Death and the Girl Next Door d-1

by Darynda Jones

  I stood in a daze. A fog of disbelief immobilized me. He was lying. He had to be. Why would he be sent to kill me? What had I done?

  Brooklyn wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “What are you talking about?” she asked Jared. “How can you know that kind of stuff?”

  Jared’s countenance hardened, cementing me to the spot. He began talking about things that didn’t happen, things I didn’t want to happen.

  “After you were hit, you were medevaced to Albuquerque,” he said. “You never made it. You died less than two minutes into the flight.” He paused again, gave me a moment to absorb his words before continuing. Then, in the softest voice, he added, “But your grandparents didn’t know that.”

  I gasped aloud and straightened. “My grandparents?”

  “They were upset. Driving too fast. There was a sharp curve and they crossed the centerline. They collided head-on with another vehicle.”

  My hand flew to my mouth. Emotion seized me, squeezed my chest painfully. Tears sprang to my eyes and blurred my vision. Glitch and Brooklyn both grabbed me as I swayed, my knees giving in to the weight of his words. They guided me to a rickety wooden crate.

  “Everyone involved died instantly,” he continued, forging on. “I was sent to take you before they called the helicopter, before your grandparents started for Albuquerque.”

  “You’re talking in past tense like it already happened,” Brooklyn said, clearly upset herself. “It didn’t.”

  He frowned as though surprised by her statement. “Time … doesn’t work like you think.” He stood and started toward us.

  In an instant, Cameron was in front of him, pain forgotten, their anger ratcheting, and I was sure the fighting would begin again. Fresh tears pushed past my lashes. I couldn’t see them fight again. I couldn’t be a witness to such brutality, such gut-wrenching violence.

  In the movies it seemed so easy. Nothing was real. Men were expected to fight, and the good guys always won. But in real life the violence was sickening, traumatizing. It made no sense. There was no black-and-white, no good-guy–bad-guy scenario, no solid line of virtue with which to keep score. There were only shades of gray. The pain was real. The blood was real. And I would rather die than see that again. I closed my lids, pushing the tears from my eyes to fall down my cheeks and drip from my chin.

  “I’m sorry, Lorelei,” Jared continued, watching me. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Cameron scoffed. “Okay, superhero, you saved her.” He leaned forward, his face mere inches from Jared’s. “So why don’t you just leave?”

  With the speed of a cobra, Jared shoved Cameron back, his stance offensive, seeming to beg him to retaliate. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? Do you think I want to be here? I don’t know what happened. I shifted and locked on to this plane, but I have no idea why.”

  Cameron had caught himself before he fell. He turned, brimming with satisfaction. Jared’s push was the invitation he’d been waiting for.

  But Glitch stepped in between them, whether on purpose or not, I didn’t know. “You mean, you can’t leave?” he asked. “Why?”

  “I would relish that answer myself.” He scowled at Cameron, then eased back onto the windowsill, clutching his ribs in pain. “Something happened after I saved you, Lorelei. Something changed.”

  “What?” Brooklyn asked, trying to coax more information from him. “What changed?”

  “This.” He lifted his hands to indicate himself, then winced. “Me. Do you know how many times I’ve bled on this plane? I don’t bleed. I don’t bruise.” He turned on Cameron. “And I certainly don’t get knocked out by a boy with a stick.”

  Cameron grinned from ear to ear in triumph as Brooklyn asked, “Then why?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, working his jaw as though angry with himself. “I broke the law.”

  After taking a steadying breath, I stood and asked softly, “What law?”

  He stared into the darkness, whispered what must be the laws of his … profession—profession being the only word I could come up with. “We cannot change history. We cannot change human will. We cannot redeem the sins of the father.”

  Brooklyn frowned in confusion. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I broke the law. I changed history. You were supposed to die. I was just supposed to tweak the timing a little.”

  Glitch exhaled loudly and asked the obvious. “Okay, besides the fact that all this is freaking me out, I have to ask, doesn’t that in itself change history?” He bent his head in thought. “I mean, either way, you would have stopped Lorelei’s grandparents from dying, right? That’s a change.”

  “Yes, that’s a change. But only humans can change history. I would not have changed history. Amanda Parks would have.”

  We all looked at him even more bewildered than before.

  Again, Glitch asked the obvious question. “Who’s Amanda Parks?”

  A grin softened Jared’s battered face. “A five-year-old from Portales, New Mexico, who prayed that her father—the guy your grandparents would have killed in the accident—would arrive home safely from his business trip.” His smile widened as though he was picturing her in his mind. “A child’s faith. There is nothing stronger on earth, I promise you.” He looked at me, seemed to want me to understand. “Because of her request, I was sent to change the circumstances of her father’s death. Thus, by association, those of your grandparents. They were directly involved in Amanda’s request. That is how their fates would have been altered. Amanda Parks would have changed history, Lorelei. Not me.”

  Though I still felt like I was trying to catch a minnow in the water only to have it slip between my fingers each time, a glimmer of understanding did seem to be taking root. There were laws, even for supernatural beings.

  “But you did,” I said with gentle resolve. “You changed history.”

  “I did.” A sudden sadness came over him. “Lorelei, you don’t know what I’ve done to you. I’m so sorry.”

  “You’ve changed history for me.”

  “No, you’re wrong.” He bowed his head as though ashamed, then said in a soft, husky voice, “I’ve changed history for me.”

  MESSENGER

  I could not hide my puzzlement. Jared had changed history, had broken one of his laws, for himself? “You act like you’ve done something bad.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said, the full outline of his mouth thinning in disappointment, “you couldn’t possibly. It’s wonderful, the place you would have gone. You cannot imagine how wonderful. And I took that away from you. I have risked everything.” He peeked at me. “I have risked your very soul.”

  Though I could hardly agree, I had to ask, “Then why?”

  “Because if you had died, I would never have seen you again. You would have gone to Heaven, a place I have not been for a very long time.”

  My heart stilled in my chest. I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. A supernatural being changed history just to see me. Me.

  Wait, he’d been to Heaven?

  The tense hostility held barely in check by Cameron broke free. He picked up his rifle. “I’d say that’s reason enough to send you back.”

  Prepared for such a reaction, Brooklyn struggled to pull a pistol from her coat pocket. Finally wresting it free, she aimed it at him. “We anticipated something idiotic like this from you.”

  Cameron turned to her in surprise—a surprise that, unfortunately, didn’t last long.

  I knew she’d brought the gun. My best friend had guts. No one could argue with that.

  She scowled at Cameron. “First you wanted to kill him because he was going to take her. Now you want to kill him because he didn’t. Bipolar much?”

  When he stepped closer, Glitch and I flanked her on either side, a warning glare in our eyes. Probably looking more comical than intimidating, I curled my hands into fists. On our best day, the three of us together might actually be able to bruise him, but what choice did we have? We had to stop hi
m. Or get horribly maimed trying.

  Cameron raised his brows at Glitch. “I’m impressed,” he said, taunting him with a smirk, “considering what you know about me.”

  I knew it. Something did happen between Cameron and Glitch. Neither of them had been the same when they came back from that camping trip our second-grade year. Curiosity burned inside me, but it would have to wait. We had bigger fish to fry, as my grandmother would say.

  Glitch lifted a shoulder. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, I hear you have problems sleeping at night.”

  “No more than you.”

  “And that whole bed-wetting thing? Tragic.”

  I had no idea Cameron could be so cruel, but Glitch didn’t waver. He stood unbending in the face of someone who could cause serious damage on his worst day.

  “Look,” Glitch said, squaring his shoulders, “are we gonna do this or what? I don’t have all night.”

  I was so proud of him. A little worried, but proud.

  Cameron raised his hands in mock surrender. “I certainly wouldn’t want to upset the Three Musketeers. Or was it the Three Blind Mice?”

  Brooklyn’s jaw dropped. “You were there?”

  He shrugged, feigning indifference.

  “You’re a jackass.”

  Cameron’s eyes glittered and he stepped closer to Brooklyn. She raised the gun farther, her hand shaking. But Glitch and I were right by her side, Glitch with his bravado and me with my fists. If she got clobbered, we all got clobbered.

  “I’ve been called worse,” he said at last, gifting Brooke with a mixture of interest and empathy.

  For the first time, I got a good look at him. He resembled Jared to a tee, scraped up, bruised, swollen. I shook my head. No way would I ever understand boys.

  “Okay,” Glitch said impatiently, “I get you, Jared. Well, not really, but as much as humanly possible at this point. But I don’t get you.” His resentment toward Cameron was obvious. “Why are you so strong? How can you fight like that? It’s not any more human than Jared, or Azrael, or whatever his name is.”

  Cameron’s attention shifted to Glitch but he didn’t respond. He retreated to his desk and parked himself upon it, rifle still in hand. And our lungs could work again, for the moment.

  Jared finally answered for him. “He is of Jophiel.”

  “He is of what?” Glitch asked.

  “Jophiel, the messenger. Cameron is Nephilim. He is only part human, placed upon the earth to protect the prophet.”

  “What prophet?” Glitch asked.

  But Cameron interrupted him, his anger simmering as though he could scorch Jared from where he stood. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “On the contrary, when we realized a female descendent of Arabeth was to be born,” he continued, ignoring the vehemence in Cameron’s voice, “we … disregarded the laws of our father. We sent a messenger to the believer Hannah Noel.”

  Cameron shot to his feet, stabbing Jared with a blistering hatred, and I realized whose name Jared had just spoken. His mother’s. Hannah Noel Lusk was Cameron’s mother.

  “But her time came before she could instruct Cameron of Jophiel in his duties. And his earthly father refused the teachings of the believers.”

  “How dare you even say her name,” Cameron said, livid with rage.

  Brooklyn raised the gun again and Cameron shot her a look of utter contempt.

  “So, who’s the prophet?” Glitch repeated, but I was too busy making connections in my head to worry about that.

  I sucked in a soft whisp of air when Jared’s meaning hit me. “Messengers? You mean like angels? Are you guys angels?”

  Jared’s brows drew together. “Cameron of Jophiel is Nephilim. But, yes, I am a messenger. I am Seraphim.”

  How did I not pick up on that in my vision? An angel? An actual angelic being? Here in Riley’s Switch, New Mexico? The realization knocked the breath out of me.

  Cameron turned away with an angry smirk, refusing to listen. But I noticed he didn’t argue. Did he know what he was? Had he always known?

  I had so many questions, I could barely decide on which one to ask first. Turning back to Jared, I decided to ask the one that was causing me the most discomfort at that particular moment. “You said you weren’t supposed to be here, that you don’t want to be,” I began, the statement causing a sharp pang in my chest. “Are you in trouble? Because of me?”

  Jared took a moment to consider my question. His jaw tightened in reluctance before he said, “I lied.”

  “You lied?” I asked, confused. “You didn’t break a law?”

  The corners of his mouth threatened to turn up. “No, I most definitely broke a law.”

  I wondered what he must think of me. Of all humans. I suddenly felt minuscule, like my small life in my small town meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Which kind of sucked.

  “Wait,” Brooklyn said, turning to me in bewilderment. “Lorelei’s the prophet.”

  “Finally,” Glitch said. “Wait, what?”

  She blinked up at Jared. “Am I right? Is she the prophet Cameron was sent to protect?”

  His head tilted knowingly. “She is.”

  “What? No,” I said, rejecting the idea outright. “That’s … that’s not possible.”

  While I stood shaking my head in disbelief, Glitch’s jaw dropped to the floor and Brooklyn laughed.

  “Yes!” she said with an exuberance I found unsettling. “Oh, my god, that totally rocks!”

  I could see her mind working a mile a minute, but she was wrong. They were all wrong.

  “Can I just call a time-out?” I asked, shaping my hands into that very signal. “Seriously, it’s a nice thought and all, but you guys have the wrong girl.” I backed away, my shoes crunching as I stepped over decades of dirt and debris. “I’m not a prophet. I will never be a prophet. I don’t even know what a prophet does. I’m sorry, but you’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Jared placed his hands behind his back. “You are the last descendent of the prophet Arabeth. The gift of prophecy is in your blood.”

  “Lor,” Brooklyn said, her excitement a tad annoying, “this is cool. You’ve always had visions—now we know why.”

  I balked in frustration. “I have visions of nonsense. They’re meaningless.”

  “But they come true.”

  “Not always.”

  “What about when Tabitha backed into Mr. Davis’s SUV?”

  I closed my eyes. “Brooklyn, do you honestly think the heavens would create a member of the Nephilim to protect a girl whose most realized prophetic vision involved a psychotic cheerleader behind the wheel of a Nissan?”

  “Well—”

  “He’s right,” Cameron said, polishing his gun with a ripped edge of his T-shirt. “You’re the prophet whether you want to be or not.” The bitter sting in his words was impossible to miss. “They make the rules, run us through their mazes, whatever they want whenever they want, and we have no choice.” His cool resentment made me shiver. “We’re pawns, Lor. Game pieces for them to play with. You may as well get used to it.”

  “Who are they? Who makes the rules?” I asked, panic threatening to overtake me.

  With an index finger, he offered one, solitary explanation. I followed his finger up and looked toward the heavens, his meaning so clear, so powerful.

  I didn’t know what to say. For some reason, coming from Cameron, it sounded more believable, and yet surely God would never have placed such a gift in my bumbling hands. Surely there was someone more qualified. “I just—” I backed to the far wall. “—I just don’t feel very prophet-able.”

  Jared’s expression was one of sympathy when he continued. “I should explain. But first, let me ask, have you studied the witch trials in history?”

  I tilted my head and nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything.

  He backed to the wall opposite me and leaned against it, watching me with a stony curiosity. “
Long before the most notorious period of witch hunts, twelve centuries before the year of our lord, during the dawn of the age of iron, there was a woman named Arabeth who lived in a small village in Europe.”

  Stuffing my hands in my coat pockets, I leaned against the wall and listened. Brooklyn sat on the crate and Glitch stood beside her, suddenly very interested in what Jared had to say.

  “She had visions like you, a gift that risked her life, but her parents protected her, kept her visions a secret. She grew up, married, and had children of her own. Then one day, she had a vision she could not deny. The water from the main well in the village had been tainted, and she knew if people drank it, an illness of epidemic proportions would spread throughout the countryside. She ran to the well and tried to warn the villagers. But no one listened, naturally.”

  I didn’t like where Jared’s story was going. Of all the history I had to learn in school, women and men being executed for witchcraft was among the hardest for me to wrap my head around. I recoiled every time I thought about the injustice, the stark brutality one human could visit upon another in the name of religion.

  “When people began dying, their families panicked and blamed Arabeth. Even her own husband accused her of being unclean. And in the maelstrom of fear and superstition, she was dragged from her home and executed on the streets of her village. They claimed she cast spells and raised the dead, a misconception of the disease.”

  I sank inside myself and shook my head, reluctant to hear any more.

  “By that time, Arabeth’s husband knew that his three daughters also had the gift. He took them to Arabeth’s parents, threw them into the couple’s yard, and made his in-laws a promise: If they were still there at dawn, he would kill them all.

  “Left with little choice, they took their granddaughters and fled into the night. Your ancestor, Lorelei McAlister, was the first woman in human history ever to be burned as a witch.”