Chapter 23: These Northern Lights

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I do not want to kill her.

To call what I feel for Lydia affection would perhaps be…generous, but I can think of no better word. I could justify it by claiming she is naive and malleable. It would be easy to manipulate her, and thus pursue my own designs behind her back. That would only be a half-truth, though. The whole of it is that I enjoy her company. And while I am loathe to admit it, the kindness is a refreshing taste that I want to keep on my tongue a while longer.

I do not love her, but I like Lydia Grace, enough that I most certainly do not want to erase her.

When I begin to feed on her, Dorothy stirs in the dark recesses of my mind. Now that I’m aware of her, I can feel her like a beetle wriggling beneath my skin. The instant I make contact and begin to drain Lydia, Dorothy gasps. I sense her utter delight.

She’s enough! comes the thought. My god, she’s enough all on her own!

I don’t know what she means, but I log the thought away. I focus everything on Lydia. I can sense the fear in her - and the pleasure. She’s surprised by the sensation. I suppose I cannot blame her for that - after all, all she’s seen of my handiwork is corpses.

You’ve killed many people, Dorothy murmurs. Come now, peata. What’s one more?

She’s utterly ravenous. She graduates from a beetle to a slavering dog, pacing at the back of my mind. She wants the energy in this girl. She wants all of it, and she begins clawing at my control, trying to force me to drain her. Further. Further. I can no longer hear the slithering of the creature around us. I don’t know if Lydia’s insane plan is working. My ears are ringing, and I struggle to breathe properly.

A god, Dorothy squeals. I’ll be a god. I’ll be…

I look down at Lydia’s face, locking eyes with her.

She’s pale. So pale. I can see her starting to fade, looking translucent, but not the way Samantha does. With the Navigator, I can tell that she’s simply halfway between worlds. Lydia isn’t in-between. She’s disappearing. If I drain much more of her, we won’t be able to bring her back.

All of it, Dorothy is snarling. For god’s sake, take all of it. This is it! This is it!

‘William.’

Lydia’s voice is weak in my head. A whisper. A sigh.

‘William. You can do it. You can…’

She’s fuel! She’s just fuel, you fool! Take it! Take…

I thrust Dorothy into a corner. Into a hole, deep and dark, and bury it beneath a cascade of hatred and loathing. Without her there, it’s only me to fight against. My own hunger. It roars to the fore, threatening to overwhelm me as surely as that malicious little cunt. Fuel. The thought pounds through my head. Fuel. Fuel. Fuel. Just fuel.

I’m still staring down at Lydia. Looking at her soft face. It’s heart-shaped, slightly asymmetrical in a way that gives it character. Her eyes are a muted blue, the sort that gives them an indescribable quality of sadness.

Fuel.

I look at her lips. In spite of her paleness, they still look warm.

I cannot say why I do it. The urge isn’t born out of sensuality, or at least not entirely. I think when I press my mouth to hers I’m trying to quiet that voice in my head. Silence the urge battering through my brain. I want to remind myself that Lydia is not fuel. That she is real, and whole, and breathing. She tastes of ash and dust - a product, I’m certain, of what she has recently endured.

But I taste sweetness as well. Just a hint of it. Enough to remind me of the woman underneath. Of the woman I do not want to kill.

I pull back, and with a titan effort, I pry myself off of her.

I freeze there for a moment, propped over her with my arms. For a terrible instant, I think I’ve done it. I’ve killed her anyway. Her image will fade from beneath me, erased even from the Aether. Obliterated. Sent into an oblivion none can reach.

Then the warmth of her breath washes over my face, and I find I myself can breathe again.

My surroundings snap back into sharp focus. I’m full to bursting with the oddly potent power thrumming through Lydia’s veins. I can hear everything - distant birds flitting between branches. They do not sing - they are utterly silent save for the flap of wings. Creatures skitter through the underbrush on four paws. It takes me a moment to filter out this useless noise, and when I do, I lock eyes with one of the snaking tendrils just as it emerges from the leaves.

Its movement is hesitant. Probing. Where before they came at us with swift surety, now it drifts like a blind man with a cane. I suspect it was already close to us before I consumed Lydia’s energy. Now that it’s been nearly snuffed out, it’s having trouble centering on her position.

My god, I think. She was right.

There is a downside, though. Lydia has never been more vulnerable. One flick of that thing against her skin, and she’s gone. She won’t be able to survive it. There’s nothing left but the faintest spark to keep her breathing.

As it continues to probe in our direction, I slowly bring her limp form up against my chest. She’s so light - almost weightless - and for one illogical moment, the thought makes me angry. Why did those men pick this girl to sacrifice? Cowardice, I’m sure. I feel a momentary regret that it was Avidia that dispatched them and not I.

Perhaps it is the taste of her power percolating within me, but as I quietly back away from the searching tendril, a thrum of possessiveness flares. Mine, I think. She’s MINE! Fuck off! Go mbrise an diabhal cnámh do dhroma!

The entity pays me no mind. It continues questing, but I’ve moved Lydia from her last known location, and it begins wriggling uselessly at the patch of grass she’d just occupied. For one idiotic moment I feel the urge to step on it. I rise to my knees, then to my feet, my hands in fists, one of them pressed securely to the space between Lydia’s shoulder-blades.

Then sense returns. What am I thinking? I saw what it did to that tree. I can see the lines of dead, gray nothing that this worm has left in its wake. What on earth has gotten into me?

She has, comes the answer, feminine and acidic. Dorothy stirs from where I’ve banished her, scratching about for purchase. She’s making you weak. She’s…

SILENCE.

I feel the command bite into her like a physical blow. There are no more words, and I vow to remember this for the future. When I have time to dedicate to routing her out.

Then I turn and begin searching for Samantha.

I doubt I could get us back to our bodies without her. If I cannot find the Navigator - if she has left us - we’re as good as doomed. Our bodies will eventually begin to rot, hollow husks without a soul. I could try walking the path that took us here - but the Aether is a fickle creature. The chance that it remains unchanged is slim.

Still, I have to try. I…

“Sssst!”

I raise my head sharply. There’s a figure looming on a low-hanging branch nearby. I sharpen my vision, and I make out Sam’s features in the gloom.

She’s giving me a glare fierce enough to kill. And she’s staring at the unconscious Lydia now slung over my shoulder.

…Oh dear.

Descending with one graceful leap, Samantha expertly rolls with the landing. Her gaze tracks briefly away from me to ensure she doesn’t see any of the tendrils following at my heels. They’re still there - they are streaks of black nothing blotting out bits of brush and boughs - but they’ve ceased to move beyond the occasional twitch.

It’s not a comforting stillness. They aren’t simply inert. There’s an air of anticipation. They’re waiting for a whiff of their prey.

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We need to move quickly.

“What did you do?” Samantha hisses upon reaching me. She’s not as tall as I am, but she’s close - if she isn’t six feet, she’s near enough that it hardly matters. “I swear, if you’ve killed that girl after I dragged your ass here…”

“She’s not dead. Not yet.”

She gets in my face, her nose inches from mine. “What did you do?”

“It was her idea,” I reply. “To drain her. She thought the creature could sense her essence. Her soul.” I glance over my shoulder. “It would seem she was correct.”

Samantha stares at Lydia’s features, smooth and oblivious. “You could have killed her. Worse than killed her.”

The woman’s words set me to grinding my teeth, but I know she’s right. “I could have. I very nearly did.”

Her nostrils flare as though she’s preparing to breathe fire. “Does she have any idea how dangerous that was?”

I draw in a breath. “She considered the risk a better alternative than letting us all die.”

Her head draws back at that. She blinks once, then peers again at Lydia. Her hair hangs about her head, her hands dangling down my back. “…She’s an idiot.”

“She is,” I agree, but there’s no heat in it.

“She’s going to get herself killed.”

“I will not allow that to happen.”

Sam blinks at me. She turns a shrewd gaze upon me, studying me with piercing dark eyes. I know it is not simply the power of a Navigator that lends her that quality. This woman has seen much. I find myself curious about what her history might be.

Something to discover later.

“Come,” she says, turning on her heel. “Follow me. We need to start backtracking…”

Still slumped over my shoulder, Lydia’s body gives one faint, nearly indiscernible pulse.

I whirl, senses still keyed high. Less than a second after emitting that energy, I hear the slithering pick up again. We’re far enough from the tree line now that we have a head start, but not a large one. Lydia’s presence is still faint, but the fact that she’s already starting to recover…

Samantha picks up the danger before I say a word. She looks me in the eye.

“Run,” she gasps.

She bursts into motion. She’s not as fast as I, but I stay just behind her, just shy of breathing down her neck. I can tell she’s trying to summon a way forward - her hands are making patterns in the air, aimless and random, as if she’s plucking at chords I cannot see.

There’s an explosion of symbols before us, so intricate that they boggle my eyes. Samantha runs through them without hesitation, and I follow after her.

We’re in the tunnel again. The one with wooden walls, with colors of green and blue dancing overhead. Behind us, the doorway that Samantha opened snaps shut, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

Just in time to see it snap back open again.

Black lines begin to pour through, a convergence of all of that nothing chasing hot on our heels. Sam swears ahead of me, her legs pumping, her hands desperately moving through the air. “Almost there,” she wheezes. “Almost there. Almost…”

We aren’t going to make it. I look over my shoulder and see the darkness consuming everything in our wake. There are no more piddly tendrils any longer. They’ve coalesced, merged by their own mindless hunger. When I stretch my senses towards it, I find only the void. Endless nothing, reaching out, seeking, seeking…

Above us, the lights of the aurora borealis burst, gleam, and crash to the ground.

The impact is deafening. I sense the nothingness become interrupted by a suffusion of burning, brilliant life. The force of it nearly knocks the wind out of me. The floor cracks and bursts, the wood erupting beneath our feet. I leap forward, clearing the gap. As I jump, I look down for a moment - just a moment. I see a dizzying array of portals below me. Doorways to other worlds. The collective memories of life upon life echoing eternal within pockets of the Aether. I stare, my breath caught in my lungs. For an instant, I think I won’t clear the jump. That I will fall, taking Lydia with me, tumble down and be lost forever in that endless chaos.

Then I feel Samantha grab my free arm and yank me the rest of the way across.

Another doorway is shimmering before her, the intricate lines blazing blue and silver. I turn from her, just for a moment, staring back at the darkness that was pursuing us.

All I see is that wall of luminous light. It undulates, whirls and swirls of vivid color, and for just a moment, I swear I can see faces within, uplifted, open-mouthed. I hear the sounds of revelry, of a song forged by generations of love and wisdom and life…

I turn to Samantha. Her dark eyes search mine.

“…How?” I ask.

She smiles and shakes her head. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse with emotion.

“It wasn’t me.” Her gaze tracks to the swirl of lights, and when their colors reflect in her eyes, I see tears threatening to spill from them. “I love you,” she whispers, with all the reverence of a prayer.

Then, without ceremony, she shoves me through the doorway, thrusting me back into the mortal world and following shortly behind.

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Lydia does not wake.

It’s as to be expected, I tell myself. I succeeded in not killing her, but I came close enough that it’s a miracle she’s not in a coma. As it stands, her sleep is deep and dead. Recuperative as well, or so I hope. Her chest rises and falls reassuringly, her breathing measured. I know that her essence is no longer adrift in the Aether - we’ve placed it back within her, like a cat nestled before a fire.

“You need to be prepared for her to be out of it for a while,” Samantha informs me. “When she wakes up, she’s going to be weak. If she stays like this for more than a couple days, get her to a hospital so they can get some fluids in her.”

She’s peering in through the car window at the girl. It’s difficult for me to get a read on this woman. On the one hand, it’s clear she’s big-hearted enough to care about Lydia’s fate. On the other, there’s an air of frustration about her. Of restlessness. She does not want to be near us.

We are anomalies. And I’m beginning to think that Lydia may be moreso than I.

“Thank you,” I murmur. “For your assistance. We are indebted to you.”

She’s still staring through the window, but when she turns to me, she smiles.

“Yes,” she replies. “You are.”

“…Yes,” I agree. “As I said, I…”

“And I intend to collect on that debt.”

That gives me pause. I narrow my eyes slightly. I’m filled with Lydia’s energy at the moment - in fact, I doubt I could consume more even if I tried. It would be a trivial thing to turn her away. Simply use my skills of persuasion to send her back into town, none the wiser.

Just as I’m about to draw on that power, I feel something sharp press against my stomach. I stiffen, and Samantha draws closer. The movement isn’t intimate, as it might be in other circumstances. She’s all threat, lethal and with focused intent. She meets my eyes levelly, keeping her knife just above my navel.

“Do not even try,” she says, her words low. “The only reason I’m not charging you out the ass right now is because I know a wreck when I see one. I don’t know what you two are running from, but it’s obvious that you’re running. Services like the one I just gave you come at a price. And I doubt it’s a price you can currently afford.”

I don’t bother to correct her. Maybe I should, but my curiosity is piqued.

I’m also not inclined towards bartering when she could disembowel me with a flick of the wrist.

“I did not realize walking through the Aether was part of your…profession.”

She flashes me a wolfish smile. “I’ve a feeling there are many things you don’t realize. Let me tell you one of them: I’ve walked through the Aether with you now. I will be able to hunt you down in your dreams, no matter how far you go.”

I do not bother to inform her I was aware of this ability. I’ve a feeling that might end in my getting nicked with the knife - at the very least.

“You said you wanted a price to be paid. I presume it’s not a price in blood.”

Samantha laughs at that. “Why would I want your blood? No. That’s useless.” She glances towards Lydia, then back at me again. “The both of you are dangerous, but dangerous can be useful in the right circumstances. There’s something out there making more of those monsters, just like the one we fought. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous it’ll be if that goes unchecked.” She fixes her eyes on me again. “So when I track it down—whatever or whoever it is—you’re going to help me take it out.”

I arch a brow at her. “We’re rather indisposed at the moment.”

She laughs again. “Don’t be obtuse. You know full well I don’t mean now.” She lifts her other hand and flicks it. A small holographic card appears at her fingertips, and she holds it between her index and her middle. “This is my contact information. Once you’ve gotten out of whatever shit you’re in, you’re going to give me a call. Then we’ll make arrangements.”

“And if I don’t make that call?”

The smile on her face grows crooked, then cold. “Then I’ll come looking for you. Do not think for a moment that I don’t know how to hunt your kind as well as I did that creature.”

I reach up - slowly, of course, to avoid suspicion - and take the card from her fingers. I can see a glimmer of the pattern on its surface when I touch it. Judging by the intricate lines etched within the perfect circle, I assume it is the same design as the tattoo on her chest.

“Then I suppose we shall be seeing one another,” I say.

She holds the blade at the ready a moment more, then relents, evidently satisfied that I’m not going to pull anything. I don’t see where she tucks the weapon - I assume there is a compartment for it up her sleeve. She steps back from me, turning to go, adjusting her jacket on her shoulders as she does.

“Samantha?”

She looks over her shoulder at me, expectant.

“If I were to pay for your services - if you’re for hire. There is someone in the Aether I wish to find.”

She studies me for a long moment, searching my face. Then she shrugs.

“Let’s square away our current debt first, demon. Then we can talk about deepening our association.” She pauses, looking through the windshield at Lydia now. She’s still fast asleep, her head slumped forward, her hair shrouding half of her face. “…Make sure that one gets somewhere safe. I’ve got a feeling she’s going to be a magnet for spirits with ill intent.” She huffs. “And I’d rather not find out I went to all the trouble to get her only to have her die on us.”

Samantha looks at me again, appearing to consider her words. Then she says:

“Don’t ever let that girl walk the Aether again, Lucas. The more she goes there, the more likely it is she’ll never stop running. Do you understand?”

I chuckle. “Believe me, I’ve an equally vested interest in keeping her alive. I will take every measure of caution I can.”

Samantha gives me one last, lingering look. I get the feeling that she’s measuring me with that stare - all of me, inside and out. Then she gives me the result of her assessment:

“You’re an incredibly strange demon.”

She leaves us then, and I don’t bother calling out to her. I do not know how long it will be until the amalgam has reformed, and we’ve already wasted too much time.

We’re on the highway again before long. Thankfully the beating the Royce took only put dents in its aesthetics - though there’s a rather unhappy clicking sound when I crank up the heat. Beside me, Lydia is mumbling incoherently in her sleep. I glance at her for a moment, noticing a strange lump beneath her shirt.

Carefully, I reach over and pull up the fabric. I don’t know what I expect to find, but when I see the flute from the Aether, I stare in shock. It takes the honk of a horn to yank my attention back to the road - I’d drifted into the wrong lane. Swearing under my breath, I right the vehicle and tighten my hands on the wheel.

It is not impossible to manifest a physical object from the Aether. It has been done before - I know members of the Archive, members of the elite, often possess such artifacts. They are usually quite powerful, and their acquisition is a grueling process, one that requires a collective effort and merging of energies.

So how did Lydia Grace, unconscious and dead to the world, manage to do it?

“What are you?” I murmur.

She does not answer. She continues to sleep, silent, her long lashes pressed against her cheeks.

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- [Gaelic] The devil break your spine!