Rangers of the Rift, Season 1

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Graveyards, despite their bad rep, are usually manicured, lovely vistas with newly cut lawns. Bald white headstones festooned with flowers shine cheerfully as I weave through them, eyes partly closed.

This place is full of emotions, packed to the point of implosion—lingering from the living and the dead. But the signature of my Waif isn’t here. So, what triggered my paranormal detector?

I have one day. And I’m getting nowhere fast.

There is a way to move more quickly. I pause between two tombs, Tad’s warning in my head: Don’t. Whatever you’re planning. Ignoring the memory, I sit at the base of the tomb, close my eyes, and search inward. Carefully, I concentrate on my Ranger duty, bringing it up like a wall around my soul. Then I let my consciousness go low and soft...

Three heartbeats.

I let myself drift through the emotional boundary of the Limen.

Clamor of heat, sweat, spit, blood, antiseptic. Pitches of grief. Loud. Cutting. Sweet. Deep. Peace and resistance and hunger, terrorguiltwrath. Burning, what’s that smell, salvia, citrus, lavender, cannabis. Detergent, cloying perfumes, underarm musk.

My astral form drifts through the scents in the dark between, each aroma a fossil record of the emotion hidden beneath. Where is it? I’m looking for his tomb. With cases like these, there’s always a grave.

In the Limen, I can see the physical world only like a smudged reflection in a faraway mirror. Rangers must use other senses to see clearly...

Old scents have gone stale. They crack and grow diffuse as I prod them aside, searching. My spirit floats over a vacant tomb.

This is it. I’ve found the trigger. But it’s not the Waif’s tomb after all.

—And then I feel a tug at my stomach.

Heeding the call, I focus on my heartbeat to pull myself back from the world of the dead.

For a moment, I see only the peaceful, mid-morning graveyard. The next moment, because I’m bound to Tad, I See through his eyes as he links our vision.

Standing on the track exactly where I fell, Tad wipes sweat off his brow onto his red Adidas shorts. He’s facing the forest. The orange flag gutters in a hike of wind.

Imagine a sickle moon, a bare white fingernail against a winter sky. That’s what the Waif looks like. He’s so close to gone, my whole body itches. I want to scream at Tad. Run! He’s dangerous! He’s days if not hours from the change. With Tad’s Sight, I See the Waif as he truly is: a star at the edge of collapse. Despair changing a human soul to a compact, deadened force of raw, negative emotion.

Tad looks deeper, Sees deeper, to the tiny dollop of golden life energy still bound to the core of the spirit’s being. This evidence that I was right, that he is a Waif, that he needs me, brings me no comfort. Not when he’s so close to turning.

A chirping from the physical world snags my attention. Concentrating, I notice the edges of my body and direct my spirit back down, down. Heartbeats slow and steady, just like in training.

Eyes open.

My back aches. I unearth my phone from my laptop bag. I’ve been here for over an hour. My ride’ll be long gone. I pick up the chirping call on the fifth ring.

Tad’s voice is tight. “It’s bad.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I’m here, with it. Him. But he’s—damnit, it’s too late. I can’t understand a word. It’s like—like screaming underwater.”

“It’s not too late.”

“Em,” Tad groans.

I am so not ready for this. I don’t know what else to say. Where the hell is that Ranger? The itching is still there, unscratchable. I wind toward the empty tomb I spotted during drift.

Tad says, “I don’t think you should race tomorrow. You shouldn’t be close when—”

“You know that’s not an option.”

“I just think...” He drops his voice. “Emily, you haven’t fought a Vagari alone for over a year.”

“I’m not alone. You’ll be there. And he’s not Vagari yet.”

“Come on, Em, he hasn’t been human for a while. This isn’t your case.”

“Tad.” I stand before the grave. The mottled surface is emblazoned with all manner of colorful lichens. Shallow names have been carved into the stone, carved and sanded off and carved over. Right now, the grave reads Jewel. There’s a black-stained depression at the top, the size of a marble. Swallowing, I hold the phone with cheek and shoulder, dig in my laptop bag, and produce a sleeved sewing needle. Even after all these months, I still carry it, even if I’ve given up hauling around my kit.

“Skittles, are you there?”

I prick the center of my palm. “I’m here.” Jewel, I summon you. The blood drips into the depression at the top of the headstone and gathers like a glossy berry in the bottom.

For the strongest callings, you need that person’s blood. I don’t know what the hell Jewel looks like much less have her blood on hand. I just hope this will do. I press all my will and hope into that one bright bead of red.

“Hey, are you oka—”

“Tad, the Waif...he knows my name.”

Silence.

Then I hear him cursing.

After a few moments, I interrupt. “You done? Because I’ve got more bad news.”

“I’m waiting,” he says, and I cave to the comfort of knowing he’ll be with me when I need him. Rangers rarely survive going it alone.

“The on-duty Ranger’s not here.”

Jewel’s grave gives a little pulse of that weird energy I felt from the road, and I wish for a second I hadn’t made nationals.

“Not only that,” I continue, “she’s got some vibe going, some sort of messed up juju with the Limen. I can’t figure it out.”

“Well, where is she?”

“Travelling.” I mean the out-of-body journeys Rangers sometimes have to make at the eve of disaster. Their spirits are wrenched to another place, usually during sleep, and there they wait for the living to die so they can shepherd souls into the beyond. The grave, during Travel, gives off a certain signature. But this...

“Her grave’s whack, Tad. It’s like, really dark.” I breathe away the stutter in my voice, then say, “Tonight.”

“I’m coming with.” No hesitation.

I smile, and the muscles in my throat hurt. “Thanks.”

I dial Mom’s cell. Dad’s standard “grounded till you graduate” will be the least of my worries tonight.