Lightbringer (18 page)

“Pros'tite,”
he whispered, stunned and repentant. His own palm was dark from their brief contact; if he'd been alive, Wendy imagined it would be red and blistering. “My apologies. I hurt you. I didn't mean to.”

“It's fine. Looks like I hurt you too,” she replied grimly. “How's your hand?”

“I'll survive.” Piotr turned away from her and stood, walking to the window. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. You were worried, you lost your concentration and you weren't careful when we touched.” Wendy laughed brokenly. “I mean, hell, it's not like there's an instruction manual for this sort of thing. We're sort of feeling our way along, right?”

“I've asked every Shade still able to talk with me if they've ever heard of anything like this. None can. Most think I am insane to even think of being near the living.”

“Maybe. I wish my mom were here,” Wendy said. She slid from the bed and braced her back against the mattress, legs thrust out and flexing her toes. The exercise gave her something to concentrate on besides Piotr. “She'd know what to do. She might have a clue, at least.”

“Your mother?” Steadied somewhat, Piotr settled on the floor beside her. “What do you mean? How could your mother help us?”

“Mom is…was…like me. She…she sees. Saw. The dead, I mean.”

She's also a Lightbringer
, Wendy wanted to add, but kept silent on that fact. Now was not the time, nor the place. She had to think on this revelation first, to turn it over in her head.

“I do not recall you speaking of this before. So you were born this way, it was not merely your accident…it is inherited, your Seeing?” Piotr reached for her hand and Wendy hesitated, then drew away, uncertain if she wanted him to touch her after his outburst. He hadn't meant to hurt them, she knew, but time after time he'd told her that existing in the Never was all about strength of will and concentration. If he lost his concentration again he might do more than sting her, he might do real damage to them both. Still, despite all that, part of her was anxious to brush her fingers across his wrist, to feel that strange ethereal suppleness that existed between them.

Duty
, a voice whispered within. Her duty was being denied all for the touch of a boy's hand. Wendy wanted to be disgusted with herself but couldn't quite work up to it. Touching Piotr's hand still felt too calming, too nice. Feeling like a taut bundle of nerves and emotions, Wendy gave in and brushed his fingers with hers. Now that he was calm their temperatures had almost equalized. It was very pleasant.

“Wendy?” Piotr was examining her face and Wendy, flushing, realized she hadn't answered his question.

“Sorry! Um, well, yes and no. My ability to see the dead is sort of inherited, yeah, but I wasn't born like this. I only started seeing ghosts after the accident. The one we met at.”

“The accident we met…oh, yes, I remember now.” He glanced around the room, as if looking would reveal more of Wendy's past to him. “I have asked and asked, but no one has heard of your mother. And your patrols, are they still turning up nothing?” Wendy shook her head. “Wendy,” Piotr began hesitantly, “I do not mean to belittle your pain but…she has probably entered the Light by now. Much time has passed.”

Stiffening, Wendy started to draw away.

Piotr knew that he'd said the wrong thing. Wendy's shoulders hunched and her head dipped down, her chin tucked to her chest and her eyes watering. Thoughtlessly, Piotr put an arm around her and drew her to his side, barely feeling the increase of her heat in his concern for her.

“You don't understand. Before…before, I didn't tell you the whole truth, Piotr. My mom isn't dead.” She scrubbed the heel of her hand against her cheeks. “She's in a coma. Mom's sick.”

“Oh.” This changed things, Piotr knew. “Then your problem is fixed! Her soul may be where her body is and since she still lives—”

“That's the problem,” Wendy whispered. Her shoulders shook and Piotr hugged her tighter, wishing that he could help. “Her soul
isn't
anywhere near her body. She's just gone!”

“Perhaps, because you are Seers, you are strange,” Piotr suggested, half to assure himself and half for Wendy. “It is known that your souls are different from the rest of us. Perhaps her cord, it has grown thin and she is just traveling. Wise men, yogi, do this from time to time.”

“That's what I've been banking on,” Wendy admitted, “but I've scoured almost all of the South Bay and I've come up with bupkis.” She scrubbed her eyes. “I hate to say this, but I've been really counting on you coming up with some sort of lead for me. You seemed to know everyone, you know? But…you've got your own issues. I can't ask you to keep worrying about my stuff.”

“This is nonsense!” Piotr cried, tightening his hold. “I do not leave my…friends…to suffer, Wendy. I shall keep looking, I swear.”

“But,” she frowned, “what about Dunn and Tommy? You can't be in two places at once, Piotr.”

“Shush. I am here for you.” Inexperienced with this sort of misery, Piotr fought with himself over what was the best next move, what question would hurt her the least. Finally he settled on, “What do the doctors say is wrong with her?” and hoped that it wouldn't cause Wendy further pain.

Knuckling away the tears on her cheek with one hand, Wendy coughed wetly, leaned back into his steadying arm, and sighed. “That's just it. They don't know. Her condition is like nothing they've ever seen before, but…” Wendy wiped her eyes. “Physically the doctors don't know what happened. Aneurism, embolism…all these ‘isms.’ They can't find any actual physical damage, her collapse and the coma are a big mystery. The insurance company flew in fancy doctors from New York, Paris, London. They all want to write papers about her mysterious collapse. But I know what really did it.” She pressed her lips tightly together. “It was the Lost.”

“The Lost?” Piotr didn't quite understand how contact with the Lost would affect Wendy's mother that way, but after meeting Wendy, he was unwilling to dismiss the possibility so easily, unlikely as it seemed. “I do not understand.”

“That night, the night of the accident, my mother was swarmed by Lost, Piotr. They…drained her somehow. Pulled her soul free. They had to have, because when I got there her soul was gone. Completely gone. And some of the Lost were apologizing to me. They were so upset…” Wendy crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself.

“I have never heard of such a thing,” Piotr murmured. “It cannot be. It is impossible.”

“Is it?” Wendy studied Piotr. “You told me time and time again how unique the Lost are, how much raw power they've got. And Seers are different, right? You just said so.”

“But to harm a living soul—”

“It wasn't intentional,” Wendy replied firmly. “That was clear. I think it was some crazy sort of accident. I think that she went to…talk to them, to make sure they were finding the Light okay, and they were in a panic. They pulled her apart.” Wendy chuckled wetly and Piotr realized that she'd been holding back the bulk of her tears only by sheer force of will. That will was starting to crack. “I always wondered why she wouldn't let me…interact…with the Lost before. Mom was trained by her grandmother who said that there were generations of us, Seers, stretching who knows how far back. They must have known something like this could happen.”

The heat coming off her was starting to grow immense. Piotr shifted, uncomfortable but unwilling to let Wendy go when she was hurting. “Put like that, I suppose it is possible that the Lost may have hurt your mother. But Wendy, what makes you think she hasn't simply passed on?”

“It's like that cap of Dunn's, or Tommy's cloak. If her body hasn't given up, that means her spirit's still out there, right?”

“In theory? It is possible.” Piotr didn't want to offer her hope, but he'd seen his fair share of spirits that still had healthy silver cords attached. If her mother's spirit had been knocked free somehow and was wandering, there was a chance they could return her soul…but not if there was no body to return to. So long as the cord remained tethered, even if it were thin as silken thread, Wendy's mother might yet be roused.

Then a terrible thought occurred to him. He didn't want to bring it up, but Piotr knew he'd never forgive himself if he didn't at least broach the topic. “Wendy? There is…one other possible reason why you may not be able to find your mother.”

“Oh yeah?”

Taking a deep breath, Piotr rolled his hands into fists, nails digging deep into his palms. He could feel himself shaking. “It is possible that she…has become a Walker.”

Wishing Jabber were there to draw her attention away from this horrible conversation, Wendy rolled her tongue around her barbell and ran the ball against the ridge of her mouth.

“Nope.”

“Wendy—”

“No, Piotr.” She slashed her hand through the air, cutting him off. “If you knew anything about my mom you'd know that she'd rather vanish into nothing, okay? She's not…she'd never…look, it would go against who she
is
, Piotr. She's a
good
person. She's not a Walker, okay? She'd never hurt a kid. I don't believe it. So it's something else. Got me?”

“If you say this is the way it is, so it is. My apologies.”

“Forgiven. Besides,” Wendy winced, “if anyone were going to go against who they are during a tough time, it'd be me. Not her.” She hung her head.

“I do not understand.”

“After everything that happened—losing Mom—I quit. I started avoiding the dead, only interacting with them when I had to, because I was scared that what happened to Mom might happen to me. Or something. Maybe I just blamed myself for not getting there in time. If I'd come when she first called, when she actually asked for my help…maybe she wouldn't have gotten overwhelmed.”

“This story is amazing.” Piotr gently rubbed her shoulders and, astoundingly, Wendy felt the siren song of sleep start to wrap itself around her. She sagged against him, weary to the bone, wishing that she was stretched out on the bed rather than sitting on the floor.

“Wendy, surely you must realize that this is not your fault,” Piotr added as Wendy struggled to keep her eyes open. “Had you gotten there in time, there was no guarantee that a dozen panicked Lost wouldn't have hurt you too. You are very, very lucky that they had time to calm down. Fear makes them more powerful. Trust me, I know.”

“I know that now,” Wendy murmured, yawning so that the tendons in her jaw creaked. “But it was hard to understand then. I'm doing the best I can on my own now, but Mom had lots of training. I don't. We were always so busy that I barely had any teaching at all. I'm not half the Ligh…the Seer she was. And I've got tons yet left to learn.”

“Hmm. It's strange. You'd think if members of your family were there, trying to guide souls to the Light, that more ghosts would remember seeing them. Not every soul is ready for that journey so close to death, after all.”

Here was the moment, Wendy realized. Sleep-ready or not, here was the moment when she would have to decide; she could make something up, could lie to him and keep him…or she could be honest and hope he would understand. It was all so new, so fresh and strange, and she desperately didn't want to lose the chill but comforting arm around her shoulder, the soothing cadence of his lyrical voice. She could keep quiet, or lie, or even simply mislead and let him draw his own conclusion. Or she could tell the truth. She could be true to what her mother sacrificed, what her mother was in the hospital for, and pray that Piotr wouldn't run away.

Lying, Wendy knew, wasn't right, not anymore. She took a breath.

“Well,” she drawled, “there's sort of a reason for that.”

Piotr's hands stilled and Wendy drew away from his comforting embrace. The moment she did, her head felt clearer, calmer; her heart rate sped up, preparing for the coming confrontation. “There's, um, well, there's something I haven't been one hundred percent, you know, open about. About me, I mean.”

Slowly Piotr stood, and Wendy, feeling vulnerable on the floor, rose to stand beside him.

“Go on,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, expression guarded.

“I'm—I'm the Lightbringer, Piotr,” Wendy said. “About a month ago? When you were with Lily, fighting those Walkers? It was me. I'm the monster you saw in the dark.”

T
he Felix-the-Cat clock above Wendy's desk counted the passing seconds:
tick-tock-tick
. Piotr stared hard at Wendy, chest rising and falling, beads of sweat standing out against his skin. Wendy was tempted to run her thumb into the hollow of his temples, to see if those glistening droplets felt wet or if they would be made of the same stuff he was—chill, electric nothing.

“That's impossible,” Piotr said with flat finality, taking a step back into her bed. From the thighs up he stood, fists resting on his hips and face set in angry lines, but from the thighs down he was gone, buried in the springs and coils and stuffing of her mattress.

Hating herself for doing this, Wendy shook her head. “No, it's not.”

“Stop joking, Wendy! This is not funny! It is no joke!” Piotr was mad now and the cold came off him in powerful waves. The rapid exhalation of Wendy's breath misted in the air, turned to puffs of white. She shivered, wrapping her arms around her waist, and wished that she had pulled out her coat. There was a stained hoodie on the top of the mending pile. Wendy crossed the room and donned it, smelling the pungent aroma of tar and grass, the faintest whiff of her own blood. How long ago had she ripped this hoodie? She'd faced so many fights these past few weeks, jumped so many fences, Wendy couldn't even recall how she'd torn it.

“I'm not joking.” Wendy held out her arms. “I can show you.”

“This is sick!” Piotr turned his back on her. “I am leaving.”

Knowing now that Piotr would refuse to believe her until she gave him proof, Wendy wavered between showing him and letting him leave. She could do it, Wendy realized, she could let him walk out the door and wait this drama she'd instigated out. He would come back; they were too close for Piotr to stay away long. They needed one another—she was helping him by destroying the Walkers, even if he didn't know it, and he had promised to find her mother. But if she did this, if she pushed the issue and showed him what she really was inside, the likelihood of him ever coming back…

“No,” Wendy said. “I have something to show you.”

“Net,”
Piotr hissed. “I do not want to see it!”

“I'm so sorry, Piotr,” Wendy whispered. “But you've got no choice.” Decision done, she reached inside and began unraveling the firm web of will her mother had taught her to keep tightly woven over her abilities. The heat inside grew, incrementally at first, but then with more insistence as she fed the fire of Light within. The humming, crystal clear in its clarity, heartbreakingly intense, began to fill first her mind, then mouth, then seep out of her very pores.

The air between them, previously still, began to swirl and move. Papers lifted off her desk in the wayward eddies of air, moisture pattered from the ceiling to dampen her bed and carpet; the curtains flapped wildly. Wendy knew they were creating something wrong in her room, something like a mini storm front, but couldn't help herself. The power was growing, the song rising out of her, and only when she had a reaction, only then could she feel safe enough to stop.

The shadows on her wall in the Never began to lengthen while, in the real world, the shadow cast by the light of her desk lamp began to fade. Going…going…gone.

It was the siren song that did it.

Piotr spun and, seeing the glow pulsing at the edge of her soul, hearing the sweet slinking song, stumbled back. The outline of the girl he knew, red curls brushing against her cheeks and arms outstretched, was rapidly fading under the rising wash of Light. The Light wasn't as blinding this close, though Piotr's eyes still gushed water when he gazed upon her, and he felt the song worm its way into his head. High and sharp and lovely, the song vibrated in his back teeth, turning his knees to jelly. The bones he'd long since discarded felt like shattered glass and ground gravel in their sockets and yet, despite the insistent pain, a feeling like exaltation overwhelmed him, lifted him up and made him feel obliquely, absurdly
grateful.
The Light was horrible and humbling and it was all Piotr could do not to start screaming until his vocal cords were a blasted ruin, his lungs a tattered mess in his chest.

There was a moment, just a moment, when Piotr thought he could grasp just what Wendy was. Then tentacles of Light punched through her chest in a bloodless spray of glass-green fire, leaving a wound like a lipless mouth where her beating heart should have been. The physical body he had known as Wendy was obliterated now, not a tangled hair or shred of skin left. She was Light and life and a terrible, all-encompassing
love
that filled him and stretched him and left him feeling shredded into tiny pieces. Where her mouth should have been was a smooth, flat expanse of what he could only assume was skin, her nose was gone, her ears lost to sight. Only her eyes, large and brown and warm, were the same. They gazed at him and for the first time in all his years of endless, plodding existence, Piotr felt weak.

Weighed down by her regard, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. When he vanished beneath the top of the bedspread Wendy drew her power back inside with difficulty, forcing the banked heat inside to cool, to dim, and wrapped the unspooling ribbons of Light around herself again.

Long moments passed before she was done and when Wendy felt fully in control, felt that Piotr was completely safe from the Light side of her nature, she opened her eyes to find him mere inches from her. His expression was shuttered and she searched his face, desperately trying to puzzle out his state of mind.

“Piotr?”

“You are the Lightbringer.” Flat, cold.

She swallowed thickly. “Yes.”

“You lied to me,” he said and his accent was so thick she had to struggle to make out his words. “For weeks and weeks, you have been lying to me!”

“I didn't lie exactly,” she hedged, feeling miserable, “I just didn't—”

“You just didn't tell me that you incinerate my friends day and night!” He threw up his hands and strode across the room. “Are you the one taking them—our Lost? Did you take Dunn? Or Tommy? As revenge for your mother? The Lost took your mother, so you take the Lost?”

“No!” Horrified that Piotr would think such a thing, Wendy struggled for the right words to calm him, to soothe this troubled situation. “I would
never—
”

“Never what? Never kill one of the dead? Because you have, I've seen it!” Piotr crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “Or do you deny shredding those Walkers? Stabbing them with those…tentacles? What are they? Weapons? Knives for the likes of you?”

“They're ribbons!” Wendy snapped. “I wrap a ghost—”

“So you admit it. You strangle my kind with—”

“Strangle? Strangle!” Wendy sputtered. “I save you—”

“Is that what you were trying to tell me earlier, when you stumbled over your words time and time again? Telling me about your mother, you had such a hard time describing her as Seer. Because you are not Seer! You are more. And if you are more, then your mother must be more,
da?
Is that why you seek her so hard, Wendy? Are you lonely? Is the burden of killing the dead over and over again too much for you?”

“It's not like that! My mother—”

“TELL ME THE TRUTH! Does your mother kill my kind? Do you?”

“It's not killed if you're already dead!” Wendy yelled before she could stop herself. Wendy's hands flew to her mouth, eyes huge and horrified, but silence followed the proclamation. She'd lucked out; no one seemed to have awoken at her shout. Whispering harshly, she added, “And it's not like I knew any of you before! I was just doing what I was told to do! It's my job!”

“Your mother,” Piotr snorted. “Grandmothers, aunts. An entire family of Lightbringers. Destroying souls as you see fit! Filling us with…that…making us feel small and weak and then ripping us apart! Does it make you feel big to make us feel small before you tear us into nothing with your
ribbons
?” He spat on the ground.

“You dumbass, we don't destroy anything! I reap ghosts!” Now pushed past all endurance, Wendy strode up to Piotr and poked him in the shoulder. Surprisingly, she made contact and the touch of him was like dragging her hand through dry ice. Yelping, she yanked her hand back and waved it rapidly in the air to warm it. “I don't kill you, I don't destroy you, I send you to the afterlife!”

“I am in the afterlife,” he snapped.

Wendy, fuming over the possible damage to her hand, gaped at his sheer stubborn stupidity. Then, surprisingly, he added, “Did you hurt your finger?”

Subdued somewhat by the question, Wendy held it up. “I'll live.” He snorted and she realized that this fight was getting them nowhere.

“I didn't mean the Never,” she said dully, sitting on the edge of her bed and tucking her wounded fingers into her armpit. They stung and tingled crazily but she thought they'd be okay. “When I say afterlife I really mean
the
afterlife. I don't kill you, I send you into the Light.”

He was quiet a moment. Wendy glanced up and found him standing at the window, looking out. “How many?” he asked, voice low. “How many have you sent on?”

She swallowed thickly. The tone of his voice, the low pitch, didn't bode well. Piotr had never been a shouter, but he was generally more animated than that. This sudden stillness unnerved her; his unexpected quiet set her on edge. “I've never counted. A lot. Hundreds, possibly thousands. Mostly Shades.” She hung her head, for the first time ashamed of what she'd always before considered her duty, part of the natural order of things, even when she'd been avoiding her duty out of fear and guilt over what happened to her mother.

“I told you before, with my mother gone I didn't want to do it anymore, but because of the Walkers…I've had to get up to speed pretty quickly. So…hundreds. Probably more.” She cleared her throat. “I've been taking out Walkers while I've been on patrol. Ever since we talked. You got me started again. I've been helping you.”

“Helping me.” Piotr nodded but didn't turn. “I must leave.” Leading with his left shoulder, he began to phase through the wall.

“Piotr, wait!” Wendy jumped to her feet, hands outstretched, but before she could take the half dozen steps to the window, he was gone.

In her dreams, Wendy ran.

She was on the track at school, circling the field over and over again, the stitch in her side ablaze with pain, her legs trembling, the soles of her bare feet pounding the pavement in a rhythmic staccato. Stinging sweat ran in her eyes, blurring her vision, and every inhalation burned. Even her teeth ached, though whether from the cold or the exertion, Wendy was unsure. All she knew was that if she stopped running, even for one moment, she'd see that dim silver flicker at the edge of the field and she would have to follow it. She'd force her way through the woods again, nettles stinging her calves, burrs catching in her socks, branches whipping across her face, until she found the man again, still under the fall of eucalyptus deadwood.

She didn't want to see him again. She'd had enough of death and ghosts.

It was too much. She couldn't go on but she forced herself to take the next step and then the next. Wendy pushed on, pushed on, and when her leg gave out, knee buckling and calf tightening in an excruciating charley horse, Wendy shrieked, hitting the ground with shoulder and hip. She cried, writhing on the ground, hair pooling beneath her head. The pain sunk deep, angry fingers into her muscles and
twisted.
Wendy screamed and screamed and screamed.

It took a long, long time for Wendy to realize blessed, numbing cold was working its way through her leg. Her cries tapered off; sniffling, she wiped her wrist across her face and struggled to sit up.

“I'd be careful if I were you,” the White Lady said, sitting back on her haunches and rising in a creaking, graceful arc. Where her hands had pressed into Wendy's leg, blue flesh rimmed in ice slowly warmed. “Push yourself too hard and you'll never catch up with me.”

“Go away.” Wendy flopped back to the ground and glared up at the stars above. She tried to find the Big Dipper but couldn't. The stars were different here, bigger and brighter, closer to the earth. The air was startlingly cold, especially for a California night. Wendy wished that she'd dreamed herself a jacket.

“The Rider is an idiot,” the White Lady said, moving her fingers to the back of Wendy's ankle, rotating the cuff gently. “Even I can see that you provide us a good service. I don't appreciate you meddling in my affairs, don't get me wrong, but certain Shades have been clinging to the last vestiges of life for far too long. They need to be put out of their misery.”

Irritated that the news of her fight with Piotr had flown so fast to the enemy's ears, Wendy gritted her teeth and feebly swiped at the White Lady's icy hands. Chuckling at Wendy's irritation, the White Lady released her ankle. “You didn't hurt anything. You'll be sore in the morning, but nothing tore.”

“Didn't I just tell you to go away?”

“Would that I could. You called me here.”

Wendy snorted. “I did not.”

The White Lady shrugged. “Suit yourself. Feel free to leave, then. You won't see me shedding a tear. If I can still cry.” She chuckled. “I haven't tried.”