by Ann Aguirre
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I have tamales in the fridge. It will only take a minute to heat them.”
“Please.” My stomach felt fine at the moment.
“Is Cami asleep?” Chuch wanted to know.
“Just got her down. She’ll meet everyone in the morning.” Eva got busy in the kitchen, dishing up green sauce and cream to go with the tamales.
I sat down on a pretty stool near the bar. “Thank you for this. You’ll never know what it means to have somebody who’s just always here for me, no questions asked.”
“Oh, there will be questions,” she said, aiming a wooden spoon at me. “Believe that. But food first. Then we’ll talk.”
Truth & Consequences
I actually told the story over our late supper, with Booke filling in where I faltered. It was a little awkward repeating his story, but by the time they had the gist, Chuch and Eva were exchanging significant glances. Then she drew me aside.
“You brought him here to die?”
“What else could I do?” I asked. “It was his last request.”
“I don’t know . . . fix it. Isn’t that kind of your thing? Finding solutions when anybody else would give it up as a lost cause?”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t have the fight in me anymore, Eva. Chance died. Do you get that? I just can’t throw myself at monsters anymore. If”—here, my voice broke, and tears threatened—“he’s really gone, then I can’t make his sacrifice worth nothing. I have to live for him. He made me promise.”
“Oh, nena, I’m sorry.” She pulled me to her in a tight hug, and I worked not to lose it on her shoulder. After a minute, I tapped her arm to let her know I had it under control, then she stepped back.
“Don’t blame Corine,” Booke said then. “My hearing is perfectly adequate. It’s my joints that seem to be seizing up.”
“We should all get some sleep,” Chuch put in. “We won’t solve this in the middle of the night.”
From his expression, he still hadn’t given up on the idea of saving our mutual friend . . . and that was fine with me. If Chuch could fix it, fine. Let one of his hundred cousins sort out the problem. I just . . . I couldn’t. My tank was empty; I had nothing left to give.
Eva settled Booke and I in the two guest bedrooms; Kel volunteered to sleep on the couch. I couldn’t think anymore about Booke’s problems, or what Kel’s archangel wanted from me, or what would come to pass if I held firm in my refusal. Grim, muddled thoughts occupied my mind as I brushed my teeth. Given my general misery, I expected to toss and turn, but exhaustion claimed me as soon as I hit the bed.
Overhead, the sun shone like molten gold, beaming down on a verdant field dotted with yellow flowers. Jonquils, I thought, though I lacked my mother’s affinity for such things. In the distance, a smooth gray lake lapped up against a rocky shore, and across the span of the water, a trio of mountains rose in stately majesty. Pale mist wreathed their peaks, cloaking the tops from view. I spun in a slow circle, wondering where I was, but the landscape gave no clue. I had no memory of leaving the bed, no clue how I’d gotten here, but the grass felt real and crisp beneath my bare feet, lightly damp with morning dew. Despite the sweetness of the honeyed air, I had to be asleep; Booke had no reason to contact me this way anymore. Nor did I feel the familiar tingle of a lucid dream. Which meant this hyper-vivid dream was something else.
Movement through the yellow flowers caught my eye. Perhaps I should’ve been afraid, but I stepped forward with more curiosity than I’d felt since returning to the real world. My pace quickened until I was running, and then I saw him.
Chance.
Here, he was whole and uninjured, as he had been before the dagger, before the blood. Before he died for me. Clad in white, his black hair gleamed with a hint of blue beneath the sunlight, and his tawny skin contrasted beautifully with the loose white clothing he wore. His smile widened as he drew closer; I realized belatedly that I was wearing a T-shirt and panties, exactly what I’d had on when I fell asleep. No wonder he looked so amused.
“This isn’t real,” I said, expecting disbelief to pop the dream like a soap bubble.
“I’ve learned a great deal,” he answered. “So I will simply say that reality is subjective.”
It was so hard to look at him, knowing when I woke he would still be gone. I’d still be alone. We’d finally made the pieces fit in Sheol, and then I lost him. The hurt went through me like a barbed blade, leaving bloody rents in my heart all over again. I didn’t know if I could bear waking.
“It’s good to see that my subconscious manifestation of you knows enough to be annoying,” I muttered.
“How can I prove to you it’s me?”
“Anything you know about me, I know too.”
He huffed out a sigh. “We don’t have time to argue about whether I’m here or not, love. It’s costing a lot for me to reach you, and there are things you need to know. Will you listen, please?”
“Fine.” I couldn’t resist going to him. At this point, I didn’t care if he was a hallucination generated by loneliness, regret, and desire.
His arms felt deliciously real around me; he smelled of fresh green grass and sheets warmed by sunshine. And when he kissed me, it was heaven. Chance tasted of wild berries and lemon, a thirst quenched by the play of his lips on mine, the luxuriant sweep of tongues hot as a summer day. Desire cascaded through me, raw and painful, an onslaught that ended with my fingers tangled in his hair, my body flat against his. Chance tightened his arms, a low growl escaping him. He pressed me tighter, tighter, until I could hardly breathe. Then I saw the struggle in his face as he set me away.
“If we don’t stop that, I’ll just kiss you until the power goes out.” Chance took a fortifying breath, making me wonder about the rules where he existed. “I’m working on a way back to you, but once you shuffle off the mortal coil, well, they don’t mean for anyone to make a return trip.”
“You weren’t wholly mortal, though.” I gazed up at him, then traced his cheekbones with my fingertips, wanting to memorize his features.
If nothing else, I’ll have this moment, this dream.
The last time I’d seen him, he had been pale and still, face spattered with blood. Let me remember him like this. Let me believe he went somewhere good. Maybe that was the point of the dream . . . to offer comfort. Humans had all kinds of self-defense mechanisms that made it possible for us to survive the unthinkable.
He nodded. “That’s the only reason I have a small shot. It’s been interesting getting to know my dad.” Chance hesitated and shook his head. “He’s . . . not the usual father figure. I’m trying to cut a deal, but he seems resistant to letting me go.”
That revelation gave me pause. Could he really be contacting me from the other side? Stranger things had happened. I mean, if he could broadcast on Shan’s radio . . . hope stirred in a delicate shiver, like a dappled fawn.
“Tell me something only you and Min would know,” I demanded.
His gaze sharpened with appreciation. “And you’ll call her to confirm? I appreciate that, love. It will mean a lot to her to find out for sure that I’m not just gone. She’s a mess right now, wondering.” He said it with authority, as if he knew.
“Me too,” I admitted, low.
“I’m aware. But did you have to cry all over the Nephilim?” His lovely mouth firmed into an irritated line.
“You can check up on me?” Oddly, that made me feel simultaneously better and worse.
“Not easily.” Which was a yes.
“I’m sorry if you were bothered by Kel comforting me.” Such a weird thing to say to your dead boyfriend.
Chance acknowledged that with a grimace, tightening his arms about me. “He still wants you. And if he makes a move, I’ll find a way to kill that son of bitch.”
“What he wants and what I do are two different things.”
“Oh?” His eyes revealed a hint of vulnerability . . . and surely imaginary people didn’t suffer from crises of
confidence.
“I made up my mind before we went to Sheol, Chance. I wanted us to be together, always. I still want that.” If only it didn’t sound so crazy and impossible.
“I’ll find a way, I promise. Don’t give up. And try not to cry so much. It makes you fragile and irresistible.”
I laughed. “Bullshit. It makes me snotty and swollen.”
He dropped a kiss onto my upturned mouth. “So . . . something only Min and I would know. Ask her if my first-grade lunchbox had Archie and Jughead on it. She got it at a thrift store for a buck fifty as I recall. The thermos was cracked. We patched it with duct tape.”
There was no way I knew that on any level. Chance rarely talked about his childhood. I could be inventing shit, but a phone call in the morning would verify whether I’d been with him or lost in my own crate of crazy. Gods, I hoped it was the former. After so much darkness, I desperately needed a ray of light.
“I’ll ask her,” I said softly.
“Good. I’m about to lose connection, so this is the important thing. I’m looking for a way to part the veil on my side, but I don’t have the power to crack it all the way open. So I need you working on it too. Find a spell, an artifact, something. There are books with information on Ebisu’s realm . . . some will be accurate. And that’s—”
His voice faded, and his wonderful, so-tangible presence flickered. Touch went first, then sight. Soon, I could only smell him all around me, and then that dissipated too. I wanted a good-bye kiss desperately, but I was by myself in a field of yellow flowers, the sweet wind rippling over their petals. When I woke, I was alone in bed, and my pillow was damp with tears.
Checking my phone told me I had been asleep for four hours or so. Far too early to get up or call Min. There would be no more rest for me that night, however, so I got dressed and took Butch out for a walk around the property. The dog didn’t seem to mind the nocturnal meanderings. A shiver ran through me as I recalled being attacked by shades on this very spot. At night, the Texas sky was huge and heavy with stars. It was chilly enough that I hunched deeper into my sweatshirt, watching the Chihuahua dance around some bushes.
When I turned, I stifled a scream because a man stood behind me. I stumbled back a couple steps as Butch lunged between us, his teeth bared. He rumbled out a warning growl, deceptively fierce for his size. In the moonlight, the stranger’s features were divinely beautiful, capped with a shock of silver hair, but his eyes burned like black holes, cold and pitiless as the grave. He wore a dark trench coat, his hands tucked into the deep pockets, which should have reassured me.
It didn’t.
“Can I help you?”
“You know you can.” His words flowed in a silken tenor, playful, but I had never been so terrified in my life.
I had no idea why, but it was all I could do not to cower or piss my pants. “Uhm. I think I’ll go in now.” Stumbling back a few steps toward the house, I gauged him, wondering how fast he could move.
Other than appearing like a creeper in the dark, he hadn’t actually done anything threatening, hadn’t said anything scary. So what the hell . . . ?
“You find my aura alarming,” he observed. “If you would comply with Kelethiel’s request, it will cease to affect you.”
Oh. Shit.
“Barachiel,” I guessed.
“Clever monkey.”
Blerg. Distaste for the condescension in his tone permitted me to force down some of the abject terror. In response, I picked Butch up and cradled him in one arm; the dog did not stand down. Without my intervention he would’ve chewed the archangel’s ankles and pissed on his designer shoes. Barachiel seemed amused by the move, contemptuous of my pet and me.
“I’m still listening to the benefits.” So far as I knew, Kel was still stalling him. “I don’t make rash decisions.”
“I thought it might help if you got to know me.” He gazed into my eyes, apparently trying to hypnotize me.
Which might’ve worked if Butch hadn’t been biting my forearm. Good dog.
“I’m willing to listen if you want to state your case.”
Anything to get rid of you. This is. Not. Good.
The only way this could be worse was if I was in my panties, like I had been when I saw Chance. I so wasn’t prepared to fight an archangel or an ancient former demon—whatever the hell he was—tonight. Maybe I never would be, but it would be the apex of suckage if I got killed as Chance managed to find his way back to me. I wasn’t on board with such a Romeo and Juliet ending. No damn way.
So bullshit would form my defense matrix; fortunately, I was strong in the ways of BS-fu.
“I can taste the darkness on you, even now,” he whispered. “Whorls of smoke and brimstone. But it’s fading. You chose the bright path. You cut the demon out. I need someone at my side, one strong enough to resist temptation. Together, we can reshape the world. No more war. No more poverty.”
On the surface, it sounded great, but I remembered the vision Kel had shown me. The people who gazed up at me seemed brainwashed. Maybe the world was a shithole, but at least it was full of people who could call their minds their own. I didn’t want to create some totalitarian regime where this creepy fucker controlled our actions and opinions. The idea of being used in that fashion made me want to barf.
“I’m unclear on what you’re offering,” I said softly, buying time. “I thought I’d be some kind of a religious leader. But it seems like you’re inviting me to take a different role.”
Before he could reply, footsteps crunched over the gravel, heavy ones. They thumped over to the lawn, coming toward us. Kel was the only person big enough to make those strides. Relief surged through me; surely he could get rid of his boss.
“What’re you doing here?” Kel demanded.
“Checking up on you, Nephilim. It is my right.”
“If you frighten her away, then this failure is on you,” Kel said coldly.
His tats glowed with threatening power, and for a horrified moment, I wondered if they would duke it out on Chuch’s lawn. I held up a hand, almost too scared to speak, but somehow I got the words out.
“Please . . . take it down the road. Find an empty field. The winner can come find me. Just . . . don’t hurt my friends. Don’t hurt the baby.”
“There’s no need for violence,” Barachiel said silkily. “I always win. Isn’t that right, half-breed?”
The archangel raised his arm, and Kel’s body stretched taut, as if pulled on a torture rack. Then Barachiel slammed his palm downward; Kel’s knees buckled, dropping him into a humble, penitent posture. I’d never imagined a force strong enough to control Kel, but Barachiel’s power was undeniable. And terrible.
Kel mumbled something.
“I couldn’t hear you.”
“Yes, my lord.”
For interminable moments, I stood holding my dog while Barachiel forced Kel to demonstrate his utter helplessness. But I didn’t take the message from it he intended. Instead of seeing his potency, I saw my own death. Because now I knew for sure: Kel wouldn’t be able to stop his hands from tightening on my throat or running me through with a holy blade. Though he’d hate it, as with Asherah, he was helpless before Barachiel.
“I think that is an ample demonstration.” The archangel turned to me, his teeth alarmingly white in the dark. “You will find I am gentle and tender to those who please me.”
I heard the unspoken message as well. I am brutal and merciless to those who do not. Barachiel vanished as he had come, leaving Kel to stagger to his feet. I despised seeing him so reduced; it was obvious from his expression that he felt the deepest, most piercing shame. This night he had been stripped of his pride before me, left to grovel in the dirt at Barachiel’s whim. Maybe I was supposed to be impressed.
I wasn’t.
“I wish I could die,” he said hoarsely. “See an end to this at last. But even that, he will not allow.”
“What’s his hold on you? How can he—”
“If I knew
, do you think I wouldn’t sever the cord? Once, I believed his power must come from divine right. What else could it be? But now . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I have no convictions. I am weary and alone.”
Part of me ached to hold him. But his problems were too big for me, and a hug wouldn’t do more than remind him things between us could never go further than that one night. In so many ways, he was alone. Maybe I could make it a little better, though. In some small way.
“That was awful,” I said. “But you saved me. I was about to wet my pants before you distracted him.”
That roused a reluctant smile. “Shameful cowardice.”
“You didn’t tell me he has that . . . death aura or whatever. It’s like he radiates I’m going to kill you and eat your liver in gaseous form.”
Butch yapped his agreement. I owed the dog too for refusing to back down, though one of these days the little goofball might get himself killed.
I went on, “So thanks. You’re not assigned to protect me anymore. You could’ve gotten worse for interfering.”
“That was nothing.”
Sadly, I believed him. “Come on. I’ll make you some breakfast.”
His micro-expression reflected bemusement in the subtle quirk of his mouth. “I thought you never cooked.”
“I can make eggs. And quesadillas. Which do you want?”
Kel looked a little less tormented already. It was good to know small pleasures like food could cheer up even a powerful Nephilim. “Can I have both?”
After the night we’d both had . . . “Why the hell not?”
I Know a Guy
I felt a little weird about rummaging in Eva’s kitchen, but I was quiet, and Kel was hungry. By the time dawn lightened the sky, I had a pile of quesadillas on the table, along with a huge crock of scrambled eggs. I made them a la Mexicana with diced onion, tomato, and hot peppers. In her fridge, I found some leftover green sauce and I set that out too. To my relief, my stomach seemed fine, and the smell of the food didn’t bother me.