“I’m not saying he will or he won’t. Or that it would be an easy journey to get there in the first place. But if you can figure out a way to somehow arrive alive and convince the guy that your sister’s death was an unjust one, well, you may have a fighting chance. Of course, you have to do it within a certain amount time—before she faces her final judgment and is sentenced to her eternal punishment or reward. After that, she’s trapped there forever.”
“Oh my God.” I can’t even breathe. “This is great. This is so great!”
“It may not work,” Race cuts in. “And if it doesn’t, you could get stuck there forever yourself.”
“I don’t care.” I square my shoulders. “I would go to the ends of the earth and back if it meant a chance to save my sister’s life.”
“Well, that’s very admirable,” Prim says with a small snort. “But luckily for the rest of us, who evidently wear far more ill-fitting shoes, the entrance isn’t as far as all that.”
“No?”
He shakes his head. “No. Just take the One up to Port Authority and jump on NJ Transit 137. You’ll be at the Seaside Heights shuttle in a couple hours.”
I do a double take. “So wait. You’re telling me the entrance to hell is at the Jersey Shore?”
“Are you really that surprised?”
I laugh. I actually laugh. If you had told me ten minutes ago I’d ever laugh again in my life, I probably would have… well, laughed… at the idea of it even. But now hope is fluttering in my chest. Could I still have a chance to make this right? Could I get my sister back—alive?
Could we actually have a happily ever after, after all?
I have to find Jareth. Now.
16
“He’s still holed up in the same tent,” Cinder informs me as she and I walk through the remains of the refugee camp the next morning. It took me way too long to find this place a second time. I should have dropped bread crumbs or something on my way out. The camp looks nearly vacant—with most of the surviving supplies packed up and ready to move. The vampires who are well enough to walk around are busy pulling down tents and clearing debris, while those still too wounded to move lie around the fire, moaning softly. I wonder how they plan to make their big pilgrimage to the next safe spot with so many still down and out.
“He won’t drink, he won’t sleep. He just lies there, staring up at the ceiling. It’s starting to get on the camp’s nerves,” she confesses. “After all, there are many vampires here who still blame him for the massacre. I try to tell them it wasn’t his fault, but…” She trails off with a shrug. “It’s hard to convince anyone of that, when he, himself, believes it to be true.”
“I understand,” I assure her. “So you’re leaving? Do you know where you’ll go?”
She shakes her head. “There’s supposedly another safe house deep in the wilds of Mexico. But how we’ll manage to get there with so many injured… I don’t know.” She sighs, the weight of the world on her thin shoulders. “If only Drake hadn’t died in the attack. He always knew what to do.”
“Well, maybe this will help a little.” A reach into my heavy sack and pull out the first bag of blood. Cinder’s eyes widen.
“Is it human?”
I nod. “One hundred percent rock star groupie.” Race had been more than willing to part with some of his supply when I told him about the group’s predicament. After all, he never has much of a problem getting fans to part with their bodily fluids. I hand her the sack. “I think there’s ten bags in there—all I could carry. But if you can send someone up to the surface tonight after dark, you can get the rest from his bodyguards.” I hand her a piece of paper with the meet-up address.
“Oh, thank you, Rayne!” she cries, throwing her scrawny arms around me in a huge hug. “Even a few drops of human blood can make all the difference to our wounded. And this is so much more than that! I can’t even begin to tell you what this will mean to us. We’ll be able to leave quicker and get somewhere safe. Maybe even make it all the way down to Mexico.” She pulls away from the hug, eyes shining with blood tears. “Your kindness means the world to me. I only hope I can repay it someday.”
“You already have, by keeping Jareth safe,” I assure her.
She releases me and gestures to the closed-up tent in front of us. “Here he is,” she says. “I hope you’re able to talk to him.”
Me too, I think. I thank her, then pull the worn flap aside, crawling into the darkened tent. “Jareth?” I call out, blinking to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The place smells rancid. No wonder it’s setting the other vampires on edge.
I hear a loud sigh from the far side of the tent. “I thought I told you to go away.”
“Well, I thought you knew by now I’m not one to follow orders.”
At first there’s silence. Then, “What do you want?”
“I want you to come with me.”
“There is no place on Earth I want to go right now.”
“Well, that’s no problem actually, considering this particular place is not on Earth.”
Another deep sigh. “Rayne, please stop talking in riddles and tell me what the hell you’re scheming now? I’m really not in the mood.”
I frown, annoyed at his stubbornness. Reminds me too much of my own. “I’ve met up with some people,” I tell him. “And I think we’ve figured out a possible way to bring Sunny back to life.”