What the ever-loving fuck?
“Jeanne, what just happened?”
“Wallace is trying to make amends.”
“Seriously? I though he hated me.”
“No, not at all. Look, I know he seems gruff, but he’s a good guardian. He’s just old school. You threw him for a loop at first, but he does respect the work you’re doing with us.”
Stranger things have happened. Just go with it.
Shaking her head, she said, “Well, I guess we can have him over for movie night, too.”
“Just pick one that has some cute guys in it, though, since I’ll have to watch it with y’all, too.”
“Good idea,” Vivian replied, yawning.
“Well, I’ll let you get some shut-eye now. The next time someone tries to get your goat like that, why don’t you just try spitting in her iced tea, or ruining her dress, or punching her, or something more…human?” Jeanne said.
Sound advice. She only hoped she could take it. Now that she’d had a taste of the dark side, one that she’d found a little too satisfying, she’d have to be on her guard lest those appetites take over again.
“I’ll bear that in mind. Good night,” Vivian muttered as she pulled the covers over her head.
***
The alarm clock read 4:17 in bold, red digital numbers. She barely had time to feel irritation at being awake so early once she registered the cold. A hand closed over her mouth before she could scream. That didn’t stop her from kicking.
Released from the grip but still unable to speak, Vivian scrambled out of bed and onto her feet by way of pure adrenaline and prepared to strike. Light sparked from her fingertips, the only other light visible in her dark room aside from the alarm clock readout. She heard a grumble from the corner of the room and shot a blast.
Unfortunately, it revealed nothing and left yet another an unsightly black smudge on her wall.
“I suggest you cease and desist now, Vivian, unless you want to receive another reprimand from your personal guardians,” came a familiar cool voice. He sounded a bit breathless.
“Damn it, Darkmore! Why can’t you just show up during normal hours or make an appointment or something?” Vivian growled. She settled herself back on her bed and waited for the reaper to appear.
He was on top of her before she knew what hit her, and this time he was smart enough to immobilize her legs. A surge of raw terror and rage rushed through her. Staring into his cold blue eyes, she registered hunger, not for her body, but for the powerful and deadly emotions surging through her mind and spirit.
It excited him and he inhaled deeply, drawing in the red light flowing from her mouth with his breath.
She felt him shiver and heard him moan, a reaction she’d never witnessed before, and she struggled to hold onto her will even as the fear and anger drained from her being and left her relaxed and at peace. How was that possible?
The sensation of his more carnal excitement jolted her back to reality and into action. She shoved him off of her with all the force she could muster, dismayed and confused at her own mixed feelings. He didn’t fight or speak. He seemed to be in the throes of some sort of rapture.
Rapture this!
Vivian slapped him as hard as she could across the face. He slowly returned from his reverie and placed a hand on his cheek. “That was a bit of a mood killer,” he said, chuckling.
“You’re lucky I didn’t hit you where it would hurt a lot worse,” Vivian shot back, and meant it. God, how could she have been so foolish, forgetting exactly what he was?
He sat up and looked at her, or so she thought. She couldn’t see him well enough to tell in the darkness, so she reached over and turned on the lamp beside her bed. The bastard was smiling at her. It would have made her rage all over again, were it not for the angry red mark that graced his cheek. He kept staring, which made her even more uncomfortable. She pulled the covers up over her flimsy pajamas.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” she asked.
“I apologize for being so forward,” he said as he bowed his head. He sure didn’t look sorry, though.
“Forward? You attacked me.”
“Yes, and I apologize for that, too. My intention was to merely rouse you from your sleep and tell you what I’ve discovered about your unidentified enemy. I was…distracted by your spirit essence.”
Vivian gave him a sour face. “My ‘spirit essence,’ huh? Wow, at least you’re original.”
“You shouldn’t be so flippant,” Darkmore said, apparently having regained his composure. “There is something different about your energy, Vivian, the way you taste.”
The way he said “taste” made her feel dirty and excited, the contrast in reactions as uncomfortable as the reaper’s presence. Fear crept up her spine and she didn’t like it. Given the choice, anger was always better than fear.
Lifting her chin and mustering what false bravado she could, she said, “Now that we’ve established how delicious I am, can we talk about what you’ve discovered?”
“Ah, yes we can. As a matter of fact, the trail left by this particular guardian was quite similar.”
“Similar to what?”
“To you.”
Wherever this was going, she probably wouldn’t like it. “Could you be a little more specific? I’m afraid I don’t have my Cryptic Reaper-Speak-to-English dictionary handy.”
Darkmore didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be lost in thought. Vivian would have complained, but remained too bone-tired to muster any more really good snark. Besides, she reminded herself, he was helping her. At her request. And the chocolates had been nice.
A random and unexpected kindness from such a creature as Darkmore. Who would have thought?
“His energy has the same flavor, for lack of a better word, as yours,” Darkmore said at last. “You look puzzled. It appears there is much you’ve yet to learn of our kind.”
“You think?” she quipped. Seemed she had a little snark left, after all.
“Then allow me to enlighten you, my dear,” he continued, ignoring the tenor of her remark. “All of our activities—by ‘our’ I mean those from the spirit realms, of course—those activities require a considerable amount of energy. Whenever we expend our energy, a trace is left behind for a time. It is possible to learn something about the spirits who have frequented a particular place by their trace energy.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Vivian muttered, flopping back down on the pillow to alleviate the pounding in her head. “Even the dead leave behind forensic evidence. I guess we’ll have to call Horatio Caine and Gil Grissom.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. So do you know the spirit who’s after me?”
“Something about his energy is familiar,” Darkmore mused. “But I’ve been in this business for quite some time. I encountered many flavors and varieties of spirits.”
“So where does that leave us?” she asked, frustrated. She’d hoped for more.
“For starters, I know where he’s been and his mood.”
“I know where he’s been, too,” she groaned. “And I can guess his mood. What else you got?”
“Well, beyond the little bohemian colony in outer Williamson County, he’s been tracking you for months now.” Darkmore paused to drink in her reaction. He tried hard not to show his enjoyment, but not too hard. “Every ICU, nursing home, and private residence you’ve visited bears his mark.”
“How did you know where to look?” she asked as familiar, piercing dread filled her, like knives in her belly.
“I tracked your energy as well, and naturally I’ve been keeping tabs on you. Don’t look so surprised. After all, you are my meal ticket, as you so eloquently put it,” he said with a smile.
His smile did nothing to quell her anxiety. “As to the matter of mood, I’m afraid I have more bad news. It seems he’s feeling particularly vengeful. Yes, vengeful with a side of spite and indignation. That’s why it’s so similar to you right now.
It’s quite irresistible.”
“Huh?” she said, hoping he knew less than she believed he did. Did he realize how much the guardians for whom she worked hated him? Maybe he realized the truth. Maybe that’s why the rogue guardian was after her. What if it came after him?
No such luck. “Do try to keep up, my dear,” Darkmore said with a hint of impatience. “Or are you just being coy?”
Noting her look of confusion, Darkmore waved his hand and continued, “I’d wager you’ve been a bit of a naughty girl today, at least in terms of your powers. Tormenting the living? Perhaps for personal satisfaction, or as punishment?”
“Oh my God, Sarah,” Vivian said, covering her face with the pillow in mortification.
“Well, well,” Darkmore said, sounding for all the world like a proud parent. “I was wondering how long it would be before you took your talents in that particular direction.”
“It was a mistake,” Vivian groaned from underneath the pillows. “I got mad and I got cocky. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“That’s Ezra talking, not you. Be honest. Are you more upset about the act itself, or about how good it felt?”
“Do I have to answer that?”
“If you don’t want to answer me, that’s fine. It would be best to answer yourself, however. Want my advice?” he asked.
“Will I like it?” Vivian said, doubting it.
“Never make it personal, Vivian. That’s the key to maintaining control.”
She peeked out from behind the pillow. It wasn’t the answer she was expecting. “Is that your secret to success?”
“Of course. I very much enjoy my work, mind you, and take a certain degree of satisfaction in doling out cosmic justice, but it’s only work,” he said.
“Really? It’s only work,” Vivian said with incredulity. “Just your average day at the office, huh, carting off souls and spreading misery and suffering, blah, blah, blah? Some daily grind.”
“What makes you think my business is so different from yours?” he said. He didn’t seem angry. Merely curious.
“For starters, I don’t drag people off to Hell,” she said, stating the obvious—and most relevant—point.
“There’s so much more to my work than that, but if you want to follow that line of logic, what do you call loaning money to the desperate and downtrodden and then confiscating their belongings when they cannot repay you?” he asked.
She balked, outraged by the insinuation. “That’s not the same and you know it. I screen potential clients very carefully and base my lending on what they can afford. I work with clients and offer free credit counseling and advice on fiscal discipline—”
“Ah, discipline,” he interjected. “You aim to teach your clients.”
“Of course.”
“And what if they fail to heed your advice and default on the loan?” he asked, his calm irritating and frightening by turns.
“Then I have no choice but to sic the collection agencies on them or send out the repo men. It’s not like I make them make bad choices, but I do need to try to get the money back. I mean, someone has to pay the piper one way or another and—”
“Exactly.”
Damn, he was slicker than owl grease.
“So wait, you’re a karmic debt collector, or an enforcer for the afterlife mafia. If people can’t pay off in this life they pay you in the next?”
“Growth, particularly spiritual growth, is often painful, Vivian. Life is often painful, but it does teach us a thing or two, and it builds character. Not everyone who travels to my neck of the woods stays forever, and when they emerge, I’d wager that I’ve taught them a thing or two.”
“Your interest rates are waaaaaaay higher than mine,” she replied. Then another thought occurred to her. “What happens if someone skips out without paying up? Do you have a piper to pay?”
“Everyone answers to someone,” he said.
His tone and expression shut her down. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know about Darkmore’s boss.
Shaking her head, she said, “Well, this has all been very enlightening, but what’s your point?”
“A warning, if you will,” he said. “Using power such as ours for personal vendettas is a tricky business. One who seeks vengeance must dig two graves, one for one’s enemy and one for oneself.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, with a note of caution. “And I suppose you and Ezra are still learning that lesson, what with your personal vendetta that got me into this business in the first place?”
Vivian always figured she was smarter than the average bear, so to speak, but Darkmore probably had her beat by a country mile. At the very least, hanging around for a few millennia made it pretty hard to win an argument against him. He’d probably heard just about all of them in some form or fashion. Her only weapon was the truth.
The truth was that she’d been a pawn in a game of vengeance between Ezra and Darkmore, the reaper who’d once tormented his soul. She’d paid the price—losing Zeke and being caught between two worlds. What had that little grudge match cost them?
“Well,” he conceded. “Even the oldest and wisest of us need a little reminder every now and then. It cost Ezra. It has cost me, too, you know.”
She did. Darkmore had come for Ezra when he was a mortal man, no doubt seeking a surplus of powerful spirit energy stored in his incapacitated body. He’d tormented and tortured him, but somehow Ezra managed to hold onto his soul. When last they met, Ezra was a powerful guardian spirit and had the means to get a little payback. Ezra claimed Zeke’s soul, which was owed to Darkmore. In the process, Ezra had failed to collect Vivian and left her in Limbo, where she remained to this day.
“No, I didn’t know,” she said, puzzled. “I mean, I would have gone with you to set Zeke and Mae free, if it had come to that, but I just thought when Mae…passed, that we were, you know, square.”
She had, in fact, almost become Darkmore’s, but a last-minute reprieve came in the form of her sister’s demise. Mae’s death and crossing released enough spirit energy to satisfy both the guardians and the reapers, or so she’d thought.
“Oh, that,” he said, laughing. It was strange, the laughter of the reaper. If she hadn’t seen his darker side, she’d almost believe it to be genuine. “No, my colleagues and superiors were more than satisfied with the outcome after your last visit. Were you worried?”
“Maybe. A little,” she replied, eyes lowered. “I got a visit from one of the guardian council members. He seemed a little less than thrilled with my performance and a little too curious about where I’m keeping my energy.”
“Do tell.”
She recounted her story from the hospital during and after Mrs. Martin’s crossing. At the mention of Uriel’s name, Darkmore sat up a little straighter. That counted as a major reaction from the reaper.
“Uriel came to see you? I was under the impression that he doesn’t get out of the office much these days. He was rather more active in my time, when he took on the persona of one of the revered seven.”
“Come again?”
“The archangels had their first heyday amongst God’s chosen, post-exile,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Though naturally Uriel and his brothers have been around much longer. He’s a bit of a bean counter for the guardians from what I understand. Try not to make waves and he’ll likely forget you as easily as he forgets most mortals.”
She hoped Darkmore was right. Changing the subject, she asked, “So if the…account with Zeke, Ezra, and me was settled, how do you figure you’re in the red?”
“Don’t you know?” he asked.
For a split second, she swore she saw something in his eyes. She couldn’t look into them too long. While his corporeal form was that of a man in his prime, his gaze often betrayed him. It was ancient, wise, and terrible to behold when he revealed a glimmer of his true identity. Yet, for an instant, it held something that should not have been there, or at least something she could not reconcile with what she knew him to be.
<
br /> She must have been too weary, worried, and perhaps wishful.
“You should sleep, Ms. Vivian,” he said. When she looked at him again, his gaze showed only a glint of his mischief.
“Wait, so what now? You tell me that a vengeful guardian has been after me since, well, pretty much since I got into the business of working with the guardians? I don’t get it. I’ve only ever worked up close with Ezra and Zeke, so how can I have personally offended any other guardian?”
“All very good questions,” he conceded. “I daresay it will take a little more time to get the answers.”
“So what am I supposed to do now? Just sit around and wait until he comes after me or someone I love again?” Nope. Not an option. She’d take action with or without the reaper’s help.
“What else did you have in mind? Do you propose to draw him out in the open? Your little stunt this afternoon may do the trick.”
“Well, if it doesn’t, maybe I’ll need to try a little harder,” Vivian mused, remembering how Sarah made her blood boil by baiting her. It wouldn’t take a big act of defiance to goad an angry guardian into coming after her. But how would she trap him?
She couldn’t, but maybe he could. “Darkmore, do you think you could take on this guardian in a fight and win?”
“It depends on the guardian,” he replied. If Darkmore was surprised by her question or by the line of logic that inspired it, he didn’t let on. “At the very least, I could defend you and yours. And, if you’re looking for a way to incur his wrath, I’m sure I could come up with a use for your talents.”
“I’ll bet you could,” she said. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d always wondered what it might be like to work with a reaper. Come to think of it, Darkmore was the only one she knew personally, so of course it would have to be him.
“Think it over, Ms. Vivian. You still owe me a favor, after all.”
Since she couldn’t get back to sleep, Vivian did just that, trying not to think of the debt she owed the reaper, or whether or not she’d enjoy paying up.
CHAPTER 13
Raising the Dead Page 13