by K. D. Worth
Kelli teleported into the room, her face bright with happiness. In all the years I had known her, I’d never really seen her this happy. Sure, I had seen her amused, mildly or begrudgingly happy.
But never joyous.
Kelli looked back and forth between Kody and me. “Thank you, guys. Really, thank you so much!”
Kody grinned wide, and I imagined he experienced her joy inside himself. “You’re very welcome.”
It dawned on me how dark and sad Kelli had been. And it reminded me of Ed’s journal. How depressed he’d become when his charges had turned into shades. From my understanding, he’d only been a reaper a few years, while a lot of our group had been doing this gig at least a decade. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon. But being a reaper had taken its toll on Ed. Had that been the same pain Kelli had been going through?
I sat up. “Hey, Kelli, I got something you might wanna read.”
“You do?”
I conjured Ed’s journal into my hand. “I think you might get a kick out of this diary. He was a reaper during World War I. He had a lot of charges not cross over.”
Understanding lit her face, and for the first time I realized she was kind of pretty when she wasn’t being a brat. “Thanks, Max,” she said, and then she looked at me, and I swore we both had the same epiphany at the same time. “You know, you’re not the asshole I thought you were.”
On the couch, Kody, Dan, and Sarah busted up laughing. I shot a look at my boyfriend. “Hey, that’s not funny,” I told him.
Kody could barely contain his laughter. “Yes, it’s totally funny.”
Even Kelli was chuckling, and I heard an amused snort from Jake as he made his “really, really good friend” a coffee.
“What can I say? I make my own rules and I got my own attitude,” I said, playing along.
Kelli rolled her eyes and patted the journal in her hand. “Thanks for this, Max. I’ll give it back to you when I’m done reading it.”
“No problem. Take your time,” I said, leaning back on the loveseat, and quickly administered officious tickling to Kody’s ribs.
He squealed and jumped away. “Ah-ha-ha… no, stop… that tickles!”
“That’s what you get for laughing at me,” I told him in his head.
“What are we missing out on?” Heather wanted to know as she joined us in the common room—with Tristen at her side.
Kody and I stopped our tickle fight and stared at each other. We hadn’t seen Tristen and Heather together, so casual and happy, in days.
“They back together?” I asked Kody privately.
Eyes wide, he shrugged an I don’t know.
“What’s so funny?” Tristen asked, smiling and waiting to be in on the joke.
“That Max is an asshole,” Kelli quipped.
Heather harrumphed. “That’s not anything new.”
“Hey!” I threw out my hands. “Why is everybody picking on me?”
“Because you’re the favorite,” Jake said as he returned with Dan’s vanilla cappuccino. After handing over the mug, he sat casually on the couch next to Dan, and Dan didn’t lower his arm. Again, I was a little disappointed when Jake didn’t snuggle in. Since the only gay couple I knew was Kody and me—not that these two were even a couple, apparently—their dynamics intrigued me.
But when everyone nodded in agreement at Jake’s observation—including my boyfriend—I frowned at them all.
“Whatever,” I said. “How can I be Slade’s favorite when I’m constantly in trouble with him?”
“Like the rest of us aren’t always getting in trouble?” Sarah said with a scoff. Her fingernails were still painted with chipped black nail polish.
“The only thing you should be getting in trouble for is that atrocious manicure,” I told Sarah.
Kody let out a bark of laughter. “Oh my God, you’re so gay!”
I gave him a saucy smile. “Takes one to know one.”
We were all laughing when I realized this was my family. My friends. Each of us was different in one way or another, but somehow we’d all been brought together by Slade for a reason. I’d never been able to let go of what that wraith had told me: “War is coming.” But I had to believe Kody wasn’t just amplifying sadness into the atmosphere as accidental bait for shades.
His positive energy was also drawing us all together, stronger than ever before.
Looking around the room, I knew our friends would have our backs. The training Slade gave each and every one of us would bring us together as a team when the time came.
It wasn’t just me keeping Kody safe.
It was all of us.
We were a family.
“Hate on my nails all you want, Max,” Sarah began, flipping her unbrushed hair out of her face and adjusting her glasses. “But it’s good to let some things be natural, you know? Ever notice how Slade leaves water stains and cobwebs around here?”
Kody sat up straighter, face piqued with sudden interest. “Yeah?”
Sarah looked at all of us as if we were stupid. “How else are we supposed to remember how fleeting everything is? Nothing is forever, even a manicure.”
My heart skipped at her astute comment, until Kody said, “Some things are fleeting, Sarah, true. But God’s grace and His plans are solid. Nothing can stop those.”
Sarah nodded, taking that in. My pride in Kody’s wisdom went through the roof.
Okay, so maybe I could love him more.
I clutched his hand in mine, and our eyes met. “Like our love. Nothing can stop it.”
“You’re right, babe. Nothing can stop it.” Kody beamed back at me. “Nothing.”
Just as a cozy feeling of love filled me, and I was about to tell Kody that maybe we should head off to our bedroom for a little much-needed sexy time, Slade burst into the common room.
We all jumped in surprise, Dan splashing coffee on his pale yellow polo shirt.
“All hands on deck!” Slade announced, gray eyes flashing black and power thrumming through the room. “Wraiths are attacking Union College!”
MAX—Chapter 17
UNION COLLEGE was utter chaos when Slade dropped our entire team into the quad.
The distant sound of sirens screamed on the air. The rat-tat-tat of a gun shocked me, for I thought wraiths were attacking, not a gunman.
I looked at Kody, his eyes wide in horror.
Dear God, were the wraiths using guns?
Students were running everywhere. Some hid behind cars, their wails and cries for help frightening in the mayhem. I remembered the drills we’d had in high school, reenacting different scenarios if a shooter ever came into the building. Even though I’d known it was a drill, my heart had raced back then, my palms sweated. When I saw school shootings on the six o’clock news, I’d always asked why. Why are they doing this? What if this happened to me?
And if I was being honest, I would ask: Why is God letting this happen?
I’d felt helpless, alone. Vulnerable.
But this time it was real and happening right before my eyes.
And dammit, I wasn’t helpless.
Heart pounding, I took in the whole scene with one glance and then looked at our team of reapers.
Before me was a scene straight out of a badass dystopian teen movie—Kelli had a crossbow and so did Sarah. Dan, Tristen, and Heather all had swords drawn. Jake had a longbow draped over his shoulder, each of them armed and ready.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
I turned at the bone-chilling sound of more gunfire. Though I could not be killed, the slick fear of being shot tore through me. Instructions from those high school drills flooded me. Stay calm, get down, hide.
Today I could do none of those things.
I spied the shooter in the distance, picking kids off with a big black gun.
I knew instantly the shooter was dead, a young man possessed by a wraith.
A deeply misguided soul, killing students for the other wraiths circling the sky.
Dar
k shadows flew above us—dozens of them!—each preparing to swoop in and steal the victims’ bodies. The air was bitter cold, like being stuck in a blizzard with no clothes on. As if there was a tear in the universe, every ounce of my being hurt. All these unplanned, senseless deaths… so many lost souls… I could feel the terror and shock from all the spirits as if it were my own.
I looked at Kody.
Was this how he felt when the shades called to him?
Suddenly I understood that I was picking up what Kody sensed from the victims.
“What do we do?” Heather demanded, her slender arms hefting a sword in front of her like a warrior of old.
To my shock the whole team was looking at us.
Without hesitation, I started barking orders.
“Tristen, Dan, Heather! Anyone who’s been shot, take their soul to heaven,” I ordered. “Take them two and three at a time if you have to. Use your swords to keep away the wraiths. Don’t you guys worry about what happens to their bodies, just get them to heaven. We don’t need any more shades!”
They nodded and took off running into the crowd.
I was accosted with visions of sending soldiers into battle. I thought of Ed Carter and how he had delivered souls on a battlefield. How had he managed to keep his cool amid all the chaos?
God, keep them safe, I prayed.
When I caught Slade’s eye, I thought for a moment that I’d overstepped, but he gave me a sharp nod of approval. “You got this, Max. I’ll take out our shooter.”
At his words, the initial fear I’d felt when arriving at the scene faded.
Slade was right.
He’d prepared us all with the tools we needed and we all knew what to do.
It didn’t shock me or turn my blood to ice this time, but a tremble of fearful power whipped through my body when Slade leapt into the air and transformed into his true archangel form. I clutched Kody’s hand.
Black leather wings arched high, blocking out the sky and casting a dark shadow across the quad. His silvery body reflected the sunlight, glaring so much I could barely distinguish what he looked like.
There was a shrieking sound from the vicinity of the shooter.
The wraith saw the Hunter and knew what was coming.
Kelli, Jake, Tristen, and Sarah froze, eyes wide and gaping in fear and shock at Slade.
I could understand.
“Yeah he’s gonna take out the shooter,” I said casually. Then I clapped my hands to draw their attention back on the task at hand. “No time to watch, c’mon!”
They snapped out of it, my words bringing them back to their senses.
“These deaths weren’t supposed to happen,” I reminded them. “These people will be stuck in purgatory unless we help them. You three, start shooting anything black and swirly. Keep the wraiths from taking their bodies!”
As they ran off, I turned to Kody.
To my shock he was perfectly ensconced inside a shimmering white bubble.
In all the chaos, I hadn’t even realized I’d made a shield around Kody.
I guess I wasn’t letting my fear or my head get in the way. Once more my magic knew how to keep Kody safe better than I did.
Inside, Kody’s face contorted in pain. I pushed more energy into him, and I felt him siphoning it at an alarming rate.
“I can hear them,” Kody said as our friends ran into the fight. His voice wavered and his brow wrinkled. “The students are so—” He winced. “—so loud.”
“Just concentrate on one voice at a time,” I told him, unsure if that would even work. In the safety of our bedroom, Kody had been so logical about a confrontation with wraiths. I needed to help him remain equally calm now. “Tell them you’re here to help. And tell them to stop running.”
The sharp gunfire faded, and an icy cold explosion reverberated over the quad.
Slade had expelled the wraith possessing the young shooter’s body.
SWAT and police swarmed the shooter’s prone body. I wondered what the coroners would think when they discovered he’d been dead longer than the shooting, and the shots they fired at him were not the cause of death. If the details of that leaked to the press, the conspiracy nuts online would have a field day.
But I quickly dismissed such human trivialities and focused on Kody.
I pushed every ounce of my love and strength into him. I didn’t know what would happen, but the wraith had left behind so many shades—correct that, lost souls. If our team couldn’t get them to cross over, the responsibility would fall on Kody. I prayed we would both have the strength.
Like every scene when someone died, we slowly pulled away from the mortal realm and our surroundings grew hazier. But something different happened this time.
The victims of the wraiths did not stay clear like ordinary spirits. They hazed out with the rest of reality, but darker somehow.
And then I understood why.
They were not on the same plane as us. We were being drawn heavenward, and they were moving toward purgatory, limbo. None of them had received the love of a reaper’s Touch, their death a violent act of chaos.
They were gray and disjointed, like Chad and Laurence had been. Twisted versions of nature, out of balance with God’s will. They did not belong here.
They were not supposed to die.
Arrows arched in the sky overhead, aimed at the shadowy black wraiths circling the abandoned human bodies. A flash of my prom night went through my mind… the ghostly creature Slade had shot above the minivan, a wraith wanting my body… then the cold shadow at the bottom of the river when Kody almost died… the one I expelled in the diner, wanting Kody as its vessel… the poor Emo kid I’d dragged into the girl’s bathroom… and then the evil creature that possessed Zack and killed Britany….
I’d been so confident in the judgment I’d passed on those beings. That they were horrible and evil. But were any of them truly evil? Wasn’t this all just a product of their desperation? Fear and lack of faith ruling their choices, bad ones though they may be? God had forgiven the Ninevites, why not these souls?
All these rationalizations flooded my thoughts as my friends, one by one, and with expert aim, picked the wraiths off. A cold burn frosted the air when a wraith—circling like dementors above us—burst into nothingness. They weren’t killing them, but they were keeping them at bay.
“Max?”
The waver in Kody’s voice and the sharp rush of power leaving my body pulled me out of my head and back to the task at hand.
I was the Protector, and I had to keep the Healer safe.
“There’s more of them coming,” Kody whispered, his words a faint echo of what I’d said on a night not so long ago, in an awful situation, but not as dire as this.
Were we prepared?
I met Kody’s blue eyes, gleaming behind my protective barrier.
“More shades are closing in,” he said. “I can hear them in the distance. And wraiths….”
“We got this,” I assured him, fighting down my panic so I didn’t affect Kody. I had to be strong for him.
Attracted to the presence of Kody and the rest of us reapers, shadows emerged from the distance, moving in and around all the police and EMTs working the scene. The human realm lost focus, but I could see the shades closing in on Kody and me.
Together.
We could only do this if we faced them together.
I reached inside the force field and took Kody’s hand. All around us chaos ruled, screaming and shouting ghostly echoes as the human realm faded. It took a moment or two for my reaper vision to realize who were lost souls separated from their bodies and who were actual students, because all of them were out of focus.
I thought of the few but significant times I’d been here on this quad. First with Kody, Britany dropping us off after I saved Kody from the bridge. Then the next morning, walking through the quad, hand in hand, after we spent the night together. I remembered Jack and his friends trying to “fix” Kody, and Kody’s courage to st
and up for himself. Then me trying to save Britany from her destructive path of drugs.
Everything had come full circle.
Now the quad was a battlefield.
War had finally come.
The first time I had been here, I had protected Kody.
And I would do so now.
I would do it for the rest of my days.
Though an urge to help the lost souls called to me, my biggest concern had to be Kody. He’d been so confident, relaxed, and accepting of his new journey after Slade put him through the tests, but this?
This was unlike anything we had imagined!
Our original plan was that Kody would talk to the wraiths, and if they refused to go to heaven, I would blast them.
But there were just so many!
God, please help us!
I’d never prayed such heartfelt, desperate words as I stepped into my protective force field beside Kody. As soon as I was inside, a new, shocking power worked out of Kody and back into me.
It wasn’t my light, it was… different, stronger? Yeah, it was way stronger.
“Kody, what is—?”
In that instant, I knew it was God’s holy spirit.
Almost effortlessly now, I pushed down my fear, knowing that my emotions would affect Kody, perhaps more strongly than the voices around us. Keeping a tight grip on his hand, I watched the chaos outside our bubble. Slade circled in the air, sweeping his broadswords through the black shadows, wave after wave of cold bursts, crushing down on the quad as he sent the wraiths away.
But it seemed there was no end to them.
On the ground, more shadowy beings appeared, and through Kody’s eyes, I could see each individual lost soul seeking Kody’s help. Behind the shades, my friends had created doors, trying to encourage frantic and terrified students to pass through them. Kelli managed to get one to go through her door, but Sarah and Tristen were having no such luck.
“They’re not going,” Kody said, his voice oddly calm. “None of them want to go. I keep asking and all I hear is panic and chaos. The wraiths….” He shuddered. “They’re so angry, and desperate… starving.”
Not what I expected him to say, but he was at least trying to follow the overly confident and obviously foolhardy plan we’d made.