Spirits White as Lightning

by Mercedes Lackey

  Hosea slapped her.

  Not hard, but it made her open her eyes and draw a deep breath, safe behind her shields once more. She stared up at him, for a moment too stunned to realize what had just happened. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her face, though she had no sense that she was crying, and she was shuddering with cold. Worse than any of that was the knowledge that she'd failed. There was nothing she could do to heal Jimmie—she could spend her entire life-force, drain herself to death, and she could not save Jimmie Youngblood. She stood in Hosea's arms, panting as if she'd run for miles.

  "Kayla . . . ?" Eric asked.

  She shook her head, closing her eyes. "It will take weeks," she mumbled, barely aware of what she was saying. "Weeks of pain. And she'll die anyway."

  Think, you stupid cow! There's always something you can do.

  To comfort the dying . . .

  "Then there's nothing you can do," Toni said, grief in her voice.

  "No. There's something I can do." Kayla pushed herself away from Hosea and took a deep breath. She hesitated, as if to say what she would say next would make it more real than it already was, create a single defined future from a fan of other outcomes.

  But there was no other outcome.

  "There's something I can do," she repeated. "I can make it quick. I can block the pain. I can let her go now, while she's still Jimmie," Kayla said.

  She was able to look at them now that the worst had been said. Eric looked shocked, still not quite able to believe that Jimmie was hurt. Hosea looked sad but determined. Of the other three, whose names she didn't even know, the woman looked angry, as if Death were something you could hit. The two men looked stunned, so closed off their auras were impossible for her to read.

  "You can kill her, you mean," the woman said harshly.

  "I can give her the choice. Hey, chica, it's more than you can do for her, isn't it?" Kayla snapped. She blinked, and felt more tears slide down her cheeks. Ruined my makeup, dammit, she thought distractedly.

  The woman lunged for her, but Hosea stepped between them.

  "No," was all he said.

  "You said something about a choice, Kayla, is it? I'm Paul Kern, and these are my associates, Toni and José. I only wish we'd met under happier circumstances."

  I wish we'd never met at all, Kayla thought mutinously. She gave Paul points for not offering to shake hands, though. He must have met people like her before.

  "And I think Jimmie would like to have the choice you're offering her. What would you have to do?"

  "I need to block what she's feeling, so that she can wake up. I can't do something like this without her consent. That'd be murder." Kayla ran her hands through her hair. "Can any of you tell me anything that will help?" she asked, her voice quivering slightly. "Jimmie . . . she's not normal, is she?"

  Of the three of them, it was Paul who understood the question Kayla asked.

  "If she can do anything to aid you, she will; Jimmie is no stranger to magic. She is a formidable magician in her own right, A Guardian, as we are, so perhaps in that sense she is not `normal.' She, like us, is sworn to defend ordinary humanity from magical assaults."

  "Only this wasn't magical. This was just a stupid, random, thing—done by one of those people we're supposed to serve and protect! And all her power couldn't save her from it," Toni said bitterly. "It isn't fair!"

  Hosea retreated to sit at Jimmie's side again. Paul put an arm around Toni's shoulders and Toni leaned her face into his neck. Kayla made a conscious effort to shut them out, block their grief and pain so she could concentrate on Jimmie. For a moment it seemed almost impossible to do, then she felt a calming touch at the very edge of her shields, felt new strength and certainty flow into her. She looked up and met Hosea's eyes across the bed.

  Of course. Stands to reason I'd land in the middle of a bunch of Gifted. Banyon said Hosea was a Bard, but he's not quite the same thing as Eric. . . .

  "What can I do to help?" Eric asked quietly from behind her.

  She tried to smile at him, to look more confident than she felt. Kayla hadn't expected anything like this to happen quite this fast. Just this morning she'd been in Los Angeles, and all of a sudden she was at St. Elsewhere, playing for all the marbles. Elizabet's gonna freak.

  "Just make sure I get back, okay?"

  "You got it," Eric said soberly.

  Kayla rubbed her hands over her arms, the lace mitts scratchy against her bare skin. She took a deep breath and turned back to Jimmie. This wasn't going to get any easier, and she owed it to Jimmie to do it as fast as possible. She focused her energy and her will, and let her fingers drift down to touch Jimmie once more. This time there was no crackle, no spark, just a cold blue glow, almost invisible in the harsh fluorescence that lit the room.

  She worked quickly, deftly, with a control and precision she couldn't even have imagined a few years before. All the body's nerves led to the spine; Kayla climbed that column slowly, closing off the neural nexuses, keeping their messages from reaching Jimmie's brain.

  It was more than dangerous. Close off the wrong nerves and she would stop Jimmie's heart, keep her lungs from drawing breath. Close down the neural pathways on a healthy person, and they'd lose all touch with their bodies, becoming capable of doing shattering damage without pain to warn them.

  But Jimmie no longer needed warning.

  Jimmie? Jimmie Youngblood? Where are you? Kayla Sent urgently.

  :Here.:

  A power as great as her own but far different swept through Kayla, and suddenly she was somewhere else.

  A living room, its walls painted a cool blue. Packing boxes were everywhere, as if someone were moving.

  Yeah. Moving out.

  She turned around and saw Jimmie. The uniform was a surprise. They'd told her Jimmie was a magician. They hadn't told her Jimmie was a cop.

  "Hi. I'm Kayla."

  Jimmie smiled. "Nice to meet you, but the circumstances suck. Pardon the mess. I wasn't expecting visitors. You're not the new tenant, are you?"

  It was hard to remember that all of this was an illusion, a metaphor for dying constructed from both their memories, lent its reality by Jimmie's trained will. Kayla clung to that knowledge—if she believed in the reality of what she saw, she might die along with her hostess.

  But Eric won't let that happen.

  "Is Hosea here?" Jimmie asked suddenly. "He's the one I was expecting."

  "Sort of. He's in the hospital room with you."

  "Hospital?" Jimmie asked blankly. "Who's hurt?"

  This was common enough; a sort of partial amnesia that made dying a little easier. It was a pity they couldn't afford to let her go on dreaming.

  "You are," Kayla said bluntly. "Something bad happened to you tonight. You're dying."

  "Oh, my God." Jimmie put a hand to her forehead trying to remember, and for a moment the light dimmed to red, and Kayla smelled smoke. Something was burning.

  "I've got to talk to Hosea!" Jimmie's voice was frantic. "It's important. There's something I have to tell him."

  "It's okay. You'll have time for that," Kayla said soothingly, willing Jimmie to trust her, to believe. "That's why I'm here. Are you ready to hear the rest?"

  Jimmie composed herself with an effort. She wasn't wearing her uniform any more. Now she was wearing armor, armor the brilliant blue of the fire in the heart of a sapphire. There was a helmet on her head, and a sword belted at her side. She glanced past Kayla to the door, as if there was somewhere she had to go, and soon.

  And there was, but it wasn't a journey Kayla wanted to accompany her on.

  "Go on," Jimmie said steadily.

  "You're going to die. I guess that's the door you see. I can help you get through it. Without my help, you'll still die, but it might take a week, maybe more, and you'll be in agony the whole time, I won't lie about that. But if you want, I can help you go now. Tonight. I'm a Healer, but that's all the help I can give you. You're too badly burned for anything more."
/>   She watched as Jimmie accepted that, weighing it in her mind. This was beyond creepy, Kayla decided, like talking to a ghost . . . only Jimmie wasn't dead yet.

  "Yes. That would be the best way. But can you wake me up first?" Jimmie asked, her voice crisp and decisive. "I have a few things to say to the living before I go." Her mouth quirked in an ironic smile, and Kayla felt a pang of grief. This was a woman she would never get the chance to know.

  "Yes. But not for long, so if there's anything I can tell the others for you, you'd better pass it on now."

  Jimmie hesitated. "I don't remember. I must have reported for shift and gone on patrol. But I don't remember what happened then."

  "It doesn't matter," Kayla said soothingly. Whether it did or not, it would be pointless cruelty to say it did.

  :Kayla.:

  Eric's voice, a thin whisper of sound from her outward ears.

  "I have to go."

  "Sure," Jimmie said vaguely. "How did I ever get so much stuff? I'll never get it all packed in time."

  "You will." They always do. Kayla closed her eyes—

  —and opened them in the hospital room. She didn't know how long she'd been gone, or what happened while she was gone, but when she opened her eyes again Ria was there, standing close beside Eric, looking furious and worried.

  Kayla felt cold and tired, and as if she was going to throw up. She had an absurd impulse to say, I saw Jimmie. Don't worry about her; she's fine, and stifled it. She wasn't finished yet.

  "She's agreed to go. She wants to talk to you first, Hosea. She didn't say why. I think she thought she had. I've got to clean the morphine out of her system to wake her up, and it'd be nice if someone turned off that damned drip." Her voice came out in an angry rasp; she was stretched thinner than she thought.

  "I've got it." Ria stepped forward and placed her fingers on the tubing. The plastic grew cloudy, and the morphine stopped running into Jimmie's veins. "Anything else?"

  "This is going to have to be fast, so no long good-byes, okay? She'll say what she has to, and then I'll help her go through the door. Ria, will you be my anchor?" Between them, she and Elizabet had practically rebuilt Ria from the ground up: Kayla knew Ria better than anyone else in the room, and that familiarity would help her to find her way back.

  "I will," Ria said formally.

  Kayla reached beneath the sheet and took Jimmie's bandage-swathed hand. No harm in that, now that Jimmie could no longer feel it. She summoned up her power and let the glow spill through Jimmie's body, sweeping the drug from her blood. Almost at once Jimmie's breathing changed, becoming deep and hoarse.

  "Elkanah?" she whispered.

  The others looked at each other. Her brother, Toni mouthed silently, for Kayla's benefit. "We're here, Jimmie," she said. "Paul and José, and I. We've brought Hosea for you."

  "Hosea." Jimmie's voice was slurred and seared, a damaged croak. "Hey, Toni, you didn't have to clean out the basement after all. He can have my place." She tried to laugh and started to cough, liquid and retching.

  Kayla put a hand on her chest, and Jimmie's breathing calmed, but Eric could see the effort it cost the young Healer to ease Jimmie. "Hurry up," Kayla said tightly.

  "Hosea?" Jimmie whispered.

  "I'm here."

  "Take my hand."

  He glanced at Kayla, who nodded, then slipped his hand beneath the sheet to clasp, very gently, the bandage covering what was left of Jimmie's other hand.

  "Would've liked to know you better. Liked to explain. Never any time for that. Eric knows. Sorry. Your problem now. Sorry."

  As Jimmie spoke, something happened. Kayla ignored it, but Eric and Ria stared at each other, neither quite sure what it was. There was the sense of Power in the room, just out of their reach.

  "Only four," José said in a broken voice. "Always four."

  "We should have known!" Toni said in fierce despair. Paul put a hand on her arm, quieting her.

  What just happened? Eric wanted to ask, but he was afraid he knew. There was a Power surrounding Hosea now, something Eric's Bardic magic barely acknowledged. The same power that touched Toni and the others. Guardian power.

  :I didn't want to tell you,: Greystone said sorrowfully, mindspeaking to Eric alone. :It might have come out another way. But it never does. Your boy belongs to the House now. To the Guardians.:

  "Good-bye," Jimmie whispered. "Thank you, all."

  "Okay, that's it," Kayla said fiercely. "She can't take any more." Kayla closed her eyes, willing herself to touch Jimmie's spirit as she had before.

  This time the apartment was white, as if freshly painted. All the boxes were gone. The curtains—gray—were drawn across the windows, and the bare wood floor was gray as salt-bleached driftwood. Jimmie's blue armor was the only color.

  "I'm ready," Jimmie said.

  Geez, did you have to just dump all that on him and leave? You couldn't have mentioned it while you were still walking around? "Okay," Kayla said aloud. She turned toward the door. It wasn't really a door. It was a symbol of what Kayla was about to do, severing Jimmie's spirit from her ruined body, setting her free.

  Kayla opened the door.

  And forgot. Forgot her life and everything that called her to it, forgot her responsibilities and her name, all for the sight of that Light which held within it everything that had ever been, and everything that might ever be. Jimmie walked past her, into the Light, and vanished. There was a moment of piercing brightness as her armor merged with the Light, and Kayla saw echoes of that brilliance, as if Jimmie had gone to join a great host of her kindred, welcomed by all who had gone before her.

  Then she was gone, the body she had left behind starting to die, and Kayla was alone in the place that was a symbol of Jimmie's dying body. Kayla heard her mother's voice, calling for her from beyond the door, felt the love and the joy at their reunion. Her mother loved her, wanted her—everything else had all been a terrible mistake. She took a step toward the Light, following Jimmie—

  —and felt Ria's fury, her implacable determination, dragging Kayla back into the world of the living.

  No—no!

  "No," Kayla whispered, but she was back now, and could not even remember what it was beyond the door, calling to her. She shook her head, took a deep breath, the images and memories fading from her mind.

  "I'm okay."

  One of the monitors started to keen. Ria silenced it with a chopping gesture, and all the equipment at Jimmie's bedside went dark.

  "Good-bye, querida," José said softly. "We'll miss you."

  Toni sobbed, a thick choked sound of fury and grief.

  "We'd better leave," Paul said, his own voice far from steady. "I don't know how long Ria can hold her spell, but its better if the hospital doesn't have any unaccountable time lapses to explain. Come on, Toni. We have to leave. Jimmie's gone. She isn't here now."

  * * *

  The ride back to Guardian House in Ria's Rolls was a silent one. Eric was stunned, aching with grief and the abrupt senseless loss. Jimmie had been his friend. They'd been talking together, laughing together, only that morning.

  Now she was gone. Dead. For nothing—no great battle, no great victory—just an accident of the kind that happened in New York a thousand times a day.

  And she'd named Hosea her successor.

  Eric glanced up at Hosea. The big man was withdrawn, contemplating something only he could see.

  "Eric knows," Jimmie'd said back in the hospital room. The conversation they'd had a few weeks ago about the Guardians came back to him: "Once you get the Call, your life doesn't belong to you any more. You never know where you're going to be sent, or what you'll have to do. There's no way to train for this job. You can either handle it, or someone else comes along pretty quick to replace you. If we're lucky, we get to meet our successor and pass on the Call in person, but that's about it."

  Does that make you one of the lucky ones, Jimmie? Eric wondered. Did you feel lucky? His eyes ached with unshed tears. Jimmie w
as gone. Everything they could have shared was gone. Over.

  ELEVEN:

  YOU WANT TO DRESS IN BLACK

  The suite of rooms was an elaborate fantasia upon death; a medieval memento mori elaborated by a big-budget madman with a flair for detail. Paintings and statuary depicted every possible way a person could die, and a series of pictures painted upon the ceiling showed every stage in the dissolution of a corpse, a motif repeated on the mosaic floor, so that whether you looked up or down, you saw decaying bodies.

  The bedposts were skeletons—elves might not sleep, as Jeanette Campbell knew now, but there were still some things they needed beds for—and the coverlet was jeweled and embroidered with more variations upon the gentle art of murder. Bed curtains of cobweb-fine black lace surrounded the bed, making it look even more like a catafalque. Imprisoned within this suite of rooms, Jeanette had nothing to do but contemplate the death, in all its forms, that was forever to be denied to her. And boredom was an additional torment.

  Invisible servants hovered around her to fulfill her every whim—fill her bath, bring her food, play music for her, dim or light the lamps. But there were no books for her to read, and all the music sounded like it came out of the Middle Ages: weirdly atonal and military, like funeral marches played on bagpipes. She'd asked for a guitar, but that request hadn't been granted, and she thought the invisibles might not know what it was, because when she confused them, they simply ignored her orders: they wouldn't bring her coffee either. When she got tired of trying to order them around—it was like dealing with a balky computer—she could look out the window at the unchanging night and the eternally moonlit forest below. It had been a real shock when she discovered that she could see the same moon in the same position from windows on the opposite sides of the room.

  Other than that, she could sleep, or pace the floor—trying to avoid catching sight of herself in any of the enormous mirrors—or (as much as she hated her confinement) pray that Aerune wouldn't come again to let her out. She could study the death images until she'd memorized every detail. And then, for a change, she could nerve herself up to try looking in the mirrors without flinching.