The next time Leah opened her eyes, she was staring at a dark sky.
She'd fallen into a fitful sleep, the blood loss sending her into a haze of fever dreams. Behind her eyes, monsters leapt from every direction, cutting through people she loved, dispelling them like smoke. Sweat broke on her skin, cries tore from her throat.
But running an undercurrent through it all was Jared, murmuring her name, pressing cool cloths against her forehead. At one point, she was lifted into his arms and lowered back down onto soft sheets.
That was where she lay now, she realised; in a bed pressed up against a floor-to-ceiling window. She was curled on her side, her face close to the glass, and the sky vast above her. She blinked up at it for a long moment, her tongue thick in her mouth and her head foggy.
"Leah?"
She rolled over at the voice. Jared was in the bed beside her, sitting up against the headboard with the book they'd stolen from Maud open in his lap. His eyes were dark in the shadows as he leant over and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, checking her temperature.
"How are you feeling?"
His words were a murmur and Leah glanced around the room. Where they were and the reason why was coming back to her slowly, the information drip feeding into her consciousness.
"I'm okay," she said.
She glanced at the sheets covering her. Her leg still hurt, but the stabbing pain had dulled to a throb, and when she pulled the covers back, she found her calf bandaged, the fabric relatively fresh and free of blood stains, recently changed.
Her head still pounded though, dehydration hanging heavy.
"I'm thirsty though," she said, and Jared jumped up, moving to the bathroom. She heard the tap run and then he was back, pressing a glass into her hand.
She drank it down quickly and he took it back to refill.
"How long have I been out?" she asked as he returned and handed her the glass once more.
"About a day," Jared said. "I've been keeping an eye on the street, but I haven't seen any sign of Alice."
His jaw ticked and Leah closed her eyes, giving herself a second to process that information. She knew Jared must want to be out there, looking, knew that her injury had held him back.
"Are the creatures still there?" she asked.
Jared nodded.
"They're..." he trailed off, trying to find the right words. "They seem to be guarding the house, or at least coming in and out of it a lot. There's always a few hovering outside it."
Leah peered back out the window. She had to crane her neck to spot Jared's old home, about half a street down. He was right. Tall, elongated shadows prowled the street outside it, moving in and out of sight. On the horizon behind them, the first hint of sun kissed the sky.
"We need to get back in there," she said. "I have to try closing the portal again."
She stared at the house for a moment longer and then lay back, analysing her leg once more, gauging how much longer she'd need.
"I think I'll be okay by the afternoon, maybe we could..."
She trailed of when she looked up and found Jared glaring at her, fire in his eyes.
"What?"
"What do you mean 'what'?" he said. "Do you really think I want you to try closing the portal again? It nearly killed you last time."
"No, it didn't."
"Yes, it did!"
Jared was becoming agitated, his stubbornness kicking in, and Leah could feel the conversation barrelling towards a stalemate she doubted they'd recover from quickly. So, she softened her voice, rested her hand on his arm.
"I'm not saying I'll try to close it the exact same way I did before. But we have to do something. If we don't, everyone is going to die. Everyone. Not just me."
He stared at her for a long moment, and she could see him fighting the urge to demand she didn't put herself in any more danger, but then he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Not everyone," he said quietly.
He looked down at the book in his hands and then flipped it open, turning it in her direction.
"I think I know why Maud was guarding these so carefully," he said. "I can't read anything, but there are pictures too."
Leah took the book from him and squinted at the page he'd opened.
It was old and faded, the ink light brown rather than black, but still legible.
There were two women on an alter, one older with short, curly hair, and one younger. Their limbs were tied down, their mouths opened on screams as a man lent over them, knife in hand. A crowd stood to the side, watching, and above was what looked like a list of instructions.
Leah flipped to the inside cover, to the only part of the book that was in romanised English, and read it again.
"This journal holds the last written records of the tribe presumed to have invented the Mors Mortis Device. The text covers a ritual gone wrong and curse placed on tribal members, punishing them for life. Many translations are incomplete or indecipherable."
She looked back at the drawing, at the women tied to the table, staring at their terrified faces.
"This was the ritual that created the Mors Mortis Device, wasn't it?" she asked.
"I think so," Jared said from beside her. "But I think that's the one that went wrong. Look at the next few pages."
Leah turned the page. On the other side were the same women, smiling and healthy, with children in their arms. A haze had been smudged around their bodies, a golden aura in picture form. Then, on the next page, the same women were depicted again, but while they hadn't changed, the children they'd mothered had grown to teenagers.
On the next page, another person was strapped to the table. This time, it was a man. Both women stood to the side with the crowd, their expressions indecipherable.
Leah flicked through the next pages quickly. The man stayed young for a long time, along with the women, the golden haze outlining him now too. But then it showed the man with another girl, showed the girl giving birth to a child, and the golden haze had transferred to the baby, outlining his tiny form. The next pages showed the child's father again, growing older and older, the golden outline gone, until eventually, he disappeared completely.
The two women, the first ones that'd been on that table, were still there though. And their faces had turned sour, their eyebrows drawn down in anger as the golden child they'd watched be born grew and found a partner of his own. And the whole process begun again.
Leah flipped through the pictures once more, and then again.
"The first time they tried to create the Mors Mortis Device it didn't work," Leah said, trying to make sense of the pictures story as she spoke. "Or it did work, but it worked too well. Those two women became properly immortal. They had no way of dying. Ever."
She glanced up at Jared to find his expression grim.
"But they never wanted that, did they?" she continued, looking down at the women's faces again and something prickled at the back of her neck — a sense of familiarity hovering just outside of her consciousness. "That village wanted people to have as much time in the live world as they could, but still have an out."
Leah flipped to the page with the man on it, when he's tied down to the table, and pointed at him.
"Which he got, didn't he? That man was the first Mors Mortis Device. He was immortal as long as he didn't have children, but once he did, he started ageing again. Just like my dad did. Just like Seth will."
Jared nodded, and Leah could tell from the look on his face that she was only reinforcing the conclusions he'd already come to.
Jared took the book back from her and flipped it a few more pages along and then placed it in her lap once more. A picture showed the immortal women, standing in the middle of a charred village — all the houses burnt down, the trees and grass skeletal — and Leah's blood went cold.
"Oh."
"Yeah," Jared said.
Leah sat back and stayed silent for a long time, thinking.
"If those women were truly immortal, that means they're still alive."
"Yeah."
Jared flipped back to the page with the women strapped to the table and pointed at the older women, the one with short, curly hair.
"Who does that look like to you?"
Leah stared at the woman's face, and slowly, blood drained from her own. Who did they know who had an unexplainable knowledge of how the Mors Mortis Device worked and the link between the live and dead worlds? Who did they know was happy that the worlds were falling apart?
"Maud," Leah said, horror flooding her, and Jared nodded, his face grim.
"She's trying to destroy the worlds so she can finally die," Leah continued, and Jared nodded again.
Leah's head raced.
"But who's the other girl," Leah said, staring at that other woman, also chained down to the table. She looked younger, more vulnerable and scared.
"I don't know," Jared said. "But if this is true, we're trying to stop people who've spent centuries planning this. We're outmatched. I think Maud is already beyond reasoning, but the other girl..."
He trailed off, staring at the book in Leah's hands.
"She might be able to help us. If we can find her."
...
Next chapter out in two weeks!
Nearly at the end of this trilogy 😮 only a couple chapters left and I can't believe it! For those who have made it this far, thank you very much. Your support means the world to me.
Until next chapter!
- Skylar xx