Eternal: Chapter Eleven, Part 2

Speaking of the devil, Caroline and the others arrived in cheerful moods, some of them carrying signs that I didn’t know they were bringing. Ian explained it was his idea, and he’d made almost all of them. Everyone looked great and healthy, and Kora even introduced me to her now fiancé, Dan. He even looked like a great guy, considering the last time I had seen him was at a distance.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for Kora,” he said, hugging her shoulders. “Some days she can’t stop talking about what you’re doing and how great you are.”

“I do not,” she said quickly, her cheeks flushing.

“Thank you for making her happy,” I said, touching his shoulder, smiling.

After listening a while to him insist she was the one who made him happy and their following playful banter, I excused myself. Jake and Mikael both hugged me, giving their thanks, while Caroline and I laughed some more over the doll comment. Xenia had brought her friends and introduced me—Katie, Michelle, and Erin were all earth, but Emily and Lisa were regular people who loved and supported their friends—and all of them hugged me.

Other people, of course, kept coming up to say thanks or gush or talk about other things, some asking questions about myself personally or the movement in general. A few more excited children told me and Caroline about their favorite parts of our previous orations and we performed small tricks to entertain them. Drei, at one point, came up behind me and pointed out several people—most of them in groups off to the side here or there, some looking over their shoulders at everyone else—informing me we even had vampiric supporters. Before I could ask, he promised Mitchell and Valetta were going to keep tabs on them so I wouldn’t have to worry.

It wasn’t all happiness, though. There were plenty of protestors, people calling me a demon, a witch, a whore, a devil, among other things. I was even spat at a few times, but I simply smiled at them. I didn’t understand why these individuals felt so much hate and fear when we had done nothing to harm them; I knew we had detractors and I had seen them before, but it still depressed me knowing there were people who would support treating us as less than human.

One of the protestors stopped a foot in front of me and began yelling obscenities in my face, her face turning a purplish red. A woman from Nick’s team stepped between us and calmly asked the woman to step back. Soon, three others from our security detail arrived and escorted the woman and the other protestors away from the area.

“Hey,” Nick said, smiling and appearing at my side. “They didn’t harm anyone, did they?”

“No. They handled it really well.”

“Good. We’ll try to keep anyone else like that back,” he said, looking off in the direction his team had led the detractors.

“How have things been going so far?” I asked, unsure if I should be worried about him or not. There was something strange about him, and it wasn’t just that he looked tired. It was something else; something I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“So far, it’s pretty smooth. That’s only the second group we’ve had to remove,” he said, turning his bright green eyes to me, smiling easily. He glanced down at his watch just as Drei reappeared.

“We should begin the march,” they said in unison. I couldn’t help but laugh; I couldn’t remember ever thinking the two could be in sync.

After exchanging a smile, Drei nodded and Nick finger whistled, the sound shrill in my ears. “They’re all yours,” he announced, smiling once more before running off to his position.

Turning to face the quieting crowd, their eyes were all watching me, waiting for me to begin. I noticed that not only had the group grown exponentially large in an hour’s time, but a good half of them had signs in their hands, not all made by Ian. Smiling, I opened my arms to them and allowed my voice to carry on the air all the way to the back. “Welcome to the start of a new tomorrow. Shall we begin?”

A cheer erupted through the crowd. I waited only a moment before turning around and starting down the street, Drei beside me, most of my council a step behind us, and so much running through my mind I could have sworn my heart was beating at breakneck speed. There we were, tens of thousands of people, if not a hundred thousand or more, following me. Following me into a future we could only hope would be better.