Fall

by Katherine Rhodes

  “Don’t, don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t pull it out.”

  “It hurts,” I managed. I couldn’t get air in to my lungs.

  “I know, Paige, I know. Just hold on.” He had the phone to his ear. “Don’t pull it out, we don’t know what he hit in there.”

  I looked at him, and squinted. His image swam before my eyes. “I don’t want to die. I’ve died too many times.”

  …“Five!” Wren screamed, crying. “I had five! The most I’ve ever had! How could you?”

  The dark cruel laughter came from somewhere deep inside the rocks around us. I couldn’t move my head, I couldn’t feel my arms or leg. I knew this was the fault of the person whose terrible laughter bubbled up.

  “I can easily, Quilikrozh. Easily.”

  She spun and stood from me at once. “Your evil really does know no bounds!”

  “I am simply taking what is mine!”

  “You can’t just kill her!”

  “I will kill her over and over and over. I will kill all of you over and over, to keep our idiot brother from what he’s supposed to be doing.”

  A red hot flaming blade lashed out, but there was nothing there to strike down. The laugh resonated again, but everything went dark…

  …“No!” Wren screamed, wrapping her arms around me. “No! Not so soon! We haven’t found the others!”

  The cruel laugh didn’t care…

  …“Oh, God, Vana,” Lincoln whispered cradling my head as the last bit of gray covered my vision. “Don’t go, love, don’t go.”

  The laughter was there again….

  …“Six,” Fischer whispered in my ear. “Goddamn it, Gloria, six.” He looked up at a dark figure laughing in the background, and his voice was rough and gutted when he screamed at them, “Why are you doing this to us?”…

  …I held Bastian desperately to me, the blood from his wound smearing down my arms. His eyes were already dead, and a moment later, there was nothing for me…

  …The fire roared around us, as Bastian and I huddle with another man and Wren. She and I were in tears and the other two just looked shocked, destroyed. The smoke was roiling through the tiny room and the acrid stench burned our noses.

  “Stand up,” the other man said. “Stand up. Inhale the smoke. I don’t want to burn to death. If we breathe in the smoke, we’ll pass out long before the fire touches us.”

  “I don’t want to give up,” Wren said.

  I leaned over and kissed her hard. “We aren’t done yet. We will win this.”

  She smeared away the tears and glanced at Bastian. He nodded once and all four of us stood to breathe the hot smoke in…

  Bastian was staring at me. I saw the gray of death on the edge of my vision, closing in.

  He leaned in. “Don’t breathe the smoke this time, baby. Don’t do it. Fight. The ambulance is already on it’s on way.”

  “Bastian?” It was Wren’s voice from the hall. She burst into the office as my vision got a little darker. “Oh, God! Paige!”

  She dropped to the carpet next to me and grabbed my hand. “Don’t go, Paige. Don’t.”

  I didn’t want to.

  But the black was there, laced with cruel laughter.

  Bastian

  I wanted to puke.

  I didn’t even care that my back was killing me, and I hadn’t moved from this position in nearly an hour. My legs were numb, my arms were numb, and my face was covered in tears.

  Wren was curled against me in not much better shape. Every once in a while, I could feel her shake with the sobs she tried to hide.

  “Jesus,” Lincoln whispered, halting in the door.

  Looking up, I knew we were a sight. The nurses had made us both wash up in the scrub-in room in the ER, but we still had blood all over our clothes.

  Paige’s blood mostly. But there were a few smears on my cuffs that were from where I had smashed Alain’s face to shit. Had a few cuts from that as well.

  “What’s going on?” Fischer asked. “You were hysterical on the phone, Bastian.”

  “Alain came after Paige,” I answered. “He stuck her with a Bowie knife, right in the side.”

  “That’s all her blood?” His eyes went wide.

  “Yes.”

  He turned on his heel and marched out of the room, back down the hall.

  “He’ll get the whole story for us. Well, the medical side. What the hell?” He gestured to us vaguely.

  “Alain stabbed her. I think after he tried to make her walk,” I explained. “She wouldn’t go with him, so he went all me-or-no-one on her.”

  “Where’s the prick now?”

  “A few doors down, getting his face fixed.”

  Lincoln smirked and nodded. “Well done. Concussion?”

  “I sure fucking hope so.” I rubbed my knuckles a bit, and grinned. “I smashed the hell out of his face.”

  “I kind of wish you’d killed him.” Wren took my hand in hers and rubbed the bruises that were starting to show. “I don’t even feel bad about that.”

  “He’ll go to jail,” I said. “He slid a knife into his pregnant wife’s side. Judges and juries don’t really like that.”

  “All the divorce papers are set up,” Lincoln added. “Even if the divorce is contested, it won’t be a long process now since he’s got about a half dozen charges against him. Including attempted murder.” Glancing back at the door, Lincoln sighed. “What happened? Will she be okay?”

  I took a few minutes to explain what had happened when I got back with the drinks from Starbucks. Seeing Alain holding her arm like that had just snapped something inside me.

  “How did you get there so fast, Wren?” Lincoln cocked his head. “Your office is at least five minutes away, and you were there in seconds.”

  She picked a fingernail. “Remember that knowing thing that keeps happening? It happened again and I knew I had to get to her office as fast as I could. I ran the whole way, but…”

  “Don’t take blame for this,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “Neither of us was to blame. He was waiting for me to leave, I know he was. He is not sane.”

  Wren nodded. “No, he’s not.”

  “So, what do you know about Paige’s condition?” Lincoln asked.

  I took a deep breath. “Virtually nothing.”

  “They wouldn’t let us ride in the ambulance with her, we had to follow in the car.” Wren was clearly pissed about that. “And when we got here, they were all over us about not allowing anyone in except her family. They wouldn’t even hear us about the POA, or that we’d been there when this happened.”

  “They rolled the fucker in right behind her.” My words were bitten off, chewed, but I didn’t feel like tempering what I was really thinking.

  “Haven’t heard a thing since you came in,” Lincoln mumbled, drawing the right conclusion.

  “Not a thing.” Wren’s eyes were so sad.

  “Fischer and I will clear that up.” He eyeballed both of us. “I’m also sending in scrubs for you two. Get the hell out of those clothes.” He turned, about to leave, but stopped himself. He walked over to us, and squatted down.

  “This is all Alain. This was not you. Whatever happens, this was not your fault.” His hand rested on Wren’s cheek and she nodded. He put a hand on my thigh, and I nodded. Even though he was right, that wasn’t how I felt at that moment.

  Standing he leaned down and gave her a kiss, then took my chin and gave me one as well. It was…rejuvenating in a way I didn’t understand but also didn’t question. He was gone the next moment.

  “Wren, baby.” I leaned us back on the chair and pulled her in close. “Paige saw things before she passed out. I saw them, too, through her eyes. It was pretty revealing.”

  She let out a breath. “I don’t know if I can handle it right now. I’m so damn raw and unready for this.”

  “No, you need to know. She’s died before. We’ve all died before. So far in that there were five and six of us gathered to you. She saw her deat
hs, and mine, and yours.” I grabbed her hand, but didn’t force images on her. “We’ve all died over and over. Someone is keeping us all from getting together again, and they are gleeful each and every time we die.”

  Wren stared at me, her eyes wide and frightened. “If she dies, the cycle has to start again.”

  “If any of us dies, it has to start again.”

  “How many times has this happened?”

  “I don’t know. I saw six, but who knows how many times she or I weren’t there.”

  She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Christ. Bastian, what is this? We keep dying before what happens? And what happens if we get all eight of us together again? Damn it, Paige was doing so well with us. She was getting it, she was getting to be part of a family. And now…”

  “She’ll live.” Fischer walked into the room.

  The air rushed out of my lungs, and I slumped down. Fischer dropped his hand on my shoulder. “You did the right thing, Bastian. Keeping the knife there was absolutely the right thing to do. It nicked an artery, and by leaving the blade against it, she didn’t bleed out. They are going to be in there for a few more hours. There’s some other repairs to be done—”

  “The baby?” Wren bit the words out.

  “Monitoring, but everything seems good right now.”

  She burst into tears and I wrapped my arms around her. Fischer nodded at me. “You did good. Both of you did. Nice job on Alain’s face, too, Bas.”

  “Sarcastic?”

  He snorted. “Utterly sincere.”

  “Good, because I’d do it again.”

  Fischer nodded in approval. “Lincoln went off to take care of all this crap about us having to stay away?”

  I simply nodded.

  Paige

  “Weren’t you just here?”

  The voice sounded like Wren, but I was dead, so how was—

  Oh. Right. The After.

  I cracked an eye open, and wondered if I could talk her brother into redecorating a bit. Hell looked a lot like the inside of a hospital.

  Kind of appropriate at that.

  “I gotta talk to housekeeping about these chairs.” I’d know Fischer’s voice anywhere.

  Cracking my other eye open, I slowly rolled my head. My shoulder pulled and I hissed.

  “Told you she was awake,” Wren said.

  “Dead?” I managed to croak the word.

  Fischer laughed. “No. Don’t you think Hell would have better décor?”

  “Yes,” I managed. “What…”

  “Alain found you,” Wren said, walking up into my field of view. “Just as we were getting you all healed up, this asshole comes by and shanks you…”

  “Explains the stitches in my side.”

  “Forty-eight stitches,” Fischer said. “Inside and out.”

  “The…” I choked

  “Your baby is still hanging in there, Paige. Stubborn little thing.” Wren put her hand on my arm. “Like their mama.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s in lock up,” Fischer said. “Lincoln has his lawyer handling all of this for you. All you have to do is heal.”

  “My husband stabbed me.” I couldn’t believe he was this cruel, but a second later, I gasped, “He had another wife…”

  “He what?” Fischer asked, staring at me.

  “He was married before me. I don’t know anything about it. Can you check? Can you see if she was also a victim of his?”

  “Yes, of course.” Fischer nodded. “I’ll get that information to Lincoln right now and we’ll figure it out.” He glanced at Wren. “You’ll be okay here?”

  “I will.” She grinned and pointed to her back. “Anjir. I’ll use it if I have to. Nothing is going to touch our Vanagloria again.”

  “God, you’re hot when you get all fierce.” He wrapped a hand behind her neck and gave her a hard kiss. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Go, go.” She laughed.

  It was a moment before Wren turned back to me. “Paige…”

  “I lived,” I mumbled. “I survived. We need to keep going. Did Bastian show you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ve beat the first hurdle.”

  Wren dropped the rail and sat down with me. “We don’t even know what course we’re running.”

  “That’s not going to stop us from jumping the hurdles. I lived. I’ve still got my baby, and I’ve got friends who give a crap about me.” I turned my head again to stare at her. “And I won’t let Alain do this. I won’t.”

  There was a sharp rap on the doorway, and a deputy sheriff was standing there. He coughed and walked in.

  “Mrs. Domingues?”

  “Technically,” I whispered.

  “Deputy Sheriff Hansen.” He sighed and held out a blue sheaf of paper. “You have been served.”

  Wren took the bundle of sheets and nodded. “I figured that was going to happen.”

  “Doctor Temperance Warner?” The deputy sighed and held out another sheaf. “You have been served.”

  Wren tried not to smirk. “I’m going to guess you have one of those for a Doctor Sebastian Mederos as well.”

  “My colleague is serving those.”

  “Figured.”

  She unfolded the blue-backed bundle and opened it. “Mm. Assault, and several other wonderful things. Thank you, Deputy.”

  He nodded, tipping his hat and heading out of the room.

  “Assault?” I croaked.

  “Yeah, I figured he’d lawyer up and be a dick about it.” Her eyes scanned the paper, and suddenly stopped with a gasp. “No.”

  “What?” I asked, watching her go pale.

  “He hired Alistair Hathorne.”

  Lily

  Vance and I watched as the souls walked by the throne Wren was sitting in. She had been so nervous, she puked before we even made it out the door this morning.

  Now, though, she seemed to almost be in a trance, watching carefully as each soul passed her.

  “She okay?” Vance asked.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “This is what to expect. The throne connects her to the information she needs, and she makes the call on each.”

  “She hasn’t—”

  I knew he was about to say that she hadn’t actually made a call, but her hand shot out to point at someone passing her at that moment. “This one. She belongs in the Pits.”

  Stepping forward, I nodded. “What is her transgression?”

  “Murder. Murder, murder, murder, murder…” Wren repeated it six more times.

  Each time for each murder. Vance and I walked to the wane figure of the woman, and she started wailing. I touched her forehead with my index finger and the names and places of all the murders were there. I repeated them as they came to me, to be recorded for her punishment.

  “They made me, they made me!” she screamed.

  “Liar, liar,” Wren said.

  Vance took the woman’s arm and pulled her out of the line, letting Wren visibly relax. The line began moving again as Vance took the corporeal soul to a door at the other end of the room. I had seen this so many times—when he opened the door, Raguel, Rachel or Aelion would be there to snatch them to the other side and take them to one of the others, who would decide where they really belonged in the Pit.

  The day continued like that. Most did not deserve the Pits, a few were sent to the dark fields for a period of penance, and Wren even sent one to the River Leith. Even Luce hadn’t used the Leith in a long time, but it was exactly the right punishment for a malignant narcissist. He would never remember who he was, and that loss of self was the absolute worst punishment.

  “She’s doing well,” Lucifer said, appearing next to me.

  “Very well, Luce. I don’t remember her doing this well before.”

  He chuckled. “She was too angelic to be effective before now. She’s been changed by what she’s seen on Earth, even if she doesn’t remember yet.”

  “Are you back for now?”

  “I am,�
�� he said. “Let’s halt for today and we can all have dinner.”

  I nodded, and then saw Vance nod out of the corner of my eye. He walked to the door that allowed the souls to pass into the throne room, and closed it after one more walked in.

  Wren finished out those few left, and Lucifer walked to the thrones. Hers was immediately to the right of his, and he dropped down onto the seat.

  “Hello, little star.” He grinned.

  Wren blinked a few times and then smiled. “Hi, Luce.”

  He patted her knee. “You did good, Sis. Really good.” Glancing over to the door, Vance nodded. “Looks like you cleared up the line a bit.”

  She stood, suddenly and stared at the chair. “I’m glad I could help, but holy crap that’s heady.”

  “What?”

  “Just knowing what people have done, have thought. How they’ve acted and not acted. There’s a lot of power there.”

  “Yes, there is.” He nodded and stood from his own thrown and walked them both back down to me. “Come on, Vance. Dinner.”

  Vance waggled his eyebrow and walked to join us. Luce slipped his hand in mine and I felt relief and welcome at his touch. I missed being with him all the time, but we were doing well, and I didn’t want to jinx the chance that we could actually be together once again, and soon.

  The kitchen smelled amazing, and Vance smiled as he walked over to the slow cookers he had on the counter.

  “It’s all ready.”

  Wren giggled. “You have slow cookers in Hell. I mean, does it get more ironic than that?” She stared at the two of them. “Do…do you even have to eat?”

  Lucifer laughed. “I don’t, actually. Neither do you or Lily. But you have to admit, it’s a habit that’s rather enjoyable. Vance on the other hand does need to eat, and he’s so damn good at cooking, I don’t want to object.”

  “I…don’t have to eat?” Her eyes were round and shocked.

  “Well, you do for now,” he said. “But there may be a time when you don’t.” He pulled her to his side and hugged her. “Don’t sweat it, Wren. Just enjoy Vance’s Chili con Carne.”