Grim Love - A Novella (8 page)

“I thought, if I became a guardian, I
wouldn’t have to be a reaper anymore.”

“That's the normal way of doing things, but
you aren’t normal. You're both a guardian and a reaper. Although
they're rare, they've existed before, so it’s good to know it can
still happen.” Lucius smiled at her. “Had you not made certain
choices you might not be in this position, so always remember that
making mistakes isn’t always a bad thing.”

“Had I not made the mistake that led to my
death I wouldn’t be here now, driving you nuts.”

It wasn’t much of a surprise when he took her
hand again. “You’re a breath of fresh air. This isn’t what I
expected to happen when I chose you, but I’m not going to complain.
Good things have happened thanks to you.” He squeezed the hand he
held. “It’s a reminder that I need a life as well, even though I'm
in charge of all the reapers. I’m going to try to have one. As
Gabriel said, I can delegate and you're stronger than I thought you
were.”

“Maybe.” Evangeline watched as Jasper walked
down the street and she knew he couldn’t see her - not with Lucius
by her side. Her emotions didn’t agree. They were screaming at her
to shout something across the street so he’d know he wasn't alone,
but she wouldn’t. Staying silent might give him the strength to
survive whatever would happen next. “Being here is harder than I
thought it would be.”

“When you left my office, I don’t think you
were expecting me to follow. You should have known better. Then,
you might have been able to help him. You would have lost the
chance of being his guardian without knowing it existed.”

She brushed a hand through her hair. “What
does being a guardian entail?”

Lucius laughed. “Saving his life. This time,
if he does pull through, it would be his fourth near death
experience and I think he deserves to have someone who loves him by
his side. It isn’t all that unusual for a guardian to fall in love
with their charge, but it’s often unrequited. Falling in love with
the girl who’s come to take your soul is much stranger.”

“He didn’t know that to begin with. He
thought I'd saved him from himself. Maybe, I did, but it didn't
make him happy at first.” She shook her head. “I wanted to do my
job, but he wouldn't let go. He kept clinging to life. I know what
that feels like. You never think that, in the end, some part of you
will try to hold on. I didn't. My soul wasn't strong enough. When I
went to you after that day, you just said he should have died. You
didn't explain how he could have seen me or explain why things had
gone wrong. Why did you lie to me?”

“There are certain things a reaper has to
learn by themselves, otherwise you'd all come to rely on me much
more than you should, and I don’t want that to happen. Learning by
doing is the most sensible way to do it. As you learn how each of
the spirits you come in contact with feels, you’ll know what's
supposed to happen to them. You'll figure it out in time. If I tell
you who’s strong, who will become a poltergeist, who might need to
be cleansed before they go in to be judged, and everything else
that I already know, then you’ll never learn it for yourself.
You'll always come to me.”

“Do you know what’s going to happen to
Jasper?”

“No. All we find out is that someone's going
to die, unless they’re stubborn, and when we find that out, we come
to where they are. There have been times when I wished I'd known in
advance because some deaths…” He shuddered. “You’re still a young
reaper, Evangeline, so you have no idea what it’s like to come
across a murder victim or someone who’s been involved in a three
car pile-up. There are those that are easy to deal with, like your
second professional reap, and then there are those you wish you
could have done something about, but part of the problem is not
knowing what’s going to happen.” He sighed. “I also have to take
into consideration that I’m not permitted to change too much. My
job is to reap the souls of the dead, not change things, no matter
how much I want to. You'll be able to change things when you become
a guardian.”

“If he dies, Lucius, I’m not going to become
a guardian. I will work out my contract and join him in the world
of the dead when the term's over. The only reason I want to be a
guardian is so I can look after him.”

“You'll be assigned other people, as well.
Every guardian is assigned three spirits to watch over. One of
yours will be Jasper. I think another will be Sam and the third's
still a mystery at this point.”

“Why Sam?” He stared at her. “I changed his
destiny.”

“Right, and that's the job of a
guardian.”

Nodding, she looked over at where Jasper sat.
The coffee shop on the corner is one they'd been to before and they
both loved sitting outside. In part, because he could talk to her
without looking like a fool. The other part had nothing to do with
coffee or ambience. The right company made every situation seem
better. Seconds later, a car came screeching out of nowhere. The
driver pressed on the brake before flying into the side of the
coffee shop. Jasper didn't have time to move. As tears streamed
down Evangeline’s cheeks, she pulled her hand free of Lucius’ and
ran over, unable to stop herself even though she knew there wasn’t
anything she could to do help Jasper. He'd been thrown under the
car.

“Jasper…” She knelt down beside him, unable
to touch any part of him, she felt Lucius put a hand on her
shoulder. “There's nothing I could have done.”

“Sometimes it happens that way. He’s
fighting, Evangeline, I can feel it. Go with him to the hospital,
because there's a chance he could pull through and if he doesn’t
you’re going to need to bring his soul to me.”

“I…” Panting, she wiped the tears off her
cheeks. “Is he going to know I’m there?”

“Not any time soon. He’s very close to the
edge, but if someone…” The sound of sirens cut into his voice. “I
think, they got here fast enough. Let them do their job. Don't
intervene.”

The reassuring hand disappeared. She had to
make her own decisions. Pushing aside the anger and the hurt she
felt, Evangeline knew she needed to step away so the emergency
personnel could work. “Oh, Jasper.” One of the paramedics shook his
head. “Oh, man, it's going to alright.” He looked at his colleague.
“We know this one. It's the Muldoon kid.” Looking down at Jasper,
assessing his injuries, “We're going to do everything we can to
help you, man.”

“Driver’s out and walking. I have no idea
how, but there doesn’t appear to be a scratch on him. Looks like
this one took the whole brunt of the car.”

Evangeline glared at the driver. “The brakes
are bad.” Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I couldn’t do anything.
I only passed my test last week and didn’t know what to do. I'm so
sorry. Is he going to be okay? Oh, man. I just panicked and… I’m so
sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Get out of the way. Sit down over there.”
Calling out to bystanders, “We need help over here. We have to get
this car off of him. Somebody help us lift!”

Lucius sat with Gabriel, watching Evangeline
as she watched over Jasper. His spirit fought for two weeks after
the crash. Lucius lost all hope that Jasper would survive. Gabriel
kept telling him to wait and see. Considering the circumstances,
waiting wasn't going to be easy for anyone. They couldn't go to the
hospital and force Jasper to wake up no matter how tempting the
thought may have been. With Evangeline's focus on Jasper, that
meant Lucius had to send Kane and Brick to jobs meant for her.
Lucius sighed. “I want it to be over.”

“So does she, and I think it will be soon.”
Gabriel smiled. “I'm beginning to think the same thing you were –
that he wasn’t going to make it, but today’s the day. He’ll wake up
in about an hour.”

“How do you know that?”

“You have powers that I don’t and I have
powers that you don’t. One of those is knowing when someone like
him is going to wake up. He’s another special one, Lucius. I might
just have to give him a contract when he dies, although that isn’t
going to happen any time soon. Send Evangeline to my office when
she comes back. She needs to sign my contract and, then, she’ll be
in charge of making sure he survives whatever it is that tries to
kill him next.” Gabriel stood, shaking his head. “That boy hasn’t
had much luck, but that should all change now that he has her there
to look out for him.”

As Lucius continued to watch, he came to
realize how long an hour could be when you were waiting for
something to happen. He brushed a hand through his hair, keeping
his eye on the clock in Jasper’s room, telling the hour to hurry up
and finish. It did, but not soon enough. It felt like forever, and
Lucius should know since he’d been in the afterlife forever.
Jasper’s eyes opened and he found himself staring at the girl he
loved.

“Evie?”

“Two weeks, I’ve been waiting for you to wake
up.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she took hold of his hand.
She didn't dare to do anything more in case she dislodged one of
the many tubes that were attached to him. “Do you have any idea how
long two weeks is?”

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Jasper, I’m your guardian.” She bit her lip.
“Well, I'll be when I’ve signed a contract with Gabriel because you
survived. Your spirit's strong enough to pull you through and now
I’m going to be looking out for you for the rest of your life.”

“Okay, love, do me a favor and start at the
beginning. Last time I saw you, Lucius told me I'd die if you
didn't leave, and now you’re here sitting next to my hospital bed,
telling me that you’re my guardian. I’m a mess. I'm tired. I hurt
like hell, so you’re going to have to go slow for me, please. As
wonderful as seeing you is right now, I’d come to terms with it
never happening again until I died. I'm confused an...” His voice
trailed off as he fell back asleep.

Chapter 8

Being a guardian turned out to be very
different from being a reaper and Evangeline found herself much
happier than she thought she could be as she balanced the two jobs
along with her relationship with Jasper. Lucius sent her to simple
reapings as a reaper while working with Gabriel on some of the more
difficult ones to see whether anyone might pull through. If they
did, they'd find themselves with a guardian. Evangeline would be
the only guardian in a relationship with the person she protected,
but seeing her made the others wonder if it might be possible. She
exuded happiness. It wasn’t as easy as they imagined, though.

Not long after she'd been assigned to Sam,
she went with him to his son’s house, knowing chances were that
their meeting would go wrong, and it did. After seeing his father
drowning his sorrows in a bottle for well over a decade, he wasn’t
willing to forgive. His father hadn't been there when he needed
someone to be there for him because his mother died. Sam dealt with
it better than Evangeline thought he would. It would have been easy
enough for him to try to rid himself of the pain by drinking again,
but he didn’t. Instead, he accepted the decision, certain he’d have
done the same thing in his son’s position, and moved on, knowing it
remained his only option.

Soon, the time would come when his son would
go to him, ready to let the past go, and they'd have the chance to
enjoy some time together before, to no one’s surprise, Sam found
himself dealing with liver failure, thanks to all the drinking he’d
done.

Evangeline stood next to his son at the
funeral. No one knew she'd been the one to thank for Sam sobering
up, and they didn’t know that she'd taken him to the world of the
dead. Saying goodbye then, Lucius had to pull her away, telling her
to go to Jasper. She cried herself out on his shirt.

A week later, she had someone else to look
after. She never forgot Sam, though, or the other people that she'd
been assigned to because it wasn’t unusual for her to get the
difficult cases - the ones who were in the same position as Jasper
had been and she knew she couldn’t save them all.

Sapphire Rose had been the hardest one to
deal with because she reminded Evangeline so much of herself at
that age. For a while, she thought she’d even managed to convince
Sapphire that she had a chance to be something, but in the end,
another hit took her life and Evangeline had to guide her to the
afterlife. They’d gone in silence, neither of them knowing what to
say to the other, yet that hadn’t stopped Evangeline from sending a
blessing her way, wishing she could have done more to help.

“There's always a possibility she will be
blessed in the afterlife.” Gabriel gripped Evangeline's shoulder.
“You never ask for the easy jobs and I’ve always liked that about
you.”

“Lucius wanted you to talk to me, didn’t
he?”

“You know what’s coming.”

Jasper's getting old. Evangeline knew that
would happen. It wouldn’t be long until it was his turn to be
guided to the world of the dead, but at least this time, it would
be from his own body aging not from something tragic. She blinked
away tears she wasn’t going to let fall. “Of course, I do.” As she
turned to look at Gabriel, she managed to push aside her feelings.
“We always knew it would happen. It’s been fifty years, so I’m not
going to complain.”

“From the beginning, I knew I wanted to offer
Jasper a job when his time came and that's something I still want
to do, if you’re willing to teach him how to be a guardian?”
Evangeline couldn't speak. “Evie?”

“I…” She shook her head. “You want Jasper to
be a guardian? My Jasper? He won’t be going to the world of the
dead without me?”

“Yes, I want your Jasper to be a guardian, so
he won’t be going to the world of the dead without you. Since
you’ve been doing so well, we wanted to extend your contract.
Lucius likes having a guardian reaper to work with because you can
see so much more than he can, and I like that you take on the jobs
that remind you of the person you once were. I know, it’s not an
easy thing to do. I know that from experience.”