I clenched my fists again, my short nails digging deep into my palms. The pain didn’t help shore up my courage.
“It’s too late, isn’t it?” she said softly, her voice steady despite the grief in her expression.
Way, way too late. For her soul, for her future lives. I licked my lips and said, “I’m afraid she’s already moved on.” I hesitated, then added softly, “Her passing was peaceful. She was in no pain, and has moved on to a happier place.”
The lie burned my tongue, but what good would it have done to tell the truth? Losing a child was bad enough. They didn’t need to know that her last moments on earth had been a battle for the future of all her lives, not just this one.
A battle she’d lost.
Fear and horror rose up my throat like bile, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe again. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get away from the horror.
I backed away a step, then stopped as Mrs. Kingston grabbed my arm. “Are you sure she’s at peace?”
“Yes,” I said, without hesitation. Then, when I saw her frown, I added, “Why?”
“Because—” She stopped, her grief making her hiccup. “Because I felt something last night. It was a darkness, a wrongness. It’s why I rang your mother. I needed to know that Hanna was all right. That her soul—”
A chill ran through me. Whatever had been here, whatever had stolen that little girl’s soul, her mother had been aware of it. I hesitated, fighting the instinctive need to grab her and make her tell me everything she’d felt, everything she’d sensed. If she was psychic—and her words suggested she at least had some ability—then she might hold some vital clue as to what this thing was. But doing that might give the game away. Might make her realize I hadn’t been entirely truthful about her daughter’s passing.
So I simply said, “Everyone who passes over does so with the assistance of a special guide. Sometimes we can sense them in the room—they are a warmth that seems to come out of nowhere, or a wrongness that often feels right.”
She was shaking her head even before I’d finished. “This wasn’t warm. It was cold. Evil, even.” She rubbed her arms, her gaze searching mine. “Are you sure she’s safe?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” I hated myself for the lie, but I had little choice. Even if the truth came out, there was nothing any of us could do about it, and she didn’t deserve to live with that. Neither of them did. “What makes you think it was evil?”
“My skin began to crawl the minute I sensed its presence.” She hesitated. “I read from the Bible. That seemed to drive the sensation away.”
But not before the battle had been fought and lost. “Maybe it was a ghost. There are enough of them haunting these halls, and some like to torment the souls of the dying.”
It was a safe statement, mostly because it was true. Ghosts did haunt the hospital halls, and not all of them were happy about their state.
Her gaze searched mine again, then she nodded and gave me a somewhat tremulous smile. “That must be it.” She reached out and touched my hand, steeping me in her grief. And in my own guilt. And once again I found myself resisting the impulse to pull away. “Thank you, Risa. Thank you.”
“I’m just sorry I couldn’t be the bearer of better news,” I said honestly.
She lifted her shoulder—a half shrug that somehow seemed so sad. “We knew. We just needed—”
“I know.” I squeezed her fingers, then stepped back. “I have to go.”
“Thank your mother for me.”
“I will.” Then I turned and escaped. The shrouded reaper was still waiting in the hall. That surprised me, but also gave me hope. Maybe the matter of the child’s passing wasn’t as settled as it seemed.
Once free of the ward, I all but ran for the elevator, wanting, needing, to get out of this place—and away from its oppressive atmosphere—as quickly as possible.
Once on the ground floor, I headed with speed for the front doors. Outside, it was raining again, but I didn’t give a damn. I just stood there on the top step and raised my face to the sky, letting the moisture soak my skin, washing away the scent of death and the feeling of wrongness.
It was only when I began to shiver that I opened my eyes and looked around me.
And saw my reaper.
He was standing at the bottom of the steps, staring up at me. He was still half naked, the rain beading on his warm, suntanned skin and running lightly down his six-pack abs. The leather holding his sword in place seemed to emphasize the width of his shoulders, and the wet denim of his faded jeans clung to his legs, hinting at their lean strength. Stylized black tatts that resembled the left half of a wing swept around his ribs from underneath his arm, the tips brushing across the left side of his neck. He stood like a fighter—lightly, warily, as if he expected trouble at any moment.
And if he was coming for me, he was certainly going to get it.
I continued to stare at him, unspeaking. Unmoving. For all I knew, this sword-carrying reaper might be responsible for the atrocity that had happened upstairs. And if he could do that, then God only knows what else he might be capable of.
“So,” he said, after what seemed like an age. “You can see me.”