The Shadows Trilogy (Box Set: Edge of Shadows, Shadows Deep, Veiled Shadows) (57 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A loud clanging noise filled the air and David winced. He didn’t need to see Lila’s reaction to the sirens to know that they were running out of time. He hurried after her through the deserted streets. He saw a large looming building on the horizon and guessed correctly that was their destination.

“We aren’t about to enter the lion’s den, are we?” he asked. The air temperature had noticeably dropped in the last few minutes, and he could see his breath crystallize in the air.

“I need to access the way line to take you to the Bradford waypoint,” Lila said. Her voice was tense. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Why are you doing this?” David asked. He wondered why Braz had put his young protégé in such a compromising situation. If anything, he thought that Braz should have shouldered the risk of the escape himself.

“Braz said to do it,” Lila said.

“Then your unquestioning loyalty is admirable,” David replied.

Lila cut a glance at him. “I owe Braz everything. He wouldn’t have wanted me to do this unless it was important. I don’t ask questions.”

“Trust can be misplaced.” David knew that better than anyone.

Lila stopped and stared at David. He felt her gaze weighing him. “Braz is risking everything to help you escape. After everything I’ve heard whispered about you, I can’t figure out why for the life of me, but Braz has never done anything to make me question my ability to trust him. Considering what we’re doing right now, I would think you would feel the same.”

“There’s politics going on here that I can’t see,” David said. “I’ve been used my entire life by almost every person that I’ve trusted. Forgive me if I don’t trust blindly anymore. Once I see Ellie with my own eyes, I’ll be able to weigh in on my ability to trust Braz’s intentions.”

Lila seemed ready to say something else, and then she changed her mind. “We need to go.”

“No arguing here,” David said.

Lila broke into a fast trot. David tried hard not stare as more details of the building came into focus. The rows of buildings ended at that one, and as far as he could see, it stretched as far as he could see in either direction. He could see faint glows in different rooms dotting the building’s side, but otherwise it looked deserted and menacing.

“What is this place?”

“This, Mr. Mitchell, is the core of Purgatory,” Lila said, sweeping her arm to encompass the towering stone building. “The closest thing I could compare it with from the Other Side would be a processing plant.”

David could only begin to guess what the transport meant by that. Again he was struck by Braz’s earlier comment that Purgatory was a machine. At the time, he hadn’t taken it literally, which may have been a mistake. As eager as he was to get to Ellie’s side, he thought that a little knowledge about Purgatory couldn’t be anything but helpful for them.

“So Braz told me that everyone sees Purgatory differently. That they live in a dream state until it’s decided where they will go,” David said. His voice seemed to carry, but he felt more relieved to have some noise in the uneasy silence.

“Yes, something like that,” Lila said. She seemed distracted. “But I don’t know a lot about that end of things.”

“You just bring them in, huh?”

“That’s my job.” Lila led David down a street that ran parallel with the building. She seemed to be searching for something.

“Let’s not go in the front door,” he quipped, trying to keep her talking.

“It changes.”

“What does?”

“Central Processing. It changes all the time. Braz usually takes me in. The last thing we want to do is wander into a group of guards.”

“I’m confused,” David said.

“Here!” Lila shifted direction and was already in the shadows of the building before David caught up to her. A large door appeared before them. Lila touched a panel to the side of the door, and a small pad lit up. She put her palm flat against the panel, and David heard gears start to whirl and then the door slid open three feet, just enough for them to enter.

Once through the door, David looked around as Lila closed the door behind them. They were in a hallway. He couldn’t see any windows or doors. “What is it about this place and doors?” The question meant to be rhetorical and he saw Lila glare at him and wished he hadn’t voiced the words out loud.

She closed her eyes and then settled her feet. She reached out her hands as David watched in awe as the hallway started to fold in on itself and morph into something else. The wall, which a second before had been in front of him, reappeared on his left hand side. He found himself in a room that had no windows or doors, with Lila still at his side.

“What just happened?” he breathed.

A sly smile appeared on Lila’s face, and David saw a glimpse of the girl who had entranced the entire audience in the club. “No magic if that’s what you are thinking. That’s not my gig. It’s a simple refraction of light to hide that which needs to be hidden.”

“Hopefully you can do the same with us if those guards you mentioned show up,” David replied.

“We needed a few minutes to talk because I need to think,” Lila said as she faced him. “Braz clearly believes that I can do this, but there’s a critical missing piece to this little adventure.”

David was about to ask what, when the answer popped into his mind. “We don’t have a third.”

“Bingo,” Lila said. “That’s the beauty and the curse of who, or more appropriately, what I am. I am the most junior of the three transports, which means that I’m last to be picked up and the first to be dropped off with my charges. Peter and Dane have been around longer and they have earned the right to be able to travel between their sector and Purgatory alone, which is how they were both here tonight.”

“Is it just that you need one of them, or that you need to be part of that trio?” David was trying to figure out what Braz was thinking. He would have known about Lila’s limitation.

Lila’s eyes clouded. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a reason to ask. Do you have any magical or psychic abilities?”

“No, that’s Ellie’s thing,” David said. He had come too far to give up. They were missing something, or he was missing something. He scanned the conversation he had with Braz again looking for a clue. “Wait.” A thought occurred to him. “How do you know where to take the souls that you transport?”

“The soul knows,” Lila said. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s not as if the transport decides on the destination. We are simply there to ensure the safety of the soul on their journey from the waypoint to their sector. Along the way line, I can tell if any of them will be staying with me. The soul knows.”

“So my soul doesn’t have a sector,” David said. He saw Lila shiver at his words. To her, the idea of an unbound soul was completely foreign and infinitely scary, which made him feel even worse about himself. “Where would my soul go then? If we were on a way line?”

“I’m no expert,” Lila said slowly. “But my guess is that your soul would still go to wherever you were supposed to be at that moment in time.”

“Like the Bradford waypoint?”

“You are assuming that’s where your soul would take you?” Lila twirled a strand of her long hair around her fingers. She looked even younger than she had before.

“Yes.” David was more certain than ever that his destiny would take him to Ellie. “If you can get me to the way line, I think I’ll be able to take it from there.”

“The way lines can be dangerous, especially to the uninitiated,” Lila said.

“I have no choice,” David said.

“Okay, we can try,” Lila said. She raised her arms again and concentrated, and David found they were standing in a different room. Here, there was a large circle in the middle of the room. The edges of the circle glowed, and the hair rose on David’s arms. He didn’t need to be magically gifted to feel the immense energy that swelled in the room.

Then David realized that they were not alone. Black robed figures emerged from the corners of the room, and David was dismayed to see Lillian step forward with Braz at her side.

“There you are, David,” Lillian said. Her eyes flashed in anger. “Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Purgatory to speak to you about Mikel’s trial and discovered that Braz had misplaced you. With a certain other incident today, it is a good thing that we caught up to you before any permanent damage could be done.”

The shackles around Braz’s wrists told David everything that he needed to know. He was too late.

“I will not submit to you, Lillian,” David said. “My cooperation with you is over.”

Lillian clucked her tongue. “You have been reassigned to the sector of Hell for the duration of your stay in the Afterlife as Purgatory doesn’t appear to be quite as neutral as it would lead us to believe.”

Lila swore under her breath. Then David felt the shortness of breath in his chest that he had felt in the club, only magnified by a factor of ten. He fell to his knees, and that was when he felt his body lifted off the ground. A flash of black shot between him and Lila and then they were inside the circle.

Lillian’s cry of outrage met his ears just as the light soared up from the floor, and David saw a blinding road of light shoot off into the distance. Then all the darkness was gone, and David’s thoughts lost all sense of cohesion.

Colors and shapes stretched around him. He felt as if all of his bones were being broken and then melded back together again. A cacophony of wails filled his ears. His voice joined theirs and matched their intensity. Then there was blissful silence. Moments later, it was broken by voices in argument. Familiar voices.

Dane and Lila.

“Are you insane?” Dane yelled.

“Don’t you yell at me,” Lila yelled back. “Braz said to take him, so I was taking him. How was I supposed to know we’d walk right into a trap?”

“Braz told you to help the guy that the entire Afterlife is afraid of, and you just said okay? What were you thinking Lila? Let me guess. You weren’t. Your blind trust in that old sod overruled every logical thought in your head.”

“How dare you! You have no authority in Purgatory, and that just pisses you off,” Lila shot back. “What are we doing here?”

“Anyone care to tell me where here is?” David shook the cobwebs from his head. As his eyes shifted into focus, his mouth fell open. He was lying on a small bench. Sunlight warmed his skin. A dirt road ran past him into the distance. He sat up. It was as if he had been transported in time to an old time country bus stop.

“We couldn’t take you to another way point. That would have been too dangerous,” Lila said. “It isn’t safe to take you to Heaven or Hell, plus all the sectors will be on the lookout for you.”

“So take me to the Bradford waypoint. That is exactly where I want to go,” David said. His head was throbbing.

“I’d rather thrust hot pokers into my eyes than to take you back there,” Dane said.

“Then why did you take me away from Purgatory at all?”

“Lillian Bradford is the only opposition between me and my place on the waypoint Council,” Dane spat. “Anything that makes her look bad is good for me. Right now, I’m the one who has you, not Lillian.”

“But you’re going to help us, right?” Lila said.

“I will not help you until we get some answers,” Dane said. “I don’t blindly dive into something that I don’t understand.”

“What exactly does that mean?” David stood. As much as he hated to admit it, now that he was on a way line, he needed Dane unless Lila figured out some way to move without the man’s assistance. He could see Lila’s frustration and knew that it was mirrored on his own face. “Ellie needs me. With Mikel on the loose, she is in trouble. I’m certain he’s on his way there now.”

“Mr. Mitchell, at this point you are no better than Lila. Running off half-cocked with no plan and no thought about how you are going to do this thing that you think you are going to do,” Dane said.

Dane’s words hit right where they were intended, squarely into David’s insecurities. “So I take it that you have a better idea?”

“Don’t you think it makes sense to figure out what you are and what you can do before someone else does? Maybe be able to use that to your advantage?”

He hated to admit it, but Dane was right. “You can help me do that?”

“I can try.”

“Why would you do that? You said before that you wanted to turn me in yourself. I still don’t feel like you’re being upfront with me.”

“He will help you to ensure that Lila doesn’t get hurt,” a new, yet familiar voice rang out. Peter had arrived. “As will I.”

David looked at the three transports. He knew that they were at full power together. He could use them. A chill ran down his spine. He hated it when he thought like Lillian.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ellie crossed the room in less than three steps and threw herself into Melanie’s open arms. She laughed and squeezed Melanie tight. “I can’t believe it! You are real!”

Melanie laughed. It was a loud brash noise that Ellie realized she missed more than she could ever describe. She gave Ellie a tight squeeze and then released her. “Please. I’m as real as this table.” She knocked a fist on the table. “Sit, sit. I can’t wait to hear how you’ve been.”

It was surreal. Ellie found herself settled into the seat across from Melanie as if she had never left the Other Side. But Mikel watching her from across the room ensured that she was constantly reminded that her two realities had collided. That was when it finally hit her. Melanie wasn’t acting surprised to see her. She wasn’t asking where she had been. A sinking feeling wrapped around her middle.

Ellie looked around the room, deliberately sliding her eyes past Mikel. “Is Kevin here? I’d love to see him and let him know that I’m okay.”

Melanie cleared her throat. “No, sorry, Ellie. Kevin isn’t here, but you aren’t really here either.”

“What do you mean?” Goosebumps rose on Ellie’s arms.

“We’re here, in your shop, but not on the Other Side. Think of it like there is an invisible barrier that divides the Other Side from the Afterlife. If you look closer, you’ll see subtle differences, other than the obvious lack of people. I thought you’d be more comfortable talking here.”

“More comfortable for what?” Ellie’s voice rose a notch. “What aren’t you telling me, Melanie? You’re dead too?”

“Look, doll, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time. I thought you’d like to be in a familiar environment. No, I’m not dead. I’m not exactly alive either.”

“You better start explaining what the hell you are talking about, Melanie, or else I’m leaving.” Ellie was ready to try Lucy’s spell and go back to the waypoint, but something kept her rooted in her seat. As frustrated as she was, her curiosity was winning out.

“Okay. I get that you’re upset,” Melanie had her hands up and was making soothing strokes through the air. Ellie hated that Melanie looked exactly as she remembered.

Since the day that Ellie opened up her coffee shop, Melanie had made a daily appearance the moment the store opened and stayed until mid-morning. She had always told Ellie that she was an aspiring novelist who had a day job in freelance journalism. She was short and had crazy curly hair that frequently stuck out in inane directions.  Her clothes were always bright and vibrant; just like Melanie’s personality. She had been someone that Ellie never questioned being there, and there she had been, under Ellie’s nose, for years.

“You’ve been spying on me.” Ellie didn’t bother to keep the accusation out of her voice. “You’ve been spying on me for him.” Ellie didn’t look at Mikel. It was obvious who she was talking about.

“For him?” Melanie’s expression of distaste seemed genuine. “I don’t even think so. Give me some credit.”

“Why?” Ellie shot back. “So far, I’m finding my life was full of liars.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Ellie,” Melanie said with a huff. “I may have omitted some facts, but quite frankly, at the time they weren’t relevant.”

Ellie’s head was starting to hurt. “I think you’d better start at the beginning because I don’t understand this at all.”

A broad smile blossomed on Melanie’s face. “You are finally speaking some sense. Hallelujah!”

Ellie’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you from Heaven?”

Melanie swished her finger in front of Ellie’s nose. “You said start at the beginning. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I told you that I was a freelancer. That’s the truth. Most of my work is with Heaven, yes, but I’ve had a much bigger job when it comes to you. Let’s go back further though. Mikel said that you wanted to know about your parents. That’s why you’re here.”

The surprise hit Ellie like a ton of bricks. “Did you know my parents?”

Melanie’s face softened. “I did, although I knew your dad a lot better.”

Something in Melanie’s face made Ellie feel comforted. She had wanted to know about her parents. That time had finally arrived. She just hoped she was ready for it.

“Tell me,” Ellie said.

Melanie took a deep breath. “Have you heard of Pure Ones yet?”

Ellie shook her head.

“So those of us who are born in the Afterlife are called Pure Ones. We didn’t come from the Other Side. We were never human in the traditional sense. It’s a strange anomaly, and one that isn’t encouraged for good reason. The thing about Pure Ones is that our souls aren’t wedded to any particular sector. Now, most chose the sector of their parents. Then there are those of us who don’t like playing by anyone’s rules, even though our values and beliefs generally align better with one sector over the others.”

Ellie considered Melanie’s words. It sounded far-fetched, but she was willing to play along. “So you are a Pure One and your parents were from Heaven,” Ellie said.

“Yes,” Melanie said. “Now, like I said, none of the sectors support consorting between people there. It’s too risky when reincarnation for the parents could happen at any time. The higher ups look the other way when Pure Ones come along, but it definitely isn’t encouraged, and they don’t treat someone like me all that nicely. They put up with me to keep me on their side, but I know that’s the only reason they tolerate me.”

“So, this relates to me because…”

“Patience is a virtual, Ellie. I’m getting there,” Melanie said. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up because people were scared of me. But I had one really good friend, and it was your dad.”

“My Dad was from Heaven.” Ellie thought about the implications of what that meant.  She had seen the sector pins in her mother’s chest. If her father was from Heaven that meant that her mother was from Hell. “Was he like you? A Pure One?”

“Yes, although his parents were higher on the food chain than mine, so he didn’t suffer through all of the stuff that I did. When he was fifteen, they pulled a few strings and Garrett got the job of being the Heaven transport to the waypoints. He completed the trio. It was him, Braz from Purgatory, and Milla from Hell.”

“I knew it! I knew that Braz knew my parents!” Ellie was starting to put the puzzle pieces together. “So my parents worked together and then they fell in love.”

“Kids,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “Thing is that while the sectors are willing to look the other way when it comes to a little consorting between people from the same sector, consorting with someone from another sector is absolutely forbidden. A Pure One resulting from that type of union is bad news.”

“So what my parents did was something really bad,” Ellie said slowly. “My mom was a Pure One too. That would mean that…”

“Yes, Ellie. You are a Pure One, born of Heaven and Hell,” Melanie said with a dramatic flair. “Those little Ripher tendencies as well as the psychic manifestations are exactly the reason that there is no cross pollination allowed.”

“That is why Riphers are rare!” Ellie exclaimed. Then she turned to Mikel, who had been quietly sitting several tables over. “You knew I was a Ripher. You knew who I was.”

“Of course he did,” Melanie said. “Your mother was hanging out with him until she ran off with your father.”

“WHAT?” Ellie shot to her feet. A swarm of thoughts ran through her mind. What did that mean? Had Mikel and her mother been a couple before her father came along?

“Milla was a friend, nothing more,” Mikel said, reading Ellie’s thoughts, “To be fair, at one time, she was as ambitious as I was. Had she stayed in Hell, she would have been stiff competition for me,” Mikel said.

Ellie started to pace. “I’m not sure I’m ready for any more surprises.”

“You’d better buckle in, hon,” Melanie said. “We’re just getting started.”

“You said that they ran off. They came here, to the Other Side.” Ellie looked at Melanie for confirmation, but it was Mikel who answered her.

“It would have to have been ancient magic for them to breech the boundary. I believe that they found a way out through the Bradford waypoint, which at that time was deserted and inactive. That magic hid them for years. I looked for them. Braz looked for them. Melanie looked for them. They disappeared without a trace. Time moved on, and after a time, they were forgotten.”

“Then what changed?” Ellie asked.

There was a short pause where both Mikel and Melanie diverted their eyes.

“You happened,” Mikel finally said.

“Me?”

“They became three again. Something about that shift opened a tiny little crack in the magic. One I stumbled across quite by accident while visiting Lillian Bradford.”

Her father’s fairy tale exploded in her mind. The scene in front of her faded away, and she was back in her small room on the second floor looking at the crayon drawings hanging on the wall; the drawings of her family and one red-haired man who was always slightly hidden in the background.

“You found me,” she said. “Just like Belinda and the Bear.” Mikel frowned, and Ellie realized that he had no idea what she was talking about. “Nevermind.”

“I went to your mother and I warned her,” Mikel said. “I told her that the magic was weakening, and if I could find you, so could those who had longer memories. They had to do something if they intended to stay hidden.”

Ellie remembered her parents’ one and only fight. It made perfect sense. They would have argued about what to do; if they would stay or leave. “They stayed put,” Ellie said. “That is what my mother wanted. We had a home and a life there, and she didn’t want to disrupt mine.”

A horrifying idea crept into her thoughts and brought her pacing to a halt. “Tell me that my parents’ death was really a car accident. Tell me that this had no effect on what happened to them.”

Tears sprung up in the corners of Melanie’s eyes. “I can’t do that because I don’t know. But the timing seems a bit too coincidental.”

“Are they here somewhere? In the Afterlife?”

“When Pure Ones die, they die for good. There is no new life to reincarnate to, which is the blessing and curse of that kind of existence,” Melanie said.

Even though her parents had been gone from her life for twenty-five years, an overwhelming sadness swept over Ellie. “Am I ever going to find something tragic in my life that wasn’t my fault?”

“What happened to your parents wasn’t your fault,” Melanie said. “We all tried to warn them. But that much Afterlife mojo in one place on the Other Side would have been like a homing beacon. By the time we found out what happened, they were already gone.”

“Braz and Melanie made an executive decision,” Mikel said with annoyed tone. “He hid you away again but unlatched one of your psychic abilities.”

“It was inevitable that you would be found again,” Melanie said with a sniff. “At least that way, you had some semblance of a regular life for a while. That’s what your parents would have wanted.”

“So when you said you found me. You were looking for me,” Ellie said. She had an entirely new perspective on Mikel’s intrusion into her life.

Mikel shrugged. “Like Melanie said, it was inevitable. I just needed to stay close to the Bradford waypoint and wait. Your idiot ex-husband did the rest.”

“I don’t understand how all of you crossed the boundary into my world if it’s so difficult,” Ellie said. Even as she spoke the words, she knew the answer. Her eyes widened. “David.”

Melanie had the grace to look embarrassed. “I just skipped off his energy. Braz and Mikel have secrets that they’ve never shared. I had already found you. I decided to stay a bit closer to keep an eye on you. I thought your parents would have appreciated that.”

Ellie swung on Melanie. “So when Lillian Bradford showed up and started manipulating everything about my life, you did nothing?”

Melanie put up her hands in defeat. “You were destined to come back to the Afterlife at some point. You are a Pure One, and a Ripher at that. There’s no way I could have guessed what sector you’d align yourself with. The Guardian gig is actually perfect in a way because you don’t have to choose. You can be Switzerland. Plus there’s the added benefit of being protected by that magic. You are safer than anywhere else in the Afterlife.”

Ellie sat down. Her mind was spinning. “Who else knows about me?”

“No one,” Mikel said.

“No one except the two of you, Braz, and whoever killed my parents,” Ellie said.

“If someone did kill your parents, then yes,” Mikel said. He looked around. “We need to go. I can feel the tug.”

Once Mikel mentioned a tug, Ellie felt it too. The waypoint needed her.

“I hope you aren’t too upset with me,” Melanie said. “Your dad was my best friend. I would have done anything for him.”

Ellie wanted desperately to be mad at the older woman, but she couldn’t. But she wasn’t ready to forgive yet. “Let me think about all of this, Melanie. Maybe we can talk again soon.”

Melanie’s smile was radiant. “I’d like that. There are so many things I’d like to tell you about your dad. He was a really great guy.”

Mikel’s hand was on Ellie’s shoulder, and then her coffee shop was gone.