“Vivian, it’s fine, really,” said the priest.
“Five minutes. If you aren’t out the door in five minutes, I’ll escort you myself,” Wallace commanded and then disappeared.
“Vivian, whatever you are about to do or say, please don’t.”
“What?” she asked, trying to feign innocence.
“He may be a bit gruff, but he is doing me a great service by being here.”
“It’s his job,” she said, exasperated. “Besides, he’s dead. It’s not like he doesn’t have eternity.”
Father Montgomery gave her a wan smile and said, “‘Oh, Lord, grant me patience’ is a wonderful mantra. You really should try it.”
He had a point, but Vivian wasn’t about to concede. “Well, I just wish he didn’t act like it griped his ass to be here. And what’s with this ‘barking orders’ business?”
“Vivian, please, just let it go. Go and do your work. It is truly your calling and brings such peace to the lives of those you touch. Don’t let a few barbs and your pride get in the way or diminish your joy in it.”
She rolled her eyes and huffed, but nodded. In spite of everything, she knew Father Montgomery was right. She did derive a sense of purpose and accomplishment in her work with the spirits, even though it included seeing a whole lot of dead people.
Speaking of dead people… “Oh, by the way,” she said, then hesitated, dreading the answer she’d get to the question she didn’t really want to ask.
“Yes?”
“You haven’t seen any spirits yourself today, have you? Other than Wallace?”
“No,” the priest answered. “Is there any reason I might?”
Vivian sighed with relief and replied, “I was worried that healing you might have some unintended side effects. When Zeke and I…traded light, well, that’s when I started seeing every guardian, reaper, and other variety of disembodied entity in the whole city. I’m glad to know it didn’t rub off on you.”
Of course, trading light with Zeke had been far more intimate than what she’d shared with the padre.
If he found her admission shocking, or disapproved of yet another liaison considered illicit in the eyes of the Catholic Church, he had the grace to keep it to himself. He merely smiled, added more hot coffee to her cup from his carafe, and offered her a tissue.
She hadn’t meant to cry, but the thought of all she’d shared with Zeke and what she’d lost still filled her with soul-crushing grief. The priest understood and offered her quiet empathy, as he always did. Her gratitude for his unlikely friendship knew no bounds.
Placing a hand on her shoulder, he muttered a prayer in Latin. Then he said, “Go with God, Vivian, and spread your light to others. I’ll see you later.”
She nodded, placing her hand on his and giving it a squeeze. He was right. A soul crossing would lift her spirits and help mend her heart.
“Let me know how it goes with Jace,” he added. “I’ll keep you in my prayers. You deserve peace and happiness.”
She smiled, then gathered her things and left the office. Focusing on Jace and what life might be like with him long-term eased her aching heart in spite of lingering doubts. Maybe she was overthinking things. Perhaps she’d spent so much time grieving—for her parents, for Mae, and for Zeke—she’d forgotten how to be happy. If she embraced her relationship with Jace and took it to the next level, maybe she could find what she’d lost.
All of a sudden, a blast of heat ripped through her body with a force that knocked her against her car and left her gasping for air.
What the hell?
Just as quickly, shivers racked her body in the wake of a bone-deep chill. She hadn’t experienced anything like it since the night she’d entered the world of spirits, when she’d held Zeke’s hand as the life drained from his body. It had been the one and only time she’d seen him alive. After that, he’d come back to her as a corporeal spirit. The heat and cold that had gripped her then came from the war over his soul.
And hers.
Ezra had been called to claim her soul, while Darkmore had come for Zeke. She’d saved Zeke, and in the process had put herself in Darkmore’s crosshairs and in Ezra’s service.
And now, it seemed, she was back in the crosshairs—but whose? And how was she supposed to stop it?
CHAPTER 7
Still reeling from her encounter in the Cathedral’s parking lot, Vivian fidgeted in her seat, scanning the half-full waiting room and wondering which of the souls surrounding her would receive her comfort after the guardians claimed their loved one. She assumed she’d be helping the bereaved, since the guardians normally had her take care of that part while they dealt with the newly departed. It gave the deceased soul a bit of ease, knowing that his or her loved ones had the spiritual equivalent of a lidocaine shot. Vivian channeled the initial grief and sorrow enough to numb the pain.
Often enough she returned, mostly on her own time, to help individual family members who had a tougher time letting go, or some unresolved issues with the dead.
Vivian paused to consider the contrasts between the living souls occupying this hospital, or any hospital she’d ever visited for that matter. Roughly half maintained a state of near-constant motion. Their actions ranged from the small yet rapid clicking of computer keyboards by admitting and information desk attendants to the long strides and near-sprints of doctors and nurses rushing to attend the needs of their patients. Orderlies moved patients and custodians quietly attended their duties in the background while clergy and volunteers meandered through the corridors.
They moved among the still ones.
The still ones comprised the other half of the hospital’s occupants, the patients and those who watched and waited with them. Vivian herself had experienced the exhaustion born of waiting. All of those years spent in doctor’s offices, emergency clinics, and hospitals with Mae taught her that waiting drains. Strange, all the hours of sitting had taxed her more than her most grueling days spent working outdoors or rushing about the office. The souls who kept vigil all around her, with their hollow eyes, light pallor, and barely stifled yawns looked drained, sapped of their vitality.
Jeanne and Wallace appeared and nodded toward the door.
Showtime.
Vivian walked out the waiting room and snuck into the stairwell. Aside from hospital staff, most folks preferred the elevator. That gave Vivian the perfect safe zone in which to become invisible and then accompany the guardians to their destination unseen.
Once she’d rendered herself invisible to the eyes of the living, Vivian nodded to Jeanne, who took her by the hand as they traveled spirit-style to their destination. The trip through the swirling vortex, no matter how many times she took it, always made her stomach lurch. If she’d had the power to shed her corporeal form, she could have just waltzed through the door like her companions did. Since she was a mortal, however, this mode of transportation became the most efficient way to get her into the room with the spirits. She’d once insisted on lurking just outside the door and waiting for a living person to open it, but that had taken too long for the guardians.
Apparently, deadlines still applied to the dead and dying.
“Are you okay, honey?” Jeanne asked when they’d reached their destination.
“I’ll be fine,” Vivian muttered, bracing against a wall. Once I choke the contents of my stomach back down.
“If you two are finished yapping, I suggest we get down to business,” Wallace snapped.
Vivian glared at the old guardian, though his attitude didn’t surprise her. Ezra told her not to take it personally, explaining that most of his kind weren’t accustomed to having human helpers.
That didn’t stop Vivian’s temper or her mouth. “Who’s minding my friend, the padre?”
“Ezra. The priest asked for him,” Wallace said, the scowl twisting his distinguished features into disdain.
“Why?”
“That is none of my concern, nor is it yours,” Wallace said. Then he gave her
his back.
Jeanne touched Vivian’s shoulder and said, “Don’t pay him any mind. You just get ready to help these poor people.” Jeanne gestured toward the bed and Vivian turned her attention to its occupant and the three people standing around her.
An old woman rested in a hospital bed, sheets nearly swallowing her small, frail body. Her thin arms rested on top of the sheets, muscles atrophied from age, or perhaps from a prolonged period of disuse.
Like Mae’s.
“How long has she been like this?” Vivian asked after swallowing the hard lump in her throat.
“Several weeks,” Jeanne replied. “Wallace and a few other guardians have been monitoring her. She has Alzheimer’s. About a month ago, she fell and broke her hip. They tried to fix her up with surgery, but she’s just too old and too far gone.”
Vivian nodded. A broken hip past a certain age always drew the already departed, guardian or reaper. The injury in one so old and infirm almost always spelled death. Death meant a harvest for the spirit dwellers in charge of directing newly disembodied souls to their next stop as they journeyed to the great beyond.
Still, something was off. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something was either missing or out of place for the crossing to come.
“Those her kids?” Vivian asked, turning her attention to the other living souls in the room.
“Two of them, yes. The other man is her son-in-law.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Martin. Eleanor Susan Martin. Elly Sue.”
Vivian regarded those standing around the old woman. Their faces displayed a mixture of sorrow and guilt. Drawing in a few faint streams of light, Vivian tasted that sorrow, and also felt their shared sense of relief at the impending death. They’d all taken shifts watching over her in her decline. Vivian understood, having been through the same ordeal herself. The connection she felt to these people would no doubt help her to help them.
Then it hit her—the thing that was missing.
“Why doesn’t she glow?” Vivian asked.
“Glow?”
“Back when I started to notice spirit stuff around me, I saw Mae glowing,” Vivian explained. “Zeke told me it was her spirit energy. He said people who get incapacitated store up a lot of energy. I normally see it in cases like these, and sometimes in the ICU.”
“So do I,” Jeanne replied, distracted in her anticipation to help with the crossing. “I don’t know. She’s probably just not been like this long enough to store up enough.”
“Maybe, but—”
“Here she comes!” Jeanne cried out, smiling at the woman.
Unlike many of her companions in adjacent rooms, this woman’s body rested free of IVs, tubes, and monitors, save for the small heart monitor attached to her chest beneath the standard-issue hospital gown. She wore a soft pink robe over the gown, most likely a gift from her family. They’d combed the silver strands of her hair and cleaned her skin—a final act of love as they waited for her passing. Through these details, Vivian surmised that the family had chosen to remove her from life support. A painful decision, no doubt, but the right call. Ezra once told Vivian how he’d suffered after his stroke, trapped and betrayed by a body he no longer controlled, saddened to be a burden to those he loved.
At least Mrs. Martin’s condition had spared her awareness.
Whoa, what was that?
Vivian swore she saw flashes of light burst forth from the living. When she blinked her eyes, though, the flashes were gone.
After a shallow breath, Mrs. Martin’s chest stilled. The heart monitor went flat, her daughter’s soft sob the only other sound breaching the silence in the room for long moments. Vivian watched in wonder as death claimed the woman, stilling a heart that had beat for nearly a century to silence. Unlike the other living souls in the room, she witnessed Mrs. Martin’s disembodied spiritual debut. The soul didn’t rise from the corpse, nor did it hover above the spectators as per Hollywood’s depictions. The whole tunnel thing didn’t happen, either, at least as far as she could tell from her work with the guardians.
Mrs. Martin’s soul simply appeared before them.
To Vivian’s surprise, she appeared much younger than the body on the bed. She also wore a rather old-fashioned dress and dated hairstyle. Still, she looked great. Vivian imagined she must have turned more than a few heads back in the day.
“What in the blue blazes?” she exclaimed, confusion blooming on her gorgeous face.
“Eleanor Susan Martin,” Wallace boomed. “We guardians of the spirit world have come to bear your immortal soul to the realm of the light.”
“Seriously? Y’all are angels?”
“Well, yes, ma’am—”
“‘Cause y’all don’t look like angels. Where’re your wings?”
Vivian snorted. She wanted to fist-bump Elly Sue but figured the generation gap might get in the way.
Jeanne sighed and placed a sympathetic hand on Mrs. Martin’s shoulder. Wallace looked like he was trying to squeeze diamonds through his clenched ass cheeks, which made Vivian snort even louder. Out of all the reactions of the newly dead that she’d witnessed, Mrs. Martin’s was, hands down, the most entertaining to date.
Jeanne tried to get her attention. “Mrs. Martin—”
Elly Sue, however, was having none of it. She looked down at her hands and then examined her clothing and body, clearly astonished. “And how come I’m in this ridiculous getup?”
“Your spirit projection is your choice, conscious or not,” Jeanne explained patiently. “Perhaps this is the form you last remembered before your mind began to slip away.”
“What do you mean?” Elly Sue snapped. She placed her hands on her hips and shot Jeanne a look of indignation. “There ain’t nothing wrong with my mind, young lady!”
“If we could get back to the task at hand,” Wallace barked. He was such buzzkill. Why couldn’t he enjoy the moment and the show?
“Who’s this jackass?” Mrs. Martin asked, jerking her head toward Wallace. Then she shot Vivian a death stare. “And why are you just standing there sniggering? I’m dead, right? That ain’t no laughing matter.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” Vivian said as she struggled to regain her composure. “I don’t mean any disrespect. I gotta tell you, though, your crossing is the best I’ve yet attended.”
Vivian did her best to stifle the next round of giggles lest the newly departed woman decided to slap them right out of her.
Elly Sue eyed her warily, then said, “I’m glad someone’s having fun. Who are they?”
Elly Sue had turned her attention to the living people grieving over her body. Oh, dear. This part was always the hardest. Accepting one’s own death was only the first step. Accepting the inevitable separation from loved ones often proved more challenging to the deceased and could delay crossing.
In the worst cases, desperate souls refused to cross at all and lingered for days, weeks, months, or even years, stuck in a realm in which they were virtually invisible. Some came around and sought out nearby guardian spirits once they accepted their fates.
Others stayed and went slowly mad. Vivian hoped Elly Sue wouldn’t be one of them.
“They’re your family, honey,” Jeanne answered. “Your son, daughter, and son-in-law. You had Alzheimer’s at the end of your life, so it might take a few minutes for everything to come back to you. Just give it a minute. We’re in no rush.”
“Actually, we do need to get going,” Wallace said, his tone surprisingly gentle.
“Jesse? Maggie?” Mrs. Martin spoke to her children, though they couldn’t respond, of course.
“They can’t see you,” Vivian explained, her heart breaking for the woman and all she’d endured, all she’d missed or forgotten.
“My God, they’re so grown up now,” Elly Sue whispered, confused.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Jeanne asked, leading the new spirit over to the vacant chair beside the bed.
“And that’s
me?” she asked, pointing to the body in the bed.
“It was,” Jeanne replied gently. “But that’s all behind you. I know it’s hard. I just crossed over myself, but you’re going to a much better place now.”
Elly Sue’s head flew back as she examined Jeanne in shock and wonder. “How come you’re still here?”
“I’m a guardian,” Jeanne replied. “As is Wallace. We are charged with helping new spirits cross.”
“What about her?” Elly Sue said, eyeing Vivian. She probably realized that one of these things was definitely not like the others. Vivian got that a lot.
“Vivian is still mortal, but she is one of the rare mortals who can see and speak with spirits. She’s here to help your family.”
“How’s she going manage that?” Elly Sue asked, looking back and forth between her grieving family and Vivian.
“Why don’t you show her, Vivian?”
At Jeanne’s request, Vivian stepped closer to the Martin clan and focused her mind and energy on them, drawing out their burdens as wisps of pale red light. She turned back to the guardians and Elly Sue when she heard the scream. It gave her a jolt, but didn’t actually frighten or surprise her. Newly departed spirits often expressed shock at their first glimpse of spirit power. Jeanne grabbed Vivian’s hand and they disappeared into the vortex along with Wallace and Elly Sue.
Elly Sue kept screaming through the journey and continued after they’d landed. Wallace took her by the shoulders and shook her. Vivian knew he wanted to bring her to her senses, but she thought he shook her a little harder than necessary. So, she stepped in and placed her hand on the old guardian’s arm to make him stop.
The surge of energy that flowed from him threw Vivian back. She slammed against the wall, and might have taken a tumble down the stairwell were it not for Jeanne. As it stood, she got a nasty lump on the back of her head and a gash on her left elbow for her trouble.
Raising the Dead Page 7
