Page 94 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

I probably should have felt something about that, I thought distantly. I couldn’t bring myself to worry about it at that moment.

The brilliant golden light was beginning to fade from Evangeline’s eyes. Her aura flickered and dimmed, and she sank down toward the ground. When her feet were still a yard or so above the charred ground, her eyes slipped shut, and the light blinked out. She dropped like a stone, and I bolted forward to catch her in my arms. I caught her just before she hit the ground. The golden glow flickered across her face, and I could see her eyes moving frantically behind their lids like she was trapped in a dream.

I could feel my long-dead heart jump into my throat as I knelt on the ash-covered ground, cradling her close to me. Now the magic wasn’t flowing around her in invisible currents, her hair was a tangled mess, and soot smeared her cheeks.

“Evangeline,” I murmured, brushing her hair out of her face. “Evangeline, can you hear me?” Unbidden memories of the long, painful transition from soon-to-be-vampire to vampire arose in my mind. Being unmade, reborn as something entirely new, had been agonizing. Was that what was happening to Evangeline?

Her lips parted, and she murmured something, barely more than an exhale. I leaned closer, trying to hear what she was saying.

“Y’r dad,” she mumbled. “Y’r dad is such a dick…”

I let out a ragged, gasping laugh. I must have sounded absolutely manic, because her eyes fluttered open, and she lifted a hand to give my cheek a clumsy pat. It looked as though that simple movement took an exhausting amount of effort, and I put my hand over hers, desperate to feel the reassuring warmth of her against my skin.

There was so much I wanted to say, all bubbling up in my chest, threatening to choke me. I wanted to tell her I had been scared. I wanted to tell her I had been terrified to find her gone, that I had feared the worst. Most of all, I wanted to tell her that I loved her, and that in the time I’d known her, it felt as though she had reshaped my world in the best possible way.

Instead, I said, “You’re right. My father is an absolute dick.”

Evangeline grinned up at me, and her smile was like the sunrise.

I squeezed her hand, turning my head to press a kiss to her palm. I was distantly aware of the sound of Marcus clambering over the rubble to climb down into the basement, but my priorities were elsewhere. The wound on Evangeline’s chest was still bleeding sluggishly, and I pressed my hand against it, trying to staunch the flow. She hissed, and I murmured an apology.

“I’m going to get you home,” I said softly. “We’ll patch you up. You’re going to be all right, Evangeline. Don’t worry.”

I was still rambling comforting promises when Marcus clambered back out of the pit. Evangeline’s grasp on consciousness seemed loose, and she barely noticed when her mentor crouched next to us. He held out his palm, and in it was a bundle of twisted gold wire, half-melted.

“This is all that’s left of the array,” he said. “Not a drop of magic remains in the thing, as far as I can tell. You did it, Evangeline.” He was practically beaming with pride, and it was so clear on his face that I felt oddly like an intruder seeing it.

Evangeline smiled up at us blearily. “You’re goddamn right,” she mumbled. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna take a nap to celebrate, okay?”

“Rest for a little while,” Marcus said gently. “You deserve it.”

Closing her eyes, Evangeline slumped in my arms, and if I hadn’t been able to hear the faint beat of her pulse, I would have panicked. As it was, I just held her even closer.

Marcus took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. The expression of pride slipped away, and in its place was pure, raw grief.

“The world will be coming for her now,” he said.

I stayed silent. It didn’t seem as though he was speaking to me.

“I can only hope that I’ve done enough to prepare her.”

“We should get her home,” I said. “She needs patching up, and a proper bed.”

Marcus nodded, slipping his glasses back on. I could practically see him packing his turmoil away into a neat little box to deal with later. Or, I suspected, to gather dust in a corner of his mind somewhere.

“I think you have some unfinished business to deal with first, my friend,” he said. “That blow Evangeline dealt your father wasn’t enough to kill off a vampire for good, was it?”

My blood went cold. I would have to be the one to end things. My father was a cruel, cold man who had done horrible things, who had used me as a tool in his schemes, but… could I bring myself to drive a stake into his heart? Most days, I could barely admit to myself that I hated him.

Marcus’s cool, blue eyes were sharp behind the lenses of his glasses. “I could…” he began, but I shook my head.

“No,” I said tiredly. “No. I should be the one to do it.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll get Evangeline back to the car and make sure she’s as comfortable as possible.”

I nodded, not meeting his eyes.

Gently, his magic lifted Evangeline from my arms, and he walked off with her floating next to him.

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