Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,116
think it may have gotten his lung.”
This was a chance I had to take. I would gladly risk my life or my soul in place of any of these people. But I couldn’t. I had to do what I did best—talk big, and pray I didn’t screw this up.
“Enough chitchat,” I said. “Let’s dance.”
I let my psyche slip away from my physical form, a shade of my own self. Unconfined by distance, I grabbed at the jackal mark on Carson’s back, the spot where the two were knit together. The threads had tightened, and somehow I had to unstitch them without unraveling the half that I cared about.
The more the Jackal struggled, the more blood ran down Carson’s chest. The Veil hummed and shimmered with infinite patience as I picked at the tight snarls of the binding, but the longer it took, the paler and weaker the living body became, so weak I worried Carson’s soul would make the trip, too.
I needed to rip the Jackal off like a Band-Aid and get him through the Veil. My psyche was strong, but I needed force and inertia. I needed the weight of a soul.
Carson’s mom was no more than a translucent vision, and no less than everything that made her human. “You wanted to help? It’s risky.”
“He’s my son. This is no risk.” Then she laughed. It was a beautiful sound, of someone used to laughing. “It beats the purgatory of Devlin Maguire’s office for eternity.”
I smiled in spite of myself and held out the threads of the Jackal’s binding to her. She took them, smiled back—a devilish smile—and ran for the Veil, painting the air with light as she leapt through.
The Jackal gave an angry shout as he was yanked toward the curtain of eternity, scrabbling to hold on to this world with psychic tooth and claw. At the tipping point, he began sliding toward the Veil without my help. But he was taking Carson’s spirit, unconscious and unable to fight, with him.
“If I go,” sounded the Jackal over an intangible roar of wind, “he goes, too.”
“You don’t get to say who stays and who goes, you son of a bitch.”
Neither did I, but I knew how to fight for a spirit. As the last thread of binding pulled loose, I grabbed Carson, body and soul, and anchored us in the here and now. But he was so heavy, and all of eternity yawned before me.
The open Veil offered tantalizing glimpses outside the walls of time and space. It awed but didn’t frighten me. Maybe it should have. I was so small and eternity pulled at the fragile bond of my body. I was an atom and a star, an infinitesimal speck of identity suspended before the gravity well of fathomless eons of souls.
Daisy … A woman’s lullaby voice from beyond, chiding me gently. The job is done. Let the Veil close.
“Daisy!” A guy’s voice. A young man. Naming me and calling me back. “You did it. It’s over … and we need your help with your relatives.”
I sat up, unable to remember lying down. But I had, in a position that strongly indicated that Taylor had caught me when I collapsed and held me safely until I came to.
The shade of the T. rex was gone, and when I looked at the skeleton, the only hint of her adventures was a fading green glow in the sockets of her skull. The color was all Goodnight, but the wink—there was no mistaking it for anything else—I was sure that belonged to Sue.
“What relatives?” I asked, seeing no other remnants. I would be sad that Mom hadn’t said goodbye, except we didn’t need to.
Then I heard them, the unmistakable rallying shouts of Goodnights on the march, coming from outside and demanding to be let in. The museum doors stood open and the hall was flooded with cops, armed response officers, museum officials, and paramedics—
Carson. They surrounded him. I’d been holding on to him—no, that was just with my psyche. Now all I could see were his shoes. I started to get up, but Taylor’s hand on my shoulder kept me where I was. “He’s fine,” Taylor assured me. “The fuss is because they can’t figure out why he’s fine.”
“Oh.” I took a moment to look around. What a mess, with mummy dust and toppled totem poles and the museum store looking like it had had a retail explosion. “Did you See anything?” I asked Taylor, meaning the big battle.