Dark Angel; The Chosen; Soulmate (19 page)

He didn't move. Helplessly, Gillian reached out a hand. It passed right through his shoulder.

She looked at the hand, then said quietly, “Gary, tell me what you did. What the unfinished business is.”

“So you can try to send me on.”

“Yes.”

“But what if I don't want to
go
on?”

“You have to!” Gillian clenched her teeth. “You don't
belong
here, Gary! This isn't your place anymore! And there's nothing you can do here, except… except
evil
.” She stopped, breathing hard.

He turned, and she saw the wild look again. “Maybe that's what I
like
to do.”

“You don't understand.
I'm not going to let you
. I'm not going to stop or give up. I'll do whatever it takes to make you move on.”

“But maybe you won't have the chance.”

A blast of wind. And something else. Stinging granules that struck Gillian's face like tiny needles.

“What if there's a blizzard tonight?”

“Gary, stop it!” The gale buffeted her.

“A freak storm. Something nobody expected.”

“Gary…” It was very dark—the moon and stars had been blotted out. But Gillian could see a driving, swirling whiteness. Her teeth were chattering and her face was numb.

“And what if Amy's car won't start? If something went wrong with the engine…”

“Don't do this! Gary!” She couldn't see him now. His light was gone, swallowed in the storm. Snow slashed her face.

“Nobody knows where you are, do they? That wasn't very smart, dragonfly. Maybe you need somebody to look after you, after all.”

Gillian gasped, openmouthed, for breath. She tried to take a step and the wind thrust her against something hard. A tombstone.

This was what she'd been afraid of. That her angel would turn against her, try to destroy her. But now that it was happening, she found that she knew what to do.

Gary's voice came out of the gale. “What if I just go away and leave you for a little while?”

Gillian's eyes were watering, the tears freezing on her lashes. It was hard to get a breath. But she gathered herself, hanging on to the tombstone, and yelled.

“You won't! You
know
you won't—”

“How can I know?”

She answered with a question, shouting over the wind. “Why didn't you kill David?”

Her only answer was the howling gale.

Gillian's sight was dimming. The cold
hurt
. She tried to cling on to the tombstone, but her hands were numb. “You couldn't do it, Gary! You couldn't kill someone! When it came right down to it, you couldn't! And that's how I know.”

She waited. At first she thought that she'd been wrong. That he'd left her alone in the storm.

Then she realized the wind was dying. The curtains of snow were thinning. Stopping. A light formed in the empty air.

Angel—no, Gary—was standing there. She could see him clearly. She could even see what was in his eyes.

Bitterness. Anger. But something like a plea, too.

“But I did, Gillian. That's exactly what I did. I killed someone.”

Gillian took a breath that started out quick and ended long. Oh. Oh… that was bad.

But there might have been some justification. A fight. Self-defense.

She said quietly, “Who?”

“Can't you guess? Paula Belizer.”

Gillian stood as if her snow-powdered body had been turned to ice. Because it was the worst, the absolute worst that she could possibly have imagined.

He killed a kid.

“The little girl who disappeared a year ago,” she whispered. “On Hillcrest Road.” The one she'd thought of—completely irrationally—when she'd heard the crying.

“I was doing a spell,” Gary said. “A strong one; I was a quick learner. It was a fire elemental spell—so I was out in the woods. In the snow, where nothing would burn. And then she showed up chasing her dog.”

He was staring into the distance, his face dead white. Looking not haunting, but haunted. And Gillian knew he wasn't with her at that moment; he was far away, with Paula.

“They broke the circle. It all happened so fast. The fire was everywhere—just one white flash, like lightning.
And then it was gone.” He paused. “The dog got away. But not her.”

Gillian shut her eyes, trying not to imagine it. “Oh, God.” And then, as something twisted inside her, “Oh, Gary…”

“I put her body in my car. I was going to take her to the hospital. But she was
dead
. And I was—confused. So finally I stopped the car. And I buried her in the snow.”

“Gary…”

“I went home. Then I went to a party. That was the kind of guy I was, you see. A partyin' guy. Everything was about good times and me, me, me. That was even what being a witch was about.” For the first time there was emotion in his voice, and Gillian recognized it. Self-hatred.

“And at the party, I got really, really drunk.”

Oh. Suddenly Gillian understood. “You never told anybody.”

“On the way back home I wrapped my car around a tree. And that was it.” He laughed, but it wasn't a laugh. “Suddenly I'm in Neverland. Can't talk to anybody, can't touch anybody, but sure can see
everything
. I watched the search for her, you know. They passed about a foot away from her body.”

Gillian gulped and looked away. Something had twisted and broken inside her, some idea of justice that would never be put back together. But this was no time to think about that.

It hadn't really been his fault… but what did that matter? You played the hand you got dealt. And Gary had played
his badly. He'd started out with everything—good looks, obvious brains, and witch power enough to choke a horse—and he'd blown it.

Didn't matter. They had to go on from here.

She looked up at him. “Gary, you have to tell me where she is.”

Silence.

“Gary, don't you see? That's your unfinished business. Her family doesn't know…” Gillian stopped and swallowed. When she went on, her voice wobbled. “Whether she's alive or dead. Don't you think they ought to
know
that?”

A long pause. Then he said, like a stubborn child, “I don't want to go anywhere.”

Like a frightened child, Gillian thought. But she didn't look away from him. “Gary, they deserve to know,” she said softly. “Once they're at peace—”

He almost shouted, “What if there isn't any peace for
me
?”

Not frightened, terrified.

“What if there isn't anywhere for me to go? What if they won't
take
me?”

Gillian shook her head. Her tears overflowed again. And she didn't have any answers for him. “I don't know. But it doesn't change what we've got to do. I'll stay with you, though, if you want. I'm your cousin, Gary.” Then, very quietly, she said, “Take me to her.”

He stood for a long moment—the longest of Gillian's life.
He was looking at something in the night sky that she couldn't see, and his eyes were utterly bleak.

Then he looked at her and slowly nodded.

“Here?” David bent and touched the snow. He looked up at Gillian. His dark eyes were young—a little scared. But his jaw was set.

“Yes. Right there.”

“It's a pretty strange place to do it.”

“I know. But we don't have any choice.”

David got to work with the shovel. Gillian pushed and mounded snow into walls. She tried to think only of how she'd done this in childhood, about how easy and interesting it had been then. She kept at it until David said, “I found her.”

Gillian stepped back, brushing off her sleeves and mittens.

It was a clear day, and the afternoon sun was brilliant in a cold blue sky. The small clearing was peaceful, almost a haven. Untouched except for a welt in the snow where a ground mouse had tunneled.

Gillian took a couple of deep breaths, fists clenched, and then she turned to look.

David hadn't uncovered much. A scrap of charred red wool muffler. He was kneeling beside the shallow trench he'd made.

Gillian was crying again. She ignored it. She said, “It was the last day before Christmas vacation, so we took the day off
from school. We were playing hooky in the woods. We decided to make a snow fort….”

“And then we found the body.” David got up and gently put a hand on her elbow. “It's a weird story, but it's better than the truth.”

“And what can they suspect us of? We never even knew Paula Belizer. They'll know she was murdered because she was buried. But they won't know how she died. They'll think somebody tried to burn the body to get rid of it.”

David put his arm around her waist, and she leaned into him. They stood that way for a few minutes, steadying each other.

It was strange how natural that was, now. David had agreed to help her with all this without a moment's hesitation… and Gillian hadn't been surprised. She'd expected it. He was her soulmate. They stood together.

At last, he said quietly, “Ready?”

“Yes.”

As they left the clearing, David added even more quietly, “Is he here?”

“No. I haven't seen him since he showed me the place. He just—disappeared. He won't talk to me either.”

David held her tighter.

Mr. Belizer came at dusk, after most of the police had left.

It was almost too dark to see. David had been urging Gillian away for an hour. So had Gillian's parents. They were
there, both of them, huddling close and touching her whenever they could. David's father and stepmother were on the other side of David.

Yeah, Gillian thought. It's been a rough last few days on everybody.

But here they all were: David, pale but calm; Gillian, shaky but standing; the parents, bewildered but trying to cope. Not comprehending how their kids could have found so much trouble in such a short time.

At least nobody seemed to suspect them of having hurt Paula Belizer.

And now, here was Paula's dad. Alone. Come to look at the last resting place of his daughter—even though the coroner had already taken his daughter away.

The police let him go up to the clearing with a flashlight.

Gillian tugged at David's hand.

He resisted a second, then let her tow him. Gillian heard murmurs as they went. What are you doing, following that poor man. My God, that's—ghoulish. But none of the parents actually grabbed them to stop them.

They ended up a little distance behind Mr. Belizer. Gillian moved to see his face.

Now here was the thing. She didn't know about spirits. She wasn't sure
what
needed to be done to release Gary from the between-place. Did she need to talk to Paula's dad? Explain that she had the feeling whoever had done it was
sorry, even if they could never tell him themselves?

It might get her locked up. Showing too much interest in a crime, too much knowledge. But, strangely, that didn't scare her as much as she'd have thought. She was Gary's cousin, and his debts were hers somehow. And things had to be put right.

As she stood hesitating, Mr. Belizer fell to his knees in the trampled snow.

Oh, God. That hurt. If strong arms hadn't been holding Gillian up, she might have fallen, too.

David held her and pressed his face into her hair. But Gillian kept looking at the kneeling man.

He was crying. She'd never seen a man his age cry, and it hurt in a way that was
scary
. But there was something else in his face. Something like relief… peace.

Kneeling there, with his overcoat spread around him, Mr. Belizer said, “I know my daughter is in a better place. Whoever did this, I forgive them.”

A shock like cold lightning went through Gillian, and then a spreading warmth. She was crying suddenly. Hard. Tears falling straight down from her eyes. But she was filled with a hope that seemed to lift her whole body.

And then David drew in his breath sharply, and she realized he'd raised his head. He was staring at something above Mr. Belizer.

Gary Fargeon was hovering there. Like an Angel.

He was crying. And saying something over and over. Gillian caught “—sorry, I'm so sorry….”

Forgiveness asked for and given. If not exactly in that order.

That's it
, Gillian thought. Her knees began to tremble.

David whispered huskily, “Can you see that, too?”

“Yes. Can you?”

Nobody else seemed to see it. Mr. Belizer was getting up now. He was walking past them, away.

David was still staring. “So that's what he looks like. No wonder you thought—”

He didn't finish, but Gillian knew. Thought he was an angel.

But… why was Gary still here? Wasn't the forgiveness enough to release him? Or was there something else that needed to be done?

Gary turned his head and looked at her. His cheeks were wet. “Come in a little farther,” he said. “I have to say something.”

Gillian untangled from David, and then pulled at him. He came, jaw still sagging. They followed Gary past a thicket and into another clearing. As the trees and the darkness closed around them, they seemed suddenly far away from the police noise and bustle.

Gillian guessed even as Gary sank down to face them. But she let him say it.

“You have to forgive me, too.”

“I forgive you,” Gillian said.

“You have to be sure. I did some terrible things to you. I tried to warp you, damage your soul.”

“I know,” Gillian said steadily. “But you did some good things, too. You helped me—grow up.”

He'd helped her conquer her fears. Gain self-confidence. Discover her heritage. And find her soulmate.

And he'd been close to her in a way that she would probably never be with anyone else ever again.

“You know what?” Gillian was on the verge of tears again. “I'm going to miss you.”