It’s tempting. More tempting than I want to admit.
Some people might agree to that life, to the absence of pain. I wouldn’t blame them. Not one bit.
But I have always pushed against the boundaries that were set for me, even when it hurt. And since I met Heathcliff, I have fully come to life. Staying blanketed and protected inside Cernunnos would mean giving up all freedom—giving up the beautiful anguish of being human, the aching joy of experiencing the world with Heathcliff. Whatever pain I have to endure, no existence could be satisfying withouthim.
“My life has been wretched at times,” I say. “But it’s mine, and I’ll be damned if I let you have it.”
I feel the surge of Cernunnos’s anger. But I’m awake again. I’m not a cringing little soul in the back of his mind or a drugged sleeper in Aunt Nellie’s guest room. No matter how much it hurts, I won’t dull this pain. I will take it like a woman, like a fucking goddess, and I’ll get past it, like I always have. Maybe I’ll die doing it—maybe the pieces of me are separated beyond repair—but death is better than prison. All I care about is Heathcliff,alive…and myself, mistress of my own fate.
I swallowed a god, and I can spit him back out.
My consciousness expands, and I find my eyes, my mouth, my voice. Two words. “I’m ready.”
Daisy hears me, and she smiles, showing her fangs.
Above the wind, above the thunder of Cernunnos’s protests, above Heathcliff’s roar of defiance and the snarling of the vampires, I hear Daisy’s voice, clear as a bell. “Baz, time to sign off!”
“Got it!” Baz shouts back without looking up from her tablet.
“I have died a hundred deaths before this one.” My voice is mine, but it’s blended with Cernunnos’s deep tones as he fights for control. “I know you, and I do not fear you. This is my body, not yours. My will, not yours. I no longer consent to your presence here.”
Cernunnos hisses, our shared body rising taller, shadows condensing into a dozen more arms, antlers expanding. But I can feel something else now—another will, separate from mine or his, tugging at him. Drawing out his spirit.
The god panics. Wrenches control back from me, bellows, “No!” and sends everything he’s got toward Baz in one destructive maelstrom.
Gatsby takes a clawed fist straight to the gut. It punches right through him, then yanks back, leaving a gaping hole in his stomach.
He chokes and staggers, collapsing into the aisle.
Daisy screams and falls to her knees beside him. She rips at her own wrist, then shoves her bloodied arm desperately against his mouth.
Vines coil around the other two vampires, binding them together. They’re lifted higher, higher, while the vines constrict their bodies.
I know what’s going to happen, but I can’t stop it.
For a moment the two men struggle pointlessly in midair—and then the red-haired one yields, relaxing his body. He leans in and kisses the other man, fangs and all.
“Don’t give up, Nick,” shouts the black-haired one, still writhing and bucking—but the redhead gasps brokenly, “Cody. Cody, it’s all right.”
Then something snaps inside him, and his eyes go vacant, startled. Cody gives a yell of anguish, but his cry is choked off by another snap as his own spine breaks.
Cernunnos isn’t satisfied. He smashes them against the pews over and over. Wood splinters, more bones crack, and there’s a wet sound of flesh being pounded into pulp.
Heathcliff yells, charges toward me, toward Cernunnos. I can see the god reaching four clawed hands, can feel his intent to shred Heathcliff’s flesh from his bones. And I can’t stop it in time.
But Dorian gets there first. Throws himself in front of Heathcliff.
All the claws of those four arms sink into Dorian’s body. His face goes perfectly still, and in that instant, he looks innocently, pitifully young. Blood trickles from his mouth.
Heathcliff seizes two of the god-arms, rips them in half before they can whip outward and tear Dorian apart. With a scream of defiance, I struggle to control the other two limbs, but they’re not part of me. They’re shadow-limbs of Cernunnos, and I’m not fully in control of him yet.
Blood jets across the pews as the other two arms jerk out of Dorian’s body, slashing him in the process. He falls out of my sight line, shrouded in shadows.
Heathcliff is left standing, his hands and robes dripping red. He is Baz’s last defense.
She hasn’t taken her eyes from her drawing, but her shoulders are shaking, and a broken sob echoes through the church, which has fallen suddenly, strangely quiet.
“It’s over,” says Cernunnos aloud. Wings of shadow expand from his shoulders and curve along the sides of the church, blotting out the light from the narrow windows, covering the lamps. The only illumination streams in pale, translucent rays from the doorway of the sanctuary, lancing around Heathcliff and turning him into a dark silhouette.
