. “I
know last time was bad, but we realize what’s going on now. What we can and!
can’t do.” As far as I was concerned, the stuff we could do was a whole lot
more interesting than what we couldn
‘ t
.

“The need for sex and the need for blood — they’re so
tightly linke·d, Bianca. They always have been, for us.”

“But they aren’t the same thing.” I kissed his forehead, his
cheek, the side of his mouth. He breathed in sharply, and I knew he wanted this
as 108 badly as I did — more, perhaps. “You know now that drinking my blood
would hurt you. Maybe destroy you. So that means you won’t lose control and
bite me.”

Lucas gripped my hands tightly and met my eyes. “I know that
drinking your blood could destroy me,” he said. “And that’s why I’m afraid I’ll
bite you.”

Silence fell over us, as heavy and horrible as the new
knowledge I had to bear. I’d known that Lucas was struggling, but I hadn’t
realized that his desire for self — destruction remained so immediate and
strong.

My face must have looked crushed, because Lucas said, “Oh,
God, Bianca, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You told me the truth,” I managed to say. ‘That’s the main
thing.”

Lucas embraced me as tightly as he could in my semisolid
state. “I daydream about being with you all the time,” he whispered into my
hair. “All the time. If I couldn’t remember being with you, I don’t know how I
would go on. But sometimes I think — if I could end it, just end it, while I
was with you, it’s as close as anything like me could ever get to heaven
— ”

“Lucas, no.”

“I would never do that to you,” he said. “Never.
But .
. . Bianca, we can’t.”

I nodded, accepting the barrier between us. It wasn’t
forever; just until Lucas managed to control his blood hunger and the terrible
self — loathing Black Cross had programmed into him. But how long until that
day came?

Would it ever come
?

As though he could hear my doubts, Lucas said, “Someday.”

“Someday,” I said, a promise to him and to myself.

 Later that night, still dazed with disappointment and
worry for Lucas, I drifted down into the main area of the school — deserted,
this late at night. Even the vampires were asleep.

How many vampires don’t make the transition? I thought. How
many give in to suicidal impulses or blood hu11ger, or both? I suspected the
number was far larger than my parents had ever let on. Once again I felt a
fierce surge of longing for them. Not only did I miss Mom and Dad just as
themselves, but if we could talk — really talk, without all the lies between us
— maybe I could learn how to help Lucas bear his burdens.

Perhaps ii was the intensity of my concentration as I
wondered about this, the way it dragged me so deeply into my own mind rather
tl1an the here and now — or maybe it was some trick of where I was at that
moment, because Evernight’s traps and guards and passageways created a kind of
spiritual architecture within the stone. Whatever it was, in that moment, I
suddenly became sharply aware that I was not alone.

I could sense the wraiths.

They were more distinct at that moment than they had ever
been. Instead of simply knowing that they were there, I could now tell roughly
how many there were — dozens, at least. They seemed to stand out in my
awareness, each of them distinct but part of a whole, like stars in the sky,
maybe, different points of brightness that formed constellations all around me.
It was like suddenly seeing the night sky for the very first time, as though I’d
been blind to it my whole life and then been dazzled all at once.

Except that constellations were beautiful, peaceful — and
what I sensed around me now was desperation and madness. Instead of being
dazzled, I felt the cold grip of fear.

Some that lingered alone, crammed into tiny slivers between
stones or at the edge of windowpanes. It was as though they were beating their
heads against a wall, cramping and hurting themselves just to remind themselves
they continued to exist.

The trapped ones were the worst, because I couldn’t feel
anything from them but pure terror. They’ d become nothing but long wordless
screams.

And then there were a few others, clustered tightly
together, who, when I sensed them, sensed me in return.

Once again, the visions began.

I saw an image of Mrs. Bethany in my mind — not a product of
my own imagination, but something projected into my head like a movie on a
screen. Something was tearing her apart, literally, graphically, bone and sinew
and blood and guts, more disgusting than anything I’d ever seen. My throat
tightened, and I gagged, but the image filled my whole mind now, and I couldn
‘ t
push it away.

The Plotters — that was what I called them — repeated, Help
us.

Or what? Would they attack the people I loved like this? Or
would they come after me
?
What could a ghost do to
another ghost? I had no idea, 11o but terrible possibilities unfolded in my
mind, becoming part of the gruesome destruction of Mrs. Bethany.

Her mouth was open, her jaw unhinging, but the desperate
scream in my mind was my own — Then a shaft of light seemed to penetrate my
dream. Mrs. Bethany vanished, and the “constellations” disappeared as though it
were dawn.

When I could see again, I realized that Maxie was standing
with me in the great hall. Her white nightgown floated slightly on some unseen
breeze, so that she seemed to be part of the fog outside. “You saved me,” I
said.

“I pushed them back. That’s as much as I can do.” She cocked
an eyebrow, like it was weird that she had to save me from anything. “You’re the
girl with the superpowers, if you ‘d just realize it already.”

What else could a ghost do to another ghost? That sharp new
fear controlled me as powerfully as the Plotters had a moment before. I
stabilized myself as best I could, becoming more solid. “Are those
Christopher’s .
. . henchmen? Or henchghosts? Or whatever?”

“Christopher doesn’t have anything to do with them,” Maxie
said. “They’d be better off if he did. They’re too tied to the human world to
come to terms with the fact that they’re wraiths.”

“They hate Evernight,” I said. “They hate Mrs. Bethany. Why
don’t they just leave?”

Maxie folded her arms. “You keep thinking all of us can do
the things you can do. We can’t. Most wraiths can’t move around the way you can,
or even the way I can. They followed their human anchors here because of the
strength of that bond; every instinct they have tells them not to abandon it.
And because they’re so screwed up now, they can’t think past instinct. They can’t
think, period. They’re just emotions, going in every direction.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“This is how we end, if we’re not careful.”

Cautiously, I said, “You mean, we end
up
…
crazy?”

“Unhinged. Unstable. It comes from being in the human world
but not of it.” She gave me a pointed look that suggested I was headed in that
direction.

“You’ve spent time with Vic since he was a child,” I said.
Vic was her biggest vulnerability; I wasn’t above using that.

She smiled softly when I said his name. “You can watch them.
You can even — you can love.” Her voice broke on the last word. “But you can’t
live. The damage comes from pretending that you can.”

“I’m not pretending,” I insisted.

“Aren’t you?”

“Bianca, if you would just come talk to Christopher
— ”

Fear swept through me again, and I shook my head. “Don’t.”

Maxie’s usual sarcastic demeanor had faded into genuine
pleading. “Bianca, You’re important to the wraiths. Don’t you see that? The
stuff you can do that the rest ·of us can’t — it’s not just so much smoke and
fog. It means something. You mean something.” My curiosity began to get the
better of my fear, but just when I wanted to ask her more, she grew desperate,
almost scarily so, and said, “We need you.”