Elixir

  “Enough,” I said. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “That’s not your choice,” Magda snapped, then turned back to Sage. “Do what I say, and your soul will be released. Your body will die, and the Elixir in it will be neutralized.”

  “I understand,” Sage said. He tucked the dagger into his jacket.

  “You don’t, actually,” Magda said. “I saved a couple of little details.”

  She sounded giddy. I wanted to smack her.

  “When your soul is cut from your body like this, it can’t get to the afterworld. It will try to find another host, an empty body. Those aren’t usually lying around at just the right moment, I’m afraid, so instead your soul will whirl around in terribly painful suffering for a while, before ripping apart into nothingness.” Magda smiled, then added, “What I’m saying is, it won’t be fun for you.”

  “This isn’t right,” I said.

  “Of course it is. Look at all the lives Sage has destroyed—including four of yours. Don’t you think he should pay? Don’t bother answering—it doesn’t matter what you think. Sage knows the truth, and I take great pleasure in knowing he’ll make the right choice.” Magda turned her eyes to Sage, and for just a moment I saw a hint of youthful innocence in them.

  “Good-bye, my love … it’s time for me to rest.” Her mouth spread in a wicked grin, and any innocence in her eyes was blotted out. “The kind of rest you’ll never know.”

  With an impossible burst of strength, she whipped up her arm, ripped the chain from her neck, and hurled it to the ground, where the glass charm shattered.

  Magda’s paper-thin body dissolved into dust and disappeared.

  thirteen

  “CLEA, SAGE…,” Ben began, struggling for words. “I …”

  Before he could finish, we heard loud scuffling above our heads.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  The noise grew, like a stampede. Sage looked grim. “Someone knows we’re here.”

  “Then we should stay where we are,” I said. “They won’t find us here.”

  “They’ll check the stairwells,” Sage said. “And if they see the door, they’ll come in. We’d be cornered.”

  “But if we leave, we could walk right into them,” I countered.

  “It’s a big building. If we leave, we have a chance to escape,” Sage said.

  “Ben?” I asked.

  Ben looked like he was a million miles away.

  “Ben!”

  “Clea …”

  He looked pained. I got it; we’d both seen the same things, but we didn’t have time to dwell on that right now.

  “Snap out of it, Ben. We need you here.”

  The pounding was directly above us, and now I heard voices. I couldn’t make out words, but it seemed like they might be in the stairwell and on their way down.

  I turned to Sage. “You’re right. We need to go.”

  We raced down the hall and climbed out the little door. The pounding feet and voices were getting closer. We ducked into the mall, anxiously falling in step with a crowd of shoppers. It was ten at night, so there weren’t many, but there were enough. We walked quickly, trying to be cool and blend in until we could reach the doors.

  “HEY!”

  I looked up to see a man leaning over the escalator well two floors up. He started running after us as he reached for his walkie-talkie and shouted into it, “Targets spotted! Targets spotted! Heading for the exit!”

  We broke into a run as several more men leaped out of stores and stairwells to join in the chase. They seemed to come from everywhere. They didn’t wear uniforms, and they were a rainbow of nationalities, but it wasn’t hard to pick them out. Every one of them looked hardened—hard muscles and hard souls, like unrepentant prisoners who’d had nothing to do for decades except lift weights and plan their revenge.

  “Oh my God, they have guns!” Ben warned.

  “Weave!” Sage shouted. “They’re less likely to shoot if they can’t get good aim!”

  We ran side to side as we raced for the exit. I screamed as the first shot rang out and a store window shattered.

  The few people left in the mall were in full panic mode now, screaming and diving for cover.

  I heard two more shots before we made it outside. Sage raced for the curb, trying car door after car door until one opened.

  “Get in!” he hollered. “And duck down!”

  Ben slipped into the backseat, and Sage and I took the front. We all ducked moments before we heard the riot of noise that had to mean our pursuers had emerged.

  “What are we going to do, just hide here?” I whispered to Sage. “We might as well have stayed behind the little door!”

  Sage didn’t answer me. He was fidgeting with something under the dash. A second later the car roared to life. He clambered into the seat and drove off at top speed.

  “You know how to hot-wire a car?” I asked.

  “You learn a lot of things when you’re around for five hundred years,” he replied.

  I climbed off the car floor and into my seat, scrambling for my seat belt. Behind me Ben did the same. I thought we’d gotten away … and then I heard a gunshot. I screamed and ducked down again.

  “Shit!” Sage grimaced. “They’re trying to shoot out our tires.”

  He pushed harder on the accelerator. There were too many cars and no room to move. He swerved into oncoming traffic.

  Horns blasted.

  “What are you doing?” I screamed.

  “Hold on!” Sage cried. He swerved back into the proper lane, avoiding a head-on collision by a nanosecond.

  I closed my eyes, only for an instant. If I was going to die, I at least wanted to be aware of my last moments.

  Sage maneuvered through a network of small and large streets, constantly weaving to dodge traffic. He laid on his horn as he raced through crosswalks and onto sidewalks, scattering pedestrians before he blew past.

  “Ben, are you okay?” I looked back to check. He’d gone white. He couldn’t even handle the teacups ride at Disney World. I could only hope he wouldn’t lose it now.

  He shook his head and curled tighter in his seat.

  I lifted myself up to check behind us, but Sage pushed me back down. “Don’t do that.”

  “I just want to know how many there are.”

  “Too many.” Sage pushed the car to a breakneck pace, then screeched a U-ie and started twisting wildly through alleys, one hairpin turn after another.

  I heard tires screeching, and a massive crash.

  “WHOOOOO!” Sage laughed triumphantly. “Check it out!”

  I spun around, and out the rear windshield I caught a glimpse of the steaming wreckage of two smashed cars receding into the distance. Other cars pulled around them, picking up the chase. I ducked back down into my seat.

  “Not bad, right?” Sage asked.

  He was grinning. The chase fueled him. Adrenaline lit up his eyes, and his muscles tensed as he pushed himself and the car to their limits.

  I had never seen him look hotter. In a sick way, I kind of didn’t want the chase to end.

  “Hold on!” Sage cried. We were out of the alleys now. He raced the car to top speed before whirling a three-sixty, sending three more cars piling into one another.

  Sage caught my eye. “Heart pounding yet?”

  It was … and I got the sense that he knew exactly why. He smiled—then gunshots brought his attention back to the chase. I breathlessly watched him through several more minutes of death-defying driving until we’d lost every car that was after us.

  We were speeding up a mostly clear expressway now, not a tail in sight.

  “Um, Sage?” Ben finally said. He still looked sick, but the color had started to return to his face. “Where are we going?”

  “Kujukuri Beach,” he said. “About forty-five minutes away, and pretty secluded at this hour. We’ll stop for some wood and a lighter … put us there about eleven thirty.”

  Sage said it lightly
, but I knew better. I wasn’t surprised, but it still made my blood run cold.

  “Really?” Ben asked. “Shouldn’t we just stop somewhere and figure out our next move?”

  Clearly, Ben was still thrown from everything that had happened. He didn’t understand.

  “Sage has figured out our next move,” I said.

  “Okay … what is it?”

  “Release,” Sage and I said at the same time.

  “Release like … the dagger?” Ben asked.

  “It’s why we came,” Sage said.

  Ben opened his mouth, but he didn’t object. Instead he looked at me and raised an eyebrow, asking for my reaction.

  “It was his plan all along,” I said.

  And if all went according to Sage’s plan, he’d be dead in almost exactly an hour and a half. I’d have thought that would be dramatic enough to spur a long conversation, filled with drawn-out good-byes and sad stories about what could have been. Instead we just sat in silence.

  “You guys,” Ben finally said, “I can’t stop thinking about what we saw … what I did …”

  “It wasn’t you,” I said.

  “It was, though,” he argued. “It was.”

  It was. It was him, and he’d done horrible things to me lifetime after lifetime.

  “I betrayed you every time,” Ben went on, “and what happened to you …”

  He choked up, and I seized on the one thing in Magda’s vision that made it a little better.

  “You didn’t ask for those things to happen,” I said. “Remember? You didn’t know how bad it would get.”

  “But that’s worse! It means I can never trust myself. Even when I think I’m doing the right thing, I’m not.”

  He was right. Even when he was trying to help me, his actions always led to my death.

  Would it happen again?

  No. This was Ben. My Ben. Whatever he had been before, in this lifetime he’d die before he’d do anything to hurt me. I knew it absolutely.

  Nagging doubt still itched at my brain, but I pushed it aside.

  “What happened then doesn’t have to happen now,” I promised him. “Those people weren’t you. They may be part of you, but they’re not you.”

  “How can you be sure?” he asked. I could hear in his voice how badly he wanted to believe me.

  “It’s all part of the cycle,” Sage said. “It ends tonight.”

  He pulled into a market.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he said.

  “Can you leave me your phone?” I asked. “I need to text Rayna, let her know we’re alive.”

  Sage raised his eyebrows at my choice of words, but he handed me the phone before heading into the market.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told Ben, and slipped out of the car. I brought my camera case with me.

  I had a plan.

  I didn’t text Rayna. Instead I reached into the case and pulled out the web address and pass code I’d found in my dad’s office: the forum site for the Saviors of Eternal Life. I wrote quickly and simply who I was, that I was with Sage, and we were on our way to Kujukuri Beach. I said that if they wanted the Elixir, they had to get to us by midnight, or it would be too late.

  Sage was already on his way back to the car. I didn’t have time to look over the other posts on the site, to see if it had any recent activity. I could only throw the information out there and hope someone would come for us before it was too late.

  I was reaching out to one of our worst enemies, but it was my only option, and I felt like it could work. The only thing I could do now was wait.

  “Rayna says hi,” I said, handing Sage back the phone.

  We climbed back into the car and continued on to the spot he’d chosen to end his own life.

  We pulled up at Kujukuri Beach with about thirty minutes to go.

  All three of us piled out of the car, but Sage put a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

  “If you don’t mind … I’d like to be alone with Clea.”

  Ben looked hurt for a moment, then glanced back and forth between Sage and me. “Of course,” he said.

  The two guys stood awkwardly, well aware this would be the last time they’d see each other. Ben finally extended his hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Sage considered Ben a moment, then took his hand and pulled him in for a hug. He whispered something in Ben’s ear, and Ben nodded as they stepped apart.

  Sage took my hand, and together we walked down the beach. It was long and wide, dotted by large dunes and set against a residential area that was fast asleep this time of night. We trekked down until we were around ten feet from the water, close enough for the sand to be solid and packed under our feet, but far enough that the waves wouldn’t roll up and get in the way of Sage’s plans.

  I’d felt strong on the ride here. I didn’t really let myself believe this was actually going to happen. I even had a plan to stop it.

  But now we were really here, just a few minutes before midnight, and there was no guarantee my plan would work. If it didn’t, it was over. It wasn’t like I could wrestle the dagger away from Sage. If he wanted to do this, he would.

  The tears welled up in my eyes, and I tried to keep my voice from cracking.

  “What now?”

  “I build a fire, like Magda said, and acknowledge all the earthly pleasures I’m sacrificing.”

  He took my hand and led me to a dry patch of sand, then pulled me into his arms for a long kiss.

  That was it. I started sobbing.

  “Don’t do this,” I begged him. “You don’t have to.”

  “I do. Even your father knew it.”

  I couldn’t speak. I was crying too hard for anything else to come out. Sage leaned in to kiss the top of my head. I saw tears in his eyes too. As he moved away I grabbed his hand and pulled him into my arms. I clung to him as the sobs tore through me. If I held on to him hard enough, he couldn’t do any of it. He’d have to stay here with me until after midnight. I’d get one more day, and if I could get one, I could get more. I had to keep him with me, no matter what.

  Gently but firmly, Sage pushed me away. Not having his arms around me was the most devastating feeling in the world. It felt like death. I plopped onto the sand, completely helpless and lost.

  As I cried, Sage worked. He built and lit a small bonfire, surrounding it with drawings he etched into the sand with a twig. The end result was a circle of pictures illustrating his time on this earth … his time with me.

  He came back to me and took my hand. I clutched it like a lifeline. He put his arm around me and I snuggled in as close as I could possibly get, memorizing the feeling of his body next to mine.

  Sage walked me on a tour of our lives together, one image after another. Sage and Olivia in a rowboat on the Tiber. Sage and Catherine dancing in their favorite field. Sage and Anneline at the altar on their wedding day. Sage and Delia, smiling to each other over the piano. Sage and I on the beach in Rio, seeing each other for the very first time.

  It was a work of art. We were a work of art. I didn’t want to believe it could end.

  I heard a sniffle and realized that Sage was crying too. I looked up at him and made him meet my eyes. “Don’t do it,” I demanded.

  “I have to,” he choked.

  He forced his eyes away to glance down at his watch. “Eleven fifty-five,” he said huskily. “You have to go. I don’t want you to see this.”

  I stretched up and pressed my lips to his. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck as we kissed. I willed it not to end. If I could keep him with me for just a little more than five minutes, we’d be fine.

  Five minutes. It was all I needed.

  Kissing him hungrily, I ran my hands over his body, down his chest, past the belt of his jeans.…

  “No, Clea,” he begged, pushing my hands off him. “I can’t let you.”

  “You can. You want to. Please.” I dove back into his arms and started kissing him again, frantic now, desperate to keep him occup
ied.

  “No!”

  He pushed me off him, hard, and I tumbled into the sand. He wiped away the last of his tears with the back of his hand, then pulled out the dagger. “I’m sorry, Clea, but I have to. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I tried to say … but all that came out were sobs.

  Sage checked his watch—did he even have another minute?

  That was when I heard the screech of tires. Headlights flashed, and an old VW bus barreled onto the sand. The doors opened, and three men and two women poured out, each toting a gun.

  My God, was it really them? I nearly fainted with relief, but there wasn’t time for that. They weren’t far, but they hadn’t seen us yet.

  “Here! Right here!” I screamed, waving my arms.

  Five guns wheeled and pointed right at me.

  “What are you doing?” Sage cried.

  “Over here!” I screamed again.

  “Clea!” Sage roared, and dove, throwing himself on top of me as the group of five Saviors of Eternal Life opened fire and ran toward us. They knew the shots would only stop Sage, not kill him, and they didn’t care what happened to me. Sage kept me low, and pulled us behind a protective dune.

  “What did you do?” he hissed.

  “Told them where we were. I didn’t have any other choice.”

  The shots were closer now. Sage grabbed my hand and ran with me, weaving down the beach and ducking behind the dunes. We raced as fast as we could. The effort tore at my lungs, but I welcomed the pain. Sage was with me. He was alive.

  A monstrous pain seared through my body and I fell to the ground behind a sand dune. I grabbed my thigh. It was gushing blood. My head started to swim.

  “Clea!” Sage dropped to his knees and pressed on my leg, trying to stop the blood.

  “Clea!” another voice screamed.

  Ben? I saw him racing down the beach toward us. No, no! Bad idea. I wanted to scream at him to get back, get away, but that would only get the Saviors’ attention.