Forty-Four Book Thirteen (44 13) Page 4

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” He glanced down at the tattoo on his arm. “He was a pretty good fighter when he helped me defeat that ghost.”

  I touched the strange mark that was on Jesse’s arm, the one that was similar to the tattoo on Samael’s hand. Jesse had gotten it years ago when I was possessed by an evil spirit named Clyde Tidwell, who had jumped into my body and had taken it out for a joyride. Jesse had fought him and helped drive out the ghost. Later I learned that he had received some help. Samael had shown up, fought off Clyde, and left the mark on Jesse’s arm.

  The tattoo seemed to be fading, not as well defined as when he first received it.

  “What good is he if he can’t help you fight those white-eyed freaks?” Jesse said.

  “I don’t know. I’m hoping he can help in other ways, like figuring out how to actually kill Nathaniel Mortimer.”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  I wasn’t going to tell Jesse about the vision I had of Samael. There was no point. Besides, I knew that underneath his smile he was worried enough.

  “I think it might have to do with the line between the physical and the spiritual realms,” I said. “Even though he’s here with me, this is not Samael’s world. Maybe that’s why he can’t fight the ghouls. Anyway, if I can’t find Nathaniel, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. What Nathaniel’s working on… it will destroy the world. It’s going to be awful, Jesse.”

  “And you’re sure he’s here?” He spun his hat in circles on his index finger. “I mean, it just doesn’t feel like his kind of place.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, scrunching up my nose and raising my shoulders. “The vision told me he was here, but lately I’m not so sure. What about you? Have you seen anything?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing?”

  He shook his head, but I could tell that he was holding something back as he glanced out at the ocean.

  “What?”

  “Well,” he said. “I was just thinking that you’re asking the wrong person. I never seem to know when he’s around until it’s too late. Don’t you remember when I tried to warn you about the kidnapping all those years ago? I was a day late and a dollar short. And I don’t think I’ve improved any.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  He smiled.

  “Anyway, he seems to be able to sneak up on me,” Jesse said. “He’s like a tsunami. You know, if you’re able to see it, it’s too late. That’s what it’s like. I only see his darkness coming after it’s already here.”

  That was one of the reasons I wanted Jesse to stay as far away from Nathaniel as possible.

  “Jesse, look. I have this. Really I do. I’m strong and feel like I can take him. I’d feel better if you would just…”

  “We’re not having this conversation.” He got up out of the hammock. “I’ll be careful and I’ll stay out of your way, but I’m not leaving you. I’ll be here by your side while you do what you have to do. End of discussion.”

  “Okay, Jesse,” I said, standing up, too.” Okay.”

  He didn’t have much longer. I could practically see the palm fronds through his head. We both stood gazing out at the ocean before I reached up and gave him a long hug.

  “Do you know what my dream is?”

  “I didn’t know that ghosts had dreams,” I said. “What?”

  He kissed me before continuing.

  “That when this business is all over, we find a way to make this work between us. That we go back home to Bend and live happily ever after in what some might call an unconventional relationship.”

  “What do you mean unconventional?”

  “I mean, that we’re together, just like this. You and me. You’ll have a job working at one of those fancy downtown restaurants and I’ll putter around the house all day fixing leaky faucets and changing light bulbs. I’m fairly certain that with a little practice I’ll even be able to have dinner on the table when you come home after a hard day’s work.”

  I smiled.

  “You, cook dinner? You really had me going there for a while. You’ve never even boiled an egg. You and your dad lived on pizza and takeout.”

  “I vaguely seem to recall a little Chinese now and then. Ribs, sweet potato fries, and baked beans from Baldy’s every blue moon, but you’re missing the point.”

  “And what’s the point?”

  “I’m a fast learner,” he said. “I’m serious about this. We’re going to give it a go. And every night when we’re done chitchatting about our days, we’ll go to bed and be together like that time in the fire.”

  He looked at me with those intense gray eyes deep as the sea.

  “You remember that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “Well, we’ll be like that. Every night. Every damn night, making up for all this lost time.”

  As I held his gaze, I felt my breath quicken, my heart pounding against my ribs like a butterfly trapped in a glass jar.

  “That’s my dream,” he said. “And I want it to be your dream, too. We can do anything. You and me, Craigers. We’re special that way.”

  “We are special, Jesse,” I said, squeezing his hand.

  I wrapped my arms around his waist, losing myself in his dream, swimming in it, inhaling it. It sparkled like the ocean, even if what he was saying felt so impossible, the two of us back home in Bend, living a simple life in the sun and snow.

  CHAPTER 11

  She was a jumble of curves and hair and light and Samael could not stop himself from following her or running ahead to watch her come down the path all over again. The hem of her tunic danced around her as she walked through the garden, causing the birds and the cicadas to sing for her, and Samael ached in a way he had not thought possible, in a way he never had before. The pain was only surpassed by her beauty and he stared and stared until his eyes bled.

  And then he stared some more.

  There was something about this woman that filled Samael with a new sensation that he could not explain. It was as if everything that was good about the world and God’s love was embodied in this amazing creature.

  He never could understand Adam’s fall from grace and the temptation women posed for his descendants. From back to the beginning, to the dawn of man, Samael had never given the female form a second thought. He was there to do a job. He had always been above such things.

  Until now.

  He didn’t know it at the time, had no prior experience with the emotion, but he had fallen in love with her then and there.

  He didn’t know her name, knew nothing about her, and yet he knew everything he needed to know. The light that surrounded her was both blinding and sublime. It radiated out from her, streaming from her heart like the rays of the sun.

  His eyes drank her in, falling slowly over her long hair, black as a winter’s night, over her delicate features and olive skin. The whiteness of her teeth, the shape of her calves, the leather sandals wrapped around her small feet. Everything about her was beauty incarnate. He watched the rise and fall of her breasts as she walked. He gazed at her plump, perfect lips, as red as any rose in the garden.

  And as he stared he was overcome with a most unexpected and powerful urge.

  He wanted to kiss her.

  And then something else surprising happened.

  “Hello,” she said, looking right at him.

  ***

  She had seen him.

  Samael tried to speak but his jaw wouldn’t work. It just hung there, open and useless. She smiled and he managed to nod slightly and lower his eyes as she walked by. He found himself lightheaded and was forced to lean against a tree for support.

  What had just happened? What in the Almighty’s name had just happened?

  In all the years, the thousands of years, that Samael had been around humans, nothing like that had ever occurred. No one had ever seen him unless he had consciously willed it so. And in this case, he had not. At
least not that he was aware of.

  After his head stopped spinning, Samael went back to the church and tried to focus. But it was no use. He could think of nothing else. Her image danced in his mind relentlessly.

  In the following days he returned to the garden many times in hopes of seeing her again, but he always came away disappointed. He looked for her during the Mass and in the marketplace and in every street and alley in the city, but she was nowhere.

  In her absence his love for her grew and grew until his heart felt as though it would burst. But as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, he began to wonder if she was even real. Was she nothing more than a mirage? Had his mind simply conjured her out of thin air at a time when he needed to see the beauty humanity was capable of?

  Eventually Samael fell into a deep sadness and his world went dark. Even the beauty of nature could no longer reach him. It was just a reminder of all he had lost. Still, he would not let it go. Time and time again, he returned to the garden where he had seen her, sometimes staying long after the light had left the sky.

  On one particular evening as a lone flute played and a breeze swept through the grove of cypress bringing the scent of fires and grilled meat, Samael wondered what it would be like to taste such things. To eat a peach or drink wine, to know the pleasure of her touch. He shook his head. Had he been recast in the role of the first man, tempted by forbidden fruit? Except she wasn’t forbidden fruit because there was no evil in her. Only goodness.

  She was light itself.

  “Just to see her once more,” he whispered at the night, dropping to his knees and hanging his head in supplication. “Oh, God, just once more.”

  And then one morning on the ninth day of the month the Romans called Aprilis, when all but the faintest hope had died in Samael’s heart, he saw her.

  He saw her!

  She was near the spot where he had first witnessed her wonder. She was more beautiful than ever and after trying to blink away his disbelief he raised his eyes to Heaven and then back in her direction.

  “Can it be? Yes, yes. It is her! Thank you, Lord, you have answered my prayer. Thank you.”

  Time stood still and he lost himself in the dream, but when he regained some control of his senses he noticed that she was walking away. He could not bear to lose her again. He raced toward her, wondering if she would still be able to see him, thinking what he would say. He had had months and months to choose his words, the perfect words, and yet at this moment all of them eluded him. He prayed that something would come to him and circled ahead, stepping out onto the path.

  He waited, his heart wild with joy and anxiety. The seconds slowed to a crawl. Had she turned and gone back the other way? Had he imagined it all?

  When she finally rounded the bend her eyes met his and she stopped.

  “Hello again,” she said, her voice the sweetest of songs.

  After all this time and the briefest of encounters, she still remembered him! Flustered, he struggled to speak, this time finding his own voice.

  “Good morning.”

  She smelled of lilacs and sweet alyssum and rain water and when she smiled it was almost too much for him to endure. Now he knew what humans experienced when he appeared before them. He felt himself grow weak, his energy fading like the light of the stars at dawn. Still, he instinctually took a step back for fear of harming her. But she responded by moving two steps of her own in his direction, somehow immune to his energy.

  “What is your name?” he said.

  “Rachel.”

  “Rachel, I am Samael.”

  And so it began.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Hey, sugar,” the waitress said. “Usual?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  I had gotten into the habit of eating an early lunch at the same restaurant, next door from my motel, ordering fish and chips and a slice of key lime pie.

  I had become addicted.

  “Salt water treating you right?” she said.

  “Yeah. How are you doing today?”

  “They don’t pay me to complain,” she said, stuffing the pencil back into her hair. “Be back with your order just as soon as it’s up.”

  I took a moment to see who or what was around. The place was about three quarters full, with no ghouls in sight. There were a few scruffy guys up at the counter talking baseball, older couples in the booths, and a woman up front trying to soothe a crying baby while talking into a phone. I glanced out the window at the water. With the stillness, the Atlantic looked like a large lake. Those massive fluffy clouds over the ocean appeared painted in place and had little chance of ever making it to land without any wind.

  “Weird,” the waitress said, setting my plate down. “I can’t remember it being so calm for so many days in a row. Must be that global warming they talk about. All I know is this town could do with a stiff breeze. It’s been getting a little ripe in here lately.”

  She made a face and I smiled. It was true. I had never been in a place filled with so many dark-stained armpits in my entire life.

  I devoured the food, attacking it with shark-like ferocity. And then I stared back at the water.

  “Where are you, Nathaniel?” I whispered.

  I sat there trying to figure out where I’d look for him next. I had been nearly everywhere on the small island, and the places that I’d skipped like the Dolphin Research Center and the Turtle Hospital and the aquarium, were places I doubted he would ever go, either dead or alive.

  As Jesse had said, this place did not scream Nathaniel Mortimer. It was too touristy, too laid back. He was refined and intense. It was a bad fit, just didn’t make sense, and caused me to doubt my vision all over again for the ninety-ninth time today.

  And as my doubts grew, another thought had started to crop up. What if my vision was right, but in a general way? What if he was somewhere near Marathon, on one of the seventeen hundred or so islands that made up the Florida Keys? It suddenly hit me that it could take a lifetime to find Nathaniel if he didn’t want to be found.

  Only I didn’t have a lifetime.

  Still, even if it was true that he wasn’t in Marathon, the guidebooks agreed that only about thirty of the islands were inhabited. Thirty. That wasn’t so bad. Thirty wasn’t a lifetime. If I stuck to a schedule I could cross them off in a year, maybe two. Except I was pretty sure I didn’t have that long either. And what if he was haunting one of the uninhabited ones?

  I quickly pushed away that thought and decided I would head over to the Old Seven Mile Bridge and walk for a little while before exploring the beaches and storefronts on the south side of town. Again.

  The waitress came back, splashed more coffee into my mug, and picked up my empty plate.

  “These are the best fish and chips I’ve ever had,” I said. “What’s the secret?”

  “Early mornings,” she said. “Joe goes down to the docks at dawn and gets the cod and halibut straight from the fishermen. That fish you just ate was swimming in the ocean only a few hours ago.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “What?” I said.

  “No, you’re right,” she said, lowering her voice. “Joe does good work. But he’s already got an ego on him the size of a great white. Besides, most places around here serve it up just as good. All the cooks and chefs worth their salt are out there on the docks waiting for the morning catch. If you’re ever up that early, you should check it out. It’s an event, with plenty of fish tossing and free chowder. I’ll go get your pie.”

  I glanced back down the counter and noticed a new face, a ghost sitting near the kitchen doors. She had long hair and was tracking the waitress who was talking to customers and refilling coffee cups. When my pie came the ghost smiled.

  I finished, leaving some cash on the table, and made my way outside into the stillness, where I found Samael sitting on the back of my motorcycle, the heat dancing off his leather jacket.

  CHAPTER 13

  “The
re’s something we should talk about.” It sounded serious but, then again, it always did. “Pull over.”

  I parked the bike and got off.

  “It’s about Jesse,” Samael said, removing his sunglasses. “You need to send him away.”

  It seemed that for as long as I could remember, Jesse and Samael had not gotten along. I could trace it back to at least El Paso, where Jesse had complained that the angel and his energy were keeping him away from me. I hadn’t heard too much about it lately, so this caught me a little off guard.

  “And why is that?” I said.

  Samael just stared at me, like that was going to be the extent of his explanation.

  “Look, he’s staying, Samael. You don’t need to worry about him. When we find Nathaniel, I’ll make sure that Jesse isn’t anywhere nearby. He won’t become a distraction and I won’t let him get hurt.”

  But he just shook his head.

  “Nathaniel is the least of his problems.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “He is on borrowed time, Abby.”

  I took a step closer, trying to read what was behind those ocean-blue eyes glistening in the sunlight. But as always, I couldn’t get a sense of what was in his heart. Or even if he had one.

  “Okay, you’re talking in riddles again, Samael. You need to explain yourself.”

  He took a moment, as if he were trying to find words that actually meant something.

  “If he doesn’t cross over soon, he will be trapped here, in this world.”

  My stomach suddenly sank. Could that be true?

  “Why wouldn’t Jesse be able to cross over?”

  “Because he already crossed the Sacred River once,” he said. “And normally there are no second journeys.”

  I still didn’t understand.

  “You’re saying that all these ghosts that I see wandering around are stuck here forever?”

  “No, the ghosts you see have never taken that boat ride, but Jesse is different. He crossed the river.”

  I could feel all the air draining from my lungs as the memory returned, how I had seen Jesse pacing back and forth on the distant shoreline, waiting for me, on the day we died.