I recalled the letters between Cole and Jane. Jane had spoken of a night they had spent together in the barn. I had little doubt this was that barn. They had marked their special place with their initials.
“It seems ironic,” Cole said as he backed away from the tree a few steps. “That this was the place my life both began and ended.”
My brow furrowed as I looked at him, wondering what he meant.
“From what my mother tells me, I was conceived under this very tree. My father was just about to inherit the Emerson estate. They married just months after that. I was born not long after.
“It was also from this tree that my father had me hung.”
I felt all the color drain from my face.
“It took them a long time to figure out what was happening. Beautiful women would come home with me but they never left. I was careful not to let anyone but perhaps a servant see them come in. They were too afraid of me to say anything. But eventually my father saw some things he was never meant to see. To say he was enraged would be a grave understatement.
“He came at me with an iron rod. He must have broken half the bones in my face. After he beat me unconscious, he had a few of his men carry me to this tree. They synched a noose around my neck and sat me up on a horse. They waited until I woke up.
“The old man looked into my face and said ‘Congratulations, you’ve killed the Emerson legacy. You are no son of mine.’ He then slapped the horse, leaving me dangling in the air.
“I was twenty-seven the day I died.”
I wasn’t sure what to feel as I followed Cole around to the back side of the barn. Cole had met a terrible end, but I wasn’t sure if I felt he deserved what happened to him.
Another field stretched out behind the barn. Cole walked to a place only about ten feet away from the west wall.
“He buried me in a three foot deep hole here,” Cole said disgustedly as he looked at a nondescript spot on the ground. “He didn’t even have the decency to put a marker on his only son’s grave.”
Without saying anything else, Cole leaned his back against the barn wall and slid to the ground. His head hung low, his forearms resting on his knees, his hands dangling between them. For once, I felt like I was seeing something different in Cole than I had ever seen before. Not the monster, not the man who thought he could have anything he wanted. But the man who was beaten down, the man nobody loved.
I started searching through the grass. I grabbed every rock that was of any significant size, piling it up in one certain spot, roughly where Cole said his body had been buried. With each stone I placed, I felt Cole’s mood shift. Lighten wasn’t the right word but it was the closest I could think of.
He watched me without saying a word. I felt his eyes burn with intensity as he did. It was different from all the other looks I had gotten from Cole before. They had always been full of craving, lust, desire. This look was curiosity and perhaps, admiration? Whatever it was, it confused me.
After I had the grave marker made, I placed a few wild flowers on top of it. It felt weird. Placing flowers on the grave of the being that was watching me.
Slowly, I walked to Cole’s side and sat on the ground beside him. Neither of us spoke for several long minutes, just stared out across the open field at nothing. The warm summer breeze picked up, sending Cole’s unidentifiable scent my way. So similar yet so different from Alex’s. I heard the grass rustle as the air blew across it. It smelled like earth and decaying wood, here so close to the ground. It was comforting.
“I’m dying Jessica,” Cole finally spoke as he stared out over what should have been his. “Well, not dying. I can’t exactly die since I’m already dead. Decaying I guess you could say. Fading.”
I hadn’t really thought of it that way but it made sense. Cole didn’t exactly look his best.
“I’m not human anymore Jessica. I don’t belong in this world. I’m fighting to stay in the world of the living with every fiber of my being. I’m slowly being pulled back though. I can’t fight what I am. I can’t even hide the damn wings anymore.”
Cole leaned forward, his head sinking low. As he did so, his hair fell away from his neck, revealing his shadowed brand. I had seen it once before, one light, barely visible X and another more defined one with it. It was like he had jerked away then they branded him, as if he had fought with them. It had been a nearly white color before. It was now almost a blood red and almost looked infected.
Without thinking, I raised a hand to it and very lightly touched a finger to it. I had forgotten what contact between the two of us did until there was a decaying mark of my finger on the back of his neck to match the handprints on his chest. Cole didn’t even flinch away, even though I knew the pain it must have caused him.
“This is what’s going to happen to Alex, isn’t it?” I asked. It felt as if there was a large lump in my throat and a huge rock in the pit of my stomach.
“Yes,” Cole said softly as he turned his black eyes to meet mine. I was surprised to see no anger in them as I mentioned Alex. No jealously. “He won’t be able to fight it much longer. Eventually he’s going to be pulled back.”
“But the council agreed to let him come back,” I started to argue, feeling desperate. Even as I tried to ration, I knew the truth, I knew what was going on. I understood now.
“He’s not of this world Jessica. Yes, they agreed to let him come back to you, they never said for how long. Eventually it’s going to become too much for him. Even as we speak now, I can hardly fight the pull.”
I struggled to keep my breathing steady. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the barn wall. A tear rolled down my cheek. I should have known a thing that was too good to be true when I saw it. Of course Alex couldn’t stay. He wasn’t human, he wasn’t alive.
But how much time did he have left?
“Please tell me you didn’t kill Alex’s mother,” I said through my silent tears, trying to distract myself.
“I didn’t kill Alex’s mother,” Cole said as he looked back out over the field. “I didn’t do anything to her. She did it to herself. I just found her, recognized that if someone didn’t help her soon, she was going to be dead.”
A few more stray tears rolled down my face as I closed my eyes for a moment. Apparently Caroline hadn’t changed at all. Alex wasn’t going to be finding a woman who was fit to be called a mother. She was still the same drug addicted woman that had abandoned him twenty-three years ago.
As I shifted on the ground, I heard the sound of paper crinkling. I pulled the paper from my back pocket and unfolded it. It was Cole’s letter to me.
“What did you mean by this?” I asked. As I did, my eyes scanned his words again.
Good-bye, Jessica. Eventually we all have to face our demons. I’ve gone to face mine. Perhaps someday I can help you face yours.
Cole stood in one invisible movement. He glanced down and started to extend his hand to me, then realized what that would do to him and withdrew it to his side. “Come with me.”
I stood on shaky legs and followed Cole around to the front of the barn again. The entire building rattled as he swung a door open. For a moment he watched it, gauging as I was to see if it was going to come down. When it finally stopped moaning and creaking he motioned for me to follow him in.
The smell of rotting wood intensified as we stepped inside. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. This appeared to be some kind of maintenance shed, filled with ancient looking tools and pieces of equipment I could barely identify. It seemed strange that the estate had just been abandoned, everything left basically untouched.
We walked to the center of the building and Cole stopped. He turned to look at me, his eyes probing, searching. He didn’t say anything for a moment as he looked for something within me that I didn’t know the answer to.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, never breaking his stare.
“No,” I said without hesitation.
That half smile crept back onto his
face. “I guess that is warranted,” he chuckled slightly. He took a step closer to me, his face growing serious. “Will you do something I ask, if I promise no harm will come to you because of it?”
I didn’t answer him right away, carefully considering his words. I didn’t trust Cole but I believed he would keep his word. I saw it in his eyes. “You promise?” I asked, my tone doubtful.
“I promise,” he said as he looked intensely at me.
“What?” I asked him, now having his word.
“Just close your eyes. Don’t look. And don’t move.”
His request frightened me. I didn’t want to comply with what he asked of me. But I had agreed. I closed my eyes.
Cole didn’t make any sound but I sensed him as he moved to the north wall of the barn. My palms started sweating and I wiped them on my pants nervously.
Four seconds later, a pain like I had never known pierced me in the right side of my chest.
My eyes flashed open, going immediately to the source of the unbearable pain. Sticking out of my chest was the handle of a very large, very rusty blade. My mind couldn’t even process the fact that no blood was seeping from my damaged body.
I looked up at Cole as he moved toward me and I dropped to my knees. I waited for my vision to blur, to start feeling lightheaded as I should have felt. Instead, the only thing I felt was the pain.
Cole’s face was intent as he slowly knelt before me. I was surprised to see that his face also looked pained, as if what he had just done to me caused him pain. He locked eyes with me, a million other emotions rolling through his. “This is going to hurt,” he said, his voice sounding regretful.
Cole was right. A blood curdling scream ripped from my throat as Cole yanked the blade out of my chest. There wasn’t even any blood on the knife as he dropped it at his side. His eyes never left the gaping hole in my torso. My eyes fell back on my chest and grew wide. There was a long, slender hole there, the edges rough and torn from being slashed open. But it was shrinking. Fast. My skin netted itself back together, the wound healing on its own. The pain ebbed away, until I couldn’t even remember what it had felt like, having a knife embedded in my body. Within ten seconds, the hole had completely closed and I felt perfectly normal again.
Except for being totally freaked out.
“What…?” I gasped in terror. I couldn’t take my eyes from the small white scar on my skin.
“That should have killed you,” Cole said softly, traces of awe in his tone.
Anger boiled in my blood as I looked back up at Cole, his face only two feet away from my own. Before I even thought about what I was doing, I slapped my hand across his face, leaving another decayed looking gray mark. “What is wrong with you?!”
“I’m sorry,” Cole said, his expression looking shocked, though I didn’t think it was from me slapping him. “I had to test my theory.”
“What theory?” I growled. To say I was livid at what Cole had just done was a massive understatement. “You promised me you would do nothing that would hurt me.”
“I promised no harm would come to you,” Cole said softly. “Are you harmed?”
I was about to scream back at Cole but had to think about his question. He was right, I wasn’t harmed. Horrified, but not harmed, despite the hole that had been ripped in my shirt and the thin white line on my skin.
“What theory?” I asked again through clenched teeth.
“Don’t you feel any different than you did six months ago?” Cole asked, his tone sounding slightly excited.
“Of course I do,” I spat. “I was two inches from death five months ago! No thanks to you!”
“You were less than two inches,” Cole said as he stood up. He motioned for me to follow him. He started walking back toward the mansion. “You were at death. You couldn’t have come any closer to death and still come back.”
“What are you talking about?” I called after him, trying to keep up with his swift pace. “What does this have to do with you lobbing a knife into my chest?”
We entered the house through a back door. Cole didn’t answer my question as he walked down a hall and entered a room. He stopped just inside and placed me before a floor to ceiling mirror, being careful to only touch me through my clothes.
“Don’t you notice how you don’t look a day older than you did the day I killed Alex?” Cole said quietly, his lips too close to my ear for comfort.
“It’s only been six months,” I said lamely. “I’m not likely to notice any difference in that short of time.”
Cole’s shoulders fell slightly and his face looked a little frustrated. “I suppose even your eyes can’t see that much detail. Don’t you feel different? Or perhaps the better question is don’t you feel exactly the same?”
“What are you trying to get at, Cole?” I asked, feeling my insides start to quiver. I didn’t think I really wanted to hear the answer to that question.
“You haven’t changed a bit from the day Alex made the exchange, his life for yours. You haven’t changed at all since you were more dead than alive.”
Irritation joined my fear. “Just tell me what is going on Cole! What are you saying has happened to me?!”
“I think Jessica,” he hesitated, trying to think how to word this just right. “I think you may just be indestructible now, immortal if you will.”
As the word sank in I burst into laughter. “You’re insane! You can’t be serious? Immortal? I’m going to live forever? Uh huh, I believe that one!”
Cole took two steps back from me and sat on a creaky chair. “I’m not making a joke, Jessica. You should have died there in the barn. I know how to throw a blade, it should have killed you instantly.”
My face slowly grew serious as I recalled what had just happened. Cole was right, I should have died. There was no question about that. But everything else he was saying was ridiculous.
“As I said, I have a theory,” he said seriously, seeing that he had my attention now. “I don’t think even you realize how close to death you were when I nearly had you. I fought panic for days before the events that occurred to save your life. I thought at any moment, you were going to slip away, before I had talked you into joining me. I knew you might go at any moment. You were changing into what I am, becoming more and more like me with every passing moment.
“You’re mostly angel now, Jessica, and yet still human. If only just barely still human.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment as that sank in. I couldn’t take what he was saying seriously, it was just preposterous.
“Most of your human self died, those days you spent in my basement. You were becoming so close to what I am. I would guess you’re roughly eighty percent angel. When Alex made his sacrifice, he stopped you from totally dying, but too much of you had already died. It couldn’t come back. You became stuck in this strange limbo between the world of the dead and the land of the living. And then Alex traded his life for yours. That is part of my theory as well.
“As long as Alex is dead, you will never die. They traded his life for yours. While they still have Alex’s life, as long as he remains dead, they can never have the rest of your mortal life. That small percent that was left.
“As I said, you haven’t changed at all since I last saw you. You’re frozen where you are. I don’t think you will age for the rest of your days. And those are going to be endless. Angels can’t die. We’re already dead.”
My head spun from everything Cole was saying. Nothing and everything he said made sense. His logic was impossible. It couldn’t be true.
The memory of accidently flinging myself off the cliff hit me. Half the bones in my body should have been broken and yet I had walked away without a scratch. The accident with Austin. I should have been killed. And then there was the entire matter of how I had physically changed so much, how my face didn’t even seem like my own. I moved nearly as fast as Cole and Alex did. I didn’t even bleed anymore.
I leaned my back against the mirror and didn??
?t realize my legs were giving out on me until my rear hit the ground. All my insides seemed to suddenly disappear, I felt hollow. My own body felt alien suddenly. Everything in my world came to a stand-still and I saw nothing as I stared at the floor, didn’t even hear the words Cole said to me. I didn’t even notice how after a few minutes Cole walked out of the room and left me alone.
I could only even consider, not accept, but consider one word that described what Cole said had happened to me. I was stuck. I couldn’t move forward, I couldn’t move on into the afterlife. How I was now was how I was always going to be. I was held forever where I was. And Alex was soon going to be pulled away from me. Forever. And I’d never be able to go with him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ALEX
“No,” I hissed. “No. No!”
Yet again I had just walked in a big circle. Here I was, back at the parked car.
Just a few hours after Caroline had woken up, I was shocked to see Emily being wheeled into another room. As I looked down the hall, I saw Cormack following the stretcher. I nearly lost it when he told me what had happened. Had his wings been out, I would have ripped them out right then and there.
With someone there to keep an eye on Caroline, I left her in Cormack’s charge. I drove like a maniac back to the address I had. As soon as I got within five miles, the GPS shorted out and the screen went blank. I drove on every street that seemed like it might go in the right direction and before I knew it, I was right back at the hospital. I couldn’t even remember getting back into the city.
I drove all night trying to get to the estate and always ended up back right where I had started. Trusting the nursing staff to watch Emily and Caroline, Cormack had come with me to guide me there, but even with him we could not find the way.
Someone was messing with our heads and keeping us away.
In desperation, I had parked the car as soon as the GSP started to go out and started walking. And here I was again, back at the car.