"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?"
"I have no idea. I'm just glad you're okay." I gave him a fierce hug, then pulled back fast. "Did that hurt? You
are
okay, aren't you?"
He smiled. "I'm fine. Just a little stiff . . . like someone hit me in the chest with a bullet."
"You remember?"
"I remember a lot of things," he said, then gave a confused frown. "Including things I really ought not to remember, considering I was unconscious at the time. It was very . . . strange. I was—" His lips curved in a slow smile. "Oh."
"Oh what?"
"I just remembered how I got back here." His smile broadened to a lazy grin that lit up his eyes. "The Fates. You talked to the Fates. You told them—" He paused, and the grin dissipated, eyes sobering. "I must say, though, you were taking a serious risk, Paige. If they'd called your bluff—"
"Bluff?" I squawked. "You think I was bluffing? I couldn't tell a lie to save my own life, let alone someone else's. I can't believe you'd think—"
He tugged me down to him in a kiss. "I had to check." A smile. "Just in case."
"Well, you shouldn't have to, and if you think you do, then that's my fault. No more head games. You're stuck with me. I even followed you into the next world. Now that's commitment . . . of the scariest stalker-chick kind."
His grin broadened. "Are you sure I'm alive? Because if this is my afterlife, I must have been a very good boy."
"The best," I said, bending over him.
As our lips met, Lucas reached up and pulled me down on top of him. I entwined my fingers behind his head and kissed him with ferocity that surprised me and sent a chuckle rippling through him. He returned the kiss full-strength, his lips parting mine, the tip of his tongue tickling mine. We kissed for a few minutes, then his hands slid to my rear, pulling me against him—
"Uh, sorry to interrupt," a voice wafted from down the alley. "But if any clothing is about to be shed, could you toss it this way?"
I jumped off Lucas so fast I nearly kneed him in a place I really didn't want him injured.
"Elena?" I said.
She peeked out from the end of the alley, her face a pale blob in the blackness.
"Uh, yeah. I am so sorry, guys, but I thought I'd better cut in before it was too late."
"So that was you. The wolf."
"Sorry if I startled you. I'd been by here about a half-dozen times tonight, so when I picked up your scent, I figured it was the old trail, from this morning. Then there you were."
I walked forward. She hadn't moved from her spot behind a garbage bin.
"Why are you—" I began, then grinned. "Oh, wait. You weren't kidding about the clothes, were you?"
Lucas had been coming up behind me, but now stopped in mid-stride.
"That's okay, Lucas," she said. "I'll stay back here. But if anyone has a spare piece of apparel . . ."
Lucas already had his shirt half-unbuttoned. He handed it to me and I took it to Elena.
"Always the gentleman," she said as he turned his back. "Thank you. I promise I'll get it back in one piece—Oh." She fingered the bloodied bullet hole, eyes widening. "What happened?"
"Got shot through the heart," I said. "But he's fine now."
"Uh-huh," she said, brows arching. "That must have been some healing spell."
"It's a long story. I'll explain later. So what the heck are you doing here, anyway?"
"Looking for you two," she said as she shrugged on Lucas's shirt. "When you missed your eleven o'clock check-in yesterday morning, I started to worry. I phoned your cell and left messages, then I kept phoning and finally someone answered—a guy who found your phone lying in an alley near here. Not a good sign. So we caught the next flight for Miami."
Elena tugged down the shirt, craning her neck to see how far it fell.
"Everything's covered." I leaned around the corner. "Lucas? She's decent."
"So long as I don't bend over," she said with a sigh. "I really have to start leaving my clothing in more convenient places."
"Or you could buy a big fanny pack," I said. "Strap it around your waist before you Change."
"Don't laugh. I've actually considered that."
"Where's Clayton?" Lucas asked. "I assume you didn't come alone."
"Oh!" I said. "Savannah. Did you—"
"She's with Jeremy at a hotel near here. Very worried and mad as hell about being left out of the search. You should call right away. I have my cell phone . . ." She grimaced. ". . . which is with my clothing. Sorry."
"Fanny pack," I said.
"No kidding. Now, Clay . . ." She looked around. "We split up to cover more ground. I should have howled for him before I Changed back, but I was so surprised seeing you two here that I completely forgot."
"You could howl now," I said.
She fixed me with a look. "No, thank you."
"Can you whistle?" Lucas asked.
"A much less embarrassing choice," she said. "Now let's just hope he recognizes it."
Elena put her fingers in her mouth, but only managed a squeal that sounded more like a stuck pig. A laugh sounded behind us.
"You sure howling wouldn't have been less embarrassing, darling?" Clay asked as he rounded the corner into the alley. He lifted a bundle of clothes. "Forgot something?"
"Thank you." Elena took the pile, rooted into her jeans pocket, and handed me her cell phone. "Just hit redial for the hotel."
I spoke to Jeremy, then to Savannah. I told them we were fine and we'd be there in a few minutes. By the time I hung up, Elena was walking out from an adjacent alley, twisting her hair back in a ponytail. Lucas and Clay were talking off to the side.
"We're too late, darling," Clay said as Elena approached. "They finished without us."
She glanced at me. "Bad guy dead?"
I nodded. "Bad guy dead."
"Damn," she muttered. "Well, that's good, of course . . ."
"But not much fun."
She grinned. "I'll survive. So what happened?"
"His dead lover tore open a portal into the ghost world and we all jumped through. Well, Lucas fell in, I jumped in after him, and Edward jumped in after her. We came back, which is good. He didn't come back, which is also good . . . except that it means that in punishment for his crimes he gets exactly what he wanted all along—eternal life with the woman he loves."
"Uh-huh. I think I'd better get the uncondensed version after we get back to the hotel. Oh, wait, you guys must be starving. First stop: food."
"What time is it?" Lucas asked, tapping his watch and frowning at it.
"Mine stopped, too," I said. "I don't think they survived that return trip."
"It's just past four A.M.," Elena said.
"You might have some difficulty locating a restaurant," Lucas said.
"Don't worry," Clay said. "We'll find food. We always do."
***
We stood at the take-out counter of a twenty-four-hour Cuban restaurant. Neither Elena nor Clay had ever eaten Cuban, so they were soliciting opinions and advice from Lucas. After placing the order, we took our coffees into the dining area to wait. After a few minutes, I realized we were getting a lot of attention. The restaurant had only eight other patrons, but every eye had slid our way a couple of times and, by the time my coffee was half-finished, I swear every busboy and cook had peeked out from the kitchen. Now, I'll admit, Elena and Clay made an eye-catching couple, but this seemed a tad excessive. The next time someone looked our way, I followed his gaze to Lucas's shirt.