Death, and the Girl He Loves

by Darynda Jones

  I laughed out loud, then quickly stopped myself, looking around at my slumbering guests.

  He lifted his head, his eyes sparkling with appreciation, and gestured behind me. “Your grandfather’s back.”

  I turned toward the door as Mac spoke rather loudly from the other side.

  “Don’t think for a minute I don’t know you’re in there, Azrael.”

  Cameron jerked awake as I marveled at the brusqueness in my grandfather’s tone, making a mental note never to make him angry. He’d said Jared’s celestial name accusingly. Threateningly.

  I rolled my eyes. “Angel of Death, Mac. Remember, he can kill you with a single touch? And you used a double negative.”

  “I’m going to use more than that if the only being in this house who is older than dirt doesn’t stop pawing at my sixteen-year-old granddaughter.”

  Brooklyn stirred, felt blindly for Cameron’s hand, then held it to her as she fell back into oblivion.

  “I guess I should go,” Jared said, laughing softly.

  “I guess.” Disappointment so palpable I could taste it sucked the happiness right out of my marrow.

  “I’m waiting,” Mac said.

  I cringed. “I don’t know about this whole two-grandfathers thing.”

  * * *

  The next morning was like old times. Brooke and I got ready for school as Glitch ran home for a shower and fresh clothes and Cameron … did whatever it was Cameron did. We weren’t sure, exactly. But it was nice having some time with Brooke. Almost alone. We still had Kenya to deal with, but she was fun to ignore. Then she spoke. Darn it.

  “So, what’s the deal with Glitch?” she asked through a wall of toothpaste.

  “What do you mean?” I was towel-drying my hair, and Brooke was taking her turn in the shower.

  “Is he seeing anyone?”

  Brooke pulled the curtain aside to join me while I gawked at her. “Well, I’m not really sure. I know the twins are gone. Their family left when everyone else split, but—” I glanced askance at Brooke. “—is he seeing Ashlee? They seemed to be getting along really well when I left.”

  After a solid minute of Brooke staring Kenya up and down, she said, “Yeah. He’s seeing someone. Or, well, okay.” She shut the curtain. “I’m not really sure. I mean, they seem to like each other, but it didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

  “I was really hoping that would work out. What was the problem?” I asked.

  “Um, I’ll give you a hint. His initials are Glitch Blue-Spider.”

  “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”

  Kenya rinsed, then spit. “So, he may or may not be available.”

  Again, Brooklyn pulled the curtain aside to gawk. “Seriously? You and Glitch?” She eyed her up and down. “I don’t see it. Sorry.”

  Kenya smirked at her. Oh, yeah, this was going to be a great day.

  “I still think I should get the day off of school,” I said, whining for the thousandth time. “I just got back. And the world is about to end. If ever I had a reason to ditch school.”

  “No way,” Brooke said. “You have got to see what is going on. I mean the school is almost barren. Of the parents who didn’t hightail it at the first sign of the apocalypse—which, by the way, how does one outrun an apocalypse?—half of those are keeping their kids at home. Either that or they changed their minds and are running after all. It’s crazy.”

  “All because of a couple of storms and a few demon possessions?”

  “Yep. But you haven’t seen it. Remember Mr. Rivera? Juan’s dad?” Before I could answer, she said, “He now walks around like a zombie. Oh, and so does Mrs. Long—only she actually looks like one, too.”

  “She always walked around like a zombie,” I argued.

  “Not like this. People in town are getting possessed left and right, and Jared is having to … I’m not sure what he does. Dispossesses them?”

  “Cameron had talked about that before. Rats leaving a sinking ship. They want off this planet, off this plane, and they are committing spiritual suicide to do it by having Jared swallow them, having him breathe them into a place from which there is no return.”

  “But I thought having the world full of supernatural entities would be a good thing for other spirits,” Kenya said.

  “Not ghosts,” Brooke replied, turning off the water as Kenya pulled her hair back, completely hogging the mirror. “According to Cameron, these are actually good ghosts who don’t want to see the world destroyed or are afraid of what will become of them.”

  “When Jared first showed up,” I explained further, “there was a poltergeist that was afraid of him. The mere thought floored me.”

  “It floored all of us,” Brooke agreed. “The fact that spiritual entities could be afraid of one another. Could even go to war. It was not something that we absorbed overnight. It took a while.”

  “I think I’m still trying to absorb it all,” I said.

  “As for school,” Brooke said as she stepped out of the shower, wrapped in a towel. “I just think, and your grandparents agree, that you might get an idea if you are out and about. We’ll be like spies, looking for clues to a mystery.”

  “That would be sleuths.”

  “Either way.”

  “Brooke,” I said, taking her aside. “I saw the end of the world a few days ago. I don’t want to see it again. I don’t want to touch anyone. Sometimes I can stop it, but if I’m distracted—”

  “Oh, I totally have that covered. You just wear your coat and gloves the entire time.”

  “Won’t that look odd?”

  “Ha. Wait till we get to school. You’ll understand.”

  We dressed and headed downstairs. Grandma had made breakfast, seeming more cheerful than usual, and we ate as we waited for Cameron to get back. Angry or not, he was our ride to school.

  “You kids have a good day,” Grandma said as we headed out.

  Brooke threw her backpack over her shoulder and said quietly, “I haven’t seen your grandmother this happy in weeks.”

  “Thanks for keeping an eye on them,” I said to her.

  “No prob. You guys always have food, so it was like getting paid in calories.”

  OUTSIDE OBSERVER

  Jared met us at school, winding through throngs of reporters as they tried to interview us. He took my hand into his and threaded us through the melee while they asked us if we’d had any experiences with ghosts.

  In a rare public appearance, Cameron walked up to one of the reporters, towered over him for a minute, then said quietly, “We are ghosts.”

  That stunned them into silence.

  We walked into my old alma mater, and I realized instantly Brooke hadn’t been kidding. The halls were only half as full as usual. Teachers looked haggard, unkempt. Even the custodians watched all the students with a wary eye, as though worried we’d attack them. The entire atmosphere had a somber feel to it.

  Brooke took Kenya to the office for a pass. She miraculously would have every class with me. The sheriff had called Mr. Davis the night before and arranged everything.

  Jared excused himself, so I waited outside the office and wallowed in self-pity—it seemed like the right thing to do—until I saw Jared pull a girl in between the walls of lockers. I stepped over and peeked around. It was the same girl I’d seen yesterday, the one standing on the street, staring at us as we passed. No, staring at Jared.

  She had stringy blond hair and bloodshot eyes above dark circles that made them look twice as big as they were.

  “You’ll not come back from this,” he said to her.

  She kept her head down but looked up at him from underneath her lashes. “I understand, Azrael. I want off before it begins.”

  She was possessed, and the soul inside her wanted off the plane before the war started. Clearly it knew something no one else did. Or something everyone else was refusing to see.

  Jared wrapper his fingers around her jaw, his large hand covering half her face. Then he bent down and
angled his head as though to kiss her, covering his mouth with hers. Even though I knew what they were doing, my heart seized just a little as I watched the exchange. He pulled back and breathed in the possessing spirit. A darkness left her mouth and entered his until she was emptied of the unwanted presence. Her eyes rolled back instantly and she collapsed into his arms.

  He turned to me as he scooped her up into his arms, his chivalry one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen.

  “I have to get her to the nurse’s office,” he said, starting that way.

  I nodded, no longer even a little jealous. He was doing a job. His job. And that made him noble. He carried her swiftly into the south hall and I leaned against the lockers, utterly in awe of him.

  Hearing a familiar footstep, I looked over and saw Ms. Mullins walking toward her classroom. Every molecule in my body brightened. She was my favorite teacher and, as we’d only recently found out, the observer, the person sent to keep an eye on us, the Order of Sanctity and me. The question was, sent from where?

  I rushed up to her and she flashed a smile that could melt the polar ice caps. She had dark cropped hair and sparkling blue eyes that made her look like she was forever up to mischief.

  A little shaky after what I’d just witnessed, I said breathily, “Hi, Ms. Mullins.”

  She tsked and pulled me into a hug. “And she returns at last,” she said, positively beaming. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  “I’m so glad to be back.” I leaned in to her. “But what about the other thing. I mean, your other position?”

  “I had to report that I’d been found out. They sent another.”

  “Who is it?” I asked, intrigued.

  “If I told you, he or she would have to report in that they had been compromised, and we’d have to start all over again. Besides, I have no idea.”

  Not too disappointed, I decided to pry just a bit further. “Who sent you to observe in the first place? I mean, who even knows about us? About what’s going on here?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell, actually, but since—” A sadness fell over her. “Since it’s all happening, really happening, I guess it can’t hurt anything.”

  I inched closer to her. “And?”

  “I’m an emissary of the Vatican.”

  If she’d hit me with a two-by-four, I would not have been more surprised. “The Vatican? Like the one in Vatican City?”

  She laughed softly. “The very one.”

  I blinked. “But why?”

  “We’ve been following the prophecies of the descendants of Arabeth for centuries. When you were born, well, we had to send someone, and I was chosen. It was a great honor.”

  I stepped back in astonishment. “I don’t understand. I mean, if they’ve been studying the prophecies, too, do they know how to stop this war? Surely they know more than we do.”

  “They do know.”

  I straightened and waited expectantly.

  “You.”

  Just as quickly, I deflated. “Don’t tell me. It all hinges on me, and I’m going to stop this war before it even begins.”

  “That pretty much covers it.”

  Disappointment cut into me. “Ms. Mullins, I don’t know how. I didn’t know how yesterday and I still don’t know how today.”

  “But you will.”

  “No! I won’t. Everyone … everyone has such high hopes. I just don’t know what to do.” Tears burned my eyes. If anyone would understand, surely it was my favorite teacher. “Call them,” I said, a new plan forming in my mind. “Call them and tell them the truth. Tell them I’m an idiot and I don’t know what I’m doing and if they don’t do something immediately, we’re all going to die.”

  “Lorelei—”

  “Please, Ms. Mullins. They have to know more. They have to tell me what to do.”

  She pulled me close. “Lorelei, we will get through this. You’ll figure it out.”

  She was wrong. So very, very wrong. My last hope for information vanished into thin air. “Do they at least know who opened the gates in the first place?”

  “No.” Even she seemed disappointed with that. “They have no idea.”

  “Sadly, neither do we.”

  I walked to Ms. Mullins’s class in a daze and feeling a little bipolar. One minute I was certain we’d figure it out; the next, I was just as certain we were all going to die screaming. I was tired and cold and hungry. No, wait, just tired. Since over half the class was gone, Ms. Mullins showed a video on the difference between fusion and fission while she, Brooklyn, and I chatted in the back of the room, setting a horrible example for the rest of the students. While we came to exactly zero conclusions, we did have a nice time.

  After first hour, Brooke and I headed for the bathroom.

  I opened the door with my hip while saying over my shoulder, “I bet we could be tardy to second and no one would care.”

  “Oh, they don’t. Trust me. I’m tardy to almost every class now. The world has turned upside down.” She said all this while checking under the stalls to make sure no one else was in the room. When the coast was clear, she said, “Okay, I have you alone at last, which, my God, is so much harder to accomplish than one might think.” She put her backpack on the ground and stabbed me with one of her mom stares. “What happened last night when you touched your drawing?”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d seen my reaction. “You were supposed to be looking away.”

  “Whatever. What happened?”

  “Nothing. Not a vision anyway, if that’s what you want to hear.”

  “But something did happen, yes?”

  “Yes. But it was, I don’t know, a ripple.”

  She hitched a hip against a sink. “A ripple. Like in time? Like you were about to go into the drawing?”

  “Not really. I don’t know,” I said, adding a childish whine to my voice. Why did we have to talk about this?

  “Lorelei, you are the most powerful prophet in the line. Did you know that?”

  “Jared told me last night. Did my grandparents find that written somewhere?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Yes, in lots of places. It’s odd because as some of the prophecies come to pass, others make more sense. I’m not sure what it all means, but more than one of your ancestors said you’d be the most powerful of them all.”

  “I don’t feel very powerful.”

  “I’m just saying, you should try that again. Maybe you can go into it. Maybe you didn’t give it enough time.”

  “I gave it enough time.”

  “But maybe you didn’t.”

  “But I did.”

  “But maybe—”

  “Fine,” I said, exasperated. I pulled out the sketch. “Would you like me to try it now?”

  What was supposed to be a chastisement only served to urge Brooke on. “Absolutely,” she said, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

  “Maybe we can have a séance, too, right here in the girls’ room.”

  “You think?” she asked, teasing me.

  I opened the sketchbook to the picture I’d drawn and took off my gloves. “This is not my best work,” I said to her.

  She looked down at it. “In all fairness, you were six at the time.”

  “True.”

  After releasing a loud sigh to emphasize my annoyance, I settled onto the countertop and touched my fingertips to the picture. I concentrated on clearing my mind, relaxing my muscles, focusing on the lines, the blurriness of the man’s face, the wind cutting through the air. Then I heard it. The wind. I felt it against my skin, and the ripple that had quaked through my fingertips before did so again.

  A tightness wrapped around me as the wind roared around me, and my first thought was of my parents—the scene so real, I fought to breathe under the weight of it. I was back. I was at the ruins where my parents disappeared. It had been ten years, but I was there. I looked around frantically, wanting to see them, praying I’d see them, but they were already gone. I’d en
tered the scene too late. I looked on as a beast stood before me. He was as tall as the trees around us. His shoulders as wide as the horizon.

  Fear gripped me so fast and so hard, I was catapulted out of the picture.

  “Lorelei,” Brooklyn said, her voice muffled as though she were underwater. “Lorelei, it’s me.”

  I pushed at her, held out my arms to keep her back, kicked out. Then I realized where I was. I’d scrambled for a corner of the girls’ restroom and found myself wedged between a wall and a trash can.

  “Lor, are you okay?” Brooke’s eyes were like saucers, wide and uncertain. “Lor,” she said right before collapsing into my arms. “I thought you had a seizure or something.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You fell and flew back against the concrete.”

  That would explain the splitting headache I suddenly had.

  “And your eyes rolled back. I thought— Oh, my God—”

  “I’m okay,” I said, soothing her, hugging her back. I realized then that Kenya had come in. She stood in the doorway, her expression wary.

  “I did it,” I said breathlessly. “I went into the drawing, and it was like I was there.”

  Brooke sat back, her hands still on my shoulders. “You went into it?”

  I nodded. “But only for a second. It—it was horrible. It was so real. I remembered everything.”

  Brooke sank onto her bottom.

  “Malak-Tuke. I saw him again. He was standing before a little girl.”

  “You,” she corrected. “He was standing before you.”

  Kenya sat beside Brooke. The bell rang but we ignored it.

  “Brooke,” I said, “how is that even possible?”

  “No,” she said, thinking back. “It is. It’s totally possible. I remember reading that one of Arabeth’s daughters did something similar.”

  “Oh, yes,” Kenya said, closing her eyes in thought. “My parents told me about it. She would draw pictures with ashes from certain herbs that she burned, and she could see into them. Into the pictures.” She blinked in bewilderment. “This is just so cool. I can’t wait to tell my parents.”

  “No,” I said, suddenly self-conscious. “Not yet. What if I can’t do it again? What if it means nothing?”