by G. P. Ching
Master Lee leaned forward. “Are you saying Lucifer is attempting to reclaim the earthly realm?”
“Exactly. We don’t know how he’s planning to do it but we know translating the list is a major step in his plan. Our only hope to stop him is to convene the remaining Soulkeepers. He’ll expect us to be scattered. We need to unite and have a coordinated defense of our own.”
“Remaining?” Jesse pushed forward to the edge of his seat. “You said, ‘remaining Soulkeepers.’”
“There may be others, in other countries, or who haven’t come into power yet, but we have reason to believe that the names on the list are key to thwarting Lucifer’s plan. The list has thirteen names: nine Horsemen, three Helpers, and me, the Healer.”
Jesse’s hand went to his mouth. “You’re the Healer?” he said between his fingers. “I didn’t know.”
Malini smiled and shook her head. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t expect you to. I was surprised Master Lee recognized me.” She squinted eyes at Lee. “How did you know?”
The old man pointed at his milky blue eye. “My gift. The supernatural have an aura. Horsemen carry a ruby glow, Helpers a cool azure, but you, Malini, sparkle an intense green. I’ve only seen that color once before, the last Healer.”
“Can you see Watchers?”
He nodded. “Their aura is black as tar.”
“I think that ability will come in very useful. As I was saying, there were thirteen on the list but one of our Horsemen, Mara, died a few weeks ago. Twelve remain. Besides myself and Jacob, we have another, Jacob’s mother, Lillian.”
“One of my students! How is Lillian?” Lee asked.
“She’s wonderful. She’s getting our new facility ready. There is a place, a school where we can train safely. I need you both to come with me and stay there while Jacob and I gather the other seven.”
Jesse shook his head. “I can’t. I’m a freshman at the University of Hawaii. I’m halfway through the semester. I can’t just leave. I’ll fail all my classes.”
“We have someone that helps us with situations like this,” Jacob said. “She can alter records, make the school believe you’ve come down with a long-term illness. She’ll make it work. You can go back to majoring in basket weaving when you’re done saving the world.”
“Elementary education, thank you very much. The children are our future.” Jesse flashed a lopsided grin. “I get your point. I guess if Lucifer is running the planet it might curb the employment opportunities. If my Helper goes, I go.”
Master Lee nodded and picked up the phone. “I will arrange for my assistant, Michael, to take over the dojo in my absence.” A voice buzzed on the other end of the line and Master Lee rambled something in Chinese.
“I’ll need to stop at my dorm and pack a few things,” Jesse said.
“No problem.” Malini rose and moved toward the door. Master Lee hung up the phone and stepped around the desk.
Jacob nudged Malini’s hand out of the way. “Let me get that for you,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. Opening doors for her had become a kind of joke, a way to play the chivalrous male even though she was ten times more powerful than he was. He kept his eyes on hers as he swung open the pinewood door.
Silver flashed at the edge of Jacob's vision and searing pain ripped through his stomach. He crumpled in the doorframe. Beside him, Malini screamed. The man with a Mohawk, the one who’d been teaching class, tore the blade from Jacob, sending a spray of blood up Malini’s side and across her face. Removing her glove, she thrust her skeletal hand at the man’s chest, but he kept coming.
“He’s possessed!” Lee yelled, dodging the man's slashing blade.
Malini clenched her healing hand, but before she could act, Jesse materialized behind the man. With a pair of nunchucks from the wall, he thwacked Mohawk in the head, sending his body tumbling to the ground. Thrusting his hand into the man's skull, Jesse's molecules broke apart as they entered the flesh, fishing for the Watcher inside. He pulled his fist back, latched onto the black ooze.
“Come on out and play,” Jesse said through his teeth. He discarded the nunchucks and caught the knife Lee tossed him from the wall. Extracted from its host, he severed the Watcher's oily head from its body. The rest of the beast bubbled out of Mohawk and fried on the wood like hot tar.
From the place where Jacob watched from the doorway, he reached for Malini. Blood sprayed across the hand he brought to his mouth to cover a cough. His breath came in wet rattles.
Folding to her knees, Malini pressed her healing hand to Jacob's stomach wound. The heat of her power poured into him. “It will be all right. I’m here. You’re going to be okay,” she said.
Her skin bubbled and blackened to the elbow and the smell of burning flesh filled the room. She grit her teeth and wept, but held her hand to him until he was able to push it away. Longer than necessary.
“You should have stopped sooner,” Jacob said, eyeing the burnt skin on her arm. That was the price she paid for healing someone. Thankfully, he could fix it. He pulled Malini into his arms.
Jacob called the water. From within the walls the pipes groaned and dust and drywall snowed down around them. He focused on a fountain in the hall. The spout blew off, skipping across the dojo, and a wave crashed into the office, washing Malini’s burns away.
“I had to make sure you were completely healed,” Malini said. With her newly healthy arm, she slid her flesh-colored glove over her still-exposed skeletal hand. Jacob was relieved; the gift from Death was dangerous without the glove.
“Well, that’s convenient,” Jesse said, gawking at Malini.
Master Lee stepped over the man with the Mohawk and the Watcher that Jesse had extracted from his body. “Antonio has worked for me for years.” His wrinkled face sagged, as if he’d aged a decade in the last five minutes. He spread his hands toward the empty dojo, covered in splatters of black blood.
Jesse pulled the blinds on the windows and locked the door.
“He must have been possessed recently. You would have seen it.” Malini wiped a drop of Jacob’s blood from under her eye and crawled over to the man. “He's alive, but knocked out. He'll need hospitalization. I think it's better if I don't heal him. Too hard to explain the gaps in his memory.”
Lee groaned. “We'll have to drop him at the emergency room. No one can know this happened here.”
“How did Lucifer know? How did he know we'd be here?” Jacob asked. “I didn’t even know before today and he can’t translate the list.”
Malini’s eyes darted over the body and then toward the slits of light that filtered through the windows. “I don’t know. But one thing's for sure. The war has begun.”
Chapter 4
Mara and Henry
Who would have thought Death slept? On the bed next to Mara, Henry’s body lay like a corpse. With his arms crossed over his chest, she couldn’t tell if he was breathing and his flawless white skin didn’t twitch. He hadn’t moved at all in, well, she wasn’t sure how long. She couldn’t find a clock in the room and was afraid to leave, mostly because she had no idea where she was.
“Henry?” she said.
His eyelids flipped open and his head turned toward her on the shiny red pillow. “Mara. You’re here. I wasn’t dreaming.”
She couldn’t stop a huge cheeser from blooming across her face. “Yeah, you were kind of dreamy though. I haven’t made out like that in, um … I’ve never made out like that.”
Henry hinged at the hips, sitting up in a way that defied gravity, slowly and with an abnormally straight back. He turned his torso to face her. “Mara, I died in 1349 when I was seventeen. Believe me, what little experience I had over six hundred years ago was dwarfed by what happened last night. You are absolutely enchanting.”
“Thanks.” She pushed herself to a seated position. “I ate the pastries. Sorry. I should have saved one for you.”
A half smile lifted the corner of Henry’s lips. “Not necessary. I don’t have to eat.”
“Right, because you’re Death.”
He nodded.
Mara played with the corner of the sheet. Hand stitching decorated the edges and the silky fabric draped heavily in her hand. The material felt expensive but she wouldn’t know for sure. She’d never owned anything like it.
“So, Henry, can you take me home? I mean, back to Dr. Silva’s. That’s where I’m staying.”
Henry’s features hardened and he tipped his face away from her. Whether by levitation or propulsion, he rose from the bed and paced toward the window on the far stone wall. She noticed no glass in the frame but also no breeze, no birds, no dust.
He folded his hands, bowing his head slightly toward the sill. “I’m sorry, Mara, but you can never go back.”
“What do you mean I can’t go back?” She crawled from the tangle of sheets, tripping over her silver sandals as she closed the space between them. Grabbing his shoulders, she turned his stiff upper body toward her. She searched his face for answers but he was entirely closed off, locked away. If she wanted answers, she’d have to be direct. “Am I dead?”
“Not exactly.” His eyes blinked robotically and his breath came out in a sigh. “You’re In Between. When you kissed me, I was in a state to take Malini’s soul. That part of me latched on to you instead. Normally when that happens, I usher the soul to either Heaven or Hell but, normally, the person is dead. Because you were not dead, your soul clung to your body. I found myself unwilling to kill you, and since I was attached, I brought you back here, to my home.”
Back, back, back, she toppled away from him, only stopping her retreat when she bonked into the bed. Her breath came up short and she gripped the bedpost to hold herself up. Under her fingers, ornate carvings of skulls and twisted body parts decorated the wood. What the hell did she think would happen? She'd kissed Death. She wasn’t going back.
“I thought I would die. When I kissed you, I expected it to be the end,” she said breathlessly. “But I didn’t know what that meant.”
“It should have meant death. It should have meant Heaven or Hell. I broke the rules bringing you here.”
Steadying herself, Mara folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to hold the emotions swirling through her torso inside her skin. The next logical question begged to be asked, but she was afraid of the answer. “What happens when you break the rules here?”
“It’s never happened before, Mara, but if I had to guess, either God or Lucifer is going to notice they’re missing a soul, and when they do, they will want an explanation.”
“And they’ll come to you to get it.”
He bowed his head in agreement.
“I’m sorry, Henry. I’m so sorry I got you into this.”
Henry appeared in front of her, his hands rubbing her shoulders and his face softening to a more human expression that could only be described as tortured.
“Do not be sorry for me. I wanted you here. I felt a connection to you from the moment I saw you. I can’t explain it, but last night, for the first time in forever, I felt whole. I almost felt human again.”
“I’m only nineteen. I'm not ready to die.” As much as Mara wanted to hold it together, the knowledge that her future was gone, wiped out with one choice, hit her like a bulldozer. Eternity was a very long time to ponder a choice like that. The words broke on her tongue and she did something she rarely allowed herself to do. She cried.
“I am sorry you are only nineteen, but this was your choice. You kissed me.” He backed away, a hand on his heart. “Do you regret your decision?”
Mara wiped under her eyes and tried to give him an honest answer. He deserved as much. “Yes … No. I felt it, too. When we shook hands, it was like … I can’t describe it. I didn’t want to let go.” Her butt landed on the bed and she met his dark eyes. “It felt like I’d been underwater my entire life and you were my first breath of clean air.”
The smile that Henry rewarded her with was worth any price she’d paid. It was a smile that said her feelings weren’t one sided. They’d shared a connection, one she didn’t entirely understand but an important one nonetheless.
He took a tentative step forward, then another. Kneeling down in front of her, he scooped her hands into his. “If that is true, then I have a proposal to make.”
Mara’s eyebrows shot skyward at the word proposal, given that Henry was on his knee. Her spine stiffened.
“Until they find you, maybe we should enjoy the time we have,” Henry said.
Of course. She didn’t really think he’d propose something more serious. Looking down at her wrinkled gray dress, Mara tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “This is awkward. It’s like the walk of shame but without the actual walk. Can I borrow your shower? And maybe a toothbrush.”
Henry stood, raising an eyebrow. “Allow me to introduce you to the pleasures of the In Between world.” Henry focused his attention and a basket appeared on his dresser, overflowing with soaps, hair care products, and her requested toothbrush.
“How did you do that?”
Positioning himself behind her, he slid his hand down her arm, sending electric tingles through her skin to her bellybutton and below. He reached her wrist and extended her hand, palm up.
“This realm is constructed from thought. If you can think it, you can create it. This castle, everything you see, is my creation. Let’s see if you can create something. Start small. Something that can fit in your hand.”
Mara concentrated. A silver swirl danced across her palm and disappeared. “It’s not working.”
“You must solely picture what you want. Block out all other thoughts and feelings. Think of it as analyzing the thing down to the atoms that make it up. Concentrate.”
She closed her eyes and pictured the one thing she couldn’t live without. It was her crutch and what made her different from everyone else. It was her history and maybe a piece of her soul. She thought of her bell.
It wove itself out of the air, not instantly as it had for Henry but chunk by chunk. First the wooden handle, then the crown, shoulders and waist, and finally the clapper. She opened her eyes and wrapped her fingers around the finished product. Perfect.
“I left it behind when I kissed you. I can’t remember where. This one feels exactly the same.”
“It won’t work here.” Henry frowned.
Mara gripped the bell tighter and brought it to her chest. “Why not?”
“Time doesn’t exist here, not really. Nothing here ages. Nothing changes unless we want it to. There’s nothing to stop.”
“But that's impossible. Things happen here. I was in bed. Now, I'm not. Time has passed.”
“But here it isn't measurable. On Earth, the planet is spinning. Hours, days, years are measured by its rotation. The In Between isn't a physical place. Things happen but time isn't measured in the same way.”
“Oh,” was all she could manage. She stared desperately at the bell, her soul sagging to that dark place that threatened to own her. The bed called to her. Maybe she could crawl into it and never come out.
“Do you like horses?” As if he could sense her despondency, Henry pulled her backward into his chest and kissed the top of her head.
“I think so. I mean, I’ve never met one in person.”
“The bathroom is through that door.” He pointed at a section of wall that transformed into a door at his will. “Clean up and change into the clothes inside, and I will take you on a date to meet my horses. We will worry about the rest when we have to.”
She pivoted in his arms. With Henry’s body pressed against her, he’d shed the stiff composure of Death. His chest rose and fell. His dark eyes searched hers from below long lashes. His full lips parted and a blush colored his cheeks in an expression Mara could only describe as longing. Forgetting everything else, she gave in to the beat of the drum whose rhythm had grown stronger in her chest. Lifting on her tiptoes, she met his lips with hers. It felt just as good as the night before. A walk in the moonlight. The flutter of raven
wings. Dark water on a cold night. Thoughts that should have scared her filled her with wanting, a blazing fire beneath her sternum.
She wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted. It was as timeless as the In Between.
“I can’t wait to spend the day with you,” she said when she finally pulled away. She lifted the basket, pausing at the bathroom door. “Henry, can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“Not one day of my life has felt normal. I’ve watched people through windows doing normal things: eating together, hugging their children, doing the damned laundry. But I’ve never had that. I’ve never been a part of what the world called normal. My life’s been … complicated. Kissing you here, in this place between places, it feels right. It feels like home.”
He didn’t respond with words but pressed his right hand over his heart and bowed slightly at the waist. She ducked inside the bathroom, swearing not to waste any more time feeling sorry for herself.
Chapter 5
Dane
Dane woke coughing. A sulfur stench burned in his nostrils. He turned on his side but repositioning didn't help his discomfort. Jagged stone cut into his shoulder and blistering heat scorched his lungs. He pried his eyes open against the pain. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he blinked. Fire. He was too close to the fire. A wicked headache threatened to knock him over but he forced himself to his feet and turned in a circle, following the path of the flames that surrounded him.
Lucifer grinned on the other side of the blaze. “Careful.” Fire shot up, forcing him back to the center of the circle. “I wouldn’t want you to burn. Not yet anyway. I still need you alive.”
The circle he was in was about twelve feet in diameter. Beyond the flames, pillars of dark stone marked a brutal landscape. There were things out there. Things he couldn’t see clearly in the darkness beyond. Things that shifted unnaturally in the shadows.
“You brought me to Hell,” Dane rasped.
“Yes. Home, sweet home. Do you like it? You don’t think the brimstone makes it look small, do you?”
