The Wardens Boxed Set

by Heather D Glidewell

  She turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Did he say anything else?” Helen asked as soon as she was gone.

  “Yeah, they’re going to come with us to the gravesite tonight to give us protection.”

  “That’s nice of them.” She looked bewildered. “Usually Death won’t let us bring back a lost soul.”

  “Krista isn’t lost. We know where she is. And Death didn’t take her, so it doesn’t count. She willed herself to an angel.”

  “Still, she is considered dead.” Helen started pacing. “I guess we should be happy that we have allies already showing.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s time we got our shit on the road and did a bit more training. We only get one shot tonight and we need to make sure we do it right.”

  ***

  We practiced all day to get every last detail right. As twilight approached we loaded up into the cars and drove to the cemetery where Krista’s body had been laid to rest eighteen years earlier. The ground was damp with recent rain, which in itself was odd because it hadn’t rained at the manor. We walked four rows in and three headstones down and there it was, Krista’s tombstone. It was worn from the weather, but otherwise untouched. Bits of dead flowers littered the ground around the stone, leading me to believe that her adoptive parents had been there in the last few months to pay their respects.

  My mother smiled at the stone and reached out and touched it. I could see the sentiment in her eyes as she paid her respects to the dead girl. The wind suddenly picked up. It was so strong I was nearly knocked off my feet. That was when she stepped out of the shadows: a blonde-haired woman in her early forties with her hands lifted above her head.

  “You came!” my mother exclaimed, running towards the woman and wrapping her arms around her.

  “I wasn’t sure if I believed you, Angie. I’m still not sure. She’s been dead for so long,” the woman said dully.

  My mother called me over. “Dawn, this is Adrianne. She was Krista’s adoptive mother.”

  I held out my hand. She hesitated at first, then grasped it firmly.

  “Oh God, is it true?” she cried. “Are you really going to bring my baby girl back from the dead?”

  “I’m sure going to try,” I stammered as Helen came up behind me.

  “Both of you! Oh, my! I never thought I would see the day.” Adrianne held onto both of us, the tears streaming down her face. Then she caught sight of Peter and his group taking their positions around the tombstone and gasped.

  “Don’t worry, they’re with us,” I said, trying to reassure her.

  “But they’re reapers?” she exclaimed, looking at my mother. “How did you get reapers?”

  “Apparently Peter is an old friend of mine from my days on the cloud,” my mother murmured.

  “Well, this is a blessing in itself! Even Death is helping raise the dead.” Adrianne pushed past us and approached the headstone. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I just need your power,” my mother said softly, taking Adrianne’s hand. “We have quite a bit of it here. We just need a little more.” She smiled at me. “When the wind picks up Dawn is going to have to fight to keep the flame lit. I’ll need a little extra power to make sure that the wind doesn’t hit as hard.”

  “Anything, Angie. Anything to bring my daughter back.” She squeezed my mother’s hand.

  “It’s time,” my father announced, taking his position next to Shawn and Minerva.

  Everything was prepared and ready to go. The scene looked like this: one circle of fifty reapers, one circle of purebloods and Carriers, and me and Helen in the center of the circle. I concentrated and managed to light only a white flame, which spread around the circle, enclosing us and keeping all others out. The purpose of the flame was to purify the area. That way there was no chance that Krista could come back dark. She would return in the exact state she was in before she died.

  The ground began to crack and shake as Helen took to the air. Her white wings were gorgeous and at any other time would have been a distraction. A crack began to form in the dirt by the headstone and, little by little, the casket made its way to the surface.

  I reached out with my other hand and forced the lid off. Krista’s body was perfectly preserved, as if it had just been buried there the day before. She looked gorgeous, and so peaceful with her hands crossed over her chest. Suddenly the earth around us started to sing in unison, words that I didn’t understand but repeated to the best of my ability. I knew I was getting some of them wrong but I had a feeling God would forgive me.

  The wind started to pick up just as my mother had predicted and seemed to bring life back into the dead girl’s body. Then, unexpectedly, the fire burnt out and the world went silent. I thought that I had done something wrong and tried to relight the flame, but nothing would come from my hands, no matter how hard I tried. Suddenly I felt torn. My body lurched and I fell to the ground. My knees hit the earth hard and pain radiated through my body. A burning sensation in my soul caused me to cry out. Then it was gone. All I felt was the pain from my fall. I pulled myself to my feet and looked at my mother. She looked concerned but was clearly too afraid to break the circle and run to my aid.

  Helen touched down on the earth, her eyes gray and weary. I gave her a confused look. This hadn’t happened in the trial runs. What did it mean? Had it worked? Did we bring her back?

  “We wait,” she said, wrapping her arms around me.

  Nobody moved. I was about to give up hope when I heard it. First it was a soft cough, then a harsh breath, and finally… words.

  “Can you hear me?” Krista’s voice cracked as if she was parched.

  “Oh, my God!”

  I flew from Helen and bent over the casket. Krista was blinking, she was breathing, and she was alive!

  “I knew you would be the first face I see, dark one,” she said, smiling awkwardly up at me.

  I reached in and took her hands in mine, helping her sit up. I heard gasps and cries as I attempted to help her from her prison.

  “You going to be able to do this?” I asked her softly.

  “I haven’t walked on my own two legs in eighteen years, Dawn. I have a feeling it isn’t like riding a bike.” She laughed hoarsely.

  I motioned to Shawn to come into the circle. He lifted Krista from the casket and held her tight to his chest.

  “Don’t worry, little lady. We’ll get you to the house, where you can change into something more chic and up-to-date,” he teased her.

  She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  I looked back at Adrianne as my mother comforted her. She was hysterical with happiness; then again I think I would have been, too, if I’d just seen my child raised from the dead eighteen years after she was murdered. I walked over to her and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  “You’re coming back to the house?” I asked as she sobbed.

  “Yes, yes, I have some clothes for her in the car.” She smiled at me. “Thank you, thank you, all of you.”

  Peter gave me a polite nod. I had the feeling that he was smiling inside. Then, with another gust of wind, the reapers were gone. I would never forget what they had done for us that night.

  We will return if we are needed.

  Peter’s voice echoed in my head. I felt a sudden peace. With the reapers on our side how could we lose? More would be coming; I knew that for certain.

  ***

  Upon returning to the house we were welcomed with cheers from Adam as he jumped around squealing about how we had done it. I found myself wondering what he had managed to get into, but then I realized he was just excited.

  Krista ate more than I could have done in three meals, shoveling food into her mouth without chewing. It was actually quite disgusting to watch, but then again she hadn’t eaten in over eighteen years. She was amazing, her voice far more angelic than it had been in my visions. She thanked all of
us and held onto her mother with all her might. It was an unexpected and unsurpassable reunion.

  It took her a few days to get walking again. She hadn’t been kidding when she said she wasn’t sure how to use a real body anymore. She had to be retaught a lot of basic movements without sending gusts of wind through the house and breaking the glass. Her control of her power was even more erratic than mine.

  I was sitting in the living room watching a horror movie one evening when Krista walked in. She had taken to the new style nicely and had on a pair of flared jeans and a purple baby doll shirt with “Angel” written in sparkly silver letters across the chest. She took a seat next to me and looked at the screen. I took my eyes away from the TV long enough to watch as her eyes grew wider and her mouth opened in shock.

  “You really like this stuff?” she asked.

  “Yeah. It’s nice to watch something that I don’t have a hand in. For the hour and a half I watch a movie I feel normal,” I answered her truthfully.

  “I don’t see how this makes you feel normal. I mean, watching this should make you feel empowered.” She looked at me and smiled slowly.

  “How is this going to make me feel empowered?” I laughed, pulling my knees closer to my body.

  “Because we are meant to stop things like this from happening. Look here, this demon seems to think that he can inhabit anyone’s body that he wants. It’s our job to stop that. You’ve seen the possessed first hand. They are quite frightening.” She looked back at the TV.

  “I guess you could say that. Never thought of it that way.” More truth.

  “You know, back when I was alive things were a bit different.” She spoke as if she was still floating in Purgatory. I supposed it was going to take some getting used to, being back in a living body. “I never saw anyone die. Not until that night John killed me.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you a question about that,” I said, losing interest in the movie.

  “Anything.” She turned to face me.

  “Mara said you knew what he was. Yet you still loved him?”

  I saw her eyes cloud up. “John was very dear to me. When I met him all I saw was the good in him. That boy would give the shirt off his back to a homeless man if it meant giving him just an ounce of comfort. He was giving, kind and honest. I should have known when he went away he would come back changed. I held onto hope, though. Hope that he wouldn’t find the darkness that was in him.” Her smile faded and she looked lost for a moment.

  “He hurt you, and yet you still came for him when he was meaning to do me in,” I said softly.

  “I will always love him. Even the eighteen years I spent in Purgatory wasn’t enough to make me stop. You still love your Wesley even after he betrayed you,” she reminded me. It was a valid point. I did still love my blue-eyed boy.

  “You may be right. What happened that day? I only saw some of it.” I hoped that I wasn’t crossing any imaginary line.

  “I met him at a restaurant, where we had dinner. There were four of us. John, his friend Ryan, Ryan’s girlfriend, and me. John lost his cool in the parking lot outside the restaurant. I had received a phone call while we were at dinner and I was concerned it was the girl I had seen in the drawings. He hit me. You saw all of that. The whole thing went so fast that before I knew it I was scared and crouched in his closet. My last moments were the worst moments of my life, of course. When he had taken the last bit of innocence from me all I willed for was death. Nobody was there to save me. I didn’t have any amazing friends like you do.” She ran her fingers through her blonde hair.

  “You don’t remember much then, do you?” I asked as she looked toward her feet.

  “No, just the fragments that I have in my sleep now and then.” She looked tired suddenly at the thought of sleep.

  “You know, anytime you need me I’m just one door down,” I reassured her.

  “Thank you, Dawn.” She reached out to grasp my hand. “You know the same goes for you.”

  “What’s going on in here?”

  I heard Adam’s voice from behind the couch. We both looked up to see him staring back at us.

  “Nothing. Just watching a movie,” I said, hitting play on the remote.

  Our brief moment of getting to know each other was over.

  “Ah, yes,” said Adam, glancing at the TV, “an oldie but a goldie.”

  Krista let out a snort and Adam frowned.

  “Let’s not forget I’m thirty-six years old, trapped in an eighteen-year-old body,” Krista said, laughing.

  “You know, for an old lady you’re pretty hot.” Adam winked at her and Krista roared with laughter once more.

  I looked at Adam and frowned. I had never heard him hit on anyone and here he was flirting with Krista. It was odd how it made me feel funny, not quite how it was with Helen but still there under the skin.

  “Adam, you’re a charmer,” Krista told him. “Your girlfriend must be so happy to have you,” she teased.

  I liked how she reminded him of Nadine. The last few days I’d developed the feeling that he had forgotten all about her.

  “Yeah, she’s pretty lucky.” He winked again and jumped over the back of the couch, taking a seat between the two of us. “Of course, right now I think I’m pretty lucky. I have an awesome best friend and I have you, beautiful.”

  “Oh, please.” I poked him with my big toe.

  ***

  Mom sent Adam back to Midvale with his father a few days later. The reapers promised to keep them safe, and that put my mother at ease. Adam would be returning after school ended, with his father of course, to continue training. Mom thought it was best that way. It was already raising eyebrows that both Adam and myself were missing. It was starting to get around that we had run off to elope. Teenagers and their rumors, right?

  I continued doing my schoolwork from the manor, sending in everything electronically. The teachers were pretty gracious about it and, of course, my mother made regular phone calls so they couldn’t complain that they were being left in the dark on anything. My “grandfather” was slowly dying, but because he had nobody to care for him we had to stay with him. I couldn’t believe that this was working. My mother called them every day to give them a heads-up on the situation and check on my grades. Surprisingly, I was doing better with my studies by not being in the classroom. Apparently, I had been more distracted by the pastel-clad children of God than anticipated.

  Krista took the time to help me with any work that I didn’t understand. She remembered much of what she had learned as a senior eighteen years earlier. In fact, she was smarter than anyone I had ever met. We were getting closer and closer as the days wore on. If Adam wasn’t already my best friend I would have put Krista at the top of my list.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: A New Beginning

  I received an email from Aaron about two weeks after Adam left. I was incredibly excited to hear from him after our last phone conversation. I had no idea what to expect from the email but it wasn’t good. He wasn’t the same boy anymore. It wasn’t that much of a surprise. The way he had talked on the phone to me, admitting to me his deepest feelings, had come across as a way of saying goodbye. The email just confirmed it. The Aaron that I had loved was no more.

  His family had sold their house in Midvale and had moved to their undisclosed new location. He was finishing school there, not that there was much left to finish. I read the email carefully about a hundred times. There was no “I love you,” not even a single “I miss you.” It was plain as plain could be. This was the end of Aaron and me. I was finally getting what I had wanted all along.

  “You okay?” asked Krista behind me.

  I looked up from my computer and tried to smile but my lips wouldn’t curve. Why did it affect me so much? The message was vague and still didn’t say where he was located. Even when I tried to track the IP address it just led me in a loop right back to my own computer. It was over.

  “Yeah, I will be,�
� I replied and reached up to rub my right eye. I looked down at my fingers and found they were damp with tears that had not fallen.

  “It’s amazing how much it hurts,” Krista said softly.

  “It was an accident, anyway.” I felt my bottom lip quiver and I looked away before she could see.

  “It may have been, but you still hurt.” She placed her arms around my chest and held me close to her for a few moments.

  “It was all my fault, you know,” I told her, feeling the tears coming.

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “He wouldn’t have had to leave if it wasn’t for me. I led those creatures to his doorstep. He became whatever he became because of me,” I sobbed.

  “I don’t think he sees it that way. I spent a lot of time watching you. I saw how he looked at you. I could read the confusion on your face. You held him close to you but you wished to set him free. That contract was not created just by you. He offered you his soul and you had no choice but to take it as your own.” Krista wiped the tears from my cheeks.

  “If I hadn’t been so set on hurting Wesley I never would have made my claim on him,” I said, thinking back to our first date. I had gone out of my way to make Wesley angry. I had thrown Aaron in his face time and time again, until he was gone.

  “I admit I have never claimed anyone. I don’t know how to do it or what it feels like,” Krista admitted.

  I looked at her and saw nothing but innocence. You would have thought that after everything she had been through she would be dark, brooding and seeking revenge.

  “It feels like the world is going to stop if something happens to them,” I told her. “When Aaron was attacked I felt like my heart was being torn from my body. I saw nothing but colors; it paralyzed me. I hope that nobody ever figures out that the way to disarm a Warden is to hurt their claim.” I glanced at the wall for a second, trying to get my emotions under control.

  “I hope I never have to feel that,” Krista said softly. “It was hard enough dealing with the emotional turmoil in Purgatory.”