feature in its face, other than the gaping hole of a mouth and the two swirling blacker-than-black pits where eyes should have been. It reached its hand out to me.
“It’s time,” it said, a low rumble that sounded more like a growl than a voice. Using my palms, I pressed against the floor to slide away from it. I didn’t get far, though. It took another step forward and its disgusting minions inched closer.
“Not yet!” It growled at one of the demons that nipped at my hand.
So much for promises. I took a deep breath that left my head swimming and sat up, slowly.
“I-I-I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want.” I couldn’t believe these were my words, coming out of my mouth.
The shadow man standing over me grinned and something dark and disgusting dripped from its mouth and landed on the studio floor. “Good.” Its voice rumbled through me like a clap of thunder, setting my insides on fire. It took a step back, motioning for the others to do the same and I sat up.
The walls stared to shake and my hands flew out to brace myself. The floor under my feet began to rise and bend and crack apart. The concrete buckled and a crevice opened up right before my eyes. I’d stepped out of the way just in time. Screams wafted out the darkness. I had to blink, hoping it would clear away what I was seeing. This couldn’t be real.
“Go.” The shadow man pointed a dark finger into the opening. I looked up at it and raised a brow.
“What?” I took another step back, only to met with a wall of shadows. “You want me to jump in there?”
It nodded.
“No!” I held my palms up, trying to put some distance between me and the hole. “Hell, no!”
“Gooooo!”
I slapped my hands over my ears when its voice rattled my skull. A flame licked my back. No. A tongue. A nip at my calf. I stepped forward, trying to get away from the shadow demons closing in on me from behind. I didn’t want this.
The concrete disappeared under my toes. Rock crumbled and spilled over the edge. No sound echoed up from the pit to indicate that it had landed. It was hard, but I forced myself to take a breath. Another.
I looked over my shoulder at the shadows ready to claim me. Let them have me or see what was on the other side? It wasn’t even a choice.
I stepped forward and the darkness swallowed me whole.
Chapter 28
I stood with my toes touching the edge of the cliff and peered over the side. The van hadn’t made it all the way down. A tangle of fir trees held most of it in place. The rest of it was littered along the mountainside. Hunks of twisted metal. Shards of glass and tattered strips of tire. A red leather handbag.
A body.
I knew she was dead. I could feel the pull. More than one, actually. The rest must still be in the battered church van. Sometimes I wondered where the feeling went. The urgency to preserve a person’s life. Save them. That impulse had been gone for so long that I didn’t even remember what it felt like. I was about to step over the side but stopped when I felt the heat melt up from the ground behind me. Screams erupted from the soil, then tapered off until they were muffled by the earth.
Easton.
I glanced at him over my shoulder and raised a brow. He looked like a six-foot block of midnight carved out of the bright blue sky behind him.
“Really?” I said. “A church van accident? How scandalous.”
Easton ignored me and brushed himself off. I stepped off the drop-off and he followed me over the edge without a word. He squinted at the sun, frowning. He looked annoyed. But then again, Easton generally looked annoyed. I started with the woman laid out a few feet from the van. Kneeling down, I brushed the matted brown hair from her face. Her silver butterfly barrette was hanging on by only a hair, so I fastened it back into her curls.
“Time to go home, sweetheart,” I whispered and reached for my scythe.
Easton brushed past me and headed for the van. “Why don’t you stop whispering sweet nothings into her ear and get the job done already?”
“Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine this morning?” I said.
Easton grumbled something and disappeared into the van.
I lifted my scythe, and as natural as breathing used to be, I let it drop. It tore into her flesh and when it came back up, a pretty soul came along with it. She stumbled into me and I gripped her shoulders to steady her. She looked back at the van.
“Do you understand what happened to you?”
She wrapped her willowy arms around her waist and nodded. She bit her lip like she might cry, but no tears ever came. They never would again.
“My friends?” she whispered.
Her friends. I sighed and looked for Easton, who was still rummaging around in the van. I didn’t want to tell her. If he was here, it couldn’t be good for them.
Holding up a finger for her to wait, I made my way down to the van. Easton came billowing out of the broken window like smoke and I took a step back. He stood up straight and had a soul in each hand. The man looked dazed. The woman looked terrified, her eyes trained on Easton like he was… well, like he was exactly what he was.
“Two of them?”
Easton rolled his eyes. “They’re all yours. I’m just helping you.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Easton never helped me with my charges. He’d taken on all of Finn’s when they asked, but when it came to mine, he refused. None of this made sense.
“What’s going on?” I followed him up the hill where the friends stared at one another, not knowing what to say.
“Nothing.” He wouldn’t look at me. His violet eyes stayed glued to the horizon. “Just help me get them over.”
There was no telling what he was up to. I had a feeling it wasn’t good. A nervous ache started a slow burn in my chest. I didn’t need any more complications. My afterlife was beginning to be defined by them.
“You’re sure nothing’s wrong?”
Easton spun around. His eyes on fire. “Anaya! Open the fucking gateway already!”
I pressed my lips together to hold in the argument brewing. Balthazar had sent him. He had to.
Easton was notoriously unhappy, but he’d never in over four hundred years spoken to me that way. I nodded and closed my eyes. I raised my palms and felt the world ripple like water around me.
Warmth. So much warmth swirled around me like a melody you never wanted to forget. How could
Easton hate this?
When I opened my eyes, the world had dissolved and given birth to beauty. I smiled at the group of souls, whose faces were lit up with wonder. Their age, their worries, their fear melting off them like candle wax.
“What do we do now?” Easton said. “Wave a magic wand? Hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”
“You’ve really never taken a Heaven-bound charge?” I said. “How is that even possible?”
He bristled. “I have. Just not for a long time.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked down in his black duster. His violet eyes scanned the blinding white terrain. He twitched and slapped at a dandelion fluff that landed on his nose.
