Reaper (Lightbringer)

by K. D. McEntire

  “I know,” she said, nudging Wendy toward the side stairs. “Let's go this way. Less chance of bumping into anyone.”

  Wendy waited for the door to close behind them to ask, “How did you know who I am?”

  The girl grinned and rolled her eyes as if she thought Wendy was teasing her. They were halfway up the stairs on their way to the next floor and the girl was taking the stairs two at a time, despite her heels. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” Wendy stopped on the landing. “Seriously.”

  “Oh.” The girl, frowning, stepped down so she was eye-to-eye with Wendy. “Um, well, hi, I'm Jane.” She paused as if this name were supposed to mean something to Wendy. When Wendy continued to look at her questioningly, Jane frowned. “You know, Jane? Emma's cousin? You know, your mom's replacement for this part of the Bay Area?”

  “My mom's…what?” Wendy couldn't help the sudden wrench of fear that yanked deep in her gut. “Wait…Emma? Emma Henley? The intern on my mom's floor?”

  “You didn't read the letter, did you?” Jane shook her head, disgusted, and started up the stairs again. “Or, knowing Emma, you might not have even gotten the letter. She's stupid-busy with her rounds these days; she probably forgot. Typical. So typical.”

  “Letter…” Wendy trailed off, struggling to keep up with Jane's rapid pace. “That sounds familiar. I got…something. From my sister, she said it was from Emma and I never really got a chance to read it. Is it on my desk? Maybe…I think? I've been a little busy.”

  “Well Emma should've made sure you got it.” Pausing at the top of the stairs on Eddie's floor, Jane rolled her eyes. “Long story short: again, I'm the new Reaper for this part of the Bay Area. Hi.”

  “Whoah, whoah, hold up a minute!” Wendy grabbed Jane by the wrist. “Says who?”

  “Says Grandmother? You really should've read that letter, huh?” Jane tsked, but smiled, showing that she meant no harm. “But I guess you were too busy, with your mom dying and all. It's cool, I would be too.”

  “Exactly,” Wendy snapped, stung despite the soothing smile. “My mother just died. Okay, you're like me, but what gives you people the right to waltz in here and—”

  “Why were you here again? This is your usual floor, right?” Jane gestured to the door. The long-term ward was just beyond; Eddie's room was close to the end of the corridor, thankfully far away from the main nurse's station. With luck, Wendy would be able to sneak in and sneak back out again with minimal fuss.

  “I'm here to see my friend,” Wendy grumbled. “He's not near his body. I thought…there's this buckle, and…” Wendy trailed off. “I just had an idea that I thought might help him.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow and, digging in her pocket, pulled out a piece of powerfully-scented grape bubble gum. She popped it in her mouth and chewed broadly before saying, “You're kidding.”

  “No,” Wendy replied testily, “I'm not.”

  “Well, lead the way.” Jane stepped away from the door.

  “You're coming with me?”

  “Yep. If there are any wandering spirits in my jurisdiction, then I need to know about ’em.” She held up a hand. “Walker bonanza or not, I think I've got enough juice left to handle a couple regular ghosts. If not, well, it's not like they're going anywhere. Probably.”

  “I don't—” Tired of fighting and still shaky from the Walker attack, Wendy sagged. “Fine. This way.”

  Eddie lay as she had left him—nearly motionless on the narrow bed, the soft beeps of his machinery a quiet counterpoint to the barely discernable rise and fall of his chest. Stripping off his jacket, Wendy sat beside him on her usual chair and took his hands. “Hi Eds, long time no see,” she whispered. “I thought I might, I don't know, leave this for you, okay?”

  Digging in her purse, Wendy pulled out the buckle and tucked it in his right hand. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen—maybe a dramatic flash of light or possibly the swelling of some instrumental song in the dim reaches of the Never—but she was disappointed. Eddie rested as he had before, only now with a buckle in his hand.

  “It was a long shot,” Wendy sighed, shaking her head and standing up. She didn't know why she'd thought that introducing her hospitalized friend to the buckle would make a difference in his condition, but it had felt right.

  Jane, tucked into a corner of the room, had been silent this entire time. “What exactly was that supposed to accomplish?” she asked curiously.

  “Nothing,” Wendy replied, dejected. “It was just a thought. A dumb one.”

  “You know…you know that this dude's spirit came home with Emma, right?” Jane pushed a hank of blue hair off her face and blew a bubble. “Weeks ago, actually. He's been hanging around, deading up the place. Great-grandmother wouldn't let any of us touch him, though.” She popped the bubble. “I guess this answers the question of why not.”

  Wendy felt her throat close. “Eddie's spirit is with Emma? How? And what the hell is he doing there?”

  “Yep. I mean, technically he's with all of us, seeing as we all live together, but yeah.” Jane raised one eyebrow. “You really are out of the loop, huh?”

  “It just doesn't make any sense,” Wendy said. “Why would Eddie go home with Emma when he could have stayed here and waited for me?”

  “You really need me to answer that question for you?” Jane snorted and gestured to the sterile, plain hospital room. “Just take a look around, girlie. Emma: hot doctor. Your buddy here, Eddie: teenage boy—specifically, a teenage boy with the newfound ability to poke his head through walls. Hospital: boring place to hang out, nothing much going on, mostly a bunch of dead folks and tired nurses. Emma's house: a building that holds many rooms like showers and bedrooms and a veritable cornucopia of our attractive cousins in various states of dress any time of day or night. Get my drift?”

  Wendy scowled. “You think he'd go with her just for a chance to be a peeping pervert? Eddie's not like that, he…okay, well, he's totally like that, but it'd be a joke.”

  Jane laughed. “Yeah, I figured that one out on my own. He got a little more than he was bargaining for with that trick, though.” She patted his foot and addressed Eddie's still form. “No harm, no foul, kiddo. Even alive, you're cute enough to pull it off.”

  Wendy sighed. “So what's next, then? What do I do to get him back? He can't stay with you all forever.”

  “Ah, at last, a plan!” Jane stretched until her spine crackled and glanced quickly out into the hall. “Okay, no one's coming, let's move. I'll take you home with me. You have your car, right? You drive, I'll direct. You get to pick up your buddy and I can get in some quality ’net time before I have to haul my butt up in the morning. Win-win-win, so far as I'm concerned.”

  “I don't think—”

  “Wendy,” Jane said sweetly, wrapping a companionable arm around Wendy's shoulders, “not to sound cliché, but like your boy toy here, sometimes it's best just to let those in the know direct the flow…so to speak. Get me home and let me handle it so we can get some shuteye. Graveyard shift in the long-term ward sucks and we both need our beauty rest.”

  San Ramon wasn't the ritziest neighborhood in the Bay Area, but it wasn't cheap either. Wendy felt nervous pulling the beat-up old Charger up to a large, sprawling house with a steep six-car driveway. Not waiting for Wendy to stop, Jane silently jumped from the passenger side and strode into the house, leaving Wendy to quickly kill the engine and hurry behind.

  “This better not be some joke,” Wendy breathed out loud, scanning the front porch as Jane, lit by the thin silver moonlight, slid her key into the lock. “Eddie, you'd better be in there.”

  “Dude, where else would I be?” a familiar voice asked as Eddie stepped through the wall separating the garage and the front walkway. “I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me!”

  Stifling a yell, Wendy spun on her heel and found herself face to face with her best friend's spirit.

  “Eddie!”

  “One and the same.” Eddie g
rinned and opened his arms wide. Wendy, forgetting that she was corporeal and Eddie most certainly was not, flung herself into his embrace and banged her forehead loudly against the doorjamb.

  “Ouch!”

  “Smooth move,” Jane grumbled. “I was trying to sneak in and not wake the entire house.” She jiggled her keys in the lock and sighed loudly. “Damn it, the key's not working!” Jane hissed. She turned and waved a hand at Eddie. “Hey, you, spirit guy. Did Annabelle change the locks again?”

  Eddie shrugged as a lamp flicked on upstairs, bathing the side yard in dim yellow light.

  Wincing, Wendy probed her tender forehead; she could already feel a lump rising on her temple. Eddie grimaced as a corgi—or, rather, the ghost of a corgi—poked its inquisitive face through the front door and barked twice before vanishing back inside. “Hope you like dogs. This place is lousy with them.”

  “You can say that again,” Jane agreed sourly. She smacked the doorjamb. “Work, damn it!”

  A volley of barks echoed throughout the house.

  “And they're loud too,” Eddie added.

  “Hell,” Wendy sighed. “Nothing's ever easy, is it?”

  “Nope.” Eddie leaned against the pillar and grinned. “But hey, cheer up, most of the house sleeps the sleep of the dead. Only a couple of them are light sleepers. Aaaand, to kill the time, I've got one for you. Why did the psychic medium cross the road?”

  Wendy groaned. Eddie was telling jokes now, of all times? “I don't know, Eddie. Why?”

  He slung a chilly arm around her shoulders, hovering it a quarter inch above her skin. “To get to the Other Side! Other Side! Get it?”

  “Oh my god.” Wendy buried her face in her hands and shook her head. “I should leave you here just for that.”

  “Speaking of leaving me here—three weeks? Seriously? It took you three weeks to come and get me? I'd hate to see what happens if you ever become a soccer mom. You'd drop the kids off in kindergarten and remember them sometime around fifth grade.”

  Jane, still struggling with the lock, snickered.

  “Shut it. I was sick two of those weeks, myself,” Wendy said, deciding that now wasn't the time to tell Eddie she'd been unconscious that entire time. “And I've been at your coma-ridden bedside nearly every day that I've been out of the hospital. AND you haven't had to deal with your mother, either.” Wendy crossed her arms and leaned against the post. “At least I showed up as soon as I learned where you were. I could've left you here until morning.”

  “Point. Sorry.”

  The front door swung open. Emma Henley, as regal as ever even in a silky bathrobe, pursed her lips at the three of them and frowned. Wendy was irritated to note that Emma's hip-length strawberry-blonde hair cascaded down her back with nary a tangle to be seen. Even flush from sleep, she looked flawless and radiated calm confidence. Damn! That was irritating.

  Emma glanced at her wrist, where a slim, gold Rolex proclaimed the time in quiet, even ticks. “While I appreciate you finally coming to fetch your friend, Wendy, is this really an appropriate time?”

  “Need the toilet. Move,” Jane said brusquely, pushing past Emma and hurrying into the recesses of the house.

  “San Ramon isn't exactly up the street,” Wendy said. “And I've been kinda busy lately.” Wendy didn't know why she didn't want to let Emma learn that she hadn't read the letter yet. All she knew was that Jane hadn't been lying. She'd said Eddie would be here, and here he was. Feeling absurdly grateful, Wendy made a mental note to treat the blue-haired girl to a movie or something. She'd barely met her, but Wendy already owed Jane a lot.

  “Obviously.”

  Her palm itched; Wendy wanted to slap Emma so badly she could practically feel the sting of it on her skin. Jane had said that Emma was supposed to keep Wendy in the loop, but obviously she'd done a piss-poor job of it. It was strange enough to learn that her mother's neurology intern was related to her, much less to learn that the competent and cold woman knew all about Wendy, while Wendy knew nothing about her.

  Another—thankfully stronger—part of Wendy knew that she had to bide her time, if not for her own emotional fortitude, then for Eddie's sake. Wendy gestured to Eddie's midsection—his empty midsection.

  Eddie's cord was gone.

  “Believe me, Emma, I'd love to snag a spirit and run but I notice that something…oh, let's say something important…is missing from my best friend. My best friend who was in one whole corporeal piece last time I saw him. Care to explain why?”

  “Hmmm. Yes.” Emma stood back from the door and waved them inside. “Come in. I've been looking into that, and we've got things to discuss.”

  “Obviously,” Wendy snarked, but stepped inside. As she passed Emma she felt the burning heat of the doctor press against her like a blast from a blow dryer. She couldn't see or hear Jane anywhere.

  The foyer of Dr. Henley's home was as lush and elegant as the exterior. Closing the door behind them, Emma strode past Wendy and led the way into a spacious living room with vaulted ceilings and mahogany floors. The couches were low-slung, camel-colored suede and the lamps were wavy carnival glass; a sepia-toned tapestry of a many-branched tree hung across from a massive fireplace and ceiling-to-mantle mirror. The tapestry stretched from corner to corner across the entire wall, each branch of the tree a confection of delicate needlework etched thin in fine black thread. Wendy squinted and made out names and dates sewn onto each leaf. There were thousands upon thousands of them.

  “I'm a light sleeper. My schedule requires,” Emma said, gesturing for Wendy to sit and careless of her scrutiny of the room, “that I'm available at all hours. The others, however, sleep like zombies and would've missed you entirely.” She smirked. “Perhaps that would have been a good thing.”

  “The others?”

  “My various cousins, including Jane. Grandmother and Great-Grandmother,” Emma said, indicating the tapestry with a nonchalant wave. “My mother and aunts. The others.”

  Emma crossed her legs and part of her robe fell away, exposing intricately tattooed ankles and legs. The elaborate Celtic knots stretched halfway up her shins and tangled down the tops of her feet in a riot of purple, blue, and green. Seeing the riot of ink on strict and prim Emma was deeply surprising. Wendy's fingers brushed her own collarbone tats, hidden beneath Eddie's leather jacket.

  Emma spotted her eying the ink. “Useful, aren't they? Not much of a deterrent if a soul really decides to fight, but good for keeping the riffraff away.”

  “You—you and Jane—are both like my mother,” Wendy said, glad of Eddie's chill beside her. The cool of his soul had a calming effect, especially compared to the heat baking off Emma in a wide and uncomfortable radius. “You're like me.”

  “Your mother Mary was a second or third cousin,” Emma replied. “A few times removed, I'm certain.” Glancing at the tapestry, she made as if to get up. “I can check the exact relation, if you'd like.”

  “No, that's okay.” Wendy hesitated, unsure of her footing now. Emma was young for a doctor, really only a handful of years older than Wendy was—no more than twenty-three or twenty-four—but facing her like this, in her luxurious parlor, those years seemed like decades, centuries more. Emma, cool and confident and on her own turf, had the upper hand. Wendy was the interloper here.

  “Jane said…” Wendy's voice dropped. “Jane said she was here to take over for my mom. Is that true?”

  For the first time, Emma seemed uncertain. “Not exactly,” Emma hedged. “Possibly. Probably, but there are…options available.”

  “Then if you're not here to take over for her, why are you here?”

  “Girl's got you there, Emmaline,” chuckled a raspy, thin voice from the archway across the sitting room. “Took her long enough to get here, but she's plenty quick on the uptake, yeah?”

  “Great-Grandmother,” Emma said, jumping to her feet and rushing to the shadow's side. “You shouldn't be up at this time of night!” She bent down and offered her arm to the figure, lead
ing the shadow into the light.

  Great-Grandmother turned out to be a thin, sharp-eyed old woman with a shock of wispy blue-white hair and teeth like tombstones. A large mole dominated the lower left of her face, sprouting several coarse white hairs that bristled out far enough to cast a shadow on her chin. Like Emma, she wore a bathrobe, though hers was faded red flannel, mended at the elbows and knees, and worn thin from years of use.

  “Pish-posh,” Great-Grandmother exclaimed. “These old bones don't need half the sleep they used to. Besides, it's chilly up in my room and I like this time of day. It's quiet.” She eyed Wendy and Eddie. “Normally.”

  “I'm sorry if we woke you,” Wendy said. “We'll go.”

  “Bah, it's nothing,” Great-Grandmother said, waving a hand as Emma settled her in a cream wingback chair close to the couch and fireplace. “Keep sitting, child, I'd be up anyway.” She coughed harshly, fumbled in her pockets, and wrangled out a thick blue handkerchief, also mended and worn, to spit in. She waited until Emma turned away, hunting for a box of Kleenex, before stuffing the hankie back in her pocket. “So. You're Mary's girl. Winifred. Wendy.”

  “Um,” Wendy said, glancing between the old woman and Emma, amazed at the similarities. Emma's cheekbones and eyes might as well have been carbon copies save for the wrinkles and creeping white film of cataracts. The gaze was different, though; her Great-Grandmother had a vast nest of wrinkles bracketing her eyes and mouth while Emma's skin was smooth and unsullied. One of them had spent unknown years grinning at every opportunity while the other looked as if anything more than the smallest of smiles might crack her face like porcelain. “Y-yes, ma'am. I am.”

  “None of that ‘ma'am’ stuff,” Great-Grandmother said, snorting and flapping a hand at Wendy. “You can call me what that there boy does—Nana Moses.”

  Wendy glanced at Eddie, who tucked his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, staring at the ceiling and pretending to whistle innocently. “Nana Moses?” she mouthed, horrified. The name, obviously an invention of Eddie's, seemed so undignified, but the old woman clearly liked it.