CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT #2
I bit my lip, and then clarity settled in with a wave of calm that evaporated my indecision. Nothing had helped so far. What did I have to lose?
How? I asked.
The ice crystalized in my veins, and as if that was all he’d been waiting for, the ghost yanked.
I landed, kind of, in a familiar place. Trivial things like physics and gravity were a persona non grata here.
It’d been months. I’d convinced myself that I cooked up the surreal experience as a coping mechanism for Ben’s death.
Reliving the encounter now, I had to face the glaring flaw with that theory. I hadn’t known Ben was deceased at the time. Instead, I’d been working my way through a drug-induced slumber inside Vedault’s version of a holding cell, believing Ben stood me up, not died.
Wherever here was—the void, somewhere in between—it was a dull, eerie existence.
As far as the eye could see in any direction, there was nothing but endless, blinding white landscape. The afterlife from hell was a trip. Yeah, afterlife worked. I’d call it Al. Maybe it wouldn’t seem quite so intimidating?
Another glance around crushed that theory to smithereens. How could something so blindingly white and expansive feel like a claustrophobic cave?
Screw you, Al.
Despite my mind possessing such a strong self-awareness that said I had limbs, looking down didn’t show a physical form. It was enough to send my balance spiraling into a dizzying sense of vertigo.
I stilled, regaining a fraction of control.
No malevolent fog crept along the ground. It was a small comfort that the place had mostly returned to normal. Had Ben’s spirit been the catalyst for the change or something else? No, my money bet on something else. He’d saved me.
I’d been attacked by a malicious spirit and nearly lost myself. What an event like that translated to in the real world, I didn’t know, but avoiding a repeat was at the top of my to-do list. Only following Ben’s call to the edges of Al had freed me from the assault.
I shivered.
The unnatural feeling couldn’t be shaken. Coldness crept in.
I shouldn’t be here.
“Okay, was that you, ghost guy?” No answer. “You do realize it wasn’t the best time to tug me into unconsciousness, right?” I spoke at a low volume, since the place had a tendency to distort and echo, as if the sheer vastness yearned to swallow up every little sound.
Nothing.
“God, ghosts are frustrating.”
So I guessed we were going with Plan B.
I didn’t have physical eyelids to close, so to concentrate, I tuned out all the distracting visual noise the landscape generated. I spun—or the ground spun beneath me—and stopped, facing one direction in particular.
It didn’t stand out from the other three hundred and fifty-nine degrees, but something urged me to go there, so I went as quickly as I could, using a version of spiritual sonar whenever I worried I’d lost my heading.
Without muscles or lungs, traveling had no concrete point of reference.
All the usual markers like fatigue or strain were absent here in this void.
Ten minutes or hours could have passed while trapped in Al.
One moment I was not there, and then I was.
I arrived at the same invisible barrier where I’d found Ben and that other stranger.
Some part of me must have hoped to see Ben, even though I figured he’d moved on. Therefore, when I only spied a single form, the stranger who had helped me before, my heart ached.
The man, who looked to be our age, stood there with that same stern expression he’d worn the last time. Was it just because he only seemed to be around during life-and-death situations?
“Are you my guardian angel?” I asked, already figuring out who he was.
He’d dragged me to the construction site—both times in my dreams and in real life.
It’d taken the context of being here in the void to connect the faceless voice to the presence before me.
In the way dreams were hazy, once I connected the dots, his face grew clearer when recalling the nightmares.
For whatever reason, he had needed to show me the mayor, and I felt it necessary to find out why.
My train of thought, wanting to ask him questions, must have been enough to let him pass through, because from one beat to the next, he materialized inside the barrier, standing before me.
“The mayor—” I began.
He sighed, hovering closer. “Willa, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for that exact conversation—years, I think, but, and this literally might be the cause of my second death, it has to take the back burner right now. You’re in danger.”
Years?
Had he been around for all that time?
“No, I agree. This wasn’t exactly the best time to go waltzing through—”
He cut me off. “Do you want to save Manny or not?”
He knows Manuel, I thought with further conviction, but tabled the information to analyze later.
“Okay, earlier, out there, you said I needed to let you in. I did that, right? You’re inside the bubble thingy.”
He drifted closer. “I know, but it wasn’t enough. It worked for Ben, I think, because you two shared a connection in the living world prior to his death.”
“And I don’t know you from Adam,” I surmised. “Well, unless you have a way to bring yourself back from the dead to say hello in real life, you must have another plan.”
He nodded. “I do. Listen carefully. I’m inside your head now. The door is open for me, but we need to make it a permanent thing.”
Permanent sounded scary.
He continued, “When you wake up—”
I groaned, because the last time he’d forced me into consciousness, it’d hurt—a lot.
“I know, I know. It’ll be okay though. You know it. You’ve survived it, and Willa? Every difficult experience you survive, you will come out stronger for it. So, I’ll send you back, and I want you to get some of Manuel’s blood and yours—”
“What? No way!” I cried, bobbing back five feet in a blink.
The guy closed the distance. “You’re both already bleeding.
I’m not asking you to cut your wrist with a ceremonial knife.
Just dip your finger in yours and then his, make sure they mix, and draw a single line on your forehead, the place where our connection will be.
Do you have all that? Mix blood, line on forehead. There isn’t much time.”
“Uh, but—”
“Sorry!” he said, and I was really getting tired of his repetitive sorry-not-sorry. He punched through my being.
I gasped, lifting upright. My torso dropped down, cradled in Manuel’s lap once more. When had that happened?
Beyond that, a veritable cyclone greeted me upon arrival.
No time indeed.
“Willa!” Manuel shouted above the screeching wind.
Something malevolent filled the air here, stirring those winds and seeking a target. It found one. The second the invisible weight of its attention settled on me, armies of biting energy coated my skin.
The storm died down as it drew itself up, concentrating its power for a more precise attack.
Without the gale force wind kicking up dust, the view cleared for a moment, providing a flash of what’d happened while I’d been preoccupied with the little ghostly field trip.
Pierce lay on the floor, a puddle of blood growing beneath his form.
The FBI agents and Veritas all moved, attempting to do something, but what, I didn’t know.
Were they preparing to square off against the supernatural entity?
If they’d already shot Pierce, then how much good would their weapons be?
One man shouted, “It’s going after the kids!”
Veritas’s eyes flew to me. “No, it’s going after Willa!”
They all began running, but it’d be too late.
I knew it down in my soul.
Now, Willa, the voice urged, sounding disconcertingly clear with all the wind drowning everything out. That made sense since he was inside me.
“I’m sorry, Manny!” I screamed as I dipped my finger through his blood then mine, drawing the single mark on my forehead.
“Willa, what are you doing?” he cried, gripping me tighter and shielding me with his body.
Something sparked inside me with a crackle of static electricity. Icy liquid suffused my system, flooding through my veins and racing throughout my limbs.
The beginnings of an opposing force began to grow within me.
Willa.
Then, I knew no more.