*
Izzy started toward the cathedral. Her one wing, hurting like a son-of-a-gun, slightly hindered her progress.
The wind had picked up, but before she had gone far a shout came from behind her, on the ground. It was the witch, calling.
Eyeing the cathedral warily and feeling the witch’s shout vibrate through her with the force of a plea, Izzy circled in the air, drawn by empathy for a stranger. Frustrated, she dropped down several feet for a better look, torn between getting to Tris and the note of distress in this woman’s voice.
The vibration wasn’t actually the witch’s call, Izzy realized. It was caused by the rumble of an unnatural coach, black as midnight, moving on big wooden wheels up the pathway toward the witch. It was obvious to her that the coach didn’t belong here, and that it was yet another disturbed All Hallow’s Eve image out of place. Not a good thing, by any means.
Night flowed before it as if trying to get out of the way. The horses pulling the coach were supernatural entities with adopted horse-like forms that were more liquid than solid. Like water flowing, their legs ate up the distance. As they galloped up the path, their nostrils snorted visible puffs of steam.
Izzy eyed the scene, wondering if the witch, who thought fairly highly of her powers, could handle this, and if the coach was coming for that witch, or merely using the path. It was coming for somebody. The thing was a death coach, giving off the odor of mothballs, a trick used to cover the stench of the rotting corpses the coach carried inside.
Like her, as a Recruiter, death coaches had an agenda. A schedule. Normal mortals couldn’t see a coach unless their time was up. Not even tweaked mortals like witches were privy to its whereabouts. But this witch saw it. Which meant...
“Damn it,” Izzy swore. That witch’s time is up.
She wasn’t on Izzy’s list of souls to snatch, though the woman was in her area. Legitimately, Izzy couldn’t interfere with a death coach pick-up. That would be infringement, big-time. A no-no. Huge foul.
Possibly the coach had come because the witch had used the word “visitor” earlier that night, as in someone just passing through. This would mean the woman’s soul would be up for grabs if her time on the earth was finished and she hadn’t yet been assigned to a local Recruiter. If, in fact, she was slated for you-know-where in the first place.
Izzy twitched. This witch hadn’t seemed evil. Her aura wasn’t muddy or dense. She had helped Tris tonight with that bandage, and aided Izzy with information. Did she owe the woman payback for those things?
Truth was, she didn’t give a hoot about that coach and schedules and agendas after what she’d gleaned from talking to this witch tonight, when there were so many loose ends surrounding the things that had kept her lover tied to a building for years. For a damn century.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t do nothing with regard to the woman down there.
“Witch?” she called out, suspended in the air by the slow wave of her wings. “Did you leave something out of our little discussion a minute ago?”
“I might have,” the witch replied with a distinct edge to her tone.
“Did you help us tonight, hoping for a favor in return?”
“I helped you because you needed to see the truth, and that’s hard to do when you’re intimately involved with the person you need to see the truth about. I didn’t think twice about it, or the consequences. As I said, I’m drawn to you. I don’t know why.”
The coach was slowing, and the witch just stood there.
“Your time is up,” Izzy said. “You know that?”
“Yes. I’ve been ill. I came to see Paris one last time. But if this is to be my fate, I’d rather go with you,” the witch said. “Can I be added to your schedule?”
“I take the worst of the worst, and you’re nothing like them.”
“I can fake a bio, if that would help.”
“Are you bad, at all? In any way?”
“I’d like to think so. I’ve worked hard at my craft.”
“Have you ever hurt anyone?”
“A few idiots who had it coming.”
That did it.
A death coach for a small time witch like this one? Where was the justice in that? It was bad luck to be dying on All Hallow’s Eve. This messed with everyone’s routine.
“All right,” Izzy said. “Maybe I can do something. I can only postpone this for now. You understand why?”
“Yes. Schedules are schedules, and written in ink.”
Izzy swooped in a flurry of feathers. The witch would be too heavy for her to carry, especially with one wounded wing, but she could delay the inevitable for this poor soul in some other way.
She flew as quickly as a Banshee, and landed on the lead horse’s back, continually flapping her wings. Shocked by the sudden, unexpected touch, the horse-like entity pulling the coach stopped so suddenly, the other horses were yanked off their stride. In a clatter of skidding wheels, the coach teetered sharply to the left. One minute it was on the ground, and the next it was in the air, sailing over the Seine in a perfect arc.
Izzy launched herself into the air as the coach hit the water. It made no splash as the water closed over it. Treading the air to make sure the coach sank, Izzy then rushed back to the bank.
“It’ll be back, good as new, in a minute,” she warned.
“Thank you,” the witch said earnestly. “I owe you one.”
“Yes, well, there isn’t going to be a safe place for you, for long.”
Nodding, the witch took off at a run, her heels making rapid clicking sounds on the cobbles.
Satisfied, when she shouldn’t have been; when this kind of behavior was never to be condoned in her profession, Izzy sped toward Tris and whatever awful entity had pulled him back to Notre Dame, hoping it wasn’t too late, knowing she’d never forgive herself if Tris, whatever he turned out to be, had taken the brunt of someone’s revenge before she was able to dish out some of her own.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You!” Tristan said, frowning.
Either this was the same black winged bastard that Izzy had battled in the air, crouched on its haunches on the tip of the roof across from him, or that one’s twin.
The lights of the city were behind it, creating a strange, twinkling aura. The devil turned its horned head from side to side loosely, as if it had a hard time hearing and no actual bone structure to support its thick, rubbery neck. The Underworld had designed its denizens to be as scary as possible, and this creature was no exception.
“Where’s your boss?” Tristan said. “Is that why I’m here? To meet whoever that is?”
Across the distance separating them, red eyes stared back that were faceted like gemstones cut to a dull crimson sheen.
“Don’t flatter yourself, devil, in thinking you’re superior. I might have been trapped in stone for half an eternity, but I know what this game is. I’ve had a hand in expanding it. You’re nothing but a latecomer.”
The winged creature got to its feet with a soundless stretch of sinew and oddly aligned ligaments. Its folded wings quivered menacingly as it balanced on the edge of the roof.
“Tris?”
Tristan raised his head as Izzy’s voice sifted through the air. She was coming after him. Izzy was following. Her voice came from somewhere close by, and his heart gave a thump of expectation. Without removing his gaze from the devil across from him, Tristan said, “I love you, Izzy. I have always loved you.”
“I know that,” Izzy said. “I’ve loved you right back.”
“Yes,” he said. “All this time, you have loved me. And this might be the end.”
Her voice rose when she spoke to the devil. “Leave him alone. You’ve done enough damage for one evening. You’ve voided the whole premise of the challenge by cheating. It was probably never a legitimate game to begin with. Where’s the victory in that?”
The devil faced her, its benign expression ominous.
“I’m not one of you,” Izzy said, her
voice pitched as low on the sound register as Tristan had ever heard it. “I’ll never be one of you. This isn’t the way I do business.”
She tilted her head back and spoke to the sky. “Is this the way you handle things these days? I thought angels were better than that. I had high hopes for you guys, and thought Tris would eventually join you. I’ve actually prayed that he would.”
When she turned to him, Tris almost smiled. Izzy was truly fierce when she was mad. He had never really seen her in action.
With her black hair flying in the wind, and her wings spread out behind her, Izzy was like a magnificent silken specter. Silhouetted against the full moon, Tristan could see that she was anxious, serious. He knew the hard questions were coming.
“Are you one of them already, Tris?” she asked him. “An angel?”
The devil across from them shook its wings. It had a hungry gleam in its eyes. But Tristan couldn’t worry about what a big black demon might do next. He sensed Izzy’s hurt, and heard it in her voice.
“I’m not one of them,” he said.
“No white wings?”
He shook his head. “No wings of any kind.”
She fired off her next question. “Are you human?”
“Not human, either, I think. Not anymore.”
A beat of silence passed before she said, “What, then? What are you?”
“A soul in hesitation, in transition. At least I was when I arrived here, and when I met you, my dearest Izzy. My love.”
He watched Izzy’s wings move. His reply had startled her.
“I was human, like you were,” he explained. “Very much like you, Izzy.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Tristan saw the winged devil adjust its position. Maybe it didn’t appreciate these explanations, or the sentiment behind them.
Izzy’s wings gave a slow whoosh, but she was otherwise silent, waiting.
And then the walls began to rock. Notre Dame’s structure shook hard enough for the devil across from him to use its wings to keep its balance.
“Not again,” Tristan said, knowing what had likely caused that quake. It could be Le Stryge, coming back either to roost, or attempt to tear him apart.
“If this game has no more rules, isn’t there at least a law against bad timing?” he said as both Izzy and the winged devil opposite her took to the air.
*
This wasn’t what Izzy had expected in a final showdown. The walls were shaking, but this time it wasn’t a monster causing the quakes. Come to think of it, she hadn’t stopped to question why Le Stryge hadn’t found Tris out in the open. She had forgotten about the beast once she’d been free to follow her lover, and had gotten away with that.
What was coming felt different. This new power seemed to sever the night, slicing it into two equal pieces, with Tris on one side of the rift, and she and the winged devil on the other side. But there was no such thing as a meddling middle power. Nothing resided in the space between the upper and lower realms except the plane of human existence. And no one on this roof was human, it seemed.
“Tris?” she said, questioning this.
“It’s the end,” he said, as if he knew this for sure. “It’s the end, Izzy.”
Overhead, the moonlight began to expand and brighten until light covered sections of the gallery and the roof above it. Silvery light, almost blue-white. The winged devil hissed and flew toward the shadows. Izzy hovered, staring down at Tristan.
He spoke to her gently.
“I was offered a deal,” he said. “You weren’t so very bad when you landed on this gallery. The angels sent me to help them gauge this, in essence judging you, in return for my own passage through the pearly gates. Aiding them would have wiped out my own past earthly indiscretions, so I agreed. Instead of doing my job of helping them in regard to your fate, I fell in love with you.”
“What are you talking about?” Izzy whispered.
“I took your place on this gallery instead of sending St. Peter the necessary feedback. I was sure they would know about your soul once you had been freed from the stone cocoon, and how beautiful that soul is. Things got mixed up pretty fast once I fell for you. What resulted was an even bigger dilemma.”
Izzy stared at Tris.
“Oh, Izzy. Rather than changing your ways, you openly took on darker powers, driving you closer to the Underworld year by year, which looked bad,” Tris continued. “But you did that only to stay with me. Only for me, Izzy. Due to your love for me.”
He held her gaze. “I withheld that final judgment I’d signed on for because I wanted to remain here with you. I chose to remain. And every year I chose the same thing all over again. So, you see, the angels weren’t sure of your motives, but they were no longer certain about mine, either.”
She watched Tris sway when a big quake loosened roof tiles beside him. Several gargoyles cleared out of the area, like animals sensing an oncoming storm system.
“When I didn’t send an opinion back, and failed to knock at that golden arch, I’m pretty sure that no side knew what to do with us. I’m not sure they do, even now. We’re the Romeo and Juliet of the afterlife, Izzy.”
Izzy dropped to the roof, landing beside Tris. Seeing her, the creatures holding the net scrambled away. She waited for Tris to extricate himself from his web with her nerves in overdrive.
Though the light continued to spread as if the moon had melted and was leaking silver, and though the building quaked and rattled as though something gigantic was climbing up its sides, she faced her lover.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She stuttered slightly. “Are you saying that the angels were considering me for passage to the clouds?”
He nodded. “It was a possibility. After meeting you, I wanted to prove your worth to them.”
Tris’s face was haggard, angular, within the extremes of his handsomeness. He went on. “No one responded to what had happened here. And as time went by, I grew to love you more. Losing you was out of the question, which would have been the case if their decision went the other way.”
He held up his hands in a gesture of frustration. “I’m quite possibly the reason you’re still here. I’m so very sorry, Izzy. I was selfish. It was unacceptable. God, you have no idea how sorry I am that I–”
The quakes were growing stronger. Izzy now sensed the imminent approach of whatever was coming, and wanted to stop it, halt its progress until she and Tris had made sense of this mess.
“You’re sorry that you loved me?” she asked.
Tris shook his head. “No. Never sorry for that. Not for one single second.”
“And now?” she said. “What happens?”
“You have shown them who you really are. If that doesn’t do the trick, nothing can.”
“I’m a Recruiter, Tris.”
“Yes, but your motives for being what you are were clean. Your soul is clear. I’ve told you so. I doubt you were a very good Recruiter. Am I right?”
She was silent for a minute.
“Would we have been in the clouds together if they had pardoned me?” Her voice was weak.
“I couldn’t be sure. I never made it to those gates.”
“We’ve been doing this for nearly a hundred years, Tris. That’s one hell of a long time to keep them waiting.”
He winced, as if she had struck him with an open hand. In the silence that followed her statement, the foundations of the cathedral’s roof began to give way. Great cracks appeared in the walls and supports. The gallery floor beneath them heaved upward, buckling.
Over their heads, a black blur flew by, low in the sky. It was followed by another black shape, and another, until the area became filled with nearly invisible entities squawking like crows.
Tris was watching this. He finally said in a sad tone, his gaze sliding to hers, “This isn’t the ending I had in mind.”
They swayed on the rolling roof, separated from each other by space that wouldn’t have been an issue earlier. Izzy’s sigils burned with heat th
at rapidly reached the temperature of real flame. Scalding hot, the sigils sparked like never before, bursting with the colors of fresh, cascading lava.
Tristan jumped the chasm. His hands, gripping her arms, should have been branded and steaming, but Tris remained motionless. In his touch Izzy felt a coolness that was as welcome as it was soothing.
The dark shapes over their heads swooped down, crying their baleful song. Gargoyles gathered in the corners, beneath the falling roof, the sheer number of them outrageous to behold.
The wall of the gallery overlooking the square beneath the cathedral finally crumbled. Huge chunks rained down on the public square, where the surprised voices of people diving out of the way kicked up a clamor.
Tris opened his arms. Unsure of what else to do, Izzy went to him. He had confessed. He was sorry, and she understood. She had to understand because she loved him so very much, and because she would have done the same thing in his place. She would have moved the earth to stay with Tristan, who had given up his place in the clouds...for her.
More sounds zoomed in.
Wooden wheels screeched loudly over the racket of the dark blurs swimming in the sky. For the umpteenth time that night, the irregular noise of hooves striking stone filled her ears.
Her head rested against Tris’s wide, burlap covered chest. His heartbeat, still tucked behind his rib cage, pounded with an anticipation that ricocheted through her as well.
Both she and Tris turned to look for the source of the sound. Over the lip of the section of fallen wall a galloping team of raven-black horses appeared, pulling the black death coach that had driven straight up Notre Dame’s sides as though it was some kind of supernatural spider. And the weight of the thing, or maybe the implausibility of its path, was shaking the cathedral to pieces.
“No!” Izzy shouted as the coach morphed to adapt its shape to fit the crumbling gallery walkway. “You have no right to be here.”
Suddenly terrified, she looked to Tris. “It can’t have come for you.”
His eyes met hers. “It’s not for me. I can feel that.”
Undead for a Day Page 26
