Resurrection Road

by Hannah Marae

  Eden waited for a beat, then turned, storming across the room to grab her bags.

  “Wait a minute.” Zeke pushed to his feet. “This isn’t what—” He reached out to stop her, but the mage evaded his grasp, stomping to the door with her bags in tow. She threw it open and stepped into the night, slamming the door shut behind her.

  “Shit.” Zeke took a step back. “That was . . . shit.”

  “Yeah. . . .” Lazarus stood there, his heart racing and breath coming in gulps, wondering what the hell had just happened. As if in slow motion, he stepped back and sat on the edge of the bed. Hades curled up to him with a sad whine. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Probably not.” They were both quiet for a long time, the silent moments bleeding into minutes. “But it was a bit of a shock. I don’t think any of us expected to find Mab there, of all fucking places.”

  “You told her what happened to my—” Lazarus stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, even after all these years. “What happened. She knows how the Good Night works. How pointless it is to—”

  “If you were her, would you just give up without a fight? Without at least seeing it with your own eyes?”

  “No,” Lazarus admitted. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Well, there you go.” Zeke stood. “I’m gonna take a shower. I’ll call her after she’s had time to cool down.”

  He stood, crossing the room to shut himself in the bathroom. A moment later, the water started running. Lazarus sat on the bed, gripping the blankets tightly in his fist. Fuck. Zeke was right. Eden was right. If he’d lost someone he loved, Lazarus would never stop searching. The only thing that was final was death. Everything else, even Purgatory, was a loophole.

  With a curse, Lazarus pushed to his feet. He went for the door, hoping—praying—to throw it open and come face-to-face with that familiar pink light glowing in the night. It wasn’t too late. He could still fix this. He could find a way to bring her back.

  Lazarus paused as his fingers brushed the doorknob. He took a breath, eased it open. Slowly. But there was no pink light, no Eden. The only thing to greet him was darkness.

  She was floating down the path with her eyes closed.

  One foot in front of the other.

  With Pyke at her side, Mab walked.

  She opened her eyes. They were supposed to be patrolling. Whatever that meant. There was nothing here but spirits, souls tethered not to flesh but to this place—this dimension. Mab breathed in deeply, tilting her head to admire the mess of stars scattered across the black void.

  She could sense Pyke’s eyes on her as they walked. “What?” She whirled, drawing up her hands to settle on her hips.

  The reaper arched a black brow, lips quirking in amusement. His brown eyes turned back to the path as he said, “You’re becoming at home here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She followed Pyke as he walked deeper into the forest.

  He sighed. “It means your soul is learning to accept this place. You are finding peace.”

  “Ew.” Mab rolled her eyes. “That sounds terrible. How do I stop it?”

  “What makes you think you can?”

  Groaning, Mab shoved her hands in her pockets. “I hate it here. I—”

  A strange feeling welled up inside her, the tightness of anxiety squeezing her chest. Mab faltered, felt driven to ground, the rough cobbles biting into her knees. Clawing at her shirt’s collar, Mab pulled it back to reveal her connection sigil burned red.

  “What’s happening?” she spoke through a clenched jaw, a sob breaking through her teeth as the dam broke and wave after wave crashed through her. Sorrow. Fear.

  Betrayal.

  Mab squeezed her eyes closed, ignoring the cold tears that leaked out from the corners of her eyes. Her arms were wrapped around her, and she rocked slowly, opening her eyes as she sensed Pyke kneel down before her. A warm hand pressed to her shoulder.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  His eyes flashed with a spark that quickly faded. The tightness in her chest loosened, the waves of sorrow puddling and then seeping from her like a sieve. A moment later, Mab felt like nothing had happened at all.

  Grabbing the reaper’s proffered hand, Mab climbed to her feet. “What the hell was that? My sigil felt like it was on fire.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Your sigil isn’t here. It’s with your body. This”—he gestured at her—“is just a manifestation of your soul. There is no magic in Purgatory.” His lips quirked. “Not yours, anyway.”

  “Okay, first of all, weird.” Mab shuddered. “And second, if I don’t have magic why’d the sigil go crazy?”

  He shrugged, helping her to a patch of grass running alongside the path. Mab sat down, and Pyke sat beside her. “Because it wasn’t your magic?” he offered.

  “Eden,” she realized. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Mab hoped to God that she’d listened. Seeing her here, in the Good Night, had thrown Mab off her guard. She let Josephine’s name slip. What if Eden had gone after her? What if she’d fallen into the same trap?

  “You can’t change it,” Pyke said as if reading her thoughts. “Not from here.”

  ——

  “What’s your favorite thing about the real world?” Mab asked.

  She and Pyke lay side by side, their backs on the cold grass. Through the canopy of gray trees, Mab watched the multitude of stars twinkle in the black night. There were so many of them forming constellations she couldn’t begin to decipher. Pointing, she’d trace a symbol with her fingers, and Pyke would tell her what it meant. Memory. Vitality. Time. The constellations here weren’t figures of myth but forces of reality. Of life.

  Mab had never felt less alive. It was an oddly peaceful feeling, the complacency. She knew it was the Good Night tightening its grip on her, but the knowledge felt distant. What if she just stayed there and drifted into the dream? It couldn’t be worse than before.

  “There is no real world,” Pyke replied. “It’s all real. Above. Below. They’re just different layers of reality.”

  “You know what I meant, Pyke. What’s your favorite thing about the human world?”

  Stretching his arms behind his head, he seemed to think about the question. For hours, he had shared with Mab stories of his exploits in her world. The souls he’d ferried, the ones he’d kept watch on. The ones he had lost. Unlike the other reapers, Pyke liked to linger, ingratiating himself with humanity like a celestial tourist.

  “Coca-Cola,” Pyke answered. “And cigarettes.”

  Mab cracked a smile. “Seriously?”

  He went quiet. “What I like most is you. All of you. Humanity. Your time is so fleeting, just a single grain in the silver desert. And yet you fill it with so much.”

  “Stop, I’m crying,” she said. “Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about someone specific? Someone . . . special?” Mab grinned. She tried to imagine Pyke in love. It was weird.

  “Because you’re a very astute soul?” he replied. Then he sighed. “There was someone. For a time.”

  “What happened to them?”

  He turned to meet her gaze. “The same thing that happens to every human, Mab. She died.”

  Time passed. How much time, Mab had no idea. It felt like moments, mere trickles of sand in the desert of the universe. At the same time, she felt heavy and sore, like she had spent eternity in this place and the ground beneath her was reaching beneath her skin and taking root.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate having someone to talk to”—Mab rolled over onto her belly, idly picking at the gray grass—“but shouldn’t you be out there, I don’t know, reaping?”

  Pyke shrugged, still lying on his back, eyes fixed on the sky. He’d been quiet since his revelation. Pensive. “I’m waiting for someone. My partner. In the meantime, your world offers much to be explored.”

  “Like cigarettes and Coca-Cola?” Mab joked.

  “Exactly.”

  She rolled back over,
beginning to feel restless. More anchored. “Won’t you get in trouble? For not doing your job, I mean.”

  “I have nowhere to be,” Pyke replied. “Not unless I am called.”

  “By who?”

  He shrugged. “The one upstairs. The one downstairs. A human. Makes no difference.”

  “A human can call on a reaper?”

  Tilting his head to face her, Pyke raised a brow. “Why do you think I have a name? Speak it, and I will hear you. Whether I want to or not.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.”

  He went quiet. When Mab turned to face him, she saw Pyke looking at her sadly. “You won’t have to, Mab. There is nothing for you out there anymore. The only thing left is this.”

  Come morning, Lazarus was chomping at the bit to get out of town.

  Zeke had been up most of the night waiting for Eden to return. Lazarus was the same way. The two of them spent the twilight hours sullen and quiet without even the television to break the silence. Zeke kept expecting to hear the door creep open. All they needed was a bit of distance to cool off, then they could all come back together like nothing happened. But it didn’t work out that way.

  They were out the door before the sun had fully risen, Lazarus striding purposefully toward the truck with Zeke lagging reluctantly behind. Laz had clearly written Eden off; their agreement had come to an end, after all. She was no longer their client. No longer their responsibility. When Lazarus said she would have to move forward alone, he meant it.

  Obviously, Zeke was hurt that Eden kept this from them. They both were. Mab was in the Good Night, and Eden knew it, if only for a little while. There was plenty of time to spill the beans. At least she hadn’t willingly led them into Laurent’s lair. The fact that she was a blood mage was news to them all.

  Last night was a mess. He couldn’t stop playing it over in his mind, trying to assign the blame as if that would make him feel better. But there was no good way around it.

  It was easy to blame Eden, but Zeke couldn’t ignore his own missteps. He should never have told her about Laz’s brush with the Good Night. About who got him out. Not only was it not his story to tell, but he had also, inadvertently, given Eden hope. False hope, that was. Because Laz was right, even if he had made a mess of the telling. The only way to get Mab out of Purgatory was to find a reaper and make a switch. But no one knew how to summon death, and they didn’t have a soul to trade. They were stuck.

  They headed north. If there was a destination in mind, Lazarus wasn’t sharing it. Zeke got the feeling his cousin just needed to get away, to put some distance between himself and the threat of the Good Night.

  An hour out of Booker, they stopped at a roadside cafe. They went inside, found a booth, and waited. For what, Zeke couldn’t say. It was obvious Eden wasn’t going to call, despite all the messages he’d left. Hell, she was at least half as stubborn as Lazarus, and that was saying something. Across the booth, Lazarus checked his phone diligently, peeking at his messages between searching the forums for jobs. If Zeke didn’t know any better, he’d think Laz was keen to hear from her as well.

  Maybe if they were lucky, they’d see Eden again back in Nowhere, California. Then Lazarus could make good on his promise to fix her car.

  They were still there, two hours later. Zeke drained the lukewarm dregs of his mocha and scratched at the wound on his arm. Across the booth, Lazarus’s eyes were glued to his phone as he combed through message boards and obscure news sites. Outside, heavy rain fell, and Hades sat, forlorn, in the truck’s cab.

  “Can I get you anything else?” The waitress swept up, her pen poised hopefully over her notepad. This wasn’t Nowhere. Instead of a pleasantly blank expression, she regarded them with no small measure of annoyance, sighing audibly when Zeke shook his head.

  “Actually,” he said as she turned to leave, “can I get another mocha?”

  Sucking in a breath, the waitress started to roll her eyes but caught herself. “Coming right up.”

  After she left, Zeke pulled his phone from his pocket and eagerly checked for notifications. Nothing. His fingers hovered over the keypad, but what was there to say? He’d already tried everything. Maybe Laz was right. Maybe they’d all be better off pretending the past week had never happened.

  “We should head out.” Laz broke the silence that had followed them most of the morning. “I want to give Ignatius a call, see if he’s got any jobs around here.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Staying busy made sense. So did staying nearby, just in case. “Be right back.” Zeke stood and walked to the other side of the diner.

  He let himself into the single-stall restroom, relieving himself and then washing his hands. Lingering in front of the mirror, Zeke slipped out of his jacket. He pushed up the sleeve of his T-shirt and carefully unwrapped the bandage that wound around his bicep.

  The slice was shallower than before, the angry red fading to the pink of new scar tissue. Carefully, Zeke pulled out the stitches. The wound was nearly healed. Apparently, he had gotten lucky in more ways than one.

  Zeke tossed the bandage into the trash and slipped his coat back on. Back at the table, he was pleased to see a fresh mocha waited for him. He could really use the caffeine. For some reason, his head was killing him.

  Eden opened the door to her room and stepped inside.

  It was late afternoon, and the sun was blazing. But the room was dark, the curtains still closed and the lights flicked off. She stepped past the bed, tossing her bag on top of the tangled sheets. Eden placed an energy drink on the tiny table that served as a dining area. It was the same type that Zeke always guzzled, an electric green can that was strangely textured, emblazoned with a vibrant logo. Arranging the can just so, she stepped back to sit on the edge of the bed.

  She always knew it would end. They were each following a path, and while they might dance around each other and converge for a time, it couldn’t last. It never lasted. Not for her. Lazarus and Zeke. Mab. Whatever came before. Everything would be gone, and Eden would be alone. Always.

  Last night she’d left the room knowing she was approaching an ending. She could feel the weight of it pressing on all sides, the choking inevitability that seemed nothing short of destiny. Maybe that was why she kept it from them—the Good Night. Eden knew the moment those words left her lips the ending would be upon them. And maybe, despite all her reservations, she didn’t want that to happen.

  Maybe it didn’t matter what she wanted.

  Her bag buzzed. Eden pulled it over and dug through the sigil-bearing receipts and lipstick tubes to find her phone. Flicking on the screen, she saw another text from Zeke. She hadn’t read them, though she figured there must be a dozen by now. At first, he’d tried calling, leaving voicemails that went unheard as Eden lay in bed staring at the screen. There was nothing from Lazarus. She didn’t understand if that made her sad or strangely relieved. A small part of her wanted to see his name light up her screen even if she couldn’t bring herself to answer. At least then she could imagine he cared.

  But, in the end, she was glad he wasn’t here for this part.

  She stood, walked to the small bathroom, and shut herself inside. Flicking on the lights, Eden climbed into the empty tub and lay down. From her pocket, she withdrew the old compact she’d filched from Ignatius. He hadn’t noticed when she replaced it with her own. How could he? Eden had carefully marked it with an illusion sigil. Ignatius wouldn’t realize until he sat there holding the mirror above an open grave, wondering why the spirit wasn’t coming out. Just another person she’d managed to screw over.

  But it was too late for regrets, she told herself. Too late for anything but goodbye.

  Eden opened the compact and pressed her fingertips against the clouded glass.

  In a blink, she was there, surrounded by the pervasive darkness, the cold settling against her bare arms. The Good Night. Eden climbed to her feet and brushed dead leaves off her jeans. Spinning in a slow circle, she looked around.


  Eden could sense the strangeness of this place. She felt lighter, somehow, untethered like if she wasn’t careful, she would float away. Looking around, she noticed the world seemed to waver, blurring at the edges before becoming painfully sharp. Details moving in and out of focus.

  “None of this is real,” Eden murmured as she picked her way through the trees, fingers reaching to brush against color-drained trunks and blackened leaves. She knew her body still rested in the dingy motel bathtub. Only her soul passed through the veil to Mab’s version of Purgatory.

  She wondered what was inside Mab that made the Good Night appear this way. Did it mean something to her, a place from her past, or some symbol come to life? What had Lazarus seen when he’d walked this realm?

  As she broke through the trees and onto the path, Eden scanned the area for her friend. Last time, she had found Mab as soon as she had arrived, somehow appearing right where she needed to be. But now there was nothing but an empty road and a sky full of stars.

  Eden walked, and fear gripped her tighter with each step. She realized now that she had no idea how to get out of this place. The first time, in the church’s basement, ended when Lazarus trapped the spirit in a mirror. The most recent vision seemed to finish on its own, and Eden didn’t know anything beyond waking up with Lazarus’s arms around her. What if he had done something to remove her from this state? Maybe he’d lifted her fingers from the compact or jarred her soul back into her body. What if, without someone out there, she was trapped here forever?

  What if all of this was for nothing?

  But then she saw her, laying in the sparse grass at the edge of the path. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror, the way Mab lay there with her hands folded over her chest, eyes pressed closed and head askew, just like she’d been in Josephine’s vault.

  “Mab?” Eden crept closer, sinking to her knees beside the still form. “Mab?” Gingerly, she reached out and put a hand to her shoulder, just like she had done a thousand times before. All those late nights stumbling into motel rooms or just sleeping in the car before hitting the road at dawn. It was the two of them against the world. Against whatever it was that lay behind.