Клаудия Грэй: Afterlife

“I do not know how many of us you can resurrect, Miss Olivier.” Mrs. Bethany reached into the pocket of her long skirt and pulled out the blade I remembered from Samuel’s transformation. “But for myself, and those who follow, may I express my most profound gratitude?”

“You can go to hell,” I said.

“We’re vampires,” Mrs. Bethany said, and for a moment I saw an echo of the darkness and self — hatred I’d glimpsed within Lucas these past months. “We’re already there.”

“You’re killing me.” I still couldn’t believe it, although it had begun.

“If it helps, you are also killing me.” Mrs. Bethany smiled, like that was great news. “I do not intend to live long as a human. This extended existence has been more torment than pleasure to me. I want only to die as I ought to have done.”

“To die? You’re doing all this just to — to die all over again?”

“To die as I ought to have done,” she repeated. A deep sadness darkened her eyes. “To go where I should have gone, after death, and be reunited with those I knew in my one rightful life.”

Christopher, I realized. She thinks if she dies as a human, she’11 be with Christopher again.

She pushed up the sleeve of her lacy blouse, angled the knife. and sliced open the skin of her wrist. Her vampire’s blood began flowing down her hand, and I felt a crazed hunger unlike anything else I’d ever known. I didn’t want to drink her blood; I wanted to be one with it. The instinct to rush into her — to become a part of her and lose myself forever — was more powerful than anything I could’ve imagined.

Don’t! Hold back! Think about Lucas, think about everyone else you Jove, hold on for them! But as I thought this and I tried to cling to it with all my strength. I could feel my resolve breaking down with the rest of me. My humanlike form began turning into cloudy vapor. Mrs. Bethany lifted her 221 head, triumphant. Soon she would be human again, and I would be.. nothing.

Then the door thudded, making the vampires jump. It thudded again and gave way, splintering wood and mother — of — pearl in a thousand directions as Lucas burst into the room, crossbow in hand.

Either he instantly understood what was happening, or he was going to kill Mrs. Bethany first and ask questions later. Lucas shouldered his crossbow to fire, but Mrs. Bethany lunged for him, pushing the crossbow up so that tl1e arrow smacked the ceiling.

“Let her go,” Lucas said as they struggled for the weapon.

“She is no longer yours,” Mrs. Bethany said, shoving him back. “She is mine.”

The other vampires began to go after him, too, but Lucas hadn’t come alone. Balthazar and my mother smashed through what remained of the door; Balthazar had grabbed his fencing foil, and Mom just seized the vampire nearest her and punched him hard.

As I swirled, disoriented and unable to resist, the fight intensified around me. To me, it seemed to be happening in slow motion, dreamlike and yet more terrifying for the clarity of the violence. I caught a glimpse of my father, wielding a broken chair leg as a kind of stake. I saw Balthazar go Skye didn’t budge. She was a lot cooler than most people would be in a situation like this, but then again, she’d grown up in a haunted house. Maybe it came with the territory. “You said Bianca. That’s the girl you loved, the one who died — she’s a ghost?”

“She’s a ghost and she’s trapped and we’re getting her out of here,” Lucas said, never taking his eyes off me. “Now you get out ofhere, too!”

Instead, Skye took a couple of steps forward and spoke again — this time, to me. “Bianca, come into me. Like the spirits did at the ball.” She wanted me to possess her? Could I do that?

“What are you doing?” My mother tried to push Skye back. “This is dangerous!”

“I know what it is to lose somebody,” Skye said. “If anyone could do this for my brother. I’d want them to try. So I’ll try. Bianca, it’s okay. Come on! Do it!”

I let go of my vapor self and let the swirling energy in the room carry me down toward Skye. Everything vanished — and then suddenly I felt hard stone against my back, and pain. I tried to inhale, but the breath had been knocked out of me — Breath. Pain. A heartbeat. I opened my eyes — her eyes — and looked up to see my parents and Lucas kneeling above me. “Bianca?” Lucas said, hesitantly.

“It’s me,” I said. “It’s us.”

Because Skye was there with me, totally. This wasn’t like possessing Kate; Skye had welcomed me, and because of that, her spirit and mine existed side by side. Although she was frightened — her heartbeat fluttering as fast as a bird’s — she didn’t flinch.

Thank you, I thought to her.

She thought back, You’re welcome. But shouldn’t we maybe run?

“Good plan,” I said. Her voice sounded so strange as mine. Lucas and my parents stared at me, and I grabbed on to Lucas’s hand. “Let’s go. We have to save Maxie if we can.”

“We should just get out of here,” Mom said as Lucas helped me to my feet. I was startled to be able to look him directly in the eyes; Skye was taller than me. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry about your friend, but we have to think about your safety.”

“Maxie didn’t think about her safety when she came after me,” I said. “Besides, Vic’s trying to help her. Are you going to make Vic go up against Mrs. Bethany alone?”

Lucas guided me toward the door. “No way. Come on.”

My mom and dad glanced at each other for a second, but they followed us. Now that I was enclosed in Skye’s body, as though it were a warm, living suit of armor, the trap room had no more power over me; leaving was as simple as taking the stairs. Of course, those were a little clumsy — I didn’t wholly know how to move in Skye’s body yet, and both of us were shaky after what had just happened.

As we started going down the stairs, I said, “Was it Maxie who told you where I was?”

sliding across the floor, grimacing in pain before staggering to his feet. Lucas reclaiming his crossbow and firing — Mrs. Bethany smoothly dodging the arrow that sank into another vampire, with a plume of blood and the vampire’s cry.

Vampire’s blood, drawing me in, dragging me further down into nothingness.

Beyond the trap, I heard Maxie’s voice. “Bianca! You have to get out of there! Come on!” I could just make out her form as she stood on the very edge of the room, risking her own existence to try and help me. A few other faces appeared behind her — female students who lived in the upper floors of the dorm, no doubt startled by the noise, and Vic, who appeared to be trying desperately to get those students to go someplace safer.

I tried to do what Maxie said, but I was too weak. Too lost.

At that moment in the fray, Mrs. Bethany ran for the door at vampire speed, grabbing the smaller trap as she went. She opened it — just in front of Maxie.

No! I thought, but it was too late. There was just time to see the dawning terror on Maxie’s face before the vortex swallowed her up, enclosing her 222 within the trap.

“Hey!” Vic yelled. For the first time ever, I heard real fury in his voice. “That’s my ghost!”

Mrs. Bethany smashed Vic across the face with the trap, which sent him sprawling to the floor. The human students began screaming and shouting as Mrs. Bethany pushed through them.

“She’s getting away,” Balthazar shouted.

“I don’t give a damn!” Lucas arrow — staked another vampire; the room fell quiet, but he hardly noticed. “We have to get Bianca out of here!”

“She’s got my ghost!” Vic started running down the stairs, and Balthazar followed him. My parents and Lucas remained.