Nine While Nine

Chapter 2-1

2“I’m dead.” I felt I needed to say it aloud, so I could feel it in my mouth, to maybe get a better comprehension or come to terms with it. It felt true. Am I really dead though? After all, I just turned the door knob and slammed the door. I inspected my hands while flexing my fingers. As I curled them into a fist, I could feel my own skin. It was as warm and smooth as it had been before. Lifting my hand to the door, I slid my fingertips over the solid wood. I exhaled in relief. I can breathe. Maybe there’s still hope.

As I took in my surroundings, I moved to the archway between the foyer and living room.

“Lissa!” His voice bellowed through the door behind me. Closing my eyes, I tried to concentrate on my breathing. I tried to concentrate on anything other than his voice.

I remembered when Gigi first called me about this apartment. I jumped on the opportunity. It was a prime location near downtown. Excellent price. Spacious. Third floor with a view of the ocean—well, a slight view anyway—and a huge living room, with a loft bedroom overlooking it. The small room enclosed by French doors at one end of the living room, was perfect for my crafting room. Cathedral ceilings. Hardwood floors. Two sets of French doors in the living room welcomed refreshing ocean breezes, afternoon sunlight, and beautiful sunsets. I loved this apartment. This was home. If what he told me was true, I was going to lose it all.

I spun around, taking it all in. My heart felt as if it would burst from the need to cry and scream and fight, but there was no time. Instead, I just growled and cursed the room, while choosing to ignore the insistent knocking on my front door.

“Screw you!” I yelled over my back, toward the front door. “And my name is not Lissa!”

I heard the deadbolt unlock. The door opened and closed softly, before the lock was re-engaged. The sound of footsteps on the wood floor came toward me.

I spun, angry at his infiltration of my space. How did he unlock my door? Why can I hear his footsteps now?

“What are you? Who are you?”

“I’ve already told you.” He made his way toward me, cautiously. “You can’t stay here. You need to come with me. I am very sorry, sweetheart, but you have died—”

“Shut up. Get out. I’m not going anywhere with you!” I seethed at him, as I shoved him back toward the door. “I’m not dead. You’re wrong. I turned the doorknob. I can feel my skin and breathe. I’m breathing! You're wrong.”

“Yes, you are dead! Regardless of those other facts. There are things I still have to explain to you, but we can’t do that here. You know your friends are going to call for help soon. Paramedics will arrive and the police shortly after. You realize they will most likely come here, to this apartment, right?” He paused, studying me before turning his attention down to his watch.

“You’ve been asleep for approximately fifteen minutes or so already. How much time until your friend, Moira, or maybe Gigi try to rouse you to rejoin the party?”

An icy fist clenched around my heart, choking off the blood supply to my head. For a dead person, I sure was having a hell of a time breathing tonight.

I looked all around me at the treasured belongings housed in the room: the trove of favorite books stacked precariously on shelves, photos of friends lining the foyer walls, and the wrought-iron wine rack that was hard-won from a breakup. My place, my things. I’d worked so diligently for it all.

The sorrow was overwhelming. Exhaustion overcame me, rapidly depleting my fury. Stumbling back, I leaned against the foyer wall, causing a framed print to go askew.

“I’m not done. I wasn’t done,” I said to him softly, no loathing or wrath left in my voice, only sadness, as I slowly began to slide down the wall.

“Rarely is anyone,” Liam intoned gently as he stepped closer to me. I felt his arms slide around me, hoisting me up away from the wall and neatly into the crook of his arm. As much as I wished I could resist, I collapsed against him. I knew for certain, he wasn’t normal. Nothing about this was normal. He felt like he had something extra about him. Perhaps this was what preternatural felt like. Preternatural. A word I’d often read in books involving vampires, ghosts, or the Fae. Was this it—in the flesh—in my foyer?

“I won’t give it all up. Life just got fun again,” I managed to murmur against his shoulder.

“Everything will be okay, again,” he replied gently. His voice was soothing and oddly reassuring. I felt myself believing what he was saying. “Come on,” he continued. “Let’s go.”

This was insane. I was in the arms of Death. Death was holding me. And not only was he really cute . . . he felt really good too.

This is absurd. I shouldn’t feel this way. He’s taking me from my world. He watched my death happen. It’s his job. Do I care?

I felt no inclination to move out of his arms. It felt warm, safe even. The way his fingers moved gently over my back was comforting. The slight chill from my fear slowly began to ebb away. But suddenly replacing that ease, was the familiar red rage I had felt before.

Wait! Yes! There’s still anger. I’m still infuriated. Aren’t I?

I raised my head from his shoulder and looked him in the face. That look—was it remorse? His eyes were soft. His face held a sadness in its expression that wasn’t there before.

“No,” I spat, pushing away from him. “I won’t.”

“Please be reasonable. There are things I need to tell you,” he entreated.

Reasonable? My mind was too far gone to be level-headed. “I don’t want to hear anything else.” I strode away from him, to the living room.

“You’re to be a Coimhdeacht,” he blurted out. I froze where I was.

“So, you are dead, but you’re still alive, too.”

Cautiously, I turned back to face him. Was he trying to give me false hope to pacify me?

“You’re merely a new version of you,” he sighed.

“A kuhv . . . what?”

“Hold on.” He grabbed up a pen and a bit of paper from my nearby desk and scrawled out a word. His writing was tight and jagged, spiky even. Coimhdeacht. The word looked nothing like it sounded.

“It’s said kuhv-juhkt.” He pronounced the word slowly; his voice was soft and clear. I repeated it, before he bunched the piece of scrap paper into his pocket.

“Coimhdeacht,” I breathed out, barely more than a whisper. The strange word felt odd in my mouth, as if it were a piece of hard candy my tongue couldn’t wrap around. At the same time, the word tasted familiar. It teased at something in my mind. But what exactly? I couldn’t quite pin it down.

“Yeah, perfect. Can we get going now? I was serious when I said we can’t be here much longer.” He fidgeted apprehensively with his brows scrunched together and his mouth set in a grim line, as if expecting people to burst through the front door at any moment.

“What language is that?”

He didn’t respond immediately but gave me a pensive look as he thought. It was the same look he gave me before dishing out any bit of information.

“It’s Sióg Orð.”

“A Coimhdeacht,” I murmured, his words seeping into my brain. “I’m still alive.”

“Well, yeah. Sort of. Just not that life anymore.” He paused as he pondered something baffling him. “But . . . even so . . . you shouldn’t be like this yet. You should still be all flimsy and murky, vaporish at most.” He waggled his fingers in the air in front of him, then tapped them on his forehead, obviously assessing the situation.

“If you can already hang onto things, then you can sure as hell be seen by live people—mortals—not only by me. Do you see my concern?”

“Not really. If I’m this . . .” I pointed down the length of my body, “then I’m still me. So, what’s the problem. It’s all good. I’ll go back to my party and my life, thank you very much.” A clear-cut idea planted itself unexpectedly in my mind. “Why can’t I just stay here and be a Coimhdeacht?” I glanced around hopefully. “Why go anywhere? I have a great place.” I shrugged as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Makes sense to me. I’m not a ghost, right? I’m solid. I’m still a functioning person. Just let me have my life here.”

“No. You won’t. You can’t. I’m sorry, but your body is still up there. Not breathing. Not alive. This is a new one.” He tapped his fingers against my shoulder solidly. He shook his head, bewildered. “Somehow, too soon . . . and I don’t know what’s up with that, but it is what it is, and we have to move on.”

“Are you dead? You’re solid, but you can choose whether or not to be seen or heard. So are you . . . I don’t know. What are you?”

“I’m with the Contingency of Death. I’m not dead. I’m just simply not human either.”

This was even more distressing news for me.

Picking up my mail from the side table, Liam began to rifle through my bills and catalogs, furrowing his brow as he lowered each envelope. What was he looking for? Why did he think he could be so rude as to go through my mail?

He pointed absently at the ceiling, distracted by one of the envelopes in his hand. With a slight glance at me, he looked back down at the papers he held. “You’re not . . . Isabeau anymore.” Creases marred his forehead as he intently studied a letter of mine. “Your name is Isabeau, correct? Not Lissa?” His rugged outdoorsy complexion began to look a tad pasty.

Amazing, he’s finally caught on.

“Oh, my gods. Are you serious? What do you think I’ve been telling you?”

“You are going to Seattle. Your job is in Seattle. I was sent here to retrieve you.” His words were clipped, his voice strained.

I scowled in response. I didn’t want to be retrieved. I sure as hell didn’t want to go to Seattle either. Dealing with being suddenly dead, undead, kind of alive—whatever we wanted to call it—was enough of a change without throwing in someone’s idea of a relocation agenda to boot.

“And since things seem to have been moved to the fast-track, we need to get a move on. This is going to be the first place they come after it’s discovered the sleeping girl up on that couch is no longer breathing. Do you want to try explaining any of this to the police? Where would you even begin? Can you imagine their questions? Are you going to tell them you’re Isabeau, when Isabeau is quite plainly up there on that couch?”

He had a point. I didn’t like his point, but he was right. I couldn’t deny it. What would I say? What could I say to anyone once my previous body was found not breathing anymore?

I looked around me again, at all my much-loved possessions, my charming home. How could I be expected to leave it all behind? Not to mention that being so completely rushed through the entire mental processing of it all sucked royally too.

Concern settled on his features as he checked his watch again. Lifting his gaze back to me with narrowed eyes, he scrutinized my appearance.

“That can’t be right,” he murmured, alarm lacing his tone. Judging by his look of dismay, he didn’t like what he saw.

“What is it?” I turned to look at myself in the gilt-framed, full-length mirror attached to the foyer wall.

“You’ve already taken on your sheen.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Your sheen,” Liam responded as he came to stand behind me. Our reflections gazed back at us. “This is not how it’s supposed to happen. It’s all too fast.”

“Well, I agree with you on the quickness part, but the . . .” And then I saw it, this sheen he was referring to. I appeared to have become a perfected version of me. I stepped closer to the mirror to inspect myself. My skin looked velvety soft. I reached up and touched my face. I’d always been blessed with nice skin, but this was different. I was flawless. Luminous. Hence his calling it my sheen. “Wow,” I breathed out. My eyes were now the most amazing hues of blue and a cool, pale violet. My hair had gone from a pretty shade of dark-honey blonde to a gorgeous blend of glowing, warm honey and shimmering amber, with threads of orange and red. Even my body felt changed. Stronger. I tried to work out at least twice a week, but this was a different kind of strength. Lithe and invigorated, much less vulnerable. “Okay, so this part I can deal with.” I smiled. The reflection looking back was the me I always saw in my dreams. It was a polished and improved version of me.