He leaned against the wall of a crypt. I say leaned, but he was far from solid. His body shimmered with translucence, but I would have recognized that frown anywhere.
“David?” I breathed.
“What’s wrong, Sabina? Aren’t you happy to see me again?”
I’ve seen lots of f**ked-up shit in my life. Hard not to when one spent the majority of their life killing for a living. Of course, since my family tree is filled with vampires and mages, and one of my best friends is a demon, one might also imagine running into a ghost wouldn’t be a big deal. But considering this particular specter was the ghost of a friend I’d murdered, I was having some trouble not pissing myself, metaphorically speaking.
“David?” I repeated stupidly.
He spread his arms wide. “In the flesh, so to speak.”
Thinking was like wading through oatmeal. I looked around for some sort of clue about what I was supposed to say or do. But the silent crypts weren’t offering up any etiquette tips. “How? Why?”
The apparition crossed his arms. “The how doesn’t matter. Not really.”
“And the why?” My voice sounded thick.
A smile quirked the corner of his lips— an odd sight on a nearly transparent man. “Before I tell you why I’m here, we need to get a few things straight.”
“I’m listening.”
He moved closer. His legs didn’t move, though. His body just kind of glided above the grass. I clenched my jaw against the instinct to run again. Then I remembered I wasn’t in my body and my astral form probably looked a lot like his right then. He finally stopped a couple of feet away.
“First, you need to know I am not here because I want to be. You’re the last person I’d be helping if I had a choice.”
Not a surprise, really. I swallowed the fear clogging my throat and nodded.
“And don’t ask who sent me. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
I might be confused and shocked, but I wasn’t an idiot. “Tell me anyway. Just for kicks.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “She said you’d demand to know.” He shrugged in a suit-yourself gesture. “Lilith sends her regards.”
My mouth fell open, but he continued on as if he hadn’t just dropped an epic bombshell on my ass.
“Second, this is really happening. Your sister is inside that box.”
“Wait a second,” I interrupted. “Lilith sent you?”
He nodded impatiently in a yes-we’ve-covered-this way.
“Why?”
He rolled his eyes. “Sabina, she’s the Queen of Irkalla. We don’t question her motives without serious repercussions.”
“No, I mean why send you?”
He crossed his arms. “Instead of Vinca, you mean?”
That stopped me. David died before I’d ever met Vinca. If they’d met in Irkalla I highly doubted it was just a coincidence.
“Lilith thought you’d spend too much time blubbering to the nymph about being sorry you got her killed to listen.”
I tried to sort through the flurry of questions scrambling to get out. But before I could choose one, he interrupted. “Look, we don’t really have time to play twenty questions right now. Soon that mage of yours is going to panic and pull you back.”
“I’m so confused right now.”
He shot me a look. “All you have to do is listen. Can you handle that?” He paused until I nodded. Then he smiled at me, like he was going to enjoy sharing his message. “Lavinia is really going to summon Cain here tomorrow.”
I squinted at him. “That’s your news?”
He grimaced. “Let me finish. You’re going to have to make some tough choices tomorrow night. Choose unwisely and all will be lost.”
My stomach cramped. “What are the right choices?”
He shrugged. “That’s the wrong question.”
I clenched my fists in frustration. “What’s the right one?”
“The correct question is: Can you have it both ways?”
“Godsdammit, David. Enough with this cryptic bullshit.”
“There’s something else,” he said, ignoring my growing agitation. “The human told you the summoning would happen at midnight?”
I didn’t bother questioning how he knew what Alodius told me. “Yeah.”
“He was wrong. That’s what they told him to tell you. Lavinia knew you were smart enough to figure out his involvement. If you show up at midnight, Cain will already be here and all will be lost.”
I sighed from so deep in my chest that it took a good five seconds to clear all the air. “What exactly is Cain’s plan for me?”
“Sorry, babe. I can’t tell you that. There’s rules about these things. But I can tell you that there will be repercussions for years from your choices tomorrow night. And more battles to come before this all plays out. That is, if you survive, which, let’s face it, would take a miracle at this point.”
Pushed past the limits of patience, I threw my fist at his nose. Only instead of making contact, it passed through his face with a sickening frigid sensation. His mocking laughter was one insult too many. “You’re an ass**le.”
“Nice. You killed me, but I’m the ass**le.”
I sighed. “Look, David, you have to know if I had it all to do over again—”
A slow smile spread across his lips. “You’d have done the same thing.” I frowned and opened my mouth to argue, but he held up a hand. “Let’s not bullshit each other, Sabina. There’s powerful forces at play right now. Things bigger than the both of us. Whether you’d killed me or not, you’d still be in the middle of it.”
I shook my head. I didn’t deserve to be let off the hook. “You don’t know that.”
He tilted his head and regarded me with a mixture of pity and regret. “Actually, I know it for a fact. Like it or not, we’re all just fate’s pawns.” He looked up at the sky for a moment. Wind rushed through the clearing, too chill even for October. A tunnel of shimmering magic formed over us. “It’s time to go.”
“Wait, I have more questions.”
He shook his head. “I’m all out of answers. Bye, Sabina.”
I opened my mouth to call out, but suddenly the wind reversed direction, creating a vacuum. The force sucked my soul up and into the tunnel. I screamed, struggling to stay. To demand David give me more answers. But the pull was too strong.