The new house was gorgeous. Built on stately lines, it still maintained a lovely Southwestern feel with the stucco and judicious use of mosaic tiles. The entry was done in terracotta and cream, warm without being busy. Chuch’s personality shone in the various frogs displayed at prominent positions in the front room; he’d lost his entire collection in the fire, but he had been busy replacing them. I remembered him telling me frogs were good luck, and that was why he liked them.
Maybe that’s my problem. Lack of frogs.
Eva came running down the hall, already slim again. This woman was incredibly beautiful with golden skin, shining black hair, and darkly liquid eyes. She greeted me with a huge hug, which I returned with a touch of desperation. We exchanged greetings, and then she hugged Booke too. Unlike Chuch, she didn’t react to his age or his frail appearance. Kel got a friendly wave, not that I blamed her. He was rather imposing, not the sort of male you touched without an invitation. I could hardly believe I’d slept with him, in fact, or that he’d chosen to console me.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I have tamales in the fridge. It will only take a minute to heat them.”
“Please.” My stomach felt fine at the moment.
“Is Cami asleep?” Chuch wanted to know.
“Just got her down. She’ll meet everyone in the morning.” Eva got busy in the kitchen, dishing up green sauce and cream to go with the tamales.
I sat down on a pretty stool near the bar. “Thank you for this. You’ll never know what it means to have somebody who’s just always here for me, no questions asked.”
“Oh, there will be questions,” she said, aiming a wooden spoon at me. “Believe that. But food first. Then we’ll talk.”
Truth & Consequences
I actually told the story over our late supper, with Booke filling in where I faltered. It was a little awkward repeating his story, but by the time they had the gist, Chuch and Eva were exchanging significant glances. Then she drew me aside.
“You brought him here to die?”
“What else could I do?” I asked. “It was his last request.”
“I don’t know . . . fix it. Isn’t that kind of your thing? Finding solutions when anybody else would give it up as a lost cause?”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t have the fight in me anymore, Eva. Chance died. Do you get that? I just can’t throw myself at monsters anymore. If”—here, my voice broke, and tears threatened—“he’s really gone, then I can’t make his sacrifice worth nothing. I have to live for him. He made me promise.”
“Oh, nena, I’m sorry.” She pulled me to her in a tight hug, and I worked not to lose it on her shoulder. After a minute, I tapped her arm to let her know I had it under control, then she stepped back.
“Don’t blame Corine,” Booke said then. “My hearing is perfectly adequate. It’s my joints that seem to be seizing up.”
“We should all get some sleep,” Chuch put in. “We won’t solve this in the middle of the night.”
From his expression, he still hadn’t given up on the idea of saving our mutual friend . . . and that was fine with me. If Chuch could fix it, fine. Let one of his hundred cousins sort out the problem. I just . . . I couldn’t. My tank was empty; I had nothing left to give.
Eva settled Booke and I in the two guest bedrooms; Kel volunteered to sleep on the couch. I couldn’t think anymore about Booke’s problems, or what Kel’s archangel wanted from me, or what would come to pass if I held firm in my refusal. Grim, muddled thoughts occupied my mind as I brushed my teeth. Given my general misery, I expected to toss and turn, but exhaustion claimed me as soon as I hit the bed.
Overhead, the sun shone like molten gold, beaming down on a verdant field dotted with yellow flowers. Jonquils, I thought, though I lacked my mother’s affinity for such things. In the distance, a smooth gray lake lapped up against a rocky shore, and across the span of the water, a trio of mountains rose in stately majesty. Pale mist wreathed their peaks, cloaking the tops from view. I spun in a slow circle, wondering where I was, but the landscape gave no clue. I had no memory of leaving the bed, no clue how I’d gotten here, but the grass felt real and crisp beneath my bare feet, lightly damp with morning dew. Despite the sweetness of the honeyed air, I had to be asleep; Booke had no reason to contact me this way anymore. Nor did I feel the familiar tingle of a lucid dream. Which meant this hyper-vivid dream was something else.
Movement through the yellow flowers caught my eye. Perhaps I should’ve been afraid, but I stepped forward with more curiosity than I’d felt since returning to the real world. My pace quickened until I was running, and then I saw him.
Chance.
Here, he was whole and uninjured, as he had been before the dagger, before the blood. Before he died for me. Clad in white, his black hair gleamed with a hint of blue beneath the sunlight, and his tawny skin contrasted beautifully with the loose white clothing he wore. His smile widened as he drew closer; I realized belatedly that I was wearing a T-shirt and panties, exactly what I’d had on when I fell asleep. No wonder he looked so amused.
“This isn’t real,” I said, expecting disbelief to pop the dream like a soap bubble.
“I’ve learned a great deal,” he answered. “So I will simply say that reality is subjective.”
It was so hard to look at him, knowing when I woke he would still be gone. I’d still be alone. We’d finally made the pieces fit in Sheol, and then I lost him. The hurt went through me like a barbed blade, leaving bloody rents in my heart all over again. I didn’t know if I could bear waking.
“It’s good to see that my subconscious manifestation of you knows enough to be annoying,” I muttered.
“How can I prove to you it’s me?”
“Anything you know about me, I know too.”
He huffed out a sigh. “We don’t have time to argue about whether I’m here or not, love. It’s costing a lot for me to reach you, and there are things you need to know. Will you listen, please?”
“Fine.” I couldn’t resist going to him. At this point, I didn’t care if he was a hallucination generated by loneliness, regret, and desire.
His arms felt deliciously real around me; he smelled of fresh green grass and sheets warmed by sunshine. And when he kissed me, it was heaven. Chance tasted of wild berries and lemon, a thirst quenched by the play of his lips on mine, the luxuriant sweep of tongues hot as a summer day. Desire cascaded through me, raw and painful, an onslaught that ended with my fingers tangled in his hair, my body flat against his. Chance tightened his arms, a low growl escaping him. He pressed me tighter, tighter, until I could hardly breathe. Then I saw the struggle in his face as he set me away.
“If we don’t stop that, I’ll just kiss you until the power goes out.” Chance took a fortifying breath, making me wonder about the rules where he existed. “I’m working on a way back to you, but once you shuffle off the mortal coil, well, they don’t mean for anyone to make a return trip.”
“You weren’t wholly mortal, though.” I gazed up at him, then traced his cheekbones with my fingertips, wanting to memorize his features.
If nothing else, I’ll have this moment, this dream.
The last time I’d seen him, he had been pale and still, face spattered with blood. Let me remember him like this. Let me believe he went somewhere good. Maybe that was the point of the dream . . . to offer comfort. Humans had all kinds of self-defense mechanisms that made it possible for us to survive the unthinkable.
He nodded. “That’s the only reason I have a small shot. It’s been interesting getting to know my dad.” Chance hesitated and shook his head. “He’s . . . not the usual father figure. I’m trying to cut a deal, but he seems resistant to letting me go.”
That revelation gave me pause. Could he really be contacting me from the other side? Stranger things had happened. I mean, if he could broadcast on Shan’s radio . . . hope stirred in a delicate shiver, like a dappled fawn.
“Tell me something only you and Min would know,” I demanded.
His gaze sharpened with appreciation. “And you’ll call her to confirm? I appreciate that, love. It will mean a lot to her to find out for sure that I’m not just gone. She’s a mess right now, wondering.” He said it with authority, as if he knew.
“Me too,” I admitted, low.
“I’m aware. But did you have to cry all over the Nephilim?” His lovely mouth firmed into an irritated line.
“You can check up on me?” Oddly, that made me feel simultaneously better and worse.
“Not easily.” Which was a yes.
“I’m sorry if you were bothered by Kel comforting me.” Such a weird thing to say to your dead boyfriend.
Chance acknowledged that with a grimace, tightening his arms about me. “He still wants you. And if he makes a move, I’ll find a way to kill that son of bitch.”
“What he wants and what I do are two different things.”
“Oh?” His eyes revealed a hint of vulnerability . . . and surely imaginary people didn’t suffer from crises of confidence.
“I made up my mind before we went to Sheol, Chance. I wanted us to be together, always. I still want that.” If only it didn’t sound so crazy and impossible.
“I’ll find a way, I promise. Don’t give up. And try not to cry so much. It makes you fragile and irresistible.”
I laughed. “Bullshit. It makes me snotty and swollen.”
He dropped a kiss onto my upturned mouth. “So . . . something only Min and I would know. Ask her if my first-grade lunchbox had Archie and Jughead on it. She got it at a thrift store for a buck fifty as I recall. The thermos was cracked. We patched it with duct tape.”
There was no way I knew that on any level. Chance rarely talked about his childhood. I could be inventing shit, but a phone call in the morning would verify whether I’d been with him or lost in my own crate of crazy. Gods, I hoped it was the former. After so much darkness, I desperately needed a ray of light.
“I’ll ask her,” I said softly.
“Good. I’m about to lose connection, so this is the important thing. I’m looking for a way to part the veil on my side, but I don’t have the power to crack it all the way open. So I need you working on it too. Find a spell, an artifact, something. There are books with information on Ebisu’s realm . . . some will be accurate. And that’s—”
His voice faded, and his wonderful, so-tangible presence flickered. Touch went first, then sight. Soon, I could only smell him all around me, and then that dissipated too. I wanted a good-bye kiss desperately, but I was by myself in a field of yellow flowers, the sweet wind rippling over their petals. When I woke, I was alone in bed, and my pillow was damp with tears.
Checking my phone told me I had been asleep for four hours or so. Far too early to get up or call Min. There would be no more rest for me that night, however, so I got dressed and took Butch out for a walk around the property. The dog didn’t seem to mind the nocturnal meanderings. A shiver ran through me as I recalled being attacked by shades on this very spot. At night, the Texas sky was huge and heavy with stars. It was chilly enough that I hunched deeper into my sweatshirt, watching the Chihuahua dance around some bushes.
