"There," Eve said, stepping beside me. "That's not so bad, is it?"
I looked around. Fog surrounded me, a strange, cold, bluish mist.
I rubbed my upper arms. "So what is this place? A way station between what?"
"Between planes, the nonearthly realms of the ghost world, like where you landed. From here I can transport us to another plane, or to any place on earth. Well, our version of earth."
"But how--"
"Think of it as a cosmic elevator. A modern one, though. No elevator attendant on duty. Can't just walk up and say 'Miami, please.' Don't I wish. No, it's strictly do-it-yourself, and you have to figure out the right incantation to get to each place, like breaking a code. Different place, different code."
"So I assume they don't like ghosts traveling."
Eve shrugged. "They aren't totally against it, but they'd rather you found a place and stuck to it, at least for a while. Frequent commuting is not encouraged. It confuses the older ghosts, seeing new faces popping in and out all the time."
"But you know the codes."
She grinned. "Not as many as I'd like, but I'm racking up far more frequent flier miles than the Fates would like. They've rapped my knuckles a few times. Not about using the codes, because, technically, that's allowed, but they don't always approve of the methods I use to get them."
"Uh-huh."
"And that's all you need to know about that. Now hold on."
Eve murmured an incantation in a language I'd never heard. Then she turned and walked back in the direction we'd come.
"It didn't work?" I said as I hurried after her. "So now what--"
"More walking, less talking, Paige."
I took one more step and my foot sank into what felt like a steaming pile of horse shit. I yelped and jumped back. I looked down. Warm, slimy mud oozed into my sandals.
"Gross, huh?" Eve said. "Come on."
I followed. The mist still swirled around us. I opened my mouth to ask Eve something, then caught a whiff of the air and gagged. In grade school, a sadistic teacher had forced our class on an educational tour of a sewer plant. It had smelled like this, only better. One more cautious step, and a wave of humid heat washed over me. Then the mist cleared.
I looked around. The first association that clicked was: the Everglades. But it wasn't. It had the same smell, the same feel, the same general look, but everything was multiplied a hundredfold. I touched the nearest overhanging fern. The leaf was bigger than I was. Massive twisted trees loomed overhead, pale moss dangling all around them, like a tattered wedding dress on a bridal corpse. An insect the size of a swallow buzzed past. As I turned to get a better look at it, something deep within the swamp shrieked. I jumped. Eve laughed and steadied me.
"Welcome to Miami," she said. "Population: a few hundred...none of whom you want to meet."
"This is Miami?" I said.
"Weird, huh? Watch this."
She murmured an incantation, then rubbed her hand in front of us, as if cleaning glass. There, in the spot she'd cleared, was a tunnel view of a city street, neon signs blazing. A pair of headlights rounded the corner and headed straight for us. I locked my knees so I wouldn't bolt. The car zoomed to the edge of the "window," then disappeared.
"That's your Miami," she said, then pointed at the swamp. "This is ours."
She swiped her hand over the image, and it dissolved. I took a few steps, shoes squelching in the mud.
"Stick close," she said. "I'm serious about there being things out there you don't want to meet."
I looked around and shook my head. "So all the cities are gone in the ghost world?"
"Nah. Miami's special."
"What are the other cities like? Do they look like ours?"
"Kind of. That's the cool thing. They look like the real ones, but they're stuck in the past, at some important point in their history, their heyday or whatever."
I looked around. "So Miami's heyday was back when it was a primeval swamp?"
Eve grinned. "All downhill from there, huh? Or maybe it's a metaphorical thing."
"You said ghosts live in the other cities. What if you lived in Miami while you were alive? Would you have to relocate?"
"Mostly, yes. But those things I was mentioning, the ones that live here? Rumor has it that they used to be--"She grimaced and made a zipping motion over her mouth. "No more questions, Paige."
"But shouldn't I know--"
"No, you shouldn't. You don't need to. You just want to. God, I'd forgotten how curious you are. When you were little, I swore your first word wasn't 'Momma,' it was 'why.'"
"Just one last--"
"One last question? Ha! Do you have any idea how many times I fell for that one?" She started walking. "One last question. One last game. One last song."
"I just--"
"Stop talking and get moving or you'll learn more about this swamp than you ever cared to know."
Blindsided
EVE KNEW HER WAY AROUND THE GHOST-WORLD MIAMI from her frequent visits over the last two weeks. What had lured her to this hell swamp? Us. She'd been keeping tabs on Lucas and me since we'd arrived in Miami, as she'd been periodically checking in on Savannah while she was under Elena's care. Apparently, she'd been doing this since her death, reassuring herself that her daughter was safe, and now keeping track of her guardians as well. It was a strictly visual supervision, but only because she hadn't figured out a way to extend her protectorship to a more active form. Not surprisingly, the Fates frowned on the whole guardian-angel routine. Interfering with the living was forbidden. Even checking in on loved ones, as Eve was doing, was discouraged. To make the full transition to ghost life, you had to break all ties with the living world. Eve was having some difficulty with the concept.
We had to walk two miles to get to where our hotel would be in the living world. I hoped Jaime was there. Otherwise, we were in for a long hunt.
Two miles wasn't relatively far, given the size of Miami, but when you were walking through a swamp, up to your ankles in muck, blazing a trail through the vegetation with fire spells, every few yards seemed like miles. Fortunately, Eve had forged some paths earlier, including one to our hotel. Otherwise the vegetation would have been impassable. Already, in the half day she'd been gone, the vines had wound over her trail, the lush vegetation filling in so fast you could almost see it growing.
As we hacked through a particularly overgrown area, I thought I did see the vegetation growing, as ferns a few yards ahead swished in the still, fetid air. Then I saw a shape move behind the fronds.
"Shit!" Eve said.
The figure shambled forward, taking shape in the dim light. I made out a vaguely humanoid form, then everything went dark. I bit back a yelp, and started casting a light spell. Eve grasped my forearm and leaned down to my ear.
"It's me, Paige. I did it."
Did what? Before I could ask, I remembered that Eve was also a half-demon, having been sired by an Aspicio. An Aspicio's power is sight, and its progeny can inflict temporary blindness.
"What?" I hissed. "Don't--I can't see!"
"That's the idea."
Mud squelched as the thing moved through the swamp, coming closer with each step. I blinked hard, but saw only darkness.
"Eve!" I whispered. "Stop this. I'm not a little girl anymore. I've seen things, lots of things. Demons, corpses, reanimated corpses--multiple reanimated corpses. Whatever's out there, I can handle--"
I stopped mid-sentence, mouth open, frozen, not in fear, but in a binding spell. Eve's hair tickled my ear as she leaned down over me.
"Maybe you can handle it, Paige, but you don't need to."
I glared at her--or in the direction I assumed she was.
"Don't worry," she whispered. "I've dealt with these things before. Most times if you just stand still, they'll go away."
Stand still? Did I have a choice? I couldn't see. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I could hear, though. I was frozen there, blinded, listening to the squelching of some unk
nown horror as it shambled toward me. Then another sense kicked in. Smell. A sickly sweet smell, worse than the stink of the rotting vegetation. My gut clenched.
As the thing drew close, I caught a faint, papery sound, like dry leaves rustling in the breeze. The noise took on a rhythm, then a clear sound, a steady, raspy "ung-ung-ung." The hairs on my arms shot up and I struggled against the binding spell. The smell grew stronger, until it was so overwhelming, I felt the gag reflex in my throat. But, caught in the binding spell, I couldn't gag. My mouth filled with bile. I fought harder against the spell, but it didn't crack.
"Ung-ung-ung."
The sound was so close now I knew the creature was right in front of us, just off to my left, where Eve stood. The noise stopped, replaced by a dry snuffling.
"It's okay, Paige," she whispered. "Just let it sniff you, and it'll--" A chomping sound. Then a gasp. "You fucking--!"
She cast a spell, something I didn't recognize. A high-pitched shriek rent the air, then a bellow, and fast footfalls through the mud.
"You'd better run," Eve said. "Goddamned--"
"Ung-ung-ung!" The cry, loud now, came from somewhere to our left, immediately followed by another to our right.
"Holy shit," Eve whispered.
She snapped the binding spell and I stumbled forward, my sight returning just in time for me to see the ground rushing up. Eve grabbed my arm and yanked me upright. I made out three, maybe four humanoid shapes rushing at us before Eve whipped me around and we started to run.
We raced, slipping and sliding and scrambling, through the swamp. Apparently unaccustomed to moving fast, the creatures were having just as much trouble. We retraced our steps through the path we'd cut coming in, which made it easier.
As we rounded a corner, Eve skidded across a muddy patch. I caught her before she fell.
"I hate running away," she muttered as we plowed forward again. "Hate it, hate it, hate it."
"Should we stop and fight?"
"As soon as we get enough of a head start to cast. They're falling behind, aren't they?"
"Seems like it."
"Good. Fucking bastards. I can't believe they attacked me."
"Look on the bright side," I said as we tore around another curve. "At least they can't kill us."
Eve's laugh rang through the swamp. "This is true. Being dead has its--"
Eve's body jerked, as if someone yanked her legs out from under her. Her lips parted in an oath, but before any sound came out, she was sucked into the swamp.
"Eve!" I shouted.
Something grabbed my left foot. I pulled my right foot back to kick it, but a tremendous yank pulled me off balance, and the swamp sailed up to swallow me.
Busted
BEFORE I HAD TIME TO PANIC, THE SWAMP VANISHED, AND I was plunked down onto a cold, hard surface. Back to the rocky plain? I looked around, but a mist surrounded me. Unlike the cold fog in the way station, this was warm and almost tangibly soft. As I child, I'd often lain on the grass, stared up at the clouds, and wondered what they'd feel like. The mist around me was almost exactly what I'd imagined. A sudden image of clouds and harps and trumpeting angels sprang to mind. Had I died--again--and gone to heaven?
"Ah, shit," Eve muttered somewhere beside me. "Busted."
Okay, not heaven. Whew. Monotonous bliss was not what I had in mind for my eternity.
As the mist withdrew, it contracted, growing denser. For a split second, something like a face appeared in the mist. Then it stretched into a pale ribbon, twisting as it wended toward the roof and disappeared.
"Damn Searchers," Eve muttered. "There's gotta be a way to outsmart them. Gotta be." She glanced over at me. "Don't worry. Everything will be okay. Just keep quiet and let me do the talking."
The mist now completely gone, I looked around. What I saw was so overwhelming that, for a moment, I could only stare, uncomprehending. The room we were in--no, it wasn't a room, there couldn't be a room this large. The bluish-white marble walls seemed to extend into infinity, the dark marble floor stretching to meet it like the earth reaching to the horizon. The vaulted white ceiling and huge pillars gave it the look of a Grecian temple, but the mosaics and paintings decorating the walls seemed to come from every culture imaginable. Each frieze portrayed a scene from life. Every part of life, every celebration, every tragedy, every mundane moment seemed to be pictured on those walls. As my gaze passed a bloody battle scene, a rearing horse's front leg moved, infinitesimally. I blinked. The rider's mouth opened, so slowly that the casual glance would miss it.
I was about to say something to Eve when the floor began to turn.
"An audience has been granted," Eve muttered. "About time."
The floor rotated until we were faced with an open space at least as inconceivably huge as the one on the other side. Across the expanse, vines hung from the ceiling, thousands, tens of thousands of them, suspended from every inch of space. The sight was so incongruous that I blinked and rubbed my thumb and forefinger over my eyes. When I looked again, I saw that they weren't vines at all, but pieces of yarn, colored every shade in the rainbow, and all exactly the same length.
"What the--?" I began.
"Shhh," Eve hissed. "Let me talk, remember?"
It was then that I saw the woman. She stood on a dais, behind an old-fashioned spinning wheel. Neither young nor old, ugly nor beautiful, thin nor fat, short nor tall, she was a perfect average of everything female, a middle-aged matron with skin the color of honey and long graying dark hair.
Her head down, she pumped a length of yarn from the wheel until it looked the same length as those hanging all around her. Then in a transition so fast and seamless it seemed a trick of the eyes, the woman aged fifty years, becoming an elderly crone, back bent, long hair as coarse and gray as wire, the simple mauve dress now white with the palest hint of violet. Her sunken eyes gleamed, dark and quick, like a crow's. One wizened hand lifted the length of yarn. The other, wrapped around a pair of black scissors, reached up and snipped it off. A man--so pale he looked albino--appeared from the jungle of dangling yarn, took the newly cut piece, and disappeared back into the dark depths of wool.
I looked back at the crone, but in her place stood a child no more than five or six, so small she couldn't see over the spinning wheel. Like the others, she had long hair, but hers was gleaming golden brown, and her eyes were cornflower blue. Her dress was an equally vivid purple.
The girl threaded the wheel, standing on tiptoes to reach it. Once it was ready, she changed to the middle-aged woman, who began to spin the yarn.
Beside me, Eve sighed loudly. "See? Even the Fates aren't above petty sadism, making us sit here and stew."
The woman, now the old crone, pinned Eve with her sharp eyes. "Petty? Never. We're enjoying a rare moment of peace, when we don't need to worry what you're up to."
She clipped the yarn. As the albino man retrieved it, the girl appeared. Before she could load the wheel, she stopped, her head cocked, a frown flitting across her pretty face. The albino appeared, holding a length of yarn in his hands. The girl nodded gravely, then morphed into the middle-aged woman, who took the yarn. She slid it through her fingers, then closed her eyes. A single tear squeezed out as her fingers slipped up the yarn nearly to the top. The woman became the crone, who looked at the tiny length of yarn pinched between her fingers.
"So young," she murmured, and clipped it off.
She handed the tiny piece of yarn back to the albino, who took it and walked into a hallway to our left. The old woman turned into the girl.
"So this is the problem we heard about," the girl said, her voice high and musical. "And you're involved, Eve? Shocking."
"Hey, I didn't--"
The girl smiled. "Didn't do anything? Or didn't cause the original problem? We're well aware of your innocence in the latter, but we'd beg to differ on the former. Exactly how many rules have you broken today, Eve? I'm not sure I can count that high."
"Sarcastic deities," Eve muttered. "Just what
every afterlife needs."
The girl changed into the woman. "We'll discuss your transgressions later, Eve. Right now--" Her voice softened as her gaze moved to me. "We have a more distressing situation to contend with. Not that you're to blame, child, but we must fix this immediately. We'll send you back, of course. You'll still remember your visit. We hate to tamper with memory, and we see no need for it in your case." A smile. "You're not the type to turn this experience into a best-selling memoir. Now, all we need--"
"Is Lucas," I said.
Eve elbowed me. I ignored her.
"We need Lucas. We left him--"
The woman shook her head. "He can't go, child. He died. He must stay here."
"No, he didn't--"
"We know you don't want to believe that, but--"
"Wait," I said, lifting my hands. "I'm arguing the fact, not the interpretation. The bullet hit Lucas and he fell into the portal."
"We know what happened."
"Then you know it takes longer than that split second to die after being shot in the chest. Therefore, when he fell through the portal, he wasn't dead."
The woman shook her head, smiling. "Always the logical one, aren't you? I'm afraid it's a matter of semantics, child. The shot would have killed him. We know that."
My heart seized in my chest, but I pushed on. "Okay, you know that because you know it was his time, but--"
"His time?" the old woman said as she appeared. She swept a hand at the yarn jungle behind her. "It's never anyone's time, girl. We don't make that decision. What happens happens, and what happened was that Lucas Cortez died--"
The middle sister cut in. "Which is a tragedy, of course. But here he'll be able to continue his work. There's good and evil in this world, too. We can use Lucas here and, when you die, you will join him. You'll be together. That's already been determined. That's why you came through to the same dimension. You just have to wait--"
"I won't wait. If he stays, I stay."
The woman's lips curved in a sympathetic smile. "That's not a choice you really want to make. It won't go the way you hoped."
"I'm not hoping for anything. I'm making a statement of fact. Lucas stays, I stay."