by eden Hudson
No. Beside Shannon, not beside her body.
But, Lord Almighty, she looks— Even with the sunlight shining on her, her skin’s this awful grayish color. Her cheek is resting in a pool of vomit. The knees of my jeans soak up wetness from the floor. Urine.
Wherever Tiffani is, she starts pounding on the wall.
“Snap out of it, Danny! Call an ambulance! Tell them she took something and she’s not breathing right, then get her in the shower. You have to keep her heart moving.”
I don’t want to leave Shannon, but I scramble over to the side table and grab the phone. I try dialing twice before I remember that Shannon unplugged the cord last night. I plug it back into the wall. When I finally get 911 on the line, they want me to keep talking with them until the paramedics arrive.
“I can’t,” I say, but I leave the phone off the hook.
Shannon’s body is cold, wet, limp. Picking her up makes me feel sick.
In the bathroom, I turn the shower on as hot as it will go, then stand in the spray with her in my arms.
“Shannon?” I say it as loudly as I can without yelling. “Can you hear me?”
Her head lolls on her shoulders, but her mouth is moving. She’s mumbling. I can’t understand what she’s saying.
“It’s me, Shannon.” I scrub her arms and back, trying to get the blood moving or at least warm her up. “What are you talking about, sweetheart? Talk louder for me, so I can hear you.”
“There wasn’t a God,” she slurs.
“Of course there’s a God,” I say. “He told me—”
She whimpers. “It hurts so much.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “People are coming. They’re going to—”
“Tell God I’m sorry. It just hurts so much all the time. Hate it. I hate how much it hurts.”
“Aw, honey.” I hold her head against my chest and grit my teeth.
For some awful reason, my brain chooses that second to remember the kitten I found dead in the hayloft when I was four. I pushed its little tongue back into its mouth and carried it up to the house, rocking it like a baby because I thought it was asleep.
“No,” I yell at the image. Talking—isn’t it supposed to be good to keep somebody talking if they’re going in and out of consciousness? “You can pray, Shannon. Let’s both pray. We’ll both pray out loud, okay?”
This time when her head lolls, I can’t tell if she’s answering me or if I moved her and didn’t realize it.
“Shannon,” I say, desperate. “God told me to come here for you. Just for you. He talked to me for real, just for you.”
I can hear sirens, but you can always hear sirens in this city.
For a second, her eyelids flutter, then they stop. She feels so cold. Shouldn’t the water have warmed her up by now?
“Shannon?”
I try slapping her on the back. Shaking her.
Nothing.
I can’t feel her chest moving anymore.
“You can’t do this, Shannon. You can’t stop, okay? That’s not how this ends. You’re not supposed to—”
“EMT,” a man yells. “Hey, if anybody can hear me, speak up.”
This time, Tiffani doesn’t answer. It takes almost a full second before my brain registers that she can’t say anything or she’ll have to tell them why she’s hiding in some closet somewhere instead of getting help.
“In here.” My voice cracks. “In the bathroom.”
I smooth the wet tangles of Shannon’s hair out of her face. Kiss her cheek right under her eye. I can’t lose her. Not like this. If she hates me forever, if she never wants to see me again, that’s one thing. I can live through that. But if she’s not here on this earth, then I don’t want to be either.
Shannon
“Shannon? It’s me. I’m here,” Danny whispers, but he shouldn’t be whispering. That’s not what happens in this memory. This Danny is the gorgeous twenty-two-year-old, not the gawky teenager walking with me at the creek. He’s leaning over me, holding my hand, touching my face. His sleeves are unbuttoned, rolled back. He’s dripping wet. Nothing about this is right.
“Sir,” a woman yells. “I need you to back up. Give us room to do our job.”
Then it feels like that time our plane hit turbulence over the Yellow Sea and Mena started screaming that we were going to die. But instead of Mena’s screaming, people are yelling medical terms at each other like an episode of ER. I can’t see Danny anywhere.
“Danny?” It’s hard to talk. Slow. Heavy.
“Conscious,” someone yells.
“Get that bag changed,” someone else snaps.
The sun’s too bright. I have to close my eyes again.
“If you hadn’t shown up at exactly the right time…” a woman is saying. She doesn’t sound like anyone else so far. She sounds calm. Like she’s trying to be quiet.
“Yes, ma’am,” Danny says.
I want to reach out and grab his hand again, but my arm weighs tons. I need to touch him. I need to know he’s not mad at me. I didn’t even believe in God back then. The only reason Dad ever sent me and Charlotte to church after Mom died was because they had a meal every Sunday and Wednesday night. Dad tried. He really did. But with all the hospital bills and the treatments that didn’t even work and the funeral expenses and that godawful funeral director who barely did his job and then her right eye started leaking embalming fluid during the visitation like she was—
Pastor Gauge and Laura must’ve known. They always insisted I stay for supper when I was over hanging out with Danny and tried to send me home with leftovers.
“What’re you talking about, Shannon?” Danny asks.
The sun’s down. No, wait—we’re not in the pasture anymore. We’re somewhere inside.
For a second I panic, but Danny is there. He’s sitting in an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair beside the bed, stroking the backs of my fingers, trying to avoid the tape over the IV on that hand.
Oh, shit, an IV. This is a hospital room.
“I didn’t mean to.” Everything I say slurs. “I was just trying to get the pills to work faster. I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I don’t want to die. That’s what they think, isn’t it? Jesus, I’m so fucking stupid.”
“Shh.” Danny’s standing now, brushing my hair out of my face. “You need to rest.”
I can’t stop crying.
“My throat hurts,” I say, but it’s worse than that. My throat feels like it’s been cut open and embedded with glass. My mouth tastes like gravel dust.
“It’ll be okay,” Danny says. “I’ll make sure they know you weren’t trying to kill yourself. Tiffani’ll help me.”
“Tiffani’s here?”
“She’s keeping everybody out.”
The sobs hurt, I’m crying so hard. I hold a hand over my mouth to try to shut myself up, but it doesn’t help. Tiffani’s here. Danny’s here. I wish they weren’t wasting their time on a piece of trash like me. I should have killed myself. It would have been the right thing to do.
I hear Danny get up, and when I look, he’s coming around the bed. He lets down the rail and climbs in beside me. For a few minutes he situates cords and wires and things. Then, really gently, he scoops me onto his lap.
I lay my head on his chest and let him rub my back and hold me. It’s just like it used to be. Everything bad goes away when I’m with Danny.
Danny
This is the most uncomfortable position I’ve ever laid in. My arms and legs alternate falling asleep. My neck is killing me. Shannon smells like vomit and urine and rubbing alcohol. My clothes are still damp in places from the shower. I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here with her. Sometimes she talks in her sleep. Sometimes she twitches. I don’t move.
After a while, Tiffani comes in.
“Corey’s got the press under control,” she says. “If you want, you can go get a cup of coffee or something to eat.”
I tighten my grip on Shannon.
“I’m fine,”
I say.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Tiffani says.
“I know.”
Tiffani nods. Goes to the window and opens the blinds. I’m expecting evening sky, but there are buildings everywhere. I guess I forgot where I was for a minute.
“She’s never talked about you,” Tiffani says.
After everything yesterday and today, I wasn’t expecting something like that to hurt so much. I have to make myself say, “It’s been a long time ago now.”
Tiffani shakes her head.
“It’s the way Shannon doesn’t talk about things.” Tiffani takes out a pack of cigarettes and rattles it around until one pops up. “Like her mother. She’s scared to talk about you.”
“Just tell me if you guys are together,” I say. “I’ll leave you alone.”
Tiffani gives me a skeptical look.
“I’m not a home-wrecker,” I say. “I wouldn’t try to steal her away from you.”
“You’d be fine knowing the woman you loved was in love with another woman,” Tiffani says. “Doesn’t your religion preclude you from condoning homosexuality? Aren’t you supposed to condemn the fags and the dykes?”
I open my mouth, then shut it again because I’m not sure how to say that this is Shannon we’re talking about. Loving her is like loving passion. She’s the wick—all soul and fire and fury. There isn’t a gender or sexual orientation to it. There are just people who touch the flame and people who don’t.
What I’m thinking must show on my face because Tiffani lets out a soft exhale like she understands.
“We’re not together,” she says. “Not a couple.” She puts the unlit cigarette to her lips, then takes it back down again. For a while, she just stares at it. “Can you even give her what she needs?”
“No,” I say. “But I can protect her while she gets it.”
“I’m faster, stronger, and more experienced than you,” Tiffani says. “Wouldn’t I be able to protect her better?”
Lot of good having a vampire around did when Shannon was lying in the sunlight dying or when she was washing down a bottle of pills with half a gallon of booze.
Shannon squirms in my arms and I realize I’m squeezing her. I make myself let go and stretch the cramp out of my right bicep.
“I would’ve burned,” I tell Tiffani. “I would’ve caught on fire and burned and gone to Hell forever before I let her die when I could’ve stopped it.”
Tiffani shakes her head, probably thinking that I’m being naive, but she doesn’t understand. I’ll die before I fail Shannon twice in one lifetime.
A nurse comes in to check Shannon’s vital signs. She frowns at me, but she doesn’t make me get off the bed.
After the nurse leaves, Tiffani and I sit without talking. Time passes in beeps from machines, Shannon’s breathing, and footsteps in the hallway. Tiffani taps her cigarette on her knee. I flex my foot until I work the pins and needles out of it. My other leg falls asleep.
It’s been quiet for what seems like hours when the hospital’s PA system clicks on and a voice says, “Daniel Whitney, please report to the first floor nurses’ station. Daniel Whitney, first floor nurses’ station.”
I don’t want to go, but what if it’s Noah and Clare? They called after they got my message and said they’d stop by the hospital after the last lecture to check up on us.
Tiffani sees me dragging my feet.
“I’m not going to run away with her,” Tiffani says.
“I know,” I say.
“Daniel Whitney, please report to the first floor nurses’ station,” the PA system repeats.
I groan and try to shift Shannon off of my lap as gently as possible, but she still bumps down onto the bed. She doesn’t wake up, though.
Before I get the door all the way open, Tiffani is beside me with her hand on my arm. She sniffs the air like a coon dog tracking.
“There’s something here,” she says. “In the hospital.”
“Something like you?” I ask.
“Do you know anything about demons?”
“Enough to get by,” I say.
“Whatever you’re thinking, think ten times worse,” she says. “This is the same kind of demon that killed Shannon’s father and sister.”
Shannon
When I wake up, Tiffani’s perched on the back of the plastic chair Danny was in earlier, and she’s holding a lit cigarette out the window.
“I don’t—” My voice sounds awful. So quiet. “—don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in here.”
“I’m not smoking in here,” Tiffani says, flourishing her outside hand.
When I laugh, it feels like someone is scouring my throat with steel wool. If this keeps up, the Euro-tour’s going to be hell.
Ha. A tour of Hell. And this fire here was built especially for you, Shannon…
“Where’s Danny?” I ask.
“He’ll be back in a minute.” Tiffani flicks her cigarette out into the night sky, comes to the bed, and puts her hand on my arm. “The big bad’s here, hon.”
“What? No!” Yelling hurts so bad that my eyes water. “He can’t be here. You’ve got to get Danny to leave, Tiff, please! What if it talks to him? What if it tries to make a deal with him?”
“Danny knows about demons,” Tiffani says. “And his friends do, too. He said the big guy we saw the other night—and there’s another one, a coyote—they’re on their way here. They can help him with this.”
“Coyote?” I feel like I’m still druggy. Is any of this even really happening?
“It’s sort of hard to explain,” Tiffani says. “Coyotes are primals. Not exactly animals, more like… The ancient legends about trickster spirits—those are all derived from primals.”
“Am I hallucinating or something?” I try to make a joke out of it. Like, Ha, ha, the girl being chased by the angel of death and bodyguarded by a vampire can’t believe in something like trickster spirits, but I can’t force the laugh.
Tiffani just rubs my arm.
For a second, I think I’m going to throw up, but I start sniffling again. Jesus, I’m like a damn faucet.
“Tiffani,” I say. “Tiff, I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t—”
“No, damn it, I am sorry. I fucked everything up.”
“You need to rest, Shannon.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say.
“I know.”
“I really do love y—”
Tiffani’s fingers clamp down on my bicep.
“Don’t say it. Please. I know.” Her eyes fill up with tears. “I smelled it on you the day you saw him in the coffee shop. Every time you see him, the way you—” She lets go of my arm and swipes at her cheek. “I know it’s not the same with me. Last night… I just wanted to feel like it was for a few seconds.”
The tears are pouring down my face now, as if I have any right to cry. What I did to Tiffani is worse than anything else I’ve done so far. That’s what I deserve to burn in Hell for.
Then the hospital room door swings open. I try to get the sobbing under control.
But it’s not a nurse with bad timing or one of those elusive damn doctors finally getting around to talking to me. It’s the angel of death, here to hammer home the point that karma’s a bitch in high heels. A burning wind roars through the open window and whips the skirt of the angel’s satiny red dress around her thighs.
“Time’s up, Shannon,” she says.
Danny
Noah and Clare aren’t waiting for me at the first floor nurse’s station, but a fallen angel is. He’s talking to a small Hispanic nurse who acts as if she doesn’t see the tar-black wings sticking out of the shoulders of his business suit. She laughs at something he says and ducks her head, embarrassed.
It’s like he hears me coming. He turns around and raises both hands in a gesture that says he’s been looking for me everywhere and, finally, here I am.
“Daniel!”
“You paged me?” I say.
“Come with me to the cafeteria, won’t you? I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
He leads the way, turning us down a hall to follow the directory signs. My hands ball into fists as we walk. I don’t have a sword, a knife, anything. I don’t even have backup. I’m empty-handed, alone, vulnerable.
“I have a friend who can banish demons from the earth,” I say. “He’s on his way here right now.”
“And yet I’m not afraid,” the fallen angel says.
“You can’t be banished?” I guess.
“I’m something of a special case,” he says. “So, Daniel—may I call you Daniel?”
“What should I call you?” I ask. “No, let me guess. You have many names.”
He smiles. “I like you, Daniel. You remind me of myself. A dewy-ass, country bumpkin version, but the resemblance is there. I bet you can bend the Bible to say just about anything you want, can’t you?”
I suck my teeth and glare straight ahead.
A tired-looking doctor holds the cafeteria door for us. The doctor doesn’t look twice at the wings.
The fallen angel nods toward the grill area. “What are you having?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Just as well,” he says. “I’ve heard awful things about hospital food.”
He picks a table near the center of the room and pulls out a chair. When he sits, he raises his black wings just enough that they don’t get hung up in the chair, then lowers them behind it. No one in the cafeteria reacts.
“Why don’t you use a concealment?” I ask, sitting in the chair opposite his.
The demon takes off his wire-framed glasses and frowns down at them as if they need to be cleaned.
“Parlor tricks aren’t really my style,” he says. “Besides, I think you and I both know you’re the only one in this cafeteria who can see me for what I truly am. These good folks want to see you talking to a well-off lawyer or maybe a representative from Shannon’s record label.” The demon puts his glasses back on and shrugs. “I could be from the press, who knows?”