by Cege Smith
The dismay on David’s face said it all. She didn’t even need to ask what he was thinking about her statement. “How do you know that, Ellie?”
“Everyone keeps telling me that I’m a Ripher and that when the time came I would understand what that meant. And even you said that people like me are rare. Once I let it loose, it took over. But I can feel that ability that I took from him inside me now. I know everything about it, including how to use it if I wanted to. But I don’t. Lucy was supposed to help me, but I did it wrong. In the end, I hurt him.”
“Lucy is that woman who was with you in the library?”
Ellie realized that David had been missing during the entire evening since Lucy’s introduction. She nodded. “Mikel brought her here to help me with taking people’s abilities. Because I told him when I first got here I wasn’t going to kill anyone. According to Mikel, that’s Lucy’s job.”
David let out a deep breath. “So Lucy killed that boy in there.”
She realized that David sounded relieved. The confession felt like it was ripped from her throat. “No, David. I did it. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
She watched David crumble in on himself as he sat down on the stairs with an empty expression. That scared her more than anything that she had experienced so far. She sat down next to him. “I swear, David. I didn’t do it on purpose. You know me. This is so far removed from who I am that it’s almost laughable. It seems like just yesterday I was nothing more than a woman who owned a little coffee shop and had nothing to worry about except what I was going to do on Saturday night. Now I’m being told that I’m some twisted thing that straddles the world of the living and the dead and takes away psychic abilities. For what purpose no one has bothered to tell me yet, but overall, my mind and body seem to understand how it’s done.”
“I’ve heard of Riphers, of course, but I guess I didn’t really understand fully what they did,” David said. He gazed at Ellie with a look she had never seen before, like he had no idea who she was.
The thought that David would turn on her twisted like a knife in her heart. “David, I can’t do this without you. I need you on my side. I promise that it won’t happen again. I mean, that’s the whole reason that Lucy is here. She’s supposed to be the one with no morals who has no problem killing these people off.”
“I’m struggling to understand how we fit in here,” David said. “I don’t know how you could have any part in this and be okay with it.”
“We don’t fit in here,” Ellie said softly. “I’m not okay with it. But I have to keep us safe, and that means that there is a good chance I will have to do some things that neither one of us is very comfortable with.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Ellie’s thoughts were a jumbled mess, and she assumed that David’s were too. She wondered if what she had just done would drive a wedge between them that couldn’t be undone. The only thing she could see as an upside was that David was acting like himself again.
David finally spoke. “I told you that my memories have been coming back. Things like this didn’t happen when Lillian and Joseph were here, but I guess that makes sense since they didn’t have your…skill. They took care of the people that traveled through the waypoint, but they only provided intel on the ones that they suspected may be useful to Mikel in the Afterlife. I am sure he had other minions around to do his dirty work after that. I remember that Lillian lived in constant fear that he would decide she wasn’t useful to him, so she figured out other ways to bring the necessary energy to the waypoint to keep it open.”
“Like what?” Ellie asked.
“If you read Max Turner’s book, then you know that a portal can be opened that allows the living to enter the waypoint. I mean, that’s how you and I got here. Over time, the mansion was occupied. Every time Lillian was able to interact easily with the regular world, she managed to draw someone in that she and Joseph could use to feed on.”
“Like Joe Klein,” Ellie said. The real estate agent had been an innocent bystander who was drawn in just like Ellie. Unfortunately for Joe Klein, Lillian was the type of predator who liked to play with her food before she ate it.
“Yes,” David said. “Most of those happened when I was just a kid. I didn’t know any better. I remember now playing with the children that lived here for a little while when it was an orphanage. Of course, they were the only ones that could see me. This strange existence has been all I’ve ever known. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m in no position to judge you, Ellie.”
His words lifted Ellie’s heart. “Thank you, David. You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.”
He slid down to the step that she was sitting on and slid his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “He will try to pull us apart. We can’t trust anyone here, just each other.”
Ellie looked into his eyes, and for a moment she was able to forget where they were and what she had just done, which was something that she desperately needed. It was as though she was transported back to her apartment when they sat in front of the fireplace and all the rest of the world dropped away. It was just Ellie and David.
His lips closed the distance between them and Ellie leaned in eagerly. Their kiss was hungry and almost panicked. His hands slipped behind her neck, pulling her in even closer, as if he was afraid that she was going to disappear. Inside that kiss, they could forget all the strangeness around them. There was nothing but hunger, need, and skin.
As his hands made their way down her shoulders and to her waist, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her body felt like it was on fire and she felt another hunger that burned much deeper than her need for food or even air.
She moaned when his lips pulled away, but he grasped her hand with a tender smile and helped her to her feet. His lips found her earlobe then and wandered down to her neck and she squirmed against him in delight. “Let’s go to my room,” he whispered.
Ellie readily agreed. She needed to feel normal and forget the incident with Martin and try to get her thoughts straight. She couldn’t think of a better way to do that than losing herself in David’s arms.
They had just reached the landing to turn up to the second floor and David was kissing her again when she heard a loud throat clearing from the bottom of the stairs. Ellie groaned when she saw Lucy standing there with her arms crossed.
“Ellie? I need you for a minute,” Lucy said.
“Can’t it wait?” Ellie said. David’s fingers were dancing impatiently on her waist as he half hid behind her as if trying to duck Lucy’s wrath.
“No, it can’t,” Lucy said flatly. She jerked her head toward the library.
That reminder was just enough to pull Ellie back to her senses. She felt horrible that she was giving in to such a guilty pleasure when she knew that she should be feeling just plain guilty. She turned to David. “Hold that thought, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” David growled. He looked frustrated.
“I promise,” Ellie said. Regretfully, she let go of his hand and joined Lucy at the foot of the stairs.
Lucy was still looking behind Ellie. Ellie glanced over her shoulder and then saw the door to David’s room close. “Didn’t take you long to get cozy. Not like you just killed somebody or anything”
Ellie’s lips felt swollen and she touched them gently. “I’m a mess, Lucy, okay? I don’t even know how to deal with what just happened. David made me feel like I wasn’t a complete freak and I need that more than ever right now. I don’t need you judging me.”
“He’s a doctor, right?” Lucy said.
“That’s what he did when he was on the Other Side, yes,” Ellie said. She could tell that Lucy didn’t think highly of David at all and she wanted to know why. “What’s the deal, Lucy? I love him. He and I came here together. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“For a guy who saw life and death all the time, I’m just surprised that he didn’t at least try to help Martin. Not like
he could have, but still, that seems weird.”
Ellie frowned. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, Lucy wasn’t entirely wrong. David’s passion for his work had been one of the things that attracted her to him in the first place. It wasn’t like him to not even offer to help.
“What are you saying?” Ellie asked.
Lucy shrugged. “I know you’ve known him awhile and you’re in love and all that, and you’ve only known me for five minutes. But the big A has a strange effect on people. I like you, Ellie. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
“David would never hurt me,” Ellie said. But she had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind again that she was missing something. “He’s been through a lot and he was sick when he transitioned back here. I’m sure that’s all that was, plus it was pretty obvious that Martin was gone.”
“Speaking of Martin, that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Lucy said. “You aren’t going to leave me all by myself to clean up the mess. And you’d better get your story straight before the escorts get here.”
“Escorts?” Ellie had forgotten that part of Jeffrey’s story, which appeared to be true. Every time she felt like she picked up one piece of information she found three others that she didn’t know.
“I can help with wiping the memories of the other two so they don’t remember anything about what happened to Martin. That’s the easy part. Disposing of a body in a waypoint? Bit more difficult, but not impossible. Lying to the escorts? That one’s all you. The other bosses find out what’s going on here and there’s literally going to be hell to pay. Mikel wants me to help you, but I’m definitely not taking the fall for something that wasn’t my fault.”
“I don’t get it,” Ellie said. “You were going to kill whoever I took the gift from anyway. I would’ve thought that you’d have already thought about this.”
“My spell would have had them fading out at some point after they were picked up by the escorts, at a point where they were already where they were supposed to be and those kinds of things aren’t noticed as much. I hide it by making it look like the same type of magic that happens when people are taken for reincarnation. But having people die at the waypoint is bad all the way around. Let’s just say that the comings and goings of the soon-to-be-dearly-departed are much more closely monitored.”
“That would have been a good thing to know before now,” Ellie said faintly.
“Well, who knew you were going to be so damn good at your new job,” Lucy said with a shadow of a smile. “C’mon. We have work to do.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As Lucy escorted Ellie back into the library, Ellie found Katie and Will sitting silently on the couch with blank expressions. Their hands were in their laps and they were facing forward. They didn’t move as she approached them.
“What’s wrong with them?” she whispered.
“They can’t hear you,” Lucy said, raising her voice as if to prove her point. “I’ve got them under a spell that basically keeps them in this catatonic state until I pull them out of it. I’m going to guess that for them it feels like being in a coma. Comes in handy sometimes when I need to do something and don’t want to be seen.”
“But their eyes are moving,” Ellie said with a shiver. She wasn’t sure what was worse, feeling like invisible eyes were watching her or having the eyes of silent statues following her every move. She was distinctly uncomfortable. Then she looked over to the floor by the fireplace and was startled to see that Martin’s body was gone. She felt a moment of panic.
Lucy saw her face and pointed toward the back doorway that led into the hall by the kitchen. It was hard to see in the gloom of the room, but Ellie could just make out a low figure propped against the bottom of the wall.
“What exactly are we supposed to do?” Ellie asked.
“Look, I’m risking a lot by helping you do anything at all considering the mess you made for yourself,” Lucy said. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
Ellie sighed in frustration, which helped mask the feelings of guilt that were bubbling up inside. “It would be so helpful if you would stop talking in code! Do you realize that all of this happened because no one can give me a straight answer about anything? I’m tired of the secrets. I’m tired of the vague statements and talk about what I may be able to do. Stop and just tell me the goddamn truth!”
Lucy’s eyes widened as Ellie’s voice got louder and louder. Finally, Lucy nodded. “Okay, Ellie. Fair enough. Let’s get Martin downstairs and I’ll tell you what to do. Listen, nobody here wants to draw the wrong kind of attention. I’m here to help. Don’t worry about it.”
As she got closer and was able to make out all of his features, Ellie thought how peaceful he looked, like he was sleeping. Even though his skin was just a bit paler than it should be, she still expected to see his chest rising and falling. The fact that it wasn’t made her want to throw up. Lucy pointed at Martin’s torso, and Ellie wondered how between the two of them they were supposed to take Martin’s body anywhere. He had to weigh at least what the two of them did combined.
Ellie put her hands under his shoulders and pulled, and almost fell over as his weight lifted easily into her arms. She saw Lucy’s amused expression. “Did I become a bodybuilder in this place?” she asked.
“You aren’t that strong,” Lucy said. “Let’s just say that you will find there are some benefits to being stuck here.” She picked up Martin’s feet and cocked her head at the doorway. Straight across the hallway, Ellie could see that the door to the basement was open. Even when she had been living in the house as a mortal resident, the last place that she wanted to go was the basement. The idea of going down those stairs filled her with dread. But she didn’t know what else to do. She had to trust whatever it was that Lucy told her.
The two women carefully maneuvered the body out of the library and into the hallway.
“Are you sure we have to go down there?” Ellie asked.
“Yes,” Lucy said. “It’s okay. I’ll go first.”
Nodding gratefully, Ellie swung around so that Lucy was positioned to go down the stairs. It was as if the world ended right inside the door jamb. As soon as Lucy stepped down onto the first step, it was like the darkness beyond the door swallowed her whole. Lucy was pulling Martin’s body through the doorway, but as Ellie approached it, the opening seemed to get smaller and smaller.
“Everything okay down there?” she called out nervously.
“Yep!” Lucy’s peppy reply did little to reassure her.
Ellie had finally reached the top step. It was the moment of truth. A faint glow emanated from lightbulbs that appeared to be strategically placed at intervals down the staircase that were just close enough to give off faint light, but just far apart that no light was able to combine with its neighbor to truly light up the area. She was expecting to start feeling fatigued, but the weight from Martin’s body didn’t even wind her. Ellie was starting to wonder what other changes her body had in store for her.
The staircase wound in a tight circle down into the darkness. The stairs beneath her feet were concrete, which surprised her. There was a wrought iron railing that kept her from falling off the edge. She peered down toward Martin’s feet, trying to make out Lucy’s small frame below her. She couldn’t see a thing.
Down and down they went. Ellie knew that they should have reached the bottom of a normal staircase long ago, but nothing in this place was normal. This was the Bradford mansion. It was a waypoint for the dead and the near-dead. If time stretched itself differently, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that the physical aspects of the house twisted and changed as well. Ellie thought it was possible they were heading down into Hell.
“Why are you slowing down? Let’s get this over with, okay?” Lucy’s voice floated up to her.
There was no way to know what was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, yet she kept putting each foot in front of the other. What seemed like an eternity later, they finally reached the end of the s
tairs. Ellie looked around in shock. She had been in the room before. Lucy grunted and pulled Martin’s body over to the low rectangular concrete pedestal that sat like a table in the middle of the room.
All around on the walls, tiny candles glowed and gave off a faint light. But despite that, Ellie couldn’t see more than a few feet in every direction beyond the pedestal. Even the staircase that they had just exited was masked in shadows.
“I’ve been here before,” she said. She pointed at the pedestal where Martin’s body now rested. “This is just like a dream I had before...well, before. But it was David’s mother who was tied down to that table.” Ellie followed her finger from the pedestal to a spot on the floor. In her mind, there was a large symbol drawn in white chalk on the floor. Now there was nothing.
“There was a symbol there,” she said, not really expecting Lucy to answer. “And Lillian and Joseph stood on the edges with Mikel. David was in a bassinet in the middle of it.”
“I’m not trying to be a bitch here, Ellie, but can the trip down memory lane wait for a few minutes? That sounds intense and interesting, but we seriously need to get rid of the evidence here. The escorts could be here any time for Katie and Will.”
Ellie swung around and looked at Lucy closely. “How do you know that? Jeffrey said that the whole reason people are here in the first place is because the final decision about their fates hasn’t been made yet.”
Lucy’s eyes were sad and told it all. “It’s a nice story, isn’t it? Much better than ‘you’re dead but the Afterlife is too busy processing all of the souls coming their way so you are just going to have to wait here a bit,’ isn’t it?”
“Why?” Ellie hissed. “Why wouldn’t people just be wherever it is they are supposed to be? Why all the pomp and circumstance?”
Lucy started to pace around the pedestal. “Ellie, I don’t expect you to get this.” Seeing the outrage on Ellie’s face she quickly continued. “I’m not trying to be deliberately vague here. I’m just trying to give you the quick facts that are relevant right now while still keeping you moving. If you honestly believed that anyone gets to this point and Death doesn’t know where they are going then you are as naive as these kids. We all have a destiny and our name is on a list that gets checked twice; just like Santa Claus. But the Afterlife is a political place just like the Other Side. It’s going to take a bit more time than we have to explain it to you. So if you would please trust me for a few more minutes, believe me when I say that we have to get rid of this body NOW.”