Page 41 of Monsters of Midnight

That was all I had asked for and I knew she was well. The truth be told, she might even be better than she had been when she had been alive. A stab of pain went through my heart. I didn’t quite believe the latter. There was still no greater experience than love, and no greater aspiration than to spend your life with the person you loved the most.

Even though I had failed and I would spend the rest of my life with nothing more than the memories I had with Caroline, I would still have to honor her spirit and her desires and fight against the powers of evil that were closing in on Earth.

“We’ll have to fight them,” I said to Ratchet. “I don’t know if we have what it takes to stop them, but we’re going to have to give it a try.

I stopped myself short of saying ‘That’s what Caroline would’ve wanted.’ Ratchet knew her well enough. He knew me well enough. Those words went without saying.

Chapter 23

CAROLINE

In all my impressions of Undirheim, comfort was not one of them. The cells we were assigned to reminded me of cells I went to see in an ashram in India, where meditators would go to get in touch with nirvana. Had I ever had any expectations of Undirheim, they would’ve been about this. Small individualize cells where people were kept. It wasn’t meant to be extravagant or lush. It was meant to be just passing through.

For some reason, whatever mind numbing, relaxing potion was in the air down here, it certainly made it so you didn’t mind the conditions. Sometimes there was screaming in the rooms, but again, it was hardly noticeable.

Until it was noticeable.

The sky hadn’t changed at all from the dismal gray it typically was when my eyes snapped open.

A human was screaming.

It wasn’t just someone in transition. It was somebody who was actually alive, like Earth-alive.

I sat up, feeling a shrill tone rising up from deep inside me. A keening sound I had made right before the satyr died. It rose up from within my stomach and through my chest, until finally it came out my mouth, and I could feel it traveling around Undirheim, searching for the human who had come here, but was not quite dead.

Someone was alive in Undirheim.

I slipped out of my cell, standing closely in tune with the vibration that was flowing inside my chest. It was driving me back out to the woods where I had seen Ryder, back to the clearing where he had appeared. There must be some type of a portal available there that the living could pass through. I moved stealthily as possible. It reminded me of racing through the streets of Alameda trying not to be discovered by the satyrs.

I didn’t know who here exactly would get me in trouble. I had gone along with everything they had said to do, including agreeing to go to the fae afterlife. This new dimension of fae existence was something I wasn’t sure I was even looking forward to, but it was something I was committed and willing to do.

I could see the clearing up ahead, and two shadowy figures, and at a distance, it looked like Ryder, but I couldn’t be sure. His arm was raised. The other creature was human, female, and not putting up a fight against the large, hulking creature who stood above her with dagger raised.

I let out a long scream that merged with the song I was singing, and became one shrill, elongated note. It got the attention of both people inside the clearing, and they looked over suddenly. It was Magnus and the woman must be his mother.

“Stop!” I screamed as I ran into the clearing.

“My girl,” the woman said. “Finally, we meet. Under very strange circumstances, but we meet nonetheless.”

“You’re Ryder’s mother,” I said.

She smiled warmly. “That’s right. Now I will have you return to my son through my sacrifice.”

“You can’t do this,” I said. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“It’s okay,” Ryder’s mother said. “I want for this to happen.”

“You want to die?”

“I’ve asked for this,” she said.

I stared at her forlornly. “Why would you do that?”

“Because my son needs you,” Ryder’s mother said. “And I am done with life.”

“Stop!” Thrain’s voice rang out across the clearing as he and Oren burst onto the scene.

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