Don't Fear the Reaper (23 page)

I understood. I’d have done the same thing.

She closed her eyes as she relived the events. “You seemed so alone, and you kept asking for me. You cried in your sleep. For a while, I almost believed you knew I was there. You sat in my room and talked to me. All that negative energy I was building up wasn’t helping you, but what else was I supposed to do?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s—”

Jordan pushed on. “When you decided to commit suicide, Cooper finally left. I paced the floor as you filled the tub, when you went to Dad’s workshop for the Dremel. You shivered as you took Dad’s tequila, dismissing the chill as the cold from the freezer, but it was me yelling for you to stop. I followed you back upstairs, but you never heard me. I pleaded. I begged. When you stepped into the tub I ran screaming through the house, trying to knock things over so you’d hear me, but I couldn’t move a thing.”

No. Stop. Don’t do this. Don’t. Please...

The voice in my head that night had been Jordan’s.

I’d begged for my sister to give me a sign as I lay in the tub. She had. And I’d totally ignored it
.

She paused. I didn’t want her to relive this part. For both our sakes. I still heard the sound the Dremel made. Always would.

“I knew a reaper would show up right before you died,” she went on. “So I fled. I wanted the chance to see you after you died. I couldn’t do that if a reaper took me out. I’m the one who should be going to hell, Keely, not you.”

“You are
not
going to hell,” Banning told her. “Soon, you’ll be where you belong, Jordan. And Keely will be right behind you after her funeral.”

“But how is that possible?” Jordan cried angrily. “Keely is only here because of
me
! I don’t want to go to hell. But I don’t want my sister to go either. She only did what she did because of
me
.”

“You were in shock, Jordan. You were murdered,” Banning said, his voice soft. “It’s only natural for you to want to keep your loved ones near. And it’s perfectly understandable that you’d want to protect your sister against the kind of monsters you’d already experienced. You risked your soul to try and keep Cooper away from Keely. I’d say that’s quite valiant, not demonic. I’m sorry that you believed Cooper’s lies. I was never looking for you to banish you. I only wanted to reunite you with your sister.”

Jordan nodded. “Still, I’m really sorry, sis,” Jordan whispered.

“You didn’t know the rules. How could you? I just wished I had listened,” I said. “You tried to tell me.” Banning was right—mortals couldn’t accept what was right before them. I’d sensed Jordan’s presence all along. If I had just trusted my intuition, I would have known she was okay.

Banning looked upward to the sky as though we weren’t alone. “Well, I’m glad you two got this out in the open.”

I considered what Banning had said about my death not being Jordan’s fault. I entertained the possibility someone higher overheard us. Could it really have been that easy? I didn’t want to doubt it. Banning was absolutely brilliant. Now I understood how he’d argued that love had killed me. If God excused Jordan for staying close to me despite Cooper, how could he fault me? How could anyone fault the love I had for my sister?

“How can you have such hope?” I asked Banning. “How can you see death day in and day out and have
any
hope at all?”

“Because,” Banning replied with a shrug. “What else is there?”

“Where’s perfect peace? Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen when we die?” I asked. It couldn’t be like that, not really. Not anymore. But it didn’t stop me from my rant.

Banning nodded. “That’s part of the problem, Keely. You expect perfection. Fairness. No one can truly promise it. How many shades of perfection would it take to please everyone? And surely they couldn’t co-exist. Happiness, even in death, is what we make of it. It’s possible that it takes a place as bad as this for you to find your own happiness.”

“Happiness
here
?” Jordan said with a dismissive laugh.

If Banning heard Jordan, he didn’t let on. He stood and scanned the paths for Daniel. “And as for hope?” he said. “You make your own. If you believe enough in something you make hope possible. Drowning in pity and despair doesn’t quite work for me anymore.”

He sighed and looked out across the water, saying the words that truly broke my heart. “It certainly won’t get me any closer to my wife and daughter.”

By the next afternoon the four of us—Jordan, Banning, Daniel, and me—had taken to hanging out in the basement of my parents’ house, because there were far too many people upstairs. Family and friends were coming and going all the time. Banning and Daniel would come and go, but one or the other always stayed behind with Jordan and me. Maybe they stayed to protect us from demons like those I’d already encountered, or maybe they just wanted to keep us out of trouble. Either way was okay with me, and Jordan didn’t appear to mind either. We were too involved with each other and the open photo album Mom left out. The basement door was closed and everyone was far enough from us that we were able to flip a page or two. It took the both of us a lot of effort and concentration to do it, but it felt good to move something again.

Looking through our childhood lives seemed bittersweet. Our newborn baby photos. Jordan and me on Christmas morning with our new tricycles. Both of us covered in flour while helping Mom make cookies. The two of us getting on the bus the first day of school. First dates, first school dances. I’d always rolled my eyes whenever Mom pulled out the camera. Now, I realized this would be all she had left of us. All she had to remember our faces and the events in our lives.

Banning and Daniel didn’t look through the photos with us. They spent more time in the game room than anywhere else. Except for now, when a raven cawed outside the windows. Banning went outside to retrieve the message.

Most of the basement had been finished out and was quite comfortable. The media room, where Jordan and I sat looking through photos, opened into to the game room. Next to the game room with its billiard table was a small kitchenette complete with scaled-down appliances. On the other side of the basement was Dad’s workshop where he stored various tools he liked to say he used, but rarely did, and a small room where he kept the lawnmower and garden things. That part opened to the side yard, and that’s the way the four of us came and went so as not to run into anyone.

Jordan lingered a bit too long over a photo, although it was more like she was looking past it than at it. Sometimes, I wished we couldn’t read each other so easily. I knew she was obsessing about the verdict and the outcome as much as I was. So, when Banning mentioned that he had been assigned a job, we tagged along eagerly. We could spend only so many hours going through stuff in the basement, and we hated going upstairs. It was too depressing to see everyone crying and so somber. For me, it was just another reminder of how foolish I’d been.

Everyone slipped out the side basement entrance and caught a ride with Mrs. Anderson from next door. When she parked her car at the grocery store, we didn’t have to wait long before Banning directed us to another car an aisle over—a red SUV nearly the size of a fire truck. The driver took us to our destination, a medical building adjacent to the hospital.

Daniel walked next to me as we made our way across the hospital parking lot. The last time I was here was before Gram died. I didn’t like hospitals. Didn’t like the smell of bleach and antiseptic. The click of vials and the rattle of carts brought back memories I didn’t want to relive. We entered the hospital through Emergency. The waiting room was full. Banning passed through a set of doors and we followed. He hooked left, toward the operating rooms.

A wild-eyed woman popped through a nearby wall. “Out of my way!” she snarled as she shoved past Jordan and me. Banning blocked her path and the woman spun around, ready to run through another wall.

She came to a halt when something like smoke began seeping through the wall in front of her. I knew better. This wasn’t normal smoke. My nose twitched at the smell of sulfur.

“No!” the woman shrieked.

Banning closed the distance between her and the emerging demon. The woman backed into Banning. “Save me. Please. Don’t let them take me.”

Banning didn’t save her. Quite the opposite. He held her in place as the demon, a muscular man with a gaping underbite and braided hair, came for her. A second later, another figure appeared through the wall—a tall, dark haired man with bright, amber eyes. Like Banning, and all the other reapers I’d seen, he was dressed in solid black and wore a black duster.

“Sorry about that, Banning,” the reaper said. “She got away before the demon could take her.”

“No problem,” Banning replied.

I watched in horror as the demon reached for the woman. Frantic, she screamed. Daniel, Banning and the other reaper seemed oblivious to her cries. Still shrieking, she recoiled when the demon grabbed her arm, branding his handprint into her flesh. Her eyes, still wide and tortured, turned to us imploringly, then she and the demon erupted into a fireball, and in the time it took to blink, the fireball imploded and they were gone.

Banning and the other reaper nodded politely. “Be seeing you, then,” the reaper said. With a swish of his duster, he turned and strode off down the hall.

All eyes were on me.

“That won’t be you, Keely,” Jordan whispered harshly. “I won’t let it.”

I was frozen in place, unable to speak. No matter what Jordan said, that
was
going to be me. Soon. I looked up at Banning. He’d let the demon take that woman! He had to, of course. But still…

“You’ve got time yet,” Banning said softly, turning away from us. “The soul I’ve come for doesn’t.”

Daniel slid between us, ushering us forward. “I found out some new information this morning,” he said. “Looks like there’s a way out of this for you yet.”

Banning walked a few paces ahead, which probably meant Daniel had already told him the scoop. And maybe it was why Banning had been abrupt a moment ago. If the news was good, like Daniel said, I should have been happy. But since I didn’t see any joy coming from Banning, I knew there was a catch. Wasn’t there always a catch?

“
Yeeess
!” Jordan said, squealing in delight. “I knew there had to be a way.”

Apparently, Jordan had managed to stay optimistic during her stint in purgatory. She probably thought there was a catch too, but figured it was better than nothing. I glanced at Daniel. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“The deal relies on a test,” Daniel said, nonchalantly. “All you have to do is pass it.”

Now I felt like squirming. Test? I
hated
tests. In school I made good grades, but tests were always my undoing. I’d study for weeks, but the minute I sat down for an exam, I got nervous. To me, every exam room had a ticking clock on the wall, with a loud buzzer to remind me of the time I had left and unseen wires connected to me to deliver a jolt of electricity if I answered wrong. “What kind of test?” I asked.

“Good news, bad news,” he said.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I hadn’t expected anything else. Not after what I’d done.

“The bad news,” Daniel said, “is that you’ll have to confront Pete.”

“No. No way,” Jordan said defiantly. “She’s not going anywhere near him.”

Daniel and I ignored her. I already knew I’d have to confront Pete. I’d gathered that much from the goons who kicked our asses the night Banning left us outside that evil-looking house while he went in to get Cooper. I didn’t mind facing Pete. In fact, I was counting on it. I had the advantage now, and there wasn’t a thing the murdering rat bastard could do about it. I hardly considered that part to be bad news.

The expression on my sister’s face, a combination of fear and outrage, said she wasn’t having any of this. “You’re not going,” she said, her tone resolute.

“The good news is that I’ll be there to help you, and so will Banning,” Daniel continued. “The key is not to let Pete say or do anything to spin you up and you’re home free.”

And this is where everything fell apart. “That’s the good news?” I asked. “I’m already spun up.”

“Yeah, I know.” Daniel said as we entered the lobby of St. Joseph’s hospital. We kept walking and the tranquil blues and greens of the visitor’s entrance and lobby gave way to a plain, plant-free off-white corridor with the consulting rooms. Only the red fire extinguishers on the walls and the employees’ green scrubs and uniforms offered any real color.

“He’ll try to trick you,” Banning said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

“He?” I inquired. Yeah. This definitely was where everything went wrong. “You mean Pete? How’s he even going to know I’m there? Unless you mean
he
, as in someone
else
is going to be there?”

“Pete’s diseased,” Jordan whispered hoarsely. “Which means he isn’t alone. What Daniel is telling us is that you’ll be facing off against more than just Pete. You’ll be going up against the demons who are with him.”

She shoved me aside and grabbed hold of Daniel. Banning turned to watch the situation.

“She can’t do this!” Jordan spat. “Think of something else. I won’t let my sister go into a room full of demons, and I certainly don’t want her near Pete in…in his
condition
.”

Demons. I didn’t want to tell Jordan that I’d been there, done that. It wouldn’t have done a lot to make her feel any better. It sure didn’t make
me
feel any better. I also didn’t want to point out that if I failed this test, I’d be spending time with a
lot
more demons. And, so would Banning.

I placed a hand on Jordan to calm her down. She gave me a cursory glance and let go of Daniel. I had to hand it to him, he never batted an eye at her, never raised a hand to stop her. “What does she mean, diseased?” I asked. “And what condition? Do you mean he’s possessed?”

Daniel shook his head. “No, not exactly. Not yet, anyway. He will be by the time you confront him, though.”