Poe (42 page)

“One smooth motion.”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

I inhale deeply. There’s a silence then, like the moment right before a symphony starts to play, an ethereal hush. I put one hand down on the rails of the gurney to brace myself and lean over. I exhale deeply. Inhale deeply. Raise my hand…

“And is there a
reason
I’m doing this and you’re not?”

“
Dimitri
, I swear to God, if you say one more word I’m going to jam that thing in your head. Now
do
it.”

Fuck it. My arm swings wildly, and I plunge the needle into Lisa’s chest—there’s not as much resistance as I would have imagined—and I press the epinephrine in, hoping I’m not injecting into a lung. As soon as it’s empty I slowly pull the needle back out. There’s a small bead of blood where the needle entered.

Nothing happens.

But just as I’m about to turn to Nachiel, ask him what’s wrong, Lisa bolts upright in the bed, nearly knocking me backward. It sounds like she’s choking—her chest heaves with gasping breaths, her eyes bulge, and one hand frantically pulls at the bed sheet, like it’s operating with a will of its own. Oh
fuck
, I did hit her lung.

Nachiel stares at her with a fierce intensity.

“Is she okay? Nachiel, is she okay?”

My heart starts to race, skipping the occasional beat, and Lisa’s fair skin starts to turn pale. But
still
Nachiel says nothing, as if none of this is happening; as if he’s somewhere else entirely, another planet perhaps. Lisa’s hand jerks uncontrollably—it reaches out to me and almost pulls off an electrode.

“Lisa?” I ask faintly.

“Where,” Lisa says in a hoarse voice, “am I?” The throaty accent is unmistakably, freakishly Russian, and my heart sinks like a stone—
Christ
, what I’ve done to Lisa is far, far worse than any demon could dream up.

Now, though, Nachiel springs into action—he pulls the rolling table toward him so fast that the candle’s flame shears sideways. He gives me a hard look, shakes his head somberly, and my heart starts to
throb when I see him pulling the paperweight off the page from
The Book of Fiends
.

Meanwhile Poe seems to have finally mastered Lisa’s renegade hand. She holds it directly in front of her face with an expression of pure delight, like a child with a new toy.

“A body,” she says in wonder. “I have a body again.”

“Poe,” I say firmly, “that wasn’t the deal. You have to let go. You can’t stay in Lisa’s body.”

“I have flesh,” says Poe in a hushed voice. She raises the hand to her cheek, closes her eye like she’s savoring the feel of it. “It’s beautiful. So beautiful.”

“
Poe
. I really appreciate you stepping in and keeping Lisa’s body alive, but it’s time—”

Poe’s eyes suddenly grow wide, and they dart from my face to Nachiel’s. I can see her registering the candle and the pages. “What is that
smell
?” she says, wrinkling her nose. A finger hesitantly reaches up to her forehead, touches the smeared ash.

Nachiel catches my eye in a meaningful way and says, “Just repeat after me.” He begins to intone. “I exorcise thee, O creature of hell.”

Reluctantly, I say the words too. “I exorcise thee, O creature of hell.” Instantly a migraine starts, pressing in and making me feel slightly nauseous.

Nachiel continues: “O tormented and lost soul who has turned to the side of the Dark Night.”

“O tormented and lost soul who has turned to the side of the Dark Night.”

“
No
,” whispers Poe. She clutches my arm, the same icy, viselike grip I’m familiar with. Her eyes plead with mine for mercy. “He is
wrong
. I am
not
evil.”

“I dispel thee. I send thee back into the hellfires.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I dispel thee, I send thee back into the hellfires.”

Poe’s bottom lip trembles, and I can’t help but think of what we’re sending her back
to
; I can almost hear the growls that erupted from behind the red curtain of light, almost feel the razor-sharp claw that reached out for her.

“The
same
,” she breathes miserably. “You’re all the
same
. You
use
me.”

“I dispel thee, I invoke the power of the light.”

“I dispel thee, I invoke the power of the light.”

Lisa’s body suddenly starts to seize—her back arcs wildly, and I try to hold her down without losing my connection to the heart monitor, which is now spiking from my own racing pulse. White foam beads the edge of her mouth; my 10 percent chance of getting Lisa back is dropping down to zero with each passing second.

“
No
,” she moans.

Nachiel, though, is untouched, unmoved. “By the power of the light…”

The light gets so bright it hurts my eyes, and the floor seems to tilt. This feels wrong. It all feels so wrong.

Lisa’s eyes roll in the back of her head, and her mouth hangs slack as Nachiel picks up the candle.

“
Wait
!” I shout.

“There is no waiting,” says Nachiel. “Either we do this or—”

“We don’t,” I finish for him. “I get that. But Poe
helped
me.”

“She helped
herself
. She hasn’t changed—she has no intention of voluntarily leaving Lisa’s body.”

“If she has free will, then she can make her own decisions. Right?”

Nachiel inhales deeply. “There isn’t
time
.”

Poe’s eyes flutter and then open, darting fearfully from me to Nachiel, then back to me.

“I propose a trade.”

“What kind of
trade
?” spits Poe. “I have traded everything there is for a woman to trade, and it has never done me any good.”

“I’m not talking about that kind of trade. I can offer you a
life
—if you swear to use that life to undo some of the harm you’ve done.”

Poe regards me suspiciously. “You are trying to trick me again.”

I shrug. “No, it’s not a trick. But you can’t have Lisa’s body. That’s taken.”

Poe slants her eyes at me. “Then whose?”

“I’m wondering that myself,” says Nachiel.

I nod behind me at the teenage girl in the coma who’s hooked up to a ventilator and heart monitor. I’m officially retiring the word “random” from my personal lexicon. “The nurses say she’s a Jane Doe. Runaway, no ID. She’s brain-dead, and they’re going to remove her from the ventilator tomorrow morning. One of the doctors asked me if I’d write up a small obituary with just her physical description for the newspaper. See if anyone would claim the body.”

Nachiel glances over at the girl, scanning her. “Her spirit
has
been gone for some time, but that doesn’t mean this is a good idea.”

Poe cranes her head to take a look, considering. “I would find her acceptable,” she finally says.

“But Poe,” I say, reaching for her hand. Tentatively, she lets me hold it. “If you
ever
give me a reason to regret this…”

“I will not. You are the first man I have ever known to give me so much for so little.” She seems to choke slightly at the last word, “little,” but then recovers quickly and glares at Nachiel. “Plus I will enjoy proving
this
one wrong. He seems a little—how you say?—up stuck.”

“Stuck up,” I correct, “although somehow the way you put it seems just as appropriate.”

“Kid’s got jokes,” grumbles Nachiel. “For the record, I’m completely against this.”

“Noted,” I say.

He sighs and blows out the candle. Gently he puts the page back from
The Book of Fiends
and picks up
The Book of Seraphs
instead. “Let’s see what page transferring bodies is on.”

I notice, although I pretend not to, that Poe keeps hold of my hand, like a tether.

Much to my great disappointment, Lisa doesn’t regain consciousness immediately once Poe’s spirit has left her body, although much to my great relief, she doesn’t die either. Just after Nachiel finished his chant, Lisa’s eyes briefly fluttered, then gently closed, and there was only the slightest exhalation of breath, a soft
ah
, as a haze of blue mist rose from her body. It passed right through me, like a shivery wave of cool water, and then floated over to the girl in the coma, gently drifting down until it settled on her skin like morning dew, then disappeared.

But that was five eternally long minutes ago, and neither has moved since. Did it work?

“Lisa,” I say, smoothing her forehead. No response. Her skin feels colder, and I notice that she’s lost some of the color from her cheeks. I turn to Nachiel, worried.

“Give her some time. Her body’s been through a lot,” says Nachiel.

“How much time?”

“As much as she needs. You’d better get those electrodes back, though, in case a nurse comes.”

I sigh but do as he says, making sure that not a single beat is missed. Then I gently lift her hospital gown back into place, which I notice features gamboling teddy bears. Something I plan to tease her mercilessly about as soon as she comes to.

“You might want to put your shirt back on too,” says Nachiel.

“Good point,” I say, grabbing the top of my scrubs from the floor. I brush off some of the salt and pull it over my head while Nachiel packs away the books and the candle. The needle he tosses into a red bin marked
BIOHAZARD,
and I briefly wonder how the hell
can
anyone
get well in a hospital when all the signs read like they’re equally applicable to a nuclear facility.

Nachiel slides the bag over his shoulder.

“You’re not going, are you?”

“Someone’s got to start thinking about what comes next,” he says, looking pointedly at Poe’s new body, still safely hooked up to the ventilator and heart monitor.

My chest seizes. “I can’t leave before Lisa wakes up.”

Nachiel grins and pointedly ignores me. “I’ll be back later. Try not to do anything
too
stupid while I’m gone, okay?”

“Poe’s right. You
are
up stuck.”

“Don’t even
start
,” says Nachiel. He pauses for moment, gives me a serious look, and then reaches into his bag. “There’s something else you should have.”

I back up a few steps. “No more books. I need a little vacay from the whole conjuring/exorcism thing.”

He gives me a half smile. “Nothing like that.” He pulls out a large, fairly crumpled photograph, its edges yellowed with age, and holds it out to me.

Quietly I take it from him.

It’s a familiar arrangement, the same photo of Aspinwall I found in the
Eagle
archives. I see the neat rows of servants lined up in their starched aprons and severe expressions. But this is obviously the original, because my mother’s face isn’t rubbed out. I can see her delicate features clearly. She’s smiling and her eyes are warm, friendly.

“And there,” Nachiel says softly.

I almost can’t take my eyes off my mother’s face, but I do and look to where his finger is pointing. It’s the figure that was cut off in the newspaper image; I can now follow the arm holding the trowel to the tall, thin man holding it. His dark wool pants are stained with dirt, and I discover the gaunt, ragged face of the Russian gardener. The gaunt, ragged face of my father.

I swallow.

“It took me years to track down all the photos they appeared in and destroy them. There couldn’t be any trace, you understand. But I kept this one for you.”

I nod, temporarily unable to speak. “Thanks,” I finally manage.

Nachiel puts an arm on my shoulder and then starts for the door.

But before he opens it, I casually ask, “Hey, Nachiel. Where did my father go during the day all those years?”

He smiles at me. “You mean when he wasn’t traveling the world to exorcise some demon, save the world, that kind of thing?”

“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound like it’s just an offhand question, no big deal.

“Your father was the gardener for the Wharton Nursery. In the next town over, ten minutes from your house.”

Not the response I was expecting. “Well, why didn’t he tell me
that
?”

Nachiel shakes his head. “He wasn’t proud of it. He worked with his hands, in the dirt. In a way he was like any other immigrant; all he wanted was for his son to have a better life than he did.”

I swallow hard and fidget with the edge of Lisa’s sheet. And I quietly pocket that idea to think about later.

“See you soon,” says Nachiel, giving me a wave before slipping out the door.

I pull up a chair and settle myself in, keeping hold of Lisa’s hand. There’s the soft hiss of the ventilator, the
blip, blip, blip
of the heart monitor, and the gentle hum of the air conditioning. Warm sunlight streams through the window, not a cloud in the sky.

And just as my own eyes droop, just as I start to feel the deep pull of sleep, Lisa’s hand moves ever so slightly in mine. Instantly I’m alert, and I watch breathlessly as her eyes quietly open.

“Lisa?”

She pulls her hand from mine, turns her head, and smiles beatifically at me, reaching out as if to gently stroke my cheek—before swiftly balling her hand into a fist and punching me in the arm,
hard
.