"But if you send me back, I can make it my decision. You've said there's no predestination, so I can choose my own time of death."
"Doesn't matter. Even if you kill yourself, there's no guarantee you'll ever see him again."
"Of course there is. You said so yourself. It's been decided-we'll be together. I suppose you could change things, but that would be petty, and you said you're never petty."
The woman appeared with a sigh. "I do so prefer the ghosts who cower and quake in our presence."
"Oh, she's awful, isn't she?" Eve said. "Been like this since she was a child. Always questioning everything and everybody. No respect for authority. My advice? Send her and Lucas back and spare yourselves sixty, seventy unnecessary years of grief."
"Thank you, Eve, for considering our feelings in the matter. However, your bias in the matter is well known. You want Paige for your daughter's guardian."
"Have you considered that, Paige?" asked the old woman, popping back to fix me with that soul-piercing stare. "If you stayed here, you'd abandon Savannah, after all you've-"
The middle sister cut in. "No, that's not fair. We won't make you choose, child. The decision must be ours. That is the only truly equitable-" She stopped, head tilted. "Yes, sister, that's an idea."
The woman vanished, then the child appeared, then the crone, then the three began flipping so quickly I couldn't tell who I was seeing. Snatches of conversation flew past, meaningless, out of context. Then the middle-aged woman took over.
"Eve, you want Paige and Lucas as Savannah's guardians. Would you be willing to barter for it?"
Eve lifted her chin, meeting the other woman's gaze squarely. "I am. You want me to obey the rules, right? Send them back-both of them-and I'll do it."
The woman smiled and shook her head. "Obedience without acceptance is meaningless. When you understand the rules, you'll obey them. Until then-" She shrugged and waved at the yarn hanging behind them. "You make your own mistakes. You determine your own fate. We don't do that for you."
Eve frowned. "Then what's the price?"
"You will owe us a favor. A chit, which we may call in whenever we wish."
"I'll do it."
"Are you sure?"
"No, but I'm agreeing anyway. Do this for me, and I'll owe you one. Now, we left Lucas-"
The Fate cut Eve off with a wave. "We know." She closed her eyes and the three forms flipped past in a blur, then returned to the middle sister. "There. Lucas is back in the living world. Paige, we'll see you again someday, hopefully after a long and-"
"Wait!" Eve said. "Don't I get to say good-bye?"
"Yes, after I do. Now, Paige, turn around."
I did. Twenty feet away, the air shimmered, like heat rising off hot asphalt.
"That's the portal. When you're done with Eve, just walk through it. Be quick, though. I've sent Lucas back to where he left, and he'll likely be disoriented. There was no danger there a moment ago but-well, be quick."
I looked back at the Fates. "Thank you."
The woman nodded. "You're welcome. Just remember the cardinal rule of leaving the afterlife." She morphed into the child, who grinned. "Don't look back."
I smiled, turned, and headed for the portal. Eve walked beside me. Neither of us said anything until we reached it. Then I turned to her.
"Thank you," I said. "For everything."
"Hey, you're raising my kid. I owe you everything. Tell Savannah… No, I won't waste our last minute with that. You know what to tell her. And I won't tell you to take good care of her, because I know you will. So I'll settle for telling you to take care of yourself. You grew up good, Paige. Maybe more 'good' than I'd like, but I'm still proud of you." She leaned over, kissed my forehead, and whispered, "Have a good life, Paige. You deserve it."
"I-"
She took my shoulders, turned me around, and pushed me into the portal.
Bad Guy Dead?
I came to in the alley. When I opened my eyes, I saw only darkness. I blinked and the world took focus as my eyes adjusted. It took a moment for my numbed brain to understand why it was dark out, to make that most obvious deductive leap. Night. It was nighttime. How long had we-? The thought slid from my brain. Too much effort. I tried lifting my head, but that also seemed like too much work. Everything was so… heavy. The very air had a weight that went beyond the dampness of a wet Miami night.
I yawned and closed my eyes. As I drifted toward sleep, my brain replayed snatches from the last eight hours and I shot upright, remembering everything. "Lucas?" I scrambled to my feet. "Lucas!" Pitching forward into the darkness, I stumbled over something and fell to my knees. My hands felt for the object that had tripped me, praying that it was Lucas. I touched the cold rough surface of broken concrete. Staying on all fours, I felt around wildly. When I overreached, pain shot through my abdomen, the first twinge I'd felt since jumping through the portal. The sudden shock of the pain made me stop long enough to think. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and cast a light spell. After casting, I kept my eyes closed, telling myself that when I did look I'd see Lucas, but still afraid… I opened my eyes. He wasn't there.
"Lucas!"
I flew to my feet, waving the light-ball about. He had to be here. They promised, they promised, they-
My light illuminated an outstretched hand near the end of the alley. Lucas lay on his back, arms out, face to the sky, eyes closed. He's sleeping, I told myself. Sleeping like I was. Then I saw the blood on his shirt front.
As I shot forward, an image raced through my mind, a scene from some half-remembered movie where a man had been granted a wish and, before he could use it, his wife died. So he made the obvious wish. He wanted her alive again. But he hadn't been specific, hadn't said he'd wanted her as she'd been before the accident, and the last scene had been of her mutilated body lurching toward the front door.
"You weren't specific!" I shouted to myself, my mental voice reverberating through my head. I said I wanted Lucas to be sent back to this world with me and the Fates had done exactly that. They'd brought him back as he'd been when he left it-shot through the heart.
People always say that after someone dies, the first thing they think of is everything they regret not having told them. My own regrets were enough to bury me alive, but they never crossed my mind, not in the ghost world, when I'd refused to believe he was dead, and not now, when I was certain he was. Instead, the only thought going through my head at that moment was that his death was my fault. I'd had the chance to save him, to deal with Fate, and I'd been my usual impetuous self, demanding something before thinking it through.
As I kneeled beside Lucas, his eyelids flickered. My breath caught. For a long moment, I didn't breathe, certain that somehow my dropping to the pavement had caused a vibration that made his eyelids move. Fingers trembling, I touched the side of his neck.
"Mmmm," he murmured.
My hands went to his shirt and I fumbled with the buttons, then gave up and ripped the sodden fabric. Beneath the bloodied hole, Lucas's chest was unmarked. Unable to believe it, I touched the spot where the bullet should have gone through, and felt his heart beating as strong as ever. I dropped my head onto his chest, and all the fear and anxiety I'd repressed in the ghost world bubbled forth in a chest-wrenching sob.
When I gasped for breath, a distant sound made me stop and listen. It came again, a soft rhythmic scraping against the concrete. A pale shape floated into the darkness a few yards away. I tensed and waved my light-ball higher, until it cast a dim glow down the length of the alley. A ghostly-white wolf stood at the other end, head tilted as if as surprised to see me as I was to see it. Our eyes met. The wolf dove back into the darkness.
"Did you just see…?" Lucas croaked, lifting his head and squinting into the darkness.
"I think so."
"Then are we… back? Or still on the other side?"