The Dark In-Between

by Elizabeth Hrib

  “Stay back,” Red says, throwing his hand out.

  A figure, tall and dark, lands beneath the arched peak that separates the main part of the church from the entrance. It fills the doorway, highlighted by a flash of lightning. Then Casey notices its wings.

  “Flamin’ heck!” Evan says, staggering backward. He loses his footing and lands hard, shuffling across the carpet like a crab.

  Red straightens up between them, the fight uncoiling from his muscles. “Malakhi,” he greets. “I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

  Outside, the thunder has disappeared, the rain silent, like the storm has simply vanished or maybe … landed, Casey thinks.

  The angel stalks toward them, his long wings dragging along the ground. His hair is jet-black but his eyes burn even darker, swirling and swirling. It makes her lightheaded to look at him.

  “Is this the Limbo-walker?” Malakhi asks. He’s young like Red, but his voice is so deep it almost trembles.

  “Yes,” Red answers. “This is Casey.”

  Malakhi looks them over, eyes narrowing on Evan, before they settle on Red. “You were supposed to close the soul connection.”

  “I’m working on it,” Red says.

  “Actually, I’m working on it,” Casey interrupts. “Who are you?”

  “Malakhi,” the angel replies. “The Messenger assigned to this tasking.”

  Evan climbs to his feet. “What’s a Messenger?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like,” Red says. “My link between this world and—”

  “The upstairs,” Casey finishes for him. “So, he’s your babysitter.”

  “I’m the one who has to answer for what he gets up to down here,” Malakhi clarifies. “That attack tonight will be the first of many if you can’t get things under control.”

  Red’s shoulders tense. “I’m trying, Malakhi.”

  “Well, try harder. Or do you not want your wings back?”

  Red bristles under Malakhi’s appraising stare. “Of course I do,” he says hotly.

  “And to think,” Malakhi begins, “you were almost finished with these menial tasks. Now you’ve gone and thrown it all away.”

  Red’s face darkens, his features turning cold. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know loyalty. I know family.” Malakhi strides toward him until his face is inches from Red’s, his chin tilted in disgust. “You gave it all up, Red. You gave us up. So if you want to earn your place back, then prove it. Take the girl to Limbo and close the link. How hard is it to grab one little soul from where she died?”

  “Where she … died?” Casey says slowly.

  “Yes,” Malakhi answers. “When a soul gets trapped, they occupy a part of Limbo that will reflect some version of where they died.”

  She thinks about Liddy. About the shadows and shapes. About the dark woods, and the alleyway, and all the other flashes she’s gotten since the accident. If these are really moments of Liddy trying to reach out, really glimpses of where she is now, then …

  “Liddy’s not at the harbor anymore,” Casey says.

  “What?” Red and Malakhi say together.

  “It’s been six weeks,” Evan snorts. “You thought Liddy, of all people, was just going to sit around, waiting to be rescued? That’s the most un-Liddy thing ever.”

  “Hush,” Malakhi tells him, throwing up a hand.

  “If she’s not at the harbor anymore, then where is she?” Red asks.

  “I don’t know,” Casey confesses. “An alleyway near some buildings, last I saw. I didn’t recognize it.”

  “She’s moving,” Red says. He looks to Malakhi. “Wandering.”

  “Brilliant,” Malakhi grumbles.

  “What?” Casey asks.

  “She’s wandering,” Red says again.

  “So you said,” Evan retorts.

  Red rubs his temples. Apparently, they’ve just given him a headache. “Haven’t you ever heard that you’re supposed to stay put in one place when you don’t know where you are? It makes it easier for help to find you.”

  “What are you saying?” Casey asks. “That Liddy’s lost?”

  “I’m saying … yeah, that’s more or less it. She’s wandering through other parts of Limbo. Through deaths that belong to other souls.”

  “You’ll have to track her,” Malakhi says firmly. “Through these other places until one of them leads you to the girl.” He turns on his heel, sweeping toward the door. “And, Red?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t make me come back down here.”

  SEVEN

  CASEY WAKES UP slowly, reaching for her phone before her eyes have even opened fully. She grapples for it through the fog of sleep, but her fingers grasp pebbled bits of carpet instead. Carpet? She cracks one eye open. This is not her bed—her backache attests to that—and certainly not her room.

  It takes her a moment to get her bearings—remembering their visitor last night, his warning words, and Evan’s decision to make camp at the base of Michael’s statue instead of in the basement.

  You know I think this protective rock business is a load of crap, he’d said. But considering there are angels crashing through the ceiling, I figure we need all the help we can get.

  She’s stiff as she rolls over onto the flattened jewel-tone carpet, sort of like she’s a visitor in her own body, and she has to break it in again.

  Beside her, Evan snores lightly, the sound getting caught in the back of his throat. One arm is tossed over his eyes, blocking out the light that peeks in through a hole in the domed part of the church ceiling.

  She shifts up, leaning against the base of the marble statue. Michael towers over them, a stony and silent guardian, his marble sword held between his hands

  Compared to last night, the church is a completely different place.

  Under the daylight that streams in through broken stained-glass portraits, it looks like some secret, fairy-tale hideaway with carved pillars of marble framing the center aisles and tall, arched windows spilling color onto the floor. Moss climbs the walls in shades of lime green, and pools of water from last night’s rain reflect the light high along the walls. A bird sings somewhere in the rafters.

  Through a tangle of hair, Casey spies Red by the altar. She gets up and pads over to him. He wears a long, silver chain around his neck, the end tied off in a knot around his feathers. They look so soft, it’s hard to envision them as the sharp weapons he’d wielded yesterday against the obsii despite having held one herself. Red barely stirs as she approaches, caught up in thoughts of his own.

  She clears her throat. “Are you okay?” she asks when he looks over.

  “Just thinking.”

  “About last night?”

  He hums.

  She tilts her head back to look at the light-dappled dome overhead. “Kind of nice here, isn’t it? In an old, rustic, antique sort of way. Liddy would have appreciated it.”

  “Did she have a fondness for churches?”

  Casey shakes her head. “For pretty things.” She remembers being about eight, maybe, buried in the sand up to her waist while Liddy decorated her mermaid tail with sea glass. Washed and rinsed in the sea, each one sparkled under the sun in teal blues and pale pinks, with the occasional iridescent oyster shell in the mix. Liddy grinned at her treasure. She’d always had a knack for finding the pretty things in life.

  “What are you thinking about?” Red asks.

  Her lips twist into a small, puckered smile. “Just memories. You know, my life was far less complicated before you showed up.”

  “It won’t always be,” he says. “This complicated, I mean.”

  Somehow, it sounds like a promise, though Casey doesn’t believe him. “Anyway, that Malakhi guy was really … intense,” she says.

  “He has every right to be,” Red says. “We were as close as brothers. Family always takes it the hardest when they think you’ve betrayed them.”

  “Did you?” she asks quietly.
<
br />   “It didn’t feel like it at the time, but perhaps I did. Things always look different after the fact.”

  “What did you give it all up for?”

  The corner of Red’s mouth lifts into a kind of mournful smile. “A girl.”

  “Oh,” Casey says. She looks over at Evan, sleeping beneath the scratchy church quilt. Her heartbeat kicks up. Was keeping him around a mistake? Was she dragging him toward a danger he couldn’t understand—one she didn’t even fully comprehend yet?

  “What happened to her?” she asks.

  “I made a choice,” Red says. “And she chose differently.” He swallows. “But that’s all in the past now.”

  She recognizes someone vying for an out when she hears it, so she changes the subject. “How are you feeling? Did you heal okay?”

  Red lifts the edge of his shirt. The skin is unmarred. No scar. Not even a raised red bump.

  “Whoa,” she says. “You were serious about the whole healing thing.” She studies his mismatched outfit as he fixes his shirt. “You know, if you’re going to hang around for a while, we might need to go shopping. Get you a proper change of clothes.”

  “A shopping trip, huh?” Evan says, climbing to his feet. “Does that mean we’re all friends now?”

  He walks over, stretching his arms behind his head, the muscles in his arms bulging against the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. Once upon a time Evan was that lanky, gangly boy who’d trip on air walking down the hallway. Then he found volleyball. “Admiring the guns?” he says to Red. He winks and strikes a pose.

  Red snorts but it’s Casey who has to look away quickly, feeling warmth touch her cheeks.

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” Red says. “You’ll tip over.”

  “Oh, angel-boy has jokes, does he?” Evan claps his hands together. “And here I thought you lot were supposed to be the best of all of us.”

  “We are,” Red says. “It’s not that hard.”

  Evan yawns and rubs his eyes. “It’s too early for this kind of thing. I need sustenance to keep up with your level of sass.”

  “We need to eat,” Casey agrees. “And change.” She feels gross and sweaty and exactly the way she imagined she’d feel after sleeping on the floor of an abandoned church, clutching a statue for protection. “I need to shower.”

  Evan throws his hands up. “I didn’t say anything.”

  She nudges him, smiling at his teasing. “Come on. Let’s—”

  The low wail of sirens begin outside, drawing closer and closer, the sound reaching a peak, then receding as the sirens scream down the street outside the church. It’s followed closely by another.

  Evan sticks his finger in his ear, rotating his jaw. “Police chase?” he guesses.

  “Because there are so many high-speed car chases here,” Casey says sarcastically.

  The sirens fade eventually and Evan inclines his head to the door, swinging the keys to his truck around his finger. “Shall we?”

  Casey and Red follow Evan out the side entrance and down to his truck. The three of them pile in together and Casey feels bad when she momentarily wishes it was Liddy and not Red on her other side.

  They don’t get very far before Evan has to pull over to let a fire truck go racing past. It spits dust behind its massive tires as it swerves between the traffic.

  “Wonder what that’s all about,” he says as they start down the road again.

  The sound lingers and Casey rubs at her ears, trying to get the ringing to stop.

  As they near the beach, the traffic is stopped in both directions, cars wedged bumper to bumper. Red stiffens beside her, his fist drawn up to his mouth, eyes locked on the dashboard so intently Casey knows he’s not really seeing it. On her other side, Evan shields his eyes from the sun as he leans out the window to try and see past the traffic ahead of them. “Looks like every emergency responder in town.”

  Casey rolls her eyes at his enthusiasm, wondering if some boys ever grow out of their love of trucks and sirens. The flashing lights spiral in the distance, red and blue strobes dancing through windshields and windows.

  Evan opens his mouth to say something when a group of kids on bikes race along the shoulder of the road toward them from the direction of the sirens. He throws his hand out to flag them down.

  A lanky teen skids to a stop, his tires chugging on gravel.

  “Hey!” Evan says. “What’s going on down there?”

  “Accident in the crosswalk.” The teen casts a wary look over his shoulder.

  “Oh, damn,” Evan says. He drums the steering wheel, then glances in Casey’s direction.

  The lights flash so fast, putting her in a kind of trance, and she has to close her eyes to break it.

  A breeze blows through abandoned kiddie swings that border a giant play structure that boasts two yellow plastic towers and glossy blue monkey bars. Dozens of footprints carve up the sand where buckets and toy scoops wait to be played with.

  Casey snaps her eyes open, brows drawn together.

  “What is it?” Evan asks.

  “What did you see?” Red asks.

  “I … just—” She turns to look at him, blinking once. Behind him the woods dip down, stretching into the beach.

  She knows it without even seeing it. The blue water touching the horizon. The reaching sand dunes, spiked with grassy bushes and the bravest of dune-jumping children.

  “Casey?” Evan says, but his voice is distant as the entire world around her fades. The divide between her and Evan, mere inches of space, feels like a canyon suddenly. Like he isn’t sitting right beside her, but worlds away.

  There it is again: The sprawling green lawn surrounding the park, the empty neighborhood street.

  Red seems to breach the divide, calling her out of it, and suddenly she’s back in the truck, pushing against him until they both spill out the passenger door. Casey whirls around. Her stomach lurches as recognition bleeds over her, a shiver racing down her spine, rooting her to the spot.

  It’s Liddy.

  “What are you doing? Get back in the truck,” Evan calls, reaching his hand out for her.

  She registers his confusion, a question on the tip of his tongue.

  “You saw something, didn’t you?” Red says.

  “Liddy. We have to go. We have to get her. Now!” She tugs on his arm.

  “Not here,” Red says, looking around at the stalled cars and wandering eyes that find them out of boredom.

  “The church,” Casey decides. It’s the closest. Plus they’ll never get through the police blockade right now.

  “Hang on a second. Casey, wait!” Evan yells.

  “I have to go,” she says, already nudging Red in the direction of the church.

  “Wait!” he says again, scrambling out of the truck after them. A couple of cars roll down their windows, braving the heat in order to listen to the exchange.

  “What is it?” she hisses under her breath. “I have to go.”

  He gestures from them to the truck. Then something else passes over his features. A kind of realization. “You’re going somewhere I can’t follow.”

  “Evan—”

  “I already lost Liddy.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to me,” she says.

  “But we don’t know that.” He grabs her hand. “We don’t know how any of this works. What if you just don’t come back from wherever this Limbo place is?”

  “I have to try.” She works to untangle their fingers, but Evan holds tighter. “Evan, please,” she begs.

  He squeezes—once, twice—then lets her go. “I know … just be careful, I guess.”

  “I will.” She backs away, in the direction of the church, away from the sirens and lights and the gathering crowd of cars and people. “I’ll come find you later.”

  “No, I’ll come. Just let me turn the truck around.”

  Casey shakes her head and his face falls. She knows she’s hurting him, but what if it’s dangerous, this Limbo place? What if she unknow
ingly invites Evan there, into a danger he can’t see or control?

  She can’t risk it.

  “Go home,” she tells him. “I’ll find you when it’s finished. I promise.”

  She knows it doesn’t mean much. Promises like that are easy to make, but so much harder to keep. Liddy had promised her an epic pre-senior-year road trip. She’d promised to help her figure out what this thing was between her and Evan. In fifth grade, she’d even promised to always be Casey’s best friend even if they had to live far away from each other and could only talk on the phone after their homework was finished. Look where all those promises had gotten them.

  Evan stares at her, lost in the commotion of traffic. It’s an odd feeling. The sense that she’s leaving one friend behind in order to save another.

  Casey turns away and sprints down the side of the road with Red. She runs, feet slapping the pavement, kicking gravel up behind her. Red’s chain of feathers bounces against his chest. She pushes on, until the bottoms of her lungs burn from exertion. Pushes and pushes before she can lose the wispy figments in her mind.

  Before Liddy disappears again.

  Red gets there first and he races around the side of the church, his hair spilling around his face, framed in the arched doorway like some sort of ancient deity: the kind painters and sculptors used to covet in their artwork.

  She’s breathless when she arrives, bent over, hands on her knees.

  He reaches for her.

  “Just—” She snaps her mouth closed, tasting bile, and holds up her finger instead. “Give me a sec.”

  He nods and snatches a feather from the chain around his neck. In his hand it turns to the hard, steel dagger she’d watched him wield last night, etched with faint decorative veins. It’s as if metal had been smelted from the feather’s core and forged into a weapon in the fires.

  Inside the church, against the raised stone steps in front of the altar, Red slams the feather turned dagger into the marble floor and carves a circle around himself. The blade leaves a faint white glow in its wake, and Red stops just short of closing the loop. Light streams in from above, painting him in spots of green and gold. Casey hovers on the edge of the circle, her pulse rushing in her ears.