by Cege Smith
Taking the barrette with her, she approached the mirror. In front of it sat a pair of white ballet slippers. The hem of the dress just skimmed the floor. Ellie didn’t even recognize herself. She looked like a girl from one of the covers of the gothic romance novels that she liked to read which seemed like ages ago.
She took the barrette and swept her long hair back into a ponytail at the back of her neck and secured it with the clip. There was a rosiness in her cheeks and the white dress accentuated her pale skin. She looked young and innocent. She wondered if that was part of the plot or not.
Not wanting to keep Jeffrey waiting, especially if she still had time to ask questions, Ellie hurried out of the room and down the stairs. In the front foyer, she found Jeffrey still waiting for her. Katie and Will were also there and they smiled at her as she came down the steps.
“Wow, you look gorgeous, Ellie,” Will said, looking her up and down.
Ellie blushed. “Thank you, Will. Jeffrey, do you have a minute?”
That was when they all heard a loud bang on the front door. Jeffrey looked at her with a sad face. “I’m afraid not and neither do you. The escorts have arrived.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When Jeffrey opened the front door, the first thing Ellie noticed was how graceful they were. With all the talk of escorts, the three people who glided into the front foyer looked nothing like what she expected.
Two men who appeared to be in their early twenties flanked a girl who couldn’t have been more than seventeen if she was a day. They were all dressed in white, and suddenly Ellie understood the connection between what Jeffrey had given her to wear and the new arrivals. There was a dress code and a formality that needed to be observed. If nothing else, Ellie looked the part.
It took a moment for Ellie to be able to distinguish the differences between the three. They were all devastatingly good looking, and Ellie wondered if there was something about the Afterlife that elevated one’s physical appearance. Their bored expressions crossed over to surprise, though, as they took in Ellie standing at the bottom of the stairs. They looked uncertain for a moment, and then their eyes shifted to Katie and Will, who stood with their mouths wide open staring at them.
The girl’s strawberry-blonde hair was pulled into a high ponytail at the top of her head and fell around her shoulders in beautiful waves. Although she was wearing a white blouse and matching white slacks, on her lapel there was a small orange pin in the shape of a sunburst. It was the only color she wore and the striking contrast between her skin and her clothes made her breathtaking. She had a smattering of freckles running across her nose, and as her blue eyes caught Ellie’s she smiled. It was friendly. Ellie relaxed a tiny bit.
The men were much more brooding. The tall one to her right, with a longer mess of blond hair, had a coal-black pin on his lapel. It was shaped like a snake eating its own tail. The man on her left was shorter, but had a barrel chest that Ellie would have said indicated long hours spent in the gym if such a thing existed in the Afterlife. His pin was a golden yellow circle that had a white cloud intertwined. The symbolism of the three pins didn’t escape Ellie’s notice.
The girl stepped forward, extending her hand. “We haven’t met. I’m Lila. For the purposes of today’s escort, I’ll be charge.”
Ellie wasn’t sure how this meeting was going to go, but introductions seemed harmless. She crossed the few remaining feet to the girl and took her hand. She felt a shock of electricity shoot through her arm and the girl’s eyes widened for just a second. Then it was gone. “I’m Ellie,” she finally said. “For the purposes of today’s escort, it’s my first time escorting anyone.” Whenever she was nervous, Ellie resorted to sarcasm. Inside she kicked herself, but then the girl laughed.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ellie,” Lila said. “These are my fellow escorts, Dane and Peter. I have to tell you we were surprised to get the orders to come here. This waypoint has been inactive for some time.”
Jeffrey stepped next to Ellie. “Lila, it’s nice to see you again.” He bowed and Ellie wondered for a moment if she should have done the same. The three had a commanding presence and clearly had some authority. “I’m sure you are aware that the previous Guardian was lacking in the proper credentials to properly maintain the waypoint. Mikel has been looking for a suitable replacement for quite some time. We were fortunate when Ellie came along.”
“I’m sure,” Lila said with narrowed eyes. She looked Ellie up and down. “Seems he got lucky. I sense that Ellie has some talents that will be useful here. That other woman was horrid.”
Did Lila know about Ellie? The thought raced through Ellie’s mind and she wondered how much these seemingly immortal people knew about her and what she was. Everyone she had met so far knew she was a Ripher, but it didn’t sound like that should be common knowledge.
“Guardians with psychic abilities are always preferred, as you know,” Jeffrey said, looking at Ellie with an expression that she would have called pride. It made Ellie’s feet twitch. “It eases the passing over for everyone involved.”
“Naturally,” Lila agreed, but she still looked at Ellie in a way that made her nervous. “Well, I for one am glad that this waypoint is open again. It was always one of my favorites,” she said, looking wistfully up at the chandelier above their heads. “Such a lovely place.”
Lila’s companion, the one with the serpent pin, stepped forward and took Ellie’s hand. “Pleasure. I’m Dane.” His lips skimmed the top of her hand and her skin crawled. It reminded her of her recent encounter with Mikel, and she sensed intuitively that Dane’s place in the Afterlife was on the darker side. The other man, Peter, ignored Ellie entirely and instead went to Katie and Will.
He gestured to the two in front of him. “Where’s the third one?”
It took everything that Ellie could do to keep her face from showing her anxiousness at the question. They knew. They knew that Martin was supposed to be there. How was she supposed to lie her way out of this one?
“Third?” Jeffrey answered. “We didn’t have a third.”
It was Lila’s turn to frown. She peered over at Katie and Will. “There are always three. You know that as well as I do, Jeffrey. What’s going on here?”
Time to jump into the pool, Ellie decided. “I know I’m new, but Jeffrey is correct. Katie and Will came to us yesterday shortly after I arrived myself. Were you expecting another?” she said as innocently as she could.
“Obviously,” Peter snorted. Ellie didn’t think that she liked him, but she knew that it was probably just his obvious dislike of her.
Lila spun away from Ellie and approached Katie, stopping just a few inches from her. Katie would have taken a step backwards, but Peter touched her arm and Ellie watched Katie’s face go slack. Will looked on in alarm.
“What’s your name?” Lila asked. Her tone was light and conversational.
“Katie. Katie Richards.”
“Who’s your friend here, Katie?”
“Will,” Katie replied. Her voice was flat and monotone.
“Where’s your other friend, Katie?”
Ellie held her breath and hoped that whatever it was that Lucy had whispered to Katie was going to work. She willed herself not to look at Jeffrey. She didn’t want to give her nervousness away.
Katie’s nose wrinkled. “Will is my only friend here.”
“But you came here with two friends,” Lila said.
Slowly Katie shook her head. “No. Just me and Will.”
Lila whipped around and looked at Dane “Who messed this up? If we go back with only two there’s going to be a lot of questions. They are going to look at all three of us.”
Lila was in charge, and suddenly Ellie realized that Lila was worried about what was going to happen to the escorts, not about what actually happened to the missing person who was supposed to be there. For some reason Ellie had assumed that there would be some kind of bond between the escorts and their charges, but apparently not. Ellie was their Guar
dian, the one who was supposed to look out for them. She had made quite a mess of that.
Dane had been watching Ellie the whole time, and Ellie knew it. She glanced at him with wide eyes and shrugged. She watched anxiousness dance on Lila’s face. Although the girl was supposed to be the one in charge, she was looking to Dane and Peter for guidance. Any other time, Ellie would have found the wordless interplay fascinating, but at that moment she just wanted the escorts to be gone.
Instead of answering Lila, Dane took a step closer to Ellie, looking her over from head to toe. “So Mikel recruited you himself, did he?”
Ellie’s fists clenched, and she stood her ground. Although Dane was almost a foot taller than her, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing that he intimidated her at all. Ellie had dealt with enough bullies in her life to know what the man was trying to do. She looked up at him, smiling sweetly. “What can I say? The last Guardian thought she could get the better of me. I made her think twice.”
“No wonder you got his attention.” Dane smirked, now openly staring at her chest.
The man’s arrogance made Ellie angry, but she knew that he was just trying to rattle her and see if she’d say something incriminating. The escorts seemed to be suspicious of Mikel, and Ellie knew they had every right to be. But she remembered what Lucy had said about political factions and the consequences of Ellie’s own actions. She couldn’t risk drawing any more attention to herself, which also meant for the time being protecting everything around Mikel.
“Is there anything else you required?” Ellie tried to change the subject.
Although he still regarded her warily, Dane seemed to sense that Ellie wasn’t going to say anything more. Lila looked at the watch on her wrist. Ellie saw that it glowed with numbers, but otherwise the face wasn’t the normal kind of watch that she was used to. “We have to go. We can’t be late. There must have been a glitch with the waypoint coming back online with a new Guardian. That’s what we’ll have to tell them.”
Peter and Dane took her cue, and started to herd Katie and Will toward the door. Will sputtered in protest, but Katie seemed to still be in the trance that Lila placed on her.
Ellie found herself facing the lead escort once again. She wanted to ask where Katie and Will were being taken and what was going to happen to them, but she didn’t dare. The sooner the escorts left, the better.
“Well, Ellie, it’s time you released these two souls into our care,” Lila said.
Ellie panicked for a moment, unsure of what to do, but then Jeffrey stepped forward with a small bowl. He held it out in between them. Lila pulled a small pocketknife from her belt. Ellie gasped as Lila slit the palm of her hand open and clenched it over the bowl, letting a small amount of her blood flow freely into it. Then she blew into her fist and shook it open. Ellie saw that the cut was gone. Then she arched an eyebrow at Ellie.
Lucy’s words rung in her head. Everything here is bound by blood.
A small knife appeared in Jeffrey’s other hand, and he handed it to her. Lila watched with a small smirk of amusement. Ellie refused to look inside the bowl. She took a deep breath. There was no showing weakness in the Afterlife. She slid the knife across the fleshy part of her left hand and the swift rip of pain took her breath away. Then she met Lila’s eyes and slowly clenched her fist over the bowl. Thin tendrils of blood fell into the bowl and when Ellie’s blood met Lila’s, Ellie heard a sizzling sound coming from it. Then a billow of gray smoke emerged and engulfed the two women.
Ellie could see Lila’s blue eyes clearly, but the rest of her was hazy. She watched in amazement as two threads of gold shot out of the bowl. Lila snatched them out of the air and smiled a dazzling smile as the threads wove themselves around her arm. As the smoke cleared, Ellie saw that the cuff of gold remained, glowing against Lila’s fair skin.
“Not too bad for a newbie,” Lila said. She looked up at the chandelier again. “I am sure that Falla and Braz are going to be very interested in the fact that this waypoint is active again. They will be curious about its Guardian.” She stepped closer to Ellie and lowered her voice. “If I were you, Ellie, I wouldn’t let myself be swayed too much by Mikel. As a Guardian, you are supposed to remain neutral, which I’m sure Jeffrey has already explained in great detail to you.” Lila glanced at Jeffrey pointedly. Her tone implied that she was already well aware that this was new information to Ellie. “Consider that free advice. I enjoyed meeting you, Ellie. We’ll see you again soon.”
Lila flipped around, hair swishing around her shoulders, and brought up the rear as the others stepped out into a blinding white light. Then the door slammed shut and they were gone.
Ellie let out a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding. Then she turned to Jeffrey. “What the hell just happened? Who are Falla and Braz? Can somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on?”
The doors to the right slid open and Ellie saw Lucy standing there. “Geez, Ellie. You’d think with all the clues lying around you’d have figured some things out by now. Stop being so shrill.”
Ellie opened her mouth and then closed it. Mikel, Falla, and Braz. Three. Mikel had called himself The Third when they met. People appeared in the waypoint in threes. The escort was three people. The symbols that were on the labels of the escorts, each one different, but three.
“These political factions that everyone keeps talking about. There are three of them, right? It’s Heaven and Hell, but what’s the third?”
Ellie saw a gleam of delight in Lucy’s eyes. “Purgatory. You just met three representatives for the different factions that keep things here in the Afterlife humming along. Three keeps everything in check and makes sure that no one side gets uppity and tries to take control from the others.”
“And the bosses? That’s Mikel, Falla, and Braz, right?”
Lucy gestured for Ellie to come closer. Ellie could see that Jeffrey was paying very close attention to what was being said. “They form the council that runs the waypoints. Everyone and everything that goes in and out of the Afterlife travels through a waypoint, remember? That’s why I had to bind Martin’s ashes with your blood to the pedestal and store his soul. If I hadn’t, she would have seen that there were supposed to be three. “
Ellie was taking everything in, and she realized that she was in far worse trouble than she ever imagined. “So wait a minute. If one side managed to gain control over all of the waypoints, then what would happen?”
“War,” Lucy said flatly. “There would be war.”
Her ears refused to comprehend Lucy’s words. She moved past Lucy into the sitting parlor and fell into one of the wingback chairs. “I don’t believe this,” she said.
Jeffrey had stepped forward to join them, but Lucy said, “Oh no. We need some girl time.” She unceremoniously slid the doors shut in his face. Then she clicked the lock so that he couldn’t open them. Ellie thought the gesture ridiculous considering Jeffrey had the ability to appear wherever he wanted at will.
As if she read Ellie’s mind, Lucy closed her eyes and said a short chant. Then she opened them and nodded with satisfaction. “That’ll keep him busy for a while trying to find a way around that. Unfortunately, it’s also going to raise Mikel’s suspicion, but you appear to be a pretty damn good liar. I’m really impressed.”
Her words of praise made Ellie feel worse. “I’m a liar, a thief, and a murderer. Perhaps I do belong in Hell.”
Lucy sat down in the chair across from her and shook her head. “Don’t be silly Ellie. Things aren’t as black and white as you think they are. There are lots of shades of gray. And what happened with Martin was an accident. I keep telling you that you can’t beat yourself up about that. Look, I promised to tell you more once we took care of Martin and handed Katie and Will off to the escorts. I’m keeping that promise now.”
Kneading the white cloth covering her knees, Ellie felt anxious. “Shouldn’t I get David? He should hear what’s going on too.”
A shadow cross
ed Lucy’s eyes.
“I know you don’t think a lot of David, Lucy. But he’s part of this too. I’m the reason he’s here. I can’t just leave him out of it,” Ellie said.
Lucy’s next words scared Ellie badly. “I’m pretty sure that David’s part of the problem, Ellie. And if you’re really sure that’s been David that you’ve been swapping spit with, I’m sorry to tell you that you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”
“What do you mean?” Ellie asked.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, because Mikel would make things very unpleasant for me if he found out. So I’m trusting you to keep this to yourself, and hopefully by me telling you this, you can trust me when I say that I want to help you.”
Nothing Lucy was saying sounded good at all. But Lucy was clearly looking for her agreement. “Okay, deal,” Ellie said.
Lucy started to fidget, then took a deep breath. “Okay. So I told you that Mikel was interested in you. More than surface level.”
“Right...” Ellie said. Suddenly she knew what Lucy was going to say. There was only one possibility that made sense. She didn’t want to know.
“David was born here. He was vulnerable at a very early age. Mikel wasn’t shy about taking advantage of that.”
“Taking advantage of that how?” Ellie said in a hollow voice.
“By being him,” Lucy said.
Which was exactly what Ellie was afraid she was going to say.
CHAPTER TWENTY
She didn’t want to believe Lucy’s words, but it all made sense to Ellie now. David’s strange behavior when he appeared right after Ellie’s own arrival. The way he kept trying to convince her that she belonged here. Never seeing both of them in the same place at the same time. Her cheeks flushed as she thought about their make-out session on the stairs. She wanted to argue and tell Lucy that she was wrong, but she knew that she wasn’t. Ellie felt stupid for not figuring it out on her own. The David that she knew wasn’t here. Somehow she had truly lost him.
