Veiled (9 page)

But there is no air to breathe. There is nothing at all. Everything inside me feels absolutely devoid of life, and if it wasn’t for his hand on my shoulder blades, I would think I’d actually died.

My lungs keep working though and air or not, I keep breathing. Eventually I look up.

I’m still on the street, in a grey deserted world, my house in the distance. Not another soul to be seen.

“Welcome to the Thin Veil,” Jay says, standing in front of me. “I’ll be your guide.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I blink, trying to take it all in, the world of the Thin Veil. It’s not hard. There’s nothing here. I should be grateful we’re alone, that spiders the size of cats aren’t skittering toward us, wanting to slice and dice.

“I know you’ve been here before,” Jay says as I get to my feet and take a few tentative steps toward my house. “But there are layers to the Veil. We are only in the first step of immersion, barely below the surface. It’s the safest for you.”

“Safe?” I repeat, looking around, my hands rubbing along my arms even though I’m not cold. “I’m not sure how safe I’m supposed to feel considering you kidnapped me in front of my brother-in-law and took me to another dimension.”

When he doesn’t say anything I turn around. His eyes flit off into the distance but I caught that. He was staring at my ass! I guess I am still in my underwear but the fact that his gaze was lingering on my sugar skulls tells me that whatever he is, he’s still a full-blown male.

My stomach warms at that thought and I have to remind myself that this no time to indulge my ego.

I clear my throat. “Why am I here?”

“Because I needed to talk to you alone,” he says.

“You could have just invited me out for coffee like any normal person.”

He raises a brow, those intense eyes of his locking on me. “What were you just saying about being normal? No. I couldn’t have. You ran after me, in case you forgot, and I knew it couldn’t wait until morning.”

I cross my arms, staring at him impatiently. “Well, talk.”

He chews on his lip for a moment, his eyes staring at the ground, deep in thought. It irks me how much I enjoy staring at him.

He sighs and rubs his fingers along his jaw. He’s got nice, long fingers. Strong hands. More things I shouldn’t be focusing on but I guess my brain is just trying to find the normalcy in all of this.

“I’m not sure how much of this you’re going to believe,” he says.

“Try me.” I gesture to the fact we’re in another world. “I’m pretty open-minded.”

He studies me for a moment and then nods sharply. “How familiar are you with the Jacobs? And no, not Jacob himself, I mean the term for . . .”

“Supernatural redheads who can’t mind their own business?” I ask. Then it hits me. It’s been so damn obvious this whole time. “Oh my god. You’re a Jacob. You’re
my
Jacob.”

“Tell me what you know about them,” he says, ignoring that.

I’m still spinning over my epiphany so it takes me a few moments to remember what I know of them. It’s been awhile.

“Perry had one,” I tell him slowly. “Dex had one. Even Pippa had one. They’re supposed to—
you’re
supposed to—help guide or instruct certain people when dealing with the afterlife. Ghosts and demons and all that bunch of nasty stuff. Right? So I’m guessing you’re my guardian of the non-angelic kind.”

I mean, shit, if this is true, that means he’s
mine
. This gorgeous man. I’m not sure if that’s lucky or extremely unfair. “Even though,” I quickly add, “I also know not all Jacobs are good.”

“We aren’t good or bad,” he says simply, as if he’s rehearsed it before.

“So you say. But Perry’s was bad. He made her burn down a house.” At the time I was so young and naturally thought Perry was losing her mind when she torched a house at fifteen. I wouldn’t have believed the truth back then, that she was under the influence of a supernatural “guardian.”

“I can’t speak for that Jacob but I know the details,” Jay says. “He never made her burn anything.”

“No, you can only manipulate the young and put suggestions in their head.” I pause, studying him. “Is that what you’re trying to do to me right now?”

Jay starts walking around me, hands clasped behind his back making his massive shoulders pop. “The Jacobs are the liaison between the afterlife, the underworld, the Veil and the land of the living. I don’t like to call it the ‘real world’ because all the worlds are quite real. But we don’t always have the same roles. Essentially we are beings who are immortal, can live forever, though every time we are assigned to someone, we begin again. That is, we don’t remember who we were before and we never remember the human that we once were. Sometimes bits and pieces come through, enough to color us like any past life would.”

“And how long have you been around the block?”

His eyes drift off, a darkness coming over them. “Honestly, this is my first time.”

“What?” I exclaim. “Your first time?”

How fucking fitting that the first time I need guidance with the afterlife that I get assigned a goddamned rookie.

He glares at me. “We all start somewhere. I was alive, someone else, and then I wasn’t. I don’t know how the process works and I don’t care to know but the next thing I knew I was talking to Jacob and I understanding some very deep and real part of me. Whatever makes one of us, well, one of us, it happens at an innate level. We don’t go to school. We just begin. On pure instinct.”

I have hard time taking all of this in. “And Jacob, was he one too? I mean, is that why he didn’t die like people say he did?”

“Actually, Jacob went rogue. Just as your friend Maximus did. It means they gave up their immortality and role to live a normal life. To die a normal death.”

“Like having a crypt of bones collapse on you is a normal death,” I mutter, kicking away a pebble with my bare toe. It hops across the road but doesn’t make a sound.

“But your friend Maximus also went back in and saved him. Pulled Jacob right out of Hell. Jacob died sacrificing his life to save Dawn. When a Jacob does that, after they’ve gone rogue, it doesn’t mean the end for them. They can come back. But there are consequences.”

“What kind of consequences?”

“It’s not relevant to you,” he says, putting his hands in his pockets and taking a step close, his icy eyes spearing mine. “Ada, I’m here because I have to teach you the ways of the Thin Veil. To protect yourself and others from the dangers. Dex had Maximus to show him, Perry had her Jacob, Pippa, your grandmother, had another. Jacob himself had a different role, he managed a contract between the Devil and Sage Knightly. We all have different ways of handling those who we are assigned to. But I can promise you I have your best interests at heart. I always have.”

“Always have?” I pause, licking my lips. “I had dreams about you. In them you told me you’d been watching me for a long time.”

He nods, not breaking his hypnotic stare. “I have been.”

I wonder how much he knows, how much he’s seen. If he knows me at all or if he’s basing everything on assumptions. “And my dreams, were those real or not?”

“They were dreams,” he says. “Real dreams. In the dream state, I can take you places, to far deeper levels than this, to where the real threats are. I can take you there unseen. It’s an invisible entry. Only your spirit, your mind, travels through while your body stays behind. Just like in a dream, you can’t change anything or do anything.”

“I did in my dreams,” I tell him.

“And we all know there are people who are lucid dreamers too. It doesn’t mean things are actually happening. You may talk to and interact with people in the dream at your will but it doesn’t mean you are. You could kill someone in your dream but in reality they will go on like nothing happened.”

“This is so
Inception
,” I say under my breath. “And it’s leaving me equally as confused. Too bad you’re not Tom Hardy.”

Jay looks puzzled briefly and I wonder if he has any clue about the movie or about pop culture and real life in general.

He goes on. “Then there are the portals. Your whole body passes through and if I accompany you through a permanent portal, no one will know you’re there. It’s the safest way. The only way.”

“You say no one . . . like other people?”

“Like demons. You know the threats and consequences of visiting the deeper levels of the Veil. When you go in, you weaken the walls. If you can come in, demons and the undead can come out. You’re created a door for them. And when you’re in there, they can see you. They can hunt you. Kill you, and that’s where your soul will forever stay. And, more than that, they can hitch a ride back. You can be possessed by them, or they can piggy-back onto anyone else you love.” He pauses, scrutinizing me. “That’s if you go in on your own, of course, or create a portal where there shouldn’t be one.”

It’s so much to take, even though so much of it sounds familiar. “What about my mother?” I ask quietly. “In the dream you said—”

“And I meant it,” he says quickly. “This is why I’m here. We don’t always have to show ourselves, we can watch from afar if we choose. But you’re tempting the Devil himself here and we can’t have that.”

“I’m not doing anything,” I tell him haughtily. Sometimes I have no idea where my nerve comes from. I had just pointed out earlier that he could be very bad indeed.

“That’s not your mother,” he reminds me. “The demons are manipulating you. They want you to come in of your own will, to find her, to seek her out. She’s somewhere safe. She’s not in Hell. But that’s where they will trick you to go. To keep you there. Or, even worse, to come back out with you. I’m sure that’s how the demon that took over Michael, Dex’s brother, came to be.”

I exhale noisily, running my hand through my hair, trying to think what all of this means. “So you’re saying that you’re watching over me, interjecting yourself into my dreams, because you think I’m just going to create a portal to the Veil – or
Hell
– and waltz on in, looking for my mom.”

“Pretty much.”

“And if I promise not to do that? I mean, I might be a little stubborn at times, perhaps impetuous, but after all I’ve seen I know the last thing I want is to be fooled, let alone bring the Devil back into this world.”

A small smile graces his lips. “I’m afraid I can’t quite take your word for it.”

“So what next?” I ask with a shrug. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed you’re late on this whole guardian thing, but I’m eighteen. I’ve been dealing with Dex and Perry and my grandmother and seeing ghosts for years now. Are you supposed to enlighten me too? Or just ensure I don’t trespass?”

“I should have known what I was getting into with you.”

“Oh, please,” I tell him. “I am a motherfucking delight.”

Another hint of a smile. It breaks the graveness of his face, making him look younger. I can’t help but wonder who he was before all of this. Why did the Jacobs pick him to be one of them? Did they pick the hottest ginger that ever lived on purpose? Isn’t he curious about his life before?

“So,” I say. “Are we just going to stand here in Bizarro World and talk? I mean, what else haven’t you told me? I’m going to assume there’s a lot.”

“There is a lot,” he says. “But we have time. Now that you know.”

“Now that I’ve been warned.”

“She’s not your mother,” he says again, his voice low. “I can’t watch you twenty-four seven. There has to be trust here.”

“You’re an immortal guide,” I remind him. “You have all the time in the world to watch me if you want.”

“It doesn’t work like that. I’m human, despite everything.”

“You’re dead.”

“No, I was dead. Past tense. I breathe, eat, live, shit, even sleep the same as you.”

I scrunch up my nose, surprised at his humor. “TMI, BTW.”

“I do anything except speak in abbreviations. I use proper words, like everyone else.”

I roll my eyes. “Fucking supernatural grammar police. You’re going to make my life a living hell, aren’t you?”

His eyes pause briefly at my lips, before locking in my gaze. “I’m here to prevent exactly that.” He then abruptly turns and looks back to the house. “I suppose I should take you back. I think your brother-in-law might be getting unruly and even someone like Jacob might have his hands full.”

“And then what happens? You’re going to sequester me into the Twilight Zone whenever you feel like it? Inter-dimensional kidnapping at random?”

“I’ll be next door, living at the Knightlys,” he says.

“Doing what? Is that the new halfway house for gingers?”

He glances at me over his shoulder. “As I’ve said, keeping an eye on you. For as long as I have to.”

“Oh great. Are we going to talk about demons over the fence, all ‘Hi ho there, good neighbor’?”

He obviously doesn’t get my
Home Improvement
reference. I’m starting to think most people wouldn’t. “We can talk some more about all of this,” he says. “In a different place, under different circumstances. Coffee?”

I can’t help but smile, my hands going on my hips. “You’re asking me out for coffee?”

His brow remains expressionless. “Or we can meet here again.”

“No thank you,” I tell him. “Coffee is just fine.”

“Good,” he says, holding his hand out expectantly. I eye it and he sighs softly. “If you hold my hand, it makes it a more gentle transition.”

There’s a ‘
That’s what she said’
joke on the corner of my lips but I suck it up and take his hand.