Afterlife

by Merrie Destefano

Nine-Timers, frozen in their footsteps, right in the middle of their last life.

  Watch, complacent while the Hindus use resurrection in their unending search for Nirvana, for better placement in the caste-system directory. Watch as the Muslims seek a greater piece of Paradise, more virgins, a greater reward; turn my head when terrorism goes up and One-Timer razzle-dazzle redemption goes down.

  Turn the other cheek whenever somebody asks the million-dollar question.

  Why don’t born-agains want to be born again?

  Like a stone dropped in a pond of water, concentric circles were going to widen and grow, until we were faced with a tidal wave of cause and effect that would erode the economic and spiritual shoreline of our country, of the entire world, if we didn’t do something soon.

  But it was really too late to save the world.

  That’s what my big-picture vision told me right now. At best, I might be able to salvage a tiny piece.

  A little dark-haired girl. Five, almost six years old.

  One child, if I could save one—this one—then that was all that mattered.

  The rest of it could burn. In fact, it was probably already on fire.

  I could taste revenge in the back of my throat as I waited for Neville. Like water in the desert, it both satisfied and made me thirst for more.

  “What’re you doin’, Domingue?”

  Part of me was wondering that myself.

  Skellar’s voice sizzled through my brain, he was waiting for my answer.

  “I already have guys lined up, ready to surround Neville’s hideout. Why’d ya go and change the plan?”

  Because I don’t trust your boys. Because I think somebody on your side isn’t really on your side.

  “Can you hear me, or do I need to come down there and—”

  “Stay right where you are, Skellar,” I answered. Angelique was leaning against a tomb, arms wrapped around herself from the chill that had come on us suddenly. Overhead the clouds moved and darkened, swirled tempestuously. The wind swept leaves from nearby trees, cast them at us like funeral prayer cards, like there was a message somebody was trying to tell us.

  But I refused to listen to anything but the thundering rage in my heart.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Angelique:

  The sun disappeared and a chill wind blew, and an eerie sense of desperation fell over everything. I was shivering in the midst of a skeleton silence. No longer guardians left to protect those sleeping, the myriad stone angels stood frozen in place, as if they too had been condemned and cast down. The heavens hung heavy, like stone, pressing against my chest. Each breath came as a struggle, like somebody had shoved tiny knives inside my lungs.

  I coughed, almost expecting to see drops of blood when I wiped my mouth.

  I leaned against a stone temple, wondered vaguely who was inside and if they had ever craved immortality, if they now tossed and turned in some dark torment and wanted to be set free. Even if it meant walking the earth. Forever.

  I wanted to sleep. I wished I could lie down on one of those stone slabs and forget about all of this. Only one thing kept me alert. Isabelle.

  Beautiful face, sparkling eyes.

  Eyes like my Joshua. Gone now. I finally remembered what had happened. He had decided to become a One-Timer. He left me and this spinning ball of green and blue. I wondered where he was, what was on the other side of all of this. Were his feet on streets of gold? Did he know my William? Were they friends?

  Would I ever see either of them again?

  I closed my eyes. Neville would be here soon. A wave of fever rolled over me, then another chill. Leaves cascaded through the cemetery, crackling and rustling, like dry scratchy paws. It almost sounded like claws, digging—

  My eyes flashed open and I saw him, a short distance away. Padding between the tombs, still hidden in the shadows.

  Omega.

  I almost cried out when I saw him, but I held it in, glanced back. Chaz was facing the street, waiting for Neville. He didn’t see the dog. I pushed myself away from the tomb, into the shadows, crouched and held my arms outstretched.

  Omega bounded toward me then, almost knocked me over, covered my face with dog kisses, sniffed my hair, finally laid his head in my lap. I wrapped my arms around his thick neck, kissed the top of his head. In another life he would have been my dog, we would have walked through green fields together, he would have helped me herd the sheep. He would have slept on the floor at night, before the fire. In the morning he would have greeted me with a wide grin and a wagging tail.

  Instead we met each other for a few fleeting moments in a cemetery of stone, him standing on one side of eternity and me on the other.

  “Omega,” I whispered his name as I delicately ran my fingers over his face, remembering the news video. There were no scars, nothing that testified to his recent death and resurrection. He looked up into my eyes. Almost as if he wanted to say something, like he had been hoping to find me here.

  Then he pulled back. Suddenly cautious, he lifted his nose and sniffed the air. A low growl sounded in his throat as he stared over my shoulder.

  I looked behind me and saw Neville walking through the cemetery gates. I could smell his stench even from this distance. The sweet decay of gen-spike flesh.

  “Stay,” I said softly, in a voice only Omega could hear.

  Then I turned and headed toward the demon that had set all this in motion.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  Omega:

  The woman turned away. Overhead the sky howled, mournful and heartbroken, as if the heavens already knew what was going to happen. Omega crouched behind one of the stone tombs, watching her. She was sick. He could feel it in her touch. She needed to come with him, away from this place. He had tried to tell her, to get her to come with him, back to his pack. She would have been safe there.

  But it was too late now.

  It was coming, that thing he had been waiting for, walking through the cemetery gates. Sometimes it looked like a man, and sometimes it didn’t. It stood upright, but it moved, wrapped in shadow, darkness trailing behind it, a swirling gossamer pattern that spun out in corkscrew curls. The darkness flowed and fluttered like a cape in the wind.

  Omega felt a growl, deep inside. He wanted to lunge, to strike this man-beast, to attack him.

  The man walked with the stench of death and he needed to be destroyed.

  Omega stamped the ground with his front paw. He tried to get the woman to look at him, to turn and come.

  But she kept her eyes fixed on the approaching demon, and on the vehicle that rumbled at the curb.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Chaz:

  Clouds covered the sky, turned all the bright, hard edges into something shadowy, something obscure. I felt lost. In one moment my reason and my command of the approaching situation dissolved. Like sand castles worn away by one swift wave. Angelique retreated into a narrow crevice between the tombs, she knelt, her back to me.

  Despair raged in my heart, stronger than any emotion I had ever known.

  Isabelle’s face appeared before me, transposed on the darkening sky, like a transparent piece of film: full of color and expression, yet distant. She might not come back to me, for all my plans. She might always appear this way, a memory, beautiful and fragile.

  Oh, God, this ache was more than I could bear.

  Then I heard the rumbling growl of a car, wide tires ripping gravel, saw steel and aluminum sparking in the dull light. It stopped in front of the gates, some hybrid monster that bridged the gap between a Hummer and an oversized SUV. A door breezed open and he stepped out.

  The man I never wanted to see again. Not alive anyway.

  Dressed in gutter-punk black, his muscles rippled through his clothes, like his body had a life of its own. His bald head was covered with metal studs, his lizard eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. A lazy grin snaked up his left cheek, carved a dimple.

  The door closed behind him and I wondered, was
Isabelle inside? Was she safe?

  The wrought-iron gate creaked as he pushed it open.

  “Takes off yur jacket and shirt, Domingue. Throws ’em on the ground.” He stopped about ten feet away from me. “And empties yur pockets. Slow and easy, now. Don’t be tossin’ no liquid light, neither.”

  I kept my eyes on him as I pulled off my jacket. I was unbuttoning my shirt when I saw a movement, faster than anything I could have reacted to. One of his hands lifted something.

  “Chaz!” Angelique cried out, but we both knew it was too late.

  The sting of a dart. A tufted yellow feather blowing in the wind. I yanked it out of my arm, saw an orange haze descend before the dart landed on the ground by my feet.

  “Ya’ll won’t be no causing me no problems now, wills ya?”

  Neville laughed as my knees buckled beneath me, as I crumpled into a crouching position. Orange light colored everything, clouds rolled into my chest. It felt like I was trying to breathe with a pillow over my head.

  “Is she in the car?” I asked. I pushed myself back up to a standing position, felt my legs wobble, kept my eyes focused on his.

  He nodded.

  “Get her out, let me see her or no deal.”

  “It ain’t gonna works like that. Yur Newbie, she’s gonna go inside and brings yur little princess out. All safe and pretty-pretty, just like I promises.”

  I shot a glance at Angelique, her skin moist, her eyes dull. She was too weak; if anything happened—

  “Okay,” she said, moving toward the vehicle on unsteady feet. “But if anything happens to me or the little girl, you might not like the consequences.”

  “Angelique, don’t go—” I tried to stop her, but I don’t know if my words even left my mouth. The door to the Hummer opened, then she stepped into a dark, fathomless chasm and disappeared.

  And at the same moment, Neville kicked me in the gut.

  I rolled forward, gasping for air, and discovered that a one-sided fight had just begun.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Chaz:

  Orange tombs swayed and tossed, an angry sea, a melancholy parade. The wind blew, cold, the sky hung low, and the ground sparkled with flecks of red. My blood, I think. One of my teeth was missing, but I wasn’t sure, underneath the pain.

  One punch followed another, a rapid downbeat rhythm of knuckle against flesh—Neville’s fists, my flesh, the tempo fueled by his gen-spike madness. At some point I thought that he would go on like this all day, until his halo high dissipated and I was a pile of brain-dead hamburger, ready for full VR life support.

  But then, for some reason he stopped. Maybe because he realized that if he continued, he’d never get what he wanted. If I was dead or unconscious, his deal wouldn’t go through. There’d be nobody at the counter to take his order.

  One serving of immortality, ready and waiting. Yes, sir.

  I pushed myself back into a sitting position. I needed some semblance of life, had to make him see that I wasn’t broken. Not really. Damaged, yes. Defeated, no.

  I thought I saw something move in the shadows between the crypts. Something black, watching me. I blinked. It was a dog, I think, but it pulled back into the darkness and disappeared. Just as well.

  One mongrel was enough to fight right now.

  The door to the Hummer breezed open. Both Isabelle and Angelique stepped out.

  They looked okay, they both looked fine. Angelique seemed a bit weaker, she stumbled as she moved forward and Neville watched her with a sly, crooked grin.

  But Isabelle broke away and ran. Still wearing the black-and-white diamonds, her face smeared with rouge, she ran toward me, her arms out, tears on her cheeks.

  “Uncle Chaz! Uncle Chaz!” She flew into my arms like a baby bird and I held her close, felt her tremble and heard her weep. She was safe, my little girl was safe. Now that Russ and her mom were gone she was mine to protect, love and shelter.

  And I wasn’t going to make any of the same mistakes my brother had.

  “She’s leaving now,” I said, my voice coming out like a growl. “Did you hear me?”

  Skellar’s voice echoed in my ear. “On my way. Immediately.”

  The lieutenant’s car screamed down from a nearby rooftop, hovered a few feet over the tombs to my left. The passenger door opened and a stairway slid down to the ground.

  Neville didn’t react. He just watched. Almost as if he had expected this.

  “I keeps my part of the bargain,” he said.

  “Go up the stairs,” I told Isabelle. She didn’t want to leave, she cried and argued for a moment, then realized that she had to go, that I wasn’t going to change my mind. “I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.”

  She paused halfway up the stairs and looked back at me. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Skellar reached out and took her by the arm, helped her inside the car. Then they took off, zipped out of sight. Almost like neither one of them had really been here. It was just us now, Neville, Angelique and me. And that dog, somewhere in the shadows. He was watching Angelique.

  It had to be Omega. That dog she had experimented on. The one she and Russ had killed over and over again.

  I just prayed that he wasn’t here looking for revenge.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Chaz:

  Sometimes life can be measured in small miracles. A string of diamond-bright supernatural interventions. Right now he stood over me, the monster that wanted to end the world, one person at a time. He had invaded my family gates and then waited years for this moment. Right now, he was winning. I was still on the ground, unable to stand, his poison in my veins. My life was his, and as far as I was concerned, that was just fine.

  Because Isabelle was safe. Skellar came through. I never knew for sure if he would hold up his end of our agreement, if he would come down from the sky at just the right moment and carry her away. But he did.

  That was my miracle. My reason for living and dying.

  I guess I forgot that there might be more to the story.

  “Gives it to me,” Neville said. His lips were pale and cracked, the stench of decay overwhelming. That was when the scales of Providence tipped. No more interventions for me and mine. With lightning reflexes, Neville grabbed Angelique by the hair and pulled her toward him. She winced in pain.

  I tried to stand up, swung a feeble arm in his direction.

  “Let her go!” I cried.

  He ignored me, grinned down at Angelique. “We forgots to mention something, didn’t we? Tells yur boyfriend here yur little secret. Tells him what happened inside the car.”

  I instinctively ran my gaze over her body, tried to figure out what could have happened in twenty minutes.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice weak.

  “She doesn’t sounds so brave, does she?” He paused to laugh, raw and guttural. “Ya knows why? ’Cause we takes out her Fresh Start chip. She’s a One-Timer now. Just likes you.”

  She lifted her chin. “I was done jumping.”

  Just then a blade flashed in the dying light, silver and sharp. It caught the sun on its tip, held it captive for a blinding moment then slid into position. Against Angelique’s throat. Neville watched me as he pressed the handle of the knife. A trickle of blood flowed down, began to stain her dress. The look in her eyes made me want to cry out—she looked like a fawn, knowing it’s about to be slaughtered. She was struggling to fight the fear but it rose to the surface, clouded her eyes.

  “Ya tries anything and she’s done,” he said, then whispered loudly in her ear. “Whadya thinks ’bout that, sugah? Ya ready to steps into the Great Beyond?”

  “The serum’s over here,” I said, forcing myself to my feet, ignoring the pain that made me want to double over. I staggered a few steps and gestured weakly for him to follow.

  He pulled Angelique with him, one hand wrapped in her hair, the other pressing the knife. I kept glancing back as I moved forward. One misstep, one st
umble and he could accidentally slice through her skin, the blade would find her jugular and take her away forever.

  Just then the wind picked up, howled through the surrounding trees, caught dead leaves and forced them to dance around us, like lifeless marionettes spinning in a macabre pirouette.

  Behind us Omega lifted his nose, sniffed the air, watched Angelique as she shuffled away from him. He took a cautious step, following us.

  Not now, dog, if you jump now, she’s dead. I shot him a warning glance.

  Neville paused, then looked behind him as if he sensed something.

  Omega melted into the shadows. Only I could see him now.

  Neville’s grip tightened on Angelique and a soft cry of pain shot from her lips. I had to get his attention away from the hidden dog, needed to make him face me and lift his pressure from the knife.

  “Here!” I called. “It’s just past this crypt.”

  He was facing me again, stumbling in my direction, pushing Angelique forward step by step. Her eyes met mine and she forced a smile.

  “Come on,” I said as I rounded a corner.

  Then I knelt before one of the crumbling tombs, ran my fingers through the tokens that lay draped around the neck of a stone angel. Mixed in amidst weathered rosaries and strings of Mardi Gras beads I found it, the simple leather cord with a glass vial on the end. I held it delicately between my thumb and forefinger as I untangled it and pulled it free.

  “What’s this?” He came around the corner just as I was clasping it in my fist. “This ain’t no time for prayin’, Domingue. Off yur knees.”

  I clamped my fingers tight. “Let her go.”

  “What ya gots in yur hand?” He leaned forward, curious.

  I opened my palm to reveal the vial. The serum caught a ray of sunlight and seemed to glow with a phosphorescent light, like a jewel from another world. I was just outside his reach. He’d have to take another step forward and release Angelique if he wanted the vial.