“How you doing, girlfriend?”
“Kirsty.
Why were they asking me such hard questions? Wasn’t the oral exam over?
I turned my head toward the last voice to speak. I loved it when Dante’s handsome (although still a little blurry) face was the first thing I saw when I awoke.
Another face swam into view. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“I can’t count that high,” I answered, grasping Kali’s nearest hand and squeezing it.
“She’s all right!” Kali hugged me hard and still had enough arms left over to draw my friends into the group hug. “You’re all right!”
Something white flashed at the corner of my eye. I turned my head to look directly at it, but it moved away. Was it residual glinting from the vortex supernova? I turned my head the other way, but it moved that way, too.
“Amber, have you got a mirror?”
“A what? Oh, yes.” She fumbled in her pack, producing a compact. “Old habits die hard.” She looked at Dante before handing me the mirror.
Dante sighed. “She has to know.”
My hands shook. It took three tries for me to depress the little trigger that popped open the compact. I stared in it. I turned my head from side to side.
“It’s white. My brown hair, once blond with peach streaks, is
“It glints,” M’Kimbi said, reaching his hand out, but not quite touching. “Like that frost that coats objects on cold mornings.”
“Hoarfrost,” Amber supplied.
“What you calling my girl?” Kali leapt in, brandishing six fists.
“No. No.” Amber backed away from the angry god, her own two arms raised in submission. “I read the dictionary once. It’s the kind of frost M’Kimbi described.”
Ignoring my dear, silly friends, I checked myself out instead. My face and arms carried a mass of scrapes and bruises, but somehow I was okay. No broken bones. I’d suddenly healed from having a giant AC unit dumped on me. Unbelievable. I rolled into a sitting position, finding myself perched on the picnic table where the workers ate lunch. I must have been carried there after the blast. Ira perched on the edge of the table, smiling at me shyly.
“Ira, did I just get squashed by a five-hundred-pound air-conditioning unit?”
He nodded.
“And am I now sitting on a picnic table, whole and well, having this conversation with you?”
He nodded again.
“How did that happen, exactly?”
Ira shrugged, his pretty-boy lips tilting into a secretive smile. “I can’t go into the specifics, Kirsty. Trade secrets, you know. But it’s like I said before, this is what we do.”
“Miracles, right?” I grinned at him. “Thanks, Ira. You’re a peach.”
“No,” he said. “I’m an angel. Don’t let the complexion fool you.”
“I see our lady of the hour is going to live.” Lord Roland Ecks sauntered over, puffing on his pipe, his grin so wide smoke leaked out the corners. “Or at least not die any worse than she already has.”
He offered ’round a dusty bottle of hundred-year-old scotch (made yesterday, aged in a time machine) and as soon as he’d gone back to what was left of the terminal, his great-great-grandson, Lord Timothy Ecks produced some nice Hell-grown weed. After what we’d been through, we could do with a little Reaper madness. He’d cured it in honey, which really sweetened the pot.
Seiko came by to thank us for saving his life—there was much bowing and promises of lives and afterlives owed. He also reported that, although the time terminal had been ripped apart, most of the important components were salvageable. With a lot of hard work, they’d be able to get time straightened out this very evening.
“It’s about time, man,” Timothy declared.
Seiko just looked at him.
We held a small impromptu memorial service for Rod. Horace was the only one who had really gotten to know him and he said Rod was an okay guy, just really, really goal-oriented. Horace cried a little and so did the rest of us. Then he announced that a good party was an appropriate tribute to his late friend. The workers, who had also lost one of their own, agreed wholeheartedly.
“To Raul!” The workers hoisted their scotch.
“To Rod!” My classmates hoisted whatever poison they preferred.
I glanced at Dante who was across the clearing, being a great big party pooper. He’d been standoffish all afternoon, not indulging in pot or booze and keeping his distance from me. Well, too bad. I had questions and I voted him most likely to know the answers. Cornering him, I asked, “What happened to them? Rod and Raul, I mean.”
“I have no idea. They may be dead—as in ceased-to-exist dead. Or they may have ended up in Heller. Nobody knows much about it, except that it’s supposed to be way, way worse than here.” He turned and walked away from me.
Uh-oh. He was mad I’d touched his scythe, again. How mad was he? Did I even have a boyfriend anymore?
Tears welled in my eyes, until someone arrived bearing pizza. I had a nice buzz on, so I was easily distracted. Plus I had a bad case of the munchies, man.
We had a real good party going when Dante’s hellphone rang. “Okay, kids. Time to go. Sergeant Schotz is waiting.”
Talk about buzzkill.
“Let ’im wait.” I took another toke. “We’re all gonna fail anyway, right?” I looked around. Oops. Now I was the buzz killer. I dropped the joint in our bonfire. It was time to quit or get off the pot.
Reluctantly, we gathered our stuff—stuff that hadn’t gotten sucked into the vortex—and started our death march back.
No Quest for the Wicked
“SO . . .” SERGEANT SCHOTZ stopped pacing, his eyes roving over his disheveled and now slightly smaller class. He shook his head slowly from side to side. “So . . .” He started again. He’d been doing this for a while now.
Suddenly he broke pattern, rounding on Dante. “Reaper Alighieri?”
Dante snapped to attention. “Sir! Yes, sir!”
“Not a single feather. Not even a hair of the hyena?”
I heard teeth grinding in the ensuing silence and the muscles along the Sergeant’s jawbone pulsed. No wonder his teeth were loose. At least he wasn’t spitting them at us this time.
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.
I felt bad for Dante. My heart bled. No, not literally. But it reminded me of all the cuts and scratches I’d acquired during the day. I checked my elbow, where I’d had a real nasty gash. Nearly healed. In fact, all my lacerations had become faint red lines or disappeared completely. Apparently miracles don’t leave scars. The bruises had taken on a nice week-old green patina.
The engineers must be well on their way to restoring time, because it ticked along nicely now, with only the occasional hiccup.
Of course, for those of us who’d indulged in Timothy’s weed, time still seemed weird and stretchy. Maybe I
