Death, and the Girl He Loves

But still. “Why would going into an image affect me that way?”

“I think it affected your ancestor the same way,” Mac said.

“What was it like, Pix,” Grandma asked.

“It was very similar to when I go into a picture, only apparently much more physically demanding. I’m just there, Grandma. I can just see everything that’s going on. And I saw things I didn’t remember. Like Malak-Tuke touching my face before he dematerialized. And I saw me like you see me,” I said to Jared. Then to Cameron. “I think I saw my aura as a little girl.”

Jared brushed a lock of hair off my cheek. Another great excuse. “Was it like fire? Bright and luminous?”

“Exactly.”

Cameron stepped back. “You did see it. That’s exactly—I mean—”

“I know. It freaked me out, too.”

“And you saw him?” Mac asked. “You saw the man?”

“I did. Oh! Yes, I did! And I recognized him!”

Grandma fixed a hopeful expression on Granddad.

“Who was it, Pix?” he asked.

“I have no idea.”

After a stunned moment of silence, he said, “What?”

I shrank back in disappointment. “I’m so sorry. I recognize him, but I can’t place why. He’s someone I know or someone I see semi-regularly. I know I’ve seen him recently.”

“Can you describe him?” Cameron asked.

“Light brown hair, almost blond, light eyes, medium-ish build. He’s kind of thin but not athletic looking. He looked like he worked in an office or something. And he was wearing a light blue button-down shirt, again, like he worked in an office.”

“Maybe he’s an insurance salesman,” Brooke said, and we all questioned her with raised brows. “I mean, my dad’s insurance guy wears button-downs all the time.”

If the situation weren’t so dire, I would’ve laughed. Brooke logic. There was nothing more entertaining.

“Okay,” Cameron said, “maybe we can do something to jar your memory.”

“Like electroshock therapy?”

This time the look we placed on Brooke was full of horror instead of humor. “Seriously, Brooke?” I asked, appalled.

“Right, right. That wouldn’t help. Sorry, that whole seizure thing threw me off my game.”

I couldn’t stop myself. She was still sitting in a chair beside me. I leaned over and hugged her. “It’s like having my very own fruitcake.”

She patted my back. Really hard.

PIZZA AND SUBS

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to jar my memory, thankfully without the use of electroshock therapy. If we knew who this guy was, surely we could stop him from trying to open the gates again. I drew another picture of him, but this one wasn’t much better than the first. I should have taken art when I had the chance.

“Wait a minute,” Mac said as we all sat in our church dining hall, eating pizza and subs. “How do we know the guy who is destined to open the gates again is the same one who opened them ten years ago?”

Glitch shrugged. “We don’t, really. It’s just a guess based on secondhand information.”

“Yeah,” I said after washing my pizza down with sweet tea. “That was the impression we got from the nephilim who came after me. They said he’d opened the gate once before, he’d do it again.”

Mac nodded. “Okay, then my next question is, why hasn’t he tried it again before now?”

“We wondered about that, too,” Glitch said. “And we came to one conclusion.”

“Which is?”

“We have no idea.”

Brooklyn nodded, agreeing with Glitch’s assessment.

“Well, okay, let’s think about this.”

“Got it,” Glitch said, taking another bite of his favorite pizza: pepperoni with extra pepperoni. “Thinking now.”

That boy cracked me up.

“There has to be a reason he hasn’t tried again,” Mac said, his gaze lowered in thought.

“Oh, I know!” Brooke said. “Maybe when Lor stabbed him with that stick, it got all infected and he almost died and has been in a coma for the last ten years.”

“That’s one theory,” Granddad said. “You have another, Mac?”

Mac lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “Maybe. I mean, unless he was out of the country … but even then, why couldn’t he just open the gates somewhere else?”

“In that case,” Grandma said, “if he were out of the country for some reason, then maybe location is important. Maybe he’s limited. Can open the gates only in certain places.”

Grandpa nodded. “Or it could even be a time issue. Maybe he can open the gates only during certain events.”

“Like the planets aligning or something?” Glitch asked.

“Something exactly like that.”

“There are so many possibilities,” Mac said. “Perhaps whatever he used to open them, a grimoire of some kind—”

“A grimoire?” Kenya asked. She was eating a vegetable sub. Which seemed kind of pointless to me, but to each her own.

“It’s like a textbook of magic. He may have gotten his hands on one, used it to open the gates, and when that went south, planned on trying again later, but something happened.”

“What?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. Sheriff?”