I press a kiss to her forehead, my tears streaking over her skin. I close my eyes so I don’t have to watch my grief rain over her. “Rest now. I promise … I’ll be okay. Somehow.”
I’m not certain how much of Disa was the Conduit and how much of her was the vessel, but maybe … maybe … her energy will return to the section of the universe from which the soul of the vessel was pulled. And there, maybe she’ll be reunited with those intrinsically connected to her.
“Ward, Ingrid, Mack, and Devlin …” I murmur. “Trace your ties to their souls, their essence, back to them, Disa. I wish that for you now.”
Energy shifts through me to her. I breathe it across her skin, giving her in death what I’m now fairly certain she somehow stripped from me in life.
Then my hand is empty.
I open my eyes.
Disa’s body is gone. Her lingering energy fades into the essence that fuels the universe, into the aether. Into the After.
I straighten, swiping the tears from my cheeks and blowing my nose in some gauze I find in one of the metal drawers.
I open all the doors to the fridges, yanking container after container of blood out over the floor.
Then I set the fucking room on fire.
It only takes a couple of nudges from the universe for me to find rubbing alcohol to use as an accelerant, and the lighter that is still somehow in Devlin’s pocket.
I wedge the door open behind me when I leave. I’m not certain the fire will spread through the bunker complex, but I need to feed it enough oxygen to consume the medical bay at least.
The fire won’t spread without extra encouragement. But I can wield a lot of that, even while the universe is pissed at me.
My chest aches, knowing that I can’t stay and collect Devlin’s ashes to inter in the family plot. I keep his lighter instead. I doubt the medical bay will be the only thing I set on fire today.
I head for the stairs again, realizing as I step across the next landing and start up the next set of stairs — heading all the way to the top for the confrontation sure to be waiting for me there — that despite the seething wound at my neck, I feel stronger than I have since being bequeathed the mantle of the Conduit.
I pause, letting myself cry over the reason for that — that some part of the Conduit power was still contained within my aunt, and now she’s truly gone — for another few minutes.
Then I keep climbing.
I step through the final metal door into what appears to be a domestic basement of some sort, given the antique water heater, plank floor, and lack of concrete. A set of wooden open-tread stairs, gray with age, lead me up into a narrow, naturally lit hall.
The Cataclysm’s bunker is at least partially built under a palatial but badly maintained heritage house. I was evidently brought in through a secondary entrance away from the main house, a glimpse of which I caught across the expansive property while being carried inside. I still have no idea of the extent of the underground sections of the compound, though.
I pause, enjoying the worn hardwood under my chilled bare feet as I take a moment to glance around. A sweeping staircase rises behind and over me, leading up to the second aboveground floor. To my far right, large living spaces appear to be set to each side of a huge entranceway. Heavy, sun-bleached brocade curtains are partially pulled over the windows I can see, but I catch a glimpse of white-painted pillars supporting a covered patio that spans the front of the house.
I make a guess that the hall to my left leads back through the center of the house to a kitchen and possibly to a back patio or entrance beyond. The plaster walls are in need of a coat of paint. The crown moldings are dingy, and the wood casings around the doors and windows are cracked.
Though none of that really matters now. Since I’m in the process of burning it all down anyway.
I can feel the presence of shifters in the living spaces and beyond the grand front entrance, as well as where I’m assuming the kitchen lies.
Suddenly achingly hungry, as if the universe is reminding me I need to eat if I want to stay upright, I move toward the largest cluster of life force, traversing steadily down the hall until I step into a large kitchen without any preamble.
Six shifters, each double my size and clad in Cataclysm leathers, pivot at my entrance. They go stock-still, staring. All of them are bears — though not berserkers as far as I can tell.
This group includes the blond shifter and the shifter the Cataclysm strangled when they interrupted our weird dinner. The bruise on the strangled shifter’s neck is blackened and painful looking.
That dinner was already odd for a multitude of reasons, but feels even more so now. Because based on the bright sunshine pouring through the back patio windows, it’s clearly day. But less than an hour — maybe two at the most — has passed since the Cataclysm went to check on Jewels in the hospital. Or maybe I’ve lost time — or even gained it, given that the will of the universe is in play again.
And, yes, I can feel essence again. In finer detail than ever before.
I shove the why of that away.
I’m moving now, moving and not looking back. My present, my now … at least the now I want to be living within … is just a step forward, then another step. Not quite within reach yet. But whatever toll the universe demands of me, I already know that the past will not continue to slow me.
