Death, and the Girl He Loves

by Darynda Jones

  He looked down at the girl, at me, and I saw things I didn’t see back then. His claws were razor sharp and as long as my legs. He perched one under my chin and lifted my face to his. I didn’t remember that. I never remembered that one act of … humanity?

  But all the feelings I remembered, the fear, the adrenaline coursing through my veins, were there. I could feel them all over again. Just like I felt what others felt when I had visions, I felt my own emotions rise up and choke me. I was both feeling them anew and reliving what had already happened, what was branded into my mind like an insignia. So the emotions that coursed through me now were twofold.

  I stood with my fists at the ready, my face puckered in a combination of fear, anger, and determination. Malak-Tuke slid another of his claws along my cheek and over my jawline. Then, just like I did remember, he dematerialized. He became smoke and mist and entered my mouth, burrowed into my lungs, curled around my spine.

  I both remembered and felt anew the acidic texture of him as I breathed him in. His essence scorched my throat and seized my lungs until I stopped fighting for air and accepted him.

  And we became one.

  “No!”

  We turned and watched as a man ran toward us. Dyson. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was Dyson.

  “No!” he yelled. “I summoned you, not her!”

  He fell to his knees in front of us. Grabbed my shoulders. Shook me. His impudence would not go unpunished. He was screaming in our face and we didn’t like it.

  He was screaming in our face.

  I moved closer to the scene, watched like a voyeur as the man who opened the gates of hell shook me. That was so wrong. I was only six.

  I suddenly realized I was outside myself again, looking on. I moved even closer, knelt down beside myself to get a better look at the man as the little-girl me scanned the ground around her and I remembered, we’d picked up a stick and stabbed him. It was his own fault. He was screaming in our face.

  She spotted a stick, the stick I remembered picking up, the same crooked piece of wood, the same jagged edges, only she stopped. And looked at me.

  This didn’t happen before. I never stopped and looked at anything. I picked up that stick—we picked up that stick—and stabbed him without regard for anything other than convincing him to go away. But she stopped and I peered into my own gray eyes. Red curls hung over them, partly obscuring her vision, but she stared into my eyes with a knowing far beyond her six years.

  She raised a hand to my cheek, and a darkness drifted out of her. Malak-Tuke’s essence wafted around her like a dark fog. I could see it, something I’d never seen before. It was both fascinating and horrific. But I could also see what I assumed was her aura. My aura. And it was just like Jared had described. Fire licked over my skin and danced around me, bathed me in a soft glow.

  I wondered if this was what fascinated Malak-Tuke. The fire that had been passed down from Arabeth, through generations of prophetic women. It was the fire Arabeth had been burned in. She used it, absorbed it, transformed it into a positive thing before she died. And she sent it to her three daughters, one of whom was my direct ancestor.

  The little-girl me raised a hand to my cheek. “You can do this,” she said.

  “What?” The man beside us was still screaming. Still shaking us.

  Then his face morphed from anger into shock. He looked down at the stick protruding from his abdomen, and recognition shot through me. I knew him.

  “You can do this, Lorelei!”

  I swallowed huge gulps of air as I was catapulted once again out of the picture and back to reality.

  “You can do this.”

  It was my grandmother’s voice. She was frightened, her voice quivering as she kept hold of my forearm.

  Then I realized other hands were on me as well. I was being held down by several people. Jared was holding my head. Cameron my feet. And Mac and Granddad were draped across my body. At that moment I realized I was thrashing about. Catching only brief glimpses of those around me. Brooklyn’s hands were over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

  Wonderful. What’d I do now?

  Grandma was helping Granddad. Or trying to.

  “What?” I asked, only it came out more like a gurgle. That was embarrassing.

  My muscles strained against my skin as though trying to break free of it. They ached instantly, and I tried to force myself to relax.

  “She’s coming out of it.”

  I’m already out of it. I’ve been out of it. But my body wouldn’t obey. It wanted to thrash about a little more for good measure.

  I tried again to make myself relax, to slow my racing heart. Then I remembered what I had to tell them and my heart sped up again.

  “I know him!” I said, and it kind of sounded right.

  “Lorelei,” Grandma said. “We called an ambulance.”

  A what? “No, I’m okay, I saw him. I recognized him.”

  “Don’t try to talk, baby,” Mac said at my side. “The ambulance will be here soon.”

  I took Jared’s hand in mine. “I’m okay. I don’t need an ambulance. I have to tell you what I saw.”

  “Can you drink?” Grandma asked. She held out a cup of water from the dispenser.

  Jared helped me into a sitting position, but I collapsed back against him. He sat on the cot and braced me against his chest, holding my head in his strong hands.

  “I saw him,” I said again.

  Grandma held the cup to my mouth. Why were they not listening to me?

  “I saw the man. I saw Dyson.” With those words, I realized I was slurring a bit. I tried again to force myself back, taking a sip of water as the world tipped a little to the left. “I’m okay,” I said, my breaths ragged. “I feel like I just ran a marathon, though.”

  A round of nervous laughter filled the area as Grandma sat beside me. She took my face into her hands. “Lorelei. Oh, heavens, Lorelei.” She kissed both of my cheeks and my mouth before placing the cup at my lips again.

  “What happened?” I asked after taking another sip.

  Sirens filtered down the stairs.

  “You had a seizure,” Brooklyn said, her voice soft, her face pale. “Let’s not do that anymore, okay?”

  I saw Glitch then. He was crouching down in a corner, his arms crossed over his chest. Kenya was close by him.

  “I guess going into drawings is different than going into pictures. But I’m fine,” I said, glancing from one person to another until my gaze landed on Granddad’s. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

  Grandma felt my cheeks as though checking for a fever. “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, her eyes bright with moisture.

  “Really?” I asked, feeling an odd sense of mirth. “That’s what you said when that bear got into the store that one time.”

  She closed her eyes in relief. “That was scary. This was horrifying.”

  “Wait, why? Did I look bad?” My hand shot to my mouth. “Did I drool?”

  Glitch hurried up the steps then right back down, ushering an EMT into the room. He took one look at us, probably took in the fact that we were in a nondenominational church, and frowned. “What’s going on?” he asked as he walked over to my side.

  Before I could answer, Kenya said, “Well, McAlister here was having a seizure, and instead of taking her to the hospital, we decided to pray over her until she was healed.” She beamed at me. “It totally worked!”

  I laughed, but Granddad didn’t seem to find it amusing. He raked a hand down his face as Sheriff Villanueva burst into the room, summed up the situation with a once-over, then took the EMT aside to assure him my family was not risking my welfare by refusing to take me to the hospital.

  “We’re the ones who called you,” Granddad said.

  I patted his arm and stood to convince the EMT I was okay. Or, well, I attempted to stand. Jared stood first to help me to my wobbly feet. “I’m fine,” I said to the man as his partner walked into the room. “I
wasn’t feeling well, so I lay down and they called you. I’m sorry, but I’m okay now. Really. I did not have a seizure.”

  “The hell you didn’t,” Cameron said.

  I ground my teeth and glared at him. “I’m fine and we—” I circled my index finger around the room, indicating all those present. “—need to talk.”

  “About what?” he asked, challenging me.

  Did they really not understand a word I said earlier? Fine. They brought this on themselves. “About the fact that I recognized the man who opened the gates of hell ten years ago.”

  Everyone stilled. Even the EMTs.

  Mac recovered first. “Kids,” he said to the men, shaking his head in a helpless gesture. “The things that come out of their mouths.”

  Granddad was next. “Yes, and we’re sorry about this. She’s better.”

  “Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “This kind of thing happens all the time. She has these mental issues.”

  “Brooke!”

  “What?” she asked, pressing her mouth together. “Like you don’t.”

  “Like you don’t.”

  “Not as bad as you.”

  “Puh-lease.”

  “Girls,” Grandma said. “Is this really the time?”

  We started to argue. We were quite in the moment, but when we saw Grandma’s expression, the one urging us to focus on what was important, we glanced at each other, and then, as dutiful granddaughters should, we hung our heads in shame.

  “Sorry,” I said, punching Brooke on the arm.

  She elbowed me back. It felt good, horsing around with her again. It had been too long. But Grandma was right. We needed to focus on the important issues at the moment. Not the fact that I wanted to horse around with my best friend.

  “I guess we’re done here,” the EMT said. He gave me a warning glare before turning to leave.

  “These people are freaks,” his partner said as they ascended the stairs. “All the crap going on in this town is bringing out the crazies.”

  Brooke jammed her fists onto her hips. “That was rude.”

  “Completely,” I agreed. “And really? Mental issues?”

  She tossed me a saucy smirk as Jared helped me sit down before I collapsed. Whatever happened had sapped my energy, but his grip was sure, strong. I found myself wanting to collapse against him again. I liked being collapsed against him.

  The sheriff came back in after seeing the EMTs out. He pulled up a chair and everyone sat back down.

  “Okay, Pix,” Granddad said, “what did you see?”

  I lowered my head. “I didn’t see Mom and Dad. I really wanted to, but I arrived in the scene after they were already gone.”

  Jared had sat back on the cot with me and had pulled me against him and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. My sudden weakness was a great excuse for him to do so. He offered me a consoling squeeze.

  “But you were there?” Grandma asked, still in awe of the whole thing.

  “I was. I went inside a drawing.”

  “But again,” Brooke said, “I vote we don’t do that anymore, for the record.”

  I wanted to laugh out loud. Brooke. The one who’d been pushing me relentlessly ever since we found out about my gift, and here she was voting it down. I owed it to myself to retaliate. I didn’t need my gift to tell me she was going to get a whole lot of ribbing in her near future.

  But still. “Why would going into an image affect me that way?”

  “I think it affected your ancestor the same way,” Mac said.

  “What was it like, Pix,” Grandma asked.

  “It was very similar to when I go into a picture, only apparently much more physically demanding. I’m just there, Grandma. I can just see everything that’s going on. And I saw things I didn’t remember. Like Malak-Tuke touching my face before he dematerialized. And I saw me like you see me,” I said to Jared. Then to Cameron. “I think I saw my aura as a little girl.”

  Jared brushed a lock of hair off my cheek. Another great excuse. “Was it like fire? Bright and luminous?”

  “Exactly.”

  Cameron stepped back. “You did see it. That’s exactly—I mean—”

  “I know. It freaked me out, too.”

  “And you saw him?” Mac asked. “You saw the man?”

  “I did. Oh! Yes, I did! And I recognized him!”

  Grandma fixed a hopeful expression on Granddad.

  “Who was it, Pix?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  After a stunned moment of silence, he said, “What?”

  I shrank back in disappointment. “I’m so sorry. I recognize him, but I can’t place why. He’s someone I know or someone I see semi-regularly. I know I’ve seen him recently.”

  “Can you describe him?” Cameron asked.

  “Light brown hair, almost blond, light eyes, medium-ish build. He’s kind of thin but not athletic looking. He looked like he worked in an office or something. And he was wearing a light blue button-down shirt, again, like he worked in an office.”

  “Maybe he’s an insurance salesman,” Brooke said, and we all questioned her with raised brows. “I mean, my dad’s insurance guy wears button-downs all the time.”

  If the situation weren’t so dire, I would’ve laughed. Brooke logic. There was nothing more entertaining.

  “Okay,” Cameron said, “maybe we can do something to jar your memory.”

  “Like electroshock therapy?”

  This time the look we placed on Brooke was full of horror instead of humor. “Seriously, Brooke?” I asked, appalled.

  “Right, right. That wouldn’t help. Sorry, that whole seizure thing threw me off my game.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. She was still sitting in a chair beside me. I leaned over and hugged her. “It’s like having my very own fruitcake.”

  She patted my back. Really hard.

  PIZZA AND SUBS

  We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to jar my memory, thankfully without the use of electroshock therapy. If we knew who this guy was, surely we could stop him from trying to open the gates again. I drew another picture of him, but this one wasn’t much better than the first. I should have taken art when I had the chance.

  “Wait a minute,” Mac said as we all sat in our church dining hall, eating pizza and subs. “How do we know the guy who is destined to open the gates again is the same one who opened them ten years ago?”

  Glitch shrugged. “We don’t, really. It’s just a guess based on secondhand information.”

  “Yeah,” I said after washing my pizza down with sweet tea. “That was the impression we got from the nephilim who came after me. They said he’d opened the gate once before, he’d do it again.”

  Mac nodded. “Okay, then my next question is, why hasn’t he tried it again before now?”

  “We wondered about that, too,” Glitch said. “And we came to one conclusion.”

  “Which is?”

  “We have no idea.”

  Brooklyn nodded, agreeing with Glitch’s assessment.

  “Well, okay, let’s think about this.”

  “Got it,” Glitch said, taking another bite of his favorite pizza: pepperoni with extra pepperoni. “Thinking now.”

  That boy cracked me up.

  “There has to be a reason he hasn’t tried again,” Mac said, his gaze lowered in thought.

  “Oh, I know!” Brooke said. “Maybe when Lor stabbed him with that stick, it got all infected and he almost died and has been in a coma for the last ten years.”

  “That’s one theory,” Granddad said. “You have another, Mac?”

  Mac lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “Maybe. I mean, unless he was out of the country … but even then, why couldn’t he just open the gates somewhere else?”

  “In that case,” Grandma said, “if he were out of the country for some reason, then maybe location is important. Maybe he’s limited. Can open the gates only in certain places.”

  Grandpa nodded. “Or it coul
d even be a time issue. Maybe he can open the gates only during certain events.”

  “Like the planets aligning or something?” Glitch asked.

  “Something exactly like that.”

  “There are so many possibilities,” Mac said. “Perhaps whatever he used to open them, a grimoire of some kind—”

  “A grimoire?” Kenya asked. She was eating a vegetable sub. Which seemed kind of pointless to me, but to each her own.

  “It’s like a textbook of magic. He may have gotten his hands on one, used it to open the gates, and when that went south, planned on trying again later, but something happened.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. Sheriff?”

  Sheriff Villanueva sat deep in thought as well.

  “Is there any way to check hospital records on the day that the man was stabbed?”

  “Not sure,” he mumbled. “It’s unlikely I could get anything concrete with the amount of time we have, but I could try. A stab wound isn’t all that common.”

  “What about arrest records?” Mac asked.

  “You think he’s been in prison?”

  Mac nodded. “Why else would it take him this long to organize a second attempt? He wanted what’s inside Lorelei. He didn’t get it. Why would it take him this long to try again?”

  “He did want it,” I said. “He summoned Malak-Tuke specifically. Only one demon came through the portal he’d opened. Hundreds of spirits, but only one demon.” I held up an index finger to emphasize my point.

  “He had to have thought he could control it somehow,” Mac said. “I mean, demon possessions don’t typically end well.”

  Cameron licked his fingers loudly, then said, “Lorelei is the only one we’ve ever heard of like this. Most don’t live longer than a month or two.”

  “Exactly, but that’s because of who Lorelei is. He chose to be inside her. If Malak-Tuke had possessed Dyson, Dyson would surely have had a way to control him without it killing him first.”

  “If he did have a grimoire,” Jared said, “maybe he had a means of controlling it once it got inside him.”