“Meanwhile a bunch of folks with very familiar tattoos tried to convince my doctor to let me die over a DNR. My DNR, as a matter of fact,” Wendy sneered, “one that I don't, you know, actually have. Know anything about that, Elise?”
There. There it was at last. Wendy spotted the dreamscape doorway in the redwood bordering the soccer field, a short distance away. The way out was almost hidden amid the thick and gnarly bushes and trees. The door handle was a branch but if Wendy looked at the area obliquely she could just make it all out, how the door had been neatly obfuscated, the shape of it formed between blinks.
“Jane was in the hospital recently? Are you sure?” Elise's voice was thin, reedy.
“Yeah. Positive. You two came to gloat at me and then, not an hour later, Jane came back. This time she made chatty-chat with some pushy doctors trying to off me with a faux DNR and then bailed. Sound familiar?”
Mouth drawn in a thin line, Elise refused to rise to Wendy's taunts. “Winifred…there are…factions of our family that do not agree with—”
“You?” Wendy asked nastily.
“What I…what we are trying to accomplish in this life. With the rules set down for us, to guide us, to shape us,” Elise retorted primly. “In our recent history some Reapers have attempted to reach out to…creatures…such as the Lady Walker, in the hopes that doing so will grant them power or…a sort of sick immortality. The kind only a twisted being such as the Lady Walker could offer.”
“So just being stupid-rich while you're alive isn't good enough for you people? You want more in the Never? Why am I not surprised?”
“Idiot girl! Shut up and listen!” hissed Elise. “I did not give orders to mock up a DNR. That would be bringing outsiders into our family business, an unacceptable action. We deal with our own. We always have! However, if there are Reapers at the hospital who are pushing such an…ignoble and backhanded manner of dealing with your shell, then they most certainly have left the fold!”
Her voice dropped and Wendy realized that Elise was either a very good actor or actually showing her real emotions for once; she sagged like an old woman. She looked crushed. “If Jane is dealing with them, then my…suspicions are confirmed. She most certainly has met with the Lady Walker.”
“Sucks to be you,” Wendy said, and rubbed her finger and thumb together. “Note the world's tiniest violin playing ‘My Heart Bleeds For You.’”
Elise straightened. “You think I am awful, yes? You believe me to be the pinnacle of evil?”
“Yep,” Wendy said, examining her nails, miming boredom. “Or pretty close to it.”
“Then you know nothing!” Elise's fist slammed into her thigh with a meaty thud. “There are creatures beyond our world, beings that exist only to feast upon the Reapers and the souls in the Never! This is why I fear naturals, Winifred! If you lose control of your power you could rip a hole into the space between worlds, letting these…abominations into the Never, only a gasp away from the living lands! Beside these creatures, a Reaper is weak—our power, our wonderful Light, is only a candle in the darkness! All the Lady Walker wants is to let them roam the Never, obliterating all that we have worked for! Devouring. Gnawing. Feasting on the Reapers themselves!”
“Oh really?” Wendy rolled her eyes, though something in the way the whites of Elise's eyes grew wide when she spoke of the creatures made Wendy faintly queasy. “Afraid you might get your comeuppance for once? A little bitty beastie got you scared, Elise? Shame. If I knew that before, maybe I'd have dropped a mouse in your drawers.”
“Maybe this might surprise you, Winifred,” Elise said stiffly, “but I don't want the Never to go anywhere. I happen to believe that the cursed dead-land serves a purpose—the sinners are flung there to suffer and work off their sins so that they might be granted the release of Heaven! In return we reap both their souls and the benefits of their labor. I may have benefited, true, but their labors are fair, their duties not onerous.”
“But if the dead don't work off their debt to your satisfaction, they're punished further, right?” Wendy sneered. “Just like if I don't march to the beat of your drummer you put me in the ER.” Wendy had had enough; it was time to go.
“I am arbiter only of the dead, Winifred,” Elise replied coldly. “I do not answer to a living abomination such as yourself. I laid you low to protect this family, to protect the Never, that is all!”
“Yeah, I'm done with you and I'm done here.” Wendy turned away from Elise, striding into the copse of trees holding the dreamscape door. “Jane's run rogue? Sorry. Tough for you. I know how to handle her if she wanders my way again and, honestly, I really couldn't care less about poor, pitiful you and your family troubles. You say there are Reapers chatting up the Lady Walker? Well maybe you need to think a little harder on why they'd turn their back on the fold, Elise. What does she have to offer them that you can't?”
Elise tried one last time. “Winifred, you would truly allow Edward to suffer? All I ask is—”
“Screw off, Elise, and take your crappy bribes with you. I'll fix Eddie myself. I don't want or need your help to fix the problem you caused. I can handle it on my own.”
“Don't you turn your back on me, young lady!” snarled Elise. “Don't you walk away!”
Wendy knelt down and grabbed the handle in the tree-door. It opened easily beneath her hand, the door swinging open into soft, warm light.
When Wendy opened her eyes she found Elle's knife trained against her jugular. Beside Elle Piotr was scowling, his hand curled over Elle's shoulder as if trying to pull her away.
“Good morning to you too, Elle,” Wendy yawned and stretched, inwardly relaxing as Elle pulled the knife away and sheathed it. “After everything we've been through together, I thought we were getting to be friends.”
“Oh no worries, Wendy,” Elle cheerfully retorted, running her fingers through her pincurls and rearranging one near her temple. “We're copasetic. I just had to be careful—you talk in your sleep and I don't trust the Reapers not to pull a fast one somehow. How's Elise doing? Still crazy?”
Wendy grimaced. “She wanted a trade. My help with Jane—who's gone rogue, by the way—in exchange for Eddie's cord back in one piece.”
Eddie, sitting in the front seat, leaned through the passenger side. “They have it?”
“It took me a while to figure it out before, but the truth is that you have it,” Wendy said shortly, reaching out and pressing her hand against Eddie's gut. “Here. It's been there the whole time. They just…squished it up and hid it in your essence. It takes a Reaper who knows what they're doing to pull it free and shape it back into a cord.”
Eddie poked his navel. “I don't feel any different. I feel like I could start fading away again at any time.” He glanced at Lily as he said this and Wendy felt a strange, tight pang in her gut as the dark-haired girl's lips twitched into a brief smile. She knew that Eddie and Lily had been spending a great deal of time together lately; they'd had to drag a raving Piotr to the Treehouse by themselves less than a day prior.
Eddie was her oldest friend and Wendy was intimately familiar with that look; Eddie had a crush. On Lily.
Wendy wasn't quite sure how she felt about that.
Forcing a smile, she shrugged. “Sorry Eds, I told her to stuff it. I'll get you free as soon as I'm back in my own body. Pretty soon all this will be a…what, Elle? Why are you making that face? Keep it up and it might stick like that, young lady!”
Elle yanked her tongue back into her mouth and ceased her overwrought genuflecting, patting the knife on her hip. “Fine, fine. Anything else from Elise?”
“Not much,” Wendy admitted, frowning and trying not to brood on the wild way Elise spoke of the darkness and the stink of desperation when she realized that Jane had left the fold. “Elise mostly wanted to wax poetic about creatures from between the worlds and bitch about Jane.”
“Jane?” Eddie asked, his interest piqued. “She really went bad? Like, badder? Kind of hard to imagine.”
>
“Creatures?” Lily asked.
Wendy rolled her eyes at Eddie and turned to reply seriously to Lily. “Nana Moses told me, before, that they can sense naturals…that we're like a gourmet buffet to them,” Wendy said so softly the others strained to hear her speak.
“These creatures then,” Elle said, “what happens if they scent you?”
“They would rush here, to the Never. If they found a weak spot they'd punch their way through and once they got here…if they fed on me, on my Light, then no one would be safe. No one. So if…if that were to happen, you would need to put me down. Like a dog.” She lifted her head, staring at Elle directly. “I'd need your word on it.”
“I'll do it,” Elle said flatly, her hand resting on the bone knife at her hip. “You go crazy like that and you've got my weapons and my word.” Challengingly, Elle glanced at Lily. “What about you, Pocahontas?”
“Of course, if such actions are necessary,” Lily replied, unperturbed. “The Lightbringer has an important duty in the Never. I shall always do my best to support her in any way that she needs.”
“Now that we've all agreed to stab my best friend in the face,” Eddie interrupted, frowning at them, “I'd like to point out that Jon and Chel are back.” He was right; the elevator doors to the parking garage had opened and the twins were heading in their direction.
“I assume I still have all my parts? Neck, hands, the like?” Wendy asked her sister as Chel reached the car.
“We had to sneak past that awful doctor again,” Chel grumped, jiggling the passenger door handle as Jon fumbled for the keys. His hands were still smeared with black ink; at some point he'd rubbed some along his jaw, giving him a swarthy swath like a bruise under his chin. “He was helping haul that bunny-slipper chick into a wheelchair for some kind of transfer, so it took us a bit to get past him. Looked like she fainted or something. The DNR-bitch was pushing her toward the usual exit, so we had to go the long way around.”
“I get such a nasty feeling off him,” Jon mumbled, “and they've got you on some kind of secondary drip. We didn't get to really hang out with you and give you a good once over but I heard one of the nurses say it was some kind of sedative. You…your body…was thrashing around.” He paused, tilting his head, one hand on the car door. “She…wait…do you guys hear that?”
Clink.
Jane appeared as if from thin air. Knife flashing, eyes blazing, she slashed forward and spun, felling Jon with a precise kick between his legs. He staggered back, gasping. Chel snarled and Jane was on her, all nails and fury.
“Jane!” Wendy yelped, reaching for her Light. Once more, it was as if she were scrabbling at a smooth, blank wall. She could feel the heat of her power—burning hot!—behind the barrier, but after all the attacks of the evening Wendy was too worn to even attempt to pry open a hole and free her Light to fight her cousin.
“What the hell!” Eddie yelled, staggering back a step before hurrying to Jon's side. “Stop! JANE! STOP!” He knelt down to make sure Jon was okay, but looked to Wendy for orders. “What do we do?”
“We can't touch her while she's in the living lands,” Wendy snapped. She swung at the Reaper but her hand swept ineffectually through Jane's shoulder. Even now, in the midst of chaos, Wendy had to admire the girl's ironfisted control. Keeping herself entirely solid while fighting was next to impossible; Wendy's spirit would have bled into the Never by now. “If she switches over, we can attack her between her physical and spiritual states, but until then I don't know what to do!”
“PIOTR!” Elle yelled, drawing her bow. “Use those magic hands of yours and poke her in the brain!”
“Net! I dare not!” Piotr snarled. “I do not know if it works on Reapers! She isn't Wendy. Jane will draw power from me, from my memories, and use it against us!”
“Hell yeah, I will!” Jane cried, kicking out.
“SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!” Chel demanded, grabbing fistfuls of Jane's hair as the Reaper spun past, slamming the older girl into the corner pillar of the parking garage. Then she forced Jane to the ground, grinding her knee into Jane's hand. Chel had spent the last six years as a cheerleader; plenty of time to learn that fighting dirty was imperative when facing other irate gymnasts with boyfriend issues. If given a chance, Wendy suspected that Chel could bust open watermelons with her thighs alone.
“Dropit-dropit-dropit-DROPIT,” Chel chanted until Jane let the knife go. Chel kicked the blade away; it skittered under a nearby truck. “Jon get your ass over here! NOW!”
Jane screamed and raked nails down Chel's arm, shoving upward with all her strength until they were both on their feet again, staggering in circles, Jane's hair still gripped tightly in Chel's fists. “Bitch,” Jane snarled, “let go!”
Twisting left, then right, Chel struggled to wrestle Jane into a headlock. “You're gonna stab me! Hell no, I'm not letting go!” Then she groaned; Jane was pushing them backward, pressing Chel roughly into the pillar behind them. Using the leverage of the wall to pin Chel, Jane twisted her right arm between them and heaved, freeing herself. Wendy saw both their gazes dart to the ground but the knife was gone.
“Jane! Stop!” Wendy cried. “Why? Why are you doing this? You let me go in the dream!”
“That was so yesterday,” Jane spat, keeping Chel on her left, trapped at the wall but also unable to reach the knife. “Before I met with a Lady who put the right sort of spin on things. I was blind before, Wendy, but now…now I see the Light!”
“You could always see the Light!” Eddie grunted, circling her from a distance.
“Can it, Eddie. I'm under new orders now. If Grandma's Pretty Boy Walker couldn't take you out, even as a sad little ghost, then I'll just have to finish you off.” Jane grinned; her teeth gleamed white in the faint garage lights. “The Lady Walker's on the move, Wendy, and she needs weirdo naturals like you to stoke the engines. Consider it…fighting the good fight by being Walker-chow.”
Chel, taking advantage of Jane's brief distraction, darted forward and, grabbing Jane by the arm, spun her into the wall, scraping her face against the rough concrete.
“You're gonna regret that, blondie,” Jane growled, running the back of her hand against the bloody corner of her mouth and spitting a gob of blood on the pavement. “Bet your soul on it.”
The outer edges of Jane's shape began to glow.
“Is she gonna regret this?” Jon asked and swung the baseball bat.
“Geeze, Jon,” Chel said, getting down on all fours to retrieve Jane's knife beneath the car. She was bleeding sluggishly from where Jane had clawed her, but was otherwise unhurt. “When did you grow a pair?”
“Mom said never to hit girls,” Jon said uncomfortably, stowing his baseball bat back in the trunk. He started toward the emergency station at the end of the garage—one slap of the big red button would bring hospital security and handcuffs. “I figured she'd understand if I was protecting you.”
“Did he kill her?” Eddie asked nervously, kneeling beside Jane. “She's not moving.”
“Don't touch her, Eds,” Wendy warned as Chel, giving up on reaching the knife beneath the car, flopped in the passenger side of their vehicle and fumbled the first aid kit out of the glove compartment. “She's a viper, okay? Stay away.”
“Don't be such a Mrs. Grundy, Lightbringer,” Elle said, stashing her bow. “Didn't you hear that thunk? Jolly Jane's not jiving anytime soon.”
“Elle, be reasonable,” Lily said as Piotr and Eddie left Jane laid out on the concrete several feet away. “Even unconscious, a Reaper has power.”
“Wish we had a Lost,” Wendy muttered, stepping around the edge of a nearby van. Only Jane's feet were visible from here but Wendy still felt like a cat, as if every hair on her body was raised. Even behind the cover of the van Jane was still too close for comfort. “Specs ripped my Light right out. I bet another Lost'd shred her to pieces. Or, hell, feed her to a Walker. Maybe then Elise'd lay off.”
“Wendy!” Eddie admonished.
“Eddie, Jane landed me in the hospital and just tried to shish kabob my little sister. I'm allowed not to like her, you know.”
“It is only that such bitterness is unlike you,” Piotr said softly, drawing Wendy close. He kissed her temple. “Do not worry yourself, Wendy. Jane will soon—”
“Escape,” Elle said flatly.
“What?!” Wendy straightened and peered around the back of the van. Jane's feet were gone, the rest of her along with them. Wendy rubbed her eyes in disbelief. “How did she—”
“No one is answering the guard desk,” Jon griped as he approached. He looked around. “Hey, where did the crazy chick go?”
“Screw this noise,” Eddie snapped forcefully, startling them all. “Concussion or not, Jane managed to make a jump for it, bully for her. Let's not stick around while she calls any other Reaper buddies for backup, okay? We're getting out of here. Now.”
They piled into the car and pulled out, leaving the shadowy recesses of the parking garage behind.
“So. That happened. Story to tell the grandkids for sure, but what do we do now?” Jon asked once they were several blocks away. His stomach grumbled and Jon blushed as red as his hair.
“Pull into that Jack in the Box,” Wendy decided, worrying a thumbnail nervously. “Grab some grub and we'll figure out what to next.” She hesitated. “Unless you want to go back inside to the ER and get your hand looked at, Chel.”
“Are you kidding me? That hospital is dangerous,” Chel snapped. “Besides, I haven't eaten lately either. I could just murder a side salad.”
“Only a side salad?” Wendy asked, regretting the words immediately. The last thing her sister needed was Wendy drawing attention to Chel's ongoing struggle with diet pills.
“One disorder at a time,” Chel said defensively. “I'm only popping Advil for my aching hand, Jon won't order fries. You happy, princess?”
“Lay off, Chel,” Jon said in a soto voice, guiding the car into the drive-thru lane. “Wendy loves us, she worries about us, and she didn't mean anything by it, so we'll all just…lay off. Okay?”
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