The Lost (3 page)

“
Soul,
” Grif retorted sharply. “This Jeap Yang is already that injured. Something big and crippling scarred him in his past and each breath he takes adds new injury to the old. By now, he likely feels nothing at all, and that's no way to live.”

Kit studied the photo for a long moment, but finally shook her head. “I lived. You saved me.”

“You were different. You were slated to die because I put you in harm's way, not because you were scarred.”

And because that was true, because their meeting had been accidental and not predestined, Kit finally looked away.

“I don't know why things like this happen,” Grif finally said softly. “I wish it was different, but you can't make decisions for other people. They have to choose good things for themselves.”

“You have scar tissue, too, you know.” She wasn't angry anymore, just making an observation as she looked back up at him. He couldn't argue. He wouldn't be on the Surface if he didn't.

“Maybe I need it to do this job.”

Kit nodded. Then she tilted her head. “So will it hurt?”

“I don't know. I've never died of a drug overdose.” When she winced, he quickly added, “But my guess is that his greatest pain is already behind him.”

“I suppose that's true.”

“I can promise you this much, though,” Grif said, and waited until her gaze arrowed up. “Once his soul has been freed from that tired, drug-addled body, he's going to be fine. I'll take care of him.”

She studied him for a long time, and gradually the fight slipped from her shoulders. “Just . . . hold on.”

Edging past him, she disappeared into the living room, returning seconds later with a hatbox in her hands. It was vintage, of course, which meant it was from his lifetime, though she'd had it artfully restored with black silk and a matching ribbed bow.

Their fingers touched as she handed over the box. “I was going to wait to give this to you for your birthday, but—”

“How do you know when my birthday is?”

“I read it in your obituary,” she said. Maybe she should've found that more disturbing than she did, but she shrugged. “Open it.”

But he only stared. “I can't remember the last time anyone gave me a gift,” he said at last, then busied himself—and hid his pleasure, Kit thought, smiling—by pulling loose the onyx ribbon and lifting the lid. Parting the layers of crackling tissue paper, he stared again.

“It's a hat,” Kit finally said.

Grif looked up. “I have a hat.”

Not only that, no matter where he was in relation to that hat, come four-ten every morning, the exact time of his death, the thing would reappear atop his head. It was true for everything he'd died in—the loose-fitting suit, the crooked skinny tie. A watch. A loaded gun in his ankle strap, along with four bullets he'd never gotten a chance to use.

The photo of Evie tucked deep inside his wallet.

It was disconcerting, to say the least, to wake next to a fully dressed man after bedding down with a naked one for the night. All that was missing was his wedding ring and driver's license . . . and he swore on his second life that he'd had both on him when he died.

“I know, but this one's special.” She touched a button along the brim's edge and a red light appeared, accompanied by a high-pitched chirp. “They normally fashion them in baseball caps and cowboy hats, but I had this one custom-ordered in a stingy brim. You like?”

Grif frowned. “Why is it beeping?”

Now a full smile bloomed. “Because it has a built-in compass. You program your desired coordinates, and the closer you get, the louder and more quickly it beeps.”

Grif stared at her. “You want me to wear a hat that beeps?”

Kit folded her arms. “Is this a guy thing? Like asking for directions when you're driving?”

“It's a hat. That. Beeps.”

Sighing, Kit reached out and took the fedora from his hands, then plunked it atop his head. “Just wear it. It'll give you peace of mind.”

“That I'll find my way easily to my Takes?”

“No.” Her hand lowered to caress the stubble of his cheek, and she tilted her head up. “That you'll find your way back to me when you're done.”

And Grif slipped his arms around her, kissed her forehead, and inhaled deeply as he buried his face in her hair. That's how she knew their argument was over. “I love your passion, Kitty-Cat. I love how you can feel so much for a total stranger. It makes you a good reporter and a damned fine woman. And it makes me better at what I do, too.”

She looked up at him.

Grif shrugged self-consciously. “It does. It helps me remember what it was to be alive
and
dying. Do this job long enough and you can get numb to the emotion of both. But you don't allow me to do that. Not anymore anyway.”

“I love your passion, too,” she said, lifting to her toes.

“It revolves around you,” he said, returning her kiss. When it began to deepen, he pulled away and rolled his eyes upward. “So. Is this thing waterproof?”

Kit frowned, surprised. “I don't think so. Why?”

He lifted her hand, their fingers intertwining. “I still gotta find my way to that shower.”

A smile began to creep across Kit's face. “I think I can help with that.”

“Can ya?” Grif asked and, drawing close, whispered, “Beep.”

“Beep, beep,” Kit replied, and—fully smiling now—led the way back into the bedroom.

Chapter Three

K
it let it go. Or pretended to. She'd seen in the kitchen that Grif's mind was made up, and there was no point in trying to convince him to stop Jeap Yang's death. Not once he'd worked himself up to this level of stubbornness.

So instead, she joined him for a long shower—a surefire way to relax him—a return trip to her beautiful vintage bed—ditto—and a restful nap allowing him to gear up for the day's early start. Grif needed respite from the demands of his celestial superiors.

And Kit needed him unconscious while she made her getaway.

Back in the kitchen, Kit keyed Jeap Yang's address into the maps app on her phone, then took a moment to study the black-and-white candid staring up at her from the folds of the paper. Grif was right, of course. Jeap had set himself down this path the first time he shot up, and whatever reasons he had, as painful and excusable as they might be, it had been his choice.

But just leaving him to die was wrong, Kit thought, rubbing at her chest, just over her heart, which felt swollen and ached. If he were her son or brother or loved one, Kit would want someone to help him, and she was the only one with this information.

And, like Jeap, she had a choice.

She left the paper with Jeap's information where it was, because Grif would need it upon waking, and exited through the front door, since the alarm was already silenced. Outside, her thoughts sounded loud and dangerous in her mind, a stark contrast to the predawn stillness of the house. Intuition told her this wasn't the best idea she'd ever had, and she also knew she'd be in for it when Grif woke to find her gone.

He has wings, Kit thought defiantly, starting her car and slipping from the driveway as quietly as she could. He was using them to flit around looking for his old, dead wife, and his old, probably dead killers. So he could just use them to reach Jeap at his appointed time of death, too.

However, Kit was determined to get there well before that.

Traffic was steady as she raced toward North Las Vegas, adjacent to Las Vegas proper, but far from the lights strung like jewels along the neck of its more famous cousin. She had to cross the main drag to get there, but it was almost five
A.M.
, the night close to fading, and even the world's most sleepless city was taking a small breather before the morning joggers and buffet crowd brought it crawling back to life. Still, neon and LED lights burned the sky, giving it false heat and an irregular throbbing pulse.

Kit had never been to Jeap Yang's neighborhood before but found it easily, using her navigation app. Yet she frowned as she wheeled her classic Duetto into a subdivision pitted with dying lawns. Yellowing newspapers littered the crumbling driveways, and bright orange stickers lay like pockmarks on empty windows and locked doors. The overt urban decay suddenly made her mission feel all the more futile.

Boomtown turned doomtown, Kit thought, sighing. It'd happened all over the valley in recent years. In the beginning, there'd been degrees of separation between the people she knew and those who'd lost their homes. Yet, before long, Kit's newspaper had been forced to rotate the phrases “financial crisis,” “housing bust,” and “bailouts and recession.”

The hopeful
FOR SALE
signs never made it into neighborhoods like these. Here, people just left their homes to the banks and the squatters . . . which was probably how Jeap Yang had ended up here. She pulled in front of a house that was unstitched at the seams, though it couldn't have been more than a half-dozen years old. Silencing the car, Kit stared up at the second level and shivered. She'd been in a similar position four months earlier, staring up at a room where her best friend had just been killed, and where she'd first seen Grif.

This was different, Kit thought, forcing herself from the car before she had a chance to overthink it. This time she was here to save someone from death. This time she knew about the Everlast and Centurions. And although Jeap's predestined death was traumatic, he wasn't the victim of a homicide, so surely Kit was in no danger by simply trying to help him.

All she needed to do was knock on the door before Jeap's final, fatal hit—or so she thought. Her scant knowledge of drugs came from television dramas and the cold facts of black-and-white newsprint. She didn't know the difference between blow, hash, heroin, or whipit. Sure, she had vices. Smoking was one of them. Her stubborn appearance at a foreclosed and abandoned home in the predawn hours against the wishes of her angelic boyfriend was probably another.

As she climbed the stairs leading to a truncated porch, Kit's fingers trailed the pebbled wall while she searched for life within the darkened window. She was surprised to find the window curtained, and was wondering if she should just try the door, when a voice boomed behind her.

“Yo, princess.”

Whirling, she found the drive empty and silent, but she finally spotted a man with a dark-eyed squint leaning against a lamppost across the street. He was barefoot and shirtless, and the door to the house behind him was wide-open.

“You got business up there?” he called, jerking his head at the top floor. She wanted to tell him to hush, she didn't want to alert Jeap or any of the other neighbors, but the man kept talking. “Cuz you look like a nice girl and I can tell you. Ain't nothing nice waiting for you on the other side of that door.”

Kit let out a slow sigh, and stepped to the edge of the porch. “I'm here to save a man,” she replied, sotto voce.

“Man want to be saved?” the guy called, still too loud.

Kit frowned. What did that have to do with anything? “Doesn't everyone?”

He continued to stare up at her and, seeing she was serious, began to laugh. When Kit didn't move, he bent over and laughed harder. Then he turned back to his home, which stood out because its lawn was still green, the structure still well-tended, and he disappeared inside. Sighing, Kit put the laughing man out of her mind and turned as well.

What was the etiquette, she wondered, when knocking on the door of someone fated to die?

Since she was likely the first person to ever wonder that, she went with her gut and gave the door a timid tap. Nothing happened, so she knocked more loudly, then, when the home remained silent, wished for Grif's celestial ability to unlock doors with the wave of a hand. Edging to the window, she tried peering inside instead. As threadbare as the curtains were, they still obscured what they were meant to. No light or movement could be seen within.

Drawing away, she bit her lip, then smiled to herself.

“You're being stupid, Kitty-Cat,” she said, using Grif's pet name for her to both chide and comfort herself, though she knew he certainly wouldn't use it on her now. But, according to him, she was already disobeying celestial law, so what was earthly law compared to that? And what did that matter when weighed against a man's life? If the wrong way of doing something was the
only
way, then was it really wrong?

The man from across the street popped his head back out of his home as she walked back down the stairs and reached her car's trunk. “I forgot something,” she told him before he could speak, and hoisted a Maglite over her shoulder for her best Rosie the Riveter pose before heading back upstairs.

“Day-um, girl,” the man called after her, though he didn't follow. Everyone, she thought smugly, respected Rosie.

Squared with the door once again, she gave knocking one final try. When there was still no answer, she shrugged, dropped her bag, then held her arms straight out from her body and whacked at the window's edge.

It wasn't as straightforward as it looked in the movies.

The blow made a striking
thwack,
vibrating up her arms, but did little else. A chuckle from behind turned into an insincere cough as she shot a glare over her shoulder at her amused audience of one. Early birds, she thought, turning back around. So annoying.

Pivoting, she used her wrists, elbows, and shoulders in tandem to whip the flashlight forward. This time a crack instantly splintered up the pane. Encouraged, Kit channeled her frustration, fear, and the swivel of her not-inconsiderable hips into the head of the flashlight.

Glass shattered gloriously, a tinkling destruction that made Kit wince and give thanks at the same time. Avoiding the jagged glass, Kit used the flashlight to push the dingy curtain aside, and peered into the still, soundless room. Smoke residue lingered in the air, a metallic reek like nothing Kit had ever scented before. Musty sweat hung heavy, too, and Kit spotted a lumpy mattress dropped mid-floor.

Wrinkling her nose, Kit searched for movement. “Hello?”

Her voice disappeared into the room, as if sucked into a black hole.

“See anything worth saving, sweetheart?” the man called from behind.

Kit didn't answer, but took comfort in his presence. It reassured her that there was life outside of this stale cavern.

The window was too far from the door to unlock it from outside, and too high to risk climbing through without serious injury from the glass. So, lifting the Maglite again, she began hammering at the lock. If Grif's report said that Jeap was in this home, then he was there.

Surprisingly, the knob gave way more easily than the glass, and she was pushing the door open a moment later. The toxic smoke and stranger's sweat enveloped her in an unwanted embrace, but otherwise, the stillness of the room made Kit think of Halloween and haunted mansions and rooms meant to startle. That was pretend, though, frightful experiences manufactured to emphasize the fact that you were alive. Whatever awaited her on the other side of this threshold, she knew instinctively, held true horror.

Picking up her purse, she stepped inside anyway.

T
he man outside stopped laughing.

Kit shuddered as the silence enveloped her, but continued edging into the home. If air could blister, this air would be rife with boils. Yet, the front room itself was less frightening than surprising. It looked much like her dad's old tool shed. Kit eyed the cans of paint thinner in the corner with confusion, gaze canvassing the household cleaners—none of which appeared to have ever been used on this room—and paused when she spotted the lighter fluid. Had Jeap and his friends been building something in here? Repainting the walls? Re-varnishing furniture?

But no, the only furniture she spotted was an entertainment unit, chipped and wobbly, the top two drawers missing so that darkness loomed inside like eyeless sockets. The walls were yellowed and pocked even in the pale, intruding light, as if the harsh, acidic scent had burrowed into and peeled away the plaster. Kit covered her nose, her every sense curling inward, but continued forward.

Cigarette butts and errant syringes lay littered among potato-chip bags and fast-food containers. Dirty Tupperware was stacked against the walls, and shattered glass winked darkly along the baseboards. Kit's gaze finally fell on something familiar and innocuous: a black backpack slouched against the mattress. She reached for it, thinking it might hold some form of identification, and that's when she saw the foot.

Kit's gasp pulled in a lungful of the putrid air, and she immediately began to cough. The foot didn't move. Backing toward the dresser, she again held the Maglite like a weapon, but this time she aimed the beam and switched it on. The powerful light flooded the room, giving stark definition to the foot, and the subsequent body sprawled on the floor.

It was definitely Jeap Yang, Kit thought, swallowing hard and advancing slowly, though he remained unmoving. His face was slack and oddly gray, the features the same as those in the photo, though the shock of black hair had been recently, and badly, shorn. His clothing was nondescript—a stained white T-shirt and torn black jeans—though he could have been wearing neon and Kit wouldn't have noticed.

His body was in ruins.

Bruises littered his flesh, like someone had beaten it from the inside out. His right arm, splayed wide on the grimy carpet, boasted blackened veins beneath graying flesh. His wrist looked worse, scaly and green like he was some sort of reptile. Beside him lay a syringe clogged up with a sticky, yellowed gunk.

“J— Jeap?”

Her voice was low and sunken, the blistered air burning it from her lips. She licked them and tried again. “Jeap? Are you . . . ?”

Okay?
Stupid question.

Still alive?
A thoughtless one, if he was . . . and she was growing less sure of that by the second.

This is too big for me, Kit decided, pulling out her phone to call 9-1-1. Yet panic and nerves made her fumble it, and it cracked against a glass jar before landing next to Jeap's arm. Surprisingly, this sound registered with Jeap, and he startled, twitched once, and moaned.

The scaly flesh on his splayed wrist fell away to reveal infected muscle, and bone glistening with pus.

The severance must have been as painful as it looked, because Jeap's eyes shot wide. His throat moved, expelling a heartbreaking and tattered cry that rolled from him like a foghorn disappearing into an endless night. He lifted his left hand as if to cover his own mouth, but his voice cracked, and he grimaced painfully. Kit gasped, too, because that forearm was already stripped of flesh from elbow to wrist, the bone almost shiny amid the black, necrotic ruins.

“God.” Kit lunged for her phone, careful not to touch Jeap's body as he began to shake. She punched at the numbers almost blindly, cursing when she misdialed. Jeap continued convulsing, body spasming like it was in nuclear meltdown. He looks at war with himself, she thought, staring as the tremors in his body alternated between sharp twitches and wild jerks. She'd have pulled a blanket around him, except there was no blanket, and she didn't dare touch him anyway. His whole body was an open wound.

No way had he done this to himself, she decided, and dialed again as his agonized cries roiled around her. Someone must have taken a knife to him, then left him to bleed out in this sad little room. And the drugs were clearly for the pain. Kit would damned well take drugs if her flesh was hanging from her bone in strips.