The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [128]
35.
Simon and Salvatia
—1980—
It took Simon almost five years to say “yes”, actually.
Throughout her life as a human, Salvatia proved herself to be a bonafide leader, a take-charge woman of near-legendary repute who dealt with matters personally when all others’ efforts failed her. When others didn’t or couldn’t follow through for her, she always found a way to get what she wanted on her own. Humans possess that power to achieve, once they set their priorities straight and strive to abide by the goals they set for themselves without compromise. In life, Salvatia was never exempt from this truth; in fact, though evil in heart as she was, she was head and shoulders over a majority of humankind when it came down to the simple saying if ya wanna get something done ya gotta do it yourself...if you can’t get anywhere by any other means.
With that said...now, after hundreds of years of not having the power to do anything at all to speak of, Salvatia finally and absolutely had no choice but to rely on a wretched fourteen-year-old nobody of a Dreg.
It was a bitch to be a Magdalene.
To get right down to it, Salvatia held no love for Simon BoLeve. He was plainly her meal ticket to regaining the power to do things for herself once more...her meal ticket to regaining that power and with a vengeance. Simon could do whatever he chose to do with his end of the deal; she didn’t give a shit.
Through Simon, she could potentially do whatever she wished, moreso than she ever could do as a human.
Herself.
She never held a greater hope in anyone other than herself. Ever. Until she learned of the existence of a Dreg. Until Simon.
Because this time, everything depended on him, the little rat bastard. Everything depended on whether or not he wanted to help her...and it was all up to him helping her at the right time.
Over the past five years, since her first proposition to Simon during the majestic catastrophe they’d both invoked at the Church of the Divine Jesus Christ, Salvatia manipulated and contrived numerous schemes for Simon to aid her in killing Andrew Erlandson.
The hundreds of years of being able to do nothing more than to observe the physical realm had made her wise, and once she’d learned of the value in finding a Dreg, she knew what must be accomplished in order to walk once again as an interdimensional being, to have the ability to roam where living humans roam, to become physical as often as she wished. It was all cut and dry and good as pie: 1. Locate a Dreg. 2. Manipulate his life so that he could eventually freely choose without conscience to kill his own brother.
Nobody said it would be easy.
The chemistry Salvatia was concerned with dealt partly in the very thing that banished her into her Magdalene status in the first place. To reiterate, a Watchmaid cannot allow its Everborn to die, lest that Watchmaid become a Magdalene....
Well....
If she could manage a downhome Everborn death, yet even by the hands of its own soulless twin, which was a given, that Everborn’s Watchmaid would become banished to a Magdalene status all her own.
And Simon, the Dreg, would conceivably claim his Everborn twin brother’s immortal Everborn soul.
Most importantly, Simon’s brand spanking new immortal self would hold the power to proclaim Salvatia as his brand spanking new Watchmaid, therefore abolishing her Magdalene status and replacing poor, pitiful Bari who in turn would become a Magdalene herself. Of course. In theory.
It made perfect sense.
Also, lest one forget, it was prophesied.
If it worked, no more Andrew, no more Bari. Just think of it: Simon and his Watchmaid, Salvatia instead.
Simon and Salvatia. It had a ring to it.
And, oh boy, it all wouldn’t stop there, not by a long shot.
This sort of thing had never been done before. In all of time, no other Magdalene had made such an accomplishment. Potentially, a Magdalene reinstated as a Watchmaid may