Chapter 161 - Eternity

Half an hour later I, JJ, Ghost and Panda sat in a car on a way to the private hospital belonging to Nightingale Coven, where some of the afflicted by the demon people were brought to. Ghost, as it turned out, was the only one who knew how to drive, so he was at the wheel.

I had high hopes that he not just knew, but actually remembered. For now, he didn't smash into anything, so here was that. Technically, only I and Ghost were sent out, but Elena didn't oppose me bringing friends. She didn't give me guards this time, either, which was for the best, in my opinion. But there were supposed to be only Nightingale people on the site, anyway.

I was surprised when Panda expressed a desire to come, too. "But this is going to be safe, isn't it?" was her reasoning. Not much of it, but I didn't protest. This was her decision.

"It's really nice to see more of my pupil's friends! Panda, that's how you are called, right? Or Sveta? I think I heard both. Both sound good. You should write your name down somewhere, or you lose it like I did. I was always thinking about asking someone, but then wondered, what if I just forget it again?" Ghost chatted away. He barely looked at the road as he held the wheel with one hand. He drove with a relaxed ease of an experienced minibus driver, and it brought me no ease whatsoever.

At least this car, too, was enchanted. Even if we crashed, at worst we'd get a bad jolt.

"Are you Diana's teacher?" Panda asked.

"Yeah! As soon as we met, I knew it was fate. No, wait, not like that. This is from a book. No, I thought she was a bright young girl with a bright future! And then when Elena put us on this relief mission, I saw that she's some talent in magic, and I knew I had to help her with that future. It's the arch-witches thing, you know? I've read plenty on it. There's that theory that arch-witches are more common than we think, but most just never realise their full potential. All the bright minds, souls, lost to time because of something they could avoid, something like old age! Immortality—this is a gateway to all sorts of greatness, I always believed. Hey, I tried to get into it, but, ah." Ghost shrugged and grinned. "Didn't die yet, I guess. Counts for something, right?"

"Immortality?" JJ spoke up. I sat still in my seat at the thoughtfulness of his voice and was absurdly glad that we were separated by the back of my seat. Was he onto my plan? I guess it wasn't anything criminal, but with something so long-term it felt wrong to speak about it until I had any solid steps towards success.

"My parents always told that immortality is Devil's gift. A curse. That it corrupts and so on and so on. That we are saving vampires—well, people whom they originally were—from having to live and watch people around move on to afterlife without them," Panda said glumly. "This was one of the few things they said that sounded legit to me."

"Wouldn't be a problem if everyone were immortal," Ghost countered. "Oh, I remember seeing plenty of people die, but right now I can't feel bad at all about it, so it doesn't matter much, does it? It's all in the past. And if I were immortal, I'd have an eternity to do whatever I wanted. For a start, I'd find a way to make everyone immortal! Now, what about you all?"

A silence descended on the car as everyone thought hard on the question. JJ was the first one to speak up.

"As someone who already has eternity, I like to live my days one by one, but… I'd like to help humans explore outer space. Be there. Touch the stars. I remember time when I thought they were pinned by God to the dome of sky."

"Wow," Panda said. "This is… cool. And I just don't know. I always wanted to live a simple, normal life. But I guess it could grow very boring if you spend an eternity on it. What about you, Diana?"

I looked into the window as butterflies of anxiety fluttered in my stomach. "Well… I don't know, either, but I will have an eternity to decide, won't I?"

A lie, a lie, a lie. I felt like it was impossible to notice in my voice, impossible to miss that I was hiding something.

I knew perfectly well what I wanted, who I wanted. It wasn't about how I'd spend my eternity, but with whom. Eternity to win JJ's love. To make him return mine. Yes, I could admit it to myself, loud and clear—I loved him. But I knew just as clear, that saying this to him could only draw him away.

Even if he knew, because he should've known. How many others fell in love with him? He must've realised it even before than I did. But he didn't speak of it either, and as long as this love stayed unspoken between us, he didn't have to feel obliged to move away before he broke my heart or anything like that.

Gee. Yeah, that'd be REAL DAMN SHAME.

"Ha-ha, that's true!" Ghost beamed at me and gave me a pat on the shoulder. "That's a good thing about immortality, too. I'd say, you can die at any moment, but you can only live until you die! And since we, witches, can't even turn vampires, I'm really bound to teach you all I know about healing, Diana."

"And you know a lot."

"Yeah! I learnt all my life, after all, and it was a looong one. Ghost of Communism, that's me!"

I chuckled at the prideful way Ghost said that and relaxed a little. Eternity. With a teacher like this, it was easy to believe that it was within my reach. And then, well, whatever happens—I will have an eternity to solve it.