Night Latch

by Anela Deen

  “Make sure that passenger door is open,” I told her, kneeling in front of Nick. “Get ready to throw the car in reverse.”

  She frowned at me. “There’s no time for that. If you run now, you’ll make it.”

  “I’m not leaving Nick.”

  “That’s crazy. It’s either you or him.”

  “Then it’s him.” I heaved Nick’s slack and substantially larger form to a standing position, dipped down and slung him across my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Maggie stood there, gawking at me like I’d completely lost my mind. “Do as I said,” I growled. She made a face at me and disappeared. The passenger door popped open.

  Okay, I could do this. A couple dozen paces and we’d be home free. Hopefully.

  I lumbered forward while more debris pelted the ground, flinching at each collision. My back protested fiercely under Nick’s weight.

  “If we survive this,” I gritted at my unconscious friend, “we’re having a talk about how many of these muscles you really need.”

  A falling beam narrowly missed my head. It ricocheted off the ground behind me and rammed the back of my knee. We almost went down. Pain shot through my leg from ankle to hip. I forced myself on, staggering over crumbled bricks and twisted metal, deafened by the cacophony of a falling sky. I glimpsed Maggie in the driver’s seat, frantically gesturing me forward with both hands. Did she think I was taking a stroll out here?

  Sweat poured down my temples. I reached the passenger side, grateful beyond measure to find the seat had been adjusted all the way back. Arms soured and shaking, I set Nick across the roomy floor, shoved his legs in, and dragged myself into the seat. Too breathless to speak as I slammed the door, I shot an urgent look at Maggie. She’d already thrown the vehicle in reverse.

  “Hang on,” she twisted around to look behind her, “We’re almost there. We…Uh-oh.”

  I followed her gaze through the back window. The remains of the wall the SUV had crashed through began to collapse as we moved under it. I threw myself on top of Nick, sheltering his head. The windshield exploded. Metal crunched as stone crushed the roof of the cab. Shards of glass rained down. It felt as if every seam holding it together bent and strained.

  A second later, it quieted to the wheeze of a struggling engine and the jostle of tires speeding over the ground. Brakes squealed and we came to a hard stop.

  Careful of the shedding glass in my hair, I inclined my head. Maggie was hunched down in the driver’s seat, one hand on the steering wheel, one foot jammed against the brake. The roof of the car hammocked inches over her head.

  “The gear stick is jammed,” she said, tugging on it to no avail. “I can’t put it in park. Can you get out on your side?”

  I reached for the handle, using the leg that wasn’t throbbing like a fever to push against the warped frame. It creaked halfway open. Good enough. I managed to pull us out of the car, hauling Nick several paces from what was now a barely recognizable SUV. Maggie vanished from the driver’s side. Free from the brake, the car continued to roll backward over the sloped drive. I didn’t watch where it went, my eyes caught where its high beams pointed. It was just as well I was already sitting by Nick because the sight of the paper mill would’ve taken my legs out from under me.

  What had been a condemned building was now a ruin. The roof had completely caved in, taking most of the walls with it, leaving behind a few skeletal protrusions. Like the bones of the men buried beneath them. The SUV rolled to a stop a short distance back, its lights illuminating the weed-fissured parking lot. It was empty save for us.

  “Where’s Foster?” I murmured.

  “He tripped while trying to get out,” Maggie said. She stood beside me, a triumphant tilt to her lips. “Don’t think he made to the door.”

  “You think he didn’t, or you know it?”

  “I might’ve helped him on the way down. Here’s your phone by the way.”

  Appalled fury twisted up my tongue. Standing, I snatched the phone from her hand, not trusting myself to reply to her casual indifference. Nick needed an ambulance. Maggie had moved my truck back before ramming Foster’s SUV into the building, but there was no chance I could carry him over there, not with my knee swelling up like a balloon. I made the call. The operator answered promptly and I found myself at a loss for how to explain what happened. I settled on labeling it an attack, which was true enough, describing Nick’s injuries in detail, and the status of our attackers in…less detail. It seemed simpler to say the bad guys were no longer a threat. The dispatcher told me to stay on the line but I hung up before she asked more questions I didn’t know how to answer.

  I had to deal with Maggie before others arrived. I turned to her, started to speak, and stopped. An awful suspicion made its way to the front of my mind. I glanced down at the phone in my hand, at the five bars on the display. Realization hit me hard.

  “You never tried to call the police,” I said. “Did you.”

  “Of course, I did.”

  The words matched her slightly annoyed, slightly earnest expression. So believable. So smooth.

  So false.

  Inexplicably, the lie deflated all my anger. It hollowed me out.

  “Did you ever mean to try for your second chance, Maggie?” I asked softly. “Or was this just a game? A last prank to play out before they take you?”

  The alarm on her face seemed genuine. “What are you talking about? I have been trying. I came here to help your friend and I did. See? Yeah, he’s banged up, but he’s alive.”

  “What about the lives of those men?”

  “Do they matter? They were going to kill both of you.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “Look, Sam, you’re a saint so I understand this is a tough concept, but sometimes people kill other people because they just don’t care.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you—to show you—that it doesn’t have to be like that.”

  “So, I was supposed to, what, hang out while you asked them nicely to let you go?”

  “You were supposed to follow my plan and call the police when we arrived, but you didn’t—and don’t you dare lie about it again. There’s plenty of reception out here. You never even dialed the number.” I shoved the recent calls display in front of her face. She looked at it, unashamed. I flung a hand toward the mill. “There was no need for them to die like that.”

  Her mouth went taut. “They’d have shot you at the first siren they heard.”

  “What about Plan B? It was working. They were going to let us go and leave town.”

  “They would’ve come back for you later.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know it absolutely!” She stamped her foot. “Call it whatever you like—wrong, immoral—but you can’t claim I don’t know what these types of people would do. I am one of them.”

  “This was your chance to be more, Maggie,” I was shouting now, my frustration boiling over. “You are who you decide to be. That’s the only choice we’re given in this world.”

  “This world is a joke, Sam. Most of the time, people hurt each other for the fun of it. Why do I have to be any better than the rest of them? Why shouldn’t I be worse?”

  “Because it’s your life, not theirs. Your soul. And being worse, did that ever make you happy?”

  “Happy,” she laughed. “Happy? There’s no such thing and anyone who says so is just pretending.”

  “I think you’re the one pretending. I think you wanted happiness so badly, you hurt others to steal it from them.”

  “That wasn’t it.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because if I have to suffer, then so should everyone else!”

  I staggered back a step. I had no breath. I had no words.

  “What you call happiness, I call control,” grief slashed her voice. “Temporary power. That’s as close to happiness as any of us get. It’s only fair that I should have some too.”

  Her logic was so tragically f
lawed, it was painful to hear. Yet, that was the world she’d known. I wondered how much anguish could have been prevented if life had treated her differently. If we simply took better care of each other.

  She came a step closer and now shame did touch her face. “I am trying. I want to understand how you look at it. I just…Whatever makes you sad to see men like this dead, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, half unsure of what I would say. Someone else spoke first.

  “Who would’ve guessed you’d be hilariously bad at this redemption thing?”

  Chapter 36

  The voice sent a shock of recognition through me. I whirled around to find Sebastian standing a few paces behind us. He didn’t look as put together as the last time I’d seen him. He still wore the jeans, the leather jacket, but there was a rumpled quality to him, his once neatly tied hair now a wild red mass. It framed his smirking face and kaleidoscope eyes.

  I pushed words through a mouth gone dry. “More trespassing, Sebastian? Don’t tell me I have to send you back again.”

  “This time I’m authorized. Business, you know.” He smiled, his gaze sparkling with interest as it turned to Maggie.

  I stepped in front of her. “She’s with me.”

  “You got her a deferment, sure. Unfortunately, that’s over.”

  “It hasn’t been two days yet. You’re early.”

  “Oh right. They gave you two days to encourage a glimmer of remorse or empathy from that wretch. Instead, you allowed her to murder four more people. The deferment’s been revoked.” His smile widened. “You failed.”

  “Sam?” Maggie’s voice quaked.

  “Stay behind me.”

  “You can’t stop this. After that,” Sebastian waved a hand at the crumpled mill, “her fate was sealed.”

  I shook my head. “She was trying to save my life.”

  “Is that what you think?” he snorted. “Don’t be a sucker. She saved you because you’re her thread to this world. She saved you because she feared if you died, she’d lose her chance to escape what was coming for her. Honestly, it was cruel to lead her to believe that was possible.”

  “You’re wrong,” Maggie insisted. She took my hand. “I wanted to help Sam and his friend.”

  Sebastian tilted his head in amused reproach. “Darling, you may have gotten this dimwit to believe your lies, but don’t think you can ever deceive me. You’ll learn that soon enough, once we’ve spent some time together.”

  Maggie’s hand tightened in mine and I sensed the terror rolling off her. My heart thudded in dread even though I knew Sebastian had pegged it exactly right. I’d known she had pulled me out of the building and left the rest to die because their lives meant nothing to her. But fear made animals out of all of us. How could I blame her for her desperation, for her callousness after a childhood lost to cruelty and sympathy worn away by an indifferent world. Hardship did not make murderers out of all of us, but some souls were more fragile than others. No matter what Sebastian claimed, I’d seen her try to understand, try to hear what I was saying even though she didn’t comprehend it. She wanted to. Didn’t that count for something? Didn’t that count for everything?

  “I need more time,” I said and glanced upward. “Please, I just need more time.”

  “She’ll have plenty of time, but not with you. She’s going to learn her lessons another way.”

  “You’re not taking her.”

  “Am I not?” Sebastian’s eyes glittered gold with black.

  Casually, he extended a palm as if inviting her to dance. Maggie gasped and I lost hold of her hand. Cold pricked over my skin as she passed spectral-like through my body and emerged on the other side. An unseen force pulled her toward Sebastian. She cried out, wheeling transparent arms to keep away from him. Her efforts did nothing to halt her progress.

  I leapt forward, trying to grab her hand. Her fingers passed through mine even as she reached for me.

  “Sam,” she wept. “Help me. Please, help me.”

  “He can’t help you, honey,” Sebastian told her gently, hunger in his eyes. “He never could, though it’s delicious to hear you beg.”

  “Stop,” I shouted, still trying to get ahold of her. I wouldn’t give up. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “She does.”

  “No, this is wrong.”

  He laughed. “I like wrong.”

  “What’ll it take?” I growled. “What’ll it take to give her more time? To spare her from you?”

  Her body became solid and I almost crashed into her, jarring my injured knee. She grasped at me, shivering, and I held her close, looking up in confusion. Sebastian’s gaze held a calculating edge when I met it.

  His voice turned velvet soft. “Are you willing to bargain with me, little saint?”

  The only answer to any question from the likes of him was no. I knew that, but Maggie’s quiet sobs of terror against my chest drowned out these warnings.

  “What do you want?”

  “You.” His eyes turned the color of fresh blood. “Take her place and I will release her.”

  Of course. What else did I have to offer? I should’ve seen this coming, though somehow it came as a shock. Or maybe that was my own fear spearing my guts.

  Take her place. In everlasting torment. There’s a heavy price, yet, didn’t I owe it in a way? I was supposed to have shown her the path to redemption. If I hadn’t been so inept, so distracted, if I’d been able to concentrate on her instead of everything else, regardless of how important it was, maybe I wouldn’t have completely screwed this up.

  Maggie still trembled but she’d gone quiet, and I knew she waited, hoped, to hear me say yes. I knew she thought little of the suffering I would face down there. Some would say she wasn’t worthy of the sacrifice, but worth was a slippery concept. If others had thought her worthy of their love and protection when she was an innocent child, none of us would be here now. I couldn’t abandon her. I refused to do as others had done.

  “Sam?” she whispered.

  I closed my eyes. “It’s going to be okay.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “Sebastian, I—”

  “Stop.” A hand gripped my shoulder. Cold as ice, the touch struck the air from my lungs. My legs dropped from under me. I braced my palms against the cold pavement, struggling for breath. The hand left my shoulder as quickly as it came, but it took several long moments to blink the spots out of my vision and realize the clamoring in my head was actually raised voices.

  “You were not invited here,” Sebastian snarled.

  “He is under my supervision. My responsibility.”

  Alice? I lifted my head to find her standing in front of me, her body a wall that blocked Sebastian from my sight. With one hand she held a thrashing spectral Maggie by the back of her shirt. Still catching my breath, I managed to shift to one side enough to see Sebastian. Tension rippled along his body, his eyes twin pools of shadow.

  “That has to be a joke. You are his mentor? You?”

  “Me. You’ll not play your tricks here, snake.”

  “He wants to make a trade. Interfering with a bargain is against the rules.”

  “There is no bargain.”

  “But for another moment, there would have been,” Sebastian’s gaze found me and widened. “Perhaps there could be still.”

  “You’ll take what you came for and go.” She thrust Maggie forward.

  “No, please,” Maggie cried, clawing to hold onto Alice’s arm, but it was as though she’d become an object without substance. Her struggles tore at me.

  “Alice,” I rasped. “Don’t—”

  “You will be silent.” Her tone whipped out and she glanced over her shoulder at me with a look of such burning wrath, my voice vanished from my throat.

  “Seems to me he doesn’t agree,” Sebastian coaxed. “You can’t save the boy from a bargain he would make of his own free will.”

  “Sam knows your offer is false,” she told him, holding me in her fier
ce gaze. “He knows if she allows him to bargain his soul away for her undeserved freedom, she’d be condemned all over again. Giving himself in exchange would be pointless. You know all of that, don’t you Sam. You never intended to accept any bargain.”

  I could only stare, my limbs gone colder than when Alice had touched my shoulder. Sebastian had dangled the chance to save Maggie and like an idiot I’d leapt at the bait. There’d never been any chance. A trick. That’s all it was. If Alice hadn’t come when she did…

  Sebastian gave an annoyed huff. “You are such a bore these days, do you know that?”

  Alice turned back. “This soul is relinquished to your domain.” She flipped her wrist the way she might toss a baton, and sent Maggie reeling toward Sebastian. “We’re done here.”

  Sebastian caught Maggie about the waist with one arm, curling his lip when she shrieked in terror.

  “You won’t always be there to shield your little protégé from me,” he spat. “You’ll make a mistake, something trivial and self-serving, and I’ll be there to gobble him up.”

  If his words bothered her, Alice gave no sign of it. “Your authorization in this world is at its end.”

  Tension clotted the air between them until Sebastian’s gaze darted upward as if he’d heard something. Then he rolled his shoulders and gave a mocking bow. “Until next time then.”

  He turned his attention to Maggie quivering in his grip, examining her with a sigh. “Hardly anything left to corrupt in this one.” He cupped her cheek and his mouth split into a ghastly smile. “Let’s see what we can scrape out, hm?”

  A bulb of fire surrounded them. Maggie’s screamed, harsh wrenching cries echoing through the flames.

  “Alice,” I choked. “There must be some way—We can’t let him…”

  “There’s nothing you can do for her, Sam. I’m sorry.”

  Maggie keened my name over and over until I thought my chest would crack open and spill my heart onto the blacktop. I gripped my head between my hands, watching helplessly as the sphere of flame sank into the ground and disappeared. Her voice became a distant wail of despair while sirens rose in the distance.