Ether (16 page)

            I lift my
shirt and check where the evil purple bruises had outlined my entire abdomen,
and they’re faded to yellow.  A little ghost of a smile plays across my mouth.
So what if a whole host of incorporeal evil are trying to kill me? At least I’m
a lot harder to kill now.

            A little
play of elation, left over from Ephraim’s dreams, lifts my spirits. I lean over
the bed, peering down at Justin. In the old days I would have shaken him
roughly awake, or tapped his shoulder, or something normal, but so much has
changed. His pale eyelashes flutter as he sleeps, his sweetly pale pink his
lips are softly parted. His hair is wildly tousled and his face is serene and
open. Sleep makes him at once more approachable and more vulnerable. It would
be easy, so easy just to lean down and kiss him awake.

            I imagine
myself doing it and the faint smile on my lips broadens. And why not? Didn’t he
save my life yesterday? I’m pretty sure that entitles him to a kiss.

            And before
I can think myself out of it, I lean down and let my lips lightly trace over
his, just the barest of pressures. His lips are soft and warm and I can smell
the slightly damp, chlorine scent that clings to him all the time.

            He stirs
and I pull back quickly, “Mmmmm, that was a nice way to wake up.”  His eyes are
twinkling and full of light, the way I like them, joyful.  He props himself up
on his elbow so he’s closer to my perch on the edge of the bed. “I guess that
means you’re feeling better?”

            “Super
human healing to the rescue.” I grin at him, the horror of the bleak night
slipping away with the morning.

            “Glad to
hear it.” He tilts his head toward me and kisses me quickly. He rolls to his
knees and hold my hand cupped in his, looking into my eyes. I’ve known him so
long I can almost hear the tumble of things he wants to say; at least I imagine
I can. It must be something like my list of things to say to him. We hold the
pose a few breaths, overcome by the things we want to say, and then his fingers
are running up my arm, gently lifting the bandage, just as I did.

            He whistles
softly when he sees the new, perfect skin forming underneath. “I’m not sure I
really believed him until now,” he murmurs.

            I catch his
hand again, squeezing it. “I’m not as human as I used to be, but I’m still me.”

            “Oh, no
doubt.” He grins, a big lop sided grin, “Only now you can fry other worldly spectres
and heal from the brink of death. Same old, same old.” He stands, pulling me
gently to my feet. “A shower and pancakes for two?” He says a little suggestive
ring to his voice. It sends a tiny shock through me before my brain adjusts.
Right, we’re doing this now. Flirting.

            I give him
a little playful push away from me. “A shower for
one
and pancakes for
two
.”
I amend.

            He lets his
face fall into mock disappointment. “Aww... and after I saved your life and
everything. There’s gratitude for you.”

            I laugh and
give him another little push, mouthing the word ‘go’ at him.

We keep up light banter
all through breakfast. Freshly showered and dressed in my own, laundered
clothes, a blessing from his mom, I feel better all over. The hot water washed
a lot of the stiffness away and a lot of the
smell.
I wrinkle up my
nose. I actually kissed Justin smelling like that!

            Justin doesn’t
talk about last night, or incorporeal evil, or incorporeal soul mates, he doesn’t
even bring up ‘us’. He keeps everything light and friendly, letting me get my
bearings. When I finally set down my fork on a syrupy plate he nods and looks
at me expectantly, “So?”

            “So,” I
pause, “so we go to school. We know we’ll find him there, he’s still pretending
to be human, and it may be our last chance to save him. There’s just one problem.”

            “Oh?”
Justin asks his voice quiet.

            “There’s a
pretty good chance he’s just going to try to kill me again.”

            I look him
in the eyes, holding it. We’ve known each other our entire lives. He has never,
ever failed me. I have never failed him. And as I look at him, he smiles a
slow, steady smile. “That’s how we’re going to stop him. We know exactly what
he’ll do.”

Chapter 11:
Defeat

            The world changed
on me over night. The last time the sun rose, I thought of myself as a fragile,
human teenage girl, what else could I be? Now I know differently. I’m powerful,
resilient, and getting farther and farther from human. So sure, everything looks
a little different to me. The car, the school and even Justin. They’re all becoming
things that aren’t just in my orbit, they’re mine to protect.  

            Justin slides
his eyes over to me as I take a deep breath, trying to ground myself. “You’ll
be okay. I’m not taking my eyes off you, not for a second.” He winks, “not that
I was going to anyway.”

            I give his
shoulder a little shove. “Not that you ever did,” I tease. It feels good to
joke like this, even though I know what I’m about to do is sheer craziness. I
swing the door open before I can have any more second thoughts. Every second I
waste here is one more second that Matt’s fighting for his life.

            Justin walks
me to the doors, but I can feel the difference in him already. He’s tense,
alert, wary, very much my protector. I shudder. The hallway smells different.
The odours are sharper, stronger and make my stomach squeeze and turn in place.
And the noise, hundreds of voices chatting and laughing burns into my ears. I can
hear maybe six or seven distinct conversations, but can’t pin point the
speakers. The floor lurches up at me. Instantly Justin’s arms are around me,
concern in his eyes. “I’m okay,” I choke out, but I’m not, not really. Is it
like this for Ephraim? Seeing everything, hearing everything, smelling
everything? No it can’t be. He says I’m the only really vivid thing to him. I
feel like I’ve never really seen anything before. The whole world is sharper
and clearer and it’s making made my brain hurt trying to take it all it.  I can’t
make sense of it, or see any pattern at all. It’s a chaos of experience; with
no understanding to give it meaning.

            Justin’s
fingers twine into mine, giving my hand a squeeze. I focus my attention on the
sensation. There, that’s one real thing to hold onto. I squeeze his hand back,
feeling the touch of his skin as I never have before. A blush springs up in my
cheeks as I try not to wonder what other experiences will feel like now.

            Bouncing,
spaniel curls bob before my eyes and a stream of words snap out at me. Mandy
prattle, but I can’t sort her words in the deafening roar of lock dials being
spun, books being dropped onto desks.

            I step past
her, only dimly aware of her protest, barely realizing when Justin’s hand tugs
mine and he leads me away, and then it’s really dim and the sounds around me are
muted. Justin has my face between his hands and is looking intently into my
eyes.

            I try to
look around. I’ve never been in this room before. It’s musty and dark, the
janitor’s closest. Justin is speaking to me but I still can’t focus. Beyond the
door I hear voices. Dozens and dozens of conversations and among them, some
truly disturbing sounds. Moaning, cursing, muttering, crazy sounds and the
clear coldness of Matt’s voice. “End them.” His voice booms out. “They’re
drawing too much attention.” The sound of his voice rings back against my ears
and sends me shivering. He’s here, he’s definitely here.

            The room is
stuffy and warm. Way too warm, sweat trickles down my arms and stings my eyes.
“Becks. Becks.” A soft voice is saying insistently. I want to answer, but I can’t
tear myself away from the stream of voices. If only I could hear them a little
more clearly, I might be able to find Matt. Then this would all be over. 
“She’s spent too much time in the Ether. Her mind is expanding and scattering.”
The warm voice says.

            “You said
it would heal her.  You didn’t tell us she’d loose her mind.” Justin bites back
at him.

            “She hasn’t
lost her mind. She’s lost her focus. The ether is everything, it’s always and
everywhere. Your perceptions expand. It’s natural for an ethereal but difficult
for a human to process. Fortunately,” he pauses, placing two gentle fingers
under my chin and turning my head toward him, “she’s not entirely human
anymore. Becks, focus on me.”

            His amber
eyes dance before mine, and the roar drops away. The swirling noise, the churning
conversations and, most importantly, Matt’s voice all drop away from me. I’m
standing stuffed in the janitors closest with Ephraim and Justin. Justin’s face
is flushed and tight. Ephraim is serene, as always. “Damn,” I curse. “I almost
had him.”

            Ephraim
tilts his head slightly, like a dog listening to a far off sound. “
You
,”
he says with the kind of slowly clear emphasis one uses with children. “Are not
ready to
have
anyone. You need to stay out of the ether and let your
mind and body recover.”

            I nod agreement,
but I must not look like I mean it because he scowls at me, the first
unpleasant expression I’ve seen on his face. “I mean it Becks. You’re using
power you have no concept of. You could have burnt yourself alive last night,
or worse.” I try not to wonder what could be worse.

            They’re
standing weirdly close to each other and it strikes me how incredibly awkward
this situation has become. “You’re going to lecture me? Really? Maybe if you’d
started off by telling me about the Numina hunting me, or about Derrick being
able to just summon me to him I wouldn’t have almost died, again, last night.”
Ephraim’s face goes blank, draining of all colour so he looks more like a
perfect, inhuman sculpture than a guy. “I don’t know how the Ethereals do
things, be we humans, don’t keep secrets from our soul mates,” I rip into
Ephraim. A small part of me is appalled that I’m speaking to him this way, but
I can’t stop myself. “So, the truth is, if I can hear Matt, than you obviously
know where he is, and what he’s doing. How about sharing?”

            A pained
look crosses Ephraim’s face. I can already tell he doesn’t intend to help me
with this. He probably never has. “Thought so. You weren’t ever going to help
us save Matt were you? This was all about wearing down the clock.”

            Justin
crosses his arms against his chest. “Great soul mate you’ve got here Becka.
Let’s go.” He turns the door knob and opens the door, letting in a refreshing
breeze of hallway air and light.

            “Becks,”
Ephraim says softly as we walk away. He’s whispering but I can still hear him
clearly. “There’s no saving him. Inteus is far stronger than the rest of the
Numina you’ve encountered. You’re putting yourself in danger for nothing.”

            “Not for
nothing,” I whisper back. “For Matt.” I don’t know if he hears me, but I really
didn’t care just now. We’re stepping into an empty hallway and Justin’s
hurrying us along, toward my first class. Initially he’d been intending to just
slip into a desk in the corner of my class and keep his head down but arriving
fifteen minutes late destroys the fly under the radar plan.

            Either
Ephraim did something to me back in the closest, which I wouldn’t put past him,
or I’m getting a grip on my expanded perceptions because my eyes and ears feel
normal again. Well, maybe not normal exactly. Things are sharper and more vivid
still, but not overwhelming so.

            Still, Matt’s
voice nags at my mind. Not what he had said exactly but the hollow, echoing quality
of his words. “End them,” he said, and then the words had hung in the air, the
way they would in a large, empty space. “The gym,” I exclaim. “He was in the
gym.”

            “What?”
Justin asks. “Who? Oh, Matt.”

I’m
already pulling him along the hallway. Fifteen minutes ago we could have caught
him by surprise, if only I’d recognized it sooner.

            When we come
to the large double doors of the gym we both pull up short. There’s no reason
to think he’s still in here, but an icy kind of dread fills me from the bottom
up. It’s too quiet here. I strain, listening for any slight sound ahead of us.
All I hear is an odd, intermittent swaying squeak, like a rusty tire swing
being blown by the breeze. I shake my head slightly at Justin and he pushes the
doors open an inch, gazing in cautiously.

            The gym is
dark, black and silent. I slide my hand around the door, easing it up against
the light panel and sending the lights hissing and flickering. The lighting is
industrial, the kind that takes a few minutes to warm up enough to cast really
bright light. So when the lights come on they cast weirdly long, brown shadows
over the gym, which is creepy at the best of times.

            We stay
rooted in the doorway, waiting for the lights to come on full. My eyes flick
about, afraid to stay too long in one direction, in case something creeps out
from another part of the gloom. Justin see’s it first, the shifting movement in
the shadows.

            My breath
freezes in my throat when he points. The shadows are moving. But my eyes can
see something he can’t; the shadows are human shaped. Where are the people
casting these shadows? I look around wildly, until finally, I look up. There, swaying
from the rafters, are the bodies of three girls, all hung in the climbing
ropes.

            I stiffen,
feeling myself go taut against Justin and leaning into his body for support. He
hasn’t seen it yet, but he will soon. The lights brighten a little and Justin goes
rigid against me. 

            His arms
wrap around me, tightly. I don’t know if it’s for comfort, protection or to
keep me from going into the gym. I doesn’t matter anyway, because I
need
to go into the gym. Matt’s words echo back to me. “End them. They’re drawing
too much attention.” This just happened. If I’d realized sooner, if we’d come
straight here, those girls would still be alive. I have to find out who they are.
I owe them at least that much.

            I take a
step forward trying to walk into the gym. Justin’s arms tighten around me. “No
Becka. No. You don’t want to go in there.”

            For a
second, I savour the feeling of his arms around me, the warmth of his body
pressed against mine. “You’re right, I don’t want to go in there, but I have
to. I have to know if he killed them because they were resisting the
possession. I need to know if I did this by driving out the Numina. I need to
see who they are, or were.”

            He doesn’t
exactly let me go, he keeps one arm around my shoulders and lets me take a few
hesitant steps forward. As the lights brighten I can see them more clearly.
They’re all young, very young, freshmen who probably weren’t even thirteen yet
and they all have awful welts covering their arms and deep scratches
crisscrossing their faces. One girl has drawn blood from her own eyes and it’s
oozing down her cheek, still.

            Vomit rises
into my mouth, but I won’t let myself throw up. Next to me I can hear Justin
gagging. I turn quickly away, “Let’s go.” I say, tugging him with me. I pull
him toward the outside doors, hurrying, like the sunlight can wash away what
we’ve seen.

            I can feel
the trembling in Justin’s arm where it touches mine, but I feel eerily calm.
Maybe I’ve experienced enough of death first hand that it doesn’t shock me
anymore, or maybe I am just in shock. Either way I know we have to act. By my
count those bodies mean there are at least three spirits looking for new hosts
and that means that there are about to be three more victims or three more
enemies to face, unless we act quickly.

            Ephraim
appears in the air before us, just a shimmering image. I can see through him,
as he walks backward before me. There’s strain in his voice as he speaks.
“Becks please. Please don’t deliver yourself to them. It’s you they want. It’s
you they need.”

            I step into
his space, feeling my skin pass through the edges of him, like it did when we
first met, it’s like moving through thick steam. “And it’s me that can stop
them isn’t it? They used me to cross into his world. My blood, my body and so I
can seal it, can’t I?”

            Ephraim’s
image blurs around the edges, “If you fail then they’ll kill you, blow the
gateway open and pour over the Earth. You’re going to risk your entire species
for Matt? How can that be the right thing to do?”

            Justin tugs
on my arm, “What’s going on Becka? Are you talking to Ephraim?” He pitches his
voice so he’s addressing the space in front of me, approximately where Ephraim’s
standing. “Either help us or get the hell out of her way.”

            Ephraim
sighs. “You know I’m helping. I shouldn’t be, because you’re endangering your
entire world.” His voice is just a whisper and his image is watered down and
faint. “But without my help, you’ll get yourself killed.” I open my mouth to
protest but he shakes his head, “I’m not going to let you die. You’ll just have
to trust me Becks. I would never, ever endanger your life.”

            The breeze
shifts. Ephraim stiffens, his head pivoting towards the woods beyond the
football field. I squint and then I feel it too, a coldness. Something dark that
doesn’t belong to my world is out there. Ephraim holds up a hand to stop me
from rushing forward. “You’re right, it’s you he wants, which means he’ll let
you get close to him. He wants to kill you but he doesn’t want it to be quick,
the pool proved that. So there’s an opportunity. You’ll have to face him alone,
keep him occupied.”