Gus just laughed. “This is the bad part of town.”
“I haven’t seen a good part yet,” I smarted off.
Chester smiled and quickly tugged my leash tight. The lightning burned the back of my neck with a sickening fizzing sound. “I’m starting to think you don’t like me, Chester—a fact that hurts my feelings.”
He stopped and tilted his head. “You’re the strangest floater I’ve ever seen. Most are like her.” He jutted his chin toward Pam, who swiped the snot on her face with the heel of her palm.
“You’d prefer a hot mess over joyfully complacent?”
His nose wrinkled. “No, I guess not. Come on. We ain’t got all day.”
There was no sun. Maybe it was already night in this place. How would you be able to tell? Did time even matter? A minute could have passed on Earth, or maybe a week, a year.
Chester stiffened. “Crossing the boundary with two will be interesting.”
“I’ve never done it,” said Gus, his tone serious.
“Me either,” replied Chester.
“I thought you said you’d caught two floaters before, but it had been a while?” The men shrugged at me in turn. Liars. Lying bastards. They’d never caught two at once. Not that this was real…but, still. How hard could passing a boundary be? Don’t mind us, we’re just out for a stroll across the boundary.
“So, you gonna tell us what the boundary is and how it’ll affect us?”
Pamela made a high-pitched shrieking noise from her throat. “Are we going to die?” she wailed.
I snorted. “Pretty sure we’re already mostly dead.”
“I died in a car wreck! It wasn’t even my fault. You? You’re some psycho. You look like you’ve been in a horror movie. What did you do? Slit your wrists? Take a hand full of pills?”
Checking my wrists to make sure, I saw there were no marks. I narrowed my eyes at her, grinding to a stop, which made Gus stop. Chester and Pam did, too. “I’m the only one here on your side, lady,” I retorted. “I may be handling this situation differently than you, but I’m waist deep in this shit regardless.”
She inhaled some more hiccups. “Y-you act like this is a joke, but this is really happening! It’s not a dream.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve pinched myself. I have real tears. I can’t get relief from this heavy stone of dread that’s crushing my chest. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel the gray, the evil, seeping into your soul?”
“Is that what we are?” I snapped. “Because souls don’t cry! Souls don’t have hair or skin that burns! They’re like ghosts, and, though they may float, they don’t get dragged with lightning leashes!”
She shook her head, stumbling over a manhole cover. “I didn’t think so either, but it’s like we changed somehow. We were in the hospital, in our bodies, and then we weren’t, and then we were taken and brought here...”
Pam prattled on in nonsensical rabbit trails, earning a few sharp tugs from Chester. I pretended to listen. This nightmare had to be close to over.
Caws echoed between the abandoned buildings as a murder of crows swirled overhead. “Where did all of those come from?” I said to myself.
“They won’t hurt ya, but this complicates things. The Keeper’s near,” Gus muttered. “If we hurry, we can rush through the gates.”
“The Keeper?”
“Yeah. The Keeper of Crows.”
That explained everything. Not.
Chester and Gus slowed their steps and reeled us in close as they looked around at the rooftops and in the alleys. Their eyes scanned the windows of the apartment complexes, darting from one place to the next. Pamela was shaking all over.
“What are you looking for?” she said in a low voice.
“A thorn in our sides.”
“Great. The Keeper and his crows. Fun times,” I added sarcastically. “Now, if you could just wake me up now and send me back to reality, I would really appreciate it.”
Pam nodded like a bobble-head doll on crack. “Yeah. Send us back. Won’t it anger the ‘Keeper’ if you cross the border with us?” Her finger quotations were too much.
Chester sneered, searching for the thorn in his side who kept the crows. “It’s a boundary, not a border,” he corrected, and then added, “The Keeper’s days are numbered here. I’m not worried ‘bout the likes of him. A payday like this is worth the chance. Two floaters. How’d we luck out on that?”
“Maybe the Keeper likes it here. Maybe he’s like, the Bird Man of Purgatory. I’d be reluctant to give up such an illustrious title,” I defended, as I pictured an old man in an overcoat, hobbling along with a cane and a bag of bread, a trail of crows in his wake. I felt sorry for him. Especially if guys like Gus and Chester were mean to him.
A shimmer ahead revealed a previously unseen stone wall with an iron gate, at least two stories high and reminiscent of medieval times. If my high school English teacher was right, it was called a portcullis.
Pamela began to hyperventilate, her squeaks rising in pitch with each breath. “Where? How?” she asked incredulously.
“Raise the gate. We have two,” Gus said in a low voice. Would they even hear him? My question was answered when the metal gate began to rise, its spiked bottom revealed and lifted high. The crows began to caw loudly, swooping down at our heads, and Pam and I reflexively raised our arms to guard ourselves. Death by crow. That would be a tragedy, even in a nightmare. A flurry of dark feathers swirled through the churning air. Maybe that was why they called them a murder...and not a gaggle, or a flock.
A tug on my leash told me to move. Chester wasted no time getting inside the wall, and Gus and Pamela were fast on our heels. But we were met with another wall; the second taller, thicker, and stronger than the first.
“This is The Killing Field. Watch yourself,” warned Gus, his body taut, eyes focused on the tops of the wall.
“Killing F-Field?” Pam stuttered.
Thirty feet away was a gate that mirrored the one we just walked through. Was this some sort of joke? Like a McDonald’s located on a corner adjacent to another McDonald’s? Would a scary clown jump out from the shadows next?
The gray sky grew angry and bottom-heavy clouds swirled overhead. “Can it rain here?” I asked idly.
Pamela’s mouth gaped open. “We’re in something called ‘The Killing Field’ and you’re wondering about the weather? What is wrong with you?”
She certainly was a scolder. A crybaby, too. Gus and Chester ignored us, easing step by step toward the next gate.
“Open up,” Gus requested.
For a moment, there was nothing, and then the ground shook beneath our feet.
“Earthquake!” Pamela screamed, dropping to her knees and bracing herself against the soil. I stood, watching everything unfold. More feathers rained down in a macabre, yet beautiful torrent. The wind swirled. If I had hair, it would have whipped in all directions.
Gus and Chester looked like they were about to piss themselves. “Open the doorway!” Chester hollered. The gate did not rise. He ran toward it, hauling me along with him, singing my neck with each long pump of his arm. “Damn it all to hell! Open this bloody thing now! The Keeper is coming.”
“He’s already here. We cannot open it for you and we cannot help you,” came a deep and ominous voice. “The Keeper has sealed the gate.”
Chester’s jowls began to quiver. “No, not like this. I can’t go like this.” He whipped around and his eyes went wide at something behind me. I expected to see something enormous, skeletal, and wrapped in black, or maybe not skeletal at all; maybe a monster whose skin oozed with pus and venom.
I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a guy with dark, messy black hair jump down from the top of the wall we’d passed through. I gasped. He wasn’t a giant, but his demeanor led me to believe he just might be. His jeans were worn and bore holes at the knees and thighs. And my God, looking up, I found the V of his hips, which were as bare as the muscles that lined his stomach li
ke soldiers in formation. Sweet holy mother of eight packs.
Tattoos crawled up his skin, morphing and changing as he approached Chester, who pulled Pam in front of him like the coward he was.
“Let her go.” Three words, each one weighing more than the one that came before it. And then a promise. “And I’ll make it fast.” The Keeper closed his fists into tight balls and watched Chester with eagle-sharp eyes.
When Chester shoved Pamela toward him, the guy caught her by the upper arms and whispered something in her ear. The lightning disappeared from around her throat and she calmed immediately, a sweet sigh falling from her lips. Pamela moved to the wall, where she stood with arms folded in front of her. She waited, complacent as a child.
“What did he give her?” I asked, confounded. Dark eyes fastened on me for a second before Chester tore his attention away with one word, uttered like a curse.
“Keeper,” spat Chester.
“Chester. What did I tell you would happen the next time you trafficked a soul?” He raised a dark eyebrow. It was pierced with a thin, silver ring. There were small, black ear gauges in his ears.
Chester backed toward me and Gus, looking back at his partner in crime for help. Gus pulled me in front of him, using me like a human shield, the same way Chester had done Pamela.
“Didn’t work for him, Gus. Better listen to the Keeper,” I told him, really not wanting his clammy hands on my upper arms anymore. I pulled away from him, but he tugged me back with a jerk.
“Shut your dog mouth, bitch!”
“That was redundant.”
The Keeper reached behind him and produced a sword. Where the hell had he been keeping that thing? There were no straps on him. I knew this because he would look magnificent in leather of any kind. However, there was nothing but skin and jeans, and it wasn’t a thin, short knife. This was a broadsword, and Keeper looked like he knew the way to Mordor. I’d follow his ass out of here. Raking my eyes up and down him, I thought, I’d follow his ass anywhere.
His eyes snapped to mine and he smirked as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, and that I was enjoying every second of ogling him.
I grinned back. If I was stuck in Hell, at least it was with him. I could have some fun with him…
6
Keeper stared at me and I stared back. For the first time, I realized that he wasn’t bathed in gray shadow. He was beautiful, with suntanned skin and dark chocolate hair. His eyes were as blue as a clear sky in summer. Weren’t they dark brown earlier?
Our eyes were in a stand-off. I vowed I wouldn’t look away first, and then he lost the fight by looking down ever so slightly to the lightning forking around my neck. Keeper snarled his lip and stalked toward Chester, making it look like the simplest thing in the world to dispatch him. The tip of Keeper’s sword sliced into Chester’s chest and the man went down like a sack of potatoes. The slice began to shimmer bright white, and a matching puff of smoke released from it. Keeper took in a deep breath and blew the puff into the sky.
Chester’s body began to crumble and then disintegrated, turning to a fine ash. Keeper took a second breath and blew the delicate particles away from us. My fingers started to shake violently. He just blew him away. Literally.
Pamela watched the entire affair as though she were entranced in a favorite television show. She didn’t blubber or shake; she just smiled slightly and intently watched every move Keeper made. I would have been a happy spectator, too, if the asshole holding me in front of him would give up and let me go.
Gus tried to grab me by the hair, but I didn’t have enough for him to keep hold of. He cursed, trying again, raking his grubby fingernails against my tender scar.
“Ouch, you dirty fuck! Get your hands off my head!”
He pulled me tight, fisting the leash, and his rancid breath hit my face. “You’re going to regret calling me that.”
Gus gasped, his eyes going wide. Looking down, I saw the tip of Keeper’s blade puncturing his side. I laughed as his grip relaxed. Keeper got him, after all.
The dark-haired guy laughed as he jerked the blade from Gus’s body, raking across his rib bones. “Should have learned to keep your eye on the true threat, Gustavus.”
Gus fell, gasping like a fish out of water, until his eyes unfocused and stared at the sky above. I could see the crows still circling in the reflection of his cornea. A puff, like Chester’s, released from the brightly glowing wound and Keeper, leveling his eyes on me, blew it away. It flew into the air where a crow dove down to swallow it up.
Gus also turned into an ashy husk. Keeper puffed his cheeks, blew in his direction, and he was gone. With one breath, Gus just ceased to exist.
“What just happened?” I stammered. “Did the crow eat his soul?”
Keeper, crouched low, stood up and leaned in to me. What was he doing? I pushed at his chest, wincing in pain as I touched him. He was as hot as a branding iron. He whispered something in a language I didn’t understand, had never heard. The lightning noose disintegrated, but unlike Pamela, my nerves were anything but calmed. They were firing like crazy. I looked at my palm to make sure it didn’t consume the lightning like it did the fabric, but nothing was there. No char marks, burns—nothing, but my skin still crackled with awareness. Was it me? Or was it Keeper? Was it what he uttered? There was power in the words. The tattoos along his neck, some sort of script, had danced.
He stared at me accusingly. “Why isn’t it working?” he whispered to himself.
“What? That spell or whatever? Try it again. I want to feel as high as Pam does.” I grinned. “And then maybe you and I can ditch her and go have some real fun.”
Keeper frowned, staring at me accusingly. “I didn’t make a mistake. It simply doesn’t work on you. And I have better things to do with my time than to entertain a simple girl.”
“Number one: I’m not simple. Number two: Do you always give up so easily? It’s worth another shot. Maybe you mispronounced something.” Even witches made mistakes, or was he a warlock? Wizard?
Looking to the sky, he closed his eyes and spoke more of the language that sounded like honey tasted, smooth and sweet. I waited to feel euphoria, but caught nothing but the whiff of his frustration. Keeper cooed at his birds, circling lazily above us. The crows swooped down by the hundreds and landed on the ground around us. He stroked the feathers of those closest to him, whistling short tones to them. When he raised his hands, they took flight again, swirling protectively overhead.
With a flick of his wrist, the gate we’d been able to pass through opened. Who opened it the first time?
“I did,” he answered.
My eyes bulged from my head. Could he hear me?
“I can.”
What was this?
He snorted, motioning for Pam. “Time to go.” She followed him, blushing like a school girl, watching him under fluttering lashes. Eww. Where had thoughts of her husband and two kids disappeared to?
Keeper smirked, ticking his head toward the gate. Why couldn’t I be in the same pathetic shape as Pamela? She looked like she’d taken a few Valium and a couple of shots of Love Potion No. 9.
We stepped out of the gates, retracing our path though the dilapidation. “Where are we going?” I asked.
Keeper never slowed. His broadsword stuck to his back somehow. It must have been magic. This dream was awesome. I needed to remember every detail and write it down as soon as I woke. It would make a great book. I could be an author, sell a million books, and become independently wealthy.
Keeper was also fast; he didn’t waste time, words, or steps. I followed behind him, scuttling to keep up because my feet were bare and tender. I looked at his back and noticed that each shoulder blade sported a thick, raised scab that crawled down his back several inches. A few droplets of dried blood rained down from each one. The healed mixing with the freshly torn. What happened to him?
The muscles of his back tensed and he stopped for a moment before shooting an irritated look my way and steering
Pamela toward the right. There was no way to determine direction here.
No sun.
No moon.
No stars.
Nothing but gray.
And then there was him. The Keeper of Crows was in magnificent, masculine color.
We walked through yards where the tufts of grass were as tall as my thigh, up hillsides, through more yards, and across a creek with stones that barely protruded from the water’s surface. It was the first time I’d seen a creek without flowing water. It was still as a lake, not a ripple on the surface, and the water was sleek and deadly as mercury. My legs felt like they were made of lead, or tree trunks. Something too heavy to lift much longer. “Can we stop?”
I hated to be the weak link, but I was dying. My body somehow wasn’t ready for all of this. Discreetly, I sniffed my arm pit. It didn’t stink yet, but it would. Sweat was popping up all over my skin.
“Physically, you might feel weak. It depends on the state of your earthly body. But it takes a lot of strength to ask for help,” he said, looking me over from head to toe. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d have flirted more, but I was too busy dying again. “We can stop for a few minutes.”
The crows from The Killing Field were still following us. When we stopped, they perched on the branches of a nearby tree, leafless and skeletal-looking. Soon there were as many birds as there should have been leaves. They groomed their feathers and rested. I wondered how often they got the chance to take a breather.
“Not often.”
This whole telepathy thing was creepy. Can you read Pamela’s mind? You haven’t answered anything from her.
He sat at the base of the tree of crows, leaning his back against it. I sat on a rock across from him and Pamela settled beside me, happily picking at the dry, dead grass along the base. She hummed an awful rendition of Wind Beneath My Wings. I wasn’t going to survive this woman’s crazy.
Maybe he couldn’t hear me anymore. He didn’t answer me.
Keeper watched his flock, perched above him dutifully. “Why do they do that?” I asked.
His eyes snapped to mine. “They are obedient.”
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