by Elicia Hyder
It didn’t seem like I was helping, but I was smart enough to realize neither of us would get over all we’d been through easily. Sure, we’d rescued Anya, but the cost was steep.
Flint was gone. There would be no seeing him again in Eden. No happy reunion on the other side. His death was permanent. Eternal. Even I, the keeper of death, couldn’t comprehend such loss.
What I did understand, all too well, was the seventeen years we’d lost with our children. I’d been so close to being able to help raise Iliana. The sanctonite that would allow it was mine. Now? Those years were stolen in a blink.
At least Sloan and Nathan had apparently kept a detailed record of her life. Probably pictures, scrapbooks, and video. Had John done the same for Jett? The boy who wasn’t his son? I doubted it.
And I’d have a relationship with Iliana. Our father-daughter bond had outlasted our years apart. She might outrank me, and she might be infinitely more powerful—but part of her still needed her dad.
But Jett? He was no longer the son Fury had given birth to. He was Malak, an angel who’d existed since the beginning of time. Thankfully, he was kind to her, and his insistence that we call him Jett was but one example of his best attempt at sympathy—not an easy emotion for an angel. But Malak had no need of a relationship with a human. No need of a mother. No need for Fury.
And she knew it.
She offered me her coffee, and I took a long drink as I walked around to the other chair. “You seemed angry last night at dinner,” she said, staring out over the horizon. “What’s up?”
It was clear she wanted to change the subject.
“I’m not angry, but I need to have a very uncomfortable conversation with Cassiel that I’m not looking forward to.”
“I bet. She’s in love with you.”
That was debatable.
“Cassiel has strong feelings, but I’m not sure she even understands what love is,” I said, returning her coffee.
“She risked everything on just the possibility that it might save your life. Sounds like love to me.”
I looked at Fury.
She lifted the mug to her lips. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how bummed she was when she realized it was my life that was saved.”
Couldn’t argue that.
“What are you going to say to her?”
“I’m not sure.” I leaned forward, balancing my elbows on my knees. “We still need her help.”
“You’re going to lead her on?”
“Me? Really?”
She smiled behind her cup. “Forgot who I was talking to.”
Even with all the trauma, Fury was more relaxed than I’d ever seen her. In all the time we’d been together, it was the first time I’d seen her in pajamas. Her bare feet were propped up on the railing with her toned legs crossed at the ankles. A messy knot of black hair crowned her head, and her eyes were soft, wet, and sleepy.
It was like all the weight she’d carried for years had been burned up with Nulterra. In a way, I guess it had. All the pretense. The lies. The shame. For the first time in years, Fury was free.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Why are you looking at me weird?”
“I’m just happy.”
She put her coffee on the table between us and pushed herself out of her chair. I sat back, and she eased down sideways on my lap and put her arms around my neck. “On the bright side of all this, we don’t have to worry about you being around Jett anymore. So you can drop all that nonsense about me making a life without you.”
I ran my hand up her smooth thigh. “I only ever wanted what was best for you.”
“You are what’s best for me, Warren.” She leaned her forehead against mine. “I love you.”
I closed my eyes and smiled. “Say it again.”
She lowered her lips to my ear. “I love you,” she whispered softly.
A bolt of energy sizzled through my nerve endings. Smiling, I angled my face to meet her lips and kissed her.
Someone whistled down the path.
Fury pulled away, and we both looked through the deck railing. A wide smile erupted on my face when I saw Iliana. It faltered when I saw Jett walking with her. They were heading toward our villa.
“Hello,” I said.
“Morning!” Iliana waved. “Hi, Fury.”
Fury waved back.
Jett watched Fury. “Good morning.” He sounded a bit like a robot.
“Hi.” Fury forced a smile.
“Mom sent me to find you.”
My head snapped back with surprise. “Your mom’s awake?”
“I know, right? She wants you to join us for breakfast. She stayed up last night pulling together pictures and journals for you to look through.”
“I’d love that,” I said.
Fury pushed herself up.
“After we eat, we might head into town if you want to join us,” Iliana said.
I leaned forward. “Absolutely.”
“We’ll see you up there?” she asked.
I gave her a thumbs-up, and they continued past our deck. Before Fury got too far, I reached back and grabbed the tail of her shirt. “Where are you going?”
“To shower,” she said, her whole body slumped.
I pulled her back in front of me and guided her back down onto my lap. “Two more minutes.”
She tried to smile.
“It’s really hard for you.” I picked up her hand and slipped my fingers between hers. “I’m sorry.”
She let her head flop to the side. “I’m not ready to do another meal with him. Mind if I skip it?”
“Why don’t we both skip it? I can get something to go, and we can have breakfast in bed.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
Her free hand slipped behind my neck. “I appreciate the gesture, but there’s no way I’m going to keep you away from breakfast with them. They’re your family.”
“Fury, so are you.”
Her smile was grateful. “I know. And I’ll be here when you get back.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She pressed a kiss to my forehead then stood. “Maybe bring me something back to eat.”
Iliana wasn’t joking.
Sloan had created a play-by-play of Iliana’s entire life. She had literally kept record of everything.
We spent two straight hours after breakfast looking through photos and videos and reading through a digital journal they’d kept for me. Iliana had taken over the journal when she was old enough, and there were entries from almost every day I was gone.
I got to see it all.
Her first lost tooth.
The time she’d cut her own hair.
Learning to ride a bike.
Pictures from her first high-school dance.
We laughed and cried. And I sat there quietly, soaking it all in. I forced myself to focus more on the sweet than on the bitter. Nothing could be done about the past, but at least we had a future together. My daughter’s life had been full, happy, and safe.
I intended to help keep it that way.
“Thank you all for this.” I nodded toward Sloan’s fancy tablet that held all the photos and videos.
“That’s just the digital stuff,” Sloan said. “The rest is back at home.”
“What else is there?” I asked.
“Mom wouldn’t throw anything away. Everything from my first lost tooth to my tricycle are in the garage attic,” Iliana said.
Nathan leaned toward me. “And your car.”
“Shut up. Are you serious?” I asked.
He smiled. “Dad helped me and Iliana rebuild the engine over the last few years.”
“It still runs?”
“Almost like brand new now. Lex was given strict orders to start it every few days while we were here.”
“Damn. That’s awesome,” I said.
“It was supposed to be my first car, but someone won’t let me drive it.” Iliana was staring at Nathan.
; “You learn how to drive like you’re not in a bumper car, and we’ll talk about it,” he said.
She laughed and threw a balled-up napkin at him.
Sloan looked past Nathan. “There’s Fury and Anya.”
I’d taken breakfast to Fury before our jaunt down memory lane, and I’d asked her one more time if she’d like to join us. She didn’t. Not because she wasn’t happy for me, but I think she knew there would be no hiding the pain it would bring her. And she didn’t want that for me.
She spent the morning with her sister instead. They’d gone for a run down to the beach and back.
Fury was smiling and breathing hard as they approached our table out on the lawn. Anya was right behind her.
“You look like you feel better,” I said when they were close enough.
“I do.” Fury wiped her face with the front of her tank top.
“Feel better?” Sloan asked skeptically. “I’d die if I had to run up that hill.”
I expected Fury to say something snarky, as had always been the dynamic between her and Sloan.
“It’s actually not that difficult when you think there are ghosts behind you,” she said instead.
“There probably are,” Iliana said.
Sloan grimaced. “Yeah. Better get used to it. The death rate is still pretty high after the virus, and now there’s nowhere for them to go.”
“We’re learning. Did Warren tell you there was a ghost in our room last night?” Fury asked.
“No.” Sloan’s mouth dropped open.
“It wasn’t anything sinister. We saved a little girl from Nulterra, and her father came to thank us,” I said.
Sloan frowned. “We heard about her from Reuel after you guys left dinner last night.”
“Yeah.” My head tilted. “But even I didn’t expect them to show up in our bedroom.” I got up and dragged two chairs over from the next table for Fury and Anya.
“I was going to go take a shower, but this is way too interesting,” Anya said as they sat down.
“Where’s Jett?” Fury asked.
“He and Reuel took Rogan and Torman to catch the ferry to Dumaguete,” Iliana said.
Fury visibly relaxed. I reached over and took her hand. Across the table, Sloan was watching us, and she smiled.
She’d asked about my relationship with Fury over breakfast. I’d told her the truth, that a part of me had always loved Fury, that I’d never really gotten over her. Sloan had laughed and said, “Warren, you were the only one who didn’t know.” Perhaps she was right.
Sloan and Nathan were both happy for us though, which meant the world to me.
“You can kill the dangerous ones, right?” Nathan asked, snapping me back to the conversation.
“The dangerous what?”
“The dangerous souls.”
My brow crumpled. “Souls aren’t dangerous. They’re dead.”
Nathan smirked. “Oh, you say that. Wait till they’re throwing shit at you, and then we’ll talk.”
Anya looked doubtful. “Really? Throwing stuff?”
Worry flashed across Fury’s face, but it disappeared before anyone else but me saw it.
Nathan straightened in his chair. “Oh yeah. We can’t see them, but we can sure as shit feel them, and they can disrupt the hell out of our lives.”
“How so?” Anya asked.
“You can feel them watching you,” Sloan said. “I’d had that feeling several times before the spirit line went down, but it happens a lot now.”
“How do you know it’s ghosts watching you if you can’t see them?” Fury asked.
Sloan pointed at Iliana. “She’s confirmed it whenever she’s been with me and I felt it. Now that I know what causes that sensation, I realize all those times before, I was probably encountering a ghost that hadn’t been sent across the spirit line yet. It makes sense because I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals throughout my life. And my father worked with the elderly.”
“Goes with his job more than others, I guess,” I said.
She nodded. “Sometimes when they get close enough, you can feel a draft. And sometimes the electricity gets crazy.”
I thought of the lights flickering in our room the night before.
“All ghosts do that?” I asked.
“Yeah. Most of them are pretty docile,” Iliana answered.
Nathan held up a finger. “But the bad ones, the ones you have to watch out for, they smell.”
“Smell?” Anya asked.
Nathan nodded. “Like sulfur. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Fury and Anya both looked at me.
The others noticed.
“What does sulfur mean?” Iliana asked.
“Nulterra smelled like sulfur. I thought it was because of the fires,” I said.
“Were the fires burning up the souls?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah,” Fury answered.
Nathan turned his palms up. “There you go then.”
The thought was a little sickening. “What else do they do?”
“Sometimes they get violent,” he said.
Fury’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“There’s a man in the market who’s been terrorized by his dead wife.” Nathan laced his fingers behind his head. “But we hear he deserves it.”
“What does she do?” Fury asked.
“Apparently, she set his bed on fire while he was asleep in it,” Sloan said.
I blinked. “Damn. How’d she manage that?”
Nathan shrugged. “They say she also leaked carbon monoxide from their water heater.”
“Have you seen this soul?” I asked Iliana.
“No. Mom doesn’t want me adding ghost hunting to my resume,” she said, smiling at Sloan.
“Not if you can’t kill them,” Sloan said.
“Why can’t she kill them?” Anya asked. “Warren can, and she’s clearly more powerful than him.”
I frowned. “Thanks a lot.”
Anya shrugged. “I’m right though.”
She was.
“Cassiel warned that it can be dangerous to inflict the final death outside of…” Nathan snapped his fingers. “Someplace in Eden.”
“Reclusion,” I said. It was the home of the Angels of Death in Eden. I pointed at the purple sanctonite stone dangling around Iliana’s neck. “But maybe now that you’ve got that, you can do anything you want.”
Nathan’s hand shot forward. “Hey, hey, not anything she wants.”
I chuckled. “Let me rephrase. I believe your body and mind will be protected from any supernatural consequences if you inflict the final death here on Earth. Hell, you were destroying angels just fine without it. You might not even need it.”
Iliana smiled and leaned back in her chair, folding her hands over her stomach. “Cool. Let’s go find some ghosts.”
“We are going into town today, right?” I asked.
Nathan nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“I might sit out the ghost hunt,” Sloan told him.
“I’m in, but only because I need clothes.” It was the closest thing to an admission of fear I was sure Fury would ever say. She flattened her palms on the table and pushed herself up. “But before we go anywhere, I have to shower.”
Anya stood as well. “Me too.”
We all started toward the villas. “I wonder why the souls are so active now.”
Iliana double-stepped to walk beside me and Fury. “Sandalphon thinks they’re evolving from being trapped here in spirit form.”
“That makes sense. The guy I talked to last night, John Mark, he was much more aware than any other human soul I’d ever seen outside Eden.”
“It seems the longer the souls are here, the more known they can make themselves to other humans,” she said.
Anya groaned behind us. “Don’t tell me that.”
Iliana looked at her. “It’s not as bad when we’re at home. They can’t walk through high-Z.”
“We’re moving into Echo-5, ri
ght?” Fury whispered to me.
I smiled. “Maybe if they have room.” I dialed up my volume. “Do you guys have room for a few more bodies at Wolf Gap?”
Nathan smiled back over his shoulder. “Oh, we have plenty of room.”
Reuel made it back in time for lunch, of course.
We drove to the village near where he, Fury, and I had stayed when we’d first shown up on the island. By comparison, it was now a ghost town—in the metaphorical sense, at least. It seemed the population had been halved.
We ate lunch at a small fish shop, where I made the owner nervous with my sword, and Reuel frightened the shit out of her with his size. Her fear faded by the time he ordered a third round of grilled fish and lumpias stuffed with pork and fresh vegetables.
One thing about the locals, they could cook.
Nathan paid the bill.
“I’ll pay you back,” I said as we waited for his change.
“Small price to have you here. I’m buying clothes and stuff today too, so don’t worry about it.”
“Not to get all in your business, but I assume you’re funding everything these days.” I gestured toward Kane, the only member of SF-12 who’d come into town with us. “And running payroll. Did you really get that much out of Claymore?”
The restaurant’s owner brought Nathan his change. “We’re not flying in private jets anymore, but we walked away with enough to keep us all comfortable for a while.”
“How long has it been since you guys separated from Claymore?” I asked, splitting a glance between him and Kane.
They looked at each other.
“Five-ish years ago,” Kane answered.
“That’s about right,” Nathan said. “It was around the time Iliana started high school.”
“You must be getting pretty bored,” Anya said to Kane. Before working exclusively with Iliana, Kane had been a full-time warrior. He and I had spent time in Iraq and Somalia together, and he’d done countless missions without me.
Kane shook his head. “Not at all. I’m getting older. My joints hurt, and I’m tired. Besides, when we’re back in the States, the boys and I pick up a few private gigs here and there. It’s not Afghanistan, but it’s also not Afghanistan.”
Anya, Fury, and I all laughed. “Completely understood,” I said.
Nathan left some of his change on the table. “What shall we do first, ghost hunting or shopping?”