Page 182 of Envious Of Fire
That’s when, with a sickening start, she discovers someone else skewered through it, behind her.
“Fuck me,” Nico groans, coughs blood onto Raya’s back, then falls against her, the blade still inside him. “Please don’t,urgh, move it,fuck…”
Raya’s face blanches with horror. “Oh god …”
Kyle moves to their side, stares down at the blade that joins the pair of them. For a moment, he can’t speak, all his words swallowed up in fear. “D-Doctor Mei??” he calls out, then realizes he can’t be heard over the storm, nor does he know where she is, or if she herself is okay, or even alive. “Doctor!!” he screams.
“Leave it in,” groans Nico, clutching Raya’s stiff back. “Fuck. Just … w-wrap it or … or something. Wrap me up b-before I …”
Kyle glances behind Nico.
Kaleb is on the seat behind him, his own bandaged face mere inches from the end of the blade.
This wasn’t an accident. La-La’s intended target was his brother. The violinist. He knew all along. This was the finale of the vampire’s sick game, starting back at the banquet hall whenhe took his place in front of Kyle’s chair, likely having watched with dark fascination as Kyle screamed for his brother through the bars of the cage, a game to orchestrate the end of the tragedy here on this bus—and it would have played out perfectly, had brave Nico not stood in the way.
Kyle peels off his vest, then his shirt, and starts wrapping the blade at the front and back of Nico’s wound. “Ooh, fuck, gentle,urgh,” groans Nico, “please, please,fuck…”
“Kyle …” comes Raya’s voice, worried.
Abruptly, the sandstorm abates, falling away like a curtain, leaving only birds circling in the night sky. The sounds of the humans whimpering and crying replaces the storm, along with the roaring hum of the bus’s engine, chugging along with significantly more trouble than it was previously. “I can see it!” shouts Elias from the front, voice hoarse and weary. “The town! Guys, we’re there, we’re almost there!”
“Stay still,” Kyle tells Nico. “Just breathe. You’re gonna be okay. Just stay with me …”
Nico clings tighter to Raya. “I … I don’t care what happens to me. Get Kaleb to safety. Get that man the life he … he deserves. I’m gonna … I’m just gonna rest my head here, right here on this brave lady’s back, just for a minute …” Then Nico closes his eyes.
38.
Until the Bitter End.
—·—
Tristan steps over a broken chair painted in blood.
Circles a table with the charred remains of some Feral on top.
And the corpse of Director Andrea of the Seattleus domain on the floor, poking out from beneath the same table, her blackened bones twisted among shattered glass and cutlery.
The banquet hall is eerily calm.
Ribbons of smoke twirl from the red tabletops where once the flames raged, dancing to the heedless heavens.
There is no chatter. No clinking of glasses. No merriment.
Only eerie calm.
With the illusions stripped away, it comes as a surprise how much of the banquet was actually real. From the large, decorative centerpieces to the fancy red tablecloths. The chandeliers hanging overhead. Even the stage for the most part.
Tristan stops where the small and childlike shape of Director Peter drew his last breath—and choked on it. Kneeling on the floor cradling his lifeless body is Director Tsuki, skin spotted with blood and minor burns. She says nothing as Tristan approaches, only glancing briefly at him, the frames of her teal-colored glasses askew. Nearby, Director Ernest stands in his pink suit, which isn’t so pink anymore, as he gazes absently across the room of carnage. Next to him, Ms. Tamara of New Orleanea, a director Tristan has met only once, whose eyes seem trapped in the nightmare of the past hour. Ahead, seated uponthe lip of the stage leaning against the bars like two rejected dates at prom, Cindy and Zara are side-by-side in their pretty dresses, now torn, burned in spots and stained with blood, both of them haggard and silent.
Tristan’s foot kicks into something. He steps back.
Markadian’s glittering, ruby-red bowtie. Also not an illusion. Somehow, impossibly, inexplicably untouched by the fire.
Tristan picks it up, shakes off stray bits of ash, holds it with both of his hands.
He thinks suddenly about how Kyle’s eyes seemed to smile as he helped him with his own bowtie a matter of hours ago. How they peered at one another through the mirror. How they were so touched by one another’s presence, as if not a single day had gone by since their lifetime in the cabin.
Tristan considers what a beautiful last moment they shared before their whole world burned, as he departs the banquet hall, moving past the shadowy edges of the room where the glowing embers have finally turned black, hissing out their last bits of life.
