by Aurelia Fray
“This is fucking cruel,” Jasper spat, flicking what remained of his still burning cigarette to the ground before stomping it with his boot.
A breeze rustled through the trees, an ice-edged whisper that made Jasper shiver. Andy glanced over at him, big brown puppy dog eyes in full effect. Jasper was pretty sure ghosts were supposed to be transparent, but Eren apparently didn’t get the memo before conjuring up Andy’s ghost.
“Is it?” Andy asked, eyes darkening as his gaze swept over the hunched frame of the man he had planned to marry.
He was pretty solid, Jasper noted, for an apparition. Andy had been a lanky kid but had grown into his skin; finally taking control of his broad shoulders and big hands around the time he had turned twenty-one. What had once been clumsiness bloomed into an easy grace and Jasper had watched, breathless, as the boy he had fallen in love with became the man he couldn’t live without.
Andy had been growing his hair out when he died. His chestnut curls had unraveled into soft waves that glittered gold in the summer, a perfect match for his big dark eyes. Even at twenty-five, his face retained a childlike kindness that completely masked the deep-seeded, steely determination Jasper had come to associate with Andrew McAbrahms.
The ghost of Andy was just as tall, just as broad, and just as graceful as his human counterpart had been. He was a bit blurred at the edges, like he’d moved just as someone tried to take his picture, like he was just a bit too quick for his essence to be captured forever. His skin had a dim glow too; he was lit from within, a mist-and-memories machine powered by Eren Anderson’s good intentions.
“He told me that when Aurora conjured you up the first time, it hurt you,” Jasper admitted in a whisper, sweeping a tattooed hand through his wild hair.
“Everything has a price, Jazz,” the ghost replied, quietly. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go, Jasper was sure of it.
“So what did Eren think would happen? He’d piss off to God-knows-where and to compensate for whatever misplaced guilt he has about leaving me in this town, he’d whip up your ghost and I’d have a good old cry and a cup of tea and feel fucking better?”
He hadn’t started out angry but as the words fell, his rage grew. It bubbled up inside him, boiling blood and stinging tears, acid on his tongue. He squared his shoulders and stood tall, a reflex that he’d cultivated when he realized he was going to be short for the rest of his life.
Andy didn’t move but remained frozen in place on the porch where he’d grown up, an echo of the boy he’d been. Jasper spun on his heel, the wind tearing through his hair as it kissed the tears from his cheeks.
“Jasper,” the ghost murmured, a prayer on a dark night. “Sit down. Breathe.”
He’d never been able to stay angry with Andy when he’d been alive. It was why he lost nearly every argument they’d ever had but he’d never really kept score. Andy’s smile, the way he’d sighed Jasper’s name like there was no other word he cared to know made it all worth it.
It was all gone.
“This is the freakiest thing I have ever been a part of,” he sighed as he sat back down, deflated and confused by his need to be close to whatever it was Eren had summoned.
“No it’s not,” Andy replied, chuckling. “We faced the God of Hell, remember?”
“Oh come on, there’s no way he was the God of Hell. He was just some jumped up vampire in a cheap suit.”
The v-word echoed in his head, setting off alarm bells that made him temporarily deaf. Jasper had stopped thinking of Eren and his husband Corbijn as vampires within weeks of meeting them. Those two had been impossible to label, their abilities and destinies constantly evolving they weren’t vampires. They were Eren and Corbijn.
Vampires were responsible for Andy’s death. Some nameless, faceless monster had torn his throat out, leaving him to bleed out while Eren and Jasper watched, helpless. Andy could have become a vampire, could have chosen to become like Eren and Corbijn – something of shadow and blood and teeth, with a kind face and a fate that stretched on forever. He had refused.
“Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re feeling right now, just say it,” Andy begged, his sweet mocking mouth twisted in a painful frown.
“I keep thinking of you as a ghost. Is that what you are?”
“No,” the response was immediate and delivered with conviction. “Ghosts haunt people, or places. I don’t do that, Jazz. I’m not here to haunt you.”
“So what the fuck are you, then? Because you’re not him.” He regretted the words, instantly.
Jasper wasn’t sure if ghosts, or whatever the apparition thought it was, could feel pain, but agony flickered over the face of the man he loved, sharp and dizzyingly clear. Part of him understood that the despair he’d danced with since Andy’s death needed an outlet, but he’d promised himself and the Mother and every deity he could name that he wouldn’t be that guy. He wouldn’t hurt people to make himself feel better, but he had. He’d hurt Andy and he knew it would haunt him forever, ghost or not.
“You grew up in The Order,” Andy said, gaze steady despite the sorrow in his voice. “You know what happens when we die. Our bodies are returned to the Earth and we are reunited with The Mother.”
“I never put much stock in that,” Jasper reminded him.
“I know, but it’s time to start believing. I was scattered. Every memory, every feeling, every little quirk that made me who I was. It was thrown to the wind, Jasper. Returning to the Earth isn’t the literal act of being buried. I am in the air you breathe; I am in the soil beneath your feet. The Gatekeepers – Eren and Corbijn – they can pull the pieces back together and that’s all I am. They gathered me up and gave me shape again and sent me to you.”
Jasper could feel his heart race, hammering away beneath the flimsy inked skin stretched tight across his bones. He wasn’t sure what he believed in but he knew the words he’d just heard were true.
“Andy?”
“Hi,” Andy smiled, eyes glittering.
“I don’t understand. Why did Eren and Corbijn do this? He told me that it hurt you, when Aurora summoned you to lead him into the forest. He wouldn’t hurt you, not if he could help it.”
“It does hurt. There has to be a price for this, just like there is for everything else. It’s all checks and balances, Jazz. Being here with you, getting to see you and be close to you, goes against every rule in the great cosmic rule book.”
“Eren never was one for following the rules,” Jasper admitted, trying to drag in something deeper than the shallow breaths his lungs demanded.
“It’s probably the only predictable thing about him,” Andy agreed. “He got to say his goodbye, Jazz. Eren got to see me one last time. I got the chance to tell him that I’m with him, every second of every day. He wouldn’t have believed it coming from anyone else. You deserve that too, you know. I’d suffer this a million times over if it gave you just one second of peace.”
Jasper hadn’t cried much after Andy had died. He’d come close countless times; the tears rising up to choke him when he least expected it. After a while, he had come to accept it was something he would just have to live with, a life spent on the brink of a flood that would eventually drown him.
The first sob surprised him, tearing through his chest with a serrated edge. His body bowed with the force of it, collapsing inwards as his vision blurred. It hurt so deep he was sure it would scar.
“I’m never going to be okay, Andy,” he confessed, chest heaving as he fought to steady himself. “You were it There was never anyone else; there will never be anyone else. You were my air before you died and now every breath hurts. Every second I have to live without you tears me up and there’s no way Eren or anyone else is gonna be able to put me back together.”
The touch on his back was soft, tentative in the way that Andy always was. His body stilled under Andy’s hand, the shock of contact enough to snap his mind back into focus. Andy was touching him, ghost or echo or apparition or memory
, he shouldn’t have been able to feel the gentle sweep of Andy’s hand down his aching spine.
“I’m here, Jazz. I’m not going anywhere. You’re it for me, too. Always have been, always will be.”
They sat in silence, Andy’s hand on his lover’s back, as the night deepened around them. The darker it got, the more Andy’s form shimmered, a beacon in the black night. Jasper’s mind had gone eerily quiet, almost blissfully blank. Andy was with him, at least temporarily, and everything was right for one brief, blinding moment.
As the night melted away, the volume of his thoughts increased. It was like the hiss of static, relentless and infuriating. His own mind refused to let him accept what he felt in his bones. Andy was with him and everything was all right.
It couldn’t be that simple. Jasper’s life had been many things, but it was never easy. He couldn’t just be the son of another Order couple; he had to be a Hart, a member of one of the oldest Order families in Europe. His parents couldn’t accept the fact he was gay, they had to disown him to protect their own reputation among the nature-worshipping, spell casting society he’d been born into. He couldn’t just meet a nice guy in London, he had to fall in love with an American and end up on the other side of the Atlantic. He couldn’t just get married, settle down and have kids, the man he had fallen in love with had been stolen from him, their future together erased in the blink of an eye.
“Eren didn’t send you here to say goodbye to me,” Jasper said, shoulders hunched under the weight of his realization. “It was too big a gamble. I could have gone completely bonkers. It could have hurt you too much. This isn’t about goodbye, is it?”
“It can be,” Andy replied, tearing his doe eyes from the horizon to smile at Jasper. “Eren’s not the only rule breaker.”
Jasper considered it. They could have this night together, the two of them. They could disregard whatever Eren’s plan had been. This was their last goodbye, after all. Jasper knew that fact with a certainty normally reserved for his own name or the color of the sky. It could be whatever they wanted it to be.
His curiosity got the better of him, though, which he guessed had been Eren’s Plan B. The red headed vampire was way smarter than most people gave him credit for.
“What did he want?”
“He thinks you’re going back to London to track down The Shadow.”
The mere mention of the old coven’s name made Jasper’s stomach twist violently. The anger that flooded his veins was enough to stain his vision blood red. He’d been turning their name over in his head for weeks, using it as a weapon to fend off the grief that had threatened to consume him.
Jasper didn’t know much about The Shadow. Their existence was shrouded by rumor, fuelled by whispers and fear.
The Shadow is the oldest vampire coven in the world.
The Shadow have more money than the Queen.
The Shadow only turn humans who survive a horrific night of initiation.
He didn’t have the first clue on how to separate the truth from the myths, but there were two things Jasper Hart knew for sure about The Shadow.
One: The Shadow had been hired by a crazed vampire to attack the Woodford House in Washington, an attack that cost Andy his life.
Two: Jasper was going to destroy them.
“He’s not as dumb as he looks, you know,” Jasper quipped, quirking an eyebrow in Andy’s direction. Andy sucked in a breath, a reflex because he didn’t need to breathe, before treating Jasper to a stern glare.
“You can’t go after The Shadow, Jasper,” Andy told him, his voice so low it was almost a growl. “They’re too powerful, it’s too dangerous, and you’ll get yourself –”
The words died in Andy’s throat before he had a chance to finish the sentence. He knew how that sentence ended. He knew how Jasper’s crazy revenge mission would end. “Jasper, no.”
Jasper knew the price of going after The Shadow. If he got his way, he’d find out which members of the coven had attacked the Woodfords and he’d kill them. It went against The Order’s rules, of course, but he’d spent his whole life breaking those. It wasn’t like The Order would have time to punish him anyway. When The Shadow found out he’d killed members of the coven, they’d kill him.
At least he’d go out knowing that the vampires who had murdered Andy would be robbed of the one thing they valued – their immortality. That would give him the peace Andy wanted him to find. There were worse ways to bow out.
First light streaked across the sky like cracks in fine porcelain, the red light of morning bleeding into the darkness.
“I have to do this,” Jasper whispered, not sure who he was trying to convince. He was terrified, but it was the sort of righteous fear he’d come to associate with following Eren into battle. It came with the unshakeable conviction he was doing the right thing.
“They’ll kill you, Jasper. Without a second thought,” Andy pointed out, his voice trembling with barely contained rage.
“I’m already dead,” he admitted with a sad, knowing little smile. “It’s just gonna take my body a while to catch up.”
Andy was lost for words. His eyes glittering with what would have been tears if he had been alive. Jasper hated seeing him so upset and would have given anything to be able to reach out for him. The ghost glanced at the sky, blinking furiously as the dawn spilled over the horizon.
“I have to go,” Andy murmured, biting his bottom lip. “You’re not dead, Jasper. Your heart is still beating. I hear every breath you take and even if it hurts, you keep going. You keep breathing. I hear it, even when I’m lost to the world. Please don’t do this.”
“I have to,” Jasper replied, voice breaking. “Everything has a price, remember? The vampires that killed you are going to pay.”
“And what’s the price of revenge?”
Jasper was getting ready to deliver a snappy retort when he realized Andy was fading. The trees swayed gently in the morning breeze and Jasper could see them through the ghost’s fading form.
“Say goodbye to me,” he begged, taking a step towards where Andy was standing, shaking with emotion.
“Jasper –”
“I love you, Andrew McAbrahms. I’ve loved you from the moment we met. I’m going to die loving you,” Jasper promised, leaning in on instinct.
“Close your eyes.”
Andy’s hands were cold when they curled around his hips, his fingers clutching desperately at the hem of his shirt. Jasper reached for him, like he always did, wrapping his tattooed arms around Andy’s neck to pull him closer.
With his eyes closed, he could pretend it was just like every other kiss they’d shared. Andy was as solid as ever, his mouth warm and soft. The kiss was slow, languid and lazy, like they were exchanging a goodnight kiss instead of a goodbye kiss. Jasper sighed against Andy’s open mouth, weightless. It was like his body was letting go of a tension he didn’t realize he’d been holding, knowing that Andy would catch him, hold him.
Cold air rushed in to fill the void between them when Andy stepped away, his chestnut curls glittering in the sunlight. Jasper kept his eyes closed, squeezing them shut so tightly he wasn’t sure he’d be able to open them again.
The tears were blinding when he finally forced his eyes open, but he didn’t need clear vision to know that Andy was gone.
The wind whispered among the trees, a soft sigh of Jasper’s name.
Love. Loss. Revenge. Jasper Hart: Shadow Killer. Coming soon.
THE START OF FOREVER
Libby Bishop
The pain was gone in less than the blink of an eye, replaced by the lightest feeling Annabelle had ever felt. As if she were as light as air.
When she felt her body lift upright, she opened her eyes, gasping softly at the sight before her: the road and sidewalk were littered with steel, glass, plastic, and blood. She saw her body in a pool of red, cuts and bruises marred her fair skin. Paramedics were trying their hardest to get her heart to beat but she knew it was too late—the lightness grew,
surrounding her so completely she was certain she would disappear and fade into nothing.
But she wasn’t afraid of her fate, and she prayed to whatever god existed that she would be reunited with the only man she’d ever loved in her thirty-two years of life. The man who’d been taken from her five years prior.
The world began to blur around the edges of her vision. She closed her eyes, the chaos around her quieted until it became nothing. A soft whoosh of air passed through her. Seconds later, she was surrounded by so much love and warmth she felt tears rising.
Could the dead cry?
“Open your eyes, love.”
Her heart jumped into her throat, her hand moving to rest on her chest. That voice –
the voice she’d waited years to hear again.
She was afraid. Fearful to open her eyes just to find out that she had been saved and was dreaming. She wouldn’t be able to handle that reality, not when he felt so close. Not when so much love enveloped her.
A hand touched her cheek, softly caressing the skin at her temple. “Open your eyes, Annabelle.”
With her heart pounding in her chest, she slowly opened her eyes. Tears immediately began to fall as she took in the man before her—bare chested, lean muscled. His thick, blond hair had a serious case of bed head, as it always had in life. Her hand moved to grip his forearm, skin meeting skin.
“Cooper,” she whispered. “Is this real?”
His smile lit up his topaz eyes. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
Words failed her as he leaned forward, his lips grazing hers, sending a zing through her body.
“Let me show you how real it is,” he whispered against her lips.
The feeling of weightlessness rushed her again, lasting only a moment. In a blink they were surrounded by the forest and standing near a crystal clear brook. A blanket lay below her bare feet, the smell of evergreens and pine imprinting on her senses as she inhaled.
She met Cooper’s gaze, still unable to believe she wasn’t dreaming. “How are we here?”