Intrinsical (36 page)

Gone was his repentant self; he had morphed back into a madman. He didn’t move but a cloudy arm of darkness stretched from his shoulder, reaching for me, gloom emoting from his very fingertips. Instinct took over and I slithered backward. A second ghostly hand extended itself, then a third. I flicked my wrists frantically trying to keep them away, to stop the advancing limbs that were scrabbling toward me. But I wasn’t strong enough; they barely even rippled at my counterattacks.

My confidence crumbled, realizing that my best defense wasn’t even close to being strong enough. Calling Brent for help wasn’t an option, because I refused to endanger him in any way. This was a rescue mission; I wasn’t about to let the tide turn and become a damsel in distress. I only had to distract Thomas long enough for Brent to get his body back. Of course, I thought ironically, it would have helped if Brent had any idea his body was now Thomas-free.

I spun around blindly, running away into the orderly rows of trees. There was no place to hide from Thomas here; only the messy disorganization of the ivy and eucalyptus trees would offer me any protection.

I ran full tilt toward them. My hair flew behind me, my sneaker-shod feet zooming across the irrigated paths. Smells of blossoms, rot, and nature rushed through me as I pushed my spirit as hard as I could. Thomas was behind me, catching up yet not overtaking me, almost like he was enjoying the hunt.

A gust of wind knocked me to my knees, robbing my lungs of air. I spun, crouched in a defensive position only to see Thomas getting to his feet, too, stretching one of his ghostly tentacles out to Brent, who stood amid the shower of wind that had knocked Thomas back. Thomas planted his feet and spread himself out, letting part of himself become the mist while his own shape remained. The mist twisted around Brent, trapping him in.

Thomas reached out another arm to grab Brent and without thinking I sprinted toward Thomas’s spirit and catapulted onto his back, my small fists clawing at him. He jerked frantically, trying to toss me from him, but I clung on, refusing to let him get to Brent. Every part of me was a weapon. My fingers dug into him, my heels kicked at him, my arms squeezed him hard, like a python. I was even whacking him with my chin in the soft skin at the bottom of his neck, my necklace swinging with the motion.

There was an ear-shattering explosion when the charm of my necklace glanced off of his cheek. Howling in pain he collapsed onto all fours. His image shattered and scattered from under me, and several of the trapped souls leaked from him. As soon as they were free from his hold, the brilliant bright light of eternity materialized, beckoning the newly-freed entities to it.

“
No!” Thomas yelled, trying to regain the hold he once had on them, but his link had been severed. The souls hovered near the light for a few moments, then vanished into its warm depths when its rays reached them. Happiness and goodness peeked through the gloom before Thomas pulled himself back together, clutching his remaining captives. His usual olive coloring had grayed; losing those spirits had cost him strength.

I was still sprawled on the ground mesmerized by what had just had happened. Brent pulled me to my feet.

“
We’ve got to go get our bodies while he’s still weak.”

“
I may not be as strong as I was, but I’m still stronger than you,” Thomas spit out. The earth protested beneath me as Thomas gathered all his power to him, preparing to fight.

My feet were awkward and kept tripping as I followed Brent’s lead. I clutched Brent’s hand so tight our skin felt molded together. The darkness behind us was tipping the earth, twisting the ground, rolling the dirt.

Cherie stood at the edge of campus, a frozen sentry guarding our soulless bodies. We were only feet from her when a friendly voice called to Brent.

“
Brent, please don’t run from me.”

Brent dropped my hand as his body spiraled around.

“
Neal?” He exclaimed.

“
Brent,” I begged, “we have to keep going.” The undeniable déjà vu of the moment made me dizzy. “Remember my dream?”

Brent’s body was stiff but he shook his head for a moment trying to clear his fuzzy mind before his eyes glassed over, appearing vacant.

“
Neal needs me,” he explained, his voice hollow, pointing toward his brother who now stood out amongst the spirits that made up the mist.

“
That’s right, Brent.” Neal smiled with his mouth, but it never reached his brown eyes. “Come to me.” He extended his finger, motioning for Brent to move closer.

“
I can’t leave her,” Brent explained, gesturing toward me.

Neal beckoned Brent closer. “That’s alright. You can bring her with you.”

Brent smiled at me like this was the obvious solution as he pulled me to him. My already racing pulse quickened when the memory of my nightmare flashed in my mind, another nightmare coming true. Struggling against his strong embrace did no good; he simply hoisted me off the ground, dragging me forward. Neal and Thomas smiled at Brent encouragingly the closer we got, Neal murmuring persuasively about how much he missed him, his deadly siren song luring him in.

“
Brent, we need you to take her necklace off and give it to us,” Neal said in a cooing, honey-smooth voice.

Without hesitating, Brent reached out, yanking my necklace hard enough for the chain to snap, the broken pieces of it plinking onto the hard, dry earth. Something inside me splintered at Brent’s betrayal and I crumbled as my vision blurred.

Thomas was going to make me part of his mindless army. I was going to join ranks with the other souls he had captured. I lay prostrate on the unforgiving earth, my hands flat in front of me. I could feel a steady rhythmic pulsing against my palm and realized my hand had come to rest over one of the fallen beads. Several things clicked together in my mind as the warm bead beat against my skin. I remembered the floral plant buds inside the necklace were meant to protect pure spirits from evil ones and how contact with it had weakened Thomas. As I lay atop the scattered pieces, the seedling of an idea formed in my mind. I kept my head down, resting on my forearms, while my fingers began stealthily gathering up the broken bits of my necklace.

“
Stand her up,” Thomas ordered Brent, who roughly set me on my feet.

Thomas’s look of triumph was more than I could bear and I dropped my chin in submission. There was a loud ringing in my ears, a pounding against my skull and goose pimples rising on my skin as the darkness of the mist pressed in on me. The tinny taste of fear coated my tongue and my sweat-soaked fingers trembled.

Thomas opened his mouth to speak and I dove at him, pushing him backward, with me on top of him. His jaw hung slack in surprise and I took my chance, shoving the necklace fragments into his mouth. With every ounce of strength I had, I forced his mouth shut while slapping my other hand over his lips, not allowing him to spit them out.

The smell of singed hair and flesh permeated the air as he sizzled from the inside out. Writhing under my weight, Thomas threw his head back and the green of his eyes rolled up, leaving an empty white space staring at me. His fist smacked across my jaw and my head swung to the side as hot pain seared my face. Brent was beside me in an instant, catching Thomas’s hands, pinning them above his head.

Thomas’s chest collapsed into a dark crater where souls erupted free with a wet slurping sound that made me cringe. Released spirits hovered around him, shapeless and lost, confused at their sudden freedom after decades of imprisonment. With blinding brilliance, the white light reappeared, its rays shimmering enticingly toward the newly freed souls.

“
No
!” Thomas screamed from between my fingers as one of his former minions took a step toward the light. He struggled in a desperate attempt to regain control, but he was too weakened by the pankurem plant concealed within the beads trapped in his mouth. One by one, the boys stepped into the light, and were tucked into its embrace, the light restoring their frame from vapor into the young men they had once been, the blank expressions replaced by looks of pure joy.

As each spirit vanished, Thomas’s inhuman screams became more horrible. Thomas was transforming as well. Far from the threatening monster he had been only minutes before, he now lay stripped, reduced, and pathetic. Despite all that he had done, the murder and enslavement of dozens of young men, my heart twisted with pity and tears slid down my face as I listened to his pleas for mercy.

“
It burns,” he cried. “Please stop! I swear never to take another body again!” On and on his promises went as he begged and bargained, promising me he would change his ways if I would just show him compassion.

His desperate pleas tugged at my heartstrings. I wanted to believe that people could change, and for a moment my hands loosened as I contemplated showing him leniency. Sensing what I was doing, however, Brent forced them back with a firm shake of his head.

“
Yara, we have to finish it. There are some still trapped,” he said, softly but firmly, his eye shining with the same agony that my heart felt. Brent kept his trembling hand over mine, lending me support, as the remaining victims of the curse were sucked from Thomas. He now lay panting on the ground, a withered old man with thin hair, seeming too weak to even stand.

When the last spirit wrenched itself from his control, I pushed away from Thomas, shaking, disgusted and emotionally scarred. My stomach curdled and I dry-heaved, leaving an acidic taste in my mouth that I tried to wipe away with the back of my hand.

I was still trembling and needed Brent’s arms around me. Looking around frantically, I thought for a horrible moment he had gone into the light with the other spirits. I soon found him, though, standing a ways off with his brother. He and Neal were huddled together hugging and talking quietly to each other. Sensing me watching them, they both looked my way and Neal gave me a smile that was a twin of Brent’s charismatic grin. He leaned toward Brent and whispered something before turning back to me with one last smile. He hugged Brent before walking straight into the light.

With the last soul in its embrace, the light quietly shrunk to a small pinpoint, then vanished, leaving me blinking in the dark night. There were no stars in the sky but I could see Brent perfectly as he stared silently at the spot where his brother been, his eyes glistening. He angled away from me and I pretended not to notice him rubbing the tears from his eyes.

“
Brent?” I called timidly, wanting to offer support but not force it.

My voice seemed to snap him back into the moment. He straightened, rolled his shoulders a few times as he composed himself, then turned to examine the remnants of Thomas, who was still curled up pathetically. Thomas’s eyes swung toward Brent, his expression wild as he watched Brent advance. When Brent was only a few feet away, Thomas suddenly roared, his face becoming crimson, and he morphed into a thin veil of fog.

Brent was prepared for this; his arms were thrown wide, conjuring a miniature cyclone out of the formerly still air. Thomas, weakened as he was, couldn’t fight back, even in his fog form, and his essence was trapped in the circular frenzy.

“
You got him!” I shouted.

Brent shook his head. “Maybe, but I’m not sure what to do with him.”

“
I know where to put him.” I lifted my finger and one of my herb-laced vials that had been hidden in the nook of a tree floated toward me. “In here.”

I coaxed the stopper out of the glass and held it out for Brent who smiled in satisfaction. “If that isn’t poetic justice, I don’t know what is,” he said, pointing his finger toward his small twister and guiding Thomas’s fog toward the bottle.

Like a genie forced into its lamp, Thomas was funneled into his glass prison. Brent put the cork cap into place and made the vial levitate in the air. He walked completely around it, inspecting it

Thomas’s hatred radiated from the bottle like poisonous venom. His inky consciousness glittered lethally in the fading light. The smoke swirled and twisted like tentacles until finally Thomas’s face appeared, warped in a grotesque haunting grimace as he pushed against his glass prison, trying to escape, the vial barely rattling.

Brent and I may not have been able to read each other’s minds anymore, but he could still tell from my expression what I was thinking. “It’s over, Yara. We won.”

I gulped; I had the overwhelming sensation that what we had done wasn’t enough. I’m not sure what I had expected, maybe a fairy tale ending where a magic wand fixed everything, including all the darkness we had been through.

But this was no fairy tale. Nothing could bring back the thirty boys that had died. Nothing could take away the grief that had torn their family’s hearts into shreds. Experiences like this, I realized, are wounds that never quite healed; they stayed with you and no amount of justice would erase the scar.

“
Yara? Are you okay?” Brent asked, touching my shoulder gently. “So . . . your grandma’s necklace, huh?” I nodded. “Who

knew?’

“
She did.”

“
Yeah, she did.” Brent smiled. “She’s sort of my new hero.”

“
Mine, too.”