Reaper (13 page)

She thought a moment. Sometime during the night, late had turned to early…“New Year's Eve.”

He whistled. “That late? Crap.”

“I'll find your cord, Eds. Don't panic. Maybe after I get a nap in we'll crack the mystery by this afternoon. You could be back in your body by midnight, just in time to booze it up. And if not, Emma's apparently interested in helping, so there's that. Not that I'd trust her any farther than I can throw her. Though, on the other hand, she's awfully skinny.”

He waved a hand. “No, it's not that. Your birthday is in like a week.”

“Yeah, your point is?” With a relieved sigh, Wendy took the El Camino Real exit, glad to finally be well away from the highway.

“Well, that means we've got a week to put me back in my body or I'm going to miss lighting my dad's
yahrtzeit
candle.” Eddie scowled and clenched his fists on his thighs. “I've never missed it before.”

“Oh no! Oh, Eddie, maybe—” Wendy gingerly reached over and brushed a careful, comforting hand across his upper arm. He hissed in pain and she jerked her hand back. “Damn, I'm sorry! Maybe Nana Moses is right—I need more control. I'll be more careful.”

“No,” Eddie sighed, rubbing his arm, “it's fine.” He chuckled. “Pete didn't have this problem, right? He must've been one of those
gnarly bearded manly types that scoffs at pain.” Eddie flexed a muscle. “Grrr.”

“Hardly. No, he just could touch me when no other spirits could.”

“Do you know why?”

“No clue.” Wendy recalled how the White Lady had mocked her relationship with Piotr, belittling his memory loss for every instance of touching a Reaper. She'd hadn't needed to belittle Wendy for every kiss she and Piotr had ever shared, Wendy had done it to herself.

Remembering this, Wendy wondered if Nana Moses or Emma knew about Piotr, and she was suddenly glad that he'd chosen to skip town when he did; she had a feeling Emma might consider Piotr another interesting specimen to study. Lost in thought, Wendy pulled into her driveway. “We're here.”

Eddie waited for Wendy to kill the engine and stepped out onto the driveway. He moved to her right. “Wendy?”

“Yeah, Eddie?” Was that movement in the bushes under her window? Squinting at the shadows against the wall and not really paying attention, Wendy half-turned toward her friend. “What's up?”

Eddie, taking advantage of the moment, leaned in and kissed her. Wendy, startled, stiffened for an instant, and then leaned forward, deepening the kiss. Eddie's lips were cool to the touch and his hands framing her face were supple and soft, his thumbs brushing her curls off her cheeks. Wendy found herself breathless, her heartbeat thudding in her chest and pounding in her ears, every inch of skin zinging and tingling.

“Wow,” she said, pulling away after several long seconds. She shivered and tried to put her thoughts in some kind of reasonable order. “That was…wow! Just wow. Eddie. Um…that was unexpected.”

“Indeed,” said Piotr from beneath the tree. “In that, Wendy, I would have to agree.”

A
fter unknown years existing in the Never, Piotr was a realist. He hadn't been expecting a tearful, overwrought greeting from Wendy; he knew that, after the way they'd parted, she was unlikely to dive into his arms with passionate kisses and demands for him to never leave her side again. But what he hadn't been expecting was to find her passionately kissing her best friend.

Elle and Lily, eying the troubled expression on Piotr's face, carefully moved to flank him. He knew they were doing it for his own good—just as he knew that Wendy would never hurt him—but purposefully pissing off the Lightbringer was a foolhardy action at best, and Piotr was profoundly grateful for their friendship.

“Piotr?” Wendy drew back from Eddie and Piotr was bitterly glad to see that Eddie bore the marks of their kiss; his essence was thinner where her fingers and lips had been, and the hands that had been tenderly cupping Wendy's face were thin as paper and nearly translucent.

Either he didn't feel the pain, or he had a strong will. Eddie hardly noticed his wounds, instead twisting quickly to face Piotr, his flesh quickly thickening and darkening as he shifted slightly to edge between Wendy and Piotr. He looked to Wendy. “This is Pete—er, Piotr? I thought you said he left town?”

Beside him, Elle smothered a snicker and Lily sighed.

“He did,” Wendy said, brushing her hair back from her face and approaching him, wary as a fawn. She nodded once at Lily and Elle, but did not greet them. “Piotr, why are you here?”

“I had come for you, to speak of important things. My thinking was that our earlier connection, your invitation to visit anytime, still
held true. I can see now that this was false.” Piotr sneered. “From another girl, one who is of more relaxed morals, from one such as this I could believe being replaced so quickly. But from you, Wendy? Finding you like this with one such as him is a shock.”

“Wait a second, did you just call me a slut?” Wendy demanded, stunned.

“Hey now,” Eddie said, scowling and angry on Wendy's behalf, “one, I don't see a ring on that finger, ghostly or not. Two, Wendy's fully capable of kissing whoever she wants.” He snorted. “‘
One such as him’?
Really, dude? And three, bucko, you left her, remember? She didn't go into your hospital room and bail the second
you
woke up. You took off; so don't go flinging blame.”

“How cute,” Piotr snapped, “the boy thinks his opinion matters.
Past’ zakroi
, little man.”

Glaring, Eddie leaned forward, nose to nose with Piotr. “Dude, I just met you and you are stepping all over my last nerve. Whatever the hell you just said, say it again.”

Thrilled at the opportunity to shove his knuckles through this annoying boy's face, Piotr's hands balled into fists and he grinned. “Loosely translated, I told you to shut it, boy. Or I will shut it for you.” He fingered his scar and leered at Eddie. “Perhaps with a very, very sharp weapon,
da
?”

“Okay, you two, that's enough,” Wendy snapped, suddenly between the two of them, shoving them apart. The instant Wendy made contact it became clear that she wasn't taking care with her abilities. Where she touched Piotr, their flesh misted, fogging faintly, but he was too angry to care; where she touched Eddie, he burned.

“I'm not some spiffy new toy for the kiddies to fight over,” Wendy declared angrily. “I get to decide who I'm in a relationship with, who I kiss—hell, whoever I want to do damn near
anything
with.
Morally
or not, Piotr, this ain't the Middle Ages, you frickin’ prude. And furthermore, I don't appreciate being snapped over like a piece of meat. I'm a person, not a possession. Got it?”

She poked Piotr in the chest, the heat of her forcing him back a step. “
You
left
me
, it was all amicable and everything. I don't know how they did it back in whatever century you come from, but this is now, which means that I can kiss whoever the hell I want. I'll prove it if I have to.” She looked tauntingly at Elle. “You wanna kiss a Lightbringer?”

Elle threw back her head and laughed, leaning over so Wendy and the others could see the curve of her chest peeping out the top of her bodice-blouse. “Not the most romantic of proposals, but sure, you're cute enough. I'd be willing to neck a little to put our flyboy Pete in his place.”

“Hey now,” Eddie said mildly, both irritated and amused at the suggestion. “That's hardly fair.”

Lily, shaking her head, put a warning hand on Elle's shoulder. “Do not aggravate him. This is not funny.”

“To me you would do this thing?” Piotr asked Wendy, outraged. He limped to her side, examining her face closely. “You would kiss one of my best friends, one of my
only
friends, in front of me? Without a care to our past?”

“Just trying to get a point across,” Wendy replied coolly. “You don't own me, Piotr.” She jerked her chin up. “And when you left, you'd already hurt me the only way you can. So back off, buddy. You won't win a fight here.”

It was as if the world spotted red. Heart thudding in his ears, Piotr trembled with rage, watching the spots dance in front of his eyes. He concentrated on the streetlight across the way, trying to train his head and heart on the glass bulb within to keep calm. As he watched, the bulb popped and popped again, glass cracking into a glittering spiderweb. Destroyed in the real world, it began to take shape in the Never.

Piotr had to close his eyes for a moment, but still the Never and the living land merged, separated, merged again, and the lights flickered frantically behind his eyes as Piotr struggled to reason with himself, to keep calm, to remain sane and logical.

He failed.

Furious, Piotr's mind snapped. Without thought, guided only by frustrated fury, he shoved Wendy as hard as he could. She staggered back, falling right through Eddie and hitting the Charger's bumper with her thigh, twisting hard as she tried to catch herself from falling on the driveway.

“PIOTR!” Lily shouted, grabbing him by the shoulder as he stepped toward Wendy, icy cold pulsing from his hands. Elle grabbed his other shoulder and then yelped in surprise. Piotr struggled with them briefly as Eddie hurried to Wendy's side to make sure she wasn't seriously injured.

Piotr, snarling, swung hard at his friends; Elle blocked with a knee, catching Piotr off guard and in the groin. He folded up wordlessly, the terrible red pulsing in his head fading as the pain caught up with his brain and shut down his incredible, terrible rage.

“I was wrong before. His hurt is not mending,” Lily said, clearly and quietly, forcing Piotr to lie on the floor as she examined the Walker-inflicted wound in his side. He hissed and thrashed in her arms for a moment before his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.

“Look at the edges of his cut,” Lily exclaimed softly, resting his head on her knapsack and lifting his arm aside so that Elle could get a better look at the wound. “It is as if the very essence is being eaten away. And the back, I missed it before…that awful hook gored him all the way through. What did that Walker do to him?”

“Has to be poison,” Elle said, rubbing her knee and frowning. “Spirit webs and all, the White Lady had some nasty stuff at her disposal. Knowing her, she probably left some of it behind when she bit it. Whatever it is, look at it, it's eating him alive. Dead. You know what I mean, he's being pulled apart.” She held up a hand and a trail of Piotr's essence stretched between her fingers and his body like sticky, gummy spider webs, oozing life and will all over the sidewalk.

“Piotr's hurt?” Rubbing her hip, Wendy knelt down by his head. A car drove slowly by, heading for the apartments at the end of the block; Wendy knew that she had to look strange, hunched over and kneeling on her driveway in the middle of the night, but she didn't care. “When did this happen?”

“Earlier this evening,” Lily said, explaining briefly about their encounter with the group of Walkers outside the spirit web forest. “When their leader ordered them to fight, it was like nothing I have ever seen before in Walkers. Like wolves, working in an elegant pack formation to take us down. We would have succumbed in the first attack had it not been for Piotr. He engaged the leader right away, leaving us to fend off the others.”

“Dummy here got in the way of an attack headed for me, and he's been balled up ever since,” Elle added, frowning. “Erratic, edgy, getting lost. Totally not Piotr. Dumb Dora me, I thought he just had the heebie-jeebies about meeting up with you again, but it looks like maybe whatever the Walker used got to him, made him crazy with pain or some such.” She pressed a gentle hand to his side and hissed. “It's freezing.”

“Oh, I'm so dumb,” Wendy muttered, hand hovering over Piotr's head. “I mean, I'm pissed he swung at me, and if he didn't have a damn good reason I'd be feeding him his head right now, but…but Piotr always has it together.” Aggravated, Wendy shook her head. “I should've known losing his cool like that was totally unlike him.”

“So you're saying loverboy here's not normally a judgmental, jealous psychopath?” Eddie asked from behind them. Elle shot him a scornful look and he shrugged. “Hey, this is the first time I've ever actually met the guy and he threatens to disembowel my face. Maybe it's a passionate Russian alpha-male thing, or maybe he's just a dick. I'm allowed to ask.”

“Normally Piotr is very caring and kind,” Wendy defended him, stripping off Eddie's motorcycle jacket and pushing back the sleeves of the lightweight hoodie beneath. “But not crazy. No, I have to help him.”

“Is that wise?” Lily asked. “We do not know what effect pouring
your power into him would do at this time. He is severely wounded—perhaps such power would hurt him rather than heal him?”

“At the very least, he'll lose a memory, right?” Elle asked. “That's how this weird thing you two cats have going works, right?”

“I'm confused,” Eddie said plaintively. “What are you three blabbing about? Lose a memory? Like what your mom did to him when he healed her that one time?”

“Yeah, sort of. Before, when Piotr and I were together,” Wendy explained haltingly, “kissing him would drain me. I would become more ethereal, he would become more real.”

“Excuse me?” Eddie drawled. “You're telling me that he made you more like a ghost? And you're seriously
not
seeing the creepy factor in that?”

Wendy glanced at her friend and shrugged, shamed that she'd never thought of it that way before. Being in Piotr's arms had seemed so natural, so right, at the time. Though Piotr worried about their closeness, Wendy refused to believe that Piotr might drain her completely. She trusted him implicitly. He was
Piotr
, protector of the Lost and her friend. That was all she'd ever needed to know…before now.

“The effect was always temporary for me,” Wendy said stiffly, “and energizing for Piotr. When we went to fight the White Lady, she explained that Piotr's ghost has been around my family for centuries.”

Careful not to touch his flesh with her own, Wendy tenderly brushed the hair off of Piotr's forehead, exposing the twisting scar at his temple. “He's always been here, on the sidelines, helping us out, healing us when we needed it. It's how he knew my mom was hurt at the bus accident; it's how he knew to go to her. He couldn't help himself.”

Remembering the way her mother had mocked Piotr's weakness, Wendy scowled. “Awful as it is, the White Lady described Piotr like a battery. You put power into him and later you can take it out again when you need it; when you're sick or hurt.”

“So, does powering up the Energizer Ghostie hurt you guys? Reapers, I mean.”

“Not for long,” Wendy promised, gingerly pulling Piotr's head into her lap.

The three bystanders held their breath as Wendy, supporting Piotr's head, leaned forward and tenderly slanted her mouth across his. White steam billowed from their touch, obscuring their kiss.

After several long seconds the steam cleared and Eddie, rubbing a hand nervously along his arm, intervened. “So, Lady Smoochalot, did the Princess Charming kiss-o-magic work or what?”

Wendy drew back from Piotr, tears in her eyes, and settled his head back on Lily's knapsack. “No,” she whispered, pulling away from Piotr so that the others could see what her touch had done. Fresh purple-red palm prints marred his face where her hands had pressed. His lips had blistered and the side of his nose was red and angry-looking, seeping essence slightly. “It didn't.”

Lily gasped and turned her face away.

“I'd be pissed, but there's no way you knew that'd happen,” Elle whispered. “Holy hell, girl, that's new. If
you
can't even touch him, how in the hell are we supposed to stop him from getting eaten alive by the poison?”

“A Lost,” Lily said, turning back to them as she wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “We must find a Lost or a wise woman. If the Lightbringer cannot aid him, a Lost may yet be able to. At the very least, they might be willing to pump him full of the will to keep going.” She shuddered. “We must do all that we can, even if his form ends up as the Walkers’, naught but flesh-covered bone.”