by Carla Rehse
Angel Wanting to Be Called Nevaeh smiled again. “I’m your Celestial contact and will tutor you in your new powers.”
“You need to go home and rest.” Something in the timber of Sebastian’s voice and the glimmer in his stare made me want to stop fighting. To obey.
Bone-deep exhaustion hit me, and I swayed where I stood. Thankfully, the pain stayed away, though my skin prickled as if I had a horde of ants running under it. The compulsion to leave the chamber was so strong that I had to dig my fingernails into my palms to fight it.
“My daughter.”
I had not gone through all of this to back down. Besides, I wouldn’t exactly call angels bullies or something nasty like that, but they were hierarchal beings. If I let them boss me around now, it would never end. The compulsion hit me harder, making my legs shake. Sweat dripped from my forehead, stinging my eyes.
The last photo I had of Sadie came to mind. She and Laney had been full of smiles and sand, clowning at the beach. Her happiness gave me strength. I forced myself to meet Sebastian’s stare. “If you think I don’t know how to stand my ground, then you’ve never survived raising an overly dramatic teenager. I need my daughter.”
“And why would it benefit us to bring your child here? A child who knows nothing about our way of life as you chose not to teach her?” Sebastian asked.
I shivered harder. Had they grilled Mama over how I raised Sadie, or did they just know in some mysterious angelic way? “Sadie is an adult. She will adjust to Crossing Shadows. If I am to be the Gatekeeper until Heather is found, I would do better by not worrying about my daughter.”
“You dare make demands to a Seraph? Especially in a time of such turmoil?” Angel Pretending to Be Nevaeh growled.
I straightened my back and glared at her. “I would do far worse to protect my daughter.”
Sebastian gave me a half smile. “Still so incredibly stubborn. Nevaeh is correct, though. There is too much unrest at this time to introduce your daughter to our society.”
“No.” I balled my hands into fists. Very rude in front of the Seraphs, but I didn’t care. “My daughter means more to me than anything else. Anyone else.”
Sebastian studied me for a few seconds that felt like minutes. “What about a compromise? I will send two angels to watch over Sadie. Guardian Angels are better than a strange town, am I right?”
I forced my sluggish mind to think it through. Guardian Angels were what their name implied—angelic soldiers. Not as high on the hierarchy as the Seraphs but way better than the cherubs. Which meant Sadie would be safe and I wouldn’t have to explain Crossing Shadows. That seemed like a win for me, but I had a feeling I’d actually lost the debate. In the end, all angels worked for Heaven, not for a puny human. Would the angels be there to guard Sadie or leverage her against me?
Again, this appeared to be my best bad choice. I nodded my head.
“Excellent.” Sebastian tossed an orb at me.
One second there was a flash of light. The next second, I found myself standing in Mama’s large farmhouse kitchen.
“You painted everything sage green?” I asked.
Mama, who’d been stirring something in a pot on the stove, turned with a muffled shriek. “Everly?”
Everything went all whompyjawed, and my knees again kissed the floor. I really was gonna regret that tomorrow. Mama helped me into a chair at the kitchen table, then brought me a mug filled with steamy warmed milky cocoa. “They told me to watch you tonight instead of participating in the search. This will help you sleep. Mrs. Baker gave me a plate of cookies. Want some? The candied ginger ones are excellent.”
With a moan, I realized how selfish I’d been. Janice’s daughter was missing, while I whined about my knees. “Don’t you think we should help look for Heather?”
Mama gave me her “don’t be stupid” look. “You really think you could walk to the front door, much less tramp around the woods in the dark?”
I took a sip as a reply. Bless her, she remembered to Irish it up. “What do you know about the last Popa Gatekeeper?” Boss Angel’s attitude still rankled.
Mama shrugged her shoulders. “That was forever ago.”
“Popas covered the 1800s, which meant the last one was your grandfather. And you’re the town’s flipping Archivist.” I grimaced. “Give it to me straight.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mama said, studying her coffee cup like there was gonna be a pop quiz.
“I’m not asking as your daughter but as a very freaked-out, how-the-holy blazes-did-this-happen Gatekeeper!” My chest felt tight and my burnt and bitten wrist with the metal disc stuck to it tingled, so I was on the verge of the worst ever hot flash or a panic attack. Probably both.
Mama shot to her feet and began pacing across the cracked and curled linoleum that should’ve been replaced before I was born. “William Popa was the first Gatekeeper here in 1898. Eighteen years old and married. Not much else made it into the official records. For good reason.” She paused and stared at me, pleading with her eyes for me to let her off the hook. When I frowned, she started pacing again. “You have to remember, we might be Marked, but we rely on the technology of the time. And medicine was very primitive back then, especially out in the frontier.”
I shook my head, mainly to shake away the fuzzies. “How bad south did it go? I have to know.” Pretty damn bad from the angels’ perception apparently, but humans tended to see more shades of gray.
Mama sighed. “William loved his wife. Crossing Shadows wasn’t any different from the rest of the small towns in Texas, so when her labor turned bad, there wasn’t much help. The midwife did what she could. Now remember, nothing I know is official, just whispered family stories. Well, William was frantic. He knew the angels weren’t allowed to heal, so he went to the other side. A small coven of witches lived just outside the town. He struck a deal.”
I choked on a mouthful of milk. “What?”
Witches and magic weren’t inherently evil. But if Crossing Shadows refused their entry, it didn’t take much brainpower to guess on which side that lot had practiced. The almost-sentience that controlled the town might allow certain demons inside its boundary line, but make no mistake, Heaven created it.
Mama cleared her throat. “Somehow … uh, the Gate got opened and a damned soul escaped. How, I dunno. Like I said, there aren’t any official recordings. All I know is things got bad. William and his wife died, plus a bunch of other people. But the baby, your granddaddy, survived.”
“Holy Saints,” I whispered. “You’re saying William let out a soul?”
My stomach roiled, and I nearly vomited the milk. It was far, far worse than I imagined. I had expected William to turn out to be a drunk. Or a shirker of duty. But to actually violate everything the Marked stood for? I felt dirty, soiled, to share his blood.
Mama gave me a sad smile. “Sometimes people do crazy things when a loved one is in danger.”
That hit too close to home. “I think I need to lie down.”
Everything inside my old bedroom remained as the day I left, except for the scent of beeswax and lemon dusting spray. Taking a shower felt impossible, so I stripped down to my undies and crawled into bed. As I started to fall asleep, a peaceful feeling covered me. Somehow, I knew the Guardian Angels had found Sadie and everything was okay.
A pact with an otherworlder would keep her safe. Though, in all honesty, did that make me truly any different from William? Terrifyingly, I couldn’t honestly answer that.
SIX
Only rude demons show up before coffee
Birds woke me up. Specifically, a cacophony of chirps, trills, and whistles boomed through my bedroom as if someone played a nature video on full blast. I groaned as I rolled over. The daylight streaming through the crack in my curtains felt like a spotlight used in a horror movie’s torture scene.
How much whiskey did Mama pour into the hot cocoa last night? This was the weirdest hangover I’d ever had; my stomach felt fine. Not that I’
d admit to having that many hangovers (once again, college doesn’t count.)
The room seemed too bright. Or maybe my vision had become clearer, like my eyeballs had been spit-polished overnight. Dust motes prismed in the sunbeam above my head in never-ending patterns. I found myself staring at them for too long.
“Strange.” I shook my head.
A quick scan of my room revealed a time capsule of my teenaged life. I’d forgotten how much I liked nu metal and grunge back in the day. The amount of Korn and Soundgarden posters hanging on the walls was a little embarrassing. As was the giant poster of Richard Grieco in all his 21 Jump Street half-naked splendor.
A large part of me wanted to stay in bed, stare at dust motes, and remember my not-so-glory days. Though I made it inside Crossing Shadows, the legal issues surrounding my husband hadn’t disappeared. Eventually, I’d have to do something about that. And the gangsters who wanted to break me into tiny bits. All of that, though, currently paled to the problems here. Heather must not have been found, as I made Mama promise she’d wake me if that happened. How she could’ve disappeared in a magically warded town made no sense.
Janice had to be going crazy. I couldn’t imagine the horror of having your child missing. Guilt stabbed me, knowing Guardian Angels protected Sadie because I was the Gatekeeper. And that still sounded so surreal in my head, much less to say it aloud. The Gatekeeper? How the ever-loving blazes did that happen?
With another groan, I forced myself to my feet. I couldn’t stay in bed with Heather missing, no matter how overwhelmed I felt. And, okay, maybe selfishly I knew the faster I found Heather, the faster I could pawn off the Gatekeeper gig.
My beat-up backpack waited for me by the bedroom door. I didn’t remember Mama bringing it in, but at least I had a change of clothes and my toothbrush. It felt selfish to take time out from the search to get stuff from my truck, so I’d wait to do that.
I hurried to the attached bath to take a quick shower. The new shower curtain stunk so bad of plastic, I almost backed out. The feel of my rat-nest hair convinced me otherwise. Argh. Why didn’t I keep it long? I could’ve just yanked out the rain-induced snarls and thrown it into a bun. Bad decisions plagued me like that one dark chin whisker that popped up with the start of menopausal symptoms. Speaking of poor decision-making, I left my phone in my truck. I wanted—needed—to speak to Sadie and reassure myself that everything was okay.
As the Gatekeeper, I couldn’t pass through the town’s boundary. What a pain in the ass. I’d have to swallow my pride and ask someone to get my stuff instead of waiting for Bill, the town’s notoriously slow mechanic, to finally meander his way out there.
Ignoring my reflection in the vanity mirror—which had nothing to do with Boss Angel’s snarky comment on my mature figure—I focused on my arm. The cut on my palm had completely healed, but the burn from the skillet and the hound bite still looked raw. Or maybe the metal disc attached to my wrist just below the bite emphasized the redness. At least nothing hurt. And I meant nothing, weirdly enough. Not my left hip, which always had a slight ache every morning, to my knees that rightly deserved to complain after all the kneeling last night. I really needed Mama’s homemade hot cocoa recipe.
The sound of gravel crunching drew me to the bedroom window just in time to see the back of Mama’s car disappear from view as she rounded a curve. A shiny white compact car sat in the driveway, so at least Mama hadn’t left me stranded. But why she had a second car made no sense as she lived alone. Too bad I’d been angel-dropped here last night. If we’d driven up together, I would’ve known about the car and could’ve asked her. Last month, she mentioned having a new friend—as she called him—but had offered no details. Mama’s greatest skill had always been her ability to keep secrets.
As I made my way downstairs, I realized with a jolt that William had built this house for his bride. My brain couldn’t compute that an ancestor of mine had allowed a damned soul to escape. The angels obviously believed he had, but with no official records, maybe no one knew the whole truth.
Two things bothered me about Mama’s story. How did William and his wife die? And why hadn’t I heard any gossip about William while growing up? The last being the most pertinent question now. Not only ’cause he was the last Gatekeeper of my blood and had totally panty-twisted the angels but due to Heather’s situation.
Everyone knew no candidate had ever gone missing. Just like everyone knew no Marked had ever allowed a damned soul to escape. But apparently, that wasn’t the complete truth. So, what was? I made a mental note to grill Mama again. For the town’s historical record-keeper, she sure didn’t want to spill the tea.
The hand-carved, Black Forest grandfather clock, in the foyer since before Mama’s birth, gave off eight chimes. It was later than I had realized. Nothing looked different as I passed the small formal dining room, the tinier office, and the decent-sized living room. After living in an open concept, beach-style house for so many years, the walled-off rooms felt claustrophobic. Mama had updated the kitchen’s swinging door with frosted glass French doors—or door, since there was just the one.
I backtracked and stared at Mama’s office. As a kid, I’d been forbidden to enter. Which meant I broke in as often as I could manage. Not that there was anything exciting about a beat-up desk and a rickety shelf filled with old books.
Most of the books had been boring family journals. Or at least boring to a fifteen-year-old, almost juvenile delinquent. Could one of the journals hold more information on William? It certainly seemed possible, but not worth shattering Mama’s trust to engage in some early B&E. Besides, I was a responsible adult now. Which meant I required copious amounts of caffeine before committing any felonies.
In the kitchen, a kid—young woman—around Sadie’s age sat at the roughhewn breakfast table that my grandpa had built. She wore the standard Hunter’s outfit—black leather pants and vest over a long-sleeved black shirt. The vest had iron chainmail attached to it with a raised collar to help protect a human’s tasty bits from otherworlders of the “bite first, ask questions later” persuasion.
When I entered, the kid—young woman—sprang to her feet as if on a marionette string. “Gatekeeper! Hi! I’m Luna Corbin. Alana Corbin’s daughter? Your mom wanted to join the search, so I volunteered to wait here. Can I get you anything?”
I blinked a few times, wondering if I ever had that much energy at her age. It seemed doubtful. “Coffee? And for the love of all ducks, call me Everly.”
“Absolutely! Anything to eat? I make great scrambled eggs and omelets. Or pancakes. My French toast is hit or miss, but—”
I raised my hand. “Coffee. Black. Thanks.”
She sounded too loud and off, like a poorly added laugh track. On top of that, the caramel and nutty aroma of the brewing coffee made my nose twitch. Everything still seemed too bright and sounds just seemed off. So were smells. I barely tasted my favorite wintergreen toothpaste. So, not all of my senses were in overdrive. But something was certainly going on.
Hmm. What if I didn’t have a hangover? I really needed a Gatekeeper’s instruction manual.
Luna placed a mug in front of me, then hovered like she was waiting for further instructions. I took a swallow of caffeinated bliss, then asked, “You’re Alana’s kid, huh? You look like her. Blue eyes and all. But why are you here?”
She did have her mom’s lanky build and light-blonde hair. I didn’t ask about her dad. Since Luna gave her mother’s last name, I assumed Alana had used an outsider to get pregnant.
The gene pool for the Marked had always been small and miscarriages were very common, so female exogamy was crucial and accepted. Mostly. Which meant we never practiced stoning or scarlet lettering or whatever historical nastiness people threw at pregnant, unmarried women. That said, the pious among us still muttered and threw the side-eye. Or at least they still had two decades ago. I was convinced that one of the reasons the Council had refused my Hunter application was that Mama had gotten pregnant by som
e random soldier from the nearby army post. The stuffy Councilmembers had a thing about morality.
Luna glanced at the floor. “You’re the new Gatekeeper! And you’ll need an assistant and there aren’t many job opportunities here except waitressing. Which I love! Not complaining, but I thought maybe I could help you? I’m just a Corbin, I know, which isn’t high on the Marked family lines. I mean I’m like a fifth or sixth cousin removed or something like that. Maybe you want a Russo? But I’m just as qualified as they are! I’ve taken online classes and—”
I held my hand up again. “I need to finish my coffee before we have this conversation.” An assistant for what? I really needed that stupid Gatekeeper manual.
Someone knocked on Mama’s backdoor, which sat on the other side of the kitchen.
“I’ll get it!” Luna hustled to answer, while I took a desperate gulp of coffee.
She opened the door, and the odor of sulfur wafted in. “Uh … Gatekeeper?”
I groaned against the bitter taste now coating my mouth. It had to be a demon. Before I had a chance to get properly caffeinated. Damn my rotten luck. Seven days. That’s how long until the Gatekeeper thing became permanent. It would mean I’d be stuck in Crossing Shadows and under the thumb of angels and demons for the rest of my life.
I needed to find the real candidate as fast as possible.
Zim, the Hell Gate’s Warden, sauntered in. He’d been appointed the position when the Crossing Shadows Gate had been established over a hundred and twenty years ago. Unlike certain unnamed angels, Zim kept to the latest edgy styles. Currently, he wore his hair in a low fade with the tips of his black hair dyed ice white, making him look to be in his early thirties. Human thirties, I should add, since he must be at least a millennium old to attain the rank of Warden. His well-tailored pinstripe suit probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Demons might be the epitome of all evil, but I had to give it to ’em, they sure knew how to dress to impress.
“Gatekeeper.” Zim gave a deep bow.
