Afterlife (26 page)

Mrs. Bethany’s proud face never changed, but I saw something
I’d never expected to see: her eyes filling with tears. Yet she spoke steadily.
“After everything I have done, everything I have given, this is your answer.”

“What other answer could there be?”

She stepped back slightly, cocking her head in that familiar
gesture of contemplation and contempt. Li.ke she’s seeing him for the first
time, I thought.

Christopher said, “In that instant, her dedication to Black
Cross turned to hate. We can always hate that which we loved, and with a fire
as great as our love once was.”

The room vanished, replaced by the same forest pathway we
had seen first. But the scene had changed to winter; the naked tree branches
glittered with ice, and the ground was thick with snow. Mrs. Bethany rode alone
on horseback, sidesaddle, with a heavy cape of dark furs around her. Her eyes
searched her surroundings despite the deepening shadows — it was dusk, the sky
a piercing cobalt blue. Then she sat up a little straighter; she’d spotted
something.

A vampire stepped from behind one of the larger trees, obviously
uneasy. “Whatever trap you set, huntress, it’s a dangerous one for you. Your 167
help is too far away.”

“I set no trap,” Mrs. Bethany said. She dismounted from her
horse and walked slowly toward him in the snow. “I bear no weapons.”

“Then I suppose you have come to die, huntress.”

 It was a taunt, but Mrs. Bethany lifted her head.
“Yes.”

The vampire appeared as shocked as I was. He didn’t say
anything at first, didn’t rush at her or run away.

She held up her hands, gloved in dark green, to show that
she had no weapons. A gust of wind ruffled her hair and sent down a shower of
snow from the branches above, scattering white on her dark hair and cape. “I
was bitten once. Did you know? Do they tell the story?”

“Many claim it,” the vampire said. “Many lie.”

“One tells the truth,” she said. A quick tug at the neck of
her cape revealed an old scar upon her throat. “I was rescued, then. But I have
always known that I am prepared. If a vampire were to bite me, and kill me, I
would rise again, undead.”

The vampire took a step closer, disbelieving. “This is a
trick.”

“No trick.”

“You hate our kind. Why would you become one of us?”

“I need to be free of human ties, human cares.” Mrs. Bethany’s
expression faltered, but only for a moment. “I — I need to travel beyond the
reach of my mortal means.”

That won her a burst of laughter from the vampire. “Mad. You’ve
gone mad.” She said, “Change me and see.”

The vampire sprang at her, taking both of them down to the
ground in one pounce. Mrs. Bethany didn’t resist and didn’t scream, not even
when her blood spurted onto the white snow, steaming.

“Revenge,” Christopher said, “is a powerful motivator.”

The next place he showed me was obviously someplace a lot
warmer. A palm frond brushed against the window and tropical flowers were piled
high in vases. We seemed to be in an island villa, one that might have been
very nice before it had been trashed. Furniture was upended, mirrors broken.
Two dead bodies lay on the floor, and Mrs. Bethany stood in one corner, taking
in the scene with some satisfaction. She wiped blood from her mouth with the
back of her hand.

“She got them back,” I said. Despite the horror of the
murder scene before us, I couldn’t help feeling like those guys had it coming.

Christopher nodded. “But at what cost? Her life. Perhaps
more important, her mission. Her soul.”

“Where were you during all this?” I said. “Why didn’t you
appear to her? If she’d known you were a ghost, that she could maybe talk to
you
— ”

“I could not yet appear to her.” The Caribbean scene with
Mrs. Bethany faded, and we were once again in the land of lost things. Were we
in the same location? Our surroundings had changed; instead of the city, we
stood out in the open, in a desert too stark to be beautiful. Sunlight beat
down hotly, and I noticed a scorpion scuttling across the ground. Christopher
sat on a low, flat rock; his handsome profile was outlined against the dark
stone, and for the ftrst time, I recognized him as the silhouette on Mrs.
Bethany’s desk. “As you know, learning to use wraith powers takes some time — and
far more time for most than it did for you. By the point when I could have
appeared to my wife, she had learned to hate the wraiths as the natural enemy
of the vampire. She had shown me, through her actions, that her hate was
stronger than her love.”

I wanted to argue with him, but I remembered how hard it had
been for me to appear to my parents. That fear of rejection was powerful. And
as Lucas’s situation showed, not every person was strong enough to love despite
the change.

Lucas, I thought. Of course Mrs. Bethany had been
sympathetic to Lucas. Of course she reached out to him and understood him. She
had been exacdywhere he was. But that didn’t make her generous and good. It
just made her somebody who hated Black Cross a lot. He needed to realize that.
and
the sooner the better.

“I have to go,” I said. “I’ll come back, okay?”

I’d expected Christopher to protest, or throw some ice — storm
tantrum to keep me here, but instead he kept gazing at the scorpion as it
skittered upon the sand. “Go,” he said. “I am weary.”

Watching Mrs. Bethany’s death — even as a long — distant
memory — had been as hard for him as it had been for me to see Lucas die. I put
one hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for showing me.”

“Go,” he said, more quietly, and placed his face in his
hands.

I concentrated on a place, on the records room, and traveled
through the blue until it materialized around me. Patrice was up there alone,
studying her German; she started when I appeared, but only for a second. “Hey,
there you are. Lucas was getting worried.”

“I’m going to him right away,” I promised, going to the
loose brick in the wall and retrieving my bracelet from behind it. When I’d put
it around my wrist, I took completely solid form and felt an enormous wave of
relief. “I just need a second to
be …
less ghostly.
If that makes sense.”

“Whatever works,” Patrice said, not unkindly. “But he’s got
a test this afternoon, remember? He’ll do better if he knows you’re around and
okay.”

“I know it.” Though I hated to give up the bracelet so soon,
I decided I’d better. “Okay, fine. Come with me
?
”

“Sure. I have to head down to class anyway.”

I trailed behind her as vapor the whole way down the stairs.
“Could you keep out of my hair, please?” she muttered. “You’re awfully damp
sometimes. I’ll frizz.”

“This isn’t easy.
you
know.”

“Neither is fixing my hair.”

I wanted to laugh, but just then — as we were reentering the
classroom area — we heard the commotion. People shouting, shoes squeaking
against the floor, the thud of a body against the waH — “A fight,” Patrice
said.

“Lucas.” I knew it without having to be told.

Patrice ran, me above her, until we reached the fracas. Sure
enough, Lucas and Samuel were on the floor, grappling with each other, their
noses bloody.

“I said,” Lucas rasped, “leave her alone.”

“You want her for yourself, huh? Is that what you want?”
Samuel’s sick grin made it clear that he Wasn’t talking about flirtation.
Whatever human Samuel had been picking on — and Lucas had been defending — was
a
!J
too appetizing as an evening snack. I realized who
it must have been when Skye, amid the crowd, threw one of her books at Samuel,
but he dodged it easily. “Hit me a little harder, and she’s yours, man. Take
what you want.”

Lucas head — butted the guy, so hard that Samuel flopped
back, stunned. Groggily, a hand to his forehead, Lucas said, “Mostly I just
want you to shut up.”

The laughing crowd around us went very quiet, parting to
allow Mrs. Bethany to sweep into the middle of this. She looked so different to
me now that I had seen her younger, human, in love, alive. And yet she was
still Mrs. Bethany, made of starched lace and long skirts and chilly authority.
The fight scene got no more reaction from her than a raised eyebrow. “Mr. Ross.
Mr. Younger. I take it You’ve settled this matter between yourselves?”

“Yeah, it’s settled.” Lucas got to his feet, somewhat
unsteadily, and dabbed at his nose with his sleeve. Samuel continued to glare
up at him, like he might tackle him anew whether the headmistress was watching
or not.

“Mr. Younger?” Mrs. Bethany repeated. “I hope I won’t have
to undertake any
.. .
disciplinary
action. I suspect you wouldn’t care for my methods.”

“Yeah,” Samuel said, which wasn’t exactly an answer, but he
rose and slouched off without another word.

As everyone else went about their business, scattering from
Mrs. Bethany like leaves in a strong gale, I wanted to talk to Lucas — but Skye
was a little faster, reaching him before I had a chance to say a word. “Thanks
for standing up for me.”

“No prob.”

She had a crooked sort of smile that somehow made her beauty
more approachable. How come my funny smile only made me look silly? “You’re
kind of like a one — man SWAT team, you know. Who would ‘ve thought anybody
would need so much rescuing in high school?”

Skye was only making a joke, but it obviously struck a chord
for Lucas. He took her arm by the elbow and said, “We’ ve gotta talk.”

“Our test is starting in five minutes — and don’t you need
to clean up after the fight?”

“Forget cleaning up. Forget the test. This is important.”

I followed them back into the stairwell; Patrice cast a
worried glance after us but didn’t try to join them. Good thing, too, because
she probably would’ve freaked out. Knowing Lucas as I did, I knew what he was
about to say — and I thought it was a good idea.

It was time to tell Skye the truth.

“What’s up?” Skye’s expression clouded as they stood
together in the stairwell, light from the narrow arched window illuminating her
dark hair. “Are you finally going to talk about what’s wrong with you?”

Lucas grew wary. “What do you mean
?
”

“You’re just
so …
angry,” she
whispered, her voice gentle. “So angry about everything, all the time. I’m not
saying you’re wrong to be angry, but Lucas — it’s burning you up inside. What
is it? Can you tell me
?
”

If she’d tried to hint or trick it out of him, Lucas would
never have spoken. But simple honesty always broke down his barriers. “My
girlfriend, 171
Bianca .
. . she died last summer. I
still love her. I always will.”

The truth, if not the whole truth, and it had the power to
warm and thrill me all over again. What surprised me was the power that it had
over Skye; her pale blue eyes instantly welled with tears. “I lost somebody
this summer, too. My older brother.”

“Oh, jesus.” Lucas was clearly caught off guard. “Skye, I’m
sorry.”

She squeezed his hand. “Believe me, I get it. I might hide
the anger better than you do, but sometimes I just want
to .
. .” Skye breathed out in frustration but managed to smile for him as she wiped
away one tear. “Was Bianca just — amazing? I bet she was amazing.”

Lucas’s expression faltered. Talking about me in the past
tense reminded him of my death and brought the pain back. “You have no idea.”

“If it helps any, I believe — no, I know — the dead aren’t
truly gone.” She spoke with the deep assurance that could only have come from
growing up in a haunted house. Skye knew about the undead, at least on that
level. “They watch us. They’re close by. And I think they realize how much we
love them, maybe more than they did when they were alive.”

As Skye finished saying this, I took the risk of brushing,
gently, against Lucas’s hand. I saw him straighten, reassured of my presence
and safety, and yet more emotional than before. “I believe that, too.”

“She’d want you to be happy,” Skye said. “Not angry all the
time.”

Tm
trying
.” I knew Lucas was
speaking to me as much as to Skye.

They just watched each other for a second, struggling for
composure. After swallowing hard, Skye managed to say, “So, what did you want
to tell me
?
”

“This school is dangerous, Skye. Everywhere around here is
dangerous. You have to watch yourself.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that after the time those weird old gang
members fired an arrow at me. What kind of gang uses crossbows?”

Lucas took a step closer and looked her straight in the
eyes. Through the one crescent — shaped window, afternoon sunlight flooded in,
turning his hair pure gold. “No, I mean it. Some of the students here — they’re
not just students.”

She folded her arms. “You mean, they’re also enormous
dickweeds?”

“I mean.
they’re
vampires.”

Skye stared at Lucas. Lucas stared right back at her. I
wondered if she would scream, or ask questions, or just run like hell out of
the school. Instead she burst into laughter.

As Lucas pulled back, startled, she gasped, “You almost had
me
!
”

“Skye
— ”

“It’s okay, I get it.” Her giggles almost masked her words.
“We were getting way too heavy for people who need to think about calculus.
Thanks for making me laugh. I needed it.”

Lucas struggled for words, then surrendered. “Anytime.”

“Come on, let’s get to class.” Skye headed for the door.
Lucas glanced back, and I shimmered slightly in the light, so he’d know I was
near. His bashful smile was the best welcome — home I could have had.

Of course I wanted to tell Lucas about Mrs. Bethany, but it
could wait. Lucas’s dedication to his studies this semester might be mostly a
way of distracting himself from pain, but that was a good reason to respect it.
I supposed it wouldn’ t hurt to wait forty — five minutes.