Ephemeral (The Countenance) (28 page)

If Wesley wasn’t with me, alive and at Ephemeral, I could easily see myself falling for Coop. This brawny god with velum eyes has the ability to pierce my heart and melt my insides ten thousand different ways. Maybe landing here was just a happy accident.

Ending up in the Transfer is never a happy accident.
He punctuates it with the impression of a devilish grin.

I catch a breath. Cooper hears everything.
The Transfer
, I repeat in an effort to divert the topic. I wonder just what in the hell it is they’re transferring.

Cooper leads us farther down the corridor, away from a set of opened double doors with a blue light emanating from inside. The shouting has ceased, and there’s not another soul haunting these unhallowed halls. I’d ask who was yelling only I’m a little put off by the fact they’re probably not human.

Where we going?
I feel like a prisoner in my own illusion. Like I’ve fallen through death and the rabbit hole beneath that—nothing but an endless carousel of terror speeding up at a demonic pace.

I was going to show you my office
. He gives a wry smile.

Are you serious?
I can’t catch my breath. This is beyond surreal, although, I’ve come to the conclusion Cooper Flanders will not be morphing into a nightmare anytime soon. He emanates anything but horror with his resolute attitude, centered in perfect calm. Those heavily lidded eyes sway me toward him, soft like a summer breeze.   

Deadly serious.
He lifts his gaze just beyond my shoulder.
I haul road kill down here for fun—although technically it’s neither fun nor road kill. I prefer my fun with people of the female persuasion.
He gives a naughty look.

Clearly he’s open to the option right about now.  

Very not funny. I take it this is a “special” kind of road kill.
I get the feeling the possums of the world are safe from the confines of this torture chamber.

He furrows his brows.
If by “special” you mean Spectators, you’re right
.

“No, I do not want to see your
office
,” I hiss, pulling back my hand. The thought of laying eyes on those flesh deficient creatures isn’t high on my priority list. “Do not take me near any kind of once-upon-a-human, or I swear I will scream myself into a new tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he whispers, rubbing my back in an effort to calm me. His cheek slides into an easy half-smile as though on some level he’s enjoying this.

I promise I was teasing,
he says, pressing his lips into the top of my head as though it were a conciliatory act without any sexual pretense, but for one fleeting moment, everything in me begs for it to be anything but conciliatory.
I would never endanger you
. He dips his head into mine.
Plus, the consequences are too high
.

Like, you’ll get fired?
I’m pretty sure docking his employment isn’t the only means of disciplinary action they’d consider.

More like feed me to the lions.
He glances past my shoulder.

Shit!
No lion feeding.
I can almost see the frenzy with those deformed humanoid faces.

“Just, please tell me,” I plead, “how do I get the hell out of here?” Clearly I’m clinically insane.

I burrow my face into Cooper’s chest. The waterworks start, and my mascara leaves behind an imprint of two necrotic butterflies.

You said you were in the forest—which one?
He winces as though he were feeling my pain.

“The woods, outside the house. I followed Wes—I saw—”

He presses his finger to my lips again, traces them soft as a feather almost as an afterthought.

Think about the woods. Think about the house
, he instructs.

I give a feverish nod.

Cooper pins me with a smoldering look. A hot bite sears through my insides. It makes me feel dizzy, confused.

If I really love Wes, why does Cooper have such an intoxicating effect on me?

He leans in and brushes his lips over mine then backs up as though he lit the fuse to a very short stick of dynamite.

“You kissed me.” I cover my mouth with my fingers. Perhaps the biggest horror of the evening is that I wanted him to—that I lit up like a dehydrated hillside that met with an ember as soon as his lips touched mine. 

My heartbeat exaggerates its rhythm, gyrates in my chest with a volatile distemper.

Cooper and all of his mystery—he blessed me with his lips, and now I need a little bit more. This is just a dream and strange things happen in dreams that are generally out of your control.

He pushes in and kisses me again, slow at first then with a burst of trembling passion. His soft lips, his skin pressed against mine—there’s something achingly pure about kissing Cooper. An underlying sadness emanates from the two of us, lets me know this is more than just some fantasy. An alarm rails inside me and assures me this can never be.

An icy bite of wind rakes across my body, alive like a fire.

A roll of nausea rips through me as I open my eyes to the eerie silence of the forest—the black navy sky judging me from above.

“I’m back,” I whisper, running my hands up and down my body to make sure I’m still in one piece. It was a dream. It must have been.

My head explodes with pain as I crawl on my knees to escape the dense woods.

“Laken!” Wesley’s voice echoes in the distance.

I stumble to my feet and race out of the forest. I let the pale glow of the swimming pool guide me out of the dark and spot Wes floating in a fogbank as if he could fly.

“Wes.” I groan, staggering to meet him.

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to tell him I saw Cooper on corpse duty, that I extended the invitation to my mouth and let him have free reign while I violated his. I’m not sure he would believe me anyway. Hell, I’m not sure
I
believe me.

Just as I’m about leap into his arms, he pulls out the bastardized Ruger and aims the barrel up high in my face.

It goes off with a blast.

28

If You Don’t Know Me by Now

A scream rattles out of me in the cool damp night as I toss my hands over my head like a common street criminal.

Wes corrals me in a hard embrace, kisses the side of my cheek with an uncalled for level of passion. The eucalyptus trees release their oils into the night and fragrance the moment with a perfume as thick as frankincense.

“What the
fuck
keeps happening?” Wes strides past me in a fit of rage.

The beast in a white dress is sprawled out on the ground. Whatever the hell Wes shot, lies motionless with a dart through one eye. Its grey shriveling flesh sizzles and smokes until it finally begins to evaporate.

“Fucking Fems,” he says, more annoyed than worried.

“I’m attracting them.” It comes out a hoarse whisper. Obviously, I’m lying in a coma safely tucked away in some nursing home in Kansas because this reality is way too screwed up to exist anywhere but in a very injured mind.

This is my punishment for sleeping with Tucker, offering my body to the first passerby who shed a sideways glance in my direction. As penance, I’ll have to live in this twisted world with dead Fletch and dead Wes, until I finally reach eternity and live with the real versions.

Exhaustion streams from Wesley as he shepherds us back to the house.

“So that’s what the gun is for,” I say.

“That’s the what the gun is for.”

“At the library, you said Fems sided with Counts.”

“They do.” There’s a note of wild disbelief in his tone. “I don’t get it.”

“Maybe these aren’t Fems. Maybe they’re the
other
guys. You know, the ones that side with Celestra,” I say as Wes slides three brass bolts over the door behind us.

“No.” He gives an aggressive jiggle to the doorknob, testing its resistance. “Not their style. Besides, piss off a Fem, and you’ve got a tiger by the tail—for life. Piss off a Sector, very little happens.”

“Who do you think pissed off a Fem?”

Wes lowers his chin, gazes into me with all his dark splendor. “By the looks of things—I’d say you.”

In the early hours of dawn, a thin grey film stretches across the sky. It melts over the fields, erases the morning with its ever-present haze. I lie back down on the bed and burrow into Wesley’s arms. There was no way in hell I was going to sleep in this room alone after what happened.

A mean shiver rails through me as Cooper and his kiss burn through my memory. It reintroduces itself to my lips as if it were happening in real time.

I spike up and shake the thought away. It was a dream. All of it must have been a dream. Things like that just don’t happen. You don’t get accosted by monsters that happen to be impersonating a human and then end up in an underground tunnel with the son of your psychiatrist.

“Morning, sunshine.” Wes groans, pulling the pillow over his head. He’s still wearing his clothes from the night before. His sweater is rumpled and creased, and I can’t help but curl my lips knowing I helped put those wrinkles there.

He peers at me from behind the pillow, then pulls it away revealing a devilish grin blooming as he drips his gaze at me, heavy with a patina of lust.

“I’d better get out of here before Jen rips my balls off.”

“I’m guessing Jen is allergic to the aforementioned body parts.” True story.

“Touché.” He climbs over and straddles his legs on either side of me, pausing to view me from his new height advantage.

There he is, Wesley Parker in a compromising position over my person. The air evacuates from my lungs, and I’m lightheaded just seeing him from this perspective.

His cheeks fill with color as he completes the dismount. “What’s going through your mind?” He runs his fingers over my hair, soft as a waterfall.

“I don’t want to talk about last night. I’ll go crazy if you tell me any of that was real.”

He gives a tired nod. “I’ll shower and be right back. Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” I think. There don’t seem to be too many definitive ideals I can cling to anymore like being safe in the confines of my supposed bedroom.

Wes brandishes the gun that spits out explosive arrows before replacing it on the nightstand.

“Thank you.” I give a circular nod as he leaves the room.

I draw my knees up and ponder the fact my new world requires weaponry to battle, of all things, angels and the undead.

A thought comes to me.

If this is my room, it should be filled with my things. My stuff should be here somewhere. The landscape of this room should be covered with an indelible footprint of fabric and shoes.

In my old room, I left my clothes on the ground—all of them. I’m not opposed to a clean room, it’s just that there was a defunct dresser in my closet, and my clothes were easier to access when I could see them splayed out all over the floor like some textile explosion. I sort of miss walking through the soft fabric puddle. The scent of the perfumed detergent that I used, buffered my senses from the smell of wine that flowed so freely from my mother’s room.

I inspect the rows of neat clothes in the closet, run my fingers over the unfamiliar sweaters and jeans, and marvel at how nothing has ever been washed, how the scent of new clothes lingers thick in the air, giving away their secret. Whoever is in charge of misdirecting my memory is getting sloppy, letting details like unworn clothing fly under the radar. Fragile missteps like this could be the death of their counterfeit human resurrection ring. Maybe Casper wasn’t fortunate enough to expose them for the scam they’re running. Maybe Wes and Fletch were easily brainwashed, but for whatever reason, I’m proving impervious to their sleight of hand.  

I head over to a cherry-stained dresser with a heavy-lacquered topcoat. I run my fingers across the smooth gloss before rummaging through the drawers—nothing but neatly folded clothes, socks laid out in rows separated by color, underwear layered in flat piles the way you see it displayed in lingerie stores.