Guardian

by Natasha Deen

  Craig grinned.

  Serge cleared his throat. A crimson flush rose from his neck to his hair. “About the way I behaved when I was alive—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Dad, wiping his hands once more. “It’s been talked through.”

  Serge swallowed and nodded.

  “Okay. We can all see each other and hear each other.” I fixed Craig with a stare. “Start talking. What are you and what is going on?”

  “Big points: When someone dies, I take the soul—”

  “Where?” asked Serge, worried.

  “Where it needs to go.”

  “Like…heaven or hell.”

  “Sometimes,” said Craig. “But sometimes it’s Valhalla or limbo. It depends on the soul, on what their eternal cycle is. Some people die and go to heaven. Some die and are reborn.”

  Dad turned the heat down and stepped away from the pot. “This sounds like a conversation to have around a table. I’ll get the coffee.”

  We sat and I said, “Okay. Ferriers. I thought death was death.”

  “Maggie,” he gently chastised me. “Life isn’t even life. It doesn’t have one reality. How can you think death would have the same?”

  “Of course life has one reality,” I returned, affronted.

  His dark eyebrows rose. “You think the reality of your life is the same as the reality of a woman living in Africa?”

  “Well, no but—”

  “There is no ‘universal, one-fit’ anything. Life is nothing but preparation for death. And death—the end of existence or even the strumming harps in heaven—are just two options on what waits on the other side.” Craig put his hand to his chest. “I’m a ferrier. I come for the soul after a reaper separates it from the body.”

  “Does everyone get a ferrier and a reaper when they die?” asked Serge.

  Craig made a face. “Yes and no.”

  “Well, that clears it up.” Dad set the coffee pot in the middle of the table and handed the mugs out. He put a dark blue mug with gold moons in front of Serge.

  “Thanks, Mr. Johnson, but I can’t drink.”

  Dad paused, laughed. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

  “Yeah, you can,” said Craig.

  Serge’s eyes widened. “I can?”

  “For now—until I turn you back.”

  Serge jumped up and grabbed for the coffee.

  “I should warn you,” said Craig. “It won’t taste quite the same.”

  Serge’s hand hovered over the pot. “Bad?”

  Craig shrugged. “Different.”

  I watched, part of me fascinated, most of me horrified that we were talking about coffee when a leathered-wing-thing had tried to eat my ghost for breakfast.

  Serge poured his drink and took a swig. He held the liquid in his mouth, frowned, swallowed. The wrinkles disappeared from his face. “Not bad…different.”

  “How?” asked Dad.

  “Maybe we can talk about this later,” I said. “Right now, I need to know about that thing—and you, Craig. What about Dad’s question: does everyone get a reaper and a ferrier?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but death—think of it like this: death sends out a signal, and ferriers and reapers hone in on it. But this only works if the person knows they’re dying, if they’re aware of it. For those who don’t or can’t acknowledge death, they hone in on people like you, Maggie. And you transition them. Then we take over.”

  “To where?” I asked. “Where do the dead go?”

  “The bridge.”

  He said it like he was confused I didn’t know.

  “Imagine the warm version of the North Pole or Antarctica. A place of white and blue, full of peace and solitude. That’s where they end up.” He mimed the words as he said, “There’s a long bridge that connects that spot to The Beyond. The souls you transition are met by their ferriers, who take them across.”

  “Across to…where?” asked Serge. His fingers played with the handle of the mug.

  Craig shrugged. “Wherever they’re meant to go. Like I said, some souls will cross over to their image of heaven and that’s it. Others will come back to earth and some…” He paused. “Some souls have made life decisions they will pay for in death.”

  “Like me?” whispered Serge.

  Craig frowned. He glanced from me to Serge and back. “You mean about—no, that’s not it.”

  I was still trying to wrap my head around everything he’d said. “You can cross over,” I said. “From life to death.”

  He nodded. “Part of the job.”

  “How do your parents deal with this?” asked Dad. “I thought having Maggie was complicated, but…”

  “They’re Guardians. That’s their job. They’re not my biological parents,” he added. “A ferrier has to be born into the world by an innocent—a woman who doesn’t have a clue about what really happens after death.”

  “So…how did your parents get you?”

  “I was abandoned.” He glanced around the room and grinned. “It has to happen like that—we’re purposely birthed by mothers who give us up. I was a private adoption—my biological mother was a sixteen-year-old girl who was sure she was doing the right thing.” A soft smile crept across his lips. “And she did. Guardians raise ferriers, but they can’t have their own children.” He gave me a meaningful look and said, “Technically, they’re co-workers. They’re not supposed to fall in love or use their adopted son’s car on Widow’s Peak. Especially when they’re giving him grief about wanting to date you.”

  Oh, so that explained his reaction that night. “So.” My brain chugged like a too-slow steam engine, trying to keep up with the twist and turns of his story. “How long have you been a ferrier?”

  “A few thousand years.”

  Dad choked on his coffee.

  “You’ve been alive for over a thousand years?”

  He smiled. “No. We have to be born and die and reborn.”

  “But you remember?”

  The side of his mouth lifted. “Have to, if you’re to be a ferrier.”

  “You’re what—three thousand years old?” asked Serge. “Or, at least, you have the memory of three thousand years of living.”

  “With this world and this reality, I’m around five thousand years old. With everything else…” He closed his eyes and did the math. “Say, about ten-thousand years.”

  Ten thousand years. This reality. This world. The terror of our brains exploding from information overload kept us quiet about asking what he meant, and just how many worlds and realities were out there.

  “So…when you have to ferry someone—you just blip in and out of existence?”

  “Basically—”

  And I thought my life was complicated.

  “—but sometimes, we have to be around our charge…to watch over them before the moment of passing.”

  “That’s why you came to Dead Falls,” I said. “For Serge.”

  Craig’s breath hissed through his teeth. His voice was heavy, laden as he said, “I didn’t come for Serge.”

  The air around the table went suddenly cold. In the background, the sauce quietly bubbled.

  Dad and I stared at each other. I tore my gaze from him and set it on Craig. “Who did you come for?”

  “I came for Amber,” he said. “She was to die.” The intense light in his eyes dimmed to something softer, sadder. “She was to kill herself. Instead”—his gaze moved to Serge—“someone murdered you.”

  “That’s why you were always around her, watching.”

  Craig nodded. “We’re not allowed to change the course of events, but we can influence them…to some extent. I had seen the plan of her life”—his face tightened—“and the outcome of her decision. But when Serge died, those plans and consequences…things changed.”

  “What
happens, now?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. We aren’t allowed to see the full future. I only know as much as I need to work my cases. That’s it.”

  “But that thing, tonight—”

  He took a deep breath. “Horrific.” He scrubbed his forehead with his hand.

  “Why is it coming for Serge?”

  “Because it blames him for its life.”

  Serge frowned.

  The front door opened. Before any of us could react, Nancy was up the stairs. “Sorry about the—” The grin dropped from her mouth as her eyes lit on Serge. She yanked out her gun and pointed it at him. He bolted back and threw his hands up to protect himself.

  I jumped up.

  So did Craig.

  “What ’s going on?”

  “Put down the gun!”

  “What!”

  “Put down the gun!”

  Dad got to Nancy first and clamped his hand on the cold muzzle. “He’s already dead.” He paused and repeated, “He’s dead. You can’t do anything.”

  She blinked and blinked again. “Holy crap.” She dropped her shoulders and the gun descended. Nancy collapsed into a chair. She lifted her gaze. “Someone please explain what is going on.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Nancy was in the kitchen where Dad was trying to explain it all to her. Craig, Serge, and I had taken to the family room, where I needed explanations of my own. I sat on the couch, Serge to my right, and Craig took the coffee table. We made a triangle, our knees touching each other…it felt weird and sacred, all at once.

  “I need an info dump. You have to explain this all to me because I don’t understand how you can know our destiny, but not the future,” I said.

  Craig shrugged. “I’m like a social worker. I know enough about my cases and the people surrounding them to do my work, but I don’t get to know everything.”

  “But would you”—I stopped, took a breath to calm the adrenaline rushing in my blood—“do you know about The Voice?”

  He frowned.

  “There’s a voice, it comes to me. Not often, but—”

  “It tried to kill her,” said Serge. “When she wanted to stop helping me prove my father killed me—”

  A shadow passed over Craig’s face.

  “—this voice came over the radio and stopped her heart.”

  Craig’s eyes went wide. Turning to me, he asked, “What does it sound like?”

  “It’s female and it wails, keeps telling me ‘he’s coming for you.’”

  “The ‘he’ is obvious,” said Serge. “The great and pious reverend—”

  Again the shadow blanketed Craig’s face.

  “—but why would it try to kill her?”

  Craig shook his head. “I’ve never heard of this. Let me look into it, okay?”

  I nodded.

  He smiled and squeezed my hand.

  “What about the wings?” asked Serge. “How can you have leather wings—that thing had leather wings and it was evil.” He took a breath. “Shouldn’t you have feather wings or something?”

  Craig laughed. “Only humans think feathers mean good and leather means bad. Besides”—his grin crinkled his eyes—“they’re scales, not leather.”

  Scales?

  “You talk about humans like you’re separate,” said Serge, “but you’re human aren’t you?”

  Craig nodded. “Just on a different plane. Not exactly more evolved, but certainly older.”

  “How old am I?” I asked.

  “How old are you or how many lifetimes have you lived?”

  “Both.”

  “You’ve lived two hundred lifetimes and you’re somewhere close to two thousand years old.” He glanced at Serge. “You, too.”

  Craig’s gaze washed over me in a warm wave. “You’re definitely much younger than me.”

  I cleared my throat. “What can you tell us—about the original plan, with me and Serge.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “Amber was going to kill herself. She went to Mikhail, told him about the pregnancy. Originally, he cut her off, and distraught, she threw herself off the Lodgen Bridge. Instead”—he splayed his fingers—“Serge was murdered and Amber lives.”

  “I know that—what I mean is how was her death to impact us?”

  Craig’s eyes turned to Serge. “Something about her killing herself would make you click into the truth of your life—the futility of the decisions you’d made concerning your parents, Maggie, life. You took the flash drive to Nancy, had your dad arrested.”

  “Then Mom and I—”

  Craig shook his head. “Your mom was diagnosed with cancer three months after his arrest. She passes away within six weeks, and you end up living with Nancy.”

  “What!”

  Craig nodded. “And you take over where she leaves off. You become a cop, just like her. But the real key of your original destiny was Maggie. The two of you bond over Amber’s death, your mom’s sickness. You’re the cop; she’s a private investigator. Between her abilities and your access to the legal system, you guys put away a lot of criminals. The amount of murders and abuse you prevent—” He stopped, took a breath. “I don’t know,” he finished softly. “I don’t know what this means for all the people you were supposed to save.”

  He was talking long-term future, I was still thinking about the immediate impact of Amber’s death. “Serge and I become a team?”

  “You’ve always been a team.”

  We both frowned and looked at each other.

  Craig leaned in, resting his elbows on his knees, and folded his hands. “Your past lives—they’ve always been intertwined. Soul siblings—born in the same time and living in the same circles. You’ve always looked out for each other—protected each other.”

  I glanced at Serge. “What happened with this life?”

  “Nothing. You scripted it this way.”

  My eyes went wide. “I wanted to be bullied by Serge.”

  “No—no, sorry.” Craig puffed out a breath. “Let me see how I can explain this. A soul lives and if it chooses, reincarnates. But you have to be a certain soul age before you can do more than be reborn. That can take a lot of lifetimes—you have to be born into a variety of social classes and different bodies in order to understand what it means to be human.

  My head was already hurting as I tried to figure this out.

  “Serge wanted to be a guardian; so did you. In order to that, you have to go through the first level: Protector. That position can take several lifetimes to achieve and several more lifetimes to finish. And—well, you have to go through some rough things. You have to understand the hardships of life from a personal level, not just theoretical. It’s part of the initiation.”

  “This sounds barbaric. Torturing us in life so we prove ourselves in death.”

  “It’s not about torture, it’s about connection. If you’re going to watch over the most vulnerable, those at highest risk, you can’t be some soul who lived in an ivory tower and never knew torment or pain.” His mouth pulled to the side. “It’s a war, Maggie, and souls are in danger. In this battle, your commanders always come from the frontline. And one of the strongest tools in your arsenal is forgiveness. It’s powerful and it opens energies in your body, and you need those if you’re going to be a protector.”

  I slowly nodded. “Okay, I think I get it.”

  “You weren’t to be tortured—” He glanced at Serge. “You weren’t supposed to turn out…like that. But it’s the problem of a non-corporeal being living in a physical body. Until your soul gets older, you won’t remember your past lives. You come to earth and it’s like you’re living with amnesia.”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “Persevere and rise above your circumstances.” Craig puffed out a breath. “You and Maggie are
destined to be bonded for eternity. But to be protectors and guardians is to have the ultimate trust and confidence in your partner, the system, and yourself. To be partnered with her, you had to live a life of hell and come through the fire.”

  Serge frowned. “Why didn’t Maggie have to do the same?”

  “She did. The last lifetime.”

  He looked pained. “And she passed.”

  Craig nodded. “You were the protector of her. In this life, she was to protect you.”

  “But I failed,” I said.

  “No,” said Serge. “I failed. I should have…I should have been stronger.”

  “No,” said Craig. “You should have been weaker.”

  Serge frowned.

  So did I.

  “You misinterpreted strength,” Craig clarified. “To have reached the goal, you needed to acknowledge you needed help and take it. You couldn’t because you thought it was ‘weak.’”

  Serge looked away, his jaw worked up and down.

  Craig put his hand on Serge’s leg. “Look, you’re fine. You passed—you were dead, but you learned the lesson of this life and that’s all you needed to do.”

  “When we glowed, right?” I asked. “When we let go of the earthly bounds and psychically remembered our bonds, we glowed.”

  Craig nodded. “And when he was willing to sacrifice himself to protect you.”

  “Tell me more about being a protector—”

  Footsteps coming down the stairs temporarily halted my words.

  Nancy and Dad turned the corner. The cop’s eyes locked on Serge.

  He rose, slowly.

  “Hank told me about what’s been going on,” she said, her voice strained. She closed her eyes. “I want to get very, very drunk.”

  Serge stood, silent. His fingers flexed open and closed.

  He did that when he was nervous, scared, and I wondered how I knew that. Was the knowledge of my past lives breaking through into this life or was it just my subconscious creating a hypothesis from his tight stance and the pinched sides of his mouth?

  “You and I have a history,” he said. “A bad one. And I owe you—” He swallowed. “I owe you an apology, but I know my words will never make up for what I did and the pain I caused. I was a pain to you, to—well—everyone.” He looked at Craig. “And, had things turned out differently—” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I think I would have owed you my life and my happiness.” The muscles at the base of his jaw rippled. “I’m sorry—” His voice was husky.