by Ami Urban
“Anyway, the bouncer’s this big, rough-looking guy and he says to me, ‘I know you! You’re that singer from the UK!’”
Serena’s friends giggled at her attempt to disguise her accent. “And I’m, like, ‘Yeah! You heard of me?’ All innocent and that. And he goes, ‘Yeah! I loved all your stuff. My name’s Joseph Bateman.’ So, then I said, ‘Would you mind, then, lettin’ me in, Joseph?’ And he goes, ‘Anythin’ for you, Miss Gibbons.’ God, I just about had a heart attack!”
Everyone laughed but me. I had my mouth full of pastry and my mind on Andy.
“So, how’s the club?” another girl asked.
“Amazin’. It’s got this jungle motif, yeah? There’s, like, these vines everywhere and green strobes. Really cool.”
“Can you get us in?” Justine wondered. The girls turned their gazes on Serena, expectation shining in their eyes.
“Well…” Serena tapped a finger on her chin in thought. “Dunno. I mean, he let me in because he knew me. It’s a greater risk with seven of us. Maybe I could make a test run.”
The table fell into silence. It gave me an opportunity to start thinking about Andy again. The poor kid was dead. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen. In the prime of his life. A football player! He could have had a career, a scholarship, kids, a house…
“Kathleen?”
I had to get rid of Irish Moses. I had to give Andy Bowdry peace. But how?
“Kathleen!” Serena’s foot made contact with my shin under the table.
“Ow!” I rubbed the spot, looking up at her, expecting a reason. “What was that for?”
“You’re my trial run. What do you say?” Serena asked.
“Trial run for what?”
“God, Reenie, you sure you want this new girl to be a part of our group? She’s a spacer.” Justine sneered from across the table.
Serena ignored her. “I’m taking you to the club to see if I can get you in tonight, yeah?”
“I…” No! Absolutely, positively not. A club? What the heck was I supposed to do at a club with Irish Moses running around and killing kids?
“That settles it then!” Serena beamed at me.
Son of a bitch.
The class bell rang and we all stood up. While Serena and her friends filed out of the cafeteria, Justine grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“Listen, new girl, if I were you, I’d stay the hell away from my boyfriend.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I admitted.
“Bullshit. I saw you talking to Martin yesterday. He’s mine, all right?”
I shrugged.
“Whatever. I think putting labels on things is lame, though. You should let him talk to whoever he wants. Besides, I thought he was your ex?”
Justine narrowed her eyes. The static between us was enough to power nuclear plant for the rest of time.
“He won’t be my ex for long. And if you don’t stay away from him, I’ll let Serena in on your little secret. You’ll be out on your ass faster than you can say Canada.” She smirked.
Gulping, I said, “What…what secret?”
Did she know I was there to help Serena?
Did she know I wasn’t really an exchange student? Oh jeez…was she another wraith?
Justine’s smile grew. “I saw the picture of Serena in your backpack when you dropped your shit everywhere yesterday. Stay away from my boyfriend or I’ll tell the whole school you’re a lesbo.”
Oh, brother. Like I cared. But at that moment, I couldn’t come up with a witty and sarcastic comment good enough to head off the conversation. So, I let her think she’d won, because it made more sense that way. Far be it from me to upset the balance of bullies and pushovers in the school, right?
She walked away, allowing me some breathing room.
At last, I could think about what to do. I didn’t need to add scary bully girl to the list of things to avoid while trying to stay out of trouble.
Instead, I hitched my backpack higher onto my shoulder and made a mad dash toward Kevin’s temporary classroom.
* * *
“Hey, good morning,” Kevin replied with a smile when I rushed into his room.
I closed the door behind me and leaned against it to catch my breath. Around every corner I turned, I expected to see Andy/Irish Moses.
“Do you have a first period class?” I asked in a hurry.
“No.”
“Good. We need to talk.”
His eyes darkened. “Did something happen?” he asked as he approached me.
I started to say something, but the words caught in my throat when he reached out to me. With gentle hands, he slid my backpack off my shoulders.
His fingers had touched me for an instant, and something caused my skin to spasm.
“Katie?” he asked when I didn’t answer. He looked into my eyes. He was really close. “What happened?”
I broke the connection, stalking into the middle of the room. I didn’t want to be near any males at that moment.
“What, you mean besides Irish Moses showing up out of nowhere?”
I folded my arms over my chest.
“What?” He stepped halfway between me and his desk.
“Yup,” I said with a sarcastic nod of my head. “He’s back. And he killed a student to get his body.”
“What did he say? Did he hurt you? Why didn’t you call for help?”
“No, he didn’t hurt me. I didn’t call for help because I can handle myself, and he said something about revenge.”
For a moment, Kevin said nothing. “Okay. Well... Let’s start there. Revenge on whom?”
“Julian of all people!” I threw up my hands in defeat.
“Why would he—?”
“Did someone call for me?”
After my heart skipped a beat and my nerves bristled, I spun around on Julian. “Would you please stop doing that?!”
He smiled. “Sorry.”
“Why would he want revenge on Julian?” Kevin asked.
“Beats me. He said something about Julian denying him entrance back into his dimension.”
“That true?” he asked the psychopomp.
Julian lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I deny a number of souls. If they don’t have the energy necessary to show me where they reside, I can’t be held accountable for my actions.”
“Energy necessary to...? Wait a second... You’re not a ferryman. You’re a taxi driver!?” I asked.
“Hardly. I don’t take their energy. They use it to show me which dimension they need to return to.”
“Call it an alter-dimensional GPS,” Kevin chimed in.
“Really. There are an infinite number of dimensions, Katherine. I can’t be expected to search them all for energy signatures. I’ve much more significant things to attend to.”
“So...Irish Moses didn’t have the energy necessary to show you where he came from, so you denied his entrance, and now he wants revenge...”
“Did he say anything else?” Kevin wondered.
“He mentioned something about being caught between dimensions.”
“Yes. If I don’t let them in, they are forced to locate enough energy to give me directions.
“Either that or they have to find a way back into the dimension they were banished from. It looks as though he did the latter.”
“Yeah, by murdering a student,” I said.
“Who’s the student?” Kevin wondered.
“Andy Bowdry.”
Kevin went to his desk and shuffled some papers around. “I have him in third period English. I’ll keep an eye on him as much as possible.” He sighed. “I’ve never heard of a wraith murdering someone to take their body. As far as I know, they can’t do that.”
“No,” Julian interjected. “But they can influence someone else to do the killing.”
“Great. So now I’m not only watching out for a wraith, but a killer, too?” I huffed.
“Right now, who the murderer is isn’t your concer
n. He probably didn’t know he was doing it, and I don’t see a reason for Irish Moses to use that person again. He got what he wanted.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay… Well, he also said that if I don’t give Julian to him, he’ll find a way to him.”
“Well...” Kevin began. Then, he allowed his arms to drop to his sides. “Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly,” I added. “So what do we do?”
“Well, you could tell him where I am,” Julian suggested.
“What’s he going to do to me? I mean, I can’t be killed, I don’t technically have a soul for him to torture, and it’s not like he can banish me.”
“No, but he can tether you, can’t he?” Kevin asked.
“Oh... Yes, I forgot about that one.”
“Tethering...?” I mumbled, more to myself than an actual question. “He mentioned something about that, too. What’s it mean?”
“It’s like being exiled, but worse. If this faith and begorrah fellow tethers me, it means I wouldn’t be permitted to stray from whatever dimension he chooses.”
“It’s Irish Moses, and what does that mean for you if you can’t leave the dimension?”
“Well, it would mean a lot of souls wouldn’t be able to find their way home. Without a psychopomp, there would be too much open space in the afterlife,” Kevin said.
“Meaning?”
“The afterlife is like a universe. It’s ever-expanding because it has to in order to compensate for the extra souls.
“They can’t tell it to stop expanding, so if there aren’t any souls to fill the space, the dimension could collapse.”
“And the only way to fix it is if the afterlifers themselves come down to gather the souls,” Julian chimed in.
“Unfortunately, they’re not psychopomps, and a lot of innocent people will die.”
I swallowed. “What are we talking about here?”
They both shook their heads as I looked back and forth. “Genocide.”
“What?! They’re that bad at it?”
“It takes talent and a lot of training to recognize a lost soul. Without it, all souls look the same. The afterlifers can get desperate to fill the space, and they’ll take too much. It’s happened before,” Julian said.
“Wait... The Holocaust...? The Plague?”
I felt stupid immediately, but when they didn’t laugh, I knew I was dead on. “Those were all a result of the afterlife having too much space?”
“During the second world war, I was a protégé for another psychopomp. In his lifetime, he’d made a lot of enemies with wraiths. He wasn’t very amicable, you see. Well, one fateful day, a few of those enemies banded together and tethered him to who knows where. He’s probably still there, too. Because I was so new, I had no idea what to do, and neither did the afterlifers. Instead of trying to locate the old psychopomp, they took it upon themselves to do his job. It didn’t work out very well,” he explained.
“Whoa.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” Kevin said.
“Well...then I can’t give him Julian. What are we going to do?”
“Julian will just have to make himself scarce.”
“Extremely scarce,” he added from the corner.
“But I need his help today!”
“With what?” Kevin studied my face.
“I’m going to scout out some skydiving locations and I don’t want to go alone.” Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts…
He shook his head. “Just take Serena with you.”
“I guess…”
“Good. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on Andy. He’ll know what I am as soon as he sees me, so I doubt he’ll try anything.”
I turned to leave.
“Oh, Katie…”
“Yeah?” I asked, grabbing my backpack from the corner of his desk.
He held out a piece of paper. “Late slip. You’ll need it.”
“Thanks.” I took it from him and dragged Julian out in the hall with me.
When I was satisfied everyone was in their classes and the halls were empty, I whispered, “I’m still taking you with me today. I wanna keep you where I can see you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of missing this opportunity for adventure,” he replied with a wink.
“Good. But…you’re early.” I checked the clock on the wall above the lockers. “Four hours early. Why are you here?”
He turned somber. “I felt a presence. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
“Yeah? Obviously it isn’t.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Obviously, something isn’t right.” Kevin stood over me like a looming shadow before second period started.
“Oh, relax.” I moved away from him so he wasn’t invading my space. “I’m doing your dirty work for you and I’m going along with your little ‘Martin used to date Justine’ thing. Everything’s dandy.”
“That’s not why I pulled you out of class, Martin.” Kevin pointed a finger at me.
I spun around and glared at him, not liking the tone I heard in his voice. He sounded a little...scared. “What’s going on?”
“Irish Moses is back,” he said flat-out.
I sighed. “I know.”
He stepped further into the classroom, shutting the door behind him.
“Do you also know that he killed a student to get his body?”
I straightened. “No. All I know is that he found one. Who died?”
“Andy Bowdry.”
“The quarterback? Damn.”
“Martin...wraiths can’t murder humans when they don’t have bodies. Someone else killed Andy.” He stared at me, heating my blood.
“It wasn’t me!” I balled my fists at my sides. “Come on, you know me better than that. I don’t kill people.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know! Why don’t you ask him?”
Kevin sighed. His posture slumped an eighth of an inch.
“He threatened Katie.”
“What?!” I brought my attention to him at once. “What did he say to her?”
“Julian wouldn’t let him into the afterlife after you banished him, and now he wants revenge. He told Katie that if she didn’t give him up, he’d find a way to get to him,” he said, raking a hand through his hair.
“Crap.”
“Now do you understand why I wanted you to stay away from her?” He hefted himself into a chair behind his desk.
“That’s not why, and you know it.” I stood my ground, remembering that I once liked Kevin Carter.
But all I wanted to do in that moment was spit on him. He was pissing me off.
He just wouldn’t tell me the real reason I wasn’t allowed to be with Katie.
When he peered up at me, I knew he was trying to look mean. He was trying to say “don’t mess with me”, but I’d been working with a wraith for four hundred years.
He didn’t scare me one bit.
“It’s part of the reason,” he answered a moment later.
“Yeah? What’s the other part?”
“As if you didn’t know.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for his answer.
I wasn’t about to be given the shaft by a former wraith. As far as I was concerned, he was a human through and through. And no human could butt me out of any equation.
“You really wanna know?”
I shrugged.
“You’ve made a career out of sleeping with each girl you help pass on. Katie was the one girl who didn’t give you what you wanted, and I’m convinced that’s the only reason you’re chasing after her now.
“You like the hunt, Martin, but when all’s said and done, and you get what you want from her, you’ll just toss her aside like the rest; I’m sure of it,” he said.
I laughed out of exasperation. “You’ve got to be kidding me! You don’t know anything about me! For the record, I have not slept with every girl I’ve helped. Katie’s
the first girl I’ve loved in a very long time, and it’s not just because I haven’t had her!” I argued.
“Really, now? That’s not what you told her before she died. You told her you sold your soul to save someone you loved.
“Quit lying to me, Martin, I can see right through you.”
I was floored.
Here I thought this former wraith could read thoughts and had an intuition that couldn’t be beat. But there he sat, looking smug and making accusations. He didn’t know me.
“Lying, am I?”
I was trying to sort through the anger fogging my mind.
“Yeah... Sure, I told Katie that. It was true, too. But the woman I loved who I wanted to save wasn’t my girlfriend, she was my sister.”
I watched him sit in guilty silence for a second, basking in the knowledge that I’d made him feel small for his stupid jab.
“What was wrong with her?” he asked softly after a moment.
Tossing my head back to let out a sigh, I flopped into the desk across from him.
“It’s stupid.”
“Go ahead.”
“She had a...a stupid chest old. It was the year 1752, so medicine was pretty much nonexistent. The doctor said he couldn’t do anything, and she got pneumonia a couple of weeks later,” I said, feeling my chest ache with the memories. They had developed into a dull pain over the last few centuries.
“Was she older or younger than you?” he asked.
“Younger.”
“How did you find out about selling your soul?”
“One day she was really bad. She started coughing up blood and the doctor said she only had... hours to live.
“I just couldn’t face her or my parents. I was so mad that no one was trying to save her. I was out wandering the streets, trying to figure out what to do with myself. Then, this stranger approached me. Somehow, he knew all about my problems.
“He told me I could save my sister if I made a deal with him. He said if I gave him my soul, he’d exchange it for that of a healer, and I could make her better again. At that point, I was willing to believe anything. I was willing to do anything to save her—even if it meant giving up my life to serve him.
“When the deal was made, I remember feeling empowered. I felt like I had the means and capacity to help my sister. I ran all the way home in the rain, just elated. I knew she was going to be okay. But, by the time I got there and stumbled up to her room, they were already pulling the sheet over her head... She was only sixteen.”