All the Rules of Heaven

by Amy Lane

  Angel glanced around to Tucker’s side of the truck and gasped. He wasn’t kidding. The ghosts were gathered around the driver’s side as Tucker slowed down, staring at him with hunger in their eyes.

  That fear Tucker’d had, that fear of being possessed—this was what he’d been talking about. These ghosts weren’t the tame ones, the mere visions that populated the house. These ghosts were angry, and they wanted life.

  Angel, who trafficked in the world after life, was suddenly afraid.

  “Tucker, how long do we have before they figure out they can get into the car?”

  Tucker shook his head. “They can’t. The glass, the metal, something about the space of it is different. They’re treating it like a house or a property boundary.”

  Angel frowned. “Are you sure it’s not this symbol of protection hanging from the mirror?”

  “Oh!” Tucker gave a bark of laughter. “I’d forgotten about that.” He touched it and frowned. “It’s still… hot. Still hot in my hands. I don’t think I could wear it comfortably, but you’re right. It’s probably what’s protecting the truck.”

  Tucker stepped on the gas and drove the car to the far side of the road, the one obviously marked by the change in metallurgy, by the absence of anything in a bilious color scheme or smoky shades of gray.

  “But I’ve got an idea.” He stopped the car and looked at Angel. “We still have to get out, but….” He grimaced. “Remember when you touched the doorknob through my hand?”

  “You want me to do that?”

  “Here. My backpack. I’ll put it on; you touch my back through it. Hopefully it will give me enough of whatever you’re wearing to keep them out of my skin.”

  Angel felt an imaginary pulse fluttering in her throat. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Tucker, this could… uh, take a bad turn.”

  “Yeah, and then it could veer left off of ‘bad’ right onto ‘wrong,’ and then go south straight to hell. I am aware, Angel. But….” He rubbed under his breastbone. “I wish I could explain it to you. Why I have to go look. There’s a thing here I need to see. I just….” The expression he turned toward Angel was pleading. “Angel, this radar in my stomach, it’s sort of imperative. And it’s been tingling since I woke up after the bed thing. I wish I could explain it better than that, but—”

  “You didn’t tell me?” Angel asked, surprised. “Oh, Tucker, you never ignore an empath’s feelings. That’s very important. It’s good that we came. Bad things happen when that’s not addressed.”

  The bleakness on Tucker’s face touched Angel in a broken place she didn’t know she had. “I know. Oh, believe me, I totally know. So I know it’s scary. I’ve passed graveyards in the city that haven’t been this populated. This is bad shit right here. But I’ve got to, man… sweetheart… hell, whatever. I’ve got to. You understand?”

  “I understand,” Angel said. “Tucker, who taught you how to use your powers?”

  “Now? You want my life history now?” Tucker unhooked his seat belt, then grabbed the knapsack and put it on his back.

  “I’m just wondering. You did have a mentor, didn’t you?”

  “Not anyone in particular. Now grab my shoulder and let’s get out of the car and see if anybody tries to possess me.”

  “They can’t have you,” Angel muttered, feeling indignant. “You’re mine!”

  For an electric moment, they stared at each other, Tucker’s brown eyes wide with surprise. Angel bit her lip, not exactly sure how she’d meant that, but the words were out and couldn’t be taken back. That same imperative Tucker—and Ruth—had felt when addressing ghosts seemed to have hold of Angel in this matter.

  Tucker was hers.

  “Careful, sweetheart, someone might take that the wrong way,” Tucker muttered, breaking the spell and sliding out of the car. He gave Angel time to slide too, carefully, so they were still touching.

  They landed on the hard-packed dirt of the road, and Angel grunted. “Tucker, this is hard. Can I—you won’t feel my weight, but can I ride on your back?”

  “What about the pack?”

  “I’m not solid. It’ll pass right through me.”

  Tucker scrubbed his face with his hands. “Just make sure you don’t go right through me, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “You know, maybe I was wrong,” Tucker muttered, holding his hands behind his back so she could get up. It wasn’t necessary. She was already straddling him like a little kid looking for a ride, her dress—green—riding up her thighs in what would have been a wanton way for a human, and she was as secure there as Tucker was on the ground.

  It was almost like she could feel his lean, rangy body between her thighs, almost like the heat of him was seeping through her entire being.

  She was, perhaps, a trifle more secure than Tucker was on the ground.

  The ghosts were backing up, a sickly DayGlo rainbow of spiritual energy parting as Tucker trekked from the untainted property where the truck was parked, across the rutted dirt road, and over the dry irrigation ditch at the shoulder. He clambered up the side to the property line and found the small gate—mostly a frame for the barbed wire and a rusty latch—that would let him onto Daisy Place proper.

  Into the morass of the undead.

  “God, it smells like swamp ass,” he muttered. “Can you smell that? Whole damned county is bone dry, and look!” He shook his wafflestomper as he lifted his foot, and clots of damp earth and vegetation flew off. “Can you believe that shit?”

  Angel sniffed delicately and realized that her scope of human sensation was limited to Tucker. Tucker smelled very nice, actually—he used some sort of musky body wash, and of course his clothes were starting to smell like cedar from the closet, as well as pine-scented dust, because they were in Foresthill.

  “I cannot smell the swamp,” she said, and even to her ears, her voice was a little dreamy.

  “Lucky you,” Tucker grumbled sourly. “So, Angel, what does the graveyard look like to civilians? Can you see that?”

  “Yes,” she said, squinting a little. Tucker grunted, as if she’d just become heavier on his back. “It’s… plain dead grass on hard dirt, random headstones. Not inviting but not….”

  “Apocalyptic either. Here—let’s go check out the headstones. I want to see the difference between the ones mortals see and the ones we see.”

  “Tucker, there aren’t any ghosts around the graveyard. Either version. Do you think I could jump off your back and help you look?”

  The sound that came from Tucker’s throat was as close to fear as Angel had heard him make. “Can we not?” he asked reluctantly. “They are…. Angel, look how they’re looking at me.”

  Angel looked over her shoulder and wished she hadn’t. The ghosts had closed in, standing in a loose semicircle behind Tucker, glaring at him as though he was to blame for all their ills.

  Angel wrapped her arms around Tucker’s shoulders and held on tight. “You can’t have him,” she shouted. “He’s mine!”

  The glow thinned just a tad, but Angel couldn’t stop the shudder that pulsed through her—and then through Tucker.

  “I’m flattered,” he muttered, pulling his foot from the sucking swamp that kept trying to eat his boots. “But you’re actually under my skin, sweetheart—I mean, Angel—and it’s making it hard to concentrate.”

  Angel pulled back a little. “Sorry, Tucker.”

  “No worries. You know, I call men sweetheart too. You know that, right?”

  “Out of bed?”

  Tucker grunted. “Fine. Point made. Anyway, here we are. Okay, how many graves do we have here, in real time?”

  Angel counted. “Seventeen. Do you want me to read the names?”

  “Yeah. Damn. There’s a notebook with a pen inside the back…. Thank you?”

  The otherworldly energy was strong here. Angel had just reached into the backpack without using the zipper, seized the items he’d asked for, and pulled them out.

  “I’m
not sure how exactly that works,” Angel mumbled. “The energy here—it’s the same sort of thing Squishbeans does for me, but Squishbeans makes me solid when I hold her. Not completely, but enough to pick up a kitten—”

  “Or a pillow,” Tucker said, voice gentle.

  “Small objects,” she returned humbly. “But here it’s…. Can’t you feel it? It’s like I can grasp the raw electricity from the air and drink it!”

  “Yes, Angel, that’s what I meant by ‘This place is as creepy as hell.’”

  Angel shuddered. “Oh no. Hell would be far creepier.”

  Tucker made a sound of frustration. “Well, I’m not going to walk down that alternative-universe graveyard road and into the interdimensional rift to find out! Can you write on that tablet, since you’re sucking electricity through a stovepipe?”

  “Sure,” Angel said, trying to help. “What would you like me to write?”

  “Well, I’m going to point to a headstone, and I want you to tell me if it’s real or… dimensional, okay? And then I want you to write the names down, separate columns. The stuff that’s on the earthly plane and the stuff that’s in whatever this other plane is. Can we do that?”

  “I can, but I don’t know why,” Angel muttered. But Tucker was already pointing, and it was her job to cling to him with her legs and write.

  She used the back of his head to balance the pad on—he didn’t seem to mind—and one headstone at a time they made a list. Helena Catherine Grayson, b. 1865 d. 1912. She was “real.” The headstone next to hers, which looked no less weathered, proclaimed Sarah Lynn McArdle, b. 1956 d. 2001 was in the other dimension. Together they mapped both sides of the graveyard—the solid, earthly side and the ghostly otherwhere—and Angel had to admit, some of the things they discovered were odd.

  “Wait,” Tucker muttered. “What was that last one? That last dimensional one?”

  “George Ezra Alvarez?”

  Tucker stumbled. “Yeah. That one. God—could that be? No. There’s got to be…. Angel, what was his death date?”

  She read it off, and Tucker started doing that mental math. “Oh. Oh hell. That’s got to be him. Okay. That’s a clue. It sucks, but it’s a clue. Okay, we’re done with the earthbound ones. Who’s our next dimensional trespasser?”

  “Damien Alexander Columbus, born September third, 1984, died—”

  “I know when he died,” Tucker croaked. Throughout the graveyard, the ghosts who’d refused to follow them in rustled, and Angel looked around at them, worried.

  “Tucker, we should—”

  “I can’t be here anymore,” Tucker mumbled.

  “Good, because we should—”

  “How could that be him? Angel, do you have any idea?”

  “Tucker, we need to go!” Angel’s voice cracked in panic, and Tucker pulled his mind from whatever personal hell he’d been visiting to see his actual, er, virtual surroundings.

  “Oh hells,” he muttered. “Angel, are you holding on tight?”

  “I’m actually under your skin,” Angel confessed, waiting for his rebuff.

  “Stay there,” Tucker said grimly. “And don’t let anyone else in. You hear me, Angel? You said it. You claimed me first. None of these other assholes get to ride me, right?”

  Tucker had turned already and was trotting toward the edge of the graveyard. The spirits waiting when he got there parted, but nobody was giving as much ground as they’d done earlier.

  A ghost reached for him. Angel could feel the burn, like humans described acid, and she screamed, hugging Tucker tighter, sending energy through their skins until the ghost shrieked and disappeared. Tucker moaned in pain, and then another one tried, and another. And still Tucker kept trotting, keeping the property line as a goal in front of them as Angel sank deeper and deeper into his skin.

  Another ghost screamed, and this time Angel felt it, the burn, not just in Angel’s consciousness but on Tucker’s body, and Angel let out a sob.

  Don’t stop! Tucker begged inside their shared space. I don’t care how much it hurts. Dammit, Angel, have my back!

  This ghost tackled them, full body contact, and Angel shrieked as she threw it off, electrifying both of them, repelling the ghost with psychic energy the same way she’d picked up a pillow.

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Angel gibbered, and Tucker just kept running, although the ghostly bodies seemed to stack themselves in front of them like bricks.

  Again, another one jumped on Tucker’s back, and Angel started swearing, using all the words Tucker was so fond of. The agony faded, and Angel heard Tucker—of all things—laughing.

  Picking up bad habits, there, sweetheart.

  Don’t stop running.

  Wasn’t planning on—

  Oh no! Angel was looking through Tucker’s eyes now, so completely merged that she could probably speak through his mouth, if that hadn’t been a violation. And Tucker was stumbling to a halt, just before the dividing line. Just before freedom.

  Damien?

  Oh Lord. She heard it in the tone of his voice, felt it in the ache in his chest. Tucker had loved this person. Tucker still grieved him.

  It’s not him! Angel begged, wishing she’d given Tucker a more thorough education on what a ghost was. It’s his energy, but not his soul. His soul wants what’s best for you, Tucker. But this thing—

  Damien. Oh God. Damien. I’m sorry.

  Damien the ghost had been handsome in real life—dark blond hair, green eyes, a thin nose, narrow chin, and playfully full mouth. Angel recognized him then, from his first day with Tucker. Angel had skated the surface of Tucker’s mind, trying to find someone he’d trust, trying to find a form he’d care about so Angel wouldn’t have to work so hard at being human.

  His attempt at deception might have just saved Tucker’s soul.

  Don’t trust him! Remember, you didn’t trust me? You were right! He’s not real, Tucker. Now run!

  And Tucker lifted a foot, and another. Ghost-Damien lunged toward them from the side, but Tucker was almost at the edge of the property line, and as the spirit wrapped his arms around Tucker in a blistering embrace, Tucker screamed and took the final step.

  Ghost-Damien wailed and faded, captured by the graveyard energy and held there, as Tucker and Angel broke free.

  Tucker kept running until he got to the truck. He slid into the cab, and Angel scooted out of his body gratefully and then took a good look at him.

  “Oh God, Tucker.”

  Tucker’s face was blistered, down his cheek, down his neck, and probably all over his torso and arms too. He took a breath and coughed, blood spattering his hand.

  “Oh fuck, Angel,” he muttered. “I am fucked up.”

  “Can you drive?” Angel asked. She didn’t like the look of the blisters—his skin had a sort of noxious cast to it, and whatever a doctor might put on it, it wouldn’t fight the psychic sickness sinking into his flesh.

  “Yeah,” Tucker coughed.

  “I’m going to merge with you again. Do you mind?”

  “Just let me stay me, okay?” His voice hit a plaintive note, forlorn and sad, and Angel had a sudden thought that one not-quite-real companion wasn’t enough here.

  “I promise,” she said gently. “I’m going to see if I can push the… the deadness out. The blisters will need to heal, but I’m going to try to get the supernatural stink out.”

  “Fine,” Tucker muttered. “You do that. I’m going to drive to the hospital and—”

  “Don’t go,” Angel begged, wondering if she was wrong about this like she’d been wrong about the internet. But there were good reasons too. “It’s so far, Tucker. Drive to Margie’s or to Ms. Fisher’s. Josh and Rae’s. A friend. You need a friend, Tucker, someone real.”

  “Great,” Tucker muttered. “Here, let me find the phone so I can—” He coughed some more, and Angel jumped into his body while he was trying to drive, cough, and get on the cell phone all at the same time.

  Angel could feel it, the gre
en sickness, pulsing just under Tucker’s skin, and she aligned her energy as closely as she could with his. But there was something else there, something painful and bitter and horrible, making Angel’s hold on Tucker weak and her fight against the sickness even weaker.

  She waited, screaming in his head with the effort, as Tucker spoke in halting sentences to Josh, and Josh told him to just get back to the house; he’d meet Tucker there and get him inside.

  Tucker clicked the phone off and Angel spoke low and urgently inside his head.

  Tucker, you have something in you, a bitterness, an anger. It’s hurting you. It’s making your aura weak. You need to let it go.

  Tucker’s response was verbal, a scream of pain and frustration that echoed through the frame of the small cab.

  I know it’s comfortable, but dammit, Tucker, can’t you tell me a little bit of it? Just a bit? It’s pushing me out, and I need some room to work!

  “I don’t know what to tell you!”

  Tell me about Damien.

  “Oh God,” Tucker muttered brokenly. “We were friends in high school. And I loved him.” His voice broke. “I was so in love with him.”

  Were you lovers? Angel tried to suppress her jealousy. She was not the first person in Tucker’s life—she’d known that since she’d seen him asleep in Dakota Fisher’s bed.

  “No,” Tucker whispered. “No. Because I was bi, and he was fine with that, but all he talked about was girls.”

  Oh, Tucker. I’m so sorry.

  “It wasn’t your fault!” Tucker wept—and yes, he was weeping, finally, from pain in his body and pain in his heart. Angel could feel the puke-yellow of bitterness fading a little, into the gold of nostalgia.

  Please, Tucker, heal. Heal just a little, and I can help you heal the rest.

  “What do you want me to say?” he begged, his voice nothing more than a harsh whisper, his lungs still crackling with the pain of Angel’s electricity burning away hostile spirits.

  Did he ever know you loved him? Angel wanted to weep. It was the wrong question. She should have been asking something practical, like why the memory haunted Tucker worse than the terrible energies reaching into his body, but so help her, she needed to know.