I nod.
“Well,” he continues. “I haven’t really gotten into that with you—I haven’t even wanted to think about it—but heenjoyedcausing me pain. The artifact has had cruel masters before, but he was something else entirely. He reveled in the creative ways the watch could hurt me, even when he had no questions to ask. Breaking me was his passion, and he did it again and again. I’m only conscious when the watch is being used, so this was my whole life, my entire existence, for years. Pain and suffering and degradation, only to be followed by even more pain.”
“Collin…” I say, voice barely there, my heart breaking.
He squeezes my hands again, pushing forward with his story. “So one day, when he got distracted—when I was cooling on the floor of that room, flesh flayed off me in strips—I asked a desperate question. One I knew I wouldn’t get an answer for. One the magic of the watch was nevermadeto answer.
“Bawling my eyes out, in literalbits, I asked for any reason to hope, any reason to live—because I couldn’t see a single one. And if there was nothing, if this was all my life was to be, I just wanted to die. And if I couldn’t actually end my life, I knew I would fall into madness, which I prayed would end my soul.
“To my shock, the enchantment of the watch responded. Not with the words and sketch-like images that usually come—this time I received a vision. And it wasn't like my usual magic that affects whoever holds theartifact, either—this was a private experience, meant only for me.”
“What was it?” I ask, the air between us charged and heavy.
“It was you,” he whispers. “Young, curled up against the back of your bedroom door, in tears after a row with your mother. You couldn’t see me, but I was just a few feet away. Sights, sounds, smells—I wasthere. I knew it wasn’t a fantasy or hallucination. This was a real place in the world, happening right then. You looked just as miserable as I was. And in that moment, for the first time since I faced those stone-faced druids in ancient times, I no longer felt alone.
“From that point on, every time I was able to ask about you, we’d instantly be together. No time would pass for Valiente, but for minutes at a go—on some grand days, evenhours—I’d escape. I’d be free. For the last ten years, sharing your life has been the only thing that’s kept me sane.
“The power of the watch has hard rules. I can only ask about facts and procedures, and I can’t get any direct information about paranormals. I still can’t—except for you. Since that day, I’ve been able to live in your world and even get questions answered about you without a database update. The only explanation is that it’s some kind of miracle.” Collin’s eyes hold mine with fierce conviction. “Alvin, you aren’t meant to die here. You can’t have been given to me just to be taken away. You are a miracle.Mymiracle. A gift from the gods. The same gods who built this wall to trap ancient horrors. And I justknow with every part of me that its magic will listen to you. You just have totry.”
“I have to believe…” I say. The words come out hushed. I’m so moved by his story, what he went through and my part in it, I can barely speak.
“Yeah,” he says, serious. “That’s right. If you want me to live, then for a few minutes you’re going to have to believe in yourself as much as I believe in you.”
I take that in, blinking, my heart still wrecked from learning about all the suffering he’s gone through—then the penny drops, and I realize. “Wait. You totally set it up that way, didn’t you? That’s why you put yourself back into the watch! You knew I’d try anything to save you!”
“Ah now, don’t be cross.” He grins broadly at me and circles his index finger over the top of his head in the shape of a halo. “Some people think I’m an angel…”
“When it turns out you’re therealdemon here!” I whack his chest with the back of my hand.
He laughs. I roll my eyes and huff and smile in spite of myself. He’s being very cute, his story is still tugging at the deepest parts of me, and at this point, it doesn’t really matter if he’s right or wrong. We’re together, here and now. He needs to be saved. And I believe inhim.
That’s been enough all along.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll try.”
He nods, eyes soft as he places his complete trust in me yet again. I lace his fingers back through mine, squeeze his hand tight, and then close my eyes. I don’t have to look too far to sense that I’m still encased in the toxic magic, and that it’s eating away at the last dregs of my incubushealing ability. If I do nothing, I’ll be boiled away any moment now.
But that serene energy is still inside me. My monster was able to call for it and, on some level, even control it. And since I’ve come to accept that this part of me isn’t something separate, so long as I have access to this magic, I should be able to use it.
I want to live. And I really want Collin to live. So I dig deep, feel the strength of my spirit boyfriend’s warm palm against mine, and make myself believe with all my heart that’s exactly what the boundless serene power locked inside me is going to do: save us.
I need Collin and me to be safe from this barrier, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen! And it’s going to happen right now!
The mental command resonates through the magic inside me, like an echo. There’s a sharp moment of connection, like a key snapping into a lock—then reality violently splits open.
Collin’s fingers are wrenched from my grasp, and I plunge down like a roller coaster into boundless nothing. The garden whips away to blackness, and it’s like before at the burning church, when I became the giant monster of fire—Alvin, small and limited, shrivels to a far corner in the background, while a more profound awareness expands into something vast.
My consciousness is now as wide as the sky and deep as the ocean. Bigger than that, even. I’m as endless as a wall built to contain all of Hell.
Suddenly, the barrier feels like nothing more than an extension of my own power. The boiling around meimmediately stops, and I no longer need eyes to see. Iamthe wall, and its magic extends into our world. Shapes bloom into existence around me—colorful Russian dolls of flesh and light that shift and churn—but it’s not difficult to figure out which is Valiente. He’s the one all on his own to Alvin’s right.
Valiente’s arms slice through the air, frantic. He’s commanding the kids to change the spell, to use their magic to push me off the barrier, so the siphons can reattach. I know this because I can see straight down to the vile wasp-like parasite posing as his soul. Its intentions are completely transparent to me.
The Vampire King is shouting too. Calling out “Oathbreaker!” Hoping that will change things.
It won’t. He’s just getting a taste of his own medicine. The small part of me that’s Alvin wants to savor his desperation, but this creature is being fed magical instructions from an ancient god, and that cannot be ignored.
I cast my attention to the rip in my wall and see Savadeva for what he really is. Not a giant corpse—that’s just convenient theater. Bodies are for small things. This is a being of limitless power and hateful intention, full of hunger and decay and malice. He ruled this world and many others long before humans evolved, and he hopes to rule again, reveling in unfettered decay.
