by Tricia Barr
Something emerged from the horde that encircled me, a black cloud that emanated a sense of authority and arrogance. The thick black smoke took on a new shape and solidified, a familiar body forming in front of me. And there Luca stood, a living shadow, hands in the pockets of his ethereal slacks and a smug smile on his dastardly face.
I now realized why the other ghosts were keeping their distance. They were forming an arena, and Luca and I were the gladiators meant to fight to the death. Luca had the unfair advantage of already being dead so that he couldn’t lose—or so he thought.
“Did you like the little gift I left for you?” he asked, his hissing voice echoing spookily around us.
The hatred at what he did to Carmella returned to me, boiling the joy I had only moments ago. “You really are a bastard,” I spat.
He gave a deep, wicked laugh that rang in my ears. “You were smart to give yourself up. I was quite looking forward to playing with your little friend Trixie next.”
The pure maniacal delight I saw on his face chilled my fabricated bones. He really was pure evil. Killian said that guilt was what darkened someone’s soul. There was no trace of guilt in Luca’s expression. He enjoyed inflicting pain in others. How could I ever have loved such a despicable person?
“What happened to you, Luca?” I asked. “You don’t have to hurt people. You don’t have to hurt me. Did all the years you cared for me mean nothing?”
“Don’t play that card,” Luca shook his head and narrowed his black eyes. “You were the one who killed me, remember?”
“Because you killed my parents!” I yelled.
“They got what they deserved for crossing me,” he hissed. “And now you will, too.”
He took a step toward me, and I took a step backward.
“What about Carmella?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “Carmella was nothing but kind to you. She took care of you for years, she was practically a wife to you. What did she do to deserve your wrath?”
“She sided with you,” he sneered. “She knew that you killed me, and rather than remain loyal to me and hand you over to my men, she fled with you. She deserved what she got. I don’t know how she survived the beating we gave her, but once I’m done here, I’ll go to the hospital and finish the job. Maybe I’ll even ensnare her soul and make her my slave for eternity.”
Eerie laughter trickled throughout the swirling black crowd of ghosts.
So, Luca didn’t know that I had brought Carmella back. That was a good thing. He must not know that I was the Gatekeeper. If he did, he wouldn’t even be here right now. I had to make sure he stayed ignorant of that fact until the very end, until it was too late.
“And as for your soul,” he began, tapping his chin in thought.
“Why don’t you save your stupid plotting for after the fight,” I said. “I’m not dead yet.”
He chuckled. “No, but you will be soon.”
And then he attacked. He shot his hand out toward me, and inky black tentacles snaked from the palm of his hand and coiled around my limbs. I yanked my arms in all directions, trying to wrench them free, but the tentacles restricted tighter, impossible to shake lose. They wound so tight that the pressure began to hurt. It quickly became too much for me, for my manufactured bones, and the bones snapped.
I shrieked at the pain, involuntary tears stinging my eyes. This body may not be the real thing, but it did feel real pain, and that agony was shooting through my entire nervous system. My pride wanted me to fight back, but I knew I would be too strong for him. A response now would expose me as something too powerful for Luca to defeat, and he would run. I had to let him have his way with me. I had to endure whatever torment he had in store for me.
I closed my eyes and braced my soul, hoping it would be over soon.
Luca laughed gleefully at the crunch of my bones in my legs, at the snap of my arm as his tentacles bent it to the breaking point.
“Keep screaming, my little toy,” he said. “Music to my ears.”
His tentacles slammed me against the wall, the force of the impact smashing a whole in the drywall, chunks of white material crumbling to the carpet. Then they slammed me into the floor, my body rocking against the hard cement that was only barely buffered by the thin layer of carpet on top of it.
I expected another slam, but suddenly I was yanked forward, my broken body swaying in the grips of his tentacles like a handful of spaghetti. Luca pulled me close so that I was face to face with him. Shadows radiated from his face like a dark glow, and I was afraid to breathe in for fear that they would somehow poison my soul.
“You always were such a beauty,” Luca mused, looking at me with a dark blaze in his eyes. “It would be a pity not to taste that beauty before I destroy it.” And then he grabbed my face in his hands and forced his lips on mine.
To my surprise—and disgust—he was solid, and he tasted fetid sweet, like death. I wanted to push away from him, but my arms were too shattered, and trying to move them at all inside their tentacular bounds sent lightning strikes of pain shooting up my shoulders. All I could do was fruitlessly wiggle my face in his rough hands that imprisoned my head. When his mouth opened, and his tongue pushed at my lips, I did the only thing I could think of. I bit down as hard as I could.
But his tongue became insubstantial as my teeth came together, shredding its solidity to protect itself from my rebellion.
He laughed mockingly. “You can’t hurt me, stupid girl. The dead feel no pain. I guess you’re not the ghost expert you thought you were.”
My bounds jerked me backward and once again slammed me onto the floor. This time, there was no lag time between impacts. No sooner had he raised me up from the floor, he hurled me into the ceiling, then back down onto the floor. Repeatedly, he did this, playing my body like a ping-pong ball.
“Hold on, just a little bit longer,” I heard Killian’s voice whisper in my ear.
I didn’t know how he was keeping himself hidden from our ghastly audience, but I was so grateful that he was still here, somewhere, giving me his emotional support. I could feel his desperation at watching this happen to me, and we both knew he couldn’t intervene. We both just had to tolerate it. Wait for the window of opportunity to open. It needed to happen soon, because this body wouldn’t last much longer.
As if unknowingly granting my wish, Luca slammed me into the floor one last time and then climbed on top of me. He put his hands around my neck and very slowly applied pressure.
“I’m going to enjoy watching the light leave your eyes,” he whispered in an inappropriately intimate tone.
His hands were constricting my windpipe, not enough to cut off the air flow, but just enough to make it impossible to get sufficient breaths of air. He was going to drag out this murder.
This was my chance. I had to take it, and I had to be quick as lightning!
I pried myself out of my body, severing the brain-soul connection and killing me instantly. The light portal obediently opened right beside me.
“Killian, now!” I shouted, and I spread out my spiritual grasp to trap as many of them as possible. I felt Killian’s grasp double over on top of mine, forming a sort of ethereal bubble around the entire congregation. The ghosts pushed and clawed at the bubble, but it proved impenetrable.
Luca’s eyes darted from my lifeless face in his hands to its spiritual echo that was glaring back at him, confusion storming inside those dark orbs. When he saw Killian appear at my side, understanding sparked in his face, and he released my corpse’s neck and turned to flee. But I threw out my arm and locked my hand around his forearm.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said triumphantly.
As one mind, Killian and I dove into the light together, and the light exploded and swallowed the entire house in its blinding embrace. In an instant, the light dimmed, and we were in the rainbow abyss of the realm of the Gate, Luca’s army still battling to escape the spectral bubble.
I wasted no time reorienting myself after the cross-rea
lm teleportation. I rushed to the Gate, slapped my hand onto the handle of the dial and cranked it all the way down to the bottom circle.
The Gate clanked and groaned loudly, and this time when it opened, it did not slowly waft open, but rather slammed open with a force, as if a pressure had built up behind it, the pressure of the darkness it incarcerated on the other side.
The liquid veil over the entrance was not the prismic multi-color beauty of the entrance to the reincarnation realm. It was black, like a pool of oil, and it bubbled up in little arms reaching toward the prisoners it knew we had for it.
Luca and many of his cohorts gawked at it in wide-eyed horror, and I was sure that their faces would be pale with fright if it weren’t for the darkness that shrouded them.
“Hey Luca,” I called to get his attention. “Go to Hell,” I said, feeling rather proud of myself for the intended pun.
I mentally pushed the spiritual bubble forward, shoving it at the open Gate. The bubble popped, and the blackened souls scurried, leaping for freedom. But the Gate had them. The liquid-like substance inside the veil snaked out and latched onto them, saturating them in its oily hold and dragging them into itself one by one.
“No, NO!” Luca cried pleadingly, the epitome of desperation. He threw his hands out in all directions, clawing at the air for anything to grab on to as the Gate slurped him in. He disappeared into the black goo, and at the last second his fingers grabbed onto the lip of the entrance.
The Gate continued to suck in souls until there were no dark souls left to collect. I sauntered up to the Gate and bent down in front of Luca’s fingers that held onto the rim for dear life.
“Buh-bye,” I said, and then blasted them with a spiritual pulse that made them flaw out in shock and sink backward and out of sight.
I ran to the other side of the door and dragged it shut, cranking the dial back to the center of the door, as if locking Luca inside. But I knew there was no way out for him. Luca was going to be in there for a very long time, however long it took for him to become a better person. He just might be in Hell forever. Good riddance.
I turned around to see Killian standing behind me. His chest was rising and falling in quick succession, as if physically winded. His lips slowly spread into an open-mouth smile, and I was helpless not reciprocate.
“We did it,” I said, letting triumph wash over me.
“No, you did it,” Killian said, closing in on me and putting his hands on my shoulders. “You’re amazing.”
I was going to argue with him, but a heart-breakingly familiar voice rang like a bell from behind Killian. “We have to agree with him.”
The smile dropped of my face and I peered over Killian’s shoulder. I could hardly believe my eyes.
Standing there, arm in arm just the way I remembered them, were my Mom and Dad. Mom was every bit as beautiful as she had been the day she died, shining dark hair cascading down her back and framing her Botticelli face, which was smiling at me with unbridled adoration. And Dad’s smile was shining down on me from the handsome face I had missed so terribly for the last seven years.
If I could cry, tears would be gushing out of my eyes right now, and I’d be breaking down in a childlike ball at their feet.
I whirled around Killian and jumped into their arms, and they caught me just as eagerly.
“I missed you guys every single day,” I wept tearlessly.
“And we missed you, sweetheart,” Mom said, squeezing me tighter.
“We never stopped watching over you,” Dad said, snuggling his face into my hair.
Shame twinged inside me at his words. “You must have been repeatedly disappointed,” I muttered.
Mom pulled me away and looked at me with her green eyes. “No, honey, never.”
“It wasn’t your fault the way Luca twisted you,” Dad said. “Bringing a child into that world. You grew up to be an amazing woman despite his efforts, and we couldn’t be prouder.”
Love and honesty twinkled in his blue eyes as they held on to mine, and he was practically shining with affection. I beheld the two of them for a blissful moment, and then I realized that they actually were shining. Their souls were so pale, so clean, that they gave off their own light. My unnecessary breath hitched in my throat as I realized they were meant for Heaven.
What a twisted sense of humor the universe had. After all this time of missing them and wanting so badly to see them again, here they were right in front of me, and I had to send them away. I couldn’t be selfish with them. They deserved to be at peace. And now they could, knowing their daughter would be safe—bored out of her mind for the next thousand years, maybe, but safe.
“Come on, guys,” I said, taking their hands and leading them toward the Gate.
Mom shook her head. “But, honey, we don’t want to leave you.”
“You guys have been waiting long enough,” I insisted, clasping the handle of the Gate and pushing the dial upward to the top circle. “It’s time for you both to move on. Besides, I’m already dead. What’s the worst that can happen to me?” I winked at them as I pulled the Gate open to the entrance of Heaven.
A softly bright chimerical light flooded out the Gate. The veil over the portal looked as though it was made of liquid sunlight, and it gave off a penetrating warmth that heated the soul to the core. I wanted to bask in that warmth and melt under it, but it wasn’t my time, and it wouldn’t be for a very long time. No, this warmth was for them.
They stood hesitantly before the opening, looking at me longingly.
I refused to let them see how much it hurt to let them go. My parents needed to see an unwavering smile on my face, so I wore mine expertly. “Go,” I implored. “I’ll see you guys again in no time.”
A lovely pout puckered my Mom’s pretty face. She rushed toward me and threw her arms around me in a hug I had prayed for every night of the last seven years. My Dad’s arms wrapped around the both of us.
“We love you, Lorelei,” Mom whispered, her voice shaking with emotion.
“I love you, too,” I said, at this point struggling to keep myself together. If they didn’t go soon, I wouldn’t have the strength to let them leave. “Now go,” I practically begged.
They withdrew their arms and approached the Gate. My parents gave me one last loving smile, and then they stepped into the veil, which hugged them into itself happily, and they were gone.
I stared at the open portal for a long time, my whole frame shaking with the strain of sacrifice. Killian had been standing by patiently, watching, and soon came up to comfortingly put his arms around my shoulders.
“That was very brave,” he said.
All I could do was nod.
After another long moment, I finally closed the Gate and locked the dial. I turned around and saw the millions of souls that were waiting for me and remembered that there were still millions more that had aimlessly wandered back to the world of the living that needed to be brought back here. There was so much work to be done.
I took Killian’s hand and said, “Well, let’s get to work.”
It had been nearly a century since I had taken up my post as Gatekeeper. I had watched the world change in ways I never dreamed possible when I was alive. The new technologies that were advancing society were remarkable, and I was proud of my species’ successes, even if wickedness still came just as naturally to them as ever.
Killian and I had finally wrangled up the last of the overflowed souls from the mishap of those brief seventeen years while I was alive. It had taken quite some doing to pass them all through the Gate, and even more to find the ones that had leaked back into the human world, all while we tried to keep up with the people who were dying on a daily, hourly, secondly basis.
Spending this last hundred years with Killian was magnificent. He was the perfect partner, and I loved him more and more every second of this endless eternity. I was grateful for this extra time that we had been able to have together…and I was equally as sad that it was about to end.
I both dreaded and looked forward to passing this last soul through the Gate. It meant I would lose Killian, which would be a million times harder than losing my parents had been, but it would also mean he would finally get what he deserved, what he worked so hard for, and almost lost because of me.
I pushed the last soul through the Gate to Threshold, the reincarnation realm, and closed it. But rather than setting the dial back to the center, I cranked it upward to the top circle and pulled open the door. Heaven’s light flooded the rainbow abyss, baking us with its delicious heat.
“Lorelei, what are you doing?” Killian asked with a suspicious, knowing tone.
“It’s time for you to go home, Killian,” I said with as clear a voice as I could.
“What?” he asked. “No, it can’t be. My soul can’t be ready yet.”
I tilted my head to one side and raised my brows at him. “Killian, I know you’ve felt the pull when we’ve pushed through other souls. I know you feel it now. I feel it pulling you. Your time has come, and then some.”
He shook his head firmly. “I’m not ready to leave you yet.”
“You have to be,” I said softly. “Because I am ready to let you go.” And I meant it. I loved him more than any words in any language could ever express, than any form of the world’s new math could calculate, which was why I had to make him leave me.
He did not move. He only looked at me like I was betraying him.
“Please, Killian,” I implored. “You lost Heaven because of me once already. I refuse to let you lose it a second time. You know it’s not goodbye forever. In just nine hundred or so short years, I’ll be with you again. And we can finally enjoy eternity together.”
“Heaven won’t be heaven without you,” he said, clenching his jaw to restrain the pain.