by K. D. Worth
“It’s easier for kids to believe in heaven,” Max said. “I mean, they believe in Santa Claus, right?”
“Maybe.”
I was a little startled to find the young boy so open, honest, and pure—yes, I could feel that from him in waves. Brady knew, believing without doubts, that heaven was real.
I took a moment to study him. His bald little head began to sprout soft blond hair, and the dark circles under his eyes were fading as his cheeks puffed up with the healthy look of childhood. I noticed the cross necklace, and my own faith stirred at the strength of this child’s belief.
“Or maybe he just knows the truth,” I told Max.
“Or he hasn’t had enough time to become a cynic,” he rejoined.
“Then there’s that,” I said, but in my heart, I knew it was more.
This child had pure unadulterated faith.
My smile widened, and I brushed away fresh tears born of relief at Brady’s faith, coupled with sympathy for his tribulations. “Yes, that’s exactly where we’re going, Brady.”
Oh, that will be so nice, I heard him thinking. I’m so tired.
The boy looked over my shoulder at his grieving family. They had started to fade as Brady moved farther from the mortal realm, the power of their emotions over me weakening too, and making it easier to think clearly.
Slade was right again. He’d once said, “You soak up all the sadness around you and wear it like a sack of stones around your neck.” While I’d learned to let go of the weight of my living life, the problems of my earthly family, I was still wearing that sadness on my neck.
Would I ever be able to control that?
They’re tired too, Brady was thinking before he turned wide blue eyes on me. “Are they going to be okay without me?”
I bit back the choking sensation and forced a smile. Though I wasn’t feeling the family’s pain anymore, my own emotions were raw, exposed—sharper and more distinct than on any other crossing.
This just wasn’t fair! He was so young!
For less than a heartbeat, I wanted to do something to keep him here, with his family, but just as quick as the notion came, a deeper, more powerful instinct took its place.
Yes, this passing was sad and unfair, but Brady was going to a better place. I wanted—no, I needed to help him get there.
The need was so powerful it grew like an entity within me. I had never felt such confidence, such love, or been so full of absolute certainty that I had found my destiny.
Despite all of my earthly trials and self-doubt, I was always meant to end up here, helping God’s children find their way to His grace. I can show them empathy, recognize the sadness, but what happened to Brady was out of my hands. My job was to be kind, and to escort him from a life of sickness and sorrow to the right hand of God.
Feeling composed finally, I dried my eyes and smiled at him. This boy had no deathbed confession, no guilt tying him to this realm. The unfinished business of growing up and living, yes. His only tie was concern for his family, and I assuaged that fear with a simple, “Yes, Brady, they’re going to be fine.”
I hope so, Brady thought, and then he looked back at me.
“Four minutes left,” Max reported in my head.
Nodding at him, I stood and held out my hand. “Are you ready?”
With innocence only a child could show, Brady wordlessly took my hand. I held out my other for Max, and the three of us walked into the hallway.
“I’m tired, Kody,” Brady told me.
His words gave me another pang, but I wasn’t crying as I assured him, “I know, but it will all be better soon. You’ll be able to rest.”
As I walked Brady to the door, I could feel something inside me leaving.
My healing energy.
The sensation was exactly like when I helped Britany accept her death and when I hugged Heather. And just like when I took Max’s power, the energy Brady took from me did not weaken me. Especially not with Max holding my other hand.
Slade said I needed to give my love freely, and as I did, I felt it soothe Brady’s wounded soul.
Maybe I was finally getting the hang of this.
The image of Brady’s family, the tears, and the bleeps of the machine in the mortal world blurred. In the hallway, I materialized a periwinkle door with an exaggerated round top and a little golden window with polka-dotted curtains. I thought it looked inviting, whimsical even. Something fitting for a small boy forced out of childhood by disease.
“Is that how we’re going to get there?” Brady asked, the sleeve of his hospital gown fluttering slightly as he pointed at the door.
A shiver of cold went across my neck, and I smiled down at the small boy. “Yes, that’s how we get there.”
“Do you think they have baseball in heaven?”
“I sure hope so,” I told him with a laugh.
“Kody!”
The sharp edge of Max’s voice made me flinch.
Then I knew what was happening.
I’d been so fixated on Brady and my own flailing emotions that I hadn’t noticed the hallway had grown cold.
Stomach twisting with dread, I turned and looked behind us.
All around us, the world had become hazy and disoriented, like we stood on one side of a big two-sided fish aquarium, trying to see the people on the other side. The only crisp things were the three of us, and the door I’d conjured.
And four smoky humanoid shapes floating toward us.
The shades I’d seen before had been in the distance, resembling the shadow Peter Pan couldn’t catch. In the light, however, they had more substance.
When I was younger, I’d had a nightmare after watching the old movie Ghost. In the end, faceless shadow demons dragged the bad guy off to hell. The movie was supposed to be romantic, so I hadn’t expected those creatures to visit me in my dreams, waking me terrified.
The same sick feeling from that nightmare settled in my stomach now. All other thoughts vanished except the desire to run.
But my body was paralyzed with fear.
“What the hell?” Max cursed, dropping my hand and stepping in front of Brady and me. His fingertips crackled with light. “We still have three minutes.”
Then the voices came.
Help me, please… help us… so cold… please….
Not just words, the agony of their emptiness assaulted me, far more potent than Brady’s family’s pain had been.
Hissing, I let go of Brady and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, as if I could somehow keep their thoughts out of my mind. There were only four of them, so it didn’t hurt as much as it had the last time. But their anguish was so real, I began to quake with terror. Slade said I was supposed to help them, but I was too terrified to move!
This is all happening too fast!
And what about wraiths? Would they attack us now?
A hand touched my leg, and I started.
“Who are they?” The calm curiosity in Brady’s voice made my eyes fly open.
When I saw his face, my heart rate slowed, and I blinked a few times, bringing him into focus. I knew I was absorbing the shades’ misery, but as those wide blue eyes stared up at me, I found some clarity in the chaos.
I needed to help Brady.
That was the most important thing right now.
Drawing on strength I didn’t know I had, I forced myself to push their feelings away. I’m not afraid, it’s the shades’ fear, not mine…. I kept repeating that to myself until I calmed down.
I stared at Brady and then back at the shades. We stood there as if in a bizarre standoff, them waiting. Me waiting.
Then I felt the warmth of Max’s protective magic washing over me. I looked at him as white light crackled back and forth between his hands, slowly morphing into a small shield, just like he’d practiced.
“Let’s get out of here,” Max said.
I nodded at my boyfriend and grabbed Brady’s hand.
“Who are they?” Brady asked again.
“Don’t hurt them,” Brady said.
Startled, I looked at Max.
Unlike the last time we encountered the undead—and maybe because my sister wasn’t dying from a drug overdose—I was thinking clearly. Yes, the shades were cold, but I didn’t sense anything malevolent.
Nothing like the demons of that long-forgotten nightmare.
But Slade had told us not to engage them. To leave at once.
Brady reached out and touched Max’s arm. “Don’t hurt them,” he said again. “They’re scared.”
“How do you know that?” Max asked. His shield faltered, but it did not pop. He screwed up his face in concentration, and then the shield expanded like a shimmering waterfall before us.
“Can’t you see them crying?”
The empathy on the boy’s face stabbed at my heart, and I looked back at the gray shapes.
I saw no tears because I saw no faces. They were just smoky silhouettes with no definable… anything.
“Enough talking. We need to leave,” Max announced. “Not taking a risk of wraiths tracking these shades. Move it!”
Brady and I jumped at Max’s order.
While these things might not be evil, I knew firsthand what horrors a wraith could cause, and I had no desire to be around when they showed up.
What if they tried to possess Brady’s body?
I didn’t have the strength to expel another wraith!
No, today we would obey Slade and leave. Have faith that he’d given us sound advice and God would not forsake Brady. I had his spirit with me.
That was my job today.
Nothing else mattered.
God,
Please take care of Brady’s body, don’t allow a wraith to harm this family. They’ve suffered enough.
I blinked as I sent my Amen, the hazy room disorienting me. I took ahold of Max’s elbow with my free hand, only flinching a little as his light sparked against me. His watery shield was big enough now that we were completely blocked.
I quickly opened the door to heaven in my mind.
“C’mon,” I said, moving toward it.
“Aren’t you going to help them?” Brady asked, though he obediently followed.
I gently prodded him in front of me, Max still at my side, his umbrella-like shield keeping the shades from approaching us. I turned and looked over my shoulder once more.
When I blinked, I swore one of them blinked back at me.
A tremble of shame went down my spine as I turned my back on them. Stepping through the door, we took Brady home.
MAX—Chapter 6
“HOW THE hell did they find you?” I demanded. “I was watching the time. We were only there three and a half minutes!”
After taking Brady to heaven, we had returned to our bedroom. Kody sat petulantly on the bed, hugging his knees, while I paced like a caged animal, my blood pounding furiously through my body.
Nine minutes, my ass!
“I don’t know, but I feel bad we didn’t help them,” Kody mumbled. “Guilty, ya know?
“What do you mean, you feel guilty?”
Chin on his knees, Kody gave me a sideways glance. “Slade said my purpose is helping the shades get to heaven. They asked for my help. They were asking me for help last time too. But instead, I left them all behind.”
Brows all the way up on my forehead, I stopped wearing a hole in the carpet and gaped at him. “What? You were just gonna be all, ‘Hey, guys, come on down! You’re the next contestants on The Price Is Right? Let me tell you what you won!’” I made a sweeping gesture. “An all-expense paid trip to heaven!”
Kody frowned, placing his feet on the floor. “You’re making jokes, and I’m being serious.”
I threw out my hands. “I’m being serious too! If you had tried, what would’ve happened? I’ll tell you what. They would have sucked out all your energy. And then what?” My stomach dropped, thinking of the night I lost Meegan and almost lost Kody… a second time.
I started pacing again.
“I should have helped them,” Kody insisted.
“If you let them get near you and they weakened you like—” I paused, not liking to voice things that hurt to remember. “—like before, if I was busy reviving you, how could I have shot any wraiths that showed up? It took all my concentration to make that shield, and it wasn’t nearly big enough.”
The urge to cry was overwhelming, but I was proud of myself for keeping my shit together.
I was such a failure, unable to protect Kody because of my own fear. In Slade’s studio, where I was safe, it came easier, but in a real-world application, I’d let my fear and panic cloud my thinking. Just like Slade had cautioned me against. At least I’d done what I’d been told for once in my life.
We had left, and Kody was safe.
I just had to keep reminding myself of that.
“You didn’t know if wraiths would show up,” he argued.
“Where shades are, wraiths will follow,” I quoted.
“Thanks for the reminder, Slade,” Kody said. “When you thought I was dead, the shades followed you, and you said yourself they were harmless. They never bothered you.”
I threw out my hands again. “They don’t want me!”
“We need to talk to Slade about this,” Kody decided, nodding with a sudden determination.
“I wholeheartedly agree. Even though he never tells us what we wanna know. We’re not ready,” I said in a simpering baritone as I did air quotes.
“Well, I’m ready,” Kody countered.
“You are not ready,” I declared, well aware I’d just dropped on Kody the very Slade-ism I’d been complaining about.
Though I knew it was his higher purpose, and I had no power to keep him from it—my boyfriend was more stubborn than me—I didn’t want Kody anywhere near shades or wraiths until he was better prepared. One wraith nearly took him down, what would four shades do?
“That’s the first time I’ve encountered shades during a crossover,” Kody said. “I need to know what to do when it happens again.”
“You need more training. And going out on easy cases with Heather obviously hasn’t been the right kinda training.”
“You know what?” Kody said, his face bright with the sudden realization of something. “I’ve only been getting charges who were ready to die. No surprise deaths or people who try to bargain with us. Even Brady, every charge was a believer. They wanted to go to heaven.”
“I know.” And I was damn grateful for it. I didn’t want any chance of a person fighting Kody, maybe turning into a shade right before his eyes.
I’d never seen that happen before, but in all my research I knew it was a very real possibility, especially with a worldwide crisis of faith. I’d found and studied an old journal from a former reaper named Ed Carter. He’d died in World War I, and his journal had many accounts of soldiers dying on the battlefield and refusing to come with him to heaven. He’d been helpless to do anything but watch them walk away, crying out for loved ones or trying to pick up discarded weapons to join their comrades.
I didn’t want my sweet Kody to have to witness anything like that or carry such guilt with him. I saw how Brady’s death had affected him. In fact, I’d felt his pain, a sadness so powerful I’d almost started crying too.
To date, the only time I’d cried during a crossover was Kody.
Reapers weren’t supposed to get attached to their charges.
Do not interfere.
Do not get attached.
Do not tell a charge anything they do not need to know.
But the longer I was with Kody, the harder it was for me to follow those rules. Though he had left behind his earthly fears and woes, my boyfriend was still a worrier, still a planner, and still the most empathetic person I knew. Slade wanted him to show love for h
is charges—agape he’d called it. Love of all mankind. Well, Kody’s emotions were literally on his sleeve, wrapping me up in his emotions and his worries about our charges. Since Kody felt things more strongly than others, he was shattering my tough exterior.
I glanced over at him, and he was frowning.
“What?” I said.
“All my cases have been too easy,” he accused. “And all during the day with no chance of a wraith lurking in the darkness.”
“Yeah?” I said, wondering why he seemed mad. We knew the havoc wraiths wrought. Why would he want to go out at night?
Kody stood quickly, anger flashing in his big blue eyes. “Did you ask Slade to do that?”
“No! Honest I didn’t. And before you say anything else, I’m glad Slade did it.”
His entire body uncoiled and one eyebrow shot up. “You are?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling the start of a tremble in my lower lip. “Because I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if you start helping these shades, you’ll get swarmed by a bunch of wraiths, and I won’t be able to keep them back and… and they’ll kill you.”
Even as I whispered the last words, a stab of pain went through me. I had not voiced my fear before and rarely allowed myself to even think it. But if I hadn’t been there to revive him the night we lost Meegan, Kody could have died. Since we were already dead, what actually would’ve happened?
Would he have suffered a true death, a destruction of his soul?
I rubbed my face, fighting down tears.
“That won’t happen, because you’ll protect me,” he said confidently, though his sudden pallor said otherwise.
I hated that Kody thought I couldn’t keep him safe—because I feared it was true.
“Look, my training sessions with Slade are paying off.” Am I convincing myself or Kody? “You saw my shield when those shades showed up today, right? I didn’t even have to try. I could’ve easily blasted them back to wherever it is they go. But a wraith? Kody, those things are scary. Yeah, I took on those two at the diner, but I hadn’t really understood what was going on… the scope of everything. I… I didn’t love you yet,” I said, my lip in a full-blown tremble now. “Kody, when you touched the wraith that attacked Britany, it almost killed you.”