Determination (8 page)

The lighting darkened. They stood next to wooden double doors inside a vaulted church. The Numina were nowhere in sight, but this didn’t alarm Roxie. She had a feeling they were nearby, watching over them.

The church looked like a piece of a memory or dream. Some details were easy to see. The rest was lost in gloom. The deep red carpet leading up to the altar was plain to see, as were the dozens of pews on either side. The carpet sprawled over several marble steps and ended at the base of a marble altar. Behind it stood a giant window where the sun shined through. To either side of the pews was darkness, and the ceiling was lost in darkness as well, as if both spaces weren’t important enough to be made visible. Dad began leading her down the aisle at a leisurely stroll.

“I guess you could say I met God. He appeared before me, looking just like me, which I found fitting. I wonder if he’d look like you if
you
saw him.”

Roxie remembered Baku being an older man with blue eyes, short hair, and a matching goatee, and a sweet smile. That appearance suited her expectations. Baku’s eyes had a shine in them that let the beholder know he possessed divine wisdom. On top of that, his presence had an aura of focus and being grounded that no mere mortal could achieve. He was godly, even though he acted and looked perfectly human.

“But anyway, he told me what an Aigis is, what your purpose is, what tasks and dangers you have before you, and what my role was in the creation of you. I’m honored to have been a part of your creation. Even though I was never there for you, knowing that I helped bring you into this universe brings me peace. Your mother and I were chosen to conceive you. It makes me proud to see you now. I’m sure your mother is just as proud.”

They reached the bottom steps leading to the altar and the white marble gleamed under the sun rays, casting a golden halo around Dad. For once his body felt only cold, instead of freezing. It was almost comforting to hold onto him.

“I’m really proud of what you’ve become. You’re so beautiful.” He reached out and caressed one of Roxie’s wings.

“They’re not real. They’re just a manifestation of my power.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re a statement of how powerful you’ve become. You’re capable of such wonderful and amazing things. You’re going to make such a positive difference in the universe.”

“Provided that I can get out of the Realm of the Dead first.”

“You will,” Dad said confidently. He took her hands in his. “I have faith in you.” He looked at the altar, then smiled at Roxie. “And now I would like to officially hand you over to the rest of the universe, as all fathers must do with their daughters one day. We can’t keep you to ourselves forever.” He caressed her cheek, then kissed her on the forehead. “You will always be my little girl, but there are countless people out there who need you and your power. I give you over to them so you may help them to the best of your abilities. You are my gift to them.”

Roxie returned her father’s smile, but her own waned as something dawned on her. “Wait, are you saying goodbye right now?”

Dad planted a soft kiss on her cheek. “Hopefully it will be a long time before you feel the pull of your death’s journey. I want to be with you, but the longer I stay, the harder it’ll get to let you go. It’s hard enough right now, when we’ve only just met, but this is for the best. I will watch over you from the Spirit World once I’ve reached the end of my journey. Until then, take care of yourself and listen to your Numina. She’s your ticket out of here.”

“I know. Would you be able to come find me after I see mom?” Her stupid tears stung her eyes. They’d bonded so quickly, spent so little time together, and now they were about to be permanently separated. She felt like she was reaching her emotional breaking point.

“I could but it would be better for us both if I didn’t,” Dad said. “I spent I don’t know how long yearning to take back my decision to drive recklessly. If I follow you until you get out of here, I run the risk of wandering this realm in search of you, yearning to remain by your side. I don’t want to do that to myself.”

“I understand. I don’t want that to happen either. I want you to find peace.”

“Then please let me go, Roxie. I have already given you over to the rest of the universe.”

Roxie pulled Dad into one final hug. “I release you so you may continue your journey and move on to whatever the universe has in store for you next. I’ll always miss you.”

“And I you. Thank you.”

They let go. Dad slipped his hands in his pockets and walked into the sunlight, Asiyah suddenly walking with him. Dad’s body condensed into the ball of light and they circumvented the altar, then disappeared once they passed out of the sun rays pouring through the window.

Roxie dropped to to her hands and knees and began gasping for breath as she fought down tears and sobs.

Chapter 6

Unwanted

Can’t cry. Not now. Not yet.
Tears slid down the bridge of her nose and onto the red carpet anyway. Sobs constricted her throat to the point of hyperventilation, but she forced herself to breathe deep and slow. Every breath came in thin and sharp.

Why? Why did human and Aigis bodies react to pain this way? Why did they want to reduce themselves to leaking a blinding amount of water and stiffen up with convulsive sobs? How was this supposed to help? The sight of Dad and Asiyah vanishing replayed in her head. She sat on her heels and lowered her head so it was almost touching the carpeted stairs, willing her tears to go away.

She was never going to see him again. Him or Aerigo.

A hand rested on her shoulder. “Stop fighting them, Roxie,” Sekiro said softly. “Let yourself release the pain so I can help you move forward.”

Sekiro’s words were only making it easier for Roxie’s tears to fall. She grimaced, but a sob escaped. She straightened up and sat on her feet, her arms hanging limp at her sides and tears slid into her ears. She tried to replace thoughts surrounding the fact that she was never going to see her dad with something more pleasant. All the tender moments with Aerigo came to mind, but those only made her clench her teeth and shed tears faster. She wiped them away. She tried thinking of Grandma and couldn’t help recalling how she’d inadvertently made her cry. She sucked in a wavering breath and held it so her body wouldn’t convulse with sobs.

But Grandma was helping now. She was helping feed her. She knew Roxie was alive--in a dilemma but still alive. And Luis. He’d been so happy to help. Yayu was gone, but he’d been delighted to aid them on Sconda. And so had Rooke and Gem--both also gone--on Phaedra. The humans and Malkin from Druconica had helped as well. The Druconicans has shared food and culture, and the Malkin leant ears and words of wisdom. On top of all that, Baku had created Roxie with a specific purpose in mind. He needed her to get up and keep trying no matter how hard things got. More people were dying while she sat here crying. All those people needed her to be strong, to save her tears and pain for later, to find a way out and stop Nexus and his war.

She gripped the hilt to her sword. Would she be able to bring herself to kill him if things came to that?

The air in the partially visible church chilled her skin where it was still wet. She dried her face. Tears continued slowly and her body shook with gentle sobs. She held her breath after each unsteady inhale and slowly exhaled. Her chest ached so bad. It felt like she had an anchor chained around the gaping hole that was her heart.

Why did emotional pain make her chest hurt anyway?

Roxie ignored the question, lacking the energy or desire to dwell on it.

Sekiro said, “That wasn’t much of a cry, but are you feeling any better?”

She shook her head. “I need to close my eyes a bit and grab some food. Is here a safe place?” Holding in all the tears and pain still pushing to be released made her whole body feel leaden.

“Yeah. Pollyanna Hospital is going to be very dangerous. You’re going to need all the strength and energy you can muster.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said dryly and got to her feet. She walked over to a front pew, lay down and closed her eyes. It felt so good to do both, even though her aching heart felt like it was trying to sink through the wood and drop to the hazy floor, which looked like grey cement, but for all she knew it could be made of wood.

She barely got through the beginning of the meditation process Sekiro had taught her when she slipped into an altered state of awareness. It brought her into a place between awake and asleep, where she could find the trail that led to the food altar Grandma had set up for her. The trail started off with the scent of incense, jasmine, and white sage. Once she got a whiff of that, tiny flames from two distant candles showed up.

Last time there had been nothing but darkness engulfing her and the candle light. This time she more felt than saw other people with her. She tried using her mind vision to see them, but whatever they were made of didn’t show any more than air did. Still, with the naked eye she could discern suggested outlines of shadow people, all of them keeping their distance, but watching her or the candles. She gripped the dreamed-up version of her hilt as she headed straight for the two circles of light. What fragments of the shadow people she could see stayed put, but their gazes didn’t. They stared like vultures watching a dying animal, waiting for the signal to swoop in and start feeding.

She reached the altar and the candles’ glow made her skin look golden, and her armor extra shiny. She checked behind and around her. The shadows were keeping their distance. Still, she didn’t trust them. What was stopping them from rushing her and her food? Maybe they’d close in once she started eating.

Only one way to find out.

A large chicken caesar salad sat in the middle of the altar, the meat slices and romaine tossed in dressing. Grated parmesan had been sprinkled over the center and Grandma had remembered that she didn’t like croutons.
Thank you.
Two golden ciabatta rolls cuddled together on a small plate next to the salad with a slab of butter waiting to be spread over them. A glass bowl of chopped fruit and a tall glass of milk lay on the other side of the salad, and hiding behind the milk was a moist-looking piece of cheesecake. “Thank you, Grandma,” she whispered. She checked her shadowy surroundings again, hoping her voice wasn’t enough to lure her unwanted company closer. They still held their distance and watched intently. She started on the fruit, glancing around again once she’d swallowed her first bite. The shadows only watched. She began eating in earnest, checking the shadows occasionally. To some relief, they let her eat in peace.

Roxie ate everything quickly, yet enjoyed every bite. Once done, she spread her wings and, with one superhuman jump, soared straight up. The darkness ahead brightened into a twilight sky, then turned black when she felt the pew she lay on. She opened her eyes in the waking spirit world, sat up, and stretched, wings spreading over the back of the pew. Her body felt energized from a good night’s rest, however her heart still ached. Time would heal that. Lots of time.

Sekiro watched from her seat on the carpeted marble steps. “Better?”

“There were shadow people all around me,” Roxie said. “They didn’t do anything but watch. Are they dangerous?”

She lost her peaceful gaze and her face paled. “I can’t believe they found your offerings so quickly. How close did they get?”

“Not very,” Roxie said. “Maybe fifteen feet?”

Sekiro sucked in a breath through her teeth. “The smudge sticks should keep them farther away than that. Maybe it’s because you’re alive that they’re being so bold.”

“Smudge sticks?”

“Those bundled up sage leaves that smell a bit like cigarette smoke, but gentler.” She stood. “If they show up again, or especially if they get closer, pick up one of the smudge sticks and wave it through the air. Walk towards them with it if you have to. It’ll force them to leave for a while.”

“Why does white sage repel them?”

She shrugged. “Someone who wanted to cleanse their space of negative energy figured it out through trial and error. Eventually they figured out burning white sage does just that. Beats me how it works. The spirits have never explained why it has that effect on them.”

“Well, I’ll remember that for next time I eat.”

“Good.” She stuck her hands in her varsity jacket and stood before her. “Ready to go see your mom?”

The thought made Roxie’s stomach twist. Yes, she was aching to see her mother, but that was the thing. She was already aching. “Could we sit and talk a bit first? My spirits are really low--no pun intended.”

Sekiro plopped on the pew and sat sideways. “What about?”

“The spirit world is a really tough place. Do you have any happy stories? Any success stories in regards to other souls you’ve guided? I want to see my mom, but I’m still recovering from seeing my dad. I don’t regret it, even though it was so brief. I have to see my mom too. I just need to recharge my emotional batteries or something. I have this uneasy feeling that meeting her is going to be harder than meeting dad.” Maybe it was intuition, or maybe it was nothing, but that red flag feeling from when she was about to act upon a bad idea assailed her every time she thought about meeting her mom.

“Well, this is a hospital we’re going to. There are often stuck souls wandering them. Sometimes the whole place is crawling with the dead.”

Or maybe it was just that. Dealing with dead people she didn’t know. She’d seen her share of ghost hunting shows to know that places like hospitals were ghost magnets. “Why do hospitals and such collect so many ghosts?”

“Trauma. The nature of their deaths. A soul can’t begin their journey if they don’t even know they’re dead.” Interlacing her fingers, Sekiro draped one arm over the back of the pew and rested her chin on her knuckles. “And to answer your earlier questions, yes, I have happy stories. Only a few, though, since I haven’t been a Numina very long. I’ve guided only a handful of people.”

“That’s fine. I’d love to hear them all the same.” Lifting her wings over the back of the pew, she twisted so she was facing the Numina. Once she settled down, Sekiro began to speak like a mother telling her child a story.

“My first soul was a sweet old man from New York City. He was a hobo who’d died of old age.” Sekiro broke from her storytelling lilt and addressed Roxie directly. “I know this is starting off depressing, but bear with me. I deal with the dead. Death is never a cheerful subject no matter how much anyone tries to pretty it up.”

Roxie nodded and said nothing. Maybe she should’ve asked more about Sekiro’s life before she’d died, but she found herself curious to hear how the old hobo had become a success story. She needed to know that happy things took place in the Realm of the Dead.

Sekiro reverted back to her storytelling lilt. “Anyway, his name was Gary. He thought I was some strange-looking angel when I found him wandering around the Bronx, but he was such an amicable soul that it was easy for him to accept the truth. He was at peace with the fact that he was dead since he knew it was gonna happen to him one day.

“He was actually pretty easy to guide. He’d been homeless by choice since he didn’t want to deal with money in life, so he simply found safe places to sleep where no one would kick him out and such, volunteered at the very shelter that fed him, and enjoyed all the people he met all over the city. People would give him stuff now and then, just because he was kind. Clothes, shoes, food, and even money, which he just gave to the shelter so they could buy more food. His favorite thing to do was crosswords in the newspapers. They kept his mind sharp, and the papers kept him abreast of the contemporary world. He never moved out into the countryside because not only did he like New York’s energy, he liked being surrounded by people.

“The only thing that held him back a little in death was the people that missed him after he died. Him being a people person, he wanted to stick around, which he did for a while. Gracing the living with his company wasn’t as fulfilling as when he’d been alive. So I guided him to his inner peace and heard quite a few stories about his amazing life along the way.” Sekiro fell silent, a nostalgic smile spread across her face.

“Where do we go once we find inner peace?”

“That depends on the individual,” she said matter-of-fact. “Reincarnation, become a guide to the living, guide to the dead, just slumber a while, or even become part of the universe in a nonhuman way. I don’t think our mortal brains can grasp the full scope of possibilities out there, but what I do know is that both life and death are cyclical in nature, and that souls are immortal. There’s so much to experience. It’s really neat.” She sat up and placed her hands in her lap. “Do you feel ready for your mom yet, or do you want another story?”

“Another story, please.” As sweet and touching as Gary’s story was, she still felt depressed. She felt a little better, but the ache in her chest was as prominent as ever.

“Okay,” Sekiro said with a sympathetic smile, then went to tell the story about the second person she’d guided, another elderly man named Enrique from Mexico. Roxie listened intently, trying to forget her pain and get lost in Sekiro’s story. She asked for more details from time to time, then asked for another story once she learned that Enrique had chosen to undergo the process of reincarnation.

The concept of reincarnation made Roxie think of Aerigo and how maybe he’d choose to get reincarnated and they’d find each other again. Sekiro informed her that souls didn’t keep memories from past lives. As for why, she’d have to ask Thanatos. The thought of meeting Aerigo reincarnated lost its appeal after that. It would be too weird to remember the life his reincarnated self didn’t. She let the thought go and got lost in Sekiro’s next few stories.

*     *     *

“Okay, that was the last story I’ve got,” Sekiro said. “If you want any more, I’ll have to start talking about me, but my life isn’t a happy story. It ends with me dying of a drug overdose.”

Roxie nodded numbly. She felt better. Not insanely better, but better. Sekiro’s stories had made her smile. It was also heartening to learn that everyone would be okay even in death. Yes, the dead shared the same amount of hardship as the living, but at least there was a clear goal at the end. And even though there were many lost and hostile souls, they all had the potential to make peace, move on, and find happiness. They just had to want it, to stop denying or ignoring the truth, and life in the spirit world would be easier for them. As always, easier said than done.