by Cege Smith
“Where is he? The real David?” Ellie asked quietly. “Has it been Mikel every time?”
“David’s been Mikel’s little secret for a long time. He hides him away because David’s soul wasn’t supposed to even exist. I didn’t want to tell you, but that was part of that ceremony that you somehow saw downstairs in that dream of yours. Mikel used Lillian and Joseph to shield David from the rest of the Council and has been biding his time figuring out the best way to use him. I’m not privy to that kind of dark magic, but I know it’s bad, Ellie.”
“I need to know. Was any of it real?” Ellie asked hollowly. She felt like everything she thought she knew was being ripped away. “Or was it all just a lie?”
Lucy looked sympathetic. “Mikel can’t manifest on the Other Side without great effort. David’s personality and whoever he was when you met him would have been genuine.”
Ellie’s chest heaved just a bit. “He was good and giving and compassionate. How is it possible for those two things to coexist in the same body? Who is in charge? If it’s Mikel, then where is David?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Mikel doesn’t trust me that much. He’s never even confirmed to me that he possesses David, but I’m a witch. I can see mystical influence and every time I’ve seen your doctor since I got here, I see Mikel. But we don’t talk about it. Like I said, Mikel’s been keeping that little secret close to his chest for a long time.”
“How can you keep helping such an evil person?” Ellie asked.
“This is the part where you judging me isn’t going to work,” Lucy said, the heat in her voice obvious. “Everybody does what they do for their own reasons. I have mine and right now I’m not feeling in the mood to talk about it.” Lucy crossed her arms.
“Why should I trust you then?” Ellie asked when it was clear that Lucy wasn’t planning to say anything more.
“You should trust me because now you know more about what you are dealing with. I have done everything Mikel asked me to do, but I never really thought he’d be strong enough to overthrow the Council. Now that he’s found you and I’m starting to see what you can do, I’m worried. I’m worried about everyone. Purgatory may not be all that great, but if I want my shot at heading back to the Other Side someday, there has to be an Other Side to go back to.”
“So you think that these things that I take from the people moving through the waypoint; they give him some kind of advantage?” Ellie asked
“They give him power. The right abilities mixed the right way could give him the ability to create a psychic army that could blow the Afterlife completely to hell. It’s not just control of the waypoints at that point. It’s everything. Mikel would be powerful enough that he could even make a run at the Other Side.” Lucy shuddered.
“All of that, because of me.” Ellie stood up and started to pace. “I can’t be part of that. I won’t be part of that. What do we do?”
“We have to lay low a little bit longer,” Lucy said. “Trust me. Falla and Braz are going to be here as soon as they find out that Mikel put a Guardian in place here without their permission, and a psychically powerful one at that. We have to figure out a way to tell them what’s going on here without Mikel finding out.”
Ellie thought back to the electric tingle when Lila shook her hand. “Lila sized me up, didn’t she?”
Lucy grinned. “You were amazing. I don’t think Dane is used to not getting his way. He likes to throw around his weight.”
“Isn’t Dane on the same side as Mikel?”
“Just because they are on the same team doesn’t mean that they like each other. Not at all. They have to play nice, but either one of them would claw out the other’s eyes if it meant getting ahead in Hell. Dane’s an ambitious one. If he knew what Mikel was up to, he’d tell Falla and Braz just so that he could have a shot at taking Mikel’s spot on the Council.”
Ellie’s head was starting to hurt, and her stomach was starting to ache. She was surprised. She realized that she hadn’t eaten in what seemed like forever and said as much to Lucy.
“I spiked the wine,” Lucy said.
Ellie raised her hand to her mouth in alarm.
“Not in a bad way. I can’t be sure, but I wouldn’t put it past Mikel to put something in your food to help keep you...malleable. You also shouldn’t let Jeffrey fool you. The more they feed that meat to you, the more you are going to crave it. You can sustain your body on other things.”
Now Ellie had gotten a warning from both of them about the other. But so far only Lucy seemed to be forthcoming about what was going on. She was undecided. “Okay, so we should lay low and wait for the others to come. What about between now and then? How do we find out about what’s going on with David? I can’t forget about him in all this mess.”
Lucy looked unsure. She squirmed in her chair. “I don’t know yet. I’ll figure something out though, I promise. Just sit tight.”
Ellie was just getting ready to retort when there was a soft knock on the door. Lucy stood up and grimaced. “I knew it wouldn’t take long.” She said the same words she had said before and Ellie watched as the locks on the doors clicked open without Lucy touching it. The locks sprung open immediately.
“Ellie?” David’s voice wafted through the crack in the door. “Are you in there?”
Ellie looked at Lucy.
Play it cool, Lucy mouthed to her. Ellie had no idea how she was going to do that. It was possible that the man walking into the room just looked like her boyfriend.
Ellie stood up just as the doors opened. David, or the person who looked like David, was standing on the other side with a confused look on his face. “Ellie, I was worried. You said you were going to come upstairs last night and I must have fallen asleep because you never came up. What’s going on?” Then he looked down at her outfit and his mouth fell open. “You look terrific. It looks like I missed a party or something.”
Putting on her most brilliant smile, her skin crawling, Ellie walking over to David and gave him a hug. “I’m sorry, David. Things happened so fast, and you know that time is wonky around here. Lucy and Jeffrey had to help me with some things for the escorts.”
“The escorts were here? Are you okay?” David took her left hand in his and tenderly traced the scar that had appeared there. Ellie’s body seemed to have some healing powers as well; she thought it may be gone completely soon. In the back of her mind Ellie wanted to shriek and pull her hand away. She had to find a way to figure out who she was talking to, but for the time being, it seemed wisest to assume that she was dealing with Mikel wearing David’s face.
“Yes, it was fine. Katie and Will are gone,” she said. “It went well, I think, considering I had no clue what I was doing.”
David pulled away and put his hands on either side of her face. “I’m glad that went well. The sooner you settle in and get used to how things work here, the better. I’ll help you.”
“Perhaps next time you can help me with escorting them instead of Jeffrey,” Ellie said. “It would make me feel better with you there. Especially with the one named Dane. He was really intense.”
Something gleamed in David’s eyes. “Of course I’ll help where I can, Ellie. But that’s really Jeffrey’s job. I probably forgot to mention this earlier, but it’s better if you don’t mention me to the escorts.”
“Why not?” Ellie asked. She was getting used to playing dumb.
“A long time ago I had a run-in with that guy, Peter. We just don’t really get along. I don’t want him to treat you any differently if he found out you were with me.”
A neat lie, Ellie thought. Not only would it ensure that Ellie protected him, it also would put distrust on Peter, a representative of Heaven. As Ellie thought back on each conversation she had with David since he reappeared, she realized that each one was geared toward gaining her acceptance of things that sat on the darker side of the fence; things that aligned more with Mikel and Hell than anything else. It was a clever plan.
“Hopefu
lly it wasn’t anything serious,” Ellie said. “So if I understood the one escort correctly, waypoints are kind of like Switzerland, right? Neutral points of entry into the Afterlife?”
David frowned. “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to her. She hasn’t been around nearly as long as Dane and Peter. I remember Lillian saying that girl acted pretty full of herself. You shouldn’t put any credence in what she says.”
He squinted over Ellie’s shoulder, noticing Lucy was standing there. He smiled. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve formally met. I’m David.”
“Lucy,” was the short reply. Then the witch breezed past them. “I’ll find you later, Ellie. Don’t have too much fun without me.”
Chagrined, Ellie realized that she was being left alone with David. Then her stomach growled and for once, she was happy about it. “Want to get something to eat?” she asked. “I’m starving.”
“I’m cooking,” David said with a grin.
“Great,” she said. “Let me run and change into something more appropriate.”
“I think what you’ve got on suits you,” David said, openly admiring her from head to toe.
She rolled her eyes. “I can meet you in the kitchen,” she said, starting to step around him. David grabbed her hand, causing her to stop.
“Let me show you a neat trick,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
Ellie didn’t want to close her eyes. But as she saw his face turn into a frown, she knew that she couldn’t tell him why. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her eyelids. A few seconds passed and then she felt the air shift around her body. Her eyes flew open, and she saw that she was wearing her clothes from earlier.
“You know magic?” she said. This wasn’t David. She was sure of it.
“Nah, that’s nothing but a parlor trick. You have to stop thinking of things like you used to, Ellie. There are all sorts of things that you can do here just because of what it is,” David said.
Ellie remembered the mirror appearing earlier. The house did seem to react to directed thoughts. She shivered. David led her to the back of the house. Ellie realized that she could smell food before they even reached the kitchen, and as she guessed, Jeffrey was moving around in there. There were two settings on the table, and David winked at her as he pulled out the chair for her.
“Chez Bradford is open for business,” he said in a silly French accent.
It was only after she smiled automatically at his joke that Ellie realized how charming Mikel could be wearing David’s skin. If she wasn’t careful, it would be easy for her to forget that it wasn’t David, except for small nuances every now and then. Mikel was almost perfect in his delivery of David’s speech and mannerisms.
There was a bottle of red wine sitting in the middle of the table, and before sitting down himself, David poured each of them a glass. He raised his glass to her. “To new beginnings.”
The words carried more weight now that Ellie knew the truth. She raised her own glass and clinked his, which seemed to satisfy him. She took a small sip and moments later a full plate of meat was sitting in front of her.
“Thanks, Jeffrey,” David said. “I’ve got it from here.”
“Of course,” Jeffrey said as he nodded, and then he turned and left.
“You seem to have won him over,” Ellie said.
“Hmm?”
“I didn’t think that he liked you much,” Ellie said.
“Oh, I think Jeffrey always had a thing for Lillian and was jealous of the time that she spent with me. We have an understanding that goes way back.”
I bet you do, Ellie thought.
“Since you’ve started remembering things, you should tell me more about your childhood, David. Even before I didn’t know a lot about you. Was it happy?” Ellie said. She was reluctant to eat anything prepared by Jeffrey after what Lucy told her, but her body was already tingling in anticipation of eating.
“Of course it was happy,” David said, taking another sip of wine. “Lillian gave me everything I wanted. I had this huge house to play in, and I learned a whole education’s worth of things about the Other Side from the people who came here. My life was very full.”
“I’m not quite sure I understand how you got to the Other Side when I met you,” Ellie said. She wasn’t sure that he would tell her the truth, but she had to ask.
“I hope you aren’t thinking about trying to find a way to go back,” David said with a heavy tone of disapproval in his voice. “I thought that you were settling in, especially now that Mikel arranged it so that we could be together.”
“You misunderstood my question,” Ellie said soothingly. “I’m just trying to learn more about you. Like why you chose to be a doctor. Did Joseph influence that? It must have hurt a great deal when you realized that they were going to kill us. These are things that are important for us to talk about.”
As David cut into the meat, Ellie could see his hands were pushing harder and harder on the pieces. He was agitated. She’d have to take things slower.
“Lillian took care of all of that with Mikel. She didn’t tell me how she did it, and remember, she wiped my memory when I traveled to the Other Side. I decided to take on being a doctor because I remember this really nice gentleman who was here a bit longer than the others when I was a kid and he was a doctor. He talked a lot about how much satisfaction he got out of saving people’s lives. It sounded like a very important job.”
Ellie wondered how much Mikel was actually pilfering David’s memories, or how much was memories of Mikel’s own while he was playing the part of David. She wished Lucy was here to help her distinguish between what was real and what wasn’t.
“As for the fact that Lillian would try to kill me, well, let’s just say that I’m not that surprised. I know she cared about me, but Lillian always cared about herself first. She’d have no problem sacrificing everyone around her if that meant that she’d save her own skin. Look, that’s a lot of unpleasant talk. I’ll change the subject. Maybe after dinner I can show you something that I think you’ll really like,” David said, swirling his wine around in his glass. “Something that may help you take your mind off what happened with Martin.”
“What is it?” Ellie asked lightly, although she felt dull inside at Martin’s name.
“I’ll take you down a way line if you’d like,” David said with a conspiratorial smile.
David’s offer took Ellie completely by surprise. “I thought that I could only be here in the waypoint.”
“Well, this is where you are supposed to be, but sometimes things get really boring. If you want to know more about what I did as a kid, well, let’s just say that I started to do a little exploring on my own,” David said.
The idea that there was a way to move outside the house gave Ellie the first tiny glimmer of hope that she had felt since before what happened to Martin.
“I think that would be lovely,” she said, demurely bringing her wine glass to her lips.
David reached over the table and took her hand. She resisted the urge to pull it away. On the cusp of learning something so important, she couldn’t risk letting on that she distrusted David’s motives. She forced her fingers to squeeze a little and she smiled.
“I have such exciting things to show you, Ellie. We can truly be together now. As long as you do everything that Mikel tells you, we’ll be happy.”
Ellie picked up her wine glass. “To happiness,” she said. Inside she felt like her heart was being broken in two.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
For the rest of the meal David chatted more about the different people that he had met over the years and about the games that he would play in different areas of the house. Ellie focused on eating and tried to make the appropriate noises and smile and laugh in the right places. She had to assume that everything she was being told was a lie. Ellie hated liars. So at that moment, she hated herself the most.
Soon their plates were empty and at least her appetite had subsided. She stood to take the plates to the sink w
hen David caught her arm and pulled her into his lap. The movement was so sudden that she didn’t have time to think and she automatically stood back up, moving away.
David looked confused, but she saw something else lurking there; he was watching her reaction very carefully. “What’s wrong? Do I smell?” he joked with a short laugh.
“You just surprised me, that’s all,” Ellie said. She saw that he was measuring her words, but there was no way she wanted him touching her. “Hey, you said you were going to show me the way line after dinner. I’m dying to see it.” She pasted a goofy grin on her face and waited, although she couldn’t keep her feet still. “Whoa, that wine has gone to my head a little bit,” she said, putting her hand to her head and closing her eyes. She tried to see his reaction beneath hooded eyelids.
There was a pause. Then she heard the chair scrape across the floor and as she opened her eyes, she was looking directly into his. He moved to just inches away from her. She knew what was going to happen, and in her mind, she just kept repeating, he’s in there somewhere, he’s in there somewhere. The body was David’s. So by the time his lips reached hers, she had softened her face and didn’t move.
The kiss was gentle at first, which completely surprised her. It was like there was a question there, but as soon as he sensed that there was no resistance, the kiss became more insistent. Ellie tried to think about the first time she kissed David. He was an excellent kisser, but she should have known when this man kissed her that it wasn’t David. There was an urgency and longing in it that didn’t exist in David’s kiss, as if he knew it wasn’t right, but he was doing it anyway.
Despite her mind, her body responded to the kiss. His hands rested on her hips and brought them closer to him. Then he moved up to her hands and took them and wrapped them around his neck. Ellie let it all happen. Her mouth was ravished and for a few seconds she completely lost herself. It was the realization that she was no longer tolerating the kiss, but enjoying it, that Ellie broke away with her hand to her mouth.
