Darkest Hour (31 page)

“This
is
a dream then.”

He tilted his head, lifted one shoulder. “Similar, but not quite.”

“Then where am I?”

“In between.”

That again? Kate threw her head back in frustration. She wished he hadn’t.

Above her, the mural was in motion, a renaissance era animation. The angels and demons fought, rending limbs with swords and skewering hearts with spears. The fire and lava from the cracked earth spewed and flickered. Some of the demons swooped into a circle and leered down at Kate, batwings flapping, red eyes shining, their painted mouths foaming like Pavlovian dogs after the dinner bell.

Kate threw her gaze down, but she could still feel their hungry scrutiny.

“In between what?” she asked.

“Life and death. You...” His voice caught. He swallowed, then continued. “You were our last hope in saving the Chosen One. But if you’re here and,” he looked up at the mural, “the battle still wages, I have to assume you’ve failed.”

A crack opened in her memory. She saw Jessie, twisted by the features of vampirism, and heard her voice, tainted by the soul controlling her. From there, everything flooded back, right up to the instant Kate felt the knife hit her in the chest.

Her knees went weak. She had to sit down on the floor. Unlike before, the marble felt like ice to the touch. Cold wormed its way through her. “I’m dead?”

“You’re in between,” Kress reiterated, though Kate found little comfort in the distinction.

“So I’m on my way to dead.” She studied the pentagram she sat in the middle of. “But you killed me. You sent me to the
other side
. Not in between. And you still brought me back.”

“Under careful and controlled conditions. Is your physical body in such a place now?”

Kate had an image of herself as if she floated above her own body. She saw herself curled up on the ground, the knife hilt sticking out of her, blood draining into the brown grass. Gabriel would be close by. Craig would be too busy with the pair of vampires he had drawn away. This left her at Gabriel’s mercy. She doubted he had any intention of reviving her.

“It can’t end like this,” she said. She looked up at Kress. “You have to help me.”

He turned his palms out. “I don’t even know where to find you.”

“Texas. I’m on a huge farm. Craig and his friends built a base there. I could...” She trailed off. “Are you really Romeo Kress? Or just part of this...dream?”

“It’s really me. I made sure I would be here if you came this way.”

It sounded too pat. She stood despite her wobbly legs, not content to talk to him while he loomed over her. “You knew I’d end up here.”

“We all end up here eventually.”

“It’s more than that. You
expected
this to happen when I found Jessie.”

“I suspected, if our worst fears were true, that you might have to sacrifice yourself to save the Chosen One.”

“Which means what? What were your worst fears?”

“That she had fallen to the influence of a dark soul.”

Kate crossed her arms. “So you knew about Gabriel all along.”

Kress sighed. “Does it matter what I knew? Our goal was to find Jessie and try to rescue her from whatever fate she had fallen to. We knew something bad had happened in New Orleans. Why else would Lockman take Jessie from you. We had suspicions of what that something could be, but they were only guesses. Though, from the sound of it, we guessed right.”

“Only half right. Jessie was turned into a vampire in New Orleans. That’s why Craig took her. Gabriel was actually responsible for her keeping her soul through the transition. He didn’t take over until just recently.”

Kress rubbed his temples. “So she is truly lost.”

“No. Since you woke up this power in me, I’ve been able to communicate with Jessie on some level. She’s been directing me since I left you. She’s the one that told me to step into the light and come here, remember? She’s trapped, but she’s not
lost
.”

“But why would she direct you here? To the in between? There’s nothing you can do for her from here.”

“There has to be.” Kate walked a circle around the pentagram, scanning her surroundings for some sign of what to do next. A number of engravings marked the round walls. She wasn’t sure those same engravings existed in the real version of this room. Could there be a message among them? Specific to Kate’s manifestation of the place? “How does a person get out from in between?”

“Death or resuscitation,” Kress said with an
isn’t-it-obvious
tone.

“It’s that cut and dried?”

Kress chuckled. “No, I suppose not. But I’m not sure what you’re looking for.”

“Neither am I,” she said while continuing to scan the engravings. Most of them were isolated symbols. A sun. A moon. A star. Occasionally, something slightly more complicated came along, tiny scenes rendered in a pictographic style. A family gathered to a meal. A hunter stalking prey. A mother giving birth to a child.

That last engraving made Kate shiver. While the depiction wasn’t much more sophisticated than a five year-old’s stick figure drawing, Kate swore the mother was meant to represent her, and the baby was Jessie.

She moved to the next pictograph. A girl standing on a hill in the middle of a giant starburst. She held aloft a sword in one hand and gripped a severed head by the hair in the other.

Next in line showed what Kate guessed were supposed to be vampires, about two dozen of them, melting under a shining sun.

Finally, she came to a scene that turned her heart—the one in her in-between body, not the one in her physical body that had almost stopped beating—to ice. Again, the picture didn’t possess a great deal of sophistication. Yet it was hard to miss what it depicted. A woman lay on the ground with the hilt of a knife sticking out her chest and a pool of blood all around her. Directly above the woman floated a mirror image of her, only without the knife and crude halo around her whole body. Like a spirit floating away from the body.

Or a ghost.

Kate’s breath caught. She turned to Kress who stood watching her with solemn eyes.

“How did Thom become a ghost?” she asked.

Kress furled his brow. “What?”

“Thom. He’s a ghost. How did it happen? How does anyone become a ghost?”

He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “They die.”

“Everybody dies,” Kate said. “But not everyone ends up a ghost.”

His incredulous look grew more so. Deep lines creased his face. He looked half-mad himself, like one of the evil villains he’d played on screen. “That’s not your answer, Kate.”

She pointed at the engraving. “That means something.”

“In order to become a ghost, you must die.”

“I’m halfway there already,” she shouted. Her voice echoed in the round chamber. After a deep breath, she said softly, “Do you think I’m going to stay in between forever?”

Kress shook his head. “This is a temporary place.”

“Craig can’t face Gabriel alone. There’s no one out there who can save me. I am going to die. The only way I have a chance of helping Craig is if my spirit stays here.”

Kress sighed. He hung his head. “This isn’t the fate I meant for you.”

“My fate was never up to you. But you can help me make my own.” She crossed the circle to him, put a hand on his arm. “Do you know how I can do this?”

“It’s simple, really. It’s about choice. Shortly, the peace of death will be offered to you. There is no greater rest. All worries and fears, pain and grief, hatred and anger, will all disappear the moment you accept this offered gift.”

“What then?”

“You must look at that perfect peace, see all that it promises, and you must refuse it.”

“That’s it? Just say,
No thank you
?”

“Everlasting peace is a difficult thing to pass up. And once refused, you will never see it offered again. You will never rest.”

Kate tried to fathom walking the earth as a ghost for eternity. Most people said they never wanted to die. But death made natural sense. A life could gather a great deal of baggage. Even a happy life suffered scars. Memories of lost loved-ones, missed opportunities, embarrassing acts, and good times long gone. No soul could carry that weight forever.

Yet how could she justify accepting eternal peace when her daughter still suffered? Especially if Kate could somehow help.

“When will it happen?” she asked.

“Soon.” Kress rubbed his hands together, cupped them, and blew into them. “It’s getting cold. Death isn’t far.”

Kate hoped it wouldn’t come too late.

Chapter Forty-Two

Seeing Kate lying on the ground, her shirt soaked with blood, her skin so pale, Lockman felt the seam she had stitched in his psyche with her mojo tear open. With it came all the chiding voices.

You really are a death magnet. Everyone you care about suffers and dies. You should have stayed out of their lives, Lockman. All that bullshit about protecting them was for your own selfish reasons. You could never protect them. You could only destroy them.

Along with the voices, a cold steel shell sealed off the part of his brain that demanded self-preservation. There was nothing left worth preserving. So, without any weapon beyond his bare hands, Lockman charged the thing that used to be his daughter, a howl in his throat that echoed in the Texas sky and frightened a flock of birds from the branches of the nearest tree several hundred yards away.

Gabriel merely smirked at Lockman’s approach. Even in a young girl’s body, he easily dashed Lockman aside with the back of a hand.

Lockman staggered, but kept his feet. Lights blinked in his eyes like snapping flash bulbs. Something hard rolled in his mouth. He spit it out and saw his tooth land in the grass along with a gummy splotch of blood. An iron tang coated his tongue.

Gabriel shook Jessie’s head like a discouraged teacher. “So much passion. Yet you waste it using your fists. There is power in that body you wear. Why don’t you use it?”

“And turn into something like you?” Lockman spit again, but the taste of blood stayed. “I’d rather die.”

“Obviously.” Gabriel took two steps forward and backhanded Lockman again.

Lockman twirled like an ice skater doing a triple-axel. When he hit the ground, all air
whuffed
out his lungs and left him gasping. He didn’t see the kick coming. Felt it connect with his gut, felt himself lift off the ground again, then felt the crunch when he landed on his left arm. The pain didn’t register until he tried to push himself to his knees. The left arm bent the wrong way when he put pressure on it. The pain crackled up from the elbow and jabbed straight into his heart.

He flopped onto his chest, cheek pressed against the scratchy dead grass. The smell of cold earth filled his nostrils. For some reason it gave him a picture of a tombstone dusted with snow. Probably a vision of his own future grave, not long off from the looks of things.

“Craig Lockman,” Gabriel said, strolling over in Jessie’s body to where Lockman had landed. “The Agency’s straw man. Nothing more than a patchwork of stolen souls forced into my body while they kept my soul locked in a little cube with a few million others.”

Lockman leaned up on his good arm. He spit up another string of blood, this coming from deeper inside. He could feel the trickle in the back of his throat. His guts felt like they’d been run through a blender. That last kick must have burst something.

“I think I did a better job with this body than you ever would have.”

“Really? Because you don’t look so good. But now look at me.” He worked Jessie like a puppet, drawing her hands down the front of her in an awkward sexual way.

Lockman’s stomach twisted. His face burned. “Stop that.”

“Why? I’m attracted to myself. It’s really such a strange feeling to want to hump my own body.” He started to slide a hand down below the waist.

Lockman swung his foot out and knocked Jessie’s legs out from under her. She landed on her rump, expelling a surprised
oof
. But as quickly as she went down, Gabriel had her back on her feet. He knocked Lockman onto his back with a kick to the face. Then he stepped on Lockman’s throat, cutting off air and blood flow.

The edges of Lockman’s vision darkened. He clawed at the boot pressed against his neck, but couldn’t push it off.

Jessie stared down at him, lips peeled back from her fangs. A horrible version of her face, and probably the last image Lockman would have of his daughter to carry into death.

“
Gabriel!
”

Kate’s voice reverberated off the side of the science building as if bounced from a PA system. Unmistakable and clear. But how? Could her power have really brought her back from so close to death?

The dark edges on Lockman’s vision closed in as his brain starved of its needed blood and oxygen. He tried to look beyond Jessie to where Kate’s voice had originated. He thought he caught a glimpse of something white, but translucent like a cloud of smoke. The lack of flow to his brain had him seeing things.

Jessie looked over her shoulder toward the voice as well. Whatever Gabriel saw made him stumble. Jessie’s foot came off Lockman’s throat, allowing him to gulp for air. It couldn’t come fast enough, but his windpipe burned, making each breath its own piece of agony. He had to roll on his side to keep from choking on the blood in his throat. While he regained his breath, he heard Kate and Gabriel exchange words.

Gabriel said, “You’ve made quite the sacrifice.” Fear laced his words, though he tried to sound amused.

“It’s time for you to leave my daughter’s body.”

“Or what? You’ll shout
boo
and scare me out?”

“You sound scared enough.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, you are the dead one.
I’m
the one who killed you.”

His breathing regulated, Lockman looked for Kate. Jessie stood in the way, but he thought he could glimpse that same ethereal white. He blinked several times. Having the blood and oxygen cut off to his head might have damaged his vision. When he looked again, that white blur still poked out around Jessie’s silhouette. It was like a spot you’d get in your vision from staring at the sun too long, only white instead of purplish black.