She offered her hand to the reaper, ignoring the look of pure murder that almost masked the anguish in Zeke’s gaze. When this was over, she had a decision to make. Lots of decisions, but she owed the two men—spirits—in her life answers. Not only the spirits, she owed herself an honest assessment before deciding anything. Between the two, both—ludicrous, but perhaps an option as far as the reaper in his non-mortal form—or neither.
Power at her back, hunger at her side, and determination coursing through her veins, she caught up with her team. B glanced over his shoulder, turned back, and then did a double take. Gutierrez whirled around and cursed under her breath in Spanish. Marguerite frowned in disapproval, but at least she didn’t try and blast her teammate this time.
“I brought reinforcements.” Vivian nodded. “Barry, Maria, these are the guardians I told you about, the ones on our side. They’ll cover us while we wrangle the lost souls and they’ll have our backs when we take on the sentinels. Where are the lost souls?”
B scowled. “How we gonna get to them with the cavalry in tow?”
Jeanne beamed at him. “We aren’t the cavalry. We’re infantry, and Special Forces to boot. Maggie’s going to create a diversion. You ready?”
Gutierrez turned her gaze to Marguerite, crossed her arms, and said, “Okay. What’s your plan?”
Marguerite smiled, wide and feral. “This.”
Her corporeal body disappeared in a cloud of dust less than a second before red lightning streaked through the air. A few of the bolts struck the roofs of outbuildings, starting mini fires. Spirits emerged out of walls and roofs and doorways, some materializing and others taking the time to build corporeal bodies, and moved on high alert. The corporeal entities tackled the small fires with red fire extinguishers while others flew into the air to chase the lightning. They moved as a unit. There was a small fire station and maintenance department in the middle of campus. Humans, probably in league with the guardian spirits since they were always on duty and on campus, fired up the engine of a truck. They’d be heading for the worst of the fires, starting with the emergency generators. Marguerite had chosen her targets well. No lights, so the power had been cut, too. Chaos.
The sentinels wouldn’t want mortal first responders or law enforcement to come calling.
Gutierrez wasted no time, grabbing Vivian and Darkmore by the arms and hauling them along into action. They stuck to the shadows, jogging from one patch to another while B and Zeke called out the positions of guardian spirits patrolling the grounds. Most ran off in the direction of one or more fires, but there were enough sentinels remaining to keep the entrance to the Forensics Unit impenetrable without a fight.
She considered blasting her way through, but if they didn’t disable all of the sentinels, the rest would come in full force after receiving a distress call. Jeanne appeared in front of them, earning a hiss from Gutierrez. Luckily, the tough as nails soul broker had the presence of mind not to yell.
“Time for another distraction,” she said. “Be ready to run in when I’ve got their attention.”
Before Vivian could protest, Jeanne materialized in front of the door and sent a blast from her hands that hit the brick wall hard enough to expose the wood beneath.
“Thought you could hold out on us?” she yelled. Zeke appeared at her side, arms at the ready.
The sentinels surrounded the pair and took aim. They didn’t open fire, thank God, but they were poised to strike.
One of the sentinels wearing the form of a young woman, pale and dark-haired, held up a hand, indicating that the rest should hold their fire.
“This area is restricted by order of the Archangel Council. You’re trespassing. Go while I’m still inclined to let you.”
Jeanne snorted. “This isn’t authorized by anyone, guardian, Archangel, reaper, or demon. We know you’re stockpiling energy and we know the source.”
The lead sentinel scowled. “If that were true, I’d be even less inclined to let you leave.”
“Cut the bullshit,” Zeke said. “We aren’t spies and we aren’t rebels. We want in.”
Vivian didn’t know whether to shout with triumph or run in with spirit light blazing. They were taking a huge risk, bigger than Marguerite’s. While powerful, both Jeanne and Zeke were young guardians. They didn’t have as much energy or firepower as the older guardian spirits. It worked for their ruse, but if the sentinels decided to strike, they’d be obliterated.
Perhaps sensing her distress, Darkmore took her hand and squeezed it. She wasn’t certain, but she thought the temperature dropped a degree or two around her. The sensation should have been uncomfortable. Winter in Mississippi wasn’t as chilly as in Tennessee, but it was colder at night, particularly in shadows and in the wake of high winds. The reaper’s chill, however, sent waves of calm and comfort, curbing her impulse to attack.
Jeanne’s voice broke the spell, and her calm. “You see that?” She pointed to the streams of red lightning flashing across the night sky, striking and creating new fires. “That’s Marguerite Bourgeoys, one of the most powerful guardians in this part of the world. As you can see, she enjoys making an entrance.”
“That kind of power tends to attract attention,” Zeke said. “Another few blasts should bring every powerful guardian within a five-hundred-mile radius to this site. You could take us out, but I doubt you’re a match for Marguerite and the legions of spirits that’ll materialize in her wake.”
Most of the sentinels turned their attention to the sky, jaws gaping or tongues wagging about the apparent legend in their midst. Huh. Vivian had never heard of Marguerite, but she’d never been privy to the history, hierarchy, or inner workings of the guardians. Ezra, or possibly the Archangel Council, had kept her ignorant.
If they lived through this, she’d have to spend more time learning about the world she’d been forced to inhabit.
Jeanne gave the signal and Gutierrez led the way, followed by Darkmore, Vivian, and B. They all tried to remain invisible, one of the powers acquired by living soul brokers, and part and parcel of the reaper’s repertoire. She didn’t breathe until they cleared the circle of guardians and made it through the open door. Sloppy, leaving it open.
Or perhaps it was a trap.
Once inside, the bright lights left Vivian feeling exposed and disoriented. Fortunately, Darkmore had his bearings and led the group to a utility closet so they could get their bearings and formulate a plan. The scents of dust and mold competed with the harsh tang of cleaners and chemicals and the space forced them shoulder to shoulder, but at least they were hidden. Based on the maps and building layouts Briggs had provided, they should be able to navigate the building as long as they knew where they were going.
They just needed to determine the most likely location of the souls.
Easier said than done. The entire campus was pulsing with spirit light, especially since Marguerite started her little light show. Between the fireworks, energy from pissed off guardian sentinels, and their soul broker teams, the background level of energy was abnormally high.
Unless, of course, she was willing to use her other gift—she’d only used it once before, back when she’d entered the reaper’s lair. Gathering the burdens of the damned souls in purgatory, hell, or whatever state the reaper’s harvested spirits existed in depending on their crimes in life, she’d liberated them.
Two problems remained. First, she hadn’t done it alone. The reaper at full capacity and her guardian mentor Ezra had helped, as had the spirit of her departed sister Mae. Second, it had nearly killed her. Channeling the burdens of tortured souls had proven more taxing than channeling the burdens of the living.
Darkmore met her gaze and, with that uncanny ability of his, said, “I cannot help you here and now as I did then.”
“I know,” she said. Damn it, she wished she could pace, wished she could think faster, wished she had more time.
Gutierrez looked back and forth between Vivian and the reaper. “Mind cluing us in? Not all
of us can read minds.”
Vivian almost said that they couldn’t, either, but that would be giving away too much regarding the reaper’s weakened state.
“I might be able to find the lost souls, but it might take me out of commission.” Or worse. God, it always came back to this. Impossible choices, sacrifices, and a heavy price to pay—it was the part of afterlife management that sucked the most.
“What do you mean? And what can we do to help?” B stood straight, determination in his steady gaze. The gaze of a cop, a warrior, and a valuable ally.
Gutierrez rolled her eyes, but to her credit, she nodded and said, “I’m in. Just don’t ask me to carry your big ass.”
She laughed. “I’ll do my best. What I need is cover while I put out feelers for the damaged souls. I can track them by their suffering, but it means I’ll have to take some or all of it into me.”
“I’ll relieve you as much as I am able.” The reaper took her hand and said, “And I will be with you all the way.”
“Okay.” With a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and faced the door. “Let’s do this.”
The bright lights illuminating the hallway were unnerving, a sharp contrast to the darkness she sensed. It called to her, the torment of the long dead, as if their misery and suffering had seeped into the walls and foundation of the building. She opened her senses a bit and followed the dark energy, trying to ignore the flashes of horror that crept into her mind.
A young man strapped to a table, his legs and arms bound by thick leather straps as white-coated men and women wearing masks forced a rubber mouthpiece past his clenched teeth.
His scream, muffled by the mouth guard, echoed in the Vivian’s mind, sending chills down her spine.
They hooked electrodes to his temples and threw a switch on the contraption that would send electrical impulses through his brain. The knowledge that the doctors and staff thought they were helping did nothing to ease Vivian’s grief, horror, and outrage. Foam leaked from the corners of the man’s mouth, tears and snot streaming from his face as the foul stench of emptying bladder and bowels filled the air around them, along with another scent.
Smoke. Burning flesh. Oh, god, the machine had malfunctioned. It was burning the man alive.
“Steady, Vivian.” The reaper’s cool, soothing voice broke through the terrifying sights, sounds, and smells that assaulted her senses. “It’s only a shadow of the past. Nothing more. Mr. Edgar’s suffering is over.”
“No,” she whispered. “Not if he’s here.”
Arms held her up and propelled her forward. Strong arms, whispered words of assurance, the struggle to remain upright.
Another image appeared. This one more intense. They were getting closer.
A room full of children dressed in everything from old-fashioned homespun to strait jackets to nothing at all filled her senses. There were so many. Bright faces, beautiful and broken, with eyes that didn’t track, some with heads too small or distorted features, others with vacant gazes that showed the minds within were elsewhere, all in the small, cramped space.
There were broken toys, puddles of foul-smelling waste, and the stench of unwashed bodies and old feces and blood. A red-haired child in one corner repeatedly bashed her head against the wall, old bruises and blood showing that she’d been self-injuring for a long time. In the center of the room, a young boy with greasy, unkempt hair sat still, his torso covered with old scars. God, they were all so thin. When had they last eaten? Why was no one feeding them, bathing them, giving them even the most basic of human comforts?
“Vivian, breathe.”
She inhaled on a sob, suddenly aware of the tears streaming down her face as she walked on shaking legs. So much suffering, it was too much. Her limbs grew heavy and her soul ached, but there were miles to go before she rested. The worst was to come.
“Should we stop?” B’s voice shook. Not a good sign. If her current state of being was bad enough to rattle a cop, she was in worse condition that she thought.
“Just a bit more,” Darkmore said. “I’ll relieve her after we clear the next corridor.”
A wave of cool energy caressed her senses, giving her the brief image of snow on the mountaintops surrounding her childhood home, the taste of cool ice cream on a summer’s day, the chill of a clean mountain stream. The tremors running through her body eased and she found her footing.
They moved on.
When they turned the corner, all hell broke loose.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Everything went black as the sounds of hard rains and hacking coughs surrounded her. Lightning flashed, white and blinding. Not Marguerite’s. Wherever or whenever Vivian’s mind and soul were, they were no longer a part of the battle going on at the asylum.
She’d traveled to another dark time, her essence filled with the collective memories and suffering of souls long dead and lingering, reliving their years of suffering in the mortal world. Lost, lonely, hungry.
They would devour her soul.
Lanterns and candles flickered from what had to be the doorway, the fire illuminating the space with soft light. The clothing and lanterns gave her a few clues about the likely time frame. Victorian era, after the Civil War but not by much—she was standing in the ward for African American inmates, segregated from white patients no doubt housed under better conditions. Separate but equal wasn’t even a concept yet, slavery within living memory, and the patients shivering on the threadbare cots were held by the twin chains of illness and insanity. Her visions from other wards might argue that these plagues of humanity were equal opportunity tormentors, but history and the images of agony shared with her by tortured souls made it clear that people of color suffered far greater atrocities in this den of misery.
Off in one corner, an old man rested belly down on his narrow cot, feet sticking out and kicking weakly. He groaned and grunted in pain, the sound louder than the cries of other boys and men sharing what was clearly a sick ward. The stench of vomit, human waste, blood, and sickly sweat permeated the hot, humid air. Bodies slick with perspiration and filth rested cheek by jowl, some practically stacked on top of one another, much as their ancestors had surely suffered during the middle passage.
Nurses dressed in long linen gowns floated around and between available gaps in the stacks of human suffering, their faces weary, vacant.
Haunted.
They’d seen suffering like this before and worse, powerless to do anything for their charges short of offering a murmured prayer or a sip of fetid water.
One nurse coughed, the sound harsh and rasping. She was succumbing to the same illness that would claim her charges. Swaying on her feet, the woman made her way to the old man in the corner. With a gentle hand on his back, she whispered words to him in another language, rich with vowels like liquid rolling from her tongue. He calmed, whispering back to her in the same tongue. How many generations had they kept the memories of their far away homeland and family and traditions alive in the face of oppression?
Vivian’s vision narrowed, coming closer. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to taste the pain of these poor souls, but it called to her and beckoned her soul to commune with theirs and give them ease. The woman’s hand covered a scar on the man’s shoulder, but not from accident or injury or even from the lash of a whip, though he bore scars made from one.
This was a brand. He’d been a slave. His masters called him Moses, but he’d had another name, a secret name. His pappy, baba, called him Jagun. He’d seen his wife dishonored and murdered by soldiers in the war, shortly after they’d been declared “free.” His children had been sold a decade earlier. Years of searching for them proved fruitless, but he’d soldiered on, scraping by and making a living as a sharecropper.
At least it was on another farm, not the one where he’d been owned, though the two weren’t different. Another wife, another chance to sow his seed with the promise of better days for his descendants, at least until she died birthing his son.
Between grief and syphilis, he’d lost his mind and been shipped off to the lunatic asylum where he’d endured more indignities, neglect, and the occasional horror. But he remembered his name. Jagun, his baba’s warrior. After all this time, he could whisper his name to the woman of his people who came to carry his spirit to join those of his ancestors.
“What’s going on over there?”
Vivian’s consciousness spun around at the sound of the angry voice, but not before he saw the nurse flinch, her nails digging hard into Jagun’s flesh. Another nurse, this one white, stood in the doorway, two large orderlies looming behind her, their dull gaze full of menace.
The nurse said, “Nothing, ma’am. Just giving this man some water.”
“Come here, Beulah!” the woman snapped.
Timid nurse Beulah shuffled over to the angry white nurse, a fresh wave of coughing spasms slowing her progress. Head down, she stood very still in front of Nurse Self-Righteous, so named in Vivian’s mind on account of the wooden cross she wore around her neck and the Bible clutched tight in her fingers.
“What were you saying to that man?”
“N-nothing, ma’am—”
Nurse Self-Righteous slapped Beulah across the face, silencing her reply. “You were speaking that vile tongue, devil talk, weren’t you? Blasphemous.”
“No, ma’am. It’s not blasphemy. It’s a prayer in the ancestor’s speech.”
Another slap, another rebuke, and a snap of the finger later and the two orderlies seized Beulah, one placing a hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. Beulah struggled, chest heaving and fighting another coughing fit.
“Let her go!” Vivian screamed in her mind. “She can’t breathe.”
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Lock her up. I’ll deal with her later.”
Nurse Self-Righteous turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving Beulah to the men who would rape and murder her, her screams echoing in Jagun’s ears like the long ago screams of his wife.
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