strumming a harp.”
I’ll ask around. There’re a lot of old timers here that know a lot about the Counts. They remember Ezrina. They refer to their quasi-massacre as the dark days.
“I don’t blame them.” I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate, and now those dark days hover over my own like a tornado waiting to touch down, blow my realty to ruins. A life without Laken would leave me dead on the inside. But I wouldn’t survive for long—I couldn’t, Laken has my heart.
I step over to Hattie and hold out my hand until she wraps her bony, cold fingers over mine.
“You realize your grandmother is going to kill me.”
Hattie’s sparse hair is sprayed out like a haystack, her skeletal face already deteriorating with long slivers of flesh missing. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for love. I need Flynn. He’s my only friend. It feels good to be near him.
I place my other hand over hers and nod. “I get it.” Hattie grew up in the tunnels, in the infamous tower as a Celestra prisoner and knew no love until she came here. Unfortunately for her, she latched onto Ephemeral’s biggest player. But it’s too late to explain that to her now.
I can hear you . She gives a gruesome attempt at a laugh. I’m a Celestra. I have the same powers as you.
Stay out of trouble, will you? I pat her on the back as I turn to go.
I will. She steps in. Are Kara and Richard okay?
They’re fine. I’m headed to see them now. The original Hattie put me in charge of renewing her little brother and sister to their former undead glory. Ezrina agreed to watch over them in the Transfer until she got the antidote to resurrect the Spectators. But it’s Flynn who’s our test subject. So she’d better nail it the first time. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not in a hurry to see him go.
Hattie pulls me back. And Cooper?
Yes?
He loves me.
Good. I look over at Flynn with his crooked shoulder and broken dick although I’ll have to take his word for that last part. I hope so. Everyone deserves to have someone that loves them.
I take off for the boulders up on the ridge, and once I see those overgrown rocks, I sprint twice as fast, straight into the wall of blue granite—straight into the Transfer.
A shock of white light bleaches out my visual field as I fall to the floor with an unceremonious thud. My body lurches and bucks, as I fight the nausea that sometimes comes with the ride to the flip side.
My eyes adjust to the over-bright light as I stumble to my feet in this whitewashed universe. I jog down the glossy corridor of this underworld that’s technically not under anything. It’s in another dimension all together, suspended from time like some lone forgotten planet floating through space. Outside these walls sits a dark-sooted world filled with a scarier-than-hell dilapidated mansion, the burnt out streets are populated with the dead from some long forgotten century.
I stick my head in door after door, but there’s no sign of the haggard witch. Her lab is empty, so I head down a carpeted corridor to a cavernous room loaded with glass caskets—each one of them filled with a body suspended in blue fluid. It’s the Count resurrection facility, but, of course, I hadn’t always known that. I didn’t know for sure until Laken came along. It’s hard to believe she was here once. Floating in one of these tubes, wearing her Ezrina-issued wetsuit.
“ Ezrina! ” I roar her name out like a battle cry. This place is so large you could easily squeeze in a couple dozen airplane hangars and still have room to park a cruise ship.
“Here,” she says it low, calm as hell, and nothing grates on my nerves more. The longer the Counts hold my mother and Laken’s family hostage— Casper —the longer Wes has to bond himself over Laken’s heart like some psychotic epoxy.
I walk to where she’s seated. Her disfigured frame sits hunched over a long, metal bathtub while her hands busy themselves with the
I’ll ask around. There’re a lot of old timers here that know a lot about the Counts. They remember Ezrina. They refer to their quasi-massacre as the dark days.
“I don’t blame them.” I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate, and now those dark days hover over my own like a tornado waiting to touch down, blow my realty to ruins. A life without Laken would leave me dead on the inside. But I wouldn’t survive for long—I couldn’t, Laken has my heart.
I step over to Hattie and hold out my hand until she wraps her bony, cold fingers over mine.
“You realize your grandmother is going to kill me.”
Hattie’s sparse hair is sprayed out like a haystack, her skeletal face already deteriorating with long slivers of flesh missing. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for love. I need Flynn. He’s my only friend. It feels good to be near him.
I place my other hand over hers and nod. “I get it.” Hattie grew up in the tunnels, in the infamous tower as a Celestra prisoner and knew no love until she came here. Unfortunately for her, she latched onto Ephemeral’s biggest player. But it’s too late to explain that to her now.
I can hear you . She gives a gruesome attempt at a laugh. I’m a Celestra. I have the same powers as you.
Stay out of trouble, will you? I pat her on the back as I turn to go.
I will. She steps in. Are Kara and Richard okay?
They’re fine. I’m headed to see them now. The original Hattie put me in charge of renewing her little brother and sister to their former undead glory. Ezrina agreed to watch over them in the Transfer until she got the antidote to resurrect the Spectators. But it’s Flynn who’s our test subject. So she’d better nail it the first time. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not in a hurry to see him go.
Hattie pulls me back. And Cooper?
Yes?
He loves me.
Good. I look over at Flynn with his crooked shoulder and broken dick although I’ll have to take his word for that last part. I hope so. Everyone deserves to have someone that loves them.
I take off for the boulders up on the ridge, and once I see those overgrown rocks, I sprint twice as fast, straight into the wall of blue granite—straight into the Transfer.
A shock of white light bleaches out my visual field as I fall to the floor with an unceremonious thud. My body lurches and bucks, as I fight the nausea that sometimes comes with the ride to the flip side.
My eyes adjust to the over-bright light as I stumble to my feet in this whitewashed universe. I jog down the glossy corridor of this underworld that’s technically not under anything. It’s in another dimension all together, suspended from time like some lone forgotten planet floating through space. Outside these walls sits a dark-sooted world filled with a scarier-than-hell dilapidated mansion, the burnt out streets are populated with the dead from some long forgotten century.
I stick my head in door after door, but there’s no sign of the haggard witch. Her lab is empty, so I head down a carpeted corridor to a cavernous room loaded with glass caskets—each one of them filled with a body suspended in blue fluid. It’s the Count resurrection facility, but, of course, I hadn’t always known that. I didn’t know for sure until Laken came along. It’s hard to believe she was here once. Floating in one of these tubes, wearing her Ezrina-issued wetsuit.
“ Ezrina! ” I roar her name out like a battle cry. This place is so large you could easily squeeze in a couple dozen airplane hangars and still have room to park a cruise ship.
“Here,” she says it low, calm as hell, and nothing grates on my nerves more. The longer the Counts hold my mother and Laken’s family hostage— Casper —the longer Wes has to bond himself over Laken’s heart like some psychotic epoxy.
I walk to where she’s seated. Her disfigured frame sits hunched over a long, metal bathtub while her hands busy themselves with the
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