Lightbringer

by K. D. McEntire

  Wendy closed her cell phone and slid it into her pocket. This moment was more important than a masquerade for the living. Inside the diner Eddie and Jon were eating fries and tick-tocking their way through their normal lives; out here was insanity too immediate to be denied.

  “Are you hurt? Did I…?” Piotr ran his hands wildly through his hair. “How do you feel?”

  Her laughter came out a touch crazier than she'd intended it to; even to her own ears it sounded edgy and rough; high, sharp and broken. Wild. “Fine, I guess.”

  “Should we…?” Piotr held out his hand, fingers splayed. An invitation. When Wendy nodded and held out her own hand in kind, he stepped closer. This time it was Piotr who reached for Wendy, threading his fingers through hers, cupping her hand in his. Wendy was helpless to stop it. Crazy electric sensations or not, she wanted to feel the intoxicating coolness of his not-quite-flesh pressed against the skin of her palm.

  “This is amazing,” Piotr murmured before breaking off, bewildered smile fading. Hand in hers, his not-flesh sizzled faintly but only for a moment, and the smoke was gone in a breath. “How do you feel?”

  “Alive,” Wendy whispered. “I can't…it's like…I can't describe it. I don't know.” She closed her eyes. “It's nice. It hurts at first, and it's kinda cold to the touch, but it's only, like, a second of pain and then…whoosh! Every nerve lights up. I feel like the Energizer Bunny, Piotr, like every hair should stand on end.” Wendy bit her lip. “What's it like for you?”

  “It hurts, da, but the hurt is a blink. Then…I am calm inside? Quiet? It is very nice, very relaxed. I feel…peaceful.” His fingers squeezed hers again and a pleasant warmth filled Wendy's chest at the gentle pressure. Dead or not, scarred or not, Piotr really was sort of attractive and he carried himself with such earnest conviction that even cynical Wendy found herself moved by his pleasure. She leaned in close, wanting to press her hand to his cheek when he casually added, “It is beginning to burn.”

  Horrified, Wendy snatched her hand away, cursing herself for ten kinds of fool. “I'm so sorry! When it didn't keep hurting me I just…did I hurt you? I'm such an idiot! Are you okay?” She started to reach for him, to soothe her touch, and then realized what a foolish gesture that would be. She tucked her hands deep in her pockets to quell the urge.

  “I am fine.” He held up his hands, turning them palm out to her. “The burn is fading.” Piotr trembled, whether in joy or fear she couldn't tell. Perhaps, Wendy reasoned, it was like stubbing your toe or picking up a splinter; it hurt more after you realized you were hurt. Either way, Piotr seemed in no pain now.

  The threat of future pain didn't slow him down for long. Marveling, Piotr reached tentatively forward, fingers hovering several inches from her cheek. “May I?”

  Wendy closed her eyes and nodded. Feather-soft, his fingers brushed along her cheekbone and down the side of her neck, running through her hair and lifting the curling strands off her jaw with a whispering touch. When he ran his hands along each row of ear studs the metal cooled quickly, the posts growing painfully cold in her cartilage. Otherwise, his hand on her flesh was cool, pleasant and sweet.

  Gonna have to get an acrylic barbell, Wendy inwardly mused then flushed with the realization of what her errant thought implied.

  Slowly, feeling her way, Wendy reached out and mimicked his movements, brushing fingers across his eyebrows, down his nose, across his cheekbones. His lips were full and soft beneath her fingertips and the line of his jaw was firm. Everywhere she touched him, she tingled, the electric current running feverishly just beneath her skin. Inexplicably she felt sweaty and hot. Her corset was binding her torso close, and the jeans stretched across her thighs were suddenly too tight.

  “This is crazy,” Wendy whispered at last, drawing her fingers away, dulling the strange, fierce tingle that turned her muscles to jubilant jelly. “This shouldn't be happening.”

  “Insanity,” he agreed and folded his hands in his lap, hunching over and shifting so she saw only his profile.

  “Piotr?” Forcing her traitorous fingers to remain still, Wendy held back the urge to reach out and touch his shoulder. “Are you okay?” She was almost positive that none of the light inside had leaked through her skin when she'd been touching him, but the sensation of interacting with a ghost without reaping it was so fresh and new.

  “I am fine.” He grimaced and then shook his head, chuckling at some private joke. He shifted awkwardly, which seemed unusual considering the grace that Wendy had already seen him possess. “Just…overwhelmed.”

  “There are so many questions.” Wendy crossed her arms over her chest, acutely aware of his proximity. After this crazy discovery, part of her knew that she ought to be reaping him right now, this second. Another part though, a deeper part, simply wanted to know why this dead boy, out of all the ghosts she'd ever encountered, was different. “Maybe your…this friend of yours will be able to help us figure all this out. Lilah?”

  “Lily is wise and she may have theories about Dunn, but I doubt she's heard of this before.” Piotr held up one hand and stared at it as if the fingers themselves held the answer to all the fresh questions he had. Wendy's eyes followed the movement and Piotr forced his hand to his side, baring his teeth in a pained half-smile. “It is unlikely.”

  A convertible swerved into the parking lot, overflowing with bleached blondes and pounding out rap with deafening bass. Chel scrambled out of the back, retrieved her bags, and waved as the convertible sped away. Bouncing with each step, she sashayed around the corner of the diner and vanished, presumably joining Eddie and Jon inside.

  “My sister's here. I have to go.”

  “She doesn't look like your sister.”

  “Bleach.” Wendy shrugged but was acutely uncomfortable. Chel's predilection for normal and average was still very disconcerting to her. God help her if she ever laid eyes on one of the dying. She'd go crazy.

  “She's not as pretty as you.” Piotr's lips quirked in his half-smile and Wendy jerked as if he'd touched her once more. Her knees, already weak, threatened to spill her on the ground.

  “I…I have to go.” Wendy rose, hands trembling, and ran her fingers through her hair. The interlude had left her empty and shaky, as if the first brush of his hand had stripped some core strength away. Wendy refused to entertain the idea that it might have been his words, not his touch, that left her so flustered and on edge. There was no way he was flirting with her. It was impossible. He was just being kind.

  Still, she mused, the possibility of it wasn't unpleasant, just bizarre. Heart thrumming in her chest, Wendy desperately wanted to brush her hand against his cheek again, to touch his wrist, to say goodbye, to assure herself that this really was real. Part of her was scared that if she walked away now she would never see him again, that he wouldn't find her, or that the meeting itself was some crazy fluke never to be repeated. She'd spent the past five years dreaming of Piotr, drawing him, thinking about him and wondering how he was doing. Was she really just going to let this strange twist of fate end?

  “I understand. Be safe,” Piotr said and turned away.

  Crushed, Wendy turned to go back inside and was ten steps toward the diner before she realized what she had to say. Quickly she turned, hoping to catch him before he got too far. Luckily, Piotr was still at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Piotr! Wait!” Wendy hurried to join him, ignoring the strange looks of passing bicyclists as she reached to grasp thin air. “I live off of the corner of Montecito and Farley, not far from here,” she said in a rush, fear tumbling the words from her lips in a tangled torrent. She forced herself to slow down and enunciate. “There are some town homes—”

  Studiously not looking at her, Piotr made a hurry-up twirling gesture with his hand, expression inscrutable. “I've been there.”

  Forging ahead, Wendy said, “My bedroom's upstairs at the back of the house, the one with the bench in the side yard. If you…if you need me that's how you can find me, okay?” The
irony that the first not-Eddie boy she was inviting into her room was dead was not lost on her; Wendy flushed and clasped her hands together to keep from twining them nervously through her curls. “It's the pink room. Punk pink though, not like rah-rah girly-pink. And black. Pink and black.” She swallowed heavily, babbling now. “But it's my room, you know? I like it.”

  “I understand.” Piotr glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “And if I do come visit you soon, Wendy? When do you want me to enter your home?”

  “I dunno, whenever, I guess. Friday. We can talk that night. There's a tree. Can you climb trees? Anyway, there's a tree near the roof. It's an easy jump. Do ghosts have to jump? I don't…I don't have a lot of experience with this.”

  If Piotr noted her discomfort, he gave no sign. Instead he smiled and took her hand a final time, tracing a gentle circle on the inside of her wrist. Wendy's knees felt trembly at the touch, the cool brush of his skin obliterating her nervous energy in one fell swoop and leaving her aching and breathless.

  Oh yeah, she realized, I got it bad-bad-bad. Eddie would never let her live it down. Wendy the Reaper, scourge of spirits, had a crush. And on a dead guy no less. What next?

  “I understand,” Piotr murmured, releasing her wrist and stepping away. He smiled, and that quirky grin, that twist of lips that was as familiar today as it had been five years before, was enough to make Wendy quiver from head to toe. “I will find you. Thank you.”

  Nodding once, Wendy turned and strode toward the diner. She refused to look back. He's a ghost, she told herself. Just a ghost, no one special. But her heart, thudding against her ribs, spoke an entirely different tale.

  If she'd turned, just for a moment, she would have seen Piotr staring after her, expression wide open and eloquent with longing. Instead she flipped open her phone and dialed 9-1-1.

  “Hello?” she said as the operator answered, “I'd like to report an accident in the woods behind the MVLA High School.” She put her hand on the door and pulled. “You see, I was skipping last period, and—”

  Unlike most of her peers, Wendy didn't get a cell phone until she was fifteen. It was a birthday gift from her mother and was strictly for the family business. Her father wasn't supposed to know about it. Dutiful daughter that she was, Wendy still kept it a secret even though she doubted he'd care about it now.

  Though she and her mother had been close once upon a time, the death of Mr. Barry had changed things between them. Her mother began trusting Wendy more, especially with the twins, and going out more often when Dad was on assignment. If her mother had been any other woman, Wendy would have thought she was having an affair. And in a way, she was. The love of her life wasn't George, Wendy's father. Her mother was in love with her duty as a Reaper.

  The night of her mother's accident started out typically. It was late February and the beginning of the rainy season. Wendy was studying at Eddie's when she received the call from her mother. The cell, tucked away in her bag, trilled once before going to voicemail. Wendy, deep in the middle of a tricky word problem, was unwilling to stop her homework yet again just because her mother expected her to jump at her beck and call. She barely glanced at her backpack before going back to work. Shades generally stuck to the same area; whomever her mother wanted her to send into the Light would most likely be there tomorrow. The reaping, Wendy decided, could wait for once. It was a decision she'd soon regret.

  An hour later she filed her books away and remembered to check her phone. She pressed 2, the speed dial for her voicemail. She expected her mother to have left a list of boring reaping assignments to knock out before Wendy could go to sleep. Maybe there were Shades hovering around the Tiny Tot playground or a ghost wandering down Castro.

  The voicemail turned out to be something much more important than that. Eddie, munching on popcorn, watched the smile slip off Wendy's face, replaced with a look of horror. He set the bowl aside.

  “What's up?”

  Wendy snapped her phone closed and shoved it in her pocket. “I need to borrow your car.”

  “Whoa there, hotshot, you've barely got your license.”

  She wouldn't meet his eyes as she gathered up her things and stuffed them haphazardly in her bag. “Ed, I need this. I gotta go.”

  “Then let me drive you.” Eddie staggered to his feet, legs half-numb from the time spent on the floor, and grabbed Wendy by the upper arms. “Wendy, what's wrong? Is someone hurt? That was your mom, right? Is she okay?”

  “You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” Wendy snapped, yanking away.

  Quickly, Eddie set himself between Wendy and the door, crossing his arms and tucking his compact wrestler's body firmly against the door. There was no way she was moving him without a fight. “I'm your BFF, Wendy. Why don't you try me?” When she hesitated his expression softened. “Give me a chance,” he pleaded. “Please?”

  Torn between her duty to her mother and the vow of secrecy her mother had made her swear, Wendy hesitated…and told him. She told him about the ghost she'd met the day his father had died, about the rotting Walker-to-be in the hospital, and about her mother's calling—now her own—as a Reaper.

  “So now that you think I'm crazy,” she finished, turning her face away so Eddie wouldn't see her fear for their friendship, “may I please borrow your car? You can listen to my voicemail. My mom needs my help. I really gotta go!”

  “I don't think you're crazy,” Eddie rebuked.

  “What?” Wendy's head snapped up. “Of course you do. Didn't you hear a word I just said? Ghosts, Eddie. Dead people. You know, boo!”

  “Wendy, look, you've always been a little weird.” He laughed, shaking his head in amazement. “To be honest, it's a relief to, you know, have a reason for it. Why you're so strange. This seems as good a reason as any.”

  “You believe me?” Wendy could hardly believe her ears. “Serious?”

  “I sincerely doubt that you of all people would lie to me,” Eddie said, scratching his ear. “Not after everything we've been through. So if you're not lying, well, I guess that means you're telling the truth. I guess there's only one way to find out, huh?” He drew his car keys from his front pocket. “Let's go.”

  It took twenty minutes to reach Redwood City. When they spotted the gigantic pileup it took immense self-control for Wendy to keep her dinner down. Her mother's ambulance was at the back, parked beside the overturned school bus half on the highway. Most of the police were at the front of the wreck where a U-Haul lay on its side, the side torn open and its contents strewn across the lanes of traffic. A twin mattress lay haphazardly across the divider, sodden and bent double from the rain.

  Eddie pulled to the side of the 101, tucking his car as far into the breakdown lane as he could—and as near as he dared without attracting notice from the cops. The storm opened up, rain pouring buckets upon buckets across the windshield so hard and fast that Wendy had to squint to make out the front of the accident.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered, thunderstruck. “What happened?”

  “Who cares? There're kids out there,” Wendy moaned, spotting the wandering hoard of Lost milling around the crushed remnants of the yellow school bus. Her eyes skipped over the garish splash of red splattered across the inside of the windshield. Apparently the driver hadn't made it either. “Normally Mom doesn't let me reap kids. All I've ever done are adults! Shades! Maybe a Walker. Once. But never kids!”

  Eddie passed a hand over his mouth. “It looks like the U-Haul must've skidded. The semi couldn't stop and the bus ran into the semi. Those cars got crushed in between. Oh my God, this is…” he swallowed rapidly and wiped his mouth again. “You've seen shit like this before? How do you keep from being sick?”

  “You take a deep breath and remind yourself that the body is just a shell.” Wendy started scanning what she could see of the wreck. “Come on, Mom, where are you?”

  “Can you do it without her? Reap them?”

  “I guess, maybe, but kids are supposed to be way, way harder.
I'm not supposed to; Mom'll kill me if I do and she didn't want me to.” Wendy buried her face in her hands, torn with indecision; she could go ahead and help with the reap and catch flack for it later, or sit like a good girl and wait for her mother to spot the parked car and fetch her. Despairing, Wendy cried, “What should I do?”

  Eddie took a deep breath and stared straight ahead, frowning at the swirling red and blue lights. “What's your standard operating procedure? For car wrecks, I mean?”

  “Reap any souls that don't go into the Light on their own. But…kids…” Wendy plucked at Eddie's sleeve, trying to convey her terror at the potential job before her. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. Eddie, still staring at the chaos in front of them, didn't move. “Okay, Wendy,” she muttered under her breath, “you can do this. Mom's obviously got her hands full or she would've been done here by now. Just…just do this.”

  “Wendy,” Eddie said, voice flat and dull as he examined the site of the accident, ignoring her loosening hold and low pep talk. “Did you reap my dad?”

  “Now's not the time, Eds.” Wendy reached for the handle but before she could pull it the locks snapped down.

  “Tell me, and I'll let you do your thing.” Eddie wasn't looking at her, simply staring out past the windshield, hectic color in his cheeks. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, fingers digging in. “Did you? Did you reap my dad?”

  Despite her worry for her mother, despite the steady pulse of the emergency lights and the throng of child-ghosts stumbling about right before her eyes, Wendy felt a tug of sympathy. Mr. Barry had been Eddie's world, she remembered, he had been Eddie's everything.

  “No, Eddie,” she said, her voice almost drowned out by the rapid swish of windshield wipers, the punishing rat-tat-tat of rain on the roof of the car. She remembered the scarred boy holding her hand, the way the two of them had looked out at the wreckage before Eddie had passed out. There'd been no ghost there but the boy who'd held her hand and comforted her, no other souls around.