The Taken

“Shit.”

The child’s cries syncopated with the pounding in Grif’s head and light sparked like fireworks behind his eyelids. So when the voice sounded next to him-“Hey, Shaw”-he didn’t even try to respond. Instead, he rocked himself and the baby.

“Shh… don’t cry,” he said, not exactly sure which of them he was talking to.

“Oh, I’m not the one who’s gonna be crying if you don’t pull it together. Sit up.”

And the pounding miraculously ceased. Lifting his head, Grif realized no one had moved. The girls were still jawing at the bar. The band was still swinging like Jerry Lee was crooning. Charis was still busy in the can.

But the baby was staring at him, eyes large, dark, and hard in the sweet cherub face. Grif leaned closer and the toothless mouth twisted. “Sarge?”

“Who else?”

The words sounded funny when gummed, but Grif didn’t laugh, and the blades between his shoulders pulsed, reminding him he lacked wings. “Is the kid going to remember any of this?”

The child’s brows lowered so that she really did look like Sarge, though the voice was still undeveloped, making the angel channeling it sound like he’d sucked helium. “Relax. This’ll add ten years to her life and five hundred points to her SATs. Now what the hell are you still doing on the mud?”

“I’m sorry,” Grif said lamely. “I couldn’t allow it. Craig’s a good woman, Sarge. She didn’t deserve to die that way.”

“It’s not about deserving, Shaw.” The baby’s face hardened further. “And you haven’t changed anything. All you’ve done is prolong the inevitable. Every action she takes, every connection she makes with another person on the Surface is now something we have to work to unravel on this end. It’s not natural. She is not supposed to be there.”

Grif glanced up. Kit was leaning against a carved post, rocking slightly to the upright bass. The thought punched through Grif’s brain: Yes, she is.

He was the one who shouldn’t be here. He’d screwed up. And now a woman who lived in the past and dreamed of the future was going to die because of it.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, peering into the seat. The baby grunted. “Am I really mortal again?”

“Look down, Shaw,” the baby shot back. “You are wearing the-”

“ ‘The sinful flesh.’ ” Grif nodded dismissively, but rolled his aching shoulder blades again. “Yeah, Anas told me. So I have free will again, right? I can make my own decisions as long as I possess mortal breath?”

The baby’s eyes momentarily narrowed, and smoke roiled in their depths. “Don’t forget what else comes with that divine gift.”

And another shock of burning pain seared the core of Grif’s brain. His eyes crossed and tears rolled down his cheeks, but then the pain flashed cold and was cauterized. Yet the first thing he saw when his vision returned was Kit. Talking to her girls. Gesturing animatedly. The brightest spot in a color-saturated room, and exactly what Grif needed to regain his focus.

Eyes glued on her bittersweet smile, he waited for the pain to abate.

“I have blunted the pain of mortality for you,” Sarge was saying. “Even now, while what little of your brain is tearing itself apart, I am shielding you from the worst of it. You’re not supposed to be alive, and that knowledge lives in every cell in your body. You know those times when you can’t catch your breath?”

Grif gave a short nod.

“Well, I’m the one who gives it back to you. You’d spend every moment gasping like a landed trout were it not for me. And you know the flashback you had upon landing on the Surface? That’s your memory awakening along with your senses. The longer you stay there, the worse those’ll get. But I’m the one who allows you to wake. I alone can keep another from coming your way.

“Now if you want me to stop protecting you from these things, if you want to feel your mind tearing itself apart all the time, then by all means keep disobeying orders. But the only way to find true divine peace is by returning to the Everlast where those unfortunate human emotions are blunted. God is your balm and solace.” The baby’s eyes narrowed. “But you gotta go through me to get to Him.”

“So if I let her die, I can return to the Everlast?”

The infant gave a small nod. “If you walk out and leave her right now.”

Grif’s gaze returned to Kit. “No incubation?”

“No incubation.”

So Grif could go back to the way things were before. Back to working on his guilt over Evie’s death in a place where he was safe, protected, and with his mind intact. He’d continue to assist people into the Everlast so they could heal from their stolen, unknowable futures, knowing that eventually every one of them would enter the Gates, and Paradise. To God. To their true home.

The baby put a chubby fist to her lips, looking wise as she squinted up at Grif. “You can’t alter fate, Shaw. Katherine Craig is going to die. The best you can do now is help her cross into the Everlast.”

Like he’d helped Nicole? Was that really the best he could do? “Listen, Sarge-”

“No, you listen. Defy me again and I’ll send you dreams you’ll never forget. Keep defying me and I will send you a living nightmare. But leave now and all will be as is fated.”

“Sarge-”

“Walk out now, Shaw.”

Grif tried again, but the Pure was gone. The chubby limbs lost their dexterity, and with a blink, the eyes were once again as light as a robin’s egg.

“Oh, look, she’s awake.” Charis returned, smiling, and lifted her baby with an exaggerated movement, rubbing her nose with her own. “Everything go okay?”

“Sure,” he said quickly. “She’s, um, a smart one. Might want to aim for Yale. I think she’s got a shot.”

The infant gurgled agreement, then dribbled spit from the corner of her mouth. Charis wiped it away with a readied cloth and gurgled right back. “That’s so sweet of you to keep Mr. Shaw company. But is my little Boo-Bear ready to go home? Ye-es… How about just one little dance first? A tiny swing around the room. Gotta show off your onesie… everyone loves black skulls and red cherries.

“And,” she said, nodding her thanks to Grif, “Nic loved this one.”

Whirling away, she held the child high over her other baby bump, still whispering lovely nonsense into the tiny ear. The baby, though, kept her wide eyes on Grif the whole way. She gave him a look that said he could change nothing. That he shouldn’t be there at all.

It was a look that said leave while you can.

Chapter Twelve

Kit slept like her life depended on it. Even in the home of a former mobster, or perhaps because of it, she fell into a dream state that was a black hole for her thoughts and emotions. Nothing existed for twelve straight hours, and she actually awoke refreshed, and feeling for the first time since Nic’s death like it was okay to be breathing.

Maybe that was because Nic had visited her in her dreams, saying she knew Kit would find out who did this to her, and that she really was in a better place.

“Nothing made in China,” she told Kit, in a pretend whisper, then straightened with a smile. “Not here. Not in the Everlast.”

Shaking her head at her own imagination, Kit took a long shower, dressed carefully in a gray pencil skirt and white blouse, and backcombed the hell out of her hair. By the time she sat down to a hearty breakfast of toast and eggs with Grif and Tony, she felt settled if not totally herself.

But Grif was obviously preoccupied. He kept touching his head like it was tender or he was worried or he’d forgotten something. He snapped at her when she asked if he was okay, and refused to answer when she asked what they were going to do next. The only thing that kept him from sullying her fragile good mood was recalling the way he looked the night before, hanging with her friends, listening attentively as they spoke of Nic’s life, and all the