Ve'Rah Daa (The Ephemeral: Book 3)

Chapter 27

I stopped at the third cell to my left, scanning its inhabitants for a candidate. The soldiers had packed ten Pans into the living space, and it smelled like a grave robbery. Deprived of nutrients, the demons had withered away to skin and bones and bald spots, and I hated submitting their human hosts to such vile living conditions. But we'd had no other choice. It was either temporary malnourishment beneath Havenbrooke or a tragic, dishonorable death at the hands of their own government. And while neither option promised peace, at least the Ground kept them out of the snow and prevented the demons from carrying out unspeakable acts.

One of the smaller Pans—a brunette in his early twenties—gripped the bars between us, leaning his forehead against the metal barrier to stare at me. He grinned when we locked eyes, and it sent an unpleasant chill across my shoulder blades.

I didn't recognize him. This man was a complete stranger to me, even when I looked beyond the black gums and ghostly eyes. And that made him the perfect nominee.

I set my lantern down and approached the cell, and his grin faltered when he spotted the raw anger pulsing in my eyes.

He backed away from me, but he wasn't fast enough. Just as he opened his mouth to gasp my title, my gloved hand shot out through the bars and clasped a fistful of his soiled uniform.

"Alex!" Mason cried, sprinting toward me from the stairwell. But it was too late.

I'd already opened the gates.

My power surged through me like a pitcher tipped on its side, and searing energy burst from the skin of my palm, through the fibers of my glove, into my victim. I consumed his memories in one sweet, gratifying gulp, listening to his possessor spit and cry and claw at my immaterial skin. Begging for me to stop. Begging me to return his life source. 

In the mental plane, I drained his fountain of memories. Taking all I could take. Drinking all I could ingest. I learned this man, this stranger. I studied his family, his loved ones, his wife and the daughter he hadn't met. I investigated the reasons he joined the military and how badly he regretted his decision. I took and took from the demon, until there was nothing left to rob him of.

Desperate screeching tore at my eardrums like claws on glass windows. Seconds later, I was met with silence and a plume of ash.

With the creature finally gone, I gave the man his memories back. Life lessons and experiences stripped of the demon's influence, just as I'd done for Sol. At our mental crossroads, I felt the presence of his soul again, revived and restored. And when the white plane began to shake and crumble around me, I tried giving the soldier a memory of my own—the last ingredient to make him whole again, the sacrifice our exchange demanded. 

I decided to give him a crinkled memory of my father teaching me to fish in Belgate's river. It was a beloved bonding moment between father and daughter that I hoped would convince him to stay here. To meet his child. To keep fighting.

But my memory donation was met with resistance; his soul wouldn't accept my offering.

I was losing him. He was slipping. And the longer I stayed in this dimension, the heavier the strain on my physical body.

"No," I begged, reaching for his silhouette. "Please. I can save you!"

He shook his head and walked away from me—away from the crumbling floor and the yawning chasm between us.

"Please!" Tears spilled over my cheeks, and I knew I was crying in the real world too. "I can't let you die. Don't go!" I ran after him. "Let me try again!"

But he was deaf to my pleas.

Warm hands shook my shoulders, and I heard Mason's muted, frantic shouting. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but I could tell he was pissed.