by Cege Smith
Her breath caught as she heard a thump on the staircase above her head. Then something dropped down and landed a foot away from her. To her horror, she saw that it was Jeffrey’s head. His wide, vacant eyes stared up at her. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. It was the final confirmation that she needed. She had been blinded to evil hiding right in front of her, again.
“You’re the one who dropped it. You go get it,” Beanie’s voice complained.
“You’re supposed to catch it,” Melissa said. “That’s the game.”
“Maybe, but I’m the boss, so you go get it.”
Ellie heard the footsteps starting to descend the stairs, and that was what propelled her into action. She pushed the panel to unlatch it on its hinges and slid it aside just enough so that she was able to squeeze through. Then she slid it back into place and stepped back from the entrance. She held her breath.
The giggling started again, and she could hear it through the wooden panel. Then it was right there outside, and Ellie felt the pounding in her chest.
“I’m going to go play with Bobby,” Melissa yelled. The way her voice reverberated around the dark room, Ellie felt like the little girl was there in the darkness with her. “You’re too bossy.”
Ellie heard a steading thump make its way down the hallway outside and realized that the girl was bouncing her prize against the walls. Ellie felt sick.
“Ellie,” Jake materialized next to her.
“What is going on, Jake?”
“You have a problem,” he said. His eyes were looking all around them as if he was expecting to be caught any minute.
“I have several problems already on my plate, at the moment, but this was one that I wasn’t expecting,” Ellie said. “What happened? What are they? Did you know about them?” The questions kept tumbling out of her mouth.
Jake shook his head. “I saw what happened to that guy who was always making you tea. I didn’t get a chance to tell you when you came back because you were with the witch and the guy with the red hair.” Jake visibly shivered. “I don’t know who those kids are, but they are vicious, Ellie. They want you for something.”
“Where’s Lucy?” Ellie demanded, afraid for her friend. “I left her here by herself.”
“I haven’t seen her,” Jake said.
“I left her here to watch the kids when Mikel took me to the way line,” Ellie insisted. “She has to be around here somewhere.”
“I admit that it’s not as if I can be everywhere at once, but I haven’t seen her since you left. I wanted to warn you about what happened to your butler, but that other guy who was with you. I have to stay away from him.”
“Mikel? Why?”
Jake shuffled his feet. “He’d know I was there. I told you. I can’t risk anyone else knowing I’m here.”
Ellie wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Her waypoint was becoming the hideout for everyone in the Afterlife. She felt like the mansion was soon going to burst apart at the seams with all the hidden souls within its walls.
Then Ellie thought about the fact that Bobby and Melissa were downstairs, and she had just left Mikel downstairs. She realized that she couldn’t worry about him. The man had been around in Hell for a thousand years. He would figure it out.
“I need to find Lucy,” she said. “Can you help me do that? Are you able to see where Beanie, I mean, Christopher, is?” Ellie was having a hard time reconciling the small boy she had met just a short time ago with the vicious imp that she had just encountered.
Jake considered her words. “You can take this staircase to the third floor. So far the kids seem concentrated on the second floor and below. I haven’t seen them up on the third floor. Considering they don’t know you are back yet, the third floor is probably the safest place for you to be. Stay here. I’ll make sure he’s still on the second floor landing.”
As Jake’s form vanished, Ellie eased herself onto the bottom step. She needed a plan. She was surrounded and she still didn’t fully understand why she was being targeted. She needed Lucy, and as much as she hated to admit it, she needed Mikel. She tried to think how she was going to find either one of them without being discovered.
As her thoughts started to spin, Jake reappeared. “You’re good to go.”
“I need you to keep an eye on where all these kids are,” Ellie said. “I’m going to go upstairs. I can’t just stay there like a sitting duck waiting for them to decide to go exploring.”
“I can help with that,” Jake said.
“Good. Keep them off my back, Jake. I’ve got a plan.” Ellie stood up and started to make her way up the stairs. She didn’t care who the kids were or what they were up to, but one way or another she was going to take back her waypoint.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It felt like Lila’s eyes bore deep into his soul. David twisted and writhed, but she didn’t let go. He was aware of the other two transports, but it was Lila who held him tight. David felt as if his blood was being fused with hers. Vibrant scenes flashed through his mind.
He saw Lila as a young girl, her hair in pigtails, jumping rope in the backyard of a small house. He saw her, a few years older now, smoking behind a brick building and glancing furtively over her shoulder. Her strawberry hair was streaked with black, and her clothing was black and baggy. Then the scene showed Lila at the age she looked now, crying, a long bridge spanning out behind her and the only light coming from the torn headlights of a car that was wrapped around a light post off to the side.
As the air tightened into recognizable patterns around them, David found himself drawn to the girl in front of him wanting to understand the darkness that had wrapped itself around her. He stepped closer to her and yanked her forward, grasping her forearms. “What did you do?”
Her eyes widened and David felt strong hands on his arms trying to pull his hands away. “What did you do?” he demanded.
“I didn’t do anything,” she whispered. “What did you see?”
“Lila!” Peter’s arm wrapped around her chest just as Dane’s tightened around David’s and then dragged him away from her.
“You’d better calm down,” Dane hissed in his ear. “You touch her again I’ll figure out a way to kill you so that you don’t come back. I don’t care who you are.”
Lila’s face was ashen. “I didn’t expect that. He was in my head.”
“You aren’t supposed to let the souls in when you move them, you know better than that,” Peter scolded.
“I couldn’t keep him out,” Lila said. “We started to shift and then he was just in there.”
David had no idea what they were talking about, but he knew that there was a lot more to Lila’s story. She was in Purgatory for a reason, and David wondered who exactly Braz had entrusted to get him back to Ellie.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said slowly. He wondered if somehow his thoughts had caused him to turn the tables on the transport nonetheless. “Are we here?”
He looked around them. The foggy gloom was falling away even as he watched, and a stone sidewalk came into view. It led to a large door that appeared to be built into the side of a large rock wall. Then David saw that they were not alone. Robed figures emerged from the gloom and enclosed them in a tight circle.
“We wish to speak to the Council,” Lila said lifting her chin. “We are the Afterlife transports, and we’ve brought a soul that belongs to them.”
David didn’t like the idea that he belonged to anyone. He tried to see beneath the hood of the nearest figure next to him, but the depth of the cowl was too deep. He felt a push against his back driving him forward onto the path. He started to say something when he saw Lila quickly shake her head.
He wondered for just a moment how the guards would know that he was the soul in question, and then realized that he was the only one who wasn’t wearing a pin signifying his sector. He was the obvious choice.
He glared at the figures on either side and began to walk. As his feet touched the path, he saw mo
re of fog clear away from the ground. The fog revealed that the ground fell away on either side of the path into two deep pits. He could not see the bottom. There was only the path and the door. David felt the first twitching of fear. He had no idea what he was about to walk into, and he wished that he had thought to ask more questions.
As they reached the midpoint of the path, the door in front of them began to open. David looked behind him and realized that the transports were not following. Lila’s helpless eyes caught his, and she mouthed “Good Luck”. David wasn’t expecting to face the Council alone, but it appeared that was the intention.
Moments later they were through the door, and David saw that he had entered a large chamber with a high domed ceiling. There were columns running along both sides. The focal point of the room was a small raised dais that held three chairs. Only the middle chair was occupied.
A prod in the back told David that he was supposed to continue forward. He felt flutters of nervousness in his stomach even as he saw a warm smile light up the face of the woman who sat in the chair. She looked young, older than Lila but younger than himself. She had long blonde hair that fell just below her shoulders. With her fitted silver turtleneck and jeans, she looked like a typical college student on the Other Side.
David stopped a few feet away from the dais uncertain if he was supposed to kneel or bow or give some sign of submission to her obviously high ranking position. In the end, he just stood and clasped his hands in front of him and waited for her to speak.
“Well, this is a surprise,” the woman said. “You aren’t due here for several years.”
David’s eyebrows arched. “You knew that I would come here?”
“Eventually, yes,” the woman said. “Of course you would.” She frowned. “The fact that you are here now though is worrisome. You are early.”
“Why would I have come in the future?”
“To find out why you are here,” the woman said as if the answer was obvious.
“Well, that’s why I’m here now,” David said. “So I guess it doesn’t hurt anything to get that out of the way sooner rather than later.”
The woman sighed. “Perhaps.”
David shuffled his feet. “Since you obviously know who I am, may I ask who you are?”
“My name is Veronica. If you are here, that can only mean that events around Ellie are derailing.”
“You know Ellie?” David was immediately on the defensive. “What do you want with her?”
“I want nothing, but for Ellie to embrace her destiny and be happy,” Veronica said. “I knew Ellie for a short time on the Other Side. It was before she knew what she was. I had hoped to help guide her.”
“Seems like everyone who offers up help around here has an ulterior motive,” David said. He didn’t like this woman. He didn’t like her at all. “Lila said that your council takes the souls of those who have supernatural gifts.”
Veronica nodded. “Yes, that is true.”
“So if Ellie hadn’t become the Guardian of the Bradford waypoint, she would have come to you,” David said.
Veronica’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose that is true.”
David knew that he had hit a nerve. He quickly changed the subject, intending to keep the woman off-balance so that he could turn the conversation to his advantage. “Lila also said that only your council could have had the necessary power to bind my soul to that waypoint. I should have died during the same blood sacrifice that killed my parents. Instead, I was somehow bounced into an existence in the Afterlife without actually dying. That wasn’t the way that was supposed to happen.”
“There is part of me that says that this conversation should wait until the time that it was supposed to happen,” Veronica said.
“Clearly your ability to see the future leaves something to be desired,” David said, clenching his fists. “If you had such an interest in Ellie, you’d also know that she needs help, my help. So cut the crap and tell me what you did.”
“You are so insistent that we did something intentional. Did it never occur to you that your existence was completely unintentional?”
“Nice try,” David said, although her words were exactly his deepest fear. “Nothing happens around here without a reason. That has come through loud and clear.”
“Oh, I’m not denying that my colleagues and I attempted to interfere with Lillian Bradford’s spell when she opened the way line and allowed Mikel full access again to that waypoint. She’s not a witch, at least not literally, and so it was easy to meddle with the spell. We intended to take the magic and bend it so that it basically didn’t work.”
“But it did work,” David said.
“Yes, it did. It did because of you.” Veronica pointed at David’s chest. “We didn’t anticipate that any of the sacrifices that Lillian had scoured up had abilities.”
“She didn’t think she was sacrificing me. She took me away from my mother because she couldn’t have children herself.”
“She needed three,” Veronica said. “Because of her own shortcomings, she needed to hijack the emotional connection shared between the three of you, you and your parents. She never intended you to live.”
David was dumbfounded. It was another truth he wasn’t prepared for, although he wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Although Lillian professed a desire for motherhood, it would have been more than overshadowed by her own thirst for youth and power.
“My parents still died,” he said.
“I’m sorry, David. We were tasked with keeping the waypoint closed, not with saving you or your parents.”
David’s anger bubbled. “Sacrifice. It is amazing how easily you all speak of it.”
“Blood. Sacrifice. Death. Life. It is the everlasting circle of our existence,” Veronica said. There was no apology or regret in her tone. “Your father passed on. Your mother, as you well know, refused to leave. Her spirit haunts the house on the Other Side and will continue to do so until she decides to return here to the Afterlife.”
“So I lived,” David said.
“Yes. Even as an infant you had incredible survival instincts. By saving yourself, you tied yourself to the waypoint and threw the gateway wide open.”
“I did this to myself?” David was horrified.
“Yes,” Veronica nodded solemnly. “And burned out your gift in the process. You came to us for answers. Are you satisfied with them?”
“How do I fix it? How do I make it so that whatever gateway is within me is closed for good?”
Veronica stood and stepped around her chair. She stood with her back to David for several minutes. Then she turned and rested her forearms on the back of her chair. “What if I told you there was a way to make all of this disappear?”
“What do you mean?” David asked.
“All of it. The Afterlife. Your previous life. Ellie’s transformation into a Ripher. The waypoint’s dependence on Ellie’s energy. All of it would be gone, and you and Ellie could enjoy your lives on the Other Side.”
“Sounds too good to be true,” David said suspiciously.
“Indeed, it does, doesn’t it?” A smug smile appeared on her face.
“It sounds like a trap.”
“What choice do you have?”
David realized that she was right. He didn’t have any choice. He would do anything to take Ellie away from this place and give her life on the Other Side back to her.
“What do I have to do?”
“I’m going to tell you. But David, if you don’t do everything exactly the way I’m going to lay it out for you, then you put everything at risk. Your life and Ellie’s. If you do this wrong, or question my instructions for a second, you may well find that you and Ellie are gone, forever.”
David felt like he should have been prepared for her words, but the enormity of what he was about to agree to do hit him like a ton of bricks. “I understand.”
“Good,” Veronica said. “Now I assume that Lillian Bradford has still been in contact with you.
”
“She has.” David wondered what Lillian had to do with any of it.
“All of your troubles started with Lillian Bradford,” Veronica said as if reading his thoughts. “She has caused nothing but trouble both here and on the Other Side since her arrival. You said that you would do anything it took.”
A feeling of dread came over David. “I will. Whatever it takes. For Ellie.”
The smile blossomed on Veronica’s face again. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, David. That’s what you have to remember as you put this into action. Do everything I say, and you and Ellie will be on the Other Side again and safe in no time.”
David knew that he would follow her directive without question. The possibility of saving Ellie was worth the risk to his soul.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ellie crept out of the stairwell onto the third floor landing. She kept close to the wall and hoped that Jake would keep his end of the bargain and at least give her some warning if any of the Palmer children headed in her direction. She wondered who had sent them. She felt a kind of numbness sweep over her as she thought about Jeffrey. No one deserved the end that had found him. Ellie had developed a kind of affection for the man since arriving in the Afterlife. Even knowing that he was Lillian’s spy didn’t diminish the fact that he had helped her transition. Now her guide was gone, and she was left with a witch, a man from Hell, and a ghost on her side.
She wondered what David was doing and then swept that thought aside. David had made it clear how he felt about her. She had to forget him, even if she didn’t want to. If she had learned nothing else during her time growing up in foster homes, it was that the only person that she could fully count on was herself.
Ellie’s plan was simple. She would try to find Lucy, and if that didn’t work, she fully intended to take on the Palmer children on her own. She wasn’t quite sure how that would work, but she had the element of surprise and would use that to her advantage.
Since her room was on the far side of the third floor, Ellie had to make her way completely around the landing to reach her door. If Christopher lingered on the second floor landing, she would be in his line of sight while she moved across it. She had to hope that he had gone down to the foyer.