The circle’s barrier flickers, then the golden runes of the circle fade to nothing. The invisible walls that trapped us are gone. We are free.
But I don’t move. I just hold Phoenix, trying to keep her warm and chase away any cold still lingering.
“Layden,” she finally says. Her voice is hoarse. “Did we do it? Is he gone?”
“Yes. Both Vlad and my Creator-Father. You did it,” I cling to her, tears of relief and love tracking down my eyes. “All the monsters are gone now.”
TWENTY-SIX
LAYDEN
Three days later,and I still can’t quite believe it’s over.
We’re sitting in Phoenix’s apartment—our apartment now, I suppose, since I’ve been staying here. She’s on the couch with her feet tucked under her, a mug of coffee in her hands. I’m on the floor, my back against the couch, close enough that our shoulders touch.
The apartment is small, maybe a thousand square feet total. The furniture is mostly secondhand, mismatched pieces that Phoenix collected over the years. But it’s warm here. Safe.
Normal in a way I’ve certainly never experienced.
“So the police bought the story?” I ask.
Phoenix nods. “Mostly. Sabra helped me with the memory modifications for the first responders. As far as they’re concerned, it was a serial killer who had a breakdown and died by suicide. Case closed.”
“And the woman who was called Ammit?”
“It reallyisSabra’s mom, come back from the spirit realm,” Phoenix says. “We don’t know where Ammit went.”
“But how is it her mom? I still never got the full story.” In the aftermath, I just saw Sabra and the woman celebrating and hugging, but we were all too busy cleaning things up and getting the hell out of there to linger on details.
“It turns out Sabra’s mom, Savannah, figured out how to send her soul to the spirit realm, even though it meant her body here dying.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. After decades of fighting Vlad’s compulsion, she saw no other way out. Once she found out Vlad had put Sabra under his blood compulsion, she thought it was the only move she could make to have a chance at saving both of them. So Savannah left directions in her grimoire, knowing Vlad would instruct Sabra as he had Savannah, to chase after the strongest mage magic possible, and that it would lead her down the same trail to opening paths to the other realms.”
It blows my mind that the humans of this realm have discovered such power. But then, beings such as my father have been visiting them for millennia, showing them what was possible.
I frown, though. “But I don’t get it. How did Savannah becoming a spirit help save Sabra?”
“Sabra’s mom knew the truth about me. She…” Phoenix swallows. “She knew my parents. She was able to follow the trail back to the realm I came from. That’s where she hid. In the abyss. She knew eventually I’d come into my full powers again, as I grew up, and that Sabra would be beside me. And she,” again Phoenix’s voice wobbles, “she trusted that we’d find the portal back to retrieve her and conquer Vlad once and for all. She trusted me even though she barely knew me.”
I hear what she’s not saying. “Your parents must have been really amazing people.”
Phoenix swallows and the tears she’s been fighting fall down her cheeks. “I still don’t know where they are.”
“Does Sabra’s mom know?”
She shakes her head, swiping at her cheeks with her palms. “No. It would have been too dangerous. All of them were on the run from Vlad, so they all split up and vowed never to contact one another.”
“We can look for them now,” I reach out and clasp her hands. It kills me to see her cry. “Now that Vlad’s dead.”
She nods, swallowing hard again. “I really want to. They don’t even know about Vlad. But it’s still not totally safe for them since all the other vampires just scattered after they felt the blood bond to Vlad lift. And I know some of them hated my dad. They’d taunt me about it when I was growing up. They might still be hunting him. The weaker, stupider ones might not survive long without a master to organize them, but others…” She shudders. “Some of those other bastards will probably become exactly the kind of monsters that give vampires a bad reputation.”
“How areyoufeeling?” I ask. I worry she’ll feel guilty about the escaped vampires, given her propensity to take on responsibility for everyone and everything.
She considers the question, clearly understanding what I’m not putting into words. “I do feel responsible. But not guilty. They made their choices a long time ago. I can’t fix them.”
It’s a very Phoenix answer. Practical. Clear-eyed about the realities of the situation.
