Carlos

I stand in a dark, featureless place: a place with no beginning and no end; a place with no way out, and nowhere to go.

"Get out."

I spin and find myself face to face with Kyle. He still looks pissed.

His face is pale as porcelain, his eyes are black as the void, and the veins beneath his skin look like they're filled with ink.

"Whoa!" I hold up my hands and back away. "Kyle, it's me — Carlos. Mr. Martinez, remember?"

"I remember."

"Good! I want to help you, Kyle. I want to help. Understand?"

Slowly, he shakes his head back and forth.

"Get out."

"Kyle, just tell me who did this. Tell me who hurt you. If you tell me, then—"

"It's you."

"What?"

Kyle's face contorts with pain, and black tears leak from his eyes.

"This is all because of you."

My mind grapples for an explanation and seizes on the only one that makes sense. "Because I got mad at you and made you go for burgers? Kyle, I'm so sorry for yelling at you. I'm sorry for what happened to you. But that wasn't my fault. Understand? Someone else did that, and I need you to remember who. Can you—"

"It's you! It's you! IT'S YOU!" Kyle screams, the sound grating like nails on a chalkboard or gravel in a blender. "GET OUT!"

Just as he'd shoved my physical body, he shoves my astral body so hard I fly off my feet and backwards into the dark.

~ ★ ~

The world spins.

My head hurts.

I blink up at a tiled ceiling, lost in shadow, and then wince as someone shines a light directly in my eyes.

The light is withdrawn, and as my vision clears I recognize Mrs. Peters' nurse leaning over me.

"Someone call an ambulance," she says. "He shouldn't be moved."

"No, no," I whisper hoarsely and try to raise my hand, then choke on a scream as pain bites down on my arm with a mouth full of needle teeth.

"Lie still," the nurse orders, resting a hand on my chest. "Looks like you've got a broken arm and a concussion. You need to go to the E.R."

"No, no. Can't..."

I try to shake my head, but the nurse quickly grabs either side of it, holding it still.

"Don't move. You could have a spinal injury as well."

"No, I'm..."

Well, I'm not fine, obviously, but I'm not as badly hurt as it might seem. If only I had the energy to say as much; Kyle drained most of mine.

"What's your name?" the nurse asks.

"Carlos."

"Your full name."

"Carlos... Ángel..."

Suddenly too tired to remember the rest, I give in and shut my eyes.

~ ★ ~

"Fuck."

I flop back against the pillows of the hospital bed I'm still stuck in and stare up at the bright, fluorescent lights glaring down from overhead.

I'd slipped in and out of consciousness as the paramedics arrived, loaded me into an ambulance, and took me on a very expensive and — in my opinion — completely unnecessary ride to the hospital.

I mean, yeah, my arm was broken, but other than that I was fine. Mostly fine. I'd have to wear a neck brace for ten days, but I didn't have a concussion.

If my eyes hadn't responded to light, and if I'd been barely conscious for a day and a half, and if I had trouble remembering basic facts, well, that was just the effect of taking a little trip to the other side — not brain damage.

It used to happen all the time when Aunt Toni used me as demon bait. I'd get possessed, she'd trap the demon inside me, then exorcise it and send it back to whatever hell it came from. Meanwhile, I'd be wandering around in a place like the one Kyle was stuck in now, and when I came back... Well, sometimes it took a while to readjust to my physical body.

Try explaining that to an E.R. doctor, though.

"Fuck me."

"What are you complaining about now?" John looks up from the chair he's occupied for almost twenty-four hours. "You need more pain meds?"

"No," I grumble. "I need more money."

"What for?"

I roll my head to the side as much as I can from the confines of my human neck cone, and glare at him. "You know how much a ride in an ambulance costs? Like, $1,200."

"You got insurance, don't you?"

I groan. "I'm a young, healthy, single, self-employed guy. I got the cheapest insurance I could buy. It covers... I dunno. Basically nothing. Fuck."

"Hey — you're alive, that's what matters. We'll figure this out."

"Who's 'we?'" I ask, frowning at him. There's no 'we' with someone I met barely two weeks ago, at least not when it comes to figuring out shit like paying hospital bills.

John rubs the back of his neck. "I just mean... in general, you know. Actually... there's something I need to talk to you about."

"Yeah?"

He clears his throat, but before he can speak, someone knocks on the door and detective Latoya McKenzie enters, her long braids bound in a knot at the back of her head today.

"Turner, you got a minute?"

"For you? Always. What are you doing here so early?"

"Early? It's nine-thirty in the morning, Turner. And seeing as this is apparently your mobile office now, I figured I'd stop by. Got that file you asked for."

John glances at me. "Oh, ah... Did you bring it with you?"

McKenzie arches her brows at him. She holds a manila folder and clip board. She holds out the folder, and John rises and reaches for it with a strange hesitation, as if afraid it might be full of spiders or something. He takes it, flips it open, stares at it, and then his shoulders drop an inch as he releases whatever strange tension he was holding.

"Oh. The Peters case."

"Kyle?" I ask, sitting up with interest.

"No. Mrs. Peters' husband, Richard," John says distractedly, turning pages over in the file. "Your little encounter with the stairs inspired me to pull the record of his death. Apparently, there was an investigation, prompted by the life insurance company. He'd taken out a sizable policy only a few weeks before."

"Oh. Good timing."

I'd told John of my suspicions regarding Mrs. Peters. He'd been far more willing to believe them than he was to entertain my other conviction, which was that Kyle hadn't meant to hurt me.

I was almost certain Kyle meant to protect me, but John remained highly skeptical. I couldn't blame him, given my current condition.

"At least according to the coroner, Lucille's story checks out. Richard Peters suffered a massive heart attack, during which he fell down the stairs, which in turn caused a severe vertebral dislocation. His spinal cord separated from the back of his skull, resulting in instant death. He probably died exactly where you landed."

"Nice. Thanks for the imagery."

"The question is... what caused the heart attack?"

"How old was he?"

"Fifty-five, and in good health," Detective McKenzie says, leaning against the door with her arms crossed over her generous chest. "He was a fire chief. Had to take a yearly fitness test, and always passed with flying colors."

"Still. Sometimes top athletes drop dead," John says. "That doesn't mean anything."

"No; and toxicology came back null. So his death was ruled to be the result of natural causes, leaving the insurance company on the hook and Lucille to cash in on the policy." McKenzie blows on her long, sparkly purple nails.

"How much did she get?" I ask.

"Half a million, give or take."

I whistle. "Shit. That's not bad."

"Nope. Not bad at all," John agrees, closing the file and handing it back to McKenzie.

"So, what?" I ask, propping myself up on the pillows. "Kyle's aunt won the life insurance lottery?"

"Maybe." John scrubs a hand through his short, dark hair and sighs.

I catch a whiff of him as he lifts his arm. It's nothing unpleasant — just the natural scent of his body: subtle and dark; smoke and musk.

Instantly turned on by it, and surprised by the strength of my reaction, I cough and pull the hospital bed sheet over my lap.

"You okay?" he asks.

"Yeah, yeah. Just a tickle in my throat."

"I got something for you, too," McKenzie says, handing me the clipboard she carries. "Front desk asked me to bring this to you. They said just sign the highlighted bits, and you're good to go. Seems your bill's been paid in full."

"What?" I sit up, flipping through a stack of forms that make the SAT look like child's play. "By who?"

"Mrs. Lucille Peters, apparently."

"Fuck."

I look up and meet John's eyes, which do that weird kaleidoscopic thing they do, turning from brown-green to amber-gold with the changing angle of light.

"Maybe she felt responsible," McKenzie suggests, "since you got injured in her house. Wanted to avoid a lawsuit."

"Maybe," I allow, reading through the list of charges with my heart in my throat. The total comes out just short of $10,000. "The fuck am I supposed to pay her back for this?"

"You don't owe someone for a gift," John says.

A true gift, no. But this?

This feels like a bargain I didn't agree upon, and now my soul's on the table.

"Fuck."

McKenzie's radio crackles with voices speaking in code. John's phone buzzes at the same time. He answers it, and even hearing just his side of the conversation, I know it's bad.

"Yeah. When?"

A pause.

"Copy. On my way."

Disconnecting, he rises and rubs a hand across his jaw, looking down at me as if caught in a snare of indecision, unsure what to say.

"What is it?" I ask, sitting up. "John — tell me."

"There's been another... Someone found a body."

"And?"

"And it's weird. Upside down, throat slit. Drained of blood."

I shake my head. "It's too early for the second Feast. The full moon isn't for two more days, right?"

"Right."

"So what is this? Practice?"

"I don't know. Look, check yourself out of here. Have Nguyen take you to my place. Lock yourself in and set the alarm. The code is 0405. Got it?"

"0405," I repeat.

"Good. Rest and take it easy. I'll let you know what I find."

He leaves with McKenzie at his side, and as I watch him disappear through the door, I almost call out to him; almost ask him to stay with me instead.

But I don't. I've no right to ask that of him.

We're stuck in this shitty situation together, we've got the hots for each other, and — yeah — we fucked.

That still doesn't mean there's a 'we,' or that there ever will be.

In the meantime, I've got work of my own to do.

It's time to get ahold of Aunt Toni.