Never

by K. D. McEntire

  “Boo.”

  Wendy knew her mouth was hanging open. Clyde chuckled and gestured for her to close it.

  “I don't know why you're surprised, girl. There might be a whole lot more naturals wandering around, like your grandma, if the Reapers kept a closer tab on them,” Clyde explained gently. “But seeing death with your own eyes without being…altered…well, it doesn't happen that often. It takes a specific moment, a precise instant, when you have to be watching a soul leave the body for that natural instinct to be roused. And that just isn't that common unless you're planning for it, maybe working at a deathbed. Lotta Reaper girls worked as nurses in emergency wards back then.”

  “So my grandmother hid her natural status for years…” Wendy whispered, “but Elise still found out. And she made my mom do the deed. To kill her. Her own mother.”

  “Your babushka died raving in the hospital, burning with immense fever,” Piotr said, reaching out and taking Wendy's hand. She shook it free and glared at him, not missing the tight, worried glance Lily and Elle shared at the exchange.

  “Well that sounds familiar,” Elle grunted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Wendy, baby, have I mentioned recently how much I do not love your family?”

  “What I don't get is, why did Mom do it?” Wendy ground out after several seconds. “Why?”

  “The choice was taken from her,” Piotr reminded her gently. “It is the law of your kind to kill the natural. Mary was just following orders, da? Just doing her duty to her family. She was all tangled up inside—Mary trusted Elise, their de facto leader, and felt betrayed by her own mother.”

  “He's hit it on the head,” Clyde agreed. “Just a kid trying to do an adult's job.”

  “That's utter and complete crap,” Wendy said bitterly. “I'm the same age my mom was back then, right? I'd never, ever have turned her in. I'd have…I don't know, done something. Protected her or something! Found out why they thought she was such a danger, not just taken their word for it! You have to ask questions, you have to think for yourself! Because you don't do that to family! It's so important that you watch—”

  Wendy faltered as her mother's words, words pounded into her year after year during their training sessions, hung on the edge of her tongue.

  “You watch your back,” she finished lamely, cheeks blazing, remembering all the times her mother had shoved those very words in her face. “You ask the right questions.”

  Clyde raised an eyebrow. “Well, I guess she raised you a touch smarter than her mother raised her then, huh?”

  “How did Tracey die?” Wendy asked dully, not rising to Clyde's bait. The shame curled in her gut. She'd been so angry at her mother for all that time, so certain that her mom had no clue what it really was like to be this way. She had it easy, she had training, Wendy had thought at the time. She'd been irritated that no matter what she did, Mary never believed that Wendy understood where she was coming from, what lessons she was trying to impart.

  Now, with the fact that Wendy really hadn't had a clue staring her in the face, Wendy felt small and tired and very, very sad. “How did my mother kill her?”

  “Same way,” Clyde said, almost offhandedly, though it was obvious that being so cavalier about the answer hurt him. “After their momma died, Tracey started talking with ghosts instead of reaping them, including reading old books and stories so she could hunt down the Lady Walker. Tracey had a plan to oust Elise.”

  “And Elise had spies galore. She found out.”

  “Indeed she did.” Clyde snapped his fingers. “Pulled up the ol’ rule book and waved it around at everyone who'd listen, talking about civil war among the family, about how Tracey was a traitor to their blood, to the Good Workers and the Good Work, yada yada yada, plotting with the Council to overthrow the Reapers, so on and so forth.”

  “But that was a lie.”

  “Oh no, it was God's honest truth,” Clyde sighed. “After her mother was put down, Tracey had had enough of Elise and she didn't care who knew it. Feisty little thing. Mary tried her best to cover for her big sister but Tracey pissed off Elise one too many times. The second time around Mary fought the orders from up high tooth and nail, but Tracey demanded that Mary kill her.”

  “Why would she do that?” Elle asked, interested despite herself.

  “It was either that or they both died, yeah? Her execution was one of the only times I ever left the mansion. I hitched a ride and I…I was there, hiding, watching it all. They had Reapers all around ready to force her but Tracey voluntarily knelt down in that circle of theirs, threw her arms wide, and bared her belly. Just waited for her little sister to rip her Light out whole. Kept her eyes open the entire time.”

  “This was up at Fort Funston?” Wendy whispered.

  “Yes'm. They've got a shed out there, part of—”

  “I know it,” Wendy said sharply, forcing down the sick feeling in her gut, remembering how, only the day before, she'd been examining the faded circle on the floor and the gull excrement splattered on the walls. The fact that Wendy'd stripped down and trained in the same spot where her mother killed her aunt was disconcerting and sickening.

  “But how…how, after all that, did Mom manage to convince them to let her take control of the Bay Area by herself?” Wendy wondered, shaking free the memory of Jane and Emma gauging her naked body, how they'd discussed her tattoos and what she'd need to become more like them. “I mean, it's ridiculous that after both her mother and her sister were executed that Elise'd go for something like that.”

  Clyde looked at Piotr and smirking knowingly. “That truly is a question for the ages, huh comrade? How does such a black sheep get her way despite all the death that followed her like a plague?”

  Piotr frowned. “I do not follow your meaning.”

  “Touched any living folk lately?” Clyde asked, holding up a hand and flexing his fingers. “Maybe went in a little deeper than you normally would? You do remember doing that, don't you, comrade?”

  “What the hell!” Jon said, voice shaking roughly. He spun back to the beast. It was gone. “What the HELL, Chel!”

  “Dreamscape, dummy,” Chel said, patting Jon familiarly on the arm. “Wendy told us about ’em, remember? I'm sorry about the beastie, but I couldn't resist when I realized that we were sharing a dreamscape.”

  Jon frowned. “Wendy said it wasn't easy to build a dreamscape. How'd you manage it? Wait, are we still asleep?”

  “Yeah, we are.” Her voice dipped as Chel, glancing around, drew Jon closer and whispered. “But here's the thing…I didn't make this place. I woke up here just like you.”

  “That's because I made it,” murmured a quiet voice from behind them. The twins turned as a woman, white-haired and slim, stepped out from behind the car. She was regal, playing with a thin strand of pearls, and the faded, intricate ink at her neck and wrists spoke louder than any words. Reaper.

  “You two are quite difficult to trace, by the way,” she added. “Your signatures are much more subtle than Winifred's. She…blazes.”

  “You're Elise,” Jon said, fear nailing his feet to the earth. He knew that he ought to do something, spit in her face possibly, but the woman radiated self-assurance and poise. She held all the terrible sway of the unknown.

  “You are correct,” Elise said. “Look, my time with you is short. You two are barely napping, we must make this—”

  Chel, unburdened with Jon's passive nature, punched Elise in the face.

  Elise stumbled back, her hands pressed to her freely flowing nose, eyes wide with shock. “You…you hit me!”

  “That is for putting my sister in the hospital, you bitch,” Chel said, shaking her hand. “Come another step closer and I'll tack on chasing us away from San Ramon.”

  “She—and now you, apparently—must be kept aside, away from the machinations of the Lady Walker,” Elise growled, her voice muffled from behind her hands. “You cannot expect me to leave souls of such unbridled power just laying around where anyone could acce
ss you!”

  “Speaking as one of the, you know, owners of the souls, you can shove it, lady,” Jon protested sharply. “People aren't things. You can't just put us where you want us and expect us to be there when you get back. We're not one of your bullied ghosts, Elise. We're—and I really hate saying this—supposed to be family. You don't do this to family.”

  “I am the matriarch of the Reapers!” Elise snapped, dropping her hands and exposing a clear and untouched face. “If you wish to learn to control your powers, to not begin burning yourself up from the inside, then you need us! You need our help. You need my help, to live a long and productive life! All you have to do is follow orders! Is it really that onerous, that difficult?”

  “If those orders are coming from you,” Chel pointed out dryly, “yeah, it really is that hard. We weren't raised in your little death-cult, lady. We want nothing from you.”

  Elise stilled. “Fine. You have a point. Perhaps you have no need of the Reapers yet. However—”

  “However nothing,” Chel growled, crossing her arms over her chest. Jon was startled to realize that the pavement at her feet was starting to crackle and crack in ever widening circles. “You're in our dream, Elise. What do you want? Really want?”

  “A trade,” Elise said, pursing her lips as she regarded them steadily. “If your sister won't treat with me, perhaps you will. For all our sakes.”

  Chel's reply cracked, whip-like, across the space between them, setting up echoes that hurt Jon's ears. “No deal.”

  Elise scowled and Jon realized why Wendy shifted uneasily whenever she spoke of Elise's displeasure. Her expression promised terrible pain for any who would thwart her. “You haven't listened to—”

  “Don't want to. If Wendy won't deal with you, then you need to get lost. And now. Before I try to rearrange your face for real.” Chel turned her back on Elise.

  “Not even if I will free your friend Edward from his bonds?” Her voice dipped low and Jon shivered at how the words seemed to ooze their way around them, pulling them close. “He's dying. I was at his body only an hour ago. He will not last the night. It's truly a miracle he's lasted this long, you know. Someone has obviously been helping him. Giving him their will.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Jon was surprised. He hadn't meant the words to blurt out like that but there they were, hanging in the air, accusing and pointed. Oh well, he thought, in for a penny. “Get out,” he demanded. The world around them trembled and Jon remembered Wendy telling him that the original dreamer had the real power in a dreamscape. Jon raised his voice. “Get out.” The pavement shook harder. “Get out, Elise! This is my dream! You're not welcome here! GET OUT!”

  Jon shoved his hand forward, demanding the Light, cupping all his anger and pain in a ball between his hands. It filled his palms like hot putty before flaring into a blaze of flame so fierce it blinded him. Hands ablaze, Jon knew he had to get rid of the Light before it scarred him.

  He blindly blasted at Elise's feet.

  Or it would have. When the smoke cleared the pavement was a melted pile of tar and goo, but Elise…

  Elise was gone.

  None of them moved. Piotr's trick with the ER doctor was still too fresh in their memories, and the fact that Clyde apparently knew Piotr was capable of swaying the living with a touch was disconcerting for all of them. Wendy stared at Clyde, unblinking, wondering just why this man was here, at the Winchester, instead of on the Council and running the city. He seemed to have an innate understanding of the way the Reapers worked that Frank didn't. Why was he here instead of there?

  Piotr cleared his throat. “You are suggesting that I—”

  “Suggesting nothing. Stating a fact.”

  “Is that possible?” Lily asked, playing with the teacup, running the pads of her fingers along the rim. “For Piotr to sway a Reaper in that manner?”

  “Sure it is!” Clyde said jovially. “Mary even bragged to me about it. She made sure that Elise was too busy to notice Piotr sneaking up on her. Afterward Elise had half the family packed and gone within the week, and the other half on their way by time the moon had waned. When a few decided to protest, Mary already had the city sewn up tight, didn't she?”

  “Like a shroud,” Piotr agreed, holding out his hands and frowning at his extended fingers. “I have lost so much,” he murmured in a voice so low that Wendy had to strain to hear him. “So much that I am still recalling, relearning, layers and layers of memory that wash upon me in moments, unexpected and often unwanted but still…still needed. And I fear that I am running out of time to discover the rest.”

  “Always so impatient, Piotr! Your recollections will return,” Lily assured Piotr firmly, reaching forward and brushing a hand across his cheek, eyes warm and wise. The gesture was so comforting and kind that Wendy wasn't jealous; her worries over Lily's friendship with Piotr seemed shallow and petty now in the face of that instant, intimate understanding. “They will come in time. Abide until then.”

  Clyde turned back to the filthy hole in the wall and reached inside. “Mary left this here a few years back. She said I'd know when it was time to let it go,” Clyde said, drawing back. When he opened his hand a thin chain tumbled from his palm, catching the dim light and glittering in the faint security lights of the Never. A key dangled from the chain.

  “What is it?” Wendy asked. For some reason the sight of the key was setting warnings off in her head.

  “Nothing much, just a key,” Clyde said, but he was grinning. “I hear tell it opens a door.”

  “Truly, for that is the nature of keys,” Lily said dryly. Elle snickered.

  Clyde chuckled. “You know what, girl? I like you. You've got spunk.” He cleared his throat and spun the chain so the key swung wildly on the end. “Fine, fine. This key opens up a door out on Russian Hill. Kind of hard for you to make your way there now, I understand, what with the spirit web forest and all, but if you can find the door it goes to, well, there might be some sort of reward in it.”

  Piotr shook his head. “We care not for rewards. That is not our goal.”

  “Depends on the reward, don't it?” Clyde said, winking, before twisting back to the panel and rifling again in the hole. After a moment he pulled out a plain, wood-handled knife. Wendy squinted and could make out that the weapon existed both in the Never and the living lands. “There's also this. Little knick-knack that found its way down my branch of the family ages ago. I probably should've passed it back to the current branch, but screw ’em. My grandma left it to me. It was mine.”

  Lily straightened, cocking her head as he held the blade up, glinting in the security lights. Clyde caught the movement; he smirked at Lily and held out the knife. “Go on, girl. Take it. It's a funny little trinket, yeah? It'll be solid for you just as it's solid for me.”

  Frowning, Lily took the knife from him, holding it up and out as she examined it so that Wendy, leaning forward, could get a closer look. It looked like a basic knife, nothing more, a tarnished blade and wooden handle with no fancy carving or intricate knots to indicate its origin. When Wendy sat back, sharing a puzzled look with Lily, Lily then ran a finger along the dull edge and said, “Even though it can be wielded in the living lands, this knife is still worse than useless to us. What is the point? Please, elaborate.”

  “Who knows? The Reaper with the funny hair was sure interested in that key, though. Kind of demanding little thing. I don't cotton to little girls ordering me around, mind, but she knew her history right enough.”

  “Funny hair?” Wendy asked. It was the second time Clyde had mentioned the Reaper's hair. “What was funny about it?”

  “The color.” Chuckling, Clyde shook his head. “I see some strange ones come through this place ever day but her hair was bluer than berries and bonnets, m'dear. Bluer than a summer sky.”

  “Jane,” Wendy groaned, burying her face in her hands. “God, she gets around.”

  “God ain't got nothing to do with it, kid. I told her to go to hell.” Clyde
tossed the key and chain to Wendy, who reflexively caught it and stuffed the chain in a pocket.

  “Did she?” Lily asked, grinning and rolling the handle of the knife in her palms. Wendy was glad Lily was testing its weight; if any of them could make magic with a blade it'd be Lily. It made her feel better to know Lily had Piotr's back with such a weapon. It eased Wendy's mind.

  “She left pretty quickly, at that. And now, kiddies, our time is done. I have to make sure all the holes in the property are nice and closed. I don't want any Walkers wandering in. Especially now that the Lady Walker is out and about.”

  Elle patted her pincurls primly, sneering, “Well maybe if you rethought your ‘not letting us stay’ stance, you wouldn't have that problem, huh? Wendy here might be temporarily neutered, but her kid sister and brother are both as natural as blooming blossoms now. Her kid sister took out one of those creatures all by herself not two hours ago! Food for thought, old man. You should let them stay.”

  “Oh really? That is interesting news,” Jane said, stepping from the hallway leading into the dining room with a dark, vicious smile. She sinuously strode forward, tilting her head forward so that her hair fell across her forehead, obscuring her eyes. “I didn't have proof before—just a hunch—and look, it paid off! A whole family of blood traitors! Goody!”

  “Oh lovely,” Elle said, sliding to her feet with the grace of a dancer, “the bitch returneth.”

  Wendy stood also, mimicking Elle's movements. Together they squared their shoulders and circled the Reaper, attempting to hem her in. If their positioning bothered her, Jane didn't let it show. Rolling her eyes at Wendy, Jane rested one fist on her hip, her artistically shredded shirt swaying with the motion. Wendy tried to ignore the way the motion exposed the intricate swirl of tattoos that swirled all the way to her navel. Some were puffy and fresh-inked, the new scabs cracking around the edges. “Such bravado! Such gall. Do you think that I'd bother with the likes of you people if I was worried that you could hurt me?”