“Call me Caleb,” Caleb said, a hint of a smile on his lips. “That is what I prefer.”
“You’re asking for it,” Louis said, raising his hand.
“Very well then.” Caleb turned toward him. “Get it out of your system.” He spread his arms and waited.
Fallon stared at him, wide-eyed. What did he think he was doing?
Louis hesitated, looked from Fallon to Caleb, then lowered his arm. “Just don’t forget who the boss is,” he said, a tad nonplussed.
“Consider me adequately corrected,” Caleb said, looking amused once more.
“Well, you show Ricky here what he has to do,” Louis said. “I’ll check back later.”
With that, Louis turned, walked through the aisle of bathroom tissue, and vanished from view.
“I am sorry for what you have had to suffer,” Caleb said. “Louis is not the easiest person to get along with. A piece of work, you might say.”
“I’d say he’s a piece of something else,” Fallon said, and Caleb chuckled.
“Sometimes he is,” he agreed. “But he has his reasons. Especially in a place like this.”
“What, a grocery store?”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “He was the deli manager for a store outside of Washington for thirty-four years. He died and joined the Cupids after a former employee shot him.”
“Yikes,” Fallon said. Can’t say I blame the guy that shot him, he thought to himself.
“I’m sure it’s nothing personal,” Caleb said. “Try not to let him get to you. After all, forces greater than us have given him authority.”
“Yeah, about that,” Fallon said. “Why would those greater forces want a guy like him running Heaven?”
“This isn’t Heaven,” Caleb said. “We haven’t earned that yet. If you are a Cupid, then you have something from your life to atone for.”
“The karma thing,” Fallon said. “Bud told me about that.”
“Indeed,” Caleb said. “There is good news, though. When you have paid your karma debt, you will move on.”
“How long does that usually take?” Fallon asked.
“That depends,” Caleb said, “on the level of your debt. I will teach you all about this life between life, Fallon, and I will answer what questions I can. Right now, though, I must begin your first Cupid lesson. It is not beyond Louis to hide and spy on new Cupids. We must at least pretend to be working.”
“Gotcha,” Fallon said, looking around. If Louis was spying, he could be anywhere, inside anything. He didn’t need to hide behind a corner, not when he could walk through the wall.
Caleb started off down the nearest aisle and Fallon followed.
“You said something about Louis’s life force,” Fallon said as they walked.
“He uses up a bit of his spirit every time he shocks someone,” Caleb replied. “I would bet my entire supply of Love that he has gone to rest and recharge himself.”
“Is that why he didn’t shock you?” Fallon asked, and Caleb smiled.
“No,” he said. “Louis and I go back a ways. We know each other well. I don’t think he really wants me as an enemy.”
They turned into the cereal aisle. A short-haired brunette Fallon didn’t recognize was stacking the shelves in front of them.
“This is Emily,” Caleb told him. “She has feelings for one of the cashiers. I saw to that, shortly before you made your arrival. I’d like to see those feelings returned. Come with me.”
Caleb led Fallon to the front of the store, where three cashiers were handling the lines of impatient customers. Caleb walked straight through the lines of people and stood behind the middle cashier, a teenage boy with long black hair tied back in a ponytail.
“I know him,” Fallon said. “That’s Mark Leder. We used to work together in produce. The manager always gave him grief about his hair.”
“Were you friends?” Caleb asked, and Fallon nodded. “Good. Then a friend of yours is about to become a happy man.”
Caleb stood behind Mark and slid his right hand into Mark’s back. Mark didn’t notice the intrusion into his person; all his attention was on the purchases of the customer beside the register.
“What I’ve done,” Caleb said, “is put my hand into Mark’s heart. Now we wait.”
“For what?” Fallon asked.
“For his new love, of course,” Caleb replied. “We left Emily over there.” He indicated the aisle with a nod of his head. “Soon she will come into view, and she will look at young Mark here.”
“How do you know she’ll do that?” Fallon asked.
“Because she has feelings for him,” Caleb said. “Look, there she is.”
And she was. Emily turned the corner and cast a shy glance at Mark.
“Mark,” Caleb said in the boy’s ear, “look left.”
To Fallon’s surprise, Mark actually did turn to look in her direction. Then Fallon saw a small flash of pink light from Mark’s chest.
Caleb removed his hand from Mark’s torso and stood back to admire his handiwork. Mark smiled sheepishly back at the girl, waved awkwardly, then returned to his customers. A second later he looked up at her again.
“And that’s what we do,” Caleb said. “Any questions?”
“A few, yeah,” Fallon replied. “Number one, what was the light show? And how come he could hear you? I thought we were on some kind of different vibrational level or something.”
“We are,” Caleb said, leading Fallon away. “Did you see my hand inside him? I was touching his heart, and his soul. When you touch another’s soul, you can communicate with that soul, like a voice in the back of the mind. The person is likely not even aware of the communication, at least on a conscious level. Mark there”—Caleb nodded his head back in the cashier’s direction—“will probably not even remember the voice. Or perhaps he will. That would be a very romantic thing to tell his love, that a voice from beyond told him to … are you all right?”
They had walked out through the front entrance and were facing the half-filled parking lot. Fallon had stopped, his eyes wide with realization.
“When I first saw Becky, my ex-girlfriend,” Fallon said, “I heard a voice in my head, too. I was in class, sitting at my desk reading a book, and a voice told me to look up. I did, and there was Becky. I … fell in love with her right then.”
“Ah, yes,” Caleb said. “That would have been Cole’s doing. I trained him, too.”
“But that means I never really loved her!” Fallon said. He tried to lean against the side of the building, but instead he fell through it.
“That is not true,” Caleb replied as he helped Fallon back up.
“Yes it is!” Fallon replied, shaking off Caleb’s helping hand. “I just liked her because of what your buddy did to me. He … that’s what you guys do! You trick people into falling in love.”
“No,” Caleb replied. “That’s not it at all, Fallon. What we do is the very thing that keeps the world turning.”
“Oh, come off it!” Fallon said. “Don’t give me that greeting-card crap. I’ve seen what love really looks like, and it’s nothing but chunks of red fudge.”
“Fallon,” Caleb said, his voice serious, “I will tolerate any number of things, but I will not listen to anyone belittling the wonder that is love.”
“Fine,” Fallon said. “Keep your love.” And he turned and ran off across the parking lot.
“Fallon! Come back,” Caleb called after him, but Fallon did not stop.
5
Fallon ran, not bothering to look where he was going. It hardly mattered; it wasn’t like he was going to run into anything. He went through cars, trees, houses, and people, farther and farther away from the grocery store, Caleb, and everything.
Eventually he stopped running, not because he was tired
but because hiding seemed like a better idea. It occurred to him that a nice, big, solid object would make a good hiding place. He could walk into one of the houses, stand inside a wall, and wait for Caleb and Louis to stop looking for him.
Fallon turned in the direction of the nearest house, and realized he’d come back to his old neighborhood. His own house was just up ahead, and there was a police car idling in the driveway. Two police officers stood on the doorstep, their hats in their hands.
The middle-aged man they were talking to was his father.
Fallon knew what was going on. He was witnessing the report of his own death. His family was only now finding out about his fall from Pape Bridge.
As Fallon watched, his stepmother joined his dad on the doorstep. A moment later his big sister joined them, too.
Fallon collapsed onto the ground. This was too much for him. This was what he’d imagined would happen after his death, but having to see it being played out was simply not fair. He was dead now; he shouldn’t be seeing this!
Out of the corner of his eye, Fallon thought he saw something dark …
Despair flooded through him, soaked him like a monsoon, stuck to him like tar. It was similar to the way he’d felt during the last year of his life, but that wasn’t this bad. No, nothing was as sickening as this. Fallon wanted nothing more than to return to the bridge and throw himself off, on purpose this time, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to move. And the feeling of hopeless despair kept getting worse, so much worse …
“You! Get off him!”
Pink light bathed him, and he heard something scream. A black form, part humanoid and part shadow, detached itself from him and raced away. The utter despair he felt began to fade, and Fallon was able to put two and two together.
“That thing,” he said. “It did that to me?”
“Yes,” said Caleb, standing behind him. “It’s a lucky thing I found you or he would have taken you.”
“What … is it?” Fallon asked, watching as the dark form scampered away down the street.
“That,” Caleb replied, “is a Suicide. They are our enemies, Fallon, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now.”
“We have enemies?” Fallon turned around to look up at Caleb. He wanted to stand back up, but couldn’t quite manage that yet. “Why … didn’t you … tell me?”
“You ran away, remember?” Caleb replied. He reached down and took hold of Fallon’s arms, easily hefting him back to his feet. “You would have been safe with me. From all of this.”
It was clear by his tone that he meant more than just the attack. Fallon looked back at his family on the doorstep and nodded silently.
“Come on, let’s go,” Caleb said, leading Fallon away. “Best leave them be. Staying here will only bring you pain.”
Fallon wanted to stay, wanted to do something for his family. He had no energy to resist, however, so he allowed Caleb to direct him.
“How did you find me?” he asked after a while.
“I have ways,” Caleb said. “Besides, where else would you have gone? You were alone, you were upset; it was only natural you would have gone home.” He held up his hand and a soft glow spread out from his fingertips. The glow grew into an oval doorway, and Caleb helped Fallon walk through it.
“Neat trick,” Fallon said as they emerged back in the heart-domed enclosure of the Cupid Center. “Will I be able to do that soon?”
“When you learn how,” Caleb replied. “Are you feeling any better?”
“A little, yeah,” Fallon said. “Not so … devastated.”
“Time you ate some more Love,” Caleb said. “Best cure there is for a psychic attack. It’s not far to my Love block. You can eat all you want then.”
“Great,” Fallon said.
They set out through the maze of Love cubes. It was difficult going for Fallon; each step felt like a huge effort.
“Tell me about Suicides,” he said, hoping the conversation would distract him.
“Suicides are beings similar to us, only they feed on negative emotions,” Caleb said. “They take your despair and magnify it until even the smallest problem seems insurmountable, then they feed on the negativity that results. And because Cupids deal in positive emotions, our despair is that much more powerful. That is why we must always be on our guard, and always consume plenty of Love before returning to the field.”
Fallon thought about what Caleb had told him. “Do they attack living people?” he asked.
“Yes,” Caleb replied. “People with severe depressive disorders are the victims of Suicides. Strong people struggle to hang on, to fight back with drugs and therapy. Weak ones, however … ”
“Jump?” Fallon said quietly.
“Yes,” Caleb replied.
Fallon stopped walking. “Is that what happened to me?” he asked. “Is that why I wanted to kill myself?”
“Yes,” Caleb said simply. “Try not to think about it.”
“How can I not think about it?” Fallon snapped. “I’m dead because some evil spirit got me. That’s not … ”
He stopped. He’d been going to say that’s not fair. Fallon knew what his father would have said to that: Who ever said life is fair?
“That is why Cupids exist, Fallon,” Caleb said. “We give people something pure and special, something worth living for. And we fight off those spirits who strive to make life miserable. We are here to make life better, Fallon. Not fair, just better.”
They walked in silence for a while. Fallon’s mood did not get better, and he still felt weak. He hadn’t felt at all tired when he’d walked all the way across the vast expanse of the Cupid Center before, but this time he found it exhausting. The dark feelings the Suicide had given him had faded a bit, but Fallon couldn’t shake them off.
Not after what Caleb had told him.
“How are you doing?” Caleb asked.
“How do you think?” Fallon replied.
“Nearly there,” Caleb told him. “Hold on.”
“I can’t make it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t,” Fallon said, and he fell forward and collapsed in a heap.
“Okay, you can’t,” Caleb said, squatting down beside him. “Tell you what. I’ll go ahead and bring some Love back to you. Just wait here, okay?”
Fallon managed a thumbs-up. Caleb hurried off, leaving him to rest.
6
Fallon lay on the white floor of the Cupid Center, waiting for Caleb to return. He didn’t want to move; the Suicide attack had drained both his mood and his energy. He figured he’d be panting, but his new body didn’t need to breathe.
He waited for a while, then grew impatient. What was taking Caleb so long? He dragged himself into a sitting position to look, but could not see Caleb anywhere among the aisles of Love cubes.
Speaking of which, there was a suitcase-sized cube of Love a meter or so to his right. Stuff Caleb, Fallon thought, and he crawled his way over. He sat himself up next to the cube, then scraped off a chunk no bigger than a Snickers bar.
“Hey! What d’you think you’re doing?”
Fallon turned his head and saw a Cupid running toward him. The guy was big and brawny but not that old; Fallon guessed late teens, early twenties.
“Whoa, easy,” Fallon said. “This is your Love?”
“Yeah, it is,” the Cupid said, a look of indignation on his face. “You’re not going to eat that, are ya?”
“I just need a bite,” Fallon said, and he stuffed the Love piece into his mouth.
“Hey!” the guy said. “I worked my butt off for that.”
“It’s supposed to make me feel better.”
“What?” the guy said. “That’s my Love!
Cupids aren’t allowed to eat from each other’s Love. Where’s yours?”
“I don’t think I have one yet,” Fallon said.
“Well, you better get some fast,” the guy said. “You owe me.”
“Are you even interested in why I’m lying here?” Fallon asked. “How about some concern, some compassion? Do you even care why I wanted your Love?”
“No!” the Cupid said. “All I care about is … ”
“Owen! Not taking a break, are ya?”
The Cupid spun around at the voice. Fallon groaned; not him, not now.
“And what’re you doing, Ricky?” Louis said, glaring down at him. “Takin’ a little nap? This hard work concept something new to ya?”
“Go away,” Fallon groaned, fully expecting to be shocked. But the way he was feeling, he simply didn’t care. When the shock didn’t come, he looked closer at his Cupid boss. Louis looked exhausted; all that shocking really did suck the life out of him.
“That attitude won’t get you very far here, Ricky,” Louis told him. “Well? One of you going to tell me what’s going on? Owen, how about you?”
“I was just coming in to eat,” Owen said, “when I saw this guy snacking on my Love.”
“Were you trying to steal from Owen’s Love?” Louis asked Fallon. “That’s the biggest offense we have, you know.”
“He was waiting for me,” Caleb said, arriving with two fistfuls of Love.
“What d’you think you’re doin’ with that?” Louis said, pointing at Caleb’s haul. “He’s gotta earn his own, and he ain’t gonna do it lyin’ around on … ”
“Oh, stop it!” Caleb said, and he tossed the Love down into Fallon’s lap and stormed over to Louis. “He was attacked by a Suicide. We could have lost him. You, of all people, should respect that.”
Louis’s eyes went wide. So did Owen’s. Fallon looked from them to Caleb, wondering what would happen next.
“Okay, he can have some of your Love,” Louis said. “But only enough to get him back on his feet. Then it’s back to work for both of you.” With that, Louis turned and walked off.
“Hey, sorry dude,” Owen said, kneeling beside Fallon. “I didn’t know you’d been … I’m sorry. Take some more of mine. But just a little bit, okay?”
The Cupid War Page 3
