Oblivion (30 page)

“Varen, I'm . . . ,” she started, but as a look of dark concern clouded his features, her voice stalled in her throat and she thought better of trying to explain.

If keeping the truth to herself meant he would follow her more readily, if it gave her a better chance of luring him out of this realm—of convincing him that, with her, he
could
leave its boundaries—would it not be better to go on letting him think she was . . . what? A spirit sent to collect him?

An angel,
she corrected herself, remembering the pair of statues standing watch at the altar, the stone seraphs populating the courtyard. The bust of the helmeted warrior girl stationed above the purple chamber's doors. A
guardian
angel.

“Tell me you trust me,” Isobel said, peering into his eyes again. “Do you?”

His gaze narrowed on her, and he gave no answer. She could tell he knew there was something she wasn't divulging. Something he was missing.

Another wave bowled into them, hard enough to knock Isobel off balance. Varen reached for her and held her steady. They watched the wave as it tumbled to the shore, crashing there with a low boom, hissing as it spread its way up the long bank of sand.

The tide had begun its nocturnal conquest of the beach, giving the illusion that, though she and Varen hadn't moved, they'd drifted farther out.

“Are you doing this?” Isobel asked.

“No,” he said, jaw flexing, his focus still on the shore.

A beat passed before he spoke again. “It's not over . . . is it?” he asked, looking down at her.

Isobel grasped him by the sleeves.

She bit her bottom lip and dug deep for what to say, wishing she could tell him that the nightmare
had
ended, that they'd reached their forever and there wasn't anything left to be afraid of.

For one blissful instant, it had certainly felt like they had.

“Do you trust me?” she asked again.

Varen watched her with concern, brow knitted, his stare suddenly sober, searching. Slowly, he nodded.

“Then come with me,” she said, taking his hand. “And don't let go.”

Gathering her soaked skirts in her free hand, she tugged at Varen.

He didn't ask any more questions, and when Isobel started in the direction of the shore, he followed behind.

Black waters lapped at them, pearly pockets of white moonlight mottling the surface that seemed to lengthen as they headed toward the beach. Step after sinking step, Isobel trudged ahead, but the coast drew no closer.

Dread gripped her, but she pressed on. She squeezed Varen's hand, peering back at him once, and then again when she noticed him staring at something.

She whipped her head forward and saw what it was that had stolen his attention.

Eddies of white fizz left by the crashing waves swirled and spun on the shore. Emerging from the froth, a slender figure lengthened upward.

Sea foam became glowing gossamer. The delicate swathes of material unfurled in folds and drapes, clinging to the specter's distinctly feminine form.

Haloed in a glow that shamed the moon stood Lilith, her beetle-black eyes watching them through the shield of her transparent shroud.

Isobel felt Varen freeze when, gliding toward them, Lilith waded into the ocean, her train of veils dragging behind her, rising to float like trails of smoke.

The demon opened ivory arms over the water, and as she did, the ocean surged up to Isobel's neck and Varen's chest.

Isobel bounced on the ball of one foot to stay afloat. Keeping the demon in her line of sight and her hand fastened to Varen's, she tried to think of somewhere to take them, some way to shift them away from
her
.

But she couldn't make a door in the water. And with the waves now swelling to her chin, threatening to swallow them both, she couldn't concentrate. She couldn't—

Isobel sank below the next wave, and this time, her foot found no purchase. Plunging deep, through the place where the sea floor had existed moments before, she released Varen in a burst of panic.

Crying out, gulping seawater, she scrambled for him, groping blindly through the murk.

Her hands passed through empty water while the current carried her away and the sodden skirts of her heavy dress dragged her down.

She threw her arms out, kicking to propel herself up toward the swiftly rising surface.

Something soft brushed her naked shoulder. Whirling, she reached for the hand that wasn't there and found herself in the midst of countless luminous white veils. They wound around her throat like tentacles.

Unleashing a muted, bubbled scream, Isobel thrashed against the weblike material.

Her lungs, now empty, burned for air.

Yanking a fistful of veils free, she felt a faint snap at the nape of her neck.

Isobel released the wad of gauze and scoured her throat for the hamsa, nails clawing her own flesh.

Gone.

Spinning in search of the amulet, in search of Varen, she quickly lost her sense of which way led up and which led down.

Then, like a beacon, a pale face appeared in the gloom. Netted by a screen of black hair, it floated toward her.

But it was not Varen's.

This face—waxen, skeletal, hideous—belonged to a monster.

A pair of wasted hands reached for her, their curved black nails like barbed hooks.

At the center of the creature's sunken eyes flashed two pinpricks of light.

Isobel flailed to get away, but with lungs pleading for air and muscles numb from exhaustion, her efforts came weaker now.

Closing in on her, the demon curled a hand almost tenderly around Isobel's bare throat, claw tips scarcely pricking the nape of her neck.

As Lilith's emaciated form coasted to a slow-motion stop, her loose ebony hair rushed around them both. Innumerable black threads intertwined with the clouds of floating veils, tickling Isobel's shoulders, blocking her surroundings from view.

Isobel saw no sign of Varen. Only inky tendrils, billows of white, and straight ahead, that pinhole gaze.

Like a spider preparing to wrap its prey, Lilith pulled her nearer.

Isobel strained in the demon's grasp, yearning for the strong, gentle grip of Varen's hand. But it never came, and she knew he'd lost her just as she'd lost him.

The demon's pale and shriveled lips peeled back to display a needle-toothed grin.

Death would come next. Isobel had no doubt. And there was no stopping it, or what would happen after.

She would become a Lost Soul, like Reynolds, bound body and spirit to this realm—to Lilith—for eternity.

Gwen had been right, and, enemy or not, Reynolds had been right too.

She'd never stood a chance.

Cold and caressing, the creature's knuckles trailed Isobel's cheek, brushing over her scar before sliding up to her temple. There, the wraith's talons wove their way into her hair, causing Isobel's crown of flowers to dislodge and drift off.

Though Isobel tried to wrench her head away, the demon tightened its grip at the back of her skull, holding her face to its own.

With lungs now threatening to explode, Isobel ceased her feeble side-to-side twists. She waited, anticipating the piercing pain of those spiked teeth, the ripping sensation of having her throat torn out. The clawed hand that would contract and crush her windpipe.

When none of those things happened—when
nothing
happened—Isobel's yearning for air became an all-consuming need, and it occurred to her that delivering a swift death was not what Lilith had in mind.

The demon wanted to watch her struggle, to drink in her final throes as she drowned slowly in its clutches.

But she'd come so far. Survived too much. Risked everything . . .

Isobel kicked her legs again, though no longer in an effort to escape. Now she hoped only to fend off the fog of unconsciousness that had begun to steal over her, lulling her toward the last bat of her eyes, since her final breath had already been taken.

Varen,
she thought, her fingers wrapping the sinewy wrist of the hand that held her. Where was he?

Shhh,
a woman's voice hushed in her head.
Sleep now, so you can awaken safe in your new bed. Forever and always home . . .

Of course,
Isobel thought dimly, lids drooping.

The demon's plan was to seal her away. That open tomb. Halloween. The blue marble crypt. Lilith's own vault.

Total darkness. Complete and everlasting.

The very fate Isobel had threatened the demon with in the ballroom.

Gritting her teeth, Isobel summoned one final burst of strength, attempting a second time to tear the creature's grip away.

She succeeded only in ripping more of the clinging silk.

Shhh,
the voice in her head shushed. Then, out of nowhere, the same voice began to sing.

“Hush-a-bye my little bird

Hush-a-bye my child”

Gwen's lullaby. Isobel recognized the melody immediately.

“I have lost a love so great

Oh, woe is me.”

So,
Isobel thought, her body slackening,
that's what the lyrics meant.

The singing turned to humming then, one melody to another, and Gwen's lullaby morphed into Madeline's. Varen's.

Isobel's lids fell closed at last under the weight of the soothing refrain. Her arms drifted open, her body preparing to indulge in the lethal inhale it so wanted to take.

Don't you ever tire?
Scrimshaw's voice echoed over the humming.

Too late to turn back now,
Isobel heard Gwen say.

Good-bye, cheerleader . . .

Good-bye,
Isobel thought, just as her back collided with something solid. The ocean floor?

No,
she thought when she felt an arm loop around her waist—pulling her in close against a body.

The moment seemed so familiar. Like it had happened once already.

Isobel opened her eyes to slits. As her mind attempted to make sense of murky shapes, garbled sounds, and hazy colors, she wondered if it was now her turn to relive old memories.

Pinfeathers, pulling her from one side of the veil to the other . . .

Then her clouded brain registered a look of rage contorting the demonic face that still hovered inches from her own. Lilith's pitted eyes weren't fixed on her anymore, though. They were locked instead on whatever—whoever—had taken hold of Isobel.

Isobel grabbed the hand gripping her, feeling for claws, but she found strong fingers instead.

A glint of silver sparked in the fringe of her vision.

Was that . . . ? Her arm shot out, and as soon as her fist closed around the veil-wrapped hamsa, the demon's hands unlatched from her like loosed manacles.

Recoiling, Lilith's face fractured down the center, spilling clouds of black and violet ink.

The creature opened its mouth in a soundless shriek, palms pressing to its rupturing face.

Then, before Isobel's lungs could collapse, forcing her to inhale the swirling ink, the arm encircling her wrenched to one side—transporting her.

A sharp splash crashed in her ears as she felt her body depart suddenly from the crushing ocean, hurtling through a wall of water into . . . a room?

Inhaling with a rattling gasp, lungs filling to the brink, Isobel fell, tumbling hard with her savior onto carpet.

A hand grabbed her by the shoulder, and the world swam by in a whir as she was thrown onto her back. She caught a brief glimpse of glittering crystal shards, violet flames, a rolling ceiling of smoke.

Then Varen's face, drenched and shocked, appeared over her.

Jet hair streaming, electric-green eyes wide and darting, he scoured her form, his expression lit with a mixture of panic and disbelief.

Isobel turned her head away, coughing and sputtering. Behind Varen, the wall undulated and rippled, still liquid at the point through which they'd entered until it snapped solid. As she drew in breath after breath, Isobel took in the sight of ornate gold frames everywhere, each encasing its own fractured glass.

He'd transported them into the mirrored corridor from that morning's dream.

Along with the green mechanic's jacket and her own bedraggled, sodden pink dress, Varen's usual black clothes and coat had returned.

Reflected in every splintered shard of glass, Isobel saw herself and Varen, their pale, drenched faces repeated into infinity by the cracked mirrors that bounced them from one wall to the other and back again.

“You have a reflection,” Varen said between gasps, his tone accusing.

“We,” Isobel wheezed as she sat up, one hand tightening around the hamsa still in her fist, the other clutching his sleeve, “need . . . to leave.”

Varen's expression changed, his bafflement melding with something that just might have been hope.

“You're alive,” he breathed. “We both are.”

But before Isobel could answer, a crackling sound drew their attention to the frame-filled wall.

Tink
went one of the glass shards as it leaped free of its mirror.

A trail of water poured from the crack.

Tick. Tack. Crack.

More shards sprang from their frames, each releasing its own stream. Trails of water flowed down the wall, soaking the carpet.

“Get up,” Varen ordered as he shot to his feet and, grabbing her, pulled her after him.

Ting.
Another shard flicked into the hall, this one unleashing a forceful horizontal spurt. The leaks kept coming, with more frequency now, springing to life with hiss after hiss.

Then the whole wall bowed, emitting a low groan. The legions of reflected Varens and Isobels began to warp with it, ready to buckle under the pressure of the ocean that seemed to have followed them.