Never

by K. D. McEntire

  “Ah, there you are!” the doctor said. His tone might be called jovial but his eyes were not pleased; they glared. “I'm glad I caught you!”

  “Um, good?” Jon said, glancing at Wendy.

  Dr. Kensington clapped a hand on Jon's shoulder, shifting him away from the door. “Please, Miss Darling, Mr. Darling, take a seat. I need to speak with you.”

  “How about ‘no’? We're tired and going home,” Chel said. She bared her teeth in an expression that tried to be a smile, but like the doctor, her mouth didn't match her eyes.

  “Now, now, no need to be rude.” the doctor said, guiding Jon firmly by the shoulder back to the loveseat, and then pushing with one meaty hand until he sat.

  “Sort of stressed out,” Chel replied, looking everywhere in the room but at him. “Not really caring about how rude I am at the moment.”

  “Ah yes. About that.” The doctor turned on his heel and walked to the doorway where the dark-haired nurse from the emergency room, Jenna, was waiting. Smirking, she handed the doctor a clipboard.

  The doctor rifled through the papers. “Now, I'll need you to clear something up for me. This is your sister's second visit to the hospital in how many weeks?”

  “Well she's been here—” Jon started, pausing when Chel kicked him. “Wait,” he said slowly, “why do you care?”

  The doctor flipped to a printout several pages in, and prodded the lines streaking down the page. “This is measuring your sister's heart rate and her blood pressure. Notice anything off?”

  Jon's lips tightened. “Her heart is beating too fast.”

  “Correct. Blood pressure this high…unmanageable fever…she is a prime candidate for an aneurism—or a heart attack—at this rate. Her brain is cooking in there, sizzling like breakfast bacon, but your father is nowhere in sight. His daughter is dying and yet…nothing.” Dr. Kensington tapped the file, expression grim. “Do either of you happen to know where he is?”

  “He's on business,” Chel said stiffly.

  “Wendy isn't eighteen—do you three have any alternate guardians?”

  “That's none of your—”

  “Because your father leaving you alone in a house, no way to contact him if there's an emergency…that's illegal. I doubt the State of California will look pleasantly on a man who leaves his three children to fend for themselves while he gallivants off for weeks at a time.”

  Jon glared at the doctor. “Hey! He's at work, ya'know, working, and we're not kids, we're plenty old enough—” Wendy wanted to kiss him for his gumption. Normally Jon backed down at any sign of authority but he was well and truly riled now, unwilling to bend.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Kensington?” The head nurse poked his head into the room, a tablet held out in front of him as if it were a shield. Behind the nurse, in the hallway, a familiar figure stood with crossed arms, her blue hair shining in the stuttering fluorescents. Jenna, who had been waiting silently, took the clipboard and left the room, pausing by the blue-haired visitor only a moment. They spoke, and then Jenna turned toward the main desk, the squeak of her shoes fading as she hurried away.

  “Do you see her?” Piotr hissed, backing up to crouch in the far corner of the room. Lily and Elle pushed behind him, gripping their weapons.

  “I do,” Wendy muttered, hands in fists as she ducked down, Eddie bent low behind her. “Jane's got some nerve coming here now! What, is she trying to finish me off?”

  “Can't you see I'm busy?” Dr. Kensington demanded of the head nurse, glancing over his shoulder at Jane, his index finger flicking out in a “wait just a sec” gesture. Wendy could see the left half of Jane's body—mostly her leg and shoe as she shifted in and out of view—behind the doctor. Jane's foot was tapping impatiently. The doctor grabbed the tablet out of the head nurse's grip. “What is it?”

  “There's a code coming down the pike from Russian Hill—some drunk lady passed out and cracked her…head…open in her basement.”

  “Aren't there—”

  “You're the only free doctor on the floor, sir,” the nurse said pointedly. “We need you in there.”

  Sighing in irritation at the unavoidable delay, Jane nodded once at the doctor, tipped a wave, and turned on her heel, vanishing down the hall. Dr. Kensington growled and ran a hand through his hair. When he did so, the sleeve fell back, revealing an intricate tattoo twisting around his wrist. Piotr, Wendy, and Eddie exchanged startled glances and, as one, backed further away from him.

  “Fine,” he snapped to Chel and Jon. “You two! Get out of here. Go home. Expect a call from CPS tomorrow. Answer truthfully, unless you want your daddy doing jail time.” Then, as fast as Jane, he was gone, speeding down the hall and yelling for scrubs.

  “Yeah whatever, doc. Screw you,” Chel snapped as soon as he was gone.

  Once his footsteps had faded, Jon and Chel hurried for the exit; they had to dodge as an EMT team pushed through the emergency doors. The medics were guiding an ambulance stretcher between them. A crying, robe-clad woman in bunny slippers and glasses rushed behind.

  The injured woman gasping on the gurney lifted her arm and pointed to Wendy as she passed, twisting her head to keep Wendy in sight as the EMTs shoved her through a set of swinging doors.

  Wendy shuddered. The whites of the woman's eyes were threaded with red, the pupils so huge they blacked out her irises. There was bright red all around her mouth, dripping down her chin and neck. Her face was malformed, stretched angularly out, and the bones in her forearms punched through the skin, spiky and white and pulsing. Yet still, despite the massive amount of pain she had to be in, it was obvious that she could see Wendy.

  The robed woman dodged around Eddie as she shoved through the swinging doors, losing her left bunny slipper as she passed. Wendy knelt down and tried to pick it up to return it to the woman. She'd forgotten she was a spirit, and her hand went right through it.

  The robed woman didn't notice; she was already gone.

  “I have a bad feeling about all this,” Eddie said. The door opened and the head nurse and a CNA rushed past, dropping off more buckets of icepacks just outside Wendy's room as they raced after the EMTs.

  “So do I,” Wendy said grimly, as Lily and Elle shifted to stand beside Wendy and Piotr, all of them frowning at the swinging door. “So do I.”

  The parking garage was startlingly cold, even in the Never. Wendy drew her threadbare hoodie close and zipped up the front, glad that whoever had taken her to the hospital had thought to bring it with them. Wendy knew that spirits could shape objects in the dreamscape, but Wendy had no idea if she'd be able to shape a coat out of her own essence in the Never the way she could in a dream. She shivered.

  Catching Wendy's gaze, Elle slid a hand from her shoulder to wrist. Where Elle's hand touched a lightweight jacket appeared, formed from her own essence. Wendy momentarily considered attempting to manipulate her hoodie the way Elle had, but she didn't want the flapper laughing at her if she failed.

  “Geeze, I'm dyin' here,” Jon complained, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. “It wasn't this cold earlier, was it? Because we living in frickin' California, not Santa's worksho—” he broke off and craned forward. “What the heck is that?”

  Wendy turned and stilled. There was a shadow—no, not quite a shadow, a shadowy figure—at the far end of the parking garage. For a moment she thought it was Jane, but the shadow was too dark to be Jane or any Reaper. The figure existed in the Never, not the living lands, and thin, icy fog nipped at their heels.

  “Who is that?” Eddie whispered at her elbow.

  “I have no idea,” Wendy whispered back. She didn't know why she kept her voice low. It shouldn't matter if the figure heard them, but something about its extreme stillness and curling mist raised the fine hairs on the back of Wendy's neck.

  Lily stepped forward, hands at her hips, fingers deftly drawing her thin bone knives. “You are not welcome here,” she called boldly. Elle, arrows drawn and already notched at her bow, joined Lily's side. “Be gone,
beast!”

  “Wendy,” Piotr had a hand on her elbow, insistent fingers drawing her back. His other hand firmly rested on Eddie's shoulder. “You and Eddie are not safe here.”

  An unexpected wind began blowing through the parking garage, howling around the pillars and flinging litter from the closest trash can into the air. A sauce-stained Taco Bell bag snagged on Chel's purse, catching at the corner. Cursing, she shook it free.

  “What's going on?” Jon shouted over the wind. His hands shook and his keys clattered to the ground, landing half in a wet dip in the concrete. He reached for them and stopped. Impossibly, the puddle was freezing over as they watched, the thin rim of ice crackling across the dip in mere seconds.

  “That's impossible,” Jon mouthed to Chel and Wendy, the words snatched away by the rising wind.

  “They are Walkers,” Piotr shouted to Chel and Jon. “Their touch is draining. Be careful! Do not allow them to approach you!”

  Though Wendy had faced down Walkers without her abilities before, she didn't think she'd be able to bravado-bluff her way out of a fight this time. The unexpected surge of panic this realization brought left her stunned, reeling against Eddie as over a dozen Walkers slid through the walls of the parking garage, their tattered cloaks fluttering around their calves.

  The closest Walker turned to Piotr and grinned; the edge of his hood slid back, revealing handsome, chiseled features and a mouth full of gleaming white teeth. Rather than the rotting horror most Walkers were, this Walker's face was exquisite—features elegant and even and flawless—except for the oozing Celtic knot burned into the center of his forehead.

  “Ostorozhno!” Piotr cried as the Walker's arm, whole and heavily muscled, shot forward and scrabbled at Wendy's front. “Wendy! DUCK!”

  Instinctively Wendy stumbled back, yanking Eddie with her, as Piotr darted between Wendy and the Walker, jamming a fist into the Walker's midsection.

  The wind died down enough for Wendy to hear the scuffles erupting all around her. Across the garage Elle and Lily had taken on the biggest Walker by themselves. He was twice the size of the girls—easily towering over seven feet and packed with rippling muscles. The Walker brushed the top of the archway with his head as he lumbered between them.

  Elle, perched on the roof of a solid Hummer, was peppering the Walker with arrows at every turn, while Lily spun around the brute, stabbing forward and dodging back, arms and elbows and knees jerking into the line of fire and out again as she forced the towering Walker into a corner.

  Jon and Chel, on hands and knees, ignored the Walkers and were stabbing at their frozen car keys with pens from Chel's purse. One pen had already busted—black ink was smeared all over Jon's left hand and across his left cheek—and the remains of the pen had already stuck, frozen solid, to the parking garage floor.

  The rest of the Walkers, Wendy realized with a sick, sinking feeling, were headed in her direction.

  “Wendy,” Eddie said calmly, rising from his half-crouch and edging around the whirling mass that was Piotr's fight and the approaching mass of Walkers. “I doubt that these guys are here for me, and the Riders aren't slowing them down. You need to go. Now. Run!”

  Startled, scared, Wendy shook her head. “What? No! I can't just—”

  Eddie jerked Wendy to her feet. “Stop being stubborn. Shut up and RUN! GO!”

  “REAPER!” bellowed the gigantic Walker Lily and Elle were battling. It became a chant, picked up by the other Walkers. “REAPER! REAPER! REAPER!”

  Stumbling through the wall, Wendy ran.

  Instinctively Wendy sought out the thinnest spots of the Never, the walls she could easily pass through, and within seconds she was back in the hospital, shoving aside wandering Shades and passing through the burning heat of the living as she fled. Wendy didn't have the slightest clue where she was going or even if those Walkers were truly after her; all Wendy knew was that she was leaving her friends and family behind to face terrible odds and here she was, fleeing like a coward.

  Her mother, Wendy knew, would be furious with her.

  Torn, Wendy glanced over her shoulder. The Walker Piotr had been fighting was following her, hood thrown back and dogging her heels. Piotr, or maybe Eddie, had cut him across his cheek; he bled sluggish essence down the front of his robe. Bright splatters of it hit the hospital floor.

  “Reaper!” he cried in a broken, sing-song voice, half-laughing, half-yelling. “Reaper, wait for me! Reaper, all I want is a kiss!” Then the Walker realized that Wendy had slowed. He sped up to compensate.

  Terrified, Wendy turned to duck through the next wall and bounced off it instead. She staggered away, slipped, and fell flat on her back, cracking her temple as she went down. All thought fled; Wendy was pure, stunned sensation.

  The Walker was on her before she had the sense to stand, pinning Wendy by the wrists, thrusting his knees between hers and grinding his shins into her own.

  “Hello, meat,” the Walker whispered and leaned forward. “You smell good.”

  Up close, despite the gash gushing down his front, he was stunningly attractive. His eyes were brilliant blue, shot through with flecks of silver, thickly lashed and wide. The Walker was heavier than she expected; his hands were smooth and strong. He smelled like cinnamon and musk, myrrh and old, smooth leather.

  “Why?” Wendy asked. He leaned in so close that she could make out every detail of the thinly-etched knot burned into the flesh of his forehead.

  “Because you are too much like your aunt, poking your nose in where it's not needed.” He chuckled, low and deep. “Because even now, trapped and dying, you burn too brightly to resist.” His head darted forward, jamming his tongue past her teeth and into her mouth until Wendy thought she'd choke on it.

  His outsides might be attractive, but his tongue was thick and cracked and dry as dust, filling her mouth and tickling the backs of her tonsils, poking her esophagus with its impossible length. Even then, there seemed to be more and more and more tongue, filling every space in her mouth and pressing against her teeth with its heavy weight, its terrible spicy dryness, until Wendy suspected he was trying to suck out every drop of moisture in her.

  Like a bug pinned to the floor, Wendy thrashed on the tile, but he was too strong; those lovely eyes were cold and dark and amused as she jerked below. Wendy tried to get a knee up, to stab him in the groin, something, anything, but his robes were too voluminous, his legs too long. The most she managed to do was alert herself to the fact that he was enjoying this encounter far, far more than she was.

  The Walker's eyes glinted.

  Wendy knew what he was thinking; she was down, pinned, and strangling on his tongue. The Lightbringer, scourge of the Never, brought low beneath him. The Walker would either end her or do whatever else it was that the Reapers had sent him to do, but he was planning to enjoy this moment first.

  The Walker was used to his victims struggling, that much was clear, so Wendy, seeing her chance, went limp instead. The Walker's amused expression above her faded, and he stilled, confused. She could tell he was trying to decide whether he'd won or not, whether he should draw back or surge forward and do his worst. She'd given up, hadn't she? He clearly had orders, but she was the Lightbringer—shouldn't there have been more of a fight than this?

  His attention wasn't on her, not really.

  Wendy bit down. The Walker jerked back and Wendy went with him, twisting her wrists up and around his wrists, using the one bit of leverage she had to force the thick part of her lower hands through the opening of finger and thumb and then to snap her fingers in a loop around his wrists, turning the tables on his hold. Now Wendy grabbed him around the wrists; she held tight and, still biting down, snapped her head forward and then side to side, worrying his tongue like a pit bull might worry a bone.

  His bloody essence filled her mouth; it tasted like sour dirt and salt, like sand gone fetid and rank. Wendy wanted to spit him out but she couldn't, not yet. This wasn't over yet.

  The goal wasn't
to wound him, it was to startle him into scrabbling away, which he did, dragging Wendy to a standing position with him. Leaning against the wall next to a rolling medical cart filled to overflowing with supplies, Wendy released his tongue and, horrified, watched as the mutilated thing wagged at his collarbone, indented and bleeding from her teeth.

  “You bith,” the Walker said calmly, plucking up the end of his horrifically long tongue as casually as Wendy might have plucked at a scarf, “you bith mah tongth off.”

  Wendy spat beside the cart. “Not really,” she said, rubbing her arm against her lips and wishing fervently for anything to wash the taste away. “It's still there. Next time, ask a lady before going in for that first kiss. By the way, I hear baking soda will do wonders for that dead-for-a-decade taste in your mouth.”

  “No madda,” he said and winked as his tongue slipped back into his mouth like a magician's trick—one moment there, the next gone. “The Reaperth taketh care of their thervanth.”

  Grinning, the Walker drew out a slim golden chain from around his neck, thumbed the links a moment and then slid it back into his robe. A pulse of cold poured out of him, an icy wave of heavy air that slapped Wendy in the face.

  “And for my next trick,” Wendy muttered under her breath, shivering violently as ice formed on the cart at her side. “Watch me pull a freaky-ass rabbit out of my hat.”

  “Just wait,” he said, patting the place where the necklace had gone. “Your smart mouth will be the death of you.” He giggled, the shrieking, eye-watering pitch of it making the hairs on her arms rise and sending a deep shiver down her spine. Wendy watched as the cut on his face slowly sealed shut. “Or maybe it already has been, hmm? Didn't think to leave someone guarding your body in the hospital room, did you?”

  Another stab of panic. Wendy hesitated, torn between running straight to the room she'd just left and punching this arrogant ass in the face.

  He's bluffing, right?

  But what if he wasn't?

  The Walker grinned again and Wendy, tired of his face, grabbed the most solid things at hand off the cart. Luck was with her; in her left hand Wendy had a scalpel, in her right she held a pair of scissors. Grinning, Wendy popped the scalpel's safety sheath off with her thumb.