“Yes, I see them.”
“Good, keep your attention on the souls, just the souls.” She took a step forward, or maybe a step up, dragging me with her.
We didn’t move in space, we moved in realities. Bright light filled the previously dark room, several of the other realities falling away. The wind from the land of the dead cut off.
“Can you still see the souls?”
I could. They looked different now, somehow more like crystal than light. I nodded and she stepped again.
“You can close your shields now,” she said.
I did and blinked into the brilliant light surrounding us. I could still see aspects of the techno club we’d been in, but now the people were colorful jewel-like beings and the walls crystal.
“Is this what you always see?”
She frowned like she wouldn’t answer the question; then she cursed under her breath. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it? No. I prefer to stay as close to mortal reality as I can. This place is too sterile for my tastes. Come on. Now that you’ve finally let go of the mortal form you were holding, we’ll be able to move faster.”
“I what?” Was that squeaking sound my voice? Still, I needed my mortal body, and as pretty as this place might be, I didn’t want to hang out here forever.
I looked around. Even with my shields up, I could feel that there were other realities around me, some I could tell instinctively shouldn’t touch this place but were trying to move through me.
“Stop thinking about it or you’ll spoil everything we’ve done so far. Now face me and give me your other hand as well.”
Well, I’ve come this far. And if this was what it would take to reach the mender, so be it.
The crystal plane swirled around us and I couldn’t tell if we were moving or if it was, but without warning a large structure appeared in front of me. The building glowed with life as if it were made from living rock. A man stood outside on the stoop, as if he’d been waiting.
“This is the girl?” he asked, looking me over.
The raver dropped my hands. “Unfortunately.”
Gee, thanks. I turned my back on her and faced the man. He had an ageless quality to him. Actually that wasn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t that he was ageless so much as his age seemed in flux. When I first saw him I would have sworn he was in his late sixties but as he studied me, he appeared younger, much younger. Surely no older than thirty.
“Hello,” I said, stepping toward him. “I’m Alex.”
He huffed, and walked inside the softly shimmering building.
Well, things were going just smashing, weren’t they? I looked at the raver. She shrugged and followed him. I fell in step behind her.
“I suppose he sent you to be mended,” the man said once I’d stepped through the door.
I assumed “he” referred to Death. “Yes.”
From the outside I’d thought the structure was a building, but the walls contained a garden filled with the most perfect flowers I’d ever seen. Every rose and lily glowed with its own light and I realized I was seeing the plant’s life force, not quite a soul, but definitely a life.
“Your garden is beautiful,” I said, turning a full circle to admire the clematis and ivy climbing along the inner walls, the carefully laid out plots of perennials, and the waterfall trickling into a pond of colorful koi.
The man squinted at me, looking old once more. “What do you see, girl?”
“Life,” I said without even thinking about it. From the birds to the stones everything glowed with its own form of life.
The man nodded. “Let’s see your wounds.”
I tore my gaze from the beauty around me and looked at the ageless man. What would he have done if I’d just said “pretty flowers”?
I didn’t dare ask. Lifting my shirt, I unwrapped the gauze around my stomach. He studied the wounds in silence. “That’s not all of them?”
“Uh, no.” The rest were higher. Much higher.
“Off with the shirt,” he said and when I didn’t immediately comply he frowned at me. “You’re not the first female to require mending. Do you want to be fixed or not?”
Right. The top was fitted and tight enough that I hadn’t worn a bra underneath—poor planning on my part. Hindsight and all that. I unzipped it reluctantly and shrugged it off. I felt more than a little exposed as the mender examined the punctures in my upper rib cage, but he studied me the same way Tamara examined bodies during autopsies. Not as a person, but as a puzzle to be solved.
Finally he nodded and his callused hand pressed against my skin. I cringed back and received a disapproving glance. Then the mending began. I don’t know what I expected. Healing magic is usually warm. I’ve even felt my skin stitch back together under powerful enough magic.
This was nothing like that.
The man put his hand on me, and my flesh turned to something liquid, rippling under his touch. I would have gasped, but I couldn’t seem to draw air, as if for a moment, I had no lungs.
“Does he realize how foolish his actions are?” the mender said as he worked. If he was talking to me, I had no breath to answer. “The essence and soul are not meant to be separated. You are both divided in half and vulnerable. Beyond foolish.”
Yeah, but I’m alive. For now. I was still worried about switching back.
My skin settled and his hand moved to my stomach. Again the rippling sensation, but this time I could see my skin flowing under his touch. It smoothed as if he were reshaping plastic. Finally he moved his hand to the nearly healed bullet wound on my arm.
“Oh that’s not—”
He cut me off. “I never do half a job.”
I shivered as the skin on my arm crawled and solidified, whole and unharmed.
I looked down at myself. Not only had he repaired the damage, but the scar where I’d once had a dagger driven into my abdomen was also gone. It was like I’d been reformed from the original plan. I wonder if he can fix my eyes?
I didn’t ask the question aloud but the mender frowned at me. “That is from your own magic. I can do nothing for it.”
“I—” What, exactly? How was I supposed to know he was telepathic? It wasn’t like I’d actually asked.
“You can dress now,” the mender said, nodding to the shirt clenched in my hand. I’d forgotten about it. Shrugging into it, I zipped it closed and then looked between the mender and the raver. Neither said a word, but the raver nodded.
“I have a message for you to pass to him,” the mender said, walking up to me again.
“I’m all ears.”
The mender’s face crinkled in confusion. Then, as if he realized it was an expression, or perhaps he read the meaning from my mind, he shook his head. “I’ll give you the message, not tell you. Hold out your hand.”
I did as told and he pressed two fingers into my palm. A surge of cold shot into my skin, making my fingers curl.
“Pass that to him in the same way,” the mender said, taking a step back. He nodded to the raver and she motioned for me to take her hands once again.
The plane was sliding out of focus when the mender’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Remember child, the essence and the soul are not meant to be divided during life.”
Then the blinding light blinked out and we were back in the club.
Chapter 34
“So, what did it say?” I asked, sitting cross-legged on my bed, PC in my lap. The little dog’s head swiveled back and forth, following Death’s pacing.
“I’ve been given a choice.”
“Choices are good?” Unless they were choices between two bad options.
He stopped midstride and turned toward me. “Alex—” He paused, his expression going distant. This time I was sure the colors in his eyes swirled, just a little. “I have a…job.” He frowned. “Would you like to come?”
I assumed by “job” he meant a soul needed collecting. “A death scene? You offer to take me to the sweetest places.”
He shrug
ged.
“Wait.” I threw out a hand in a stopping motion before he could disappear. “I didn’t say no.”
Setting PC on the bed, I slid to my feet and accepted Death’s hand. After all, how often did I get to learn more about the collectors? Besides, I was already oath bound, so I might as well learn as much as I could. The cold sea of darkness washed over me and in the next moment we were somewhere else.
The scent of antiseptic and bleach hit my senses as a loudspeaker crackled and paged a doctor. Everywhere I looked there were beds divided by flimsy curtains. Monitors beeped, breathing machines whooshed, and nurses checked patients’ vitals, noting results on small clipboards kept at the foot of the beds. The room reminded me of one I’d spent far too much time in as a child.
“An ICU ward?” I asked, clinging tighter to Death’s arm.
“I can take you back,” he offered. He knew how I felt about hospitals.
I shook my head as a nurse hurried past us without so much as a glance. “They can’t see us?”
“No, but don’t let go of me.”
Right. Why a race who couldn’t be seen by most humans needed extra magic to be unseen was interesting, but more than once I’d suspected he was around. I just couldn’t see him. This pretty much confirmed it.
I scanned the occupied beds. “Which one?”
Death pointed to the still figure of an older woman. Her skin was pale and waxy and a breathing tube disappeared into her mouth, but her brown eyes were open, aware of her surroundings. They were the only part of her that moved.
I swallowed. I probably should have stayed behind.
“When will it happen?”
“If she dies, it will be within the next two minutes.”
I looked at him. “If?”
“See that doctor?” He pointed across the room to a man in blue scrubs and a white coat. “He’s trying to quit smoking, but right now he is seriously considering a cigarette. If he gives in, he won’t be here when she codes, and she will die.”
“And if he’s here he’ll save her?”
Death nodded.
“Then shouldn’t we—”
His hand jerked back, pulling me closer to him.
I frowned. “But you said she could live if he stays.”
Death’s nod was slow, his hooded eyes watching my response.
The doctor glanced at the elevator, and I could only imagine his thoughts. His need for just one cigarette.
“What if he makes the wrong choice?”
“It is his to make. That’s why I’m here.”
“And you don’t know which way it will go?” I asked. Death shook his head. I frowned. So he could see possibilities of the future? I hadn’t known that. Clearly it was different from a premonition witch’s visions. Those were always the final outcome, no matter what anyone did to try to change the future.
I turned to stare at the doctor, willing his resolve to stay strong, for him to fight whatever craving ate at him. “Aren’t you tempted to tell him. Or to stall him? It could save that woman’s life.”
Death’s arms slid around my shoulders, drawing me against his chest. “I think we’re both aware I’ve been more than tempted in the past.”
For me. He’d saved my life more than once.
“Well, I for one think you made the right choice.”
“I wish that were a more popular opinion.” His embrace tightened, until I was engulfed by his heat, his scent. It helped block out the room of people barely clinging to life and the sounds counting down their heartbeats, waiting for the last. “From the moment I pushed you out of the path of that bullet several months ago, I changed the pattern of time.”
“That sounds awfully drastic. You said you see possible outcomes. How could you change what isn’t settled? You made a choice, just like he”—I nodded to the doctor, who pressed the button for the elevator—“is making a choice.”
“Mortals have choices. Collectors are forbidden to interfere.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. I watched the floor numbers light up above the elevator as it approached, overly aware of the woman who was about to die. I looked at her, at the lines snaking off her that were supposed to save her, or at least preserve her, and I shuddered. For a moment I was in another hospital room, listening to a different set of machines as I huddled in a too large chair beside my mother’s bed.
“You okay?” Death asked, pulling me out of the memory.
I nodded, but my eyes burned. The door to the elevator slid open. Don’t go. Two nurses stepped out, chatting animatedly about something. The doctor in his scrubs and coat stared at the open door. Then he watched it slide closed again and turned away.
I sighed and Death gave me a gentle squeeze.
“We can go now,” he whispered.
I took one last glance at the woman, whose machines were making erratic noises, nurses and the doctor rushing toward her. But I knew she’d live.
This time.
We popped into existence in my apartment, startling my poor dog once again.
“So this teleporting thing,” I said, shivering from the lingering chill of Death’s magic. “You’ve never taken me with you before. Is this something you can do because we switched essences, or…?”
He pointedly didn’t look at me.
“Seriously? So, for example, when I’d been kidnapped by the skimmers, and you and the two other collectors were with me, you could have teleported me out at any point.”
“We’re not supposed to interfere.”
Right. “Tell me you saw that I wasn’t going to die.”
He frowned. “I can only see the possibility threads of those souls assigned to me at their birth.”
“You’re not my collector?”
He shrugged. “I adopted you.”
“Cute. Why haven’t I ever seen another collector come for me?”
“You don’t have one. You must have been born in Faerie.”
I froze. The strange little brownie I’d met when my father had stashed me at his secret house had mentioned taking care of me when I was a child. And my great-granduncle on my mother’s side, who happened to be the king of the shadow court, had welcomed me home when I’d encountered him a month ago. But I had no memories of Faerie as a child. Not one.
“You’ve known I was fae from the beginning, haven’t you?”
“I’ve known you were special from the moment you hit me with that medical chart, but in many ways you are and always have been a mystery.”
“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”
“Recently, it’s been terrifying.” He stepped closer to me, moving his hands to my hips, as if he needed the reassurance that I was there, whole. “I can only tell you’re in danger if the possibilities affect one of my souls.”
He’d never told me any of this. After a lifetime of his secrets it was strange for him to share. Almost unbalancing. And I was off balance enough.
I stepped away from his hands, wrapping my arms around myself. “It’s probably time for us to—”
“Have you lost your senses?” an angry voice that hadn’t been in the room a moment before said.
I whirled around as the gray man stormed across my small apartment. Death turned as well, frowning at the other collector.
“It is my choice to make.”
“And you’re a fool for considering it.” The gray man’s cane swung wildly, punctuating his agitation.
In contrast, Death was still, to all appearances calm, his posture relaxed. But it was like a calm before a storm, and the hooded eyes that watched the gray man held a warning.
A warning the gray man ignored as he turned to me. “Do you understand the danger you’re allowing him to put himself in?”
“Leave her out of this,” Death said at the same time I asked, “What is he talking about?”
Death didn’t answer me, but the gray man did. “A mortal body isn’t made for what we do. The risk you’re allowing him to take is immen
se.” He pressed the silver skull on his cane against my shoulder. “If you care about him, you’ll return his essence.”
The blood drained from my face. I’d already intended to do that. I turned to Death but he held up a hand before I could say anything.
“Alex, we’ll talk about this later,” he said, before turning toward the gray man. “This doesn’t concern you.”
They stared at each other. The gray man displaying his agitation through jerky movements, Death still, like a tightly coiled trap.
“Does she really mean so much, my friend?”
Death didn’t answer, he moved. Fast. One moment he stood with his thumbs hooked in the loops of his jeans, the next he was in front of the gray man. He grabbed the other collector by the shoulders and both vanished.
I stared at the spot where they had been. Gone. Like so many times before. Only this time I could feel the distance as my essence left with Death. It was an odd sensation. I sat down on my bed, picking up PC absently and cradling the small dog as I continued to stare at the last spot Death had been.
“He has to come back, right?” I asked PC, whose only answer was a tail wag, happy for the attention. I rubbed his head.
Death would come back. He had to. I still had his essence.
Chapter 35
I paced across my kitchen, PC following in my wake as I listened to the woman on the other end of the phone.
“So you don’t know if they managed to contain the rider before they released Larid’s body?” I asked.
Briar’s voice was sharp, annoyed. “With one of the officials on the case dead, the other in ICU, and the OMIH office closed, finding the answer to that question isn’t exactly easy.”
“But if it is out there…” I trailed off. If the OMIH had failed to contain it, someone else was slated to die. Either by suicide, or, if the rider hung out in the body until he drained it, by turning into a ghoul.
“Yeah, and chances are good that it’s contained. Either way, what are you planning to do at this hour? It’s late, Craft, and I have more cemeteries to clear. Now, are you going to join me to do your little ghoul-divining trick or not?”
Grave Memory: An Alex Craft Novel Page 31