Haunt_A Grim Reaper Romance

by Tricia Barr

  Killian had been right all along. I had to take my place at the Gate. Balance had to be restored. Innocent people had to stop getting hurt. And all the lost souls needed to get to their final destinations.

  But Killian wasn’t happy about being right. His face was somber as we knelt by Carmella’s side, helping her to sit. Her body was too broken for her to move without pain, so Killian scooped her into his strong arms with all the care he would a newborn babe, and he carried her slowly down the stairs.

  “Lor—e—lei,” Carmella whispered brokenly, squinting through swollen bruised eyes to find me.

  “It’s going to be alright now, Carmella,” I said. “We’re going to get you to the hospital. No one will ever hurt you again,” I vowed with all the conviction of my soul.

  When we got to the living room, I instructed Killian to set her on the couch while I reached for my cell phone and tapped on Trixie’s name in my contacts. I put the phone to my ear, the throbbing of my pulse against my eardrum almost drowning out the sound of the ringing on the other line that. I was terrified of what I was about to do, but I couldn’t stop to think about it; if I gave any thought to my actions for even a second, I knew my fear would win and I would be unable to proceed.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” Trixie’s chipper voice answered. “I was just going to text you. Wanna go to the mall later?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat that threatened to cut off my air supply. I’m sorry, Trixie. We will never be able to go to the mall together again.

  “Trixie, something horrible has happened,” I said in a serious tone. I bombarded through her next words of concern, a desperate measure to keep myself together for just a few more seconds. “Carmella has been attacked. I need you to call 911, and make sure that you stay with Carmella until she’s better. Please don’t let her be alone. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes, of course, but I don’t understand—” she gushed worriedly.

  “And, Trixie,” I bit my quivering lip, rolling my eyes over the burning tears that stung my eyes. “You were the best friend I’ve ever had. Thank you for that. I love you.” And I hung up before she could say anything else.

  As soon as I tapped the red phone image on my screen, my tears forced their way out. The shards of my shattered hopes and dreams were cutting their way into my heart, and I couldn’t hold it all in anymore. I hated that I had to give in, that I had to say goodbye to everyone I cared about. One way or another, Luca was going to win, even if I did stop him.

  But at least this way, the ones I loved would be safe. Carmella would return to health, Trixie would be spared Luca’s treachery, and Killian would get to move on to his well-deserved eternal resting place. Everyone was going to win, and this wasn’t goodbye forever. I just couldn’t see past the sorrow that the next few seconds, minutes, hours, would bring.

  I knelt by Carmella, who was in and out of consciousness as she lay on the couch, struggling with each breath. I took her hand and kissed her cheek. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You were the best mother a girl could ever ask for. I love you, Carmella. And hopefully, I won’t see you for a very long time.” I gave her one last lingering kiss on the forehead, savoring the warmth of her smooth caramel skin on my parched lips.

  I stood up and stepped back. Killian had remained by Carmella’s side this whole time, silent and brooding. I could feel his despair radiating like the toxic air from a nuclear meltdown, and I was sure it echoed my own.

  Sirens sounded in the distance as they raced toward us. Then came the banging on the front door—Trixie, no doubt.

  “Killian?” I asked, holding my hand out in invitation to him. “Will you hold me? I don’t want to die alone.”

  He nodded, his face covered in shadow, his brows pinched with pain. He came toward me and wrapped his arms around me. “I’ll be right here, waiting for you on the other side,” he said as he caressed the back of my hair.

  “Thank you,” I whispered into his chest.

  “Lorelei! Carmella! Open the door!” Trixie’s panicked voice yelled on the other side of the door as her fists hammered against it.

  I didn’t have much time. I had to get it over with. I had to be strong.

  I closed my eyes and squeezed Killian’s torso as tight as I could. I concentrated on my spiritual sense, trying to feel the boundaries of my soul within my body. I could see it clearly, how my soul filled the space, and where it connected to my brain. This would be just like what I did with Carmella, only rather than forcing it to connect, I had to break the connection. I wasn’t even sure if I could do it myself, but asking Killian to do it would crush him, and would push his soul that much farther into the darkness. I couldn’t do that to him.

  I braced my inner self, welling up a sort of momentum. Then, with as much spiritual force as I could muster, I sprang myself away from body, forcing the soul-brain connection to snap.

  …

  Nothing.

  I felt nothing. There was no physical pain. I had always imagined that death would hurt. Did it not work?

  I opened my eyes. I was no longer enveloped by Killian’s protective embrace. No, I was floating, weightless, and Killian was standing a few inches away from me, stilling holding my body, which was gasping and spasming in his arms. Without a soul, my body was rejecting life, struggling to function, and then finally, mercifully, died.

  I could almost hear Killian’s heart breaking as he cradled my lifeless body. He looked over my body’s shoulder, right at me, the me that was floating here. Then he gently lowered my body so that it was laying on the carpet next to the couch. He brushed the hair away from the face, and then placed a kiss on its cheek.

  It was surreal, watching this, looking down at myself. But she was no longer me. It was as if she was stranger. For the first time, I truly saw how beautiful she was. That thick, richly dark hair, black as midnight. Those pretty pink lips on that attractively angular face, held up by such a slender neck, all covered in delicate pale skin. Poor beautiful girl, dead in the prime of life. But the way she was laying, one could think she was merely sleeping. A sleeping beauty. Too bad true love can’t break her particular curse.

  Killian closed his eyes, and his body unbelievably disintegrated. Everything that made up his physical form, his skin, his hair, his clothes, it all pixilated away bit by tiny bit, the particles returning to their original state and blending into the air. After his shell dissipated, his soul remained, in the same kneeling position over my corpse.

  Suddenly, Trixie’s dad came barging through the front door, slamming it open. Trixie and her mother ran inside, rushing to Carmella’s bludgeoned body on the couch, and to my cold body on the floor. Then came the cries. I turned away. I didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to hear it.

  When I turned around, there was a bright glowing orb of light just in front of me. It was brilliant, like a miniature dwarf star, emanating heat and gravitating me to it, whispering promises of peace.

  “That’s our cue,” Killian said softly, putting his hand on my back. What a strange sensation. I couldn’t feel his touch in the traditional sense. I had no nerves that sent signals to the brain that said it was a pleasant touch. Rather, I felt his energy blending with mine, his space colliding with mine. It was a nice feeling, but hollow, leaving something to be desired.

  I nodded at him, letting him usher me toward it. I wasn’t afraid. This light left no room for fear. It forced a feeling of calm and ease on all those it shined on. And when I stepped into it, I felt at peace.

  The light of the little star swallowed us, engulfing us in a blinding, pacifying white for an instant that felt like forever. When the light faded and released us from its hold, we were no longer in my living room. We were in a strange sort of void, a space that breathed with every color of the rainbow. It was as if the air itself—if you could call it air—was made up of the rainbowy gleam of a bubble. The farther away you looked, the thicker the color became, the way smoke or fog becomes thicker from a distance.
It created an illusion of a boundary around us, but I suspected that one could keep moving forward for eternity in this space and never reach an end.

  And directly in front of us was a giant circular door, reminiscent of a vault door. The door appeared to be made of stone, or maybe some kind of ancient unpolished metal, but I knew that neither could be the case. This door was made of something that transcended matter, that transcended time and space. There were veins of bright rainbow color that glistened all through, vivid reds transforming all the way through indigo as they coursed through impossibly thin spider lines all over the door.

  In the center of the door was a large stone ring about a foot in diameter with a handle on one side. And surrounding this ring were three circles of about the same size, all with different images carved or sculpted into them. The one on the upper right depicted what I could only describe as a star with rays going out in all directions. The circle on the middle left displayed a sort of energy ball swirling into itself, like a comet chasing its tail. And the circle on the bottom right was utterly blank, and the only part of the entire door that did not have the veins of colorful light flowing through it, making it look darker, almost black. Or was it truly black?

  “So, this is the Gate,” I said, unable to say anything other than stating the obvious.

  Killian nodded, giving me space and time to absorb all of this.

  I approached the door. I raised my hand and tentatively touched it with my fingertips. But I could not feel the texture of the door. What a strangely shocking reality to be unable to feel. This was what it was to be dead. I hated it, hated the complete and utter lack of sensation from all my extremities. My senses were nonexistent, which made my emotions that much more acute. They were my only feeling, my only sense, and they were inescapable.

  But I didn’t have time to mourn my lost mortality. I was becoming increasingly aware of the multitude of souls that were lingering in this space. Some of them were dormant, as if they had gone into a sort of hibernation, as ghosts often do on the physical plain. But many of them were impatient, lost, and watching me. As with ghosts when I was still living, these souls could sense something about me, that I was something more, that maybe I could help them. They needed me. That need gave me the strength to see beyond myself, to put others before myself.

  “How does it work?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at Killian.

  He floated over to me, not bothering with the human illusion of taking steps in this bodiless plain of existence, and stopped in front of the Gate.

  “Do you see this dial?” he asked, placing his hand on the stone circle with the handle in the center of the Gate. “This is what opens the portals to the different realms of the Afterlife. These three faces are the three realms. Turn the dial to the top face, and it will open the Gate to Heaven.” He gestured to the top circle with the shining sun on it. “The second face opens the Gate to Threshold, where souls race to be reborn.” He pointed to the second circle with comet chasing its tail. I knew where the third circle, the empty and black circle, had to lead. “And the bottom face opens the Gate to Hell.”

  Just looking at the bleak and desolate circle sent a shiver through my being. I wasn’t looking forward to having to open that one, but I knew I would soon have to, if I wanted to get rid of Luca.

  “Here, why don’t we do a test run,” Killian said, opening his arm invitingly to me, urging me to come forward. “Now, take hold of the handle and rotate the dial to the second face.”

  I nodded and swallowed, even though the motion was just an echo of a habit that was no longer necessary, because I no longer had a throat that could be dry or saliva to moisten it. As I wrapped my hand firmly around the handle on the stone dial, a heavy pulse hummed through it and vibrated through my arm and into my soul. The power of this door was unfathomable, and older than anything I could imagine, its origins stretching back to the beginning of time. It was incredibly humbling to even touch it.

  I looked over at Killian with apprehension, and he gave an encouraging nod to proceed. I braced myself and pushed the dial toward the left. It took considerable effort, but the dial rolled lethargically to the second circle with a whiny clank and happily settled into place on top of it. The image inside the circle illuminated, and the sound of bolts sliding inward echoed throughout the endless prismatic mist in which we floated.

  Then, like lips parting to take a breath of air, the impossibly thick and heavy door released its hold on the invisible bounds to which it had been locked and slid easily open as if it were no more substantial than a piece of paper.

  I pulled the Gate open as far back as it would go, revealing a sort of opaque liquid wall built of the same iridescent color as everything else. It was murky yet beautiful, and it looked almost as though it would pop like a bubble and spill onto the floor if I touched it. So, naturally, I poked it with my finger, and it jiggled like Jello. I pushed against it harder, the plastic goo molding inward but never breaking. How could this be a doorway to another realm?

  I looked to Killian with a question mark on my face. “Is something wrong? Did I do this right? How can anything go through this stuff?”

  Killian’s pretty mouth curled into a small, indulgent smile. “Only those meant to pass through it can do so. Let me show you. Turn around and look at the souls waiting.”

  I looked past him, for the first time acknowledging the multitudes that were waiting in line for me. A sick feeling closed in on my chest, made even more oppressive by the fact that I didn’t have a ribcage anymore to protect it. There was so much work to be done. And Luca was still out there. Overwhelmed didn’t even begin to describe it.

  “Do you see their colors?” he asked, and I tried to shirk away from the panic to which I was chained. “Do you see how some are so pale they almost shine, and how others are sort of murky, dimmed, like the ghosts you’re used to seeing?”

  I looked harder, focusing on the individuals before me rather than the horde as a whole. I could see the distinctions between each of them. Every soul had a different shine. Many were varying shades of gray, almost all of them in fact. Only one in maybe a hundred were so clean of shade that they seemed to radiate light. Looking at those particular souls warmed you to the core. Looking at them felt like joy.

  I nodded at Killian to show that I understood.

  “Okay, now pick one that is gray and pull them forward,” he instructed.

  “Alright,” I said, starting toward a particularly pretty girl in the crowd.

  “No, not like that,” Killian said. “Don’t directly bring any soul to the Gate, only use your powers to guide them. Do you remember I told you that I accidentally gave you my power by touching you? It won’t work for you to touch someone now—only when your thousand-year term has ended will the position be transferable—but the best practice is not to touch any soul that comes through here. It’s much quicker to use your powers anyway, and when you do this long enough, efficiency is your best friend.”

  I nodded, embarrassment and impatience constricting my torso. I fought to hide the frown from twisting my lips and concentrated on pulling the girl toward me with nothing but my spiritual power. I found her soul with my sense and willed her toward me, and I was immediately struck by how easy it was. Using my powers when I was alive had always been a bit physically taxing, the act of pulling a soul—for any purpose—was almost like weightlifting.

  But here, it was as simple as thinking it. There was no strain, no effort, no feeling of being drained afterward. Was it just because these souls were unbound by the physical world, or was it because being this close to the Gate made me stronger?

  Without any further prodding from Killian, I ushered the girl up to the Gate. I watched with studious awe as she passed easily through the liquid wall as if it didn’t exist at all.

  I felt the shift in the world as her soul moved on to the next plain. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment, or pride, making me damn near giddy. I wanted to do it again. Would it always feel
this good?

  “So, only souls that belong in each realm can pass through the Gate?” I asked. “No soul could ever accidentally get into Heaven if they tried to ram the Gate while it was open to that realm, for example?”

  “That’s right,” Killian replied. “Every single part of this system is safeguarded. No soul can pass through to where they don’t belong, because if they did the whole thing would fall apart. If a gray soul got into Heaven, it would never find peace or happiness because it’s…incomplete. It hasn’t learned everything it was meant to, and therefore could never appreciate a place like Heaven. And its dimness might even dim the light of those that have earned their place there.”

  “If that’s true, then how did you send me through to be reborn if I was meant for Hell?” I asked. I pushed at that veil in the Gate and it was as solid as rubberized steel.

  “That was why I had to touch you,” Killian said. “It wasn’t enough for me to use my powers alone to push you through the Gate. I had to use every ounce of my being to force you through the barrier. It almost didn’t work, but at the last second, you broke through.”

  Killian’s expression was sadly reminiscent. I could tell it had taken a great deal for him to do what he did for me. He obviously broke some cardinal rule. He did something that was protected by ancient magic against happening. Again, I was humbled by the sheer strength of his love for me.

  “What about coming back through the Gate?” I asked. “If a soul passed through to Hell and wanted to turn tail and run back this way, could they?” I needed to know what I was up against when it came time to cross Luca over. Would I have to worry about him trying to escape every time I had to open the door to Hell?

  “No,” Killian answered with a knowing glint in his eyes. “No soul can come back through the Gate once they cross over. It’s a one-way passage, no matter which realm they go to. If it didn’t work that way, no soul would ever stay in Hell. I’m sure that every soul there would leave if they could. But the only way out is to learn and ascend.”