by P. C. Cast
He stared around him, trying to clear his thoughts. Okay, maybe he should just start going from body to body and calling her name.
No. That felt wrong, and he didn’t have time to waste searching aimlessly. Think! Use some of that fucking wisdom both girls believe you have! He stared around him. What a colorless, hopeless place. There was not one green thing—not one bit of sunlight or blue sky or even the familiar brown of a winter-nude tree.
Wait, he thought. I might have something. Aubrey has color! Her spirit, even though it’s trapped here and being drained, has enough color left in it to leave a trail for me.
He didn’t need to search the pathetic, colorless people who had utterly given up and had no more light about them at all. He just needed to search for light—any light.
Raef shifted his attention from the horrible, fused figures and began drifting. As he did he searched, sweeping his gaze back and forth, peering through fog and darkness, until off to his right a slight flicker of something like a candle caught in a great wind pulled at the edge of his sight. Raef redirected himself until he was hovering over the spot he was sure he’d seen the glimmer of color.
The damned fog was everywhere and he made himself drop down, closer to the ground itself. When he got lower the fog parted and the land beneath him fell away, leaving Raef staring down at a huge pit that was filled with a sewerlike, vitreous liquid that roiled and churned. With a shudder of disgust, Raef saw that people were bobbing around in the liquid, frantically trying to stay afloat. The people appeared to be as colorless as the bodies fused to the land, but as he watched, light fluttered across the face of one of the swimmers—right before she was engulfed in a wave and her head went under—only to reappear with a gasp and a terrible scream of agony a moment later.
It was the voice he recognized before he recognized her pale, terrified face.
“Lauren!” he shouted, commanding himself to go even lower—to go down to her.
“Raef! He’s here! He—” Lauren’s head went under again.
“Hang on! I’m coming!” Raef reached into the oil-slick water, feeling through the cold, dark liquid for her, but his search was suddenly stopped as something hard caught him in his gut and hurled him into the air and away from the pit.
He gasped with shock as pain lashed through him, blurring his vision. Raef blinked hard. When his focus finally came back he was looking down at a creature that was circling the top lip of the pit. Lizardlike, its body stretched all the way around the circumference of the pit. It had multiple tails that whipped in agitation at Raef. It opened its fang-lined maw to hiss at him—a sound that made the fluid in the pit churn even more crazily and had the swimmers, whose lights were now barely visible, crying out and struggling even harder to stay afloat.
“Stop!” Raef shouted at the creature. “You’ll drown them all!”
The lizard thing opened its horrible mouth again and familiar laughter drifted across the liquid pit and up to Raef. “Yessss,” it hissed. “I will drown them, but slowly, after I have bled everything I can from them. Are you here to join them? Your scarlet light will make a nice addition to my collection.”
Raef met the creature’s dark eyes—eyes Raef recognized as easily as he had the laughter and the voice.
Raef looked from the Braggs creature to the pit, and saw Lauren’s head go under again. The sight worked like a goad on him and his answer rang clear and strong through the sounds of misery around him. “I didn’t come to join them, but I’ll take their place. You can have me and my light, just let the twins go.”
“No, Raef!” Lauren shouted. The Braggs creature reached into the pit and swirled the liquid with a claw, and Lauren’s head was engulfed in another oily wave.
“Look!” Raef felt foolish, but he waved his arms like he was trying to flag the attention of a charging bull. “You don’t want her. She’s almost used up. I’m not.”
The Braggs creature paused, drawing his claw from the liquid. His dark eyes met Raef’s gaze. Hatred, Raef thought. I don’t need my Gift to know that Braggs is hatred become tangible.
Braggs’s soulless laughter drifted around him again. “No,” he said. “I will not trade with you. Between us there is that little matter of the fact that you killed my body. That will be inconvenient for me until I can find another to take its place.”
I need my fucking Glock right now, Raef thought.
“And if I remember correctly, back in the mortal realm your body is very busy dying. Soon you will be just another lost soul here. Who knows, you might accidentally stumble into my pit.”
“Hey, it doesn’t have to be like this. Maybe we can make a deal.” Even though he felt like he was grasping at straws, Raef spoke quickly. At least while he talked Braggs was more focused on him than on pushing under the heads in the pit and slowly, slowly, while he spoke, Raef drifted closer and closer to Lauren. “You say you need a new body. Take mine. I’ll trade it for the twins.”
Braggs’s laughter was a hiss. “No, your body is dying.”
“I’m tougher than you think. Afghanistan couldn’t kill me. I’ll bet you didn’t, either. That Glock makes one hell of a roar. Paramedics are probably on their way to TU right now.”
“Perhaps. We could wait and see. If you drop to the land—you have died. If not—maybe you’ll live. Maybe we’ll trade then.”
“No, Kent!” Aubrey’s voice was weak. He could see that her mouth was barely above the churning liquid. “You can’t trade with him! He’ll cheat you. You have to beat him. Remember what I taught you! That’s all you need to—”
Braggs snarled, and one of his tails snaked out and forced Aubrey’s head under the liquid. Raef wanted to go to her—wanted to kick Braggs’s ass and pull her and Lauren out of there—but Braggs was so fucking big that he covered the entire lip of the pit. Raef glanced down at himself, hoping for just an instant that he might have materialized in this realm as something other than his all too human, and all too vulnerable, body.
Sadly, he had not been turned into a knight in shining armor. He was just himself, albeit a less substantial version of himself.
The creature of hatred continued to circle the pit, watching him warily, tails writhing, jaws snapping. “Why not come even closer? Let’s fight for the twins.”
Raef wanted to—he wanted to so damn bad! But he wasn’t an utter moron. Until he’d brought out the Glock, Braggs had been beating him. Actually, Braggs had probably killed him.
“Fight for the twins? If I’m gonna come down there to kick your scaly ass, I want more than just two women if I win.” Raef stalled as Braggs taunted him, hissing insults while his tentacled tail tortured the struggling souls in the pit.
Think! Raef ordered himself again. Listen to Aubrey! Remember what she taught me.
What the hell had she taught him? She’d made him feel. She’d taught him that instead of holding on to suspicion and negativity, he could feel joy and laughter. She’d reminded him that there was pleasure to be had in life.
She’d taught him to have hope.
Hope was exactly what was missing in the Land of the Dead!
As the understanding came to him, Raef felt the truth of it swell within him—and joy and laughter, happiness and pleasure and hope filled his floating spirit, warming him like a hearth fire.
“What are you doing?” Braggs snarled. He’d turned all of his attention from the pit to Raef.
Raef
looked down at himself and blinked in amazement at what he saw. From the middle of his chest light glowed scarlet and orange, yellow and white, like an otherworldly flame. “I—I don’t know. My Gift’s not supposed to work here.”
He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud until Aubrey, obviously using the last reserves of her strength, shouted up at him. “It’s not your Gift—it’s you. It’s who you really are, so you brought it with you.”
“Silence, bitch! It is time for you to cease to exist!” Braggs pressed a clawed foot against Aubrey’s head, holding her under the liquid.
“No, Braggs. It’s time for you to cease to exist!” Acting on instinct Raef reached within himself and found the Gift that was truly his—the joy and pleasure and hope that Aubrey had awakened in his life. And, like he was the starting shortstop back in middle school—back when he’d been an unlikely hero for anyone who was weaker than himself—Raef threw the ball of luminous emotions directly into Braggs’s face.
Blinded, the creature shrieked and began lunging and snapping and biting so violently that it attacked itself—tearing huge hunks from his own flesh, which seemed to goad him on, making Braggs writhe and shriek and bite himself even more desperately.
With no hesitation, Raef rushed down, slipping past the creature that, blinded by hope, was destroying itself. He found Lauren first and held out his hand to her. “Grab my hand!” he shouted over Braggs’s panicked roars.
Lauren grasped his hand, but as he began pulling her up she shook her head and resisted. “No, I won’t go without Aubrey.”
“I’ll come back for her. I’ll come back for as many as I can,” he said.
“No. I’m not leaving without her—not without the rest of them.”
“Lauren, we don’t have time for this. I don’t know what the hell is happening back in Tulsa with my body. You’re alive. You’re the only one here who I am one hundred percent sure is alive.”
“If you believe that, we’re all doomed,” Lauren said.
“Damn it! I’m just being logical. I can’t pull you all out. No damn way I’m strong enough. I’m gonna lose everyone that way. I have to—” His words cut off as Raef realized what he was doing. It wasn’t force or logic that had blinded Braggs and caused the creature to turn on itself. It was hope and joy, pleasure and laughter. He met Lauren’s eyes and smiled. “You’re right, girl. We’re all going home today. Find her. I know you can do it, and I’ve got you until you do.”
Lauren’s smile was almost as brilliant as the beam of light that shot through Raef’s body, sizzling with heat and hope, speeding down into Lauren, lifting her as it lifted Raef. As Lauren’s body slid from the slimy pit, the ray of light extended down and Raef watched as a hand reached from under the surface, grabbing on to it. Aubrey’s head broke the surface. She gasped and coughed, but she held tight to the ribbon of light, which passed through her and snagged another fading swimmer—a teenager. Lifting, Raef saw another swimmer grab the life light, and another and another until he had all of them free of the pit and of the creature of hatred as it completely self-destructed.
Raef’s ribbon of light whipped up and up, carrying a whole trail of spirits, bright and glistening, all with colors of their own. Laughter filled the air, along with luminous light as the spirits Raef had freed floated around him, causing the bleak sky over the Land of the Dead to shimmer and shine, rainbowlike. And then, with a bright flash, each of the spirits began spinning off, reminding Raef of shooting stars, until he was left there hovering with Lauren and Aubrey.
“You did it!” Lauren cried. She was still holding tight to his hand, which she lifted to her lips, kissing his palm softly. “Thank you, Raef. Thank you so much.”
He started to respond. To tell Lauren that she’d had a whole hell of a lot to do with the saving part, but before he could speak her eyes widened in surprise, then she gasped and disappeared.
“Lauren? What the hell?”
“She’s not dead, Kent,” Aubrey said, drifting to him. “She went back to the mortal realm, back to her body.” She smiled, and even though joy sparkled like champagne all around her, tears filled and then spilled over her eyes. “You’ll go back soon, too.”
“I don’t want to go back.” He reached for her. “Not without you.”
Aubrey wrapped her arms around him. “I wish I’d met you before,” she whispered to him.
“I can feel you,” he said, holding tightly to her.
“It’s our souls. They know each other. Maybe they always will.” Aubrey kissed him then and Raef’s spirit trembled at her touch. “I never doubted that you would save us,” Aubrey said against his lips. “Never.”
“I didn’t save you—you saved me. Because of you I learned to laugh again. To feel again. To hope again. Without you I wouldn’t have been able to—”
Raef didn’t get to finish. He didn’t even get to say goodbye. His words were cut off as pain sliced through him and his spirit was ripped from Aubrey’s arms, returning to his body with a terrible jolt of agony.
“That’s it! We got him back! Hang in there, man, we’re almost at St. John’s.”
Raef blinked up at the EMT who was putting the paddles back in the slots on the crash cart. There were tubes in his nose and arms and he felt like his chest was on fire.
“Aubrey,” Raef tried to shout, but the name was barely audible. The EMT bent over him, putting pressure on his chest wound, and Raef repeated weakly, “Aubrey.”
“She’s fine. Just shaken up and a little shocky. The cops are bringing her in behind us.”
“No,” Raef whispered. “She’s dead.” Then he closed his eyes and the world went black.
* * *
RAEF CAME TO SLOWLY. At first he didn’t know where he was, and his immediate thought was that he was really going to have to lay off the single malt. He was getting too damn old for two hangovers in as many days. He felt like utter hell. Shit, his chest hurt! Not even eighteen-year-old Macallan was worth this. He must have had more to drink than he’d had that night he’d gotten so shitfaced that he’d forgotten Aubrey was dead and…
Aubrey. His eyes opened as his thoughts caught up to her name and he remembered. I’m not dead, but she is.
He must have made some kind of noise because Lauren lifted her head from where she’d been resting it on the side of his hospital bed. “You’re awake! Finally,” she said with relief.
He tried to smile. “Are you okay?” His voice sounded gruff and his throat hurt like hell, but at least he didn’t sound all whispery and weak.
“Yeah, we are.” Lauren was much more successful with her smile. She beamed joy at him, and Raef could almost see it glistening in the air around her.
Which was bullshit. Raef couldn’t feel positive emotions, or at least he couldn’t feel them anymore. That ability had died with a dead girl.
The thought of Aubrey, and all that he’d lost with her, made his heart hurt like hell. Raef turned his head. He couldn’t look at Lauren just then. Honestly, he might not ever be able to look at her again.
“Hey,” Lauren said softly, touching his cheek familiarly and gently guiding his head toward her. “Kent, please don’t turn away from me.”
“Don’t call me that.” He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He really did like Lauren, really did care about her, but there was no damn way he was going to be able to handle her calling him Kent.
“Why not? I always have,” she said.
“Yeah, well, we decided when we joined that we liked you as Kent best. So it’s Kent you’re going to be from now on,” she said.
Raef blinked at her, utterly confused. “Pain meds. That has to be what’s going on. You aren’t making one damn bit of sense.”
Lauren smiled into his eyes. “You are on pain meds, but that’s not what’s going on. What’s going on is that we’re both here—Lauren and Aubrey—together, forever.”
Raef felt a rush of hope that he tried to squelch. “No, that’s not possible. It can’t be.”
“Why not? We were never whole without each other. It only makes sense that we share one body since it seems like we share one soul.”
“Aubrey?”
“Absolutely. And Lauren.”
Raef looked into her shining blue eyes and saw her there—saw both of them there, and then he felt. An emotion flooded through his body that was so intense—so incredible—that he suddenly found it hard to catch his breath.
“What’s wrong?” She was on her feet, reaching for the nurse’s call button, when Raef intercepted her hand.
“It’s not bad,” he assured her. “It’s just a feeling like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
His soul mate let out a long breath of relief and gently cupped his face in her hands. Before she kissed him she whispered, “That’s the one last feeling I had to teach you, Kent—love....”
* * * * *
To she-just-gets-hotter P.C. Cast—aka Miss P. C. Snowater-Cole—for the phone calls, the emails and the laughs. I had so much fun playing in your sandbox! And of course, I love you!