Never

by K. D. McEntire

  “Hey, however you gotta do it,” Wendy said, shrugging and stepping away. The way he was stroking the flower disturbed and worried her. Piotr was already so pale, so thin…what if it devoured him the way it had devoured Ada? What if it opened him up to one of those creatures?

  “Ah so. These stories are so predictable—once upon a time a girl met a boy, da? That is how these tales go.”

  As if the vision were waiting for Piotr's words, suddenly a young woman appeared beside them. She appeared so unexpectedly that Wendy almost struck her. Only the realization that this wasn't real—that it was nothing more than a memory—kept Wendy from attacking. Wendy felt Piotr's chuckle feather the hair at her temples, sensed the cloying, noisome touch of the bloom brush her side.

  “Who is she?” Wendy asked, studying the girl—she was tall, wiry, copper-haired and pale-skinned, with almond-shaped eyes and a full mouth. Her arms and hands looked tough and strong, corded with muscle, but what amazed Wendy was her garb.

  “Leather armor, no helmet, basic wooden shield,” Wendy murmured, impressed, stepping closer to the girl. “No sword that I'm seeing, either. Nice, not many ladies can pull that off. I wouldn't want to walk up to those guys dressed in much less, especially in the middle of woodsy nowhere.”

  Piotr smirked. “The armor is for show. It changes with each person she visited—for a rich man she would have come clad in chainmail. For my father leather was the best she would wear. But that is not what is important here, Wendy. Look at her cloak.”

  Wendy squinted. “It's a cloak? I don't know what I'm looking at here, Piotr. It's covered in…what? Jay feathers? Maybe crow feathers? Is that important?”

  “And she rode on the wind's back, and came to him, and kissed his lips,” Piotr said, his voice lilting strangely, in a lyrical cadence that sent shivers down Wendy's back. “In her cloak of feathers plucked from the crow-tails of Huginn and Muninn, gathered from ravens and swans and other beasts of the sky, the lady Eir flew from battlefield to battlefield, attending to her orders. She was a shield woman, a warrior, a Valkyrie sent to collect souls from snowy battlefields…but they weren't known as Valkyrie in that time, in that place. She was a Reaper. She was Death's handmaiden. And she was on a mission from Freyja herself.”

  The girl beside Wendy smoothed her hair and straightened her cloak. Her cheeks were crimson with the cold, her eyelashes rimmed with frost. Piotr moved to stand behind her and reached a hand out, not quite touching the imposing figure, his fingers a scant inch from her mane of shining hair. “As the sun reached the apex of the sky, the Reaper Eir lit upon the snow-driven hill, and heeded the blood on the snow, and bided her time, for the soldier was not yet dead.”

  “Piotr?” Wendy whispered but he didn't answer. A tear tracked down his face and Piotr's lips twitched, his brows drawing close; he swallowed thickly. The bloom at his chest pulsed, petals opening and closing, as if it were drinking.

  The Reaper beside Wendy bit her lip, frowning at the young men below who had paused to build a fire as the youngest, the one Wendy had nearly touched, sorted through their bag for dried meat.

  One of the men—Wendy assumed he was the oldest—scooped snow into a cup of bone and set it near the slowly smoking fire to melt. Curious, Wendy drifted over to them, marveling at the way she didn't even have to move her legs—a thought alone took her from place to place. Wendy just appeared as if she, too, were like the strange, copper-haired maiden.

  “Wait a second. He's our age,” Wendy realized, leaning over the travois, getting a closer look at Piotr's father. “He's not even eighteen…”

  Wendy flicked a look at the copper-haired Reaper, Eir, and paused. The shape of her lips, the arch of her eyebrows, the way she tilted her head as she moved to kneel beside Wendy, beside Piotr's father on the travois, and examined his battered face…it all struck a cord deep inside Wendy.

  “Piotr?” Wendy whispered, forgetting about the flower, about the car wreck, about her worry for her family and the hole in the horizon in the sudden, stunning realization that Piotr was far beyond what she'd originally thought him to be. She'd always known he was special, but never imagined how special. “Is this…is this Valkyrie, this Reaper, whatever…is she your mom?”

  “Unlike my mother, my father was a farmer,” Piotr said, smiling ruefully and kneeling on the other side of Eir, still examining his mother rather than looking at Wendy. “Not a soldier. He was very bad with a sword.”

  “Looks like,” Wendy agreed, eyeing the dried brown stain on the cloak spread across the young man's gut.

  The three of them knelt there, in the snow, for what seemed like ages.

  Wendy was long past nervous and edgy. Getting used to the idea that Piotr was half…strange…allowed herself to return to wondering what was going on in the Never without them, hoping that Jon and Chel were okay, when the brothers, coughing and grumbling, rose and cleared camp, preparing to gather the travois to travel on.

  “Piotr—” she whispered. “They're moving.”

  Piotr's father opened his eyes. “Oh,” he whispered, looking at Eir leaning over him, her long glimmering hair surrounding his face like a protective cocoon, “so you are the one I was waiting for.”

  The red of Eir's cheeks deepened. “Hush,” she said. “Save your strength, stay as comfortable as you can. Your time is soon.”

  “You hear these words from the lips of all dying men, I'm sure, but if I can hold your hand,” Piotr's father replied seriously, reaching up one bloodied hand to stroke her pale cheek, “I would willingly travel to the black places and back. For the touch of your lips, I would do even more.”

  Eir flushed. “Hush,” she said again, but her color was deep, and Wendy could see Eir's pulse throbbing at the base of her throat. Eir shifted in place and it dawned on Wendy that Eir wasn't playing hard to get…she was actually overwhelmed by his compliments.

  “He's raving,” the youngest brother said. “We should help him to meet our great-grandfathers in the quiet fields. This…what we are doing has no honor—carrying him back on his enemy's broken shield. Grandfather would be most displea—”

  “Quiet, Kirill,” the oldest commanded, flicking a contemptuous glance at his younger brother. “If it weren't for your foolish bravado in battle, Borys would not be so wounded. And Grandfather was not a man to worship so. Shut your mouth or I will shut it for you.”

  Kirill rolled his eyes and, despite the gravity of the situation, Wendy smothered a smile. Their bickering was just so much like the way she and Jon and Chel…Wendy felt her smile fade. Jon. Chel. It was starting to really bother her now, that she was trapped in this memory with no easy seashell door to escape through. The concern slammed into her again, leaving her breathless. She turned to ask Piotr if they could leave, if he could share this memory some other time, but beside her, Piotr's expression was startlingly grim.

  Wendy decided to bide her time for at least a few minutes more.

  “And now it comes,” Piotr said as the begrudging silence between the brothers was broken by a whinny.

  The men who topped the rise were just as bedraggled and bloodied as the brothers. Their clothing was just as mended and worn, their weapons just as dinged, yet Wendy got a sense from them that these newcomers were not farmers. These were desperate men.

  The one in the lead, holding the corded strip of leather that was serving as a bridle, greeted them first.

  “Ho, travelers! We are weary and wish to rest. May you spare a bit of room around your fire?”

  “You may have it,” the eldest brother said curtly. “I am sorry, we have snuffed the embers, but the clearing is still dry, the ground still warm from our fire. It should not be hard to light again, and there is a cache of deadwood just over there, in the shade of that fallen ash.”

  “May I give you a kiss?” Borys whispered to Eir as she, standing beside his travois, reached down to grip his hand, comforting him. “Such a little thing, from a kind lady as lovely as yourself.”

  He win
ked and Eir, flushing, rolled her eyes and chuckled. “You are a flirt, sir,” she said, fingers plucking at the necklace at her neck. “The Winged Ones do not kiss flirts.”

  “Oh, would you prefer me to be proper?” Borys asked, smiling wider, sensing that he'd caught her attention. “To woo you as a lady like yourself deserves? To fly to your palace in the sky and beg on bended knee for just a touch of your hand, a single press of your lips? No, no, you are wilder than that—I can see it in your eyes. You know the truth of things. You know the way a true heart beats, with passion, seeking to sink into the earth and, raining salt-tears, become one with the sky.”

  She blushed brighter red, nearly scarlet from temple to collar now. “Hush! You have a flapping mouth.”

  “Then my lips have had much exercise,” he joked. “Perhaps you'd like to test their strength?”

  Wendy, so caught up in their flirting, missed whatever was said between the brothers and the newcomers. Suddenly weapons were drawn and the two groups were hacking at one another violently. Kirill, stabbed through the shoulder, stumbled into the brush as his attacker turned and spotted Borys, still holding on to Eir's hand.

  “One kiss,” Borys whispered quickly. “Please, lady, before he has my head split apart.”

  “All these Westerners are madmen,” the soldier snarled and, flinging his sword to his feet, drew the dagger at his hip. “They even haul their dead home!”

  Eir, sensing his movement, paled and, in one fluid motion Wendy could hardly follow, struck out with a spear of Light so bright that Wendy's eyes gushed water; she was temporarily blinded.

  When her sight returned, Wendy was stunned to find that Eir had killed all the attackers—smoking holes pierced their centers through. The older brothers likewise lay strewn on the ground; all the soldiers were dead save for Kirill. Kirill crawled from the bush with his shoulder still streaming blood and another rivulet dripping from his dark, bruising temple.

  “Wow,” Wendy said, mentally stumbling for the right phrase to describe what had just transpired. “That was…amazing. She's got moves like Emma. Or Jane. That was just…dude. Wow.”

  “This just…I'm such a silly fool,” Eir sighed, resting her hands on her hips as she surveyed her handiwork. “I've made a mess of things, haven't I? And for what? A man? My sisters are going to mock me for months.”

  “You saved me,” Borys whispered to Eir, holding up his hand, reaching for her. “I may be only a man, but thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “No, I really didn't,” Kirill groaned, staggering to the eldest brother and resting his head on his brother's chest. “He's dead. They're all dead.” Kirill coughed. “Borys, what happened?”

  “Kirill, it was fantastic! It was—” Eir pressed a finger to her lips, shhhing Borys, and shook her head. Borys, understanding, shook his own head.

  “Well, Borys?” Kirill asked impatiently. “What happened?”

  “Mykola was overwhelmed with an insane, protective fury,” Borys improvised, gesturing to the oldest brother. “He ran them all through, spinning wildly and screaming like you've never heard, and then collapsed himself.”

  “He's dead,” Kirill said again and flopped back into the snow. “Oh, Borys. What are we to do?”

  “Well, hell, that's a good question,” Wendy said. “What do you do when your invisible girlfriend straight up assassinates a bunch of dudes just to keep you breathing? I mean…was she supposed to kill them?”

  “Save for Kirill, they were all due to die in that battle,” Piotr said, examining his mother's face. “My mother did nothing untoward but cut their lives a few minutes shorter. Unusual—Reapers generally collect souls, not end lives—but in this case it is allowed. Their time was up either way.”

  “We go home,” Borys answered Kirill as Eir knelt beside him and whispered in his ear. Her left hand hovered over his stomach, her hair dangled against his cheek, copper-bright against the bluing-pale flesh. “Or as close as we can manage. And then we rest, Kirill, in the bier where our ancestors sleep in the quiet fields.”

  Using the cleanest cloak he could find, Kirill tore strips off to bind his shoulder. He spat in the snow. “For a madman, you make good sense.”

  Rolling over so the cloak spread over him fell free, Borys struggled to smile, though Wendy couldn't believe that the man could move at all. He'd been split from gut to ribs; she could see shiny loops of intestine peeking through the flayed flesh. She fought to keep her gorge down.

  Borys coughed. “They say the mad and the dead speak with the gods. I think I have good council.”

  The fog crept in and Piotr was at Wendy's side once more; expression flat, eyes tired. Wordlessly, he pulled her to him, crushing the bloom between them, and kissed Wendy's eyelids.

  She closed her eyes.

  Ten minutes later, still shaken, Wendy was guided upstairs to meet Frank. He was playing poker for a pile of dead guns and shining silver knives, surrounded by his Council cronies. A battered cardboard box, once the packaging for tiny Japanese stuffed pigs, held a smaller motley of items—single bullets of all shapes and sizes—and Frank had a huge haul in front of him. He, unlike most of the elegantly clad spirits around him, wore a simple blue chambray work shirt and a pair of khaki pants over heavy boots. His dark hair was smoothed back and, unlike the others, Frank was not drinking.

  “Hello Frank,” Piotr said, as Frank set down his cards and led them to an employee break room off the kitchen, away from the throbbing music and crush of ghosts dancing in the dining room. The side wall had an impromptu bar set up in the Never. A long stretch of the outside wall was glassed in; the San Francisco lights glittered in the darkness, brilliant and shining against the black expanse of the bay. Only the barely-visible edge of the spirit web broke the beautiful expanse. “As requested, I have brought Wendy to meet you.”

  “I'm not blind,” Frank chuckled. “So you're the Lightbringer.”

  Frank scratched his chin, eyeing Wendy, and gestured to the woman barely wearing a collection of sparkly red scraps who followed closely behind him, acting as a bodyguard. “Here, honey, neither of these two mean me any harm. Do me a favor and go finish up for me.”

  Turning fluidly, the scarlet-clad lady returned to the table, picked up his cards, chuckled, and flashed the rest of the table a smirk. Then she confidently reached for the line of knives Frank had assembled before him.

  “I'm out,” said a tall black man in Navy whites, folding his cards on the table. “Damn.” The others scrambled to follow suit. The slinky woman grinned as she collected Frank's haul and wiggled her fingers in Wendy's direction, waving coquettishly.

  “Frank! You want me to deal again, or is it break time?” The dealer was a weedy-looking man in an ill-fitting tux. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the din.

  Leaning in the doorway of the breakroom, Frank ignored him and addressed Wendy. “You're lookin’ a little dead to me, kid. Are you feeling well?”

  “Coma,” Wendy replied coolly. “It won't last. I'll wake up in no time.”

  Chuckling, Frank straightened and flapped a hand at the nearby waiting spirits. “Council's adjourned for the night, folks. Close up shop and we'll meet up again tomorrow, sort out the territory issue down out in San Jose. Danny! Don't forget bullet inventory.”

  Surreptitiously, Wendy's fingers snaked to her side where one of Elle's knives sat snugly hidden. To her quiet relief, the Council spirits didn't approach. They—and all the other spirits hovering nearby with drinks at the ready—filed out the walls and doors, vanishing rapidly from the room as the dealer and the sparkly-dressed woman guided them quickly away.

  “Neat trick,” Wendy said, forcing a smile and dropping her hand from her hip. She was still shaky and on edge—Ada's face, Piotr's memories—all of it tangled together in her head and made concentrating on Frank difficult.

  “Hmm,” Frank said, threading his fingers over his chest and tilting his head back, not even bothering to hide his slow, intense perusal of Wendy from head
to toe. After long moments he settled in a nearby chair, flopping down and crossing one leg over the other. “You're a looker, but even a blind man could see that you aren't your mother. Not by a long shot.”

  Eyes narrowing, Wendy pulled out the chair across the table from Frank. “Piotr tells me that you knew her.”

  Frank rubbed his chin and smirked. “You could say that. We were business associates.”

  He shifted in his seat, expression soft and hazy, his gaze somewhere past Wendy's left shoulder. Frank's lips twitched and Wendy was struck with the sudden and unwelcome realization that he had had feelings for her mother. It was all over him, the way he said her name, the pleasant crinkling of the fine mesh of lines in the corner of his eyes. Square-jawed, broken-nosed Frank wasn't a strictly handsome guy, but when he spoke of her mother it was like a light lit up within him; reminiscing about Mary made Frank almost glow.

  Chewing over this new information, Wendy almost missed Frank clear his throat and snap back to the conversation. “Mary was…a nice lady. A real class act.”

  “Whose idea was it to team up?” Wendy asked archly.

  Frank's smirk faded. “It was hers,” he said. “No spirit's crazy enough to seek out a Reaper, kid, even one rumored to be pissed at her familia. Not even the sickest Walker gets close to a Reaper unless they have to.”

  “So, if no ghost gets close to Reapers unless they're loco,” Wendy glanced at Piotr who smirked and waved back at her with two fingers, “how did my mom get you all to partner up?”

  “With guile.” He snorted. “You know about your ex-aunt, correct?”

  “Tracey, yeah,” Wendy said. “I know she existed. Mom never talked about her much. I also know the Reapers had her killed.”

  “Not the Reapers, Lightbringer. Elise. Elise had Tracey killed.”

  “What? Elise wouldn't…” Wendy paused. “Actually, no, she totally would.” Rubbing a hand across her eyes, Wendy sighed deeply. “Why? Why did Elise have my aunt knocked off?”