Chapter 3
The bleak morning couldn’t possibly weigh down the air at the cemetery any further than it already was. Rows and rows of graves lined up neatly in the grass. Even in death, the LeBlancs protected their privacy, and their private family plots were located at the far corner of the cemetery. Ciaran squinted at the sight of Tadgh and Madeline racing toward the tomb.
It started to drizzle.
Madeline rushed into the tomb and glanced around. She looked nervous—and she should be. He had managed to drag her into the tangled mess of his past in no time. He pulled Madeline into his arms as soon as she ran inside, holding her tightly until every muscle in his body quivered with emotion. In the corner, Tadgh shook rainwater from his coat.
Suddenly, the air thickened. Ciaran knew what it was, and he didn’t care for it one bit.
It meant trouble.
"Tadgh, get out of here. Now!" Ciaran called out to his brother.
As the candle in the tomb flickered, and the faint but sharp smell of burning electrical current rushed through the room, a hologram of Juliette appeared. Ciaran wasn’t at all surprised to see it—someone had simulated her image, and he had seen it in the hologame.
But he was stunned at how the raw emotion flooded back to him, seeing her this close and this real again.
She wore a red dress and stood next to the altar, smiling graciously at him.
"You killed my brother, Ciaran."
"He nearly killed me, too." Ciaran moved Madeline behind him protectively, almost squashing her against the wall.
"Yes, you're right. You told me that before. But in battle, someone always gets hurt."
"What do you want, whoever you are?"
"I'm Juliette,” she said. “Your Juliette. Or I was once. I died on Earth because of you. My father traded his life to get me out of here. And now you’ve killed my brother. So it’s only fair to ask you to come back to me, isn't it? All you have to do is to go through the gate."
"What gate?"
"The Daimon Gate. All of the information you need is on the disk I hid at Mon Ciel. Process the disk, and then you'll be able to see the gate. Come here and be with me."
"I don't have the disk.”
Juliette nodded. "Oh, it’s that old man Richard again, isn’t it? He got the disk, didn’t he? But he won’t know how to decode it. Not everyone is as smart as you and me, Ciaran. You need to find the disk and decode it." She smiled again. "I miss you."
"And what if he won’t go through the gate?" Madeline asked.
Juliette laughed. "Oh, sister. Of course, you’d ask such a foolish question. You do think you have a claim on my man."
The holographic Juliette cast an evil eye at Madeline. Ciaran moved forward slightly.
"You're no competition for Madeline,” Ciaran told the hologram. “You can't compare yourself with the innocent Juliette I loved years ago. You're an electronic profile. Nothing more. Juliette died. You might be able to simulate her emotions and experiences, but you can't simulate the real love we had for each other."
"I am your Juliette! I didn't die!" The hologram whirled back and forth. Its skin grew radiant and red.
"You just told me that you died on Earth because of me. That was a lie?"
"No. I did die on Earth. But I live elsewhere now. You have to be with me. You have to go through the gate."
Tadgh sneered. "So you're in hell now? I would say heaven, but given what you did, I wouldn't think heaven would take you."
"Tadgh!” Ciaran warned him. He didn’t want to make the hologram angry. He had a feeling it wasn’t just a simple hologram with familiar properties. This hologram was something more, something new and more tangible. It might be able to do some real damage.
Tadgh continued. "As far as I'm concerned, Stefan shot my brother, and he got a bullet in return. That’s a tit for a tat. You see, in battle, as you said, someone always gets hurt. If you had told Ciaran your motives from the beginning, you would never have been in a relationship with him, let alone in love and married. You cheated first. Unfortunately—like brother, like sister—you paid a consequence. I can't see that my brother owes you anything. We're done here."
"Tadgh is right. I owe you nothing, Juliette. Let me have my fond memories of you—and you stay wherever you are. I can't—I won’t—join you." He tried to be firm, but Ciaran knew it wasn’t going to work.
He pushed Madeline toward the door. The burned smell in the air thickened and grew stronger. They heard the faint sound of crackling wires and dry wood burning. "No one walks away from me." Juliette's face turned dark red, and then purple. “Including you.” Her eyes filled with rage. “I won’t allow it!”
Ciaran grabbed Madeline and called out for Tadgh, "Run!"
Madeline and Ciaran charged out of the tomb.
The hologram whirled and spun. The light circle around it extended until it became a gigantic cylinder.
It grew larger by the second, turning into a small tornado. It stirred the air and sucked everything loose inside the tomb into its vortex. It spun objects around and ejected them randomly in different directions.
It lifted a tombstone and threw it to the ground, breaking it into pieces. It unearthed a coffin and spun the lid away into the air. The tornado grew and exploded the tomb. Shards of rock and concrete rained down on the cemetery grounds.
Madeline, Ciaran, and Tadgh ran. They heard the explosion behind them, but they did not look back.
The tornado built up size and speed quickly. It rose into the darkening sky.
It grew. It chased.
Ciaran looked back and could see the tornado’s need to devour. It would indiscriminately suck everyone and everything into it. But he knew its quest—it wanted only him.