All the Rules of Heaven (All That Heaven Will Allow #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,50
made. Anyway, here we are. Okay, how many graves do we have here, in real time?”
Angel counted. “Seventeen. Do you want me to read the names?”
“Yeah. Damn. There’s a notebook with a pen inside the back…. Thank you?”
The otherworldly energy was strong here. Angel had just reached into the backpack without using the zipper, seized the items he’d asked for, and pulled them out.
“I’m not sure how exactly that works,” Angel mumbled. “The energy here—it’s the same sort of thing Squishbeans does for me, but Squishbeans makes me solid when I hold her. Not completely, but enough to pick up a kitten—”
“Or a pillow,” Tucker said, voice gentle.
“Small objects,” she returned humbly. “But here it’s…. Can’t you feel it? It’s like I can grasp the raw electricity from the air and drink it!”
“Yes, Angel, that’s what I meant by ‘This place is as creepy as hell.’”
Angel shuddered. “Oh no. Hell would be far creepier.”
Tucker made a sound of frustration. “Well, I’m not going to walk down that alternative-universe graveyard road and into the interdimensional rift to find out! Can you write on that tablet, since you’re sucking electricity through a stovepipe?”
“Sure,” Angel said, trying to help. “What would you like me to write?”
“Well, I’m going to point to a headstone, and I want you to tell me if it’s real or… dimensional, okay? And then I want you to write the names down, separate columns. The stuff that’s on the earthly plane and the stuff that’s in whatever this other plane is. Can we do that?”
“I can, but I don’t know why,” Angel muttered. But Tucker was already pointing, and it was her job to cling to him with her legs and write.
She used the back of his head to balance the pad on—he didn’t seem to mind—and one headstone at a time they made a list. Helena Catherine Grayson, b. 1865 d. 1912. She was “real.” The headstone next to hers, which looked no less weathered, proclaimed Sarah Lynn McArdle, b. 1956 d. 2001 was in the other dimension. Together they mapped both sides of the graveyard—the solid, earthly side and the ghostly otherwhere—and Angel had to admit, some of the things they discovered were odd.
“Wait,” Tucker muttered. “What was that last one? That last dimensional one?”
“George Ezra Alvarez?”
Tucker stumbled. “Yeah. That one. God—could that be? No. There’s got to be…. Angel, what was his death date?”
She read it off, and Tucker started doing that mental math. “Oh. Oh hell. That’s got to be him. Okay. That’s a clue. It sucks, but it’s a clue. Okay, we’re done with the earthbound ones. Who’s our next dimensional trespasser?”
“Damien Alexander Columbus, born September third, 1984, died—”
“I know when he died,” Tucker croaked. Throughout the graveyard, the ghosts who’d refused to follow them in rustled, and Angel looked around at them, worried.
“Tucker, we should—”
“I can’t be here anymore,” Tucker mumbled.
“Good, because we should—”
“How could that be him? Angel, do you have any idea?”
“Tucker, we need to go!” Angel’s voice cracked in panic, and Tucker pulled his mind from whatever personal hell he’d been visiting to see his actual, er, virtual surroundings.
“Oh hells,” he muttered. “Angel, are you holding on tight?”
“I’m actually under your skin,” Angel confessed, waiting for his rebuff.
“Stay there,” Tucker said grimly. “And don’t let anyone else in. You hear me, Angel? You said it. You claimed me first. None of these other assholes get to ride me, right?”
Tucker had turned already and was trotting toward the edge of the graveyard. The spirits waiting when he got there parted, but nobody was giving as much ground as they’d done earlier.
A ghost reached for him. Angel could feel the burn, like humans described acid, and she screamed, hugging Tucker tighter, sending energy through their skins until the ghost shrieked and disappeared. Tucker moaned in pain, and then another one tried, and another. And still Tucker kept trotting, keeping the property line as a goal in front of them as Angel sank deeper and deeper into his skin.
Another ghost screamed, and this time Angel felt it, the burn, not just in Angel’s consciousness but on Tucker’s body, and Angel let out a sob.
Don’t stop! Tucker begged inside their shared space. I don’t care how much it hurts. Dammit, Angel, have my back!
This ghost tackled them, full body contact, and Angel shrieked as she threw it off, electrifying both of them, repelling the ghost with psychic energy the same way she’d picked up a pillow.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Angel gibbered, and