Ether (18 page)

            Ephraim
steps in front of me, putting himself between me and the vision of my dying
body but he’s so translucent now that I can see it rippling through him. It’s
like watching myself die through a veil of water, another unpleasant experience
I’ve had.

            Movement
shifts in the trees just beyond the crash, in the exact place I’ve seen in all
my nightmares ever since. I’ve been caught here since the accident.

            Derrick strides
out of the woods. He’s dressed entirely in black in flowing clothes that seem
hundreds of years out of place, but still made him look alluring, intense and
evil. He spreads his hands and smiles pleasantly. “That was beautiful. Really,
truly beautiful. I don’t know when I’ve been so entertained.” He looks right
through Ephraim, focusing on me alone. “Such moxy! Such fire! It’s almost a
shame you’re completely doomed. But then you’ve been entirely out classed from
the beginning.”

            Ephraim
steps toward him. “I’m not going to let you touch her,
Numina.
” He spits
with more violence in his voice than I’ve ever heard.

            Derricks’
head turns slowly, registering Ephraim for the first time. “As if you have
anything to say about this, child,” he scolds. “What have you got a few dozen
years of experience? The vast elemental power of a pleasant spring day? Please.
She’s mine. My inspiration, my creation. You’re just a naïve child who’s broken
rules that were created to protect you because you’re too impetuous and self-indulgent
to stop yourself. Maybe you need a little time out.” A sweep of power swirls
out from his hands and blasts Ephraim away from me, encasing him in sparkling
sheer walls. Ephraim throws himself against the walls, over and over, but he
only bounces off them.

            Derrick’s
eyes slide away from Ephraim and back to me. “It’s so much better now that we
have some privacy.  Before I kill you, I think it’s only polite to thank you
for putting on such a top notch show. The look on Inteus’ face when you
dismissed him a second time; Priceless.”

            Venom roars
through me. Venom and rage. “You find this entertaining? Torturing and killing
is some kind of show for your pleasure? That’s why you did all this to me? To
my friends? To those innocent kids you killed?”

            He gives a
snort of derision. “Now let’s be fair. No one died until you started playing
with powers that don’t belong to you. No one had to die, except you, obviously.
And it isn’t like I was condemning you to oblivion. I was offering you a golden
gift. I offered you eternity. Eternal life as an ethereal with the man of your
dreams; a painful process but not without its rewards.”

            I don’t
believe a damned word out of his mouth. “And what about all the innocent kids
your people took as hosts? Do they get eternity too?”

            He smiles,
and his smile is eerily genuine. “As a matter of fact, they do. Bonding with an
ethereal doesn’t obliterate the host. Surely you should know that yourself.
Don’t you still possess some limited measure of free will, even now that
Ephraim has taken you?”

            I shake my
head, his words are twisting everything up. Ephraim didn’t take me, he saved
me. But a nagging little part of me tells me there’s some truth in it. When
Ephraim’s near I can’t always think clearly. I lose focus, doing as he bids me.
I’d thought it was his charm, but maybe it’s something more sinister. With an
effort I push the thought away, I can’t believe him. He’s trying to kill me. He’s
responsible for everything that has happened to me. “So you’re what, just a
poor, misunderstood good guy?” I shoot back sarcastically. “I don’t buy it. Why
are we even having this conversation? If you meant to kill me, you’d have done
it by now.”

            He gives me
a toothy smile, stepping close enough to me that my skin crawls and I feel a
familiar spark flaring up against my palms. "Kill you? After all the time
I’ve invested in your creation that would be wasteful in the extreme. Plus, I
have an entire army of incorporeals ready to overrun the earth and a strict
time table to keep. Still, if you really, truly don’t want to be an ethereal, if
you can’t find it in yourself to recognize the honour of receiving such a gift,
maybe I should just take it back. Is that what you want? You want to be frail
and human again?”

            “Please,” I
whimper. I don’t know if I’m begging for my life or honestly asking him to roll
back the hands of time and make me what I was before all this. Ephraim screams
from inside his prison and I feel a sucking draw of power away from me. The
tingling leaves my hands as a hole blasts through the shimmering walls, and
Ephraim hurls himself out.

            Derek raises
his hands, a swirling turbulence of power between his hands, growing larger
every second. I hear Ephraim scream, one sharp sound and then the ball engulfs
him, raging over him. He writhes on the ground and the darkness behind Derek
explodes with light. A huge, dark portal pours open behind him. He doesn’t turn
to look, he just nudges Ephraim with the toe of his boot and snarls down at
him. “So predictable. Impetuous, reckless, self-indulgent and a damned fool.
Did you really think pushing a mortal into the ethereal realm would be enough
to blow open the gate between worlds? No, it always had to be the other way
around. I was always going to need an ethereal rash enough to sacrifice his
eternity for her mortality.”

            He turns
back to me. “Still, I’m not without a sense of gratitude. And just to show you
how grateful I am, I’m going to let you both live. I’ll even take the Numina
well away from here and let you have your little town with your fleeting human
lives. He’s of no use to me now anyway.” He turns toward the gateway and steps
away from us, then half turns back, speaking over his shoulder. “but you my
dear, might be, when you’ve had a little time to grow into your power.
Something to consider.”

            As he steps
through the gateway I have a lurching glimpse of hundreds, thousands of surging
energies streaming forward, towards our world. And then we are back on the
bright green grass of the football field, with Ephraim lying curled into a fetal
ball on the ground and me swaying on my feet.

            I drop to
the ground next to him, turning him over with shaking hands. He feels solid and
warm against my hands. I lift his head so it’s cradled against my thigh. A
little trickle of blood is splashed against his full pink lips. A little
trickle of his own, human, blood. “Ephraim?” I whisper through tears.

            His hand finds
mine and squeezes it weakly. A lot of truth passes between us. He’s sacrificed
himself to save me. He’s sacrificed everything. His power, his home, and maybe
the world itself, just to save me. I stroke his head gently, smoothing his hair
out of his eyes, rubbing the light sheen of blood from his lips. “I don’t
regret it,” he says softly.

            “Me either,”
I answer. And I mean it. I’d told him once that sixteen was too young to die,
no matter what the reason. A second, a third or even a fourth chance at life is
worth it, no matter what the cost. We’re both alive and that’s something. As
for the world, well we probably owe it some saving.

            Justin kneels
in front of me, taking one of Ephraim’s arms. He helps hoist him to his feet
and guides him to the car. I start to say something, to explain but Justin just
shakes his head. “Explain later, move now.”

*                *                      *

Justin stands on the
deck his hands gripping the railing as he gazes off into the afternoon light of
the forest. Ephraim’s sleeping upstairs, in my bed. Matt’s pretty much passed
out on the couch. I still have no idea what I’m going to tell my mother about
the three boys who are camping at my house. One of whom has no last name, no
history, no family, nothing at all to fill in except that without him I’d be
dead, which I can’t really add to his back story when I present him to my
mother.

Justin’s
been great, helping me get them both inside, settling them, supporting me but
he’s also barely spoken and so much has happened. He doesn’t even look back at
me now, when I clear me throat. He just keeps his eyes on the forest, as if
standing guard. “What happened back there?” he asks at last.

I
sit down in the same deck chair where I saw Ephraim, that first beautiful
afternoon. “I don’t know exactly, something kind of terrible. We were just
pawns, being moved around. Derrick’s not what we thought he was. He’s something
else, something very old, very dangerous. I don’t think we ever could have won
against him.”

Justin
turns toward me, just a fraction, “But you survived. Both of you.”

I
shake my head, “Because he let us. Because we weren’t important enough to kill.
We’re like, nothing to him, insects maybe.”

Justin
gives me a weary smile and walks across the deck, sitting in the chair opposite
mine. “Then he’s woefully underestimated you,” he says with brave glibness.

I
reach out and take his hand. “Maybe. Maybe not. We can figure that out
tomorrow.” I squeeze his hand and bump my leg against him. “Today though, I’ve
got some living to catch up on.”

He
smile at me and this time there’s real warmth in it, and something a little
more tantalizing in his eyes. “I know just where to start,” he murmurs, using
my hand to pull me in close. He holds still, breathing in, just inches from me.
“How about kissing your boyfriend?”

After
everything it sounds so silly, so simple that I giggle, until he leans in and
silences the giggle with a kiss that’s slow enough to make my insides flip. We both
have a lot of living to catch up on.