Last Rite (33 page)

“He’s still deciding,” he says, his eye shifting to the bed.

My eyes spring back to Gabe. “He’s deciding? He gets to do that?”

Gabe nods. “He does.”

My gaze gravitates back to Luc, and I can’t take my eyes off his face. It’s so pale—drawn and grim, like the weight of the world is pressing down on him, too heavy to bear. There are tubes coming out of his mouth and nose and wires everywhere, hooked up to beeping and clicking machines.

Just like the image after the lightning.

I step closer and slide my hand under his. He’s so still—only the faintest movement as his chest rises and falls with the cadence of the loud ticking and puffing of a respirator at the side of his bed.

I look around at the antiseptic room: scuffed white walls; stiff white sheets; the smell of alcohol and death. And the noise from the machines. I want it to stop. I want a moment of peace with Luc to say good-bye.

But then I realize if the noise stops, it means Luc’s dead.

I look back at Gabe. “Grandma said She had a job for him, if he wants it.”

He glides up next to me. “So I’ve been told.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“He’s to be your liaison between Heaven and Hell.”

My stomach kicks. “
My
liaison? Don’t you mean Hers? God’s?”

His eyes flit to mine and drop just as fast. “The Almighty is Heaven.
You
are charged with bridging the gap.”

“Meaning?”

“You are the intermediary. It’s left to you to negotiate the terms of the truce.” A smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “You’re getting what you’ve always wanted. You are the ultimate diplomat.”

“Between Heaven and Hell,” I say, knowing it’s true.

Gabe nods.

My eyes turn to Luc, my heart bleeding. “But he’d have to die to take that job. I don’t want him to die. She said She’d keep him mortal if he lives.” I look back at Gabe as a tear slips over my lashes. “I want that for him.”

“I can understand why you’d feel that way. He’s sacrificed everything. But, ultimately, it’s his decision.”

I search his pale blue eyes for any sign of
my
Gabe, but he’s keeping his distance. I reach up and lay my hand on his chest, but it’s still. No heartbeat.

He doesn’t back away from my touch. In fact, he doesn’t move at all. He stands ramrod straight, his eyes fixed on a spot on the opposite wall.

“What happened to you?”

His gaze settles into mine, and, just for a second, I see him. I plead with my eyes, needing to know what he suffered ’cause of me.

He shakes his head, reading my mind. “Everything that happens is not your fault, Frannie. You need to stop shouldering the blame for all the evil that walks the Earth.”

“Please,” I beg.

He lowers his eyes again. “Lucifer sent Matt and Aaron for me.” He finally says. “In my … weakened state, I couldn’t defend myself against both of them. But when they dragged me to the Abyss and Aaron gave me to the Mages, Matt tried to stop him—which didn’t go well for him.”

“Matt tried to protect you?” I ask, remembering how he attacked Aaron during the battle.

He nods and peers at me from under long white lashes.

A wet lump starts to form in my throat. “You’re … different now.”

For the first time, he really holds my gaze. “The Hellfire burnt away my humanity, but it couldn’t kill me.”

My heart aches. “That’s good.”

“It is,” he answers with a nod.

“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice thick. “For everything.”

A beeper goes off on one of the bazillion machines attached to Luc by the wires and tubes.

A nurse sweeps into the room to check the contraption and I expect her to tell us to get out, but she only has eyes for Luc and the beeping machine he’s attached to.

“Oh crap,” she says, slapping a blue button in the wall at the head of Luc’s bed. An automated message squawks from the intercom in the hall, announcing a “code blue, ICU four.”

My heart stalls.

It’s happening.

A storm of people charge through the door within seconds, pushing another machine in front of them. I start to move out of the way, but the staff circles Luc’s bed, never giving me a second thought.

And it’s only then that I realize they can’t see me.

I climb onto the bed and wrap my essence around Luc, feeling the hands of the medical people pushing through me to pull Luc’s gown open.

He feels so cold. I want to warm him. He needs to be warmer.

A pretty young doctor with too much makeup, red hair, and a white lab coat over her blue scrubs places cold metal paddles on Luc’s chest and yells “Clear!” but I don’t. I squeeze tighter around him, sending him all my strength, and whisper in his ear.

“Don’t give up, Luc.”

The electric shock jerks his body and I hold tight, feeling him grow colder under me as a little more of him slips away.

“
Live
,” I whisper. “I need you to live.”

I brush my white, opalescent fingers over his face—around the tubes protruding from his lips. Whatever I am, I’m sure I must still have a heart, because I feel it breaking.

As the second jolt shakes his body, I seep my essence through Luc’s lips. I wrap myself around his heart, willing it to beat—sending him every bit of love I have.

His heart sputters a moment, then picks up a weak rhythm. I feel something in him stir, like a wash of energy—his soul. I’ve felt it before, this intense rush of being closer than humanly possible. My soul soars as I feel his essence swirl into mine.

“We’ve got a rhythm,” a voice calls, and I feel myself flood with relief.

“Luc?”

His dark energy wraps into mine like a building cyclone—a strengthening of his spirit. I listen for his thoughts, and at first I don’t hear anything, but then his voice is as clear as if he were whispering in my ear. “Mmm … Frannie,” he moans.

And in that instant, I feel it—that intense rush as he blends his essence with mine, making me forget everything but this moment—him.

I embrace him on the inside, touching every part of him as our souls merge, and I never want this feeling to end. Stars flash all around us as we dance, and I’m barely coherent, but I send him my message without words, begging him to live—to fight.

“For you,” he says, “I’d do anything.”

At his words, weak as they are, my heart explodes. “I need you to live. Please,” I beg. In this form I can’t cry, but it comes out as a sob anyway. “Don’t die, Luc. Please fight.”

I feel him grow stronger still. “I’ll never leave you again.”

The pang is fierce, causing me to ache all over, because that’s what I need him to do—to live and let me go.

I don’t really know what I am. Despite what Grandma said, I’m not even sure if I’m alive or dead. But if I’m not dead already, it would kill me if Luc gave up.

I imagine wrapping my body around his—the feel of him against me, and my heart can’t stay heavy. This feeling is euphoric. I wish with all my heart that this moment could last forever.

But just as I think that, his physical body stirs, then stiffens. I feel suddenly freezing as his essence pulls away from mine.

“Frannie. What … what’s going on?”

I feel his confusion and I cut him off before he can get any farther down the tracks of this train of thought. “Don’t worry about anything but getting better. I need you to get better, Luc.”

He doesn’t fall for the diversion. I feel his essence pull farther away from mine as he scans his surroundings.

“We’re in me … my body. Tell me what’s going on, Frannie. How are you in here?”

“Stop, Luc!” The thought erupts from my core more forcefully than I intend it to. I work to soften my tone—to keep the fear out of my thoughts so he can’t feel it. “You need to focus all your energy on staying alive,” I tell him. I swirl my essence closer, but he pulls away from me again.

“You’re…” his thought trails off to an echo as he adds, “dead.” Then I feel it—his despair, clamping down on his heart like a vice, causing it to sputter again.

I wrap myself around his heart, pouring my life force into him. “No! I’m not gonna let you give up, Luc. You can’t die. Not ’cause of me. I couldn’t take it.” I hear the desperation in my thoughts and hope he doesn’t.

Soft in my ear, I hear him, and I feel his energy build. “I’m not going to live without you, Frannie. There’s no point. You’re my life … my reason for … everything.”

His soul blends with mine again and the sudden rush of love is so intense as we swirl together that I don’t even notice we’ve left Luc’s body.

“Clear!”

The shout from below pulls me from my reverie, and I’m suddenly aware of the room. We watch from above as the doctor places the paddles to Luc’s chest again and my whole being contracts into a hard ball as I watch Luc’s body convulse.

“It’s all right, Frannie. I’m right here.”

Luc’s voice brings my attention back to him, his essence. Then we’re floating, swirling together.

But the next instant, he’s gone.

I look down at the form of his body on the bed, at the nurse still compressing his chest. I dive into that body, looking for his essence, willing him to live.

But he’s nothing but an empty shell.

Luc’s not here.

26

Blinding Radiance

LUC

I stare in disbelief at the door in front of me—at the peeling sign.

Limbo.

One minute I’m blended with Frannie, and the next I’m standing here.

Talk about a rude awakening.

A shiver racks me, but it’s only partly because of the sudden cold of being without Frannie. I draw a deep breath, even though I have no need of oxygen anymore, and push through the double doors.

Limbo hasn’t changed. I glance around the endless room, the low ceiling lined with rows of humming fluorescent fixtures, casting an artificial glow over the multitude of souls milling around waiting for their fate to be decided. The same heavy wooden desk sits just inside the doors, with various magazines scattered over its dark, nicked surface. Someone has scribbled over the handwritten sign taped to the front of the desk:

Take a number and have a
seat.
nice eternity!

The hole in my chest where my heart used to be aches at the thought of not spending eternity with Frannie. I brace my hand on the desk and stifle a groan as the wave of despair washes over me. Because, reality is, I never belonged there with her. I was never truly good enough to belong in Heaven.

When the sensation passes I lift my head and pull the tab of green paper protruding from the dispenser:

64,893,394,563,194,666,666

I take that as a bad sign.

Glancing up at the lit monitor over the desk, I see, “Now serving number 64,893,394,563,194,109,516.”

So, I’m in for a wait.

I tip my head back and blow out a sigh before dropping into one of the infinite black plastic chairs.

Next to me, a latte-colored soul with a moss-colored hue prattles on with her neighbor, a smoke gray soul with mustard streaks, about her plans to give her brother a piece of her mind when she gets to Heaven. I’m not going to burst her bubble by telling her the best she can hope for from Michael is Purgatory. There’s a reason they don’t post statistics. It would cause a riot.

I feel something whoosh past me, like an energetic whirlwind. The magazines on the desk flutter and half of them fall to the floor. And then I catch the faintest wisp of currant and clove. The aching in my chest intensifies and all I can see is Frannie’s face. I drop my head into my hand.

We were so close.

But it’s done. I’m here.

I breathe a shaky sigh as an electronic bleeping sound from the monitor overhead signals that they’re speeding right along to the next lucky customer. I glance up. “64,893,394,563,194,666,666,” it reads. I look back at my number as I hear a few shouts and a not-so-pleasant stream of curses from the milling crowd. A mauvish soul with ochre streaks at the end of my row is charging the desk, spewing a string of expletives regarding ripping an unknown someone a new asshole.

I catch him as he storms past. “I’d like to point out that you’re not helping your cause,” I mutter under my breath.

“Go screw yourself! They just passed my number! I was next!”

You and about five hundred thousand other poor souls
, I think to myself, looking back at my number as he pushes past and shoves the desk.

“Number 64,893,394,563,194,666,666, please report to door number one.” The androgynous, monotone voice seems to come from everywhere.

When an intricately carved wooden door with a large, gold number 1 materializes near the desk, the pissed-off mauve and ochre soul shoves through it without hesitating, mumbling, “It’s my goddamn turn.”

I follow him through just as Michael stands from behind his immense mahogany desk. He raises one dark eyebrow and points to the soul. And poof. It’s gone, leaving the faintest hint of sulfur in its place.

“I love it when they make my decision easy.” A slow grin creeps across Michael’s face as his startling blue eyes shift to me. “I have the oddest sense of déjà vu,” he says, an amused smile twitching the corners of his mouth as he strokes his black goatee.

“Why am I here?” I ask wearily, bypassing the endless bookshelves and sliding into one of the beige leather chairs in front of his desk.

He sinks into the high-backed chair across the desk from me. “You have to ask?” His brow knits. “I’ve always questioned your intelligence.”

I hold his sharp gaze. “I thought I was tagged for Heaven.”

“You couldn’t possibly believe that was going to stick.” A cold grin slices across his face. “Quality control is very important. We can’t let just
anyone
into Heaven.”

I sigh, resigned. Turns out Heaven squirms out of contracts with the best of them. “Fine. Do what you have to.”