Necromancer Legacy - 22. Paved with good intentions

Waiting was excruciating. Like an itch he couldn’t scratch. A shaking of his legs he couldn’t stop. Thirst he couldn’t quench. The stupid sunlight slipped through his curtains like it was mocking him.

Nightfall still seemed so far away. Riley and Shane wanted to talk to him. But he was shutting them out, leaving them with Cyan. Nick just couldn’t be around anyone right now.

His head felt like it was going to burst. His eyes were dry. But he didn’t want to sleep. He knew what he would dream about if he slept.

God, he felt like he was going to explode. He needed to do something, anything.

On a whim he grabbed a piece of paper from his wall and folded it before shoving it in his pocket. Then he stormed out of the apartment, three pairs of eyes staring from the living room.

If Nick remembered correctly from the tattoo appointment book, his colleague Roxy had some free time right about now.

***

He was back two hours later, feeling better. Well, that had been somewhat calming, but now he still had some time to kill. Cyan and his roommates had left a note. ‘Gone training.’ Yeah, they needed their training montages, too. Nick slid his sword from under his bed. He stroked the black leather sheath. He didn’t feel like joining them. He didn’t need any more training. He needed to fight. Needed this to be over with. He could feel the restlessness prickling his skin. He felt it in his fingertips. Felt it in his bones.

A presence appeared in his room, followed by a strange wave of warm, sweet-smelling air. He opened his eyes. He didn’t remember closing them. Shay was here. In human form. Wearing all white; white long sleeve shirt, tight washed-out white jeans. He looked so much like Sasha, if Sasha had amber eyes and tawny hair. It was troubling. Nick’s chest felt constricted and heavy. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. He wasn’t going to cry or anything. He was probably just really tired.

Shay stood by the door, crossing his arms. Crossing his ankles. All crossed up.

“I’m not too happy with the situation,” he said.

Nick stared. “And you think I’m having fun?”

“No. I think you’re losing your shit.”

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you, for an angel.”

“Getting a tattoo of a fox isn’t going to help Sasha, you know.”

Nick clutched the left side of his chest and winced. “You have no right to stalk me, you creep.”

“You said it yourself, I’m an angel.” Shay arched an eyebrow. “I can stalk whom I like.”

“Why are you here?”

“I want to help you. To fight with you,” Shay admitted.

Nick’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“You think I’d joke about this?”

“But… you can’t go to Hell… can you?” He leaned forward on the bed, laying the sword down next to him.

“I’m not supposed to, no. But I’m ready to face the consequences, whatever they might be.” Shay’s eyes darkened.

“That would be…” Nick’s heart started beating faster. “I mean, we’d have an actual chance, I guess, with your powers.” Whatever those were. Nick thought it might be rude to ask. But surely Shay was powerful. He had protected Gabriel from Liv and Lucas, after all.

“I see you’re not as dumb as I thought. You do realize it was still suicide, even with a couple of cute little wolves by your side, right?”

Nick took the blow. Swallowed.

“Why would you be facing consequences, anyway? Can’t be that bad. Don’t they know you’re doing this for Sasha? That’s a noble enough cause.”

“Not really. They don’t care about that stuff. That’s not how it works.”

“How does it work?”

Shay gave him a slow, long glance. “It’s complicated.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Try me.”

“All right. Each spirit guide is given a list of people to look after. We’re not allowed to look after anyone who isn’t on the list. And we better not get too attached,” Shay said in a bittersweet voice, “because the list can change anytime. And we’re not allowed to say goodbye.”

“Shit,” Nick said, “that’s kind of harsh.” He considered this for a moment. He was curious. Hey, the sun was still shining out there. Might as well kill some time. “How many people are on your list?”

“Twenty.”

“And how many spirit guides are there?”

“There are fourteen of us right now.”

“That’s not very many.”

Shay uncrossed his legs. Uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands in his white jeans pockets instead. He looked at Nick with amused fox-like eyes, a strand of copper hair sliding from behind his ear.

“No, that’s not very many.”

“I guess the rumors that Heaven is pretty exclusive are true, then.”

Shay laughed. It was a beautiful, melodious laughter and Nick was pleasantly surprised to hear it. Shit, he looked so much like Sasha; he had that same upturned nose, the same high cheekbones, and the canines that were a bit longer than normal, giving his handsome grin a dangerous edge. It made Nick’s chest ache.

“I am so not supposed to tell you any of this,” Shay said thoughtfully, his laughter fading.

“Then why are you telling me?”

He shrugged. He looked young right now. Like a boy. A young man. Not like some spirit guide who’d been dead for a long time. This was so surreal.

Nick took a deep breath. “So Sasha is on your list?”

Shay nodded slowly.

“Am I on your list? What about Gabriel?”

Now he shook his head.

“But you’re still looking after us?”

“I guess I’ve been known for breaking the rules once in a while.” Shay smiled like he was really enjoying this conversation. “Might as well go to Hell with you and give my boss a good reason to fire me. She’s been looking for one. I’ll save her the trouble.”

“She? So God’s a woman, then?” Nick joked. Well, he wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking or not.

Again, Shay laughed. But he said nothing.

“Glad I amuse you,” Nick said, standing up. He approached Shay slowly. “You’re hiding something from me.”

“I’m hiding a lot of things from you.”

Nick shook his head. Smiled, though he didn’t really know why. “No, not a lot. Just one big thing.”

“How do you know?”

“I got this feeling.”

There was a silence, like they were intrigued by each other. Studying each other.

And then, Shay’s expression changed and he asked in a low voice: “Does Malachy ever talk to you? Did he say anything about me?”

An unpleasant cold feeling spread across Nick’s chest and he didn’t like it.

“So you know him, too. How?”

Shay looked like he was in pain. Like he wanted to take a step back, but he was already backed against the wall.

He whispered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this up.”

Nick stepped closer.

“But you did.”

“Nicholas… Tonight we fight. I’ll protect you, even if you’re not on my list. The reason doesn’t matter, for now. I don’t know what will happen to me after. I haven’t been afraid in a long time.” There was a strange fire in his amber eyes. “But I am now. It’s good to feel something.” He took a deep breath. “I knew Malachy, a long time ago. We were friends. And when I saw him again, after so long, I was with Lilya. Sasha’s mother. But he wasn’t himself. He was possessing your father… was your father… you already know this. There was nothing I could do to save him. I watched as they destroyed him. And now he’s in Purgatory, probably. He’d never been there before.” Shay turned around suddenly, and held up his hair. Nick frowned as he saw a small number tattooed just below his hairline. 486.

“I’ve been to Purgatory, Nick.” He faced him again, letting his hair drop. “I might go there again after tonight. I guess I’ll be with my old friend. I don’t care anymore… for this. For being a spirit guide. I don’t know what it means anymore. I… I can’t believe I told you about all this. I guess I… needed to. I…” He interrupted himself. Then, “I can’t do it anymore. I try to help people, but I don’t even like them anymore. I can’t. The list changes all the time. I can’t even keep track anymore. I burned the last list she gave me. Sasha wasn’t even on it,” he whispered. “But I wanted to keep looking after him. He’s my family, you know? I feel like I’m going insane. Nick,” he shook his head, “Devin Cook was on the list instead.”

Nick didn’t know what to say. What could he say? He couldn’t blame Shay. Who would want to be Devin’s guardian angel?

For a lack of a better thing, he said: “Your boss sounds like a bitch.”

“I hate her.” And he sounded like he was going to cry.

A part of Nick was frustrated because he knew that Shay was still keeping information from him, about Malachy, about everything.

But he didn’t say anything. Instead he just threw his arms around Shay and held him close. And Shay held him back, leaning into him and closing his eyes. It was clumsy and awkward, like Shay hadn’t touched anyone like this in years. Maybe he hadn’t.

Nick’s new tattoo hurt as he pressed himself against Shay but the pain felt strangely good. He closed his eyes, too. Shay’s hair smelled sweet. His body was somewhat smaller than Sasha’s. Less athletic, he supposed. Reminding him that even though they looked alike, he wasn’t actually hugging Sasha right now.

So he pulled away from him and cleared his throat.

“You’re right about one thing, Shay. Tonight we fight. And you’re gonna help me save Sasha.”

***

Twilight finally came, like a soft, dark blanket slowly covering the city and soothing Nick’s uneasiness, if only a little. No more waiting, at last. Waiting was the worst. Rain had stopped, leaving the evening air refreshing and just slightly damp. The four of them made it to Central Park. They were meeting their last minute allies here.

Shane and Riley walked up front, deep in conversation. Cyan closed the walk with Nick. They were cutting across the south of the park to make their way to the pond, the path crunching underfoot. Cyan made himself invisible to everyone else, which was quite convenient, because this way he could hold their swords for them until they got to the portal.

Nick supposed they must have looked like any normal group of friends taking an evening stroll in the park, enjoying the early spring, with its green and floral scents. The wind had stopped along with the rain, and the evening was eerily calm now. Nick listened to his friends’ conversations, if only to distract himself—to stop thinking about Sasha.

Well, they might have looked like normal friends taking a walk, but their conversations weren’t exactly typical.

“So Riley,” Shane was saying, hands in his pockets, leaning toward his friend, “what happens if you die during the fight?”

“If I die, I die,” Riley said, scratching his scalp between two cornrows, “no big deal. Been there, done that.”

“But what happens? I mean,” Shane shrugged, and lowered his voice, “do you just go to Hell again, or…?”

“God, I hope so.”

Shane was taken aback by that answer. You couldn’t really blame him.

“Why would you say that?”

“I don’t want to go back to Purgatory,” Riley said simply.

Nick’s ears pricked at this. He glanced sideways at Cyan. But Cyan showed no sign of wanting to partake in the conversation. He just gazed up at the blossoming trees lining the path. If he was listening, then he was pretending not to. Good thing he was in discrete mode, too, what with all those swords attached to his back and belt. He looked like some crazy blonde ninja.

“Is it really that bad?” Shane asked.

“Yeah,” Riley said heatedly, “it’s like this giant underground prison. There’s never any light, or fresh air. You’re always hungry and thirsty, but they never give you any food or water. And there are torture rooms…” He shuddered. “Most of the time they lock you up in cells, but sometimes they let you out. And then they make fun of you, cause you try to find your way out, but there is no way out. So you all look like idiots running around in those stinky ass tunnels, and they laugh.”

He was getting all worked up. Shane looked over his shoulder at Nick, raising his eyebrows.

Clearly this stirred rather bad memories for Riley.

“Those red-eyed guard freaks. You can’t even really see their faces cause they wear big ass hoods all the time,” Riley said.

“Sounds awful,” Shane said on a sympathetic tone.

Riley just kept going. “At least I found my dog. He was just sitting there in one of the tunnels, a nice big black dog like the one I had when I was a kid. Like he was just waiting for me. And he took me to Raven. Raven scratched Koda’s ears like they were best friends. And then Raven asked me if I wanted to go to Hell with him.” Riley laughed. “So I said, you mean this isn’t Hell?”

“What happened?” Shane asked when Riley paused.

Riley was gazing at someone walking two massive German Shepherds in the opposite direction. Then he said, “I went with him. Later Raven told me that I was one of the rare ones. Most people imagine the worst. They think it’ll be even worst than that crap jail. But I tell you man, at that point, I said to myself, screw it. Anything’s better than this shit hole.”

Shane seemed to shiver. “I hope I don’t go there when I die. What were you in your previous life anyway? What was your job?”

“A casino dealer in Las Vegas,” Riley answered. He hesitated, like there was more to it. But he kept quiet.

“That’s cool. What about you, Cyan?” Shane looked over his shoulder.

“I was a chauffeur for some posh family, just before the first world war…”

“In England?” Shane asked.

“Yes, in England. You think I’m doing this accent for fun?”

“That’s so cool. Like in Downton Abbey. Not,” Shane hastened to add, “that I watch it by myself or anything. My ex-girlfriend made me watch it.”

Cyan tilted his head, confused. “What?”

Shane almost bumped into a bench on the side of the path. “You know, the TV show. Did you seduce one of the lord’s daughters and elope with her?”

“No… I did have an affair with one of his sons, though.”

“Ha! Nice,” said Shane.

“Not really,” Cyan said. “The lord’s wife found out and had me poisoned.”

“Oh.”

There was a bit of an awkward silence. They hurried along the path, Shane kicking some rocks with his sneaker as he walked.

“Anyway,” Shane said, “I hope I get to skip all those other ones and go straight to Heaven when I die.”

Riley laughed, then Cyan joined in, and even Nick couldn’t help but snort.

“Why’re you all laughing?” Shane asked, but no one answered. “What? I’ve never done anything bad.”

Riley answered. “Doesn’t matter if you’re Mother freakin’ Teresa. They don’t care.”

“I’ve heard it’s not all that great, anyway,” Nick put in.

Both his roommates looked at him like they’d just seen a ghost.

“He speaks,” Shane said teasingly.

“Yeah. I’m not dead yet,” Nick replied.

Cyan stepped in. “No one is going to die, boys. Relax.”

“You don’t know that,” Shane said.

Cyan didn’t reply.

They found the portal amidst a circle of trees, overlooking the pond. Everything was very calm. The others weren’t here yet. They’d notice if they were, considering they were waiting for five wolves and a fox. Nick really hoped Shay hadn’t bailed out of fear of upsetting God or something like that. And he hoped Hazel’s parents hadn’t found out about the whole thing. For all he knew Hazel and Jackson were grounded in that shitty wolf basement place.

While they waited, Shane was having a bit of fun. The portal was smaller than Nick had expected. And it wasn’t red or anything like that. It was very discrete. Seemed to be made of some weird fog. They only found it because Cyan knew its exact location. Shane kept stepping in and out. It made him all blurry—and he said for him the outside world got blurry too—and then clear again when he stepped out. It had a sort of invisible dome over it, and could hold maybe up to three people at once.

“Am I invisible now?” Shane asked as he stepped in for maybe the seventh time.

“No,” Riley rolled his eyes, “we can still see you.”

“It’s so weird.” Shane put his hand in and out of the fog. “Like, here it’s cold, and here it’s not. How did they do this?”

“Stop it get out of there,” Riley replied, “what if you accidentally teleport? They’ll kill you.”

“They won’t kill me I’m adorable.”

Cyan leaned against a tree, crossing his arms. “You won’t accidentally teleport. Only Nicky or myself can activate it.”

“How?” Nick asked him.

“With our blood.”

Of course.

They didn’t have to wait much longer, thankfully. The five wolves arrived furtively through the forest, heads slightly lowered. Jackson and Hazel were the two silver wolves at the front. Nick recognized their gray eyes. Jackson was surely the bigger one. Two other wolves were pale brown, and the last wolf was big, dark and bristled—almost black. It strode past the others and flanked Jackson’s side.

And then Shay sort of just materialized out of nowhere; a bright red fox almost as big as Jackson’s wolf form. Nick had texted Hazel about this earlier, but the wolves still looked a bit startled. Well, he couldn’t really blame them. Foxes weren’t supposed to be as big as wolves. And they weren’t supposed to appear out of thin air, either.

Cyan touched Nick’s back briefly, before walking past him. “I’ll go in first. Here.” He gave him back his sword. Then he handed Riley and Shane their swords, too. “You go in last,” he said, still addressing Nick. “Make sure everyone goes in between.”

“Well,” Nick swallowed, “it’s not like I’m forcing anyone…”

“I know,” Cyan said, “but I still want you to go last.”

Nick just nodded. He held his sword, and felt jittery all of a sudden. This was really happening.

The others were all getting ready to go, lining up behind the reaper, next to the portal. Nick frowned.

“Wait, everyone…” He took a deep breath. He just felt like he should say something. Warn them. “For some of you this will be the first time.” He looked at the wolves, and five pairs of round eyes looked up at him. Felt weird talking to a bunch of big dogs, although Nick supposed his life was beyond weird by now.

“Just make sure you all stay together,” Nick advised. “Just stick together. Ignore everything else. Don’t let your fears get the better of you. And… when we fight those people, remember they are being manipulated by a necromancer. We don’t have to kill them. Just distract them as best as you can, and Cyan and I will go for the other reaper and necromancer, and then it’ll all be over.”

Nick clutched his sword tight in his clammy palm. It was really hitting him. What they were doing. Shane and Riley, all those young werewolves; they were all looking at him now, wondering if he was done or if he had anything else to add.

“Just,” Nick said, “don’t get killed.”

They figured he was finished after that.

Cyan cut his palm without wincing, activating the portal as his blood trickled to the ground. A slight red hue tinted the fog—more pinkish than red, really. Cyan disappeared in there and the others followed, vanishing one after the other. Nick could almost feel the uneasiness in the air. Shay was the last to go just before him. He glanced back at Nick with his round hazel eyes before stepping in.

Nick glanced around to make sure there was no one in this area of the Park. Then he went through the portal after Shay.

And he heard a voice in his mind. He hadn’t heard that voice in a while.

‘Don’t worry so much Nick. I’m here, aren’t I?’