Covenant (8 page)

I grit my teeth and walk
into the room. Of course, I’m not expecting the overwhelming flush
of emotions that swirl at me. It’s a new sensation, one I’m pretty
sure I’ve never felt before, and that definitely makes no sense. I
mean, I’m a sojourner. This is the one thing I’m supposed to do
extremely well, but right now I feel like a space shuttle
re-entering earth’s atmosphere, wondering whether the outer shell
will hold against the heat.

What is happening to
me?

I watch the doctor apply the
paddles to her chest, trying as hard as he can to force her heart
to jump back into a rhythm. Right now I’m pretty sure he’d settle
for any rhythm because that would be something he could work with.
But the stillness is non-negotiable.

“
Come on,” he whispers, his
frown deepening as he realizes for the first time he’s lost her. Of
course, in that moment. I should be collecting her soul. I should
be reassuring her spirit everything is all right. But then I’m
rational; I’ve done this a million times.

Except when her spirit
suddenly appears beside me and starts into a banshee-like wail, I’m
no longer as calm as I once was. Still, I turn to her. “It’s going
to be all right,” I say, trying to reach to take her
hand.

She screams louder and falls
to her knees. I manage to latch onto her hand, but when her spirit
connects with mine, all those emotions that have seemed so
overwhelming are nothing compared to the fear, the chaos, the
desperation, and the sadness bundled into this spirit. The emotions
suddenly wash over me, and I try to drop her hand, but she won’t
let go. I feel as though I’m being physically battered, and her
wretched crying won’t stop. It cuts through me, dropping me to my
knees. Suddenly I feel a pain in my side and look down. Blood
begins to soak through my shirt, and all I can think is that it
shouldn’t be possible.

Angels don’t bleed. I touch
my hand to it, thinking I’ll figure out what the mistake is and
make it right. Instead, my hand becomes soaked in the warm
stickiness. Ahead of me, the world starts to get fuzzy and melt
into something else. In the distance, I hear Celia calling my name,
her voice suffused with panic and fear.

I blink two or three times
and fall.
What is happening to
me?

“
Lev, it’s all right. Calm
down.” Celia’s voice is so distant amid the confusion of the
medical personnel witnessing a mortal death.

“
Celia?” I finally manage,
knowing there are no words for the panic inside that perhaps even
she doesn’t recognize what is going on.

The blurring around me
clears to reveal a moonlit classroom. In the doorway I see a man in
dress pants and a shirt, a gun clenched tightly in his fist, lifted
in my general direction but not at me. I sense movement behind me.
I look back and find Elizabeth Moon, swooping low to cradle me in
her arms. She’s screaming something. I can’t hear it because that
world is silent and strange. But her lips move frantically, and I
see terror in her eyes.

Pain—the world isn’t
anything but pain like I’ve never felt. I look down at my hand, and
it’s completely covered in blood that seems dark and beautiful in
the night. As I stare, my hand wavers. Elizabeth reaches for it and
cradles it in her own as she presses it back against my stomach. I
want to warn her that the man is still holding the gun, but I can’t
seem to speak. In fact, I feel myself sliding against her, cold in
a way I should not be.

Through half-lidded slits, I
see the man lift the gun, aiming for her. His hand quivers with the
weight of it as he perfects his aim. As his finger starts to pull
the trigger, another teenager appears in the doorway with a large
shovel he raises over his head and quickly slams down. The gun
falls from the man’s hand, and he collapses.

Then darkness melts around
me.

“
Lev? Can you hear
me?”

The voice is male and sounds
familiar, but right now it is distant. The darkness and pain
collect around me so everything swirls together in possessive
blackness.

“
Lev?”

Hands jostle me. Whoever it
is isn’t going to just let me lie here. I’m actually going to have
to respond whether I want to or not.

I open my eyes, the pain
seizing me even as the bright colors swirl about in a
blur.

“
He’s coming around,” a
woman says. I blink even harder, trying to pull myself back from
the vortex of confusion claiming me. I’m not even sure what I just
experienced, but the weight of it still covers me like a wool
blanket, stifling me.

Every time I blink I find
myself lost back in that classroom, staring at a gun and feeling
Elizabeth Moon cradling me against her body as the blood leaves the
mortal shell.

“
Can you hear
me?”

I shake my head at the
stupidity of the question and shoot off, “Yeah, I’m not deaf.” I
keep trying to bring the faces around me into focus, but I
can’t.

“
I told you he wasn’t
ready,” the male voice says, a hint of frustration coloring
it.

“
At this rate, he’s never
going to be ready, and you know it,” the female retorts in
kind.

I lift my hand to remind
them I’m still lying there. “Can you two take it outside? My head
can’t take the screaming.” Granted, I started out telling them that
in hopes doing so would cut off the fight, but actually, now that
I’m trying to sit up, I’m also finding it to be true. One of them
bends low to help me, and I wave them away.

“
I’ve got this,” I mutter,
drawing my knees up and resting my arms on them so I can clutch my
head. The other one, most likely Evan by the height, reaches for my
head, but I block him, instantly recognizing his intention. The
last thing I want is him tinkering with anything in there, even if
it means pain. “No, I’m fine,” I tell him.

“
You said your head hurts.”
He tries again, but I push his hands away.

“
It’s
tolerable.”

After so much blinking, my
vision is finally starting to clear, and I can definitely see the
outlines of Evan and Celia standing there. We’re still in the
hospital room, but the chaos has vanished, leaving only the woman
lying in the bed, all the machines disconnected from her body.
There’s a calm to a place after death has come. Most mortals
consider it eerie, but really it’s the perfect place to think,
especially for angels.

Granted, I’ve never really
liked mortals, but there is something about the body that humans
leave behind that is imprinted with lingering impressions of the
life once lived. No, the human doesn’t have access to this anymore.
The soul takes the important part of it—the lessons and love
experienced. That’s what other living humans sense that make them
afraid of the dead—the responsibility of the living.

I struggle to my feet,
sensing Celia must have already carried the soul and returned,
which makes me wonder how long I was unconscious. My vision is now
clear, and I see that both Evan and Celia watch me, waiting for
something else to happen, but I’m going to do my best not to give
into that.

I turn to them. “May I have
a moment with her?”

They look at each other as
though they didn’t really expect this but then drift away. I know
they won’t be far. Apparently based on their earlier exchange, I
have become too big of a liability for that. But at least for the
moment I have my space to try to make sense of all of
this.

I step toward the body and
stare at her face. At first, all I can see is the chaos and pain
that I remember when she first started dying. I remember the
screams and how they seemed to echo inside me, tearing at every
fiber of my existence. Now, I see a calm has slipped over the
corpse, a sheath to guard the connections left behind. Whatever
struggles she faced no longer wrap themselves in her frame or
infuse themselves in her thoughts. This world does not encumber her
any longer and, she is free. That is where the peace comes in, if
you ask me.

“
So how did it feel for
you?”

I turn and find Sarah there,
her whole body rigid with pain. “I don’t know what you are talking
about,” I finally say, swallowing hard.

“
Of course you do. I
watched you try to sojourn, and the strangest thing happened. You
seemed to forget how to shield yourself from the dead.” While there
is a slight smile playing at her lips, her expression is far too
cold to call friendly. In fact, it’s more like she wishes I hadn’t
come back.

“
It’s just a glitch,” I
say, looking away. “I’m sure it won’t happen again.” My entire
being is rigid, and yet I don’t understand why.

“
You think not?” She laughs
at me. “I hope it does. I hope one of the souls tears you apart,
Lev. I hope Evan and Celia let the dead feed on you. Just like you
let them feed on me!” She narrows her eyes at me
violently.

Evan must sense the chaos
within us both because he seems to appear out of nowhere. He stops
in front of Sarah and places his body between us. “Sarah, what are
you doing here?”

“
Just talking to Lev.” She
refuses to look at him. Instead, she keeps staring venomously at
me.

“
Lev isn’t exactly up to
another round.” Although Evan keeps his tone civil, he’s also
giving her a warning; she’d have to be stupid not to know that, and
I’m pretty sure Sarah is anything but stupid.

“
And why is that, Evan?
What could possibly be weakening him considering how skilled a
sojourner he is? Can you tell me that?” She stands there, waiting
for his response, and I can feel the chaos within ever stronger as
I wonder what Evan will say on my behalf. It’s not like there is a
reasonable explanation he can give her. There’s no truthful
explanation that doesn’t involve Elizabeth.

“
It doesn’t matter why,” he
finally manages. “Besides, I’m sure there are duties you must
attend to. Celia and I can take care of Lev.” He doesn’t wait for
her response but turns instead to me and levels a knowing glance as
he mouths the words, “Say nothing.”

I realize Sarah is watching
me, so I give an imperceptible nod I’m sure Evan will pick up on.
It goes without saying, considering how long we have been
close.

“
Of course you can,” Sarah
agrees. “And you always do, even when it’s not the right thing to
do.”

Although Evan is pretty good
at keeping his expression neutral, when he has to, I can see he’s
clenching his jaw. It’s hard to tell really. The only reason I pick
up on it again is that I know him so well.

“
Is there something you
would like to say to me, Sarah?” His tone is slow and deliberate as
he turns to her, giving her plenty of time to back down.

“
Do I need to say it, Evan?
Really? Because I know you’re smart and you see the obvious.” All
the forced pleasantness has drifted from her tone, leaving a much
harsher edge.

“
Perhaps whatever you are
insinuating isn’t nearly as obvious as you believe.”

Celia watches the two of
them, and even though I’m pretty used to her being able to do the
whole” neutral expression” thing, too, right now there’s a sort of
worry playing at her lips, and that’s pretty much a clue that
whatever is transpiring between Evan and Sarah has been building
for some time, and even though I can’t remember the crux of it,
somehow it has something to do with me.

“
All right, then. We’ll
just leave it at that. After all, Lev isn’t quite his old self.
With any luck, the new one will be an improvement.” She gives me
one last glare before walking out, and suddenly it occurs to me
that Evan placing his body between us probably wasn’t just because
of the argument. There’s some seriously bad blood between me and
Sarah. I just don’t have a clue what happened that caused this kind
of a rift, not that I’m going to get a chance to hear the other
side of the story. Evan has made sure whatever lies in the past
stays there, and even though Celia could probably tell me just as
easily, she’s going to take Evan’s side. I have absolutely no doubt
of that whatsoever. That’s how she has played every hand since I
first woke up.

“
You all right?” Evan asks,
his forehead furrowed with worry.

“
Just peachy.” I look at
both him and Celia, trying to figure out all the missing pieces,
but I can’t find them. “You wouldn’t by chance like to fill in the
blanks on what that was all about, would you?”

“
That’s an old rift between
you and Sarah. Nothing good will come by talking it over, and she
hasn’t seen you since you were…hurt. More than likely, she wanted
to stick her nose where it didn’t belong and figure out what’s
going on.”

All three of us look at the
place where she stood. “But that doesn’t tell me why she was so
angry.”

“
That’s another story for
another day,” Evan says, patting my shoulder. We’re all about to
leave when I see the door open and a middle-aged woman enters. She
clutches a handbag which, considering her slumped posture, seems to
be weighted with rocks, and it’s easy to see the tears spilling
down her face. More of them pool in her eyes and flow over, but she
doesn’t even bother trying to wipe them away. Obviously, right now,
there is no end to them.