by Amber Benson
“Remember the kid who came to Newbridge right before Noh? The one who went around healing all the sick birds that one winter?”
The other two nodded.
“You never told me about this,” Noh said, feeling left out.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Henry sighed. “It was just something silly the kid did.”
It always made Noh sad she wasn’t a ghost like her friends. It felt like they had “in jokes” she wasn’t privy to because she was alive. If she were dead, then she’d know all the ghost stories instead of having to have them explained to her, which would be nice for a change.
“Well, that kid had the same kinda light. Only his was blue,” Nelly said as he followed the green light back to Jennice’s hands, still examining it.
“It’s probably whatever color your aura is,” Trina said with authority. She was a terrible know-it-all sometimes, which drove the others crazy.
As the ghosts continued to debate the possibility of magical powers being colored by one’s aura, Noh tiptoed over to Jennice and rested a hand on her upper arm, whispering in her ear:
“Shut their brains off. Don’t kill them, just put them into a deep, deep sleep.”
Like a sleepwalker, Jennice nodded.
“Okay.”
Like a shot, the men fell to their knees, dropping face-first onto the gravel. Jarvis grinned back at Jennice and Noh, his face filled with relief.
“What did you do to my guys!?” Weasely Face screamed at Jarvis.
Even from her vantage point, Noh could see the man was terrified of Jennice’s strange power.
“I did nothing to your men,” Jarvis said, pointing to Jennice. “She did—and you’d best get out of here if you don’t want to be next.”
Weasely Face looked from Jarvis to Jennice then back again.
“I’m out of here,” he shrieked and tore off down the gravel driveway like a dog with its tail between its legs.
They all watched him go, then Jarvis turned back to Jennice and Noh.
“As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted. Help me get this unconscious person”—he pointed to the first man, the one Clio had been brawling with—“inside these gates, please.”
“On it,” Clio said, reaching down and grabbing the guy’s feet.
Jarvis took the man’s arms and they hoisted him into the air. As they waddled slowly down the driveway toward the secret entrance Henry had shown them earlier, Noh heard Jarvis saying:
“You led those men right here. You know that, don’t you? Just like you almost got us all killed at that gas station by wormholing off to God knows where. You are a selfish, selfish individual…”
Noh couldn’t hear Clio’s answer, but she was extremely happy she wasn’t the one who’d stirred Jarvis’s ire. He may have been a bit light in the heels, but he was a force to be reckoned with when you got him all hot and bothered.
“You did good, kiddo,” Noh said, as Jennice dropped her hands.
“Did I kill them?” she asked, her body swaying unsteadily.
Noh patted her on the arm.
“No, you did not. You made them go to sleep, just like I told you to.”
Relieved, Jennice walked over to the gate and leaned against it, exhausted.
“Thank God,” she said, sweat beading on her upper lip. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. “Thank God for you, Noh.”
“I like her. She’s magical,” Trina said, floating over to Jennice and giving the unsuspecting “realie” a ghostly hug. “Realie” was what the ghosts called the living.
“She’s pretty great,” Nelly said matter-of-factly—and Henry nodded his head in agreement.
Though she wished Jennice could hear the compliments being bestowed upon her, Noh was kind of glad her new friend couldn’t see the three chatty ghost kids as they floated in the air around them.
It would’ve given Jennice a heart attack.
twenty-five
Daniel watched Callie being torn between two disparate emotions: dread about what’d happened to Alternate Frank and joy that Runt could talk again. He was curious as to which emotion was going to win out. If he were a betting man—which he wasn’t, anymore—he’d have gone with joy…and would’ve been amply rewarded for his choice.
“Your voice,” Callie cried, throwing her arms around the hellhound puppy. “You can talk again!”
She was laughing and crying at the same time, arms looped around Runt’s neck, as she rocked back and forth, giddy with happiness.
“It’s a miracle,” she added, kissing Runt’s cheek.
“It was Jarvis,” Runt corrected, but sweetly.
“Yes, it was totally Jarvis,” Callie agreed, as she wiped away tears of joy, unable to contain her excitement.
Finally, after too much hugging and kissing and crying for Daniel’s taste, she let Runt go, and finally began to address the other issue at hand.
“So what happened?” Callie asked Cerberus.
There was no blame in her tone, but everyone could see the three-headed hellhound, who should’ve been overjoyed at his daughter’s miraculous recovery, was inconsolable. Daniel guessed Cerberus felt as though he’d let everyone down by allowing Alternate Frank to slip through his teeth.
“I don’t know,” Cerberus said, his usually gruff voice a tremolo of emotion. “He was there and then he wasn’t.”
Runt padded over to her dad, leaning her body against one of his massive legs.
“He vanished,” she said. “I was on the rowboat and I could see him. He lifted his head as if he was listening to something, a piece of music or someone singing a song, and then he smiled. But it wasn’t a nice smile.”
Daniel watched Callie watching Runt and Cerberus. He knew from experience hellhounds were biologically unable to tell a lie—and he hoped Callie was aware of this fact, too.
“And then he vanished,” Runt finished sitting down on her haunches and looking over at Callie for approval.
Callie’s pale face was flushed from the hellish heat, her dark hair lying limply around the base of her neck. She looked even more like an innocent little girl than she usually did.
“Do you think this means the two universes are almost done merging?” she asked, directing her question to Daniel and Marcel.
Daniel had always thought she was beautiful—and her inability to see her own beauty was one of the most charming things about her—but now, when she gave him such a serious look with those dark eyes and soft lips, he found her utterly ravishing. He couldn’t help but look over at Marcel, wanting to know if the Ender of Death was as attracted to Callie as he was.
He’d never been a jealous guy. He hadn’t really needed to be before he’d met Callie. He’d found other women were entranced by his power and did whatever he asked of them because of it. They would never have thought once, let alone twice, about cheating on him.
Callie, on the other hand, was stubbornly independent and did whatever she wanted—but because of these facets of her personality, and her sexual dalliance with Frank, he’d become hyper aware of other men’s gazes…other men’s attraction to his woman.
He felt like an asshole, hating this self-fulfilling prophecy he was creating in his own head. The more he worried about her leaving him, the more he created situations in which she would be well within her rights to go.
Like the argument back at the Scarlet Sea—he’d told himself to keep his mouth shut, but what had he done instead? He’d snapped back at her, gotten defensive, and pushed her away. He’d always saddled Callie with the “pushing away the ones you loved” issue, but, whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not, he was just as guilty of doing it as she was.
Daniel knew he was being ridiculous. There was no lust, no love, no sexual interest of any kind in Marcel’s eyes when he looked at Callie. Marcel was the Ender of Death, for Christ’s sake. All he wanted was to get rid of Callie so he could destroy the next Death after her and the next one after that and the next one after that…o
n and on into perpetuity.
Damn, I am losing my shit, Daniel thought, massaging his temples with the heels of his palms. He needed some serious couch time with a shrink. Any shrink.
He heard his name being called and looked up, all thoughts of future psychoanalysis sessions put on the back burner.
“Daniel?” Callie said, her eyes telegraphing this was not the first time she’d called his name.
“Uhm, yes,” he said, for the life of him unable to remember the question she’d just asked him.
His affirmation wasn’t the greatest, most informed answer he could’ve given, but it seemed to satisfy her.
He could feel his heart beating sluggishly in his chest and he realized all he wanted was for everyone to take their eyes off of him—he was getting panicky and he just wanted to be left alone.
Instead, his mind kept flashing to the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Tell-Tale Heart.” He had a guilty little secret, too—only his wasn’t hiding beneath the floorboards. His was old and scary and smelled like rotten fish…and had a name: Watatsumi.
Using the wish-fulfillment jewel, Daniel had done as Watatsumi had asked, blowing up his car in front of Clio and Jarvis, so they’d think he and the others were either dead or missing in action—obviously he’d only created the illusion of an explosion, or one of them would really be dead and the others would be singed pieces of humanoid shish kebab. Next, he’d used the jewel to wipe his passengers’ memories. Then he’d used the jewel again to transport the car and its occupants to a predetermined location where Watatsumi had been waiting to meet them.
When they’d arrived at the strip of lonely beachfront on the outskirts of Queens, New York—really it was more of a floating island made of reeds and mud than a beach—he’d climbed out of the driver’s seat, stretched his legs, and looked around.
He couldn’t help but think of Callie as he stared out at the Manhattan skyline. She loved New York like a love-struck teenager; blatantly ignoring its flaws, while blindly extolling its virtues. It was kind of cute how passionate she was about the city, even though it boasted one of her most egregious temptations.
Shopping.
And New York City had the best of it: Barneys, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s—plus all those cute little boutique clothing stores Manhattan was famous for.
God, he’d been spending way too much time with Callie. He actually knew the name of her favorites stores, places of such conspicuous consumption—places he’d eschewed before he’d met her—he was ashamed of himself for having ever set foot in them.
Annoyed with himself, he turned away from the Manhattan skyline. It seemed like any spare moment he had was taken up with thoughts of her. He’d always been obsessive, constantly lost in details, to the detriment of everything and everyone else around him. It was one of the things that’d made him so good at being the Devil’s protégé, though this thought had him cringing.
“You’re right on time.”
The wrinkled, old Japanese Water God had snuck up behind him without even a rustle of warning from the ratty grass skirt he wore.
“I try to be punctual,” Daniel said, taking the wish-fulfillment jewel from his pocket, so the small piece of orange beryl warmed his hand.
“Everything went well?” Watatsumi asked, staring across the water, eyes focused on something Daniel couldn’t see.
“I did what you asked of me,” Daniel said.
Watatsumi didn’t look at him, just kept staring out at the sea.
“Now I take the fish and the detective and send the mother home to her lady friend.”
“You sent the Siren to get Freezay, didn’t you?” Daniel asked.
Watatsumi nodded, grinning at Daniel like a small child with a secret.
“She thought it was Frank, but no, it was Sumi. Sumi pretending to be someone else and getting a good fuck for his pleasure.”
The wizened old man cackled, his shoulders shaking.
“You’re…an interesting fellow,” Daniel said, uncertainly.
“Don’t judge me,” Watatsumi said harshly. “You’re here right now, aren’t you?”
The old God was right. Daniel was here, listening to this crap, but at least he had his reasons—and the main one was the wish-fulfillment jewel he was already holding in his hand.
“Okay, so you send Caoimhe home,” Daniel said, ignoring the old man’s nasty grin. “You take the other two and then I’m outta here.”
Watatsumi slapped Daniel on the back. It was supposed to be fraternal, but it hurt.
“When the time comes, and it will be soon, the jewel will bring us together,” Watatsumi said. “I will have the prison. You will bring Death.”
When he said he would bring the prison, what Watatsumi meant was he would bring Pandora’s Box. Well, it was more of a jar, really, but it was the only magical artifact Daniel knew that could contain someone like the Man in Gray, as apparently Enoch was calling himself these days.
Pandora’s Box and the wish-fulfillment jewel were the enticements Watatsumi had used to get Daniel on his side, and Daniel had accepted because he could think of nothing else that would put a stop to the two universes merging.
Of course, he knew Watatsumi was one of the worst double-crossers in the history of the business. The minute he thought he could get rid of Callie and install his protégé, Frank, in her place, he would try and do it.
But Daniel was prepared for this eventuality.
He hadn’t been the Devil’s own protégé for nothing.
Lost in thought, he realized someone was saying his name again and Daniel looked up to find Callie standing beside him, her face flushed with worry.
“Daniel, we’re pushing on,” she said, touching his cheek.
The press of her hand against his skin yanked him out of his head and he blinked, trying to collect his thoughts.
“Okay,” he said, forcing a smile.
She gave him a funny look, opened her mouth to say something to him, but thought better of it.
“Let’s go,” he said, taking her hand—and then careful not to say or do anything suspicious, Daniel guided the others through the rest of the junkyard without further incident.
It was one of the most stressful things he’d ever done.
* * *
clio had taken the tongue-lashing as her due. She’d clearly deserved it, running off like she had at the gas station and then allowing those three jerks to follow her to the New Newbridge Academy. No, Jarvis wasn’t wrong, per se, but he was missing the point. She’d done these things with a purpose. She wasn’t just going to sit around while her sister was erased from their world; she was going to do everything in her power to stop it from happening.
Noh had tried to speak up for her, but Jarvis had waved the other girl away. He wasn’t interested in excuses. He just wanted to yell at someone. Clio understood this, having felt that way, herself, all day long—but she’d done something proactive with the feeling, and now they had their hands on Frank, one of the vehicles by which the bad guys had sought to destroy her sister.
“I get that you’re pissed, Jarvis,” she said as they carried Frank’s limp body across the lawn, on their way to the burnt-out building where, according to Noh, all the ghosts lived.
Clio had never been to the New Newbridge Academy before—she was a little kid when Callie had started school here, so no one had ever thought to bring her along for a visit. If they had, she knew she would’ve fought to stay because the place was amazing: dark, creepy, and eerie.
Three of her favorite adjectives.
“It was thoughtless, thoughtless, thoughtless—”
Jarvis was still muttering about her selfishness, her narcissism, her whatever, but he was losing steam. The invective was more benign, his energy spent. Now he just looked worn-out instead of apoplectic.
“I know it seems that way, and I’m sorry to have put you in any danger,” Clio said, interrupting him. “But you’re a big boy who can take care of things. I knew you didn
’t need me. And I was right. Because here you are.”
He rolled his eyes, breathing hard as they lugged Frank’s deadweight around the side of the building and then through a door leading into a ramshackle laundry room.
“Why don’t you put him here?” Noh said, her voice carrying through the doorway as she and Jennice followed them inside.
Pushing her way past them, Noh gestured for them to follow her into what had once been a sitting room, but was now just a cobweb-covered space with a fireplace, an overstuffed couch, and two dirty but comfortable-looking tweed armchairs. They waited as Noh cleared the dust from the couch, then she and Jarvis hoisted Frank onto it, sending a cloud of dust into the air that made Jarvis sneeze.
“Damnable dust,” he wheezed, yanking his handkerchief from his pocket and blowing his nose.
When he was done, he re-pocketed the handkerchief and gazed at the women in his care. Clio could see his mind turning, and she assumed he was wondering what horrible thing he’d done in a previous life to get saddled with these three crazy ladies.
“You can’t keep me here!”
Frank was up off the couch and on his feet before any of them realized he was conscious. He went for Clio first because she was closest. She had no time to duck as his fist sailed through the air, slamming into her jaw with enough force to snap her head back.
She’d taken a punch to the face before, but this one was worse. Pain flooded through her jaw like wildfire, its path indiscriminate and devastating. Black spots blossomed in her vision, obscuring her sight. Instinctively, her hands went to her face, her fingers probing for broken bones and for blood. She found the broken bones in short supply, but the blood was free flowing from a gash inside her mouth where her teeth had cut into the soft, pink flesh of her cheek. The blood was salty and metallic tasting as it filled her mouth, making her gag. She found herself spitting up saliva and blood in such quantity it ran down her chin and onto her shirt.
She was helpless to do anything to stop Frank as he went for Jarvis next, head butting him in the gut while the lanky hipster tried to pummel him with balled fists. The force of the impact sent the two men tumbling over the couch. Frank got up first and drew back his fist, letting it fly. The punch caught Jarvis in the nose—and Clio gasped as blood arced through the air, splattering on the wall.