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"Your children are going to have a surprise," he told her. "You have two hundred Afterlights, I have four hundred. My army will capture them, hand them coins, and for a second time 'your children' will be set free--but thank you for sending them to the train. It makes it easier that way."
Mary's reaction was not what Nick expected. She tossed back her hair, and shifted her shoulders in proud defiance.
"Oh, but Nick, I think you misunderstood. As I said, I have more than two hundred Afterlights, and I didn't lie." Then she smiled a terrible smile. "I have a thousand. That's certainly more than two hundred, isn't it?"
As the words hit him, and he realized what it meant, his own will began to collapse. She had a thousand souls. She would handily defeat his army. Now the pressure inside of him--the pressure he had been holding back since stepping into the vortex--could no longer be held. He felt a dam inside him rupture. His vision blurred and went dark. He felt everything begin to dissolve as the last bit of him gave in to the sickly-sweet cancer. What began as a small stain on his face was now all that remained of him.
"Now, sir?" asked Zin. "Should I do it now?" Yes, that was it! Although he might not have his victory against her children, maybe he could still have his victory against her.
I give you a gift, Mary, he tried to say, just as he did in his fantasy, but he could no longer speak the words, for his mouth could only make a moaning sound like a cave in the wind. Before his thoughts could become too muddled, he sent Zin forward. "Now," he tried to say--and she must have understood, because Zin lunged toward Mary, grabbed her by the shoulders, and began to push.
Mary had thought she had a contingency for everything.
In her mind the Ripper was a minor threat. A nuisance at best. Let the Ripper steal whatever she wants from me, Mary thought. I'll survive. But the moment the Ripper began to push, Mary realized that she had miscalculated. There was a tingling in the back of her head unlike anything she had ever felt before. It moved down across her face to her shoulders as the ripper pushed her backward. What was happening to her? The Ripper wasn't ripping at all!
Mary opened her mouth and gasped--she actually gasped, drawing in a breath of air like a living, breathing person would, and then it finally dawned on her exactly what the Ripper was doing. She was pushing Mary into the living world! How could that be? Was such a thing possible? She didn't want to find out--so she fought back. Grabbing this horrible child, Mary tried to pull herself back into Everlost.
Zin had never felt so strong.
She knew it was the vortex helping her--the vortex had made opening a portal into the living world as easy as slicing butter, and Mary was sliding on through ... until Mary began to fight back. As strong as Graceland made Zin, its effect on Mary was even more intense. Mary's greatest asset had always been the sheer force of her will. Now her will was horribly amplified--and Mary did NOT want to be alive!
"This will not happen," Mary asserted, her voice loud and echoing in both worlds. "I will not be forced out."
The commanding sound of Mary's voice sucked away Zin's strength. Mary was halfway into the real world, but she dug her heels in, and each time she spoke, Zin felt weaker.
"I will not be forced out of Everlost!" Inch by inch Mary pulled herself back through the portal.
'I will not be beaten by a by a sniveling, illiterate fool!"
"Help!" Zin cried to Nick. "Sir! I need your help!"
But Nick was not himself. He was barely anything at all. He was a lumbering boneless mass. His fingers were dissolving until there was not enough of him to reach out, until there was not enough of him to know why he'd even want to.
"Help me!" Zin cried.
What is this all about? thought Nick. Why am I here? What's happening? I have to stop and think. So he crawled away into a corner, leaving bits of him behind as he went.
"I can't do this alone!" yelled Zin
What is that commotion over there?It has to stop so I can think. If only I can clear my mind, I'll know why I'm here. I'll know who I am.
And so the dissolving spirit closed its eyes, and melted into a corner, spiraling down into the bittersweet darkness of its own thoughts, trying to find something to grasp on to that wasn't chocolate. In a moment he was gone, and a layer of chocolate slowly spilled out across the floor like a lava flow, burying the green shag carpet.
Nick had lost. And now Zin was losing, too.
Mary had pulled herself back through the portal into Everlost, and although Zin still grabbed at her, trying to push, it was useless. There was no way she could fight against the monumental force of Mary Hightower's overwhelming presence. Mary pulled the last of her head through, and behind her the portal began to close. She grabbed Zin by the front of her uniform.
"You will be rehabilitated," Mary bellowed, her will still magnified. "You will learn to use your powers for good. You will learn to use them for ME."
Mary took a step forward, but something snagged in her hair. She tried to pull free, but whatever it was pulled back--hard enough make her chin jut upward--and all of a sudden she felt that tingling sensation in her head again. She began to lose her balance, falling backward, and in front of her, the ripper lunged at her once more.
Allie had soul-surfed her way back to Graceland as quickly as she could, but it wasn't fast enough. She arrived too late to save Nick, but she could not let herself mourn what had happened to him. The only way she could help him now was to finish the job he'd begun. She didn't understand what was going on until Mary had pulled herself back into Everlost from the living world. Had Mary been alive? As in flesh-and-blood alive? Well, at least the top half of her had been. This kid in the gray uniform had done it somehow--but now the hole into the living world was closing.
;She'll be here."
Nick's fever peaked, and then it finally broke. He began to sweat, but as he tried to wipe it away, he realized it wasn't perspiration he was sweating. It was chocolate.
Please let her come soon, he thought.
