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“I need you to go to the other side and talk to somebody for me.”
“I can’t just go to the other side and talk to somebody,
loca
.”
“Angel, I really need this. If you can’t pull this off, I’m going to prison on drug possession and kiddie porn.” I showed him the picture. “I need you to find this kid and ask him a couple of things for me.”
The captain watched me with those eagle eyes of his. Not a lot got past him, I could tell. And I certainly no longer cared about what it looked like when I talked to my invisible friends.
“I can’t jump over and back. Nobody can do that.” He dusted off his shirt. No idea why. “Except you.”
“I can’t jump over either. Do you think Reyes can?”
“I don’t think the son of Satan would be very welcome in heaven. Even if he could get there.”
I collapsed onto the chair. This was an impossible situation.
“Why don’t you just summon him?”
“Angel, if he’s already crossed, I can’t summon him.”
“You never listen to me,” he said. He took off his shoe and dumped sand out of it and onto the carpet.
I looked at it, watched it fall through the floor.
“How did you get sand—?”
“It doesn’t matter if they’ve crossed. You’re the stinking reaper.”
I had no idea if the captain knew that part, so I clenched my teeth to demonstrate my a
He put his shoe back on and took off the other, dumped out the sand, then put it back on before leveling a stare on me dripping with attitude, and said, “Yes, you can. I’ve been telling you that forever.
Oh, mi Dios
.”
“Don’t bring God into this, and really?” I stood and sidled up to him. “I really can do that?”
“Of course.” He shrugged, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say his glare was accusing me of being a moron. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“So, like, how?”
He pulled out his pockets and shook them to get the sand out of them as well. How on earth? Incorporeal sand? Clearly there was a lot I had yet to learn.
“How what?” he asked.
“How do I summon someone from the other side?”
“
Qué demonios,
how should I know?”
When he shook out his hair from behind the wide banda
“You just do,” he said with a shrug.
I looked at the captain and shook my head in helplessness. “He’s not helping.”
“Bullshit. I told you. You just do it.”
“Just like I have powers and I can mark souls and I can save the world?” I threw my arms wide. “I think I’m defective. I think something went horribly awry and they sent the wrong girl.”
He chuckled. “Still, I don’t know why you’re asking me all this.”
I pointed to the pic of Kory. “Because I need to talk to that kid. I told you.”
“So why do you want to know how to summon someone back from the other side?”
I grabbed his shoulders again and shook them. He was pretty solid, though, and I actually shook more than he did. “Because I need to talk to that kid.”
“Yeah, but he’s not on the other side. Not yet.”
I stopped, blinked three times, then gaped at him for at least sixty-seven seconds, long enough for Angel to clear his throat and shift his weight, squirming in discomfort.
“You couldn’t have told me that ten minutes ago?”
“You didn’t ask me that ten minutes ago. You asked me how to summon someone from the other side.”
He had a point. I prayed for patience, then asked, “How do I summon this kid since he hasn’t crossed?”
“
Que Dios me ayude.
Charley, what did I just say? See, you never listen. You’re like those kids who poke forks in electrical outlets.”
“I have never poked a fork in an electrical outlet.”
“Is this conversation going anywhere?” the captain asked.
I whirled around and glared. “Really?”
He held up his hands in surrender.
“Just do your thing,” Angel said. “You know, like you do with me.”
“But I know you.”
“You know everyone. You’re the grim reaper.”
Wow, okay, fine. I’d give it a shot. What could it hurt, besides my crumbling pride?
I took the picture, closed my eyes, and said, “Kory, I summon you.”
When I opened my eyes, Angel was doubled over with laughter. “Really?” he asked, holding his stomach. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“What?” I stomped my foot. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Do it like you do me. I know you don’t say, ‘Angel, I summon you.’”
“No, I say, ‘Angel, get your a punk ass over here.’”
“You do not.” When I raised my brows, he said, “No, really, you don’t say that, right?”
Without answering, I closed my eyes again and thought about how I summoned Angel and Artemis and even, on occasion, Reyes. I just imagined them there, summoned their energy, and brought them forth. So I thought of this kid, sought his energy, found it in the distance, a luminous glow in the darkness, and brought him forth.
I opened my eyes and before me was a scared kid, hands in pockets, a bullet hole in his chest as well as one in his pant leg. His shoulders were concave, his chin tucked in fear. And despite every attempt to the contrary, my heart went out to him.
“You were a good shot even then,” I said to the captain.
He stood and glanced around before saying warily, “What do you mean?”
“You shot him in the knee. That takes a steady hand even at close range.”
Surprise and awe washed over him. “I was aiming for his head.”
“Oh, then you kind of suck.”
“Is he—is he here?”
“Yes.”
“Did he do it?” he asked. “For certain he did it?”
“I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”
“Are you God?” Kory asked, his voice soft.
“Um, no, but I appreciate the compliment. I’m Charley.”
He nodded and studied me from head to toe.
“I need to know something, Kory. Did you assault that girl?”
“Cindy,” the captain said.
“Did you rape a girl named Cindy?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Why are you even asking him?” Angel said. “You just have to see it. He can lie to you, but your vision won’t.”
See it? “I see people’s lives when they cross. Is that what you mean? He should cross?”
“They don’t have to cross for you to see them, to see what they’ve done. Just do your thing.”
“What thing?”
“Your reaper thing. Just do it.”
I was growing very tired of being told to just do it. Angel, the captain, the Dealer, Nike. Who next? The Pillsbury Doughboy? Actually, I really liked the Pillsbury Doughboy.
“You need to be honest with me, Kory. Did you sexually assault Cindy Eckert?”
He bowed his head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
“We saw her at the park after school. She was alone on a swing and everyone told me to go talk to her, to pretend to be into her.”
“You’re not wi
“Just wait. I didn’t— I was just kidding with her.” He shoved his hands farther into his front pockets. “She told me she’d always had a crush on me, and I told her the same thing back.”
As Kory spoke, I relayed what he was saying to the captain.
“She told me she had a special room in the woods just beyond the park. She wanted to show it to me. Everyone was teasing me, telling me to go with her.”
The captain’s anger rose. “That was not in the report,” he said. “No one ever said that. According to the police, no one ever saw him with her.”