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Is anyone surprised?

“ I ’ve got to go.”

I’m still staring at Josep when he says this. It’s not unexpected. We have more work to do while the Darkness is still vulnerable.

But he’s hesitating because he knows I’m hesitating.

“Yes. You go.” I say this with confidence, abruptly letting go of Ryet. His head hits the hard ground with a thump. “I’ll stay and take care of this one.” I nod my head towards Syrsee, who is writhing against Josep’s leg now. Trying to get off, I think.

It’s a really bad look for her. But it’s not her doing it. Both she and Ryet left their bodies back in the purple room. This is just the Darkness inside her now, craving blood and sex.

“I’ll handle Ryet first. Then I’ll get Syrsee to release me and I’ll be back in the tower room, right where she left me, before you know it.” I get to my feet and let out a breath as I meet Josep’s questioning gaze with my own stoic one.

Josep puts a hand on my shoulder. “I can stay with you. If you need me to.”

He doesn’t trust me. But it’s understandable. I wouldn’t trust me either. I smile. “I would appreciate that, brother. The offer means a lot.” I mimic his hand on my shoulder with my own on his. And this time, when I speak, I let a little emotion through. “He was my favorite.”

Josep nods. “I know.” His suspicion is reined in, his expression more solemn now.

Giving up Ryet was a sacrifice I made that Josep didn’t have to. The biggest sacrifice Josep has made towards this monumental moment is the actual act of showing up here in this tunnel.

I give his shoulder a squeeze. “So your offer to stay is generous and appreciated. I know how much you hate being away from your space.”

Josep hesitates, looking down the tunnel towards the door to Ryet’s house. He doesn’t want to stay. And he’s not in some vague am-I-here-am-I-not existence, the way I am. He’s really, physically here. He traveled through the Dark dirt. He left his bunker.

It’s killing him. Maybe even literally. His anxiety about the outside world has always been pathological, but he’s been locked in that bunker for decades now. It might even have slipped his mind how much anxiety the outside world causes. It’s easy to forget one’s shortcomings when one never has to face them.

And the only reason he agreed to come here, to this tunnel under the earth, was because I had Ryet build it specifically for this encounter and Josep has known about it since the nineteen seventies. We could’ve done this exchange upstairs, or outside, or anywhere, actually—if one of the major participants wasn’t an agoraphobe. Josep prepared for the journey. Prepped himself mentally. And he did great.

But it’s over now. It’s done.

He needs to go home.

Not only that, he’s got work to do there. Pressing, important work that will direct our path forward.

He looks back at me now. “The scions will be arriving shortly. Some of them might already be there.”

“Well”—I smirk at him—“they won’t be able to cause much trouble while we’re away. There’s no blood. There’s no Lucia. And no halfbreeds to worry about either.”

He hesitates again. His offer to stay with me was a bluff. His anxiety over being away from home far exceeds his mistrust of me. I mean, we came this far, didn’t we? If I was going to pussy out over what comes next for Ryet, the time for that was before the transfer. Not now. What has been done to him cannot be undone. I don’t have that kind of power. Not even Josep could pull off that miracle.

It will happen, regardless of how I feel about it.

And Josep knows this.

I hold up a finger and bend down to Syrsee. “Maybe I can make it go quick?” I take her face in my hands as she snaps her teeth at me, trying to bite. “Syrsee?”

She snarls, trying to wriggle free.

“Syrsee! I need you to release me from the purple. Syrsee !”

She’s not in there. Josep knows this as well as I do. It’s going to take a fair bit of coaxing to get Syrsee and Ryet to come back from the gold dream they are in right now.

Josep sighs. “You handle it. I’ll go get everything ready at home.”

I stand back up and look him in the eyes. “I won’t be long. I’ll draw her out, and the moment she releases me I’ll be back in the tower bedroom, right where she left me. We’ll probably arrive at the same time.”

The Darkness is more than an oily blob of undulating shadow hiding in the dirt. It’s a network in the earth. A highway, of sorts. A medium of transport for those with access to the purple. I’m the one who discovered this highway and how to travel on it. The purple is mine and everyone who has access to it is under my control. Including Josep.

This is another part of his anxiety. He won’t go outside. The world could be ending—we could be in the middle of Armageddon itself—and Josep would just watch it happen from a window. Or pretend it wasn’t happening at all and stay down in his bunker.

So he must travel in the Dark dirt if he wants to go anywhere.

He’s got a system of tunnels connected to his bunker. They are like subway stations, linking different places. A direct route to the Darkness, of course. Here. Other places too, I’m sure. But in order to use Paul’s Purple Line, he must walk my purple dream.

He must be under my control.

He doesn’t like that.

He wants to go home far, far more than he wants to stay and make sure I follow the plan.

Which was my plan to begin with. Why wouldn’t I follow it?

Josep gives me one last nod and then walks over to the earthen wall of the tunnel. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched him travel through the dirt and for a moment, when his body takes on the appearance of a gossamer curtain and the Darkness that exists in all things underground looks more like the curling, serpentine tendrils of an evil demon than an oily vein of blackness, I am captivated by the process.

The way he flickers, like he’s not there. The way the tentacles encircle his body from foot to head. And that one, last look over his shoulder as the purple mist begins at his feet and travels up, while at the same time the Darkness begins to pull him back into the earth where he belongs.

It’s over in a matter of seconds. I was holding my breath as I watched, so I let it out. Forcing myself to be calm.

I’m going to betray him now and it’s a big decision. One I’ve been mulling over since the very day Ryet was born. Trying— desperately trying—to figure out a way to have my cake and eat it too.

Is anyone surprised? I am the vampire Paul. If there’s a way to get everything I want and not settle for less, then why wouldn’t I?

First things first, though.

I need to talk to Syrsee and Ryet. And isn’t it convenient that I’m already in the world between worlds and so are they?

One purple, one gold.

One vampire, one witch.

There are many things that set the two realms apart, but there are an equal number of ways to make them cross.

It’s almost like it was planned this way.

I take a deep breath, hold it, let it out, and then focus myself into one of the three worlds I mentally reside in.

The purple is the first and the one closest to reality because it is mine. The gold world is the second, which isn’t mine, but belongs to Syrsee. She has no idea how to control it—barely even knows it exists at this point—so the gold world is porous and can leak over into the other realms on either side of it.

The third is one I do not have access to. Yet. But it’s close now. So, so, so close.

It doesn’t take much to hop into the gold and as soon as I’m there, a reality begins to form. A library—of course. I should’ve known. With Ryet and Syrsee standing in the middle of a stack, hugging fiercely. As if they are about to say goodbye.

They would be saying goodbye, if it wasn’t for my plan. “Am I interrupting?”

They break apart. Syrsee lets out a surprised gasp, but says nothing.

Ryet directs those constantly-angry eyes in my direction, then pushes Syrsee behind him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

It’s an honorable gesture. Of course he wants to protect her. He loves her.

Not as much as I love him, but he’ll get there with time.

Unfortunately, time isn’t a luxury.

But it could be.

I put up a hand. “We don’t have a lot of time. I need to explain some things?—”

“You bet your ass you do.” Syrsee spits these words at me. “You didn’t tell me that I was literally going to be fucked by a demon! You said it was Ryet!”

I shrug with my hands. I mean, what was I going to say? Syrsee, you’re going to be fucked by a demon and have its baby ? That would’ve gone over well. And anyway, it was Ryet. The vessel that contains Ryet, at least. It is my professional opinion that this was not a lie because Syrsee didn’t understand that the mind and the vessel are two separate things.

She does now.

All of this is beside the point. “We have more important things to discuss.” Syrsee opens her mouth to protest, but I put up another hand, warning her off. “I’m sorry. OK? I apologize for leaving out the details. But the situation is very sensitive.”

Ryet takes a breath, then looks me straight in the eyes. “What, exactly, is the situation?”

“Third-born’s choice.” I hold up a finger. “Long version?” I hold up another finger. “Or condensed?”

They both say, “Condensed,” in unison.

“Good choice. Here’s the deal, kids.” I point at Ryet. “You’re going in the ground. I’m going to bury you in the tunnel between the root cellar and the house. You’re going to stay there for the foreseeable future.” I point to Syrsee. “You’re going to the Guild.”

The both blink at me. Like they can’t believe they’re about to agree that this is a better outcome than they expected.

“But,” I say—they both sigh—“there’s a catch.”

“Of course there is.” Ryet is looking like the beautiful man he is in this moment. Not the blue-black thing back in the tunnel. “ Paul !”

So he’s a bit distracting and I missed most of what he just said. “What?”

“Stop looking at my dick and focus. I said ”—he’s really angry—“what is going on back in the tunnel?”

I wave a hand in the air. “Oh. It’s all over.” Then I point at Syrsee. “You, however? We have a little bit of a problem.”

Syrsee goes pale. “What kind of problem?”

“You’re addicted to the blood. You will need to continue feeding on a regular basis.”

Ryet interjects. “Let me guess. I’ll be in the ground so you’ll be the one who needs to feed her.”

“An intriguing possibility that I admit sounds a lot more fun than the path I’m on. But no, Ryet. You are going to feed her.”

“But you just said he’s going in the dirt.”

“He is. But only part of him, Syrsee.” I suck in a breath, steeling myself for the next revelation. Because this is the part they’re going to hate. “Just like only part of you will be going to the Guild.”

“Explain.” Ryet is growling mad now.

“You can…” There is no good way to say this, so fuck it. I just spit it out. “You can split yourselves. In fact, this is not a ‘could’ situation. It’s a done deal. Every time you enter the purple ‘dreamwalk,’ as we’ve been calling it, you split away from your true self to be there. But you are there.” I look them both in the eye for this part. “It’s not a dream. The two of you know this, right?”

They look at each other for a moment, then shrug. Ryet answers for both of them. “Yes. It’s real.”

“This is real too.” I pan my hand at the library. “It just exists in another place. It’s connected to the reality we experience through our magic.” I wave a hand through the haze of gold and purple. “Which manifests as a mist. You’re perfectly safe as long as the mist is around you because it’s a connection to your physical body.”

“Oh!” Syrsee puts up a finger. “It’s like astral projection.”

“Sort of. But it’s really not. I, myself, am not an astral projection expert, so I can’t say how related this might be to our particular circumstances. But I don’t think the point of astral projection is to split away from your soul so you can be in two places at once.” They blink at me. “Physically, I mean. You can be in two places at once physically.”

“How?” This one word of Ryet’s is filled with so much doubt, it comes out seething.

“You walk away from the soul.”

The silence that comes after this revelation is thick, and heavy, and charged with unanswered questions.

“OK.” Syrsee comes back first. “But… I don’t understand. One… clone, copy, whatever—this one has the soul, but the other one doesn’t?”

“So what is the other one?” Ryet finishes that question for her. “A zombie, or something?”

“No.” I laugh. It’s absurd. “It’s you.” I point at both of them individually, but mean the word in a collective way. “Just… minus a soul.”

“OK.” Syrsee is back again. “The soul part of me is the one who gets to go to the Guild?”

She’s so hopeful, it’s sad. But she already knows this is not how it will happen.

I shake my head.

“So you expect us to live as soulless creatures?” Ryet is snarling now. “Something evil. That’s what you’re saying, right? Something forsaken.”

“Ryet. I’m trying to be gentle here. But here’s the reality for you, my love. You are already a soulless creature. Your soul was sold to me.”

“That’s a lie. You lied about all of it. You made me think that I chose this back in that alley when I was second-born, but it’s a lie. You made me , Paul. From beginning to end.” He’s pointing at himself, eyes flashing red. “I didn’t choose to be born .”

“It’s a complicated argument, Ryet. One we don’t have time for now. So. For the sake of moving things along, I will just agree with you. It wasn’t your choice and you bear no responsibility for any of this. How’s that? Feel better now?”

Syrsee scoffs. “You don’t have to be a dick, Paul. We just need to understand what’s happening.”

“Here’s what’s happening. Both of you have already split. And”—I look Ryet in the eyes for this—“I had nothing to do with that. You brought her here, Ryet. You did this.”

“Because a demon took over my body and was about to rape her!”

“Don’t forget the part where he got me pregnant,” Syrsee adds.

I roll my eyes. Children. “Regardless. Half of you is here, half of you is there. It has been done. It is done. You are split. And here’s what happens next. I’m going to leave you for a short while, during which time neither of you will come up with any stupid ideas to… escape, or whatever.” I pause to give them both a stern I-will-fucking-kill-you-both look. “I need to go bury Ryet’s soul-body in the earth under the house. Then I will come back here.” I point at Syrsee now. “You will release me from the spell you put on me. I will leave again, because my spirit is back in the compound tower bedroom where Ryet was third-born, and then I will finish up some other important work out west. After which I will return to the cabin, collect your soul-body, Syrsee, and take it back with me to Montana.”

“What’s going on in Montana?” This is Ryet. “Where the hell is Josep?”

“He’s taking care of other things. In Montana.”

“He doesn’t know about this, does he? You didn’t tell him, did you? Whatever you did tell him, it was an empty promise, wasn’t it?”

“Ryet, I’m trying my best here. And it wasn’t an empty promise. It was?—”

Syrsee interrupts. “What was the promise?”

“We’re in the middle of a rather long and complicated revenge scheme. The baby is part of it. The Darkness is part of it.”

“And me?” Ryet points to himself. This is when it all hits home for me. Because we’ve done it. And I’m sorry we’ve done it. “What’s gonna happen to me, Paul?”

“The part of you that goes to the Guild with Syrsee will… find a way to save us all.” He scoffs. “But the part of you that goes into the ground, Ryet…” I shrug. “I’m doing my best. That’s all I can say. I’m trying to save it.”

“His soul, you mean?” Syrsee’s face has gone ghost white. “That’s what you’re talking about here. You’re trying to save his soul, right? Because if it’s yours, and you just admitted it was, then you were going to use it to bargain. What did you get for it, Paul? Something good, I hope.” All her words come out dripping with rage, and contempt, and loathing.

“He’s the first of a new breed of vampire. It was… a long, complicated process that I’ve been working on with Josep for more than two hundred years.”

“You didn’t answer my question. You’re using his soul as… payment?”

“No, Syrsee. It’s really got nothing to do with the soul in Ryet’s case.” I don’t want to look at him, but I can’t help myself. And the instant I do, I regret everything. Even allowing him to be born.

“What are you doing to me, Paul?”

And this is it. The moment I’ve been dreading. The moment when he learns the truth. But I’ve told so many lies, he needs the truth for this one. “I’m turning you into the Darkness. A perfect copy of it. Something that can live outside the vessel. Something I can control, unlike the one that we use now.”

“So I will never be back in that body again. I will spend eternity as a soulless thing. Is that what you’re saying?”

I nod. “Yes, Ryet. That’s exactly what I’m saying.” I look at Syrsee now. “But that’s not all of it.” She is too stunned to spit words at me, so I just continue. “You are pregnant. And the baby is growing inside both versions of you. It will be born. But in order for that baby to have the best possible outcome you must reunite with your body before giving birth. It can exist, theoretically, at least, split in half as a fetus. But it cannot be born that way.”

I’m not certain what that baby might be like if it was born split in half, but I do know that the one Syrsee would give birth to at the Guild would not be anything resembling a human.

None of us says anything for almost a minute.

Then Ryet sighs. “How do we get to the Guild, Paul? We’re in a dreamwalk.”

“It’s not a dreamwalk, Ryet. It’s just a mechanism of travel that we stay in for periods of time. To live a fantasy, to have conversations we otherwise cannot, to have sex with people and drink their blood when they are far away in distance. But we don’t have to stay. We can travel anywhere we want. You know this, Syrsee. You did it back at my resort when you came into the greenhouse building and joined in on the fun Ryet and I were having.” Ryet scoffs at my characterization of that particular morning. But I ignore him and look at Syrsee now. “This is all you. Ryet doesn’t control the purple. You do because you control the mist. You can be in the mist and have a dreamlike experience, a magical dreamlike experience that is completely real on another level. Where you can be anything you want and see anything you want. It’s part imagination, part dimensional skipping. But you can just wipe the mist away, Syrsee. And come back to reality at any time.”

“But if I wipe the mist away, won’t I end up as Syrsee in the tunnel?”

I hesitate.

It’s the wrong move because she snaps at me. “What? What aren’t you telling me?”

“That soul— your soul—it belongs to the Darkness now.”

Ryet takes a step forward. “You’re not making any sense, Paul. And that’s because, as usual, you’re leaving things out. What are you leaving out?” He’s glaring at me with narrowed eyes. So much like the man he was just a few short weeks ago. But then again, so very different.

He’s angrier, for one. He’s gotten angry with me plenty of times before this new birth, but I never saw the kind of malice in his eyes that I see now.

“I didn’t leave anything out.” I’m angrier now too. I think it’s the stress. We’re all under a lot of stress. “I already said she has been severed. This”—I pan my hand in the direction of Syrsee—“is the empty vessel. The soulless one.”

“My question was”—even Syrsee is angrier now—“if I can leave the dreamwalk any time I want, as you just said I could, why wouldn’t I just slip back into being Syrsee who has my soul?”

She’s smarter now too. Because this question of hers hit the bullseye. “I don’t think you understand the literal meaning of the word ‘severed.’” I say this to Syrsee, but then I look over at Ryet too. Just to make sure he understands as well. “The Darkness took your soul , Syrsee. You exist right now because you had access to the purple, which I gifted you at birth, and you’re a Black witch with a lineage that goes back to the Ice Maiden herself, so the gold mist you see is your birthright. But the point I’m making here, and the only thing that matters, is you have no soul.”

Ryet sighs. Rubbing both hands down his face like he’s very tired. “She’s dead.”

“She is not dead.”

“She’s dead. I’m dead. You’re dead. We’re all fucking dead.”

“Ryet—”

He puts up a hand, glaring at me. “Don’t. I’m not in the mood.”

“We’re not dead. We’re still in the game.”

“But it’s not good though, is it?” Syrsee’s tone is pragmatic and reasonable. “We’re in the game, but we’re losing, aren’t we?”

“Well, I’m not losing, Syrsee. My victory here is pretty much guaranteed. So. No. It’s not good. But it’s the best I could do.”

Ryet grabs his hair, like he’s losing his shit. “What. The fuck. Are you talking about? You did the best you could? You did all of this, Paul! This is your grand plan playing out! You’re the one I blame, not the fucking Darkness! You did this .”

“I did .” These words come out through clenched teeth. “But. I changed my mind. OK? And now I’m trying to fucking fix it. I’m trying to keep you alive, and her alive, and me alive. And, I might add, I’m betraying the one vampire I have counted on for centuries to do this. So calm the fuck down .”

Ryet and I stare at each other for many long seconds. Both sets of eyes seething red with rage.

Syrsee interrupts. “You still haven’t told me where I would end up if I left the dreamwalk, Paul.”

I take a deep breath, count to three, let it out, and look at Syrsee. “Nowhere. You will end up nowhere. There.” I look at Ryet. “Happy now?”

“At least you’re starting to tell the truth.”

“You want the truth? Fine. Here’s the fucking truth. Syrsee”—I look at her now—“you are a soulless creature, a wraith. A remnant.”

She squints her eyes at me. “A ghost? I’m a ghost?”

“As good a term as any. But not entirely accurate. You exist, Syrsee. You are real. You’re just…” I have to stop here because the word I’m about to say is heavy with truth. I say it anyway. It is the truth, after all. “Hollow.”

“Hollow?” She lets out a sigh with the word.

“Empty. But . You won’t feel hollow. There are many, many hundreds of thousands of humans who exist in this world as wraiths and they never know the difference. This is how it will be for you as well. They have no idea at all that they entered the life they’re living without a soul. And if I didn’t tell you, you would not know either. It all felt real, didn’t it? When we were together inside the greenhouse back at the resort? Did it feel like a dream, Syrsee?”

She shakes her head. “No. It didn’t.”

“That’s what your life is now. When it’s time for us all to leave here you will wake up wherever you want to wake up because you command the dreamwalk. Both the purple and the gold.”

“What about me?”

I exhale as I turn to Ryet. “You never had a soul, Ryet. You have always been a wraith. I’m going to bury the vampire Ryet in the earth under your cabin and you— this you, this remnant of you—it will go with Syrsee.”

“But… who am I , Paul?”

“You’re no different now than you were when you were born. A slave to the Darkness. Just like me. Just like Josep. Just like every vampire on Earth. This is why I’m doing this.” I look at Syrsee now. “I’m tired of being a slave. And I want control over the copy of the Darkness that is living inside the vampire Ryet. It’s going to mature, it’s going to leave the vessel, and I’m going to make it my slave. And in doing so, I will free you both.”

“How?” Syrsee’s anger is gone now, her voice much softer than it was. “How will you save us?”

“There are many factors?—”

“He doesn’t know.” Ryet’s anger, on the other hand, is still building. “He’s full of shit. He’s lying. He’s cheating. He’s… full of fucking shit.” Ryet is glaring at me. Staring straight into my eyes. “You have no idea how to save anyone but yourself.”

He’s not wrong. “You’re not wrong. But if there is a way, I will find a way. Because…” I hesitate, letting out a breath. But I might as well just say it. “Because I love you, Ryet.” I’ve said this to him so many times before, but never, ever have I said it like this. “I love you. I’m going to save you and I’m going to save Syrsee too.”

“Because you love me as well?”

I’m shaking my head, even as I turn it to meet her gaze. “No, Syrsee. I don’t love you. But Ryet loves you, so I’m saving you for him.” I look back at Ryet now. “So one day, maybe he will love me back.”

He closes his eyes, refusing to meet my gaze.

But that’s fine. All in good time.

“Now.” I let out a long breath. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to leave you for a short time so I can bury Dark Ryet in the earth.”