The Given (28 page)

“Yes.”

“Then I can see it.”

But how? He was awake enough to know that something had happened in the hours since they made love, but too sleep-addled to know what. And Kit didn't give him a chance to figure it out.

“Were you going to tell me, Grif?” she asked, mug cupped in both hands. “Or were you just going to disappear again?”

His heart sunk. So she knew. He saw the certainty in her dust-dry eyes. “Who was it? Sarge?”

She inclined her head.

“How? Did he come through me while I was sleeping?”

“He used my dreams,” she said, shaking her head. “Sleepwalking.”

Grif frowned and glanced back toward the doorway. And he'd reached her physically somehow, imbuing her with Divine Touch. That explained how she could see the plasma. Yet that meant he'd have ventured to the Surface, and the Pure angel, the Sarge that he knew, would never do that.

“I'm sorry. It's because of me. This.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I didn't mean for this to happen. I was trying to say good-bye. It was incredible, you're incredible, but this was—”

“Perfect. Overdue. And don't you dare say a mistake.”

“I wasn't going to. I was going to say that this”—he motioned around the bedroom—“was me trying to leave you.”

“Good job.”

He blinked at her sarcasm. “Thank you.”

Rolling her eyes, she rose, coffee mug in hand. “Hold on.”

She swept from the room, and a moment later Grif heard her moving around in the kitchen. He glanced at the clock. Five
A
.
M
. That's why he was fully dressed again, from scuffed wingtips to the fedora he'd left lying on the pillow. As always.

And the next time 4:10 in the morning rolled around? He'd be dead.

Kit swept back into the bedroom then, her long robe flaring around her ankles in a silken swirl. She looked like a movie siren as she dropped down on the bed next to him and handed him his own steaming mug of joe. Her warmth, her nearness, the faint scent of her skin made his heart gave a giant thwack, but he refocused, accepting the cup.

“Now,” she said, when he'd taken that first steadying sip. “Tell me everything.”

“I'm dying, Kit.”

“I know.” Her voice was even, but even in the gray shadows of predawn, Grif saw her blanch. He reached out a hand to steady her, but it was Kit who gave him a reassuring squeeze instead, and then a short nod. “What else?”

Shifting, he sighed and laid it all out for her. “Basically, the Host has decided that my time is up. They gave me a prophecy, a timeline in which to complete a task, but it's really an ultimatum. If I fail to fulfill its conditions, then I'll die on the fifty-first anniversary of my death, and they'll send me directly back to the Tube. But this time? They're going to recycle my soul.”

She knew what that meant. He saw it in the way her gaze fell flat before she closed her eyes. His soul would have to forget this life—that he'd ever visited the Surface as a man named Griffin Shaw—and take on a new life entirely, from birth to death. She wavered slightly, shaking her head. “I hate them.”

“Don't,” Grif said, scoffing. “It's wasted on them.”

“So what's the prophecy?”

Grif closed his eyes, and recited it by heart. He would tell her the truth—she both deserved and required it—but he didn't want to look at her as he said it.

Reunite with your true love before the anniversary of your death . . . or all is Lost.

“So you need to find Evie,” she said after a long silence, and then looked away. Because if she were his true love, the plasma wouldn't be lurking around the doorjamb. He wouldn't be dying, headed back to incubation, or destined to leave her at all.
All
wouldn't be lost.

Grif reached out again to take her hand, but this time she pulled away. Still not looking at him, she said, “I hate her sometimes, too, you know.”

Grif found he could say nothing to that.

Kit laughed without humor, and shook her head as she ran her fingertip along the edge of her coffee mug. “I'm jealous of a seventy-five-year-old woman whom I've never even met. Isn't that awful?”

“There's no reason for that, either,” Grif said softly. “I don't belong with her anymore. Finding Evie or not . . . it's not going to change that prophecy, because the Pures are right. My stint on this mudflat has come and gone. I feel it in my bones. It's time for me to go.”

She shook her head. “Don't say that.”

Lifting one hand, warmed from the mug, he cupped the side of her face and felt the wetness trailing there. “You have your own life to live, and it doesn't include some wistful, broken old fogey like me hanging from your skirt hem. This . . . whatever it is, whatever happens next, it's fated.”

“No.” She shook her head so hard that her curls whipped out at his face. “No, this is not fated. Because you
are
here! Right now! And that is not a mistake.”

“I'm here as a punishment, Kit. As a lesson.”

“Aren't we all?”

“No.” He reached for her when she only huffed. “No, you're here to experience love. God's love made manifest in this world.”

Kit blinked at him, but said nothing, staring so long that she looked like a black-and-white movie still. He studied the smooth line of her cheek, allowing his gaze to fall to her shoulder before rising again to memorize the full moon of her face. He knew he was eventually going to have to forget all of this, but he'd try to hang on to this memory until the very last second.

“You're right. You're right about all of it except for one thing,” Kit finally said, nodding to herself. Then she reversed so that her hand was on his arm instead. “You and I were what was fated. You gave me my very best moments on this big, round mudflat, and it's because of you that I believe in miracles. I mean, isn't that what this is? You and me?”

“Yes, but—”

“And free will. We've got that, too, remember?” She was leaning in close now, imploring. “And love. The kind that makes angels weep.”

Grif just stared.

“So I believe we can still fulfill that prophecy. We'll find Evie, and we'll close down that old life. That will free you up to start a new one, in the present, with me. But, Grif, you have to believe it, too.” She squeezed his arm. “Will you do that? For me?”

Staring at her, pressed to his side like she would never leave, Grif realized he'd never believed in anything as much as he believed in her. In
them
. He also wondered how he could have ever thought that he still loved Evie.

And he wondered what his fate would have been if only he'd released the past sooner.

But there was nothing he could do about that now.

“Okay.” He finally nodded, then stood and held out his hand. “Okay, then . . . let's go shut down the past.”

Kit blinked up at him in surprise. “What? Right now?”

“I'm already dressed,” Grif pointed out, then had to grin. “Besides, there's no time like the present.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

G
rif and Kit had met Dr. Charles Ott the previous summer while working on a case involving a particularly brutal drug that caused the user's skin to fall off—while they were still alive. Those were the first instances of the drug spotted in the United States, and solving the case had revived Dr. Ott's flagging career. So he owed Kit and Grif, and told them as much, though Grif doubted the man had foreseen a five
A
.
M
. phone call in his future when he said it.

Still, a half hour later he met them outside the coroner's office, giving them a sleepy wave hello, and a big yawn to the security guard inside. He scratched his head as he led them along the long, linoleum-lined hallway, which caused his bright red hair to sit up in spiky flames as they approached his lab.

“Yeah, I remember Barbara McCoy,” he said, turning to push into his office while facing them. “Still waiting to hear what her next of kin wants to do with her remains.”

Grif made an acknowledging sound in the back of his throat, which encouraged Ott to turn away, and Grif used the moment to glance at Kit. She'd told him what happened with Ray DiMartino, an accounting that had them both shaking again by the end of it. So Barbara's next of kin might take up space on the slab next to her, but he wasn't going to be calling Ott back anytime soon.

They followed Ott into the autopsy room, and to the wall of refrigeration units behind him. He studied the accompanying paperwork, then yanked open one of the doors without ceremony. Pulling out a long stainless-steel tray, he made sure the toe tag matched the paperwork, and then looked up at Kit. “You sure you're ready for this?”

She was sheet-white and already trembling. Still, she just gritted her teeth and jerked her head at Grif. “He's the one you need to worry about.”

Ott grinned. “Okay, then.”

And in a flourish befitting a world-class magician, he whisked the sheet from the body in one fell swoop.

It actually wasn't as bad this time around. After all, they'd both seen Barbara's body before, on the floor of her high-rise apartment, and this time there wasn't the sight and smell of blood pooling around her, or the assault of gunpowder shocking the air. Still, there was very little left of the woman's face, her skull a blasted crater of bone cutting into the remaining gray matter. Grif looked at Kit.

“Geez,” she said, putting a hand to her head. “I don't feel so well.”

Though Grif was closer, Ott reached Kit's side first. “Can I get you something? Do you want to sit down? Get some fresh air?”

“No, no. I'm sure I'll be fine. It's just that it's so early and I'm not used to this.” She paused dramatically. “But . . .”

“Yes?” Eager, Ott leaned in too close to her face. Grif fought the urge to pull the man away by the scruff of his neck. He got a pass, Grif figured, because he probably didn't have a whole lot of contact with the living.

“Maybe a soda would settle my stomach?” Kit pitched the statement high, ending it in a question.

As expected, Ott rushed to her rescue. “There's a vending machine in the hall. I'll be right back.”

Grif watched him scramble away, red hair bouncing behind him like a troll doll's. “You gonna scratch him behind the ears when he gets back?”

“Think I should?” Kit smiled as she went to lock the door behind Ott, though they were both serious again by the time she returned to Grif's side. “He's not going to let us in again after this.”

“I don't think we're going to need him to in the next twenty-four hours,” Grif muttered, because after that he'd be gone, never to roam the Surface again. At least, not as Griffin Shaw.

“Grif—” Kit chided.

“I know. Don't worry, I know.” He blew out a breath and refocused on the corpse.

“Just hurry up and do what you need to before he calls that guard.”

“No problem. I'm an ace with the newly dead.”

And he was thankful for whatever Sarge had done to Kit. If Sarge had gifted her with Divine Touch, then he didn't have to worry about breaking one of the Pures' ridiculous rules about what she was supposed to see. He also hadn't forgotten about Zicaro, stuck somewhere out there with a known killer. They needed to move quickly.

So, bracing himself, he filled his lungs with a deep, rib-splitting breath, felt his angelic nature fire up—originating in the twin feathers tucked beneath his shoulder blades—and then blew all that power out at the corpse.

He had to admit, he enjoyed the way Kit jumped at the same time Barbara's corpse did, or maybe it was just the way Kit clung to him when she did it, and though the white-hot flash of heat and light might have been too fast for her mortal eyes to detect, he knew she scented the smoke when she covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

“What is—?”

“Just sulfur,” Grif said, not taking his attention from the coalescing funnel. “Better known 'round these parts as brimstone.”

“But brimstone is bad, right? It's hellfire, damnation, stuff like that?”

Grif shook his head. “Sulfur is an essential element for all living things. It acts as both fuel and a respiratory compound. And right now we need both. Watch.”

Much like plasma, the yellowish sulfur swirled as if searching for a target, and found it in the phantom shape of Barbara's missing features. It coalesced there, twining about itself before drawing in more tightly, squeezing out the air molecules.

“Why, that's—” Kit began to speak but faltered, now truly looking peaked. Grif took her by the elbow to steady her, and hoped the authority in his voice did the same.

“It's bonding with the proteins left in her body, the amino acids, the keratin.”

Kit swallowed audibly beside him. “And keratin is present in skin. And hair.”

“Yes, and more importantly, Barbara's face.”

Which meant Grif was finally going to be face-to-face—in a manner of speaking—with that face, and the woman who had hated him and Evie for more than fifty long years. The one who thought that Grif deserved to die horribly . . . and who'd probably had a hand in it as well.

Gritting his teeth, he watched the smoke continue to mold itself to the woman's remains, the basic facial features forming first and lightening into an ashy tinge actually befitting death. Even the curls along the hairline popped in stylish relief, and those darkened slightly into a hue similar to Kit's own deep shade. The visage that appeared would be the self-image that the woman saw in her mind's eye, not the one she'd watched age over the years in the mirror. Therefore the smoky face solidifying before them was not settled into her seventies but looked like it could be anywhere from mid-twenties to mid-forties. Whenever, Grif thought, Barbara had felt most like herself.