Afterlife (10 page)

“Leave Bianca — out of this!” Lucas choked, pushing Erich
away.

Erich just grinned. “I’m not leaving her out of it.
Everything I do to you up here? She’s going to get double. Before I’m done, you’ll
be dead, and she’ll be worse than dead. So much worse.”

That made Lucas lose it; his fighting focus shook as he gave
in to anger. “I will never let you hurt her.” He stabbed at Erich, a wild
punch; Erich dodged it with the unearthly power of the nightmare.

It’s a dream, I reminded myself forcefully. You can appear
to Lucas in his dreams.
just
break into this and
change it. Take this dream back for the two of you.

“Lucas
?
” I called, daring to step
closer to the fight. It Wasn’t as though Erich could hurt me. “Lucas, it’s
Bianca. Look at me.
just
look at me!”

“I think he’s busy,” Charity said.

I turned to see her perched on another tower of boxes,
wearing a cobwebby gray dress, her hair in a rat’s nest of tangles. She might
have been one of the gargoyles — the most monstrous one. Charity grinned at me,
eyes glinting in the night like a eat’s.

Of course Lucas dreamed about her, too. She’d killed him.
But how many monsters would I have to banish from Lucas’s dreams just to win a
few hours for us?

“Lucas
!
” I shouted. I threw myself
toward the fray, sliding bet\veen Lucas and Erich. “Look at me
!
”

“Bianca?” Lucas looked horrified. “What are you doing here?”

Erich’s hands seized me from behind, strong as steel. “Hey,
Lucas — want to watch your girlfriend suffer?”

“No
!
” Lucas grabbed me, pulling me
back. The struggle felt totally real.

“Lucas, he can’t kill me,” I said as I tried to twist out of
Erich’s grip. His fingers felt like claws digging into my flesh; it was
difficult to remind myself that this wasn’t real. “He can’t hurt you either. It’s
a dream. Don’t you remember?”

He couldn’t hear me. Panic had gripped him — his fear for my
life far greater than it had ever been for his. “Bianca, hang on!”

Lucas kept trying to swing at Erich with his stake, but
Erich dragged me that way and this, using my body to block them. “You’re going
to be the one to kill her, hunter,” Erich sneered. “You’ll cremate her to stop
the pain. You know those old stories they told you in Black Cross? About the
worst torture you can work on a vampire? Soak the stake in holy water, stab
them deep so the holy water sinks into their blood — and then they’re paralyzed
forever. Can’t wake up, can’t move. They just lie there feeling like they’re
burning alive for all eternity.”

“I never did that,” Lucas panted. “Not even to scum like
you. You, I’m just gonna kill.”

“I’m going to try it.” Erich spoke into the side of my face;
I could feel his cool undead breath against my neck. “I’m going to do it to
Bianca. She’ll be like Sleeping Beauty, but you’ll know she’s not sleeping. You’ll
know she’s burning forever. Nobody else will be able to hear her screaming, but
I bet you will.”

“You won’t get the chance,” Lucas swore, but I could see his
fear mounting. When he risked his own life, he could stay calm; when it came to
me, he lost it.

Finally I lunged forward, pulling myself free of Erich’s
grasp. Sharp lines of pain lashed my shoulder — Erich’s fingernails, I thought —
but I didn’t care as I fell to the floor. Lucas flung himself at Erich, sending
them both toppling down. The battle was furious now, blood from open cuts
spattering onto the stone wall.

My silver, shining blood oozed between my fingertips. It
glistened on the floor, mingling with Lucas’s red blood in a way that seemed
beautiful, almost mesmerizing.

Snap out of it! I told myself. I was in shock.

“Oh, this is fun,” Charity laughed from her place atop the
boxes. She clapped her hands like a little girl who’s just seen her birthday
cake. “Save her, Lucas
!
Save her while you still can
!
Or
..
.
maybe
you can ‘ t?”

Lucas’s face took on an expression I recognized, though I’d
only seern it once before. I could never have forgotten it — the look of pure
torment he’d worn at my bedside the night I died.

At that moment I realized that I couldn’t break him out of
this memory. I couldn’t do anything in this dream except make it more
frightening for Lucas. That meant I had to leave.

I closed myself away from sight. Away from him. When I could
see again, I stood in his dark dorm room, at the foot of his bed. Lucas twisted
beneath his sheets, then slumped, drifting from the nightmare to deeper,
dreamless sleep.

At least it’s over, I told myself. Yet even in my ethereal
form, I could feel physical pain; that had never happened before. Confused, I
glanced at my burning, aching shoulder.

The lines of Erich’s scratches still showed upon my skin,
and each one glimmered with droplets of silver blood.

I LEFT THE DORM ROOM, GOING THROUGH THE door and down the
hallway as though I were mortal. More time must have passed than I’d realized, because
nearly everyone was quiet, asleep or at least settled in for the night.
Although I badly wanted to revisit Vic and Ranulf, in the feeble hope that they
could cheer me up, I Wouldn’t wake them for my own selfish reasons.

Without them, I realized, there was literally nobody else in
the world I could talk to, or even watch, without it causing pain.

How did we screw up so badly? I thought as I descended the
long, winding stone stairs. Around me I could hear the crackling of ice. I was
leaving evidence, but at this point I didn’t much care. The only thing we ever
wanted was to be together, and to live honestly without all the lies. How did
so many people get hurt?

For the first time, I realized how easy it would be to
follow Maxie’s advice and let go of the mortal world completely. Effortless,
mindless drifting within blue mist seemed really good to me right now. It would
have been a relief to be free from sorrow and guilt, from responsibility for
the people I’d left behind.

Was that true for the ghosts trapped at Evernight Academy
now? Maybe trapped wasn’t the right word. This could be a sanctuary for them,
too — a place where they didn’t have to remain in their old haunts and
habitations, taunted by the lives they’d lost.

But Mrs. Bethany had attacked Maxie once, and was no friend
to the wraiths. There was no way she’d built this place as a refuge for them.
Tentatively, I stretched my consciousness, seeking the other wraiths who lived
here. Can you hear me
?

No response — but I could sense a shift in the air, like
knowing that someone was watching. Then the visions began to flood my mind.

They were like vivid daydreams, almost hallucinations,
except that I knew they didn’t come from within my own mind. The wraiths were
forcing me to see them: Vampires, each of them at their most monstrous, as
though students went around Evemight unwashed, bloody, and fanged. They were
attacking human students in the hallways, in the classrooms.
one
brutal assault after another.

“None of that is real,” I said, hoping they could hear.
“They mostly leave the human students alone, and when somebody screws up, Mrs.

Bethany’s all over them. The humans you followed here — they’re
safe.”

The wraiths must not have believed me. Every image
intensified, coming closer, and now they had sound (screaming) and smell
(blood). Disgusted, I tried to turn away, but how can you turn away from
something in your own head?

One of the vampires in the visions suddenly went blue and
turned into ice. I watched, fascinated and horrified, as deep cracks appeared
in his hardening flesh, fragmenting his cheeks, his lips, his whole head. He
fell, a crash of bloody slush, and I knew that was what the wraiths hoped to do
to the vampires.

What they wanted me to help them do. “I’m not helping you
attack anyone!”

And like that, I was alone. Nothing vanished or went away,
but I simply knew that I Wasn’t being paid attention to any longer.

What were the ghosts going to do
?
If I’d been terrified of them before, it was so much worse now. I’d learned
some new powers, but nothing that could defend me or my loved ones against an
attack like that. Could the wraiths hurt Lucas
?
Balthazar? My parents? If they tried anything, would I be able to help?

No, I thought, depression sinking deeper into me. There’s
nothing I can do for any ofthem. I’m useless.

I’m dead.

I drifted through the great hall on the ground floor, which
looked larger when it was empty of students. Although it was always a majestic
space, it became more beautiful and austere when it stretched out vast and
silent. The moonlight streamed through the many stained — glass windows, which
stretched from floor to ceiling, but it was brightest through the one window of
plain glass. The original stained glass had been destroyed by a member of Black
Cross — Lucas’s long — ago predecessor here — making hiis escape. Lucas had
damaged it himself once, maybe living up to the family tradition. I’d always
wondered why Mrs. Bethany didn’t have it repaired so that it would look like the
others.

Now, at last, I understood. She’d left it this way so she
would always remember. So she would never be careless again.

This building was scarred. Lucas was
scarred
.
And I, too, felt like I would never heal. I was trapped forever with
my regrets and cut off from the living world. Lucas suffered the same way. The
main difference was that he could end it for himself and probably would, if he
weren’t sticking around for my sake.

At that moment, I felt like all I’d ever done was hurt
everybody who’d tried to love me. I felt worthless. I wanted to give up.

I saw that I was close to the school library. There probably
wasn’t anything accurate in there about the wraiths, but maybe there was. I
decided to search and see. At that point, one question loomed in my mind,
larger than any other: whether wraiths had any way to — well, to die. Again.
For good.

Not that I wanted to do anything drastic right that moment,
but I had to know if there was an out, ever. And maybe I was starting to want
to take it.

 The library would ‘ve cheered me up, most days. I
loved the heavy oaken tables, the high walls stacked with books to the ceiling,
the musty smell of old pages and the heavy brass fixtures that had gone dark
with age and wear. It reminded me of hanging out with Raquel, or flirting with
Lucas, or studying with Balthazar. Of everything happy, simple, and alive.

I didn’t belong there anymore.

Resolutely I traveled farther into the library, wondering
where ghost — related books might be kept — and felt the wall start to pull me
in.

It was sickening, overwhelming, like that terrible sensation
when you’re looking over a high ledge and for one second feel like you want to
jump, only this time the pull was taking me over whether I wanted it or not.
The east wall of the library had some strange magnetism that tied in to the
core of me. A thick vibration muffled every sound and nearly deafened me, and a
kind of static blurred my vision.

I tried to make myself more substantial, so maybe I could
push myself backward, but I couldn’t become entirely solid. A strange black gap
— not in the world but in my senses — was opening in front of me, towing me
forward.

From within that gap, I could hear terrible cries. I
realized they were the screams of other ghosts trapped by whatever force held
me. Were they the same ones who had taunted me before? Others? No way to know.
At any rate, they couldn’t rescue themselves, much less me.

“Is anybody there?” I shouted. “Somebody, help! Can anybody
hear me
?
” No answers.

Well, you wanted to die, said that vicious little voice in
my head. I wondered if I was wrong to even fight this. Maybe I needed to let it
happen.

Then I realized that if I did that, I’d never see Lucas
again, or any of the other people I loved.

“Lucas
!
” I screamed. My mind filled
with the image of the nightmarish scene where I’ d left him, and I envisioned
myself in the records room. It solidified around me, taking shape. Lucas and
Erich were again locked in battle — a dream fight so much longer than the real
one could have been sweaty and bloody. The nightmare had begun again,
apparently a night — long torment for him. Charity had vanished, like any other
whim within dreams, but otherwise everything was just as terrible. This time,
though, I had to break through. Once again, with every bit of my might, I
called, “Lucas
!
”

He turned his head from Erich, startled. Lucas’s expression
was so confused that I thought he couldn’t see me, but at least he could hear.

“Lucas, this is a dream, only a dream. I’m in the library
and something’s got me — you have to find me
!
”

The scene faded as quickly as it had arrived. Had I reached
him, or was that only my own wishful thinking? Already the dark gap had
swallowed almost everything I could see, everything I could feel. Of my
hearing, all that was left was the wailing of the other wraiths.

I wanted to call for Maxie or Christopher, but I didn’t know
if they would hear me, or whether Maxie would respond if I pleaded for help.
And what if I dragged them in, too
?

A shudder passed through me, and I could feel the vapory
outlines of my limbs beginning to dissipate. Oh, no, no, no, this is it, this
is the end “Bianca!”

“Lucas
!
” I tried to look for him,
but I could gain only the dimmest sense of him in the room. He was an outline,
a radiation of energy and fear and love, nothing else. “It’s got me.”